marshmallow-the-panda

[marshmallow-the-panda]

Sorry for this relatable shit. My anxiety has been a bitch lately.

[marshmallow-the-panda]

I’ve been on holiday, but everyone deserves some warm and relaxed vibes (and also my favourite Peaches). 🍑

[marshmallow-the-panda]

i think one of the reasons why i'm so touched by jess is that, while it's easy to read her as naive about how homophobic the world is, her open queerness and butchness is clearly a conscious choice.

sure, according to kelly's backstory, they grew up relatively (for the time period) privileged wrt their queerness, and there's her obvious bewildered distress at the fact that, when she arrives in the US, people actually get to force her to act like something she's not

but she's also clