#so have nia being gay

[delicatlueur]

                    nia   arches   an   elegant   brow   ,   her   dancer’s   grace   evident   even   in   the   subtleties   of   her   moments   ,   slender   fingers   dancing   over   the   pages   of   the   ancient   grimoire   .       “   someone   had   the   nerve   to   ask   me   for   a   love   spell   today   ,   thinking   it’s   the   witchy   way   of   life   ,   ”       they   quip   with   a   smirk   ,   tone   dripping   with   playful   sarcasm   .       “   like   ,   hellooooo   ?       if   weaving   love   were   as   simple   as   swish   and   flick   ,   don’t   you   think   i   would’ve   had   lalli   eating   out   of   my   hand   ages   ago   ?   ”       //       @nepofmstarters

[cuteniaarts]

@katkastrofa, circa 40-ish hours ago: Hey, what if our newest bunch of OCs adopted a baby from one of the other brothel girls who knew she couldn’t afford to raise one? That would make for some fun shenanigans :D

Me, with a notoriously non existent sleep schedule, instinct of self preservation or concern for my poor wrist: Alright, bet. Watch how fast I can make you fall in love with this hypothetical baby >:)

Daneli as a gentle and loving caretaker-turned-adoptive-mother is something that can be So Personal, actually, and originally I was going to leave it at this quick sketch, but then I got carried away thinking about what this child will grow up to be like raised by this little gang of misfits, so…

Here she is!! A little older and so, so beautiful, I need more of her in my life immediately, she’s way too precious

And, because I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t also add a sapphic element to this absolute cinnamon roll, a small crack ship that I’m only half serious about for when she’s a little older still:

All in all, we may be getting impossibly far from canon, but I for one already cannot get enough of sweet darling Kumisai <3

(I fully drew three pieces from scratch in 9 hours I cannot feel my brain or my hands anymore send help)

[specialagentartemis]

godddddd i have disliked becky chambers' work since long way to a small angry planet and I agree that that fish scene is SO much of what is wrong with contemporary SFF especially queer SFF. refreshing take, great review, thank you. would love to hear what authors or works you think of as the antidote to that sensibility.

The thing is, I enjoyed The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet when I first read it - it was a fun, light adventure, clearly a debut novel but I was excited to see where Chambers would go from there. And I actually really do think the sequel, A Closed and Common Orbit, was good! It did interesting things with AI personhood and identity.

... and then Chambers just kinda. Did not get better. She settled into a groove and has a set number of ideas that I feel like she hasn't broken out of, creatively. And they I M O kind of rest on an assumption that "human nature" = "how people act in suburban California."

As an antidote to that sensibility, I'd say... books where people have a real interrelationship with the land they inhabit, a sense of being present, and reciprocal obligations to that land; books that recognize that some things can never be taken back once done; books with well-drawn characters, where people have strong opinions deeply informed by their circumstances, that can't always be easily reconciled with others, and won't be brushed aside; books where these character choices matter, they impact each other, they cannot be easily gotten over, because people have obligations to each other and not-acting is a choice too.

And it's only fair that after all day of being a Hater I should rec some books I really did like.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - A man lives alone in an infinite House, over an equally infinite ocean. Captures the feeling that I think Monk & Robot was aiming for. Breathtaking beauty, wonder at the world, philosophy of truth, all that good stuff, and actually sticks the landing. The main character's love, attention, and care to his fantasy environment shows through in every page. (Fantasy, short novel)

Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie - An AI, the one fragment remaining of a destroyed imperial spaceship, is on a quest for revenge. Leckie gets cultural differences and multiculturalism, and conversely, what the imposition of a homogeneous culture in the name of unity means. (Space sci-fi, novel trilogy)

Machineries of Empire by Yoon Ha Lee - An army captain's insubordination is punished by giving her a near-impossible mission: to take down a rebelling, heretical sect holing up in a space fortress and defying imperial power. She gets a long dead brain-ghost of a notorious criminal downloaded into her head to help. Very, very good at making you feel like every doomed soldier was a person with a past, with a family, with feelings, with hopes and dreams and frustrations and favorites and preferences and reasons to live, right before they brutally die in a space war. Also very much about the imposition of homogeneity of culture as a force of imperialism. (Space sci-fi, novel trilogy)

The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed - Maya Andreyevna is a VR journalist in high-tech dystopian future Russia, and she decides to investigate the truth that the government doesn't want her to. She might die trying. It's fine. Also has digital brain-sharing, this time in a gay way. It's bleak. It's sad. It feels real. Not making a choice is a choice. Backing out is a choice. And choices have consequences. Choices reverberate through history. About responsibility. (Cyberpunk, novel)

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez - Nia Imani is a spaceship captain, a woman out of time, a woman running from her past, and accidentally adopts a boy who has a strange power that could change the galaxy. Spaceship crew-as-found-family in the most heartbreaking of ways. Also about choices, how the choices you make and refuse to make shape you and shape the world around you. How the world is always changing around you, how the world does not stay still when you're gone, and when you come back you're the same but the world has moved on around you. About how relationships aren't always forever, and that doesn't mean they weren't important. About responsibility to others. It's a slow, sad book and does not let anyone rest on their laurels, ever. There is no end of history here. Everything is always changing, on large scales and small, and leaving you behind. (Space sci-fi, novel)

Dungeon Meshi / Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui - A D&D style fantasy dungeon crawl that stops to think deeply about why there are so many dungeons full of monsters and treasure just hanging around. Here because it's an example of an author thinking through her worldbuilding a lot, and it mattering. Also because of the characters' respect for the animals they are are killing and eating, their lives and their place in the ecosystem, and the ways that humans both fuck up ecosystems with extraction and tourism, but also the ways that you can have reciprocal relationships of responsibility and care with the ecosystem you live in, even if it's considered a dangerous one. (Fantasy, manga series)

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang and How Long 'Til Black Future Month by N. K. Jemisin and Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe - Short story anthologies that were SO good and SO weird and rewired the way I think. If you want the kind of stuff that is like, the opposite of easy-to-digest feel-good pap, these short stories will get into your brain and make you consider stuff and look at the world from new angles. Most of them aren't particularly upbeat, but there's a lot of variety in the moods.

"Homecoming is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self," "Calf Cleaving in the Benthic Black," and "Termination Stories for the Cyberpunk Dystopia Protagonist" by Isabel J. Kim - Short stories, sci-fi mostly, that twist around in my head and make me think. Kim is very good at that. Also about choices and not-making-choices, about going and staying, about taking the easy route or the hard one, about controlling the narrative.

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells - Security robot with guns in its arms hacks itself free from its oppressive company, mostly wants to half-ass its job but gets sucked into drama, intrigue, and caring against its better judgement. This is on here because 1) I love it 2) I feel like it does for me what cozy sff so frequently fails to do - it makes me feel seen and comforted. It's hopeful and compassionate and about personal growth and finding community and finding one's place in the world, without brushing aside all problems or acting like "everybody effortlessly just gets along" is a meaningful proposal. also 3) because it is one of the few times I have yet seen characters from a hippie, pacifistic, eco-friendly, welcoming, utopian society actually act like people. The humans from Preservation are friendly, helpful, and motivated by truth and justice and compassion, because they come from a friendly, just, compassionate society, and they still actually act like real human beings with different personalities and conflicting opinions and poor reactions to stress and anger and frustration and fear and the whole range of human emotions rather than bland niceness. Also 4) I love it (space sci-fi, novella series mostly)

[spookberry]

i know this pic is pretty old and canon may have changed since then but do you have a more hd version of the lineup of the color guardian generations over the years? its from 2022 on your deviantart but dA compressed it! id love to hear about the older teams, like anita's first squad

You mean this thing??

Honestly the other teams aren't super relevant outside of a few characters and I like the idea of leaving it vague enough that there could've been even more guardians embetween the ones here.

But yeah I can tell you a little about everyone!

-Anita was one of if not the first Color Guardians. She was actually very close to her Green specifically. They were Best Friends even before becoming Color Guardians(this leads to conflicts with Rin later because Anita tends to compare the two). Their group wasn't around for very long, no one knew the stakes or how serious everything was back then... That is until one colorless attack that ended with Robin dead and Anita having disappeared with a spark of light. Robin was cheerful and kind. Seeing him die left a bad mark on his teammates that they haven't let go of to this day.

-because of her disappearance Anita was assumed dead too. Both by Layla, the police and even her own family. Octavia showed up on the scene shortly afterwards. She never knew Robin or Anita, but Layla's trauma and the fact that it was just them two for the longest time left a deep impact on Octavia.

-Even after Octavia outgrew her role as Blue, she still worried for the next generation. She made a point to track down the next Blue to as soon as she could in order to teach him everything she knew. She's an adult now and teaches self defense classes to the general public, but also special classes for Guardians specifically. All the Blues have met her, and Chiyo even introduced her to Kimi so Kimi could get better at fighting. Layla wants nothing to do with the newer guardians, so Octavia avoids bringing them up, but the two do check in with one another still.

-The teams are generally organized by which Blue is active, because theres always an active Blue. I labeled him Remi up there but I eventually renamed him Russell, he's the second Blue. Much like Octavia, he spent most his time as part of a Duo, up until she was killed in the line of action. It was only near the end of his career as Blue that Nia and Charun became Colors. Nia met Sue a couple of times and can remember her fondly, but Charun never met her.

-Dimitri is also an interesting character. The only other Pink that anyones aware of, he was an active antagonist for most of his time. He often got in the way on purpose and would sometimes help colorless out just to see what would happen. With the power of friendship and gay tension he eventually turned a new leaf. Though not before Russell hit him with a car(they're married now).

-Marcy and Nia are the most relevant past Guardians to the modern group. Marcy has a tough start as Blue. Everyone on the team had been a Guardian longer than she had and already expected her to fill the leadership role that Russell had. Not to mention the youngest and littlest Guardian Veronica appeared right after Marcy. It was a lot of pressure to say the least. But the four of them developed a pretty intense bond cuz of it. Unfortunately much like the others, Marcy's time as Blue did not end without tragedy. There was a really hard fight once that they almost lost. Charun and Nia got hurt really bad to the point where Charun outright rejected being Green(a painful process) and now hardly speaks to any of them outside of the occasional pesters from Nia. Nia herself was already disabled, but the fight has made it harder to manage. She always knew the physical stress of being Red would have negative impacts on her but she doesnt regret her time as Red nor does she regret any of the choices she made during that time. Marcy broke a leg as well during this which permanently ended her dance career.

-More on Nia actually, she was always the heart of her group, encouraging everyone to keep face no matter what. Even after it all she still continues to push her friends forward and check in with all of them. Her younger sibling, Benny, looks up to her a lot, his Guardian form mimicking hers in many ways.

-The only one who came out unscathed physically was Veronica, though having watched the emotional fall out made her wary of teaming up with any of the Guardians outside of Benny for a while. Benny's a simp too so he follows her lead on everything.

-Marcy's only 20 when she meets Chiyo but immediately takes it upon herself to support and take care of the new team in a mentor-y role. The way Russell did for her and Octavia for Russell. This usually turns into more of an emotional support role than being active on the field. (She's had to talk Chiyo through her crush drama SO many times). Marcy isn't that much older, but when you're 15 but 20 seems pretty mature in comparison. Due to her own angst about what happened to her last group too Marcy tends to put a lot of the pressure of being The Adult for them onto herself. (no anita you dont count as an adult)

-Anita was gone for approximately 15 years mind you, so the teams are pretty spread out with the occasional overlapping member. She hasn't gone to see Layla yet since coming back to the right time. She's scared of all thats changed during her time trapped in the timestream tbh.

[rockermybuddie]

Misunderstanding

Tommy x Evan “Buck”

A/n: i write a lot of Tommy and Buck. Imma write something different. Eventually.

Summary: Its Bucks off day and he decided he was going to bake some cookies and bring them to Tommy at work. When he arrives he spots Tommy talking to someone hes never seen before. Hes about to walk over to his boyfriend when the man kisses Tommy. Buck stops and turns around walking away before seeing or hearing Tommys reaction.

————

~Bucks POV~

I feel Tommys lips on mine as he gives me a goodbye kiss. “See you later.” He whispers. I hear the bedroom door click shut and drift back into sleeping.

When i woke up i made me some oatmeal and watched an episode of The Bachelor. When i was done i was bored. Eddie went down to Texas to vist with Christopher. I’m glad the two are making mends, i know it hurt Eddie when Chris left to live with his grandparents in Texas.

Maddie and Chim are taking a short trip to Long Beach. And Hen and Karin are dealing with the foster people to get Nia. So im out of options when it comes to hanging out with someone.

I decided im going to bake some cookies for Tommy and his station, so i get to work. I’m going to make a variety and an allergy free batch.

Once i finished i put the cookies in some boxes and loaded them into my jeep. I didnt text Tommy that i was coming because i want it to be a surprise.

When i arrived i parked my jeep and grabbed the boxes of cookies with a big smile on my face. I walked into the station and scanned the area looking for Tommy.

“Looking for Tommy?” Someone asks. “Yes.” I answer. Everyone here knows who i am. “Hes upstairs in the kitchen.” The person says. “Thanks.” I smile and make my way up the stairs.

When i get to the top i turn the corner and see Tommy talking to someone i’ve never seen before. Hes tall and skinny but well built, he has short curly blonde hair. I cant tell what color his eyes are but the way he is looking at Tommy is making me uneasy and hes standing really close to Tommy. Tommy is leaning against the counter just keeping conversation.

I was about to say his name when the guy leans forwards giving Tommy a kiss. That was all i needed to see even though thats not what i wanted to see. My heart instantly sank and i turned away and got out of there as fast as i could.

I threw the boxes of cookies in the trunk not caring if they spilled out and drove out of there as fast as I could.

I drove to my apartment because i obviously didnt want to go back to Tommys bouse where i’ve been staying at most of the time anyways.

When i walked in it was kind of cold but it didn’t bother me because i was flamming with anger. I cant believe Tommy kissed another guy. I tried not to cry but it was too hard to hold back. I really thought he was the one, that he wouldnt cheat on me. I guess i was wrong.

——-

~Tommys POV~

Everything was going fine at work, had a few easy calls. We got a new person his name is Kaleb Green, great young kid. Hes been doing really good.

We were in the kitchen just talking about why we wanted to become a firefighter and the craziest calls we have ever been on.

“So is your locker the one with the gay pride flag on it?” He asks me. “Yes?” I answer carefully. I dont think this kid is a homophobe or anything but im alway cautious when it comes to telling people. I have no shame in being a gay man but having such a masculine job some people may see me differently.

“Thats so cool. Another gay firefighter. I’ve never met another one. I dont feel so alone now.” He says. “Oh, well actually…” i was going to tell him about Evan but before i could finish my sentence he leaned forward and kissed me. I definitely was not expecting that.

“Dude! What the hell?!” I shout shoving him off of me. “Sorry. Too far?” He stupidly asks. “Yes way too far! Plus i have a boyfriend. He happens to be a firefighter too.” I snap. “Please dont report me. I really like it here” he begs. “Too late.” I tell him walking out of the kitchen.

I walk downstairs to report him when i see a familiar grey jeep leaving the parking lot pretty fast. I hope that wasnt Evan.

“Hey Kinard, what did Evan bring you?” Steven asks from a far. “Shit” i say under my breath that was Evan and he probably saw what happened in the kitchen because i never saw him.

I was about to ask if i could handle this when a call came through. I had to push down my anger and my worries about what just happened and focus on the call. God i hope its a simple call so it goes by fast.

It was not. It was a warehouse fire and the warehouse contained toxic chemicals so everything we did had to be done carefully and correctly. It took the rest of the shift.

We finally got back to the station at 11pm. I grabbed my bag and headed straight for my truck. “Hey Kinard.” I hear Kaleb call out behind me. “Dont talk to me. You most likely just ended my relationship with Evan and he was the best thing thats ever came into my life.” I snap at him. Which I probably said too much, based off his facial expressions, but i need to talk to Evan tell him what happened and pray that he believes me. “Let me talk to him, then i’ll ask for a new placement.” Kaleb says, “let me fix this.” He adds. “No you are not talking to him and yes find a new placement. Its not going to work for you here.” I tell him throwing my bag in the truck and drove home.

——

When i arrive home i dont see Evans jeep which means hes not here. I dont know why i thought he would be at my house after all. I mean yeah hes been staying here most of his time anyways but this would be the last place he would come after seeing another guy kiss me.

I try calling him and texting him but hes not answering, rightfully so. I drive over to his apartment next. I see his jeep parked in its usual spot so i know hes here.

I knock on his door immediately when i arrive. No response. “Evan its me. Please can we talk?” I ask through the door loud enough he should be able to here me. After a few more moments of knocking and asking nicely I threaten to do a welfare check and kick down his door.

I then heard the sound of locks unlocking and the door opened to a cold apartment and a tall Evan with a tear stained face and a angry blank expression.

“Evan please listen, i didnt kiss him. He kissed me.”i say, this is a lot more nerve racking than i thought. Its so hard not to stutter and to hse the right wording. “I saw you Tommy.” Evans voice cracks, he walks to the other end of the table while im at the other. Hes so close but het so far.

“Evan i would never cheat on you. Please believe me. We were talking and he asked if my locker was the one with the gay pride flag. Next thing i felt his lips on mine and i pushed him away. I swear.” I tell him the whole story but i cant tell if he believes me or not.

How do you convince your partner that you aren’t cheating on them when they saw another guy kiss you? I feel like im losing him and i really dont want to.

——-

~Bucks POV~

I listen to what Tommy is telling me and my brain is telling me not to believe him but my heart is telling me that hes telling the truth. Because Tommy is the first person to ever so me the type of personal affection, how it feels to be loved. Even though we haven’t said it yet we can feel it when we cuddle, when we get intimate, and when we say the same thing at the same time.

But in this case what do i go with my brain or my heart? Part of me wants to just believe him and go back to how things were but the other half wants to kick him out of my apartment and never talk to him again.

“Evan everyone in this situation had a misunderstanding.” Tommy says. “How am I misunderstanding this Tommy?” I ask in anger. “Okay, okah, im sorry. Wrong words here. Kaleb had a misunderstanding with what i said and he didnt let me finish talking before he kissed me. I was literally about to tell him about you when he kissed me.” Tommy explains.

“Thats what they all say.” I mumble under my breath. “Say what?” Tommy asks. “That the other person kissed them.” I answer. “Evan….” Tommy says, he can tell hes losing me.

It was quiet for a few moments as each of us trys to think of something. “I’ll come get my stuff tomorrow.” I say finally breaking the silence. “W-w-w-what?” Tommy stutters. “I said i’ll come get my stuff from your house tomorrow. While your at work so we dont see each other.” I repeat. Evans face goes into panic mode as he runs a frantic hand through his rough hair.

“Evan please. Im telling the truth. Listen Kaleb said he will talk to you. He’ll tell you everything i just said is true.” Tommy says all in one breath trying to convince me. “Please leave Tommy.” I ask. I’ve been hurt by too many people that are supposed to love me to try again and risk getting hurt again and again and again.

“Evan, baby please.” Tommy begs. “Stop. Get out Tommy. Get out before i call the police.” I command. Tommy rubs his chin with his hand as he turns to the door. He looks back at me one more time before he forces himself out the door.

Now im all alone, again. I should just stay single the rest of my life clearly everyone is going to hurt me when i get close to them.

——

The next day i wait intil i know Tommy is going to be at work so i can go get my clothes from over there.

When i arrive i dont see his truck which means he went to work today. I walk up to the door and i go to type in the code to unlock the door when the door opens. I look up and see the guy from yesterday. Kaleb.

I wanted to punch the guy so bad. He messed up the one good thing i had in my life. “Evan, right?” He asks. “So you’re Tommys new side piece huh?” I snarl. “Please let me explain myself. I never ment for any of this to happen. Can we just talk?” He asks stepping aside for me to come in. I roll my eyes and walk into the house.

I took a seat at the island in the kitchen as I listened to Kaleb talk. He basically said that it was his fault that he made the move and he ruined his chance at the firehouse. He said that he’s been transferred to a new one.

“So do you believe Tommy now? That he wouldn’t cheat on you?” Kaleb asks. “He was going to come tell you instantly but we got a call. You know how it is.” “Yeah.” Is all i say. “Well i have to get going. I really hope you can forgive Tommy. He really loves you.” Kaleb says as he lets himself out.

I sat at the kitchen island with my head in my hands thinking about what to do when i saw Tommy standing in the entrance of the kitchen leaning against the wall frame.

His body language was soft and his face was filled with regret. Hearing both sides of the story and that basically Tommy was telling the truth made it a little easier to go with my heart. But still knowing another guy kissed him hurts a little.

——

~Tomms POV~

I stood there and watched Evan as he proceeded what Kaleb told him. I can’t believe i caved and let Kaleb talk to Evan but its the only thing I could think of that could save mine and Evans relationship.

“So its true.” Evan finally says. “Yes.” I say. “A lot of people hurt me in the last Tommy.” He says. “I know. I never wanted to be one of them.” I try to control my voice to keep it steady.

“I know.” Evan says, “it still hurts that another guy kissed you.” He says. “It wont happen again. I swear to you Evan.” I promise him. “I know.” He says, a small smile spread across my face.

I walk towards him keeping an eye on his body language. “So do you forgive me?” I ask when im standing in front of him. I feel like im shaking as i wait for an answer. “Yes.” Evan tilts his head up and makes eye contact with me.

A smile spread my face as i lifted his chin up with my finger and connected my lips to his. God it felt so good to feel his lips against mine again. “What were you bringing me yesterday?” I ask out of curiosity. “Cookies. They are spilled in the back of my jeep.” He answers. “You taste better than cookies.” I say shrugging my shoulders. He smiles at that.

“I missed you so much.” I say against his lips resting my forehead against his. “I missed you too.” He says. I cradle the back of his head with my hand as i take his mouth back into mine.

I have him back and im never letting him go again.

——-

A/n: I hope you enjoyed the story!

[kryptonbabe]

My nefarious defense for a villainous Jay Nakamura

I have this panel of Nia beating Jay so I can look at it every time Jay is being obnoxious (or the Jay fandom), he looks so peaceful and pretty on the bottom panel, he's so pretty when he's silent

He's absolutely right to be angry and revolted in this storyline, however his behavior is so righteous and morally superior to everyone around him, I cannot help but feel like a super-villain, he makes me want to keep taking everything he has until he becomes a villain just like me. At first, I used to dislike Jay in a way I wanted him to disappear from DC, now I enjoy disliking Jay, I want his character to be present and developed and to get worse and worse (I feel the same about Charles Xavier - I love to hate him), until he becomes a complex and interesting character, a villain please, then his obnoxiousness would be endearing, his moral superiority would be interesting and I'd have the queer annoying villain I've been asking for years. Jay Nakamura, I want the worst for you, but in the best way possible. Think about his relationship with the Super family, how angsty and melodramatic that could be... how we could work nuanced storylines in which a queer person is allowed to be evil and still make some valid points about his reasons...

So this sums up things, I still dislike Jay in his boring current form, but I see his potential, we are the same you and I Jay, we are both gay and annoying in specific ways, come to my side, you're not good, you know you want your revenge, we accept you one of us

Image from Absolute Power - Ground Zero #1 (2024)

[waytooinvested]

Forgotten, Not Forgiven - Chapter 20

This and previous chapters are also on AO3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two weeks had passed since the disastrous dream session, and it felt like everything had subtly shifted from where it had been before that night.

Kara still seemed entirely unphased by her experience – was thriving, if anything. Now she had successfully negotiated better contract terms at Catco and come to a compromise with Andrea about the sort of stories she would be writing she seemed happier at work, and had even managed to wangle a corporate discount membership at the climbing centre so she could go regularly. More troublingly she had also almost immediately thrown herself into some project that she was being unusually cagey about, but Kara had assured her it was nothing to worry about, and she was acting normally enough as long as the conversation stayed on other subjects. Lena was trying her best to trust her and not dwell on the mystery, no matter how tempting it might be to do a little digging.

Beyond that there were still the regular Project Atlantis meetings as always, but although none of them said it outright, they were all aware that progress had stalled. Now they knew exactly what it was keeping Kara from her Supergirl memories, they also knew that they couldn’t just break it down, and so far the best idea they had come up with to armour Kara against the trauma of it was… therapy.

It was a long way from being the silver bullet they needed.

However, after the latest uninspired and frustrating Atlantis meeting, something else had changed. Lena had offered Alex a lift home, as she often did since they lived in the same direction, and Alex had accepted. They had been sitting in the back seat watching the city go by outside the windows, same as always, and then Alex had come out with it.

‘So. I have this idea.’

‘For Project Atlantis?’

‘No, no, not that. It’s just something I hoped you might be up for trying with me...’

Alex shuffled a bit in her seat, and for a moment she looked so much like Kara when she had been about to suggest rock climbing that Lena narrowed her eyes, suspicious.

‘I swear to god Alex, if you’re about to ask me to go skydiving-’

Alex snorted.

‘HAH, no. I do kind of wish I’d thought of that just to see your face when I suggested it, but no. I was actually going to ask if, maybe, you wanted to come with me to a gay bar some time.’

Lena’s eyebrows shot up.

This was new.

She and Alex had spent time together outside Project Atlantis meetings, sure, but it had always been a continuation of them, or at least started out with some kind of pretext of a work thing before they had settled into just hanging out. This was the first time either of them had suggested something purely social, let alone a gay bar.

‘Really? How come? It’s not our usual sort of meet up place.’

‘Exactly. I’ve never actually been to one before, and I don’t know, you might you go all the time, but I thought maybe it would be similar for you, and we could try it out together.’

Alex was… not wrong. Lena had been to a few exclusive VIP only queer events over the years, but an ordinary gay bar in her home city? Never. There had always been the risk that she might be recognised and end up all over the tabloids of course, but it wasn’t just that. She’d never had anyone to go with. Not until now.

‘Wouldn’t you rather go with Kelly?’

‘I mean, yeah, I’d really like us to go together eventually, but… well, when I got together with Maggie so much of the dynamic was her as the worldly wise one, and me as the newly hatched little baby lesbian who had never been with a woman or had any of these experiences. And even though Kelly never makes me feel that way, I kind of want this to be something I do for the first time just as myself, not as part of a couple. So I thought it could be a good friend thing. With you.’

A friend thing.

Alex wanted to discover her community with a friend, and she was asking Lena. Not Kara. Not Nia. Not any of the other friends she had uncomplicated histories with and who would gladly have tagged along with her.

She wanted Lena.

‘I would love to go to a gay bar with you Alex.’

Alex beamed, and the change in the set of her shoulders made Lena realise that she had been nervous about asking. This really mattered to her.

‘Awesome! So I have been looking into options and narrowed it down to three. There’s ‘Velvet’ which is the big one in the city centre that seems like a nice place, but it’s pretty high profile so I thought you might not be comfortable with the visibility – I don’t want you to end up as a story in some gossip magazine because of me.’

Lena nodded, appreciating the consideration. She was not afraid to be out, but she would rather control the narrative around any public announcement, and do it in her own time. Ideally when her life was less complicated than it was right now.

‘Then there’s ‘Liquor Lips’, which is the most private seeming, buuut also looks kind of skeevy. It’s not quite a strip joint, but they have some ‘exotic dance’ nights and a generally more X rated feel, and uh.. I’m not sure the whole thing is quite the vibe I’m looking for.’

‘Agreed, that is not the kind of night I was imagining.’

‘No, so this last one is my favourite – it’s called ‘Violet’s’. It’s a bit more open than Liquor Lips but also kind of far out of town, which I thought might be a good thing for you, and it has more of a community feel. It’s on the smaller side, but it looks friendly, and they have a pretty decent cocktail menu.’

Cocktails and community. Lena could work with that.

‘Violet’s it is.’

They had agreed a date and time, and that was that. They were officially the sort of friends who did things together outside of a work context. It felt a bit strange, but not bad strange. New, and unexpected, and… nice.

Violet’s turned out to be an unassuming building with a small sign hanging above the door and a rainbow sticker on one window. From the outside it didn’t look like much, and certainly wouldn’t raise many eyebrows if anyone saw Lena Luthor going in, at least not unless you knew what the place was.

Inside was a different story entirely.

Beyond the entryway it opened up into a surprisingly spacious room, decked out with purple fluorescents over the bar and string lights criss crossing the dark blue ceiling to give the impression of a starry night, though it was almost lost behind the yards and yards of rainbow bunting that had been strung overhead, and the flags of just about every queer identity one could hope to name hanging from the walls. The whole impression was utterly chaotic and much too busy to be considered entirely good taste, but Alex was right, it felt friendly.

Alex herself was hovering in the doorway, staring round from the flags, to the bunting, to the people gathered around tables. Drinking, laughing, playing darts, holding hands, kissing.

When several more seconds passed and she still didn’t move, Lena gave her a little elbow nudge.

‘You doing okay there Danvers?’

‘Huh?’

Lena raised an eyebrow at her.

‘Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m good, sorry. I just realised, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a room with this many other gay people before. It’s kind of blowing my mind.’

She knew what Alex meant. It was different for her of course – she had been in plenty of rooms with at least this many other queer people, but not like this. Those had all been highly curated events with carefully chosen guest lists of the rich and powerful, all of whom knew exactly who Lena was. It had meant that no matter how much she might enjoy herself, she always had to be aware of the impression she was giving, just in case any of it came back to bite her later.

But here there was none of that. This was just a bar that she happened to have walked into with a friend. They didn’t have to be The Lena Luthor and Director Alex Danvers here, and the one or two people who had glanced up when they came in had gone back to their own conversations, clearly seeing nothing noteworthy in their arrival. Right now Lena was just one more woman who loved women in a crowd of others just like her. It made her feel unremarkable. Mundane even.

She was going to like it here.

Once they had their drinks they settled at a table that was slightly out of the thick of things, but not so far back that they felt hidden away. For a little while they sipped in silence, just soaking it all in and allowing themselves to fully experience what it was like to be in the majority. Alex particularly still seemed very slightly in shock, though she was clearly trying not to stare too obviously at anyone in particular.

After a few minutes she let out a long breath and swore softly.

‘I didn’t realise. I fell in love with a woman and I came out to my family and I thought that was it, I never realised how much more there was. I’m not just a woman who happens to love other women. I am a lesbian, and that means I get to be part of something bigger than my own relationships. I feel like I missed out on so much by not working it out sooner.’

‘It’s not too late. Everyone starts the journey at their own pace, and you have plenty of time for yours. Maybe when things have settled back down and Kara... well, maybe one day we could all go to a pride parade together.’

‘Yeah… I’d like that. How come we never talked about this stuff before? It feels like kind of a waste.’

Lena shrugged.

‘We weren’t those sorts of friends. We were both more focused on Kara…’

They still were of course. Kara was their centre and the purpose for their coming together in the first place, but now Lena and Alex had formed a bond that was separate to their relationship with her. And maybe, whatever happened between Lena and Kara once Kara had her Supergirl memories back, even if they found they couldn’t work through the lies and hurt on both sides and decided not to stay friends, maybe this friendship with Alex would be something she would be able to keep this time.

‘I guess so. It’s weird though, I’ve known you for years and I don’t even know anything about what all this is like for you. I mean… have you dated women before? When did you figure out that you were bi?’

‘Boarding school. I was 15, and I realised I had the biggest crush on Andrea Rojas.’

‘Andrea- wait, that Andrea Rojas? Kara’s boss? Kara’s boss that she hates?’

‘The same. She’s more fun if she’s not your boss.’

Though it could be fun when Andrea got bossy too, in the right context.

‘Wow okay. So you two were a couple?’

Lena tilted her hand back and forth in a measuring gesture.

‘I wouldn’t say we were a couple, exactly. We were best friends, and there was definitely… tension. Then one night we snuck down to the common room in the middle of the night – no one else around, just us in the dark with a bottle of scotch Andrea had managed to smuggle in. We drank a bit of it, but just a few sips each, we hadn’t really acquired a taste for it yet, and then we talked – or more accurately, we flirted, though not in a very intentional way. Andrea was playing with the bottle, just for something to do with her hands at first, but watching it turning round and round, I think we both had the idea at the same time. She picked it up very deliberately and put it down between us, then kept eye contact while she set it spinning. We both stared at it so intensely, it was like our entire future depended on whether it stopped pointing at me or not.’

‘And did it?’

Lena laughed.

‘Not even close. But I kissed her anyway.’

‘Wow. That’s a bold move, I can’t imagine having that much confidence at 15.’

‘Well, you have to remember we were raised in families who expected to get what they wanted, and we had been dancing around it for months by that point. I think on some level we both knew it was just a matter of time. Anyway, that night kind of opened the floodgates, and we had a lot more secret make out sessions, and then eventually more than that… but it always felt more like a friends with benefits set up than an actual committed relationship. After a while she started dating someone else and so we stopped our trysts, and then I did too. We would still get together sometimes after we left school, if we were both in the same city and neither of us happened to be dating anyone else at the time, but it was always casual.’

‘And... do you still? Now she’s in National City?’

‘No. We had a… falling out. We’re back on reasonable terms now, but it’s not like it used to be. I couldn’t trust her the same way after that.’

There was a silence following this statement, filled with their shared knowledge of Lena’s more recent ‘falling out’ with someone she had romantic feelings for, and the unspoken implications about trust brought up by the parallels of the two situations.

But Kara and Andrea could hardly be more different, and Lena had never felt about Andrea the way she did for Kara…

Did that make their future prospects better, or worse?

She wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t stand the heaviness that now seemed to be pressing down on their evening of queer discovery, so she shook it off, and tried to get the conversation back on track.

‘How about you? What was your gay awakening like?’

‘ Oh, well, the big thing was meeting Maggie, obviously. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since, and realising there were so many things that I missed at the time that make so much more sense now. Like how weird and complicated my feelings got about sleeping over with my best friend Vicky in high school. Or the girl in my freshman college dorm who was obsessed with Norwegian fantasy movies, and I was the only one who would watch them with her. I didn’t understand a word of what was going on, but she would always grab my hand and hold on tight whenever this one guy came on screen, and that was enough to make me keep going back. Then there was the barista I used to try to coincide my coffee shop visits with, even though she made terrible coffee. But she had blue hair and all these amazing tattoos, and she would give me this look and call me Beautiful like it was my name, and she used to slip me free muffins when her manager wasn’t looking.’

‘...And you didn’t read that as her flirting with you?’

‘Well no, not at the time. Why?’

‘No, nothing, I think I’m just seeing where Kara gets it from. It might not be quite an office full of flowers, but that girl did everything but write her number on your cup to tell you she was interested.’

‘Oh. Uh… she actually did write her number on my cup one time.’

‘WHAT?’

‘It wasn’t like that! It was just in case-’

Alex broke off, thinking back over the interaction, and shook her head.

‘Yeah, no, okay it was exactly like that. Self-denial is a hell of a drug.’

It probably wasn't nice to laugh at someone's process of coming to terms with their sexuality, but in this case Lena couldn't help it.

‘God, if we had had this conversation a year ago I would have known I needed to hire a sky writer to get through to Kara. Or just grabbed her by the lapels and stuck my tongue down her throat.’

Alex groaned and swatted her arm.

‘Lena!’

‘Oh you know what I mean. Anyway, it’s probably for the best. If you had picked up on Cute Blue Haired Barista’s flirting you might not be with Kelly now.’

The aggrieved look softened instantly into a dopey smile, like just the mention of Kelly's name was enough to make Alex happy. She looked the way Lena felt when she thought about Kara, and it made her simultaneously happy for her friend and intensely jealous of Alex’s uncomplicated romantic relationship.

‘Yeah, Kelly is pretty great. I guess it was worth waiting for my big realisation if it meant I got to end up where I am with her. I do wish I could talk more to her about what’s happening at the moment though. You know, with Project Atlantis… I mean, she knows in a general sense, but not how personal it is. I hate feeling like I’m keeping something from her.’

‘Kelly doesn’t know about Kara?’

‘No. Things between us were still pretty new when everything happened, and now… I can’t exactly ask Kara’s permission to loop her in, can I?’

‘No, but… for what it’s worth, I think you should tell her anyway. Kelly is your person, and you need to be able to share something this huge with your person. Your sister has essentially had a serious accident that’s left her with amnesia and missing half the context of your life together. That is a lot to deal with on your own on top of trying to keep everything from falling apart in Supergirl’s absence, and you need someone to talk to about it all. Kelly deserves to know what all this means to you, and I really think Kara will understand.’

Alex went quiet for a moment, prodding at a chunk of lime floating in her Caipiroska with a rainbow striped straw, and then asked ‘who do you talk to about it?’

‘What?’

‘Kara’s your person, right? And you can’t tell her how you’re feeling about any of this. I’ve never really thought about that before. I mean, she’s my person too obviously, but in a different way. And like you said, I have Kelly... But you don’t. And it must be hard for you.’

Lena looked away. Somehow she hadn’t been prepared for her comment to get turned around on her, but it was true. She had spent so much of her recent past keeping herself a step removed from everyone around her, safe and solitary, and yet now when she actually wanted to be brave and do the work to open up, she couldn’t let herself.

Honestly, it was shit.

But Lena was in a her first gay bar with an excessively pink drink in front of her and a Tegan and Sara song blasting in the background, and she had no intention of getting maudlin about her unrequitable love right now, so she fell back on an easier answer.

‘Oh, I have my own ways of relieving the stress.’

‘Such as?’

She shrugged.

‘I break things. Wine glasses, mostly. Plates. An electron microscope once, after the Q-wave trial failed. It’s cathartic.’

Alex stared at her, clearly not having been quite ready for this response. Then she snorted.

‘Has anyone ever told you that being a billionaire makes you kind of an insufferable brat? You seriously smashed a piece of equipment that costs at minimum tens of thousands of dollars because “it was cathartic”?’

‘Hey, I fixed it afterwards! I might be obnoxiously rich but I’m not stupid.’

‘You… you fixed it afterwards.’

‘What? I did! I actually added in some upgrades while I was at it, so it was a net positive really-’

Alex shook her head, looking half wondering, half exasperated.

‘Fucking hell Lena. You are by far my weirdest friend. And most of my friends are aliens. One of my friends is a blue guy from another century who is also part computer. But you still win. NONE of that is how normal people deal with their feelings.’

‘Maybe that’s just because normal people don’t have access to electron microscopes, or sufficient knowledge about their inner workings to rebuild them after they get smashed.’

‘Yeah, no that is definitely not it weirdo.’

For the most part Lena didn't appreciate being called out for being odd. It reminded her too much of a childhood spent trying so desperately to fit in with what was expected of her only to fall short again and again, the black sheep in every situation. But somehow, in this context, it didn't feel like a bad thing. She pulled the straw from her drink to point it at Alex, accidentally-on-purpose flicking a drip of pink grapefruit and gin mix in her direction as she did so.

‘Psh, jealous. Keep talking like that and I won’t invite you to come and smash things with me next time we need to vent.’

Alex let the drink splashing go without comment, straightening up from her semi-slouched pose with a suddenly hopeful look.

‘Wait no, invite me! I want to smash things!’

‘Huh, what happened to “that’s not normal”?’

‘Well, not highly delicate and expensive scientific equipment things, but I could absolutely be down for bashing the hell out of a junk yard car or something. I was always kind of jealous that Kara could work out her feelings by pounding an old car into a crushed blob with her bare fists, but I bet it would still be pretty satisfying with a sledge hammer.’

‘You wait until you try a laser.’

Alex’s eyes went wide.

‘You have lasers? Can I play with them??’

‘Sure. As long as you listen to my safety instructions before you touch anything – I don’t want you burning a hole all the way through the side of my building.’

‘Awesome. I take back everything I said, your way of dealing with emotion is totally normal and healthy and not at all bratty-rich-kid.’

‘I should think so.’

Alex hesitated, then added in a more serious tone ‘however, if you ever decide you want to try a different kind of catharsis… you can always talk to me, you know.’

‘Thanks Alex. You can talk to me too.’

‘Oh I was planning on it. But uh… Just do me a favour and don’t tell me any more about how you want to kiss my sister, okay?’

Well, saying that was basically handing Lena the advantage on a silver platter. An evil grin twitched at the corners of her mouth, and she leaned confidingly closer across the table.

‘Oh, I don’t just want to kiss your sister. I am an adult woman with adult needs, and I want to-’

‘Aaargh oh my god shutupshutupshutup you absolute GREMLIN!’

Lena licked her lips, schooling her expression into something downright lascivious as she doubled down on her baiting.

‘Have you seen her biceps? And her abs are just- mmmm.’

‘Lena Luthor I am so serious right now, if you don’t stop that this second I will tip this drink over your head and ass-plant you right off your stool. That is so gross.’

It was tempting to keep torturing her, but Lena was laughing too hard by this point to think of anything else to say. Besides, it honestly felt pretty weird for her to talk about Kara like that to anyone, let alone her own sister.

Worth it though, given how much it had made Alex squirm.

‘Okay, okay, I’m done. Consider that payback for all the cotton candy jibes.’

‘Urgh. Paid back in full and then some. And you owe me about five more drinks to help block out the memories of what you just said.’

Alex knocked the rest of her drink back, and whether her shudder was for the sudden rush of alcohol or the mental images Lena had managed to evoke was anyone’s guess.

‘Aw, poor little delicate flower. Alright, my round. They actually do a shot here called ‘Supergirl’, shall I get you one of those?’

‘ABSOLUTELY NOT.’

There were several other temptingly named shots that would have served to send Alex into further paroxysms of horror (a Slippery Nipple, a Screaming Orgasm, a Quick Fuck, and of course the classic Sex on the Beach would all have done it after the conversation they had just had), but in the end she had mercy and bought her a perfectly respectable New York Sour shot and another passion fruit Caipiroska; and when she returned to the table she allowed the conversation to move on to less contentious subjects.

She had that one in her back pocket now though, just in case she needed future retaliation material. It would not be difficult to wax lyrical about Kara’s strong shoulders and tantalising shy lip-bite if she needed to.

[unpopularvivian]

This is probably a weird question but how do you think your au’s engines would react to my monster engines?

STRAP IN STEAM THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG ASS AUTISIC RANT👁️👄👁️

(Had this one in my drafts for a few days. Sorry, I was pretty busy)

Thomas: Thinks that a monster engine version is him is super cool and would absolutely hang out with him all the time. But is absolutely weirded out by his and Lady's romantic relationship. Because, you know: Aroace MC Thomas. He questions the hell out of Monster Engine Thomas of how the fuck did he managed to pull a goddess when he is so out of her league.

Edward: Both of them at first would question the other. MC Edward wondering how in Lady's name why Monster Engine Edward is so annoyingly benevolent. And Monster Engine Edward would question why MC Edward is so radically different from him. Being more assertive but also being a....Punk Menace Mentor™️. But eventually, the two would warm up with each other and MC Edward decides to teach Monster Engine Gordon a lesson after he berates the old no 2 monster engine again. In simplest terms he.....Spiked laxatives in Monster Gordon's meal. That was not pleasant at all.

Henry: Wanted to know what happened to other him and is currently studying him like a little critter. But got confused when Monster Engine Henry told him that he and Nia are in a romantic relationship. Because in Modernly Classical, Nia doesn't exist. Only Rebecca. He is slightly concerned when Monster Engine Henry does his unnatural bending thing.

Gordon: MC Gordon hated the fact that he has to deal with a more arrogant and pompous version of him again. It's literally Stewie whenever Brian acts like a dick from Family Guy. Told Monster Engine Gordon to not insult his version of Edward in front of MC Edward. Proceeds to do the "I told you so" thing when Monster Engine Gordon got explosive diarrhea from his laxative dinner.

James: One sentence: "Bitch, I will cut you with my fencing sword if you dare to say that Sephora is ass, you braindead fuck-"

Percy: Monster Engine Percy wanted his prosthetic arm as a dog toy and they played along with it and decided to take it off and throw it at his monster engine self. MC Percy now got themselves a green caterpillar dog.

Toby: Both of them swapped their kids and are now having the time of their lives. Especially MC Toby, who is squealing over of how cute Talia and Bruno are. These two can and will go into papa wolf mode if you dare to hurt one of their respective kids.

Emily: Got extremely confused when Monster Engine Emily said that she and her version of Edward are together. In Modernly Classical, both her and Edward are gay. I have a feeling that Monster Engine Emily might misunderstand this not out of malice but because it's a new thing that she has never experienced before.

[kuruk]

I don't like the label nonbinary it makes me feel kind of gay but I don't want people to assume I'm just a woman a little to the left who's only nonbinary because of misogyny with men being considered the "default" while women are a subcategory of that either. and I'm not trans it's more like I'm playing a part and it's whatever that's just my circumstances which have nothing to do with my soul which could have been given any experience depending on the life I'm born into. when I think of the future after my death only then is when I'll finally be able to stop playing that part soo yeabh. I want to say I just don't care or feel attached but at the same time it's not like I don't get uncomfortable or wish I looked different so I could be more honest with myself lol. but like whatevevr *is nia*

[moistvonlipwig]

the au ask game for your alternate s5 where lena invents the power dampening device instead of non nocere please!!!!

OK YES i have my computer now so here are 5 things that would happen in that AU. keeping in mind that the genesis of this AU is that i was playing around with the question of, essentially, how i would write s5 if i were operating under the same storytelling constraints that i have reason to believe the cwsg writers were operating under [i.e. all of s1-s4 is canon, crisis is coming & will revive lex, james is ✈️ outta here, sc can be implied at most]:

Andrea Rojas is not a tech mogul; rather, she left her rich father to his own business and is the editor-in-chief of an independent paper in Mexico when she gets the call from Lena offering to sell her CatCo. Andrea's vision for the magazine is simple: she wants to transform it into the first pro-alien anti-Super publication on the market, and she wants her employees to dig into the actions of Supergirl & the DEO and see what they can find. With help from Brainy, Kara writes an expose on the DEO's history of disappearing aliens without due process and Supergirl's complicity in the matter. As a result, Supergirl's reputation takes a massive hit.

Former members of the Children of Liberty start showing up dead around National City, with the killer nicknamed "El Muerto" by the press. The killer is eventually revealed to be Pablo Valdez, a member of Kelly's old unit and secretly an alien, who was left adrift after coming home from deployment only to be captured and tortured by the Children of Liberty. He plans to take revenge on the Children of Liberty, one dead member for each alien who died while serving in the military. Kelly manages to catch up with him just as he plans to take revenge in honor of her late fiancee, who had partial alien heritage, and she talks him down. But she also protects him from Alex's attempt to arrest him, which causes friction in their burgeoning relationship.

James and Kelly visit Calvintown, where Mama Olsen shows them how the water in town has been contaminated by runoff from a nearby military base, which James realizes belongs to the DEO. The DEO have been paying off the local press, the Calvintown Chronicle, to suppress the story. James, already disillusioned by Kara's expose and by what Pablo endured at the hands of the Children of Liberty, decides to give up being Guardian. He offers CatCo an exclusive interview, conducted by Kara, where he discusses the good and bad of superheroes, apologizes for his part in legitimizing the Children of Liberty, and announces his plan to start an independent newspaper in Calvintown. At his going-away party, James and Lena talk and Lena admits she was sorely tempted to buy the Calvintown Chronicle, fire everyone on staff, and put James in charge, but she figured he wouldn't appreciate that. He thanks her for not doing that, and tells her not to be a stranger. The Superfriends give him a photo album of pictures of him they've taken over the years, and he heads off to Calvintown.

While Supergirl and Guardian's reputations plummet, Dreamer briefly becomes National City's most popular hero before causing intracommunity drama when her powers get a little out of control in a fight and she accidentally causes structural damage to a gay bar. She gives an interview to attempt to smooth things over, only to anger parts of the trans community who feel that she espoused a simplistic assimilationist narrative, that she is too privileged to be a real spokesperson on trans issues, and/or that she should talk about trans issues more. The Superfriends help Nia repair the damage to the gay bar, whose owners, a pair of older butch lesbian friends, acknowledge that being the first openly trans superhero can't be easy and encourage her to listen to feedback but not bend herself out of shape trying to please everyone.

Lena and Eve (who she has roped into helping her) work on the superpower-dampening device throughout this, while also trying to translate a coded message left by Lex for Lena whose only word they can seem to decipher is "Monitor". Kara's actions in the interim (such as stealing Lex's journals to please Lena even when Lena tells her that's not necessary) convince Lena further that limits should be imposed on superpowers. Eventually Lena and Eve determine that to ensure the device can adapt to any species' physiology, they will need to use a piece of Kryptonian tech which is held in the Fortress of Solitude. Kara invites Lena there to look for a solution to stop Malefic (who this whole time has also been trying to steal J'onn's friends away to the Phantom Zone. classic Malefic amirite), and we get the fortress reveal/uno reverso betrayal scene where Lena steals the Kryptonian tech and restrains Kara with kryptonite before portaling away.

This has all been 5A stuff, which I've worked out in much more detail (along with Crisis, which I've outlined in full at this point), but to tease 5B a little, it involves the original Brainiac, who in this AU is a woman (Meaghan Rath is right there I'm just saying), and who I've decided is the head of Leviathan, because the end of S4 demands that I include Leviathan in S5.

[zahri-melitor]

DC Pride #1 (2021)

Right, I'm reviewing this, largely because 'how many decent stories are in this' is always a consideration for the various themed anthologies.

The ratio of interesting stories to formulaic 'did you notice we are queer?' stories is about right in this. It's one of the hazards of these type of titles: I want queer stories, and stories about queer people, but personally think DC should start keeping house a bit more strongly about how tokenistic some of the stories end up feeling. But this was the first up, and I wanted to see how it started before it evolved.

The Wrong Side of the Looking Glass is a Kate Kane piece that is as much about her identity as a twin as her identity as a lesbian, and how one affected the other. Enjoyable! Gorgeous art! It got a little bit 'there are so many of us who are queer' at the end but I could overlook that in favour of the extremely solid themes.

To the Victors is Midnighter and Extraño fighting a neo-Nazi vampire, and then Constantine picking up Extraño. It's very much a Midnighter story but the violence level could have been higher.

Try the Girl is Renee Montoya as the Question (so not set in exact 2021 canon then hey) where Renee has the hots for a Defence Attorney who's now running for Gotham City Council. Renee thinks she's been kidnapped, Valeria gets herself out of trouble, and Renee gets kissed on the mask (the lipstick stain is pretty funny tbh).

Another Word For a Truck To Move Your Furniture it's the annual unnecessary Harley/Ivy story. Was admittedly probably necessary for the first ever DC Pride to help sell it, but even the team of Mariko Tamaki and Amy Reeder doesn't get it past an 'eh' for me. (DC I am begging you give me some creativity in these stories; we don't need a ship that literally appears regularly in ongoings)

He's The Light Of My Life! is a very necessary attempt to try and fix how glurgy and formulaic Alan Scott's coming out story was in Infinite Frontier #0. This time we actually get Alan and Todd having more of a conversation about things and things being somewhat awkward with the friction between Alan and the way he'd navigated hidden years compared to Todd's far more Millennial attitude to being out, framed around the history of the bar/restaurant they were meeting at. A major improvement.

Clothes Makeup Gift I knew literally nothing about Jess Chambers before reading this, but what I will say is the story's got the same cute incidental feel to it that I've seen in several Wally/Linda short stories in various anthologies, which is a very good association to have when you're also a Flash character. It was lightweight filler but it was charming lightweight filler.

Be Gay, Do Crime honestly if the Kate Kane story hadn't been so great this story would have won best of for me entirely off the back of Hartley's very tired sounding moment when he says "It's...not as simple as that. When you get older, the necessity for systems becomes a bit clearer. Mind-controlling people for quick fixes is not the solution--" because oh wow do I want to say things just like that to a whole lot of people who sound and have attitudes very much like Drummer Boy in this. Amazing characterisation beat, I loved it.

Date Night it's fine, of all the Nia Nal stories I've read in various Pride anthologies so far this was one of the most slight, but I guess it was the very first go around and so that's why it's just another 'running late for a date' story.

Love Life this could have been an email. I am shocked not shocked to discover my least favourite aspect of Pride anthologies, the Justice League Queer, first appeared in my least favourite type of story in that anthology, 'look we're at a Pride Parade!'. It's like a collision of the worst aspects of dull 'hey we exist!' representation without actually bothering to provide a compelling story. It's just so tokenistic and boring.

[airborneice]

hey look it’s my blorbos

YAY the first time I’ve completed art in time for pride month!! here’s some of the chars from the sketchbook kid AU celebrating with the most boring backgrounds ever 🌈 I’m gonna ramble under the cut, you know the drill

sooo I think I’ve already mentioned that Mattie is trans, but fyi Kaisa is in this universe as well!!

tbh I actually didn’t have this idea for them both to start with, it just kinda happened that way and ngl I just…I love the idea of Mattie having someone close to her right from the start who just gets it, and that Kaisa gets to have that shared experience with her. I think before Mattie was born Kaisa would have initially had some worries deep down about if the kid took after her too much (in terms of her not great experiences with magic and self-doubt, being a bit of an awkward mess (affectionate) ) but instead she gets to see Mattie taking after her in a whole bunch of ways and just thriving 🥺 and she gets to be a source of support and understanding that maybe she didn’t have herself when she was younger. anyway these witches are trans and I care them so much you guys 🥺

aaaand hey look I drew Harvey’s parents for once! btw in my headcanons for this AU Harvey’s parent on the left of him is non-binary and goes with any pronouns but mainly they/them! Harvey calls them Ren (short for parent). also I have names for these two now!! I’ve been calling Harvey’s parent Lin (left) (partly bc it means ‘forest’... like have you SEEN this couple’s living room wall, they are plant obsessed and I’m keeping it) and his mom is Nia (right). congrats on breaking the hilda curse of adults not having names guys 😌

and, ok, realistically I don’t think Arwen has fully come out or anything at the time of my comics but I wanted to include her anyway - and before anyone comes at me about how kids can’t be gay or whatever I’ll remind you that no one seems to have this problem with kids in other cartoons getting obligatory het crushes all the time, and in my own experience some people just figure themselves out a lot sooner than others (personally I didn’t find the right label til I was 20 but looking back the signs were there since I was 11 lol). anyway Arwen is quite introspective and searching as a person, so I think she’s got this a little bit figured out by now, even if she’ll probably be keeping it to herself for a while. there’s no way she’s talking about her thoughts on romance if Mattie’s in the vicinity

[darkfictionjude]

obviously its the 90s but would the ros have trouble coming out and telling they are in a relationship with mc who in this case is the same sex gender as the ros

Imre: wouldn’t. No one goes against him, they would all thing it’s “cool” to be gay now

Nia: she wouldn’t come. Not due to shame. But because “it’s no one’s fucking business.” She would just one day hold hands with mc publicly and that’s that no one can say anything

Lorcan: he would have trouble. It’s not really that he’s scared of public opinion (although the idea of being gawked at isn’t pleasant to him) but because he would need time to be able to proclaim it so loudly and unabashedly as he’s never been comfortable with much PDA

[fazedlight]

something something organelles something chloroplasts…. sulfates…

*nodding along* yes talk science to me damn

It was so hard to write that chapter of Even Though You're Kryptonian, and try to figure out what the audience would need to know (assuming that most of the audience didn't have biology fresh on their minds). I ended up summing it to "okay, the audience needs to know that blood is important, and that the trait is maternally passed" and also "the audience needs to know this comes down to quantum information, which can't be cloned". When Nia says "skip the science", that is because I took out full paragraph explanations that were originally written there when I went back to editing 🤣 Buuuut this is tumblr, so I'll summarize here!

Quantum cloning is actually impossible (and would break the universe if it were possible), which Lena notes. On the TV show, they say they need Kara's DNA, and then get really sad when it's destroyed... but Lena is a scientist, replicating DNA is super easy, she definitely would've done that before loading the device!! So in my fic, we're going with quantum signatures, because the sadness around needing to reset the device to fight the phantoms makes sense.

The stable marriage problem (also called the "stable matching problem") is an actual thing in algorithms, with applications in economics. It's not specific to marriage - you can use similar algorithms to optimize which schools students attend, for instance. And it's always solvable, given certain conditions, with one of those conditions being that the two groups are distinct (like colleges are group 1, students are group 2 - a college can't attend a college & a student can't attend a student). If you don't have distinct groups, it turns into the stable roommate problem, which is not guaranteed to be solvable.

So basically my headcanon is that Krypton would look at algorithms and say "We can't have gay marriage, that's not algorithmically efficient!" because Krypton is the type of screwed up society that thinks everything should be done by algorithm.

Chloroplasts are organelles in plants. (Organelles are just organs for cells - instead of hearts and livers and kidneys, cells have things like mitochondria and nuclei and endoplasmic reticula.) Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell? Well, so are chloroplasts (in plants!).

Lena at some point on the TV show tells the group that Reign's cells are more like plant cells, which Kara confirms as how kryptonians convert sunlight to energy (which is what a chloroplast does). But I say they're not quite chloroplasts because they have to use a different dye - kryptonians aren't green. Lutein is a yellow dye in plants (think fall leaves) that could probably be masked by the natural melanin in human skin. So that's what I made as the thing that causes kryptonians to give off a quantum signature - the conversion of sunlight to power.

Organelles really are passed from the mother (egg) to the child. Sperm doesn't have room for much besides DNA. (Though for reasons not yet explained, kryptonian biology is going to work a little differently than Lena expects.)

As for sulfates, that's just a category of salt, and they're plentiful in the ocean. I needed something that killed libido... unfortunately, most of the real stuff that would kill libido are things like alcohol or opioids, and I didn't want kryptonian kids running around stoned all the time. But salt can contribute to high blood pressure, which can lower libido - sooooo let's just pretend that kryptonians are particularly likely to experience this side effect, while not being killed by blood pressure. Their biology is different anyway!

[newlabdakos]

LGBTQIA+ characters in DC Comics

These are characters who have first appeared or been revealed as LGBTQIA+ over the last year, or whom I’ve recently learned about or whom I hadn’t mentioned in previous posts of this type (though I may have featured them on my old blog). As usual, this list is highly arbitrary and incomplete.

(Yeah, I know DC Comics isn’t the only game in town, but for the time being it’s the only one I regularly read, so…)

Bluebird (Harper Row) [she/her; bi]

Bunker (Miguel Barragan) [he/him; gay]

Catman (Thomas Blake) [he/him; bi]

the Cheetah (Barbara Minerva) [she/her; probably lesbian or bi]

Circuit Breaker (Julian “Jules” Jourdain) [he/him/they/them; trans]

Coagula (Kate Godwin) [she/her; trans]

Dreamer (Nia Nal) [she/her; trans]

Etta Candy [she/her; probably lesbian or bi]

Galaxy (Taelyr Ilextrix-spiir Biarxiiai / Taylor Barzelay) [she/her; trans]

Ghost-Maker (Minhkhoa “Khoa” Khan) [he/him; queer]

Continuing the tradition from my old blog (which has been unceremoniously deleted by tumblr without much of an explanation why) I’m doing daily posts during June to celebrate LGBTQIA+ pride by showcasing openly LGBTQIA+ celebrities and various content about or created by LGBTQIA+ people such as music videos, characters on TV shows, movie trailers, …

[if-rambling]

My mc for “We wretched creatures”

Name: Xandros Cairo Crown

Nickname: Xan

Pronouns: he/him

Orientation: Gay

Habit: humming everybody wants to rule the world

Hobby: Drawing

Romancing: friendly romance Lorcan

He is never gonna admit to Lorcan being his queer awakening. He’ll give the credit to some random celebrity

He doesn’t really have a vice he tries to just bear with it

He may not like himself but he’s not gonna just let people talk shit

Xan has two fears first is disappointing sally and next is loss of control

He’s confused about Nia he misses her friendship but is also hurt about what their friendship has become. He thinks he probably did something for it to be like this but he tends to lash out at her

He’s friendly with Imre but he does not trust him a bit

He honestly likes hanging out with Imre and Lorcan

Xan tries his best to be as “normal” as he can be for sally but that’s just not who he is

I think he feels a lot of empathy for the victims and is trying the best he can to help

One of the only adults he respects in this town is Asia

He feels disgust about his episodes and has always tried his best to resist it

I think he does love his brother but all his love for sally mostly stems from his gratefulness to him. When sally got mad at him and apologized to Xan I believe Xan chose to lie to himself and believe sally because he can’t really deal with the thought of disappointing sally

Xan doesn’t practice self harm because he doesn’t want to have any physical proof for sally but he does think of his death quite a lot

Honestly I think in a world where the family got to be normal healthy kids then Percy would be his favorite sibling

Honestly the game has been fun so far and I find all the characters and mysteries so intriguing. I really like the moments with Lorcan where they’re just like having a somewhat friendly relationship and the banter. One of my favorite scenes is the flashbacks to the time in the hospital because it feels like a good way to build onto the MC

The picrews I used for Xandros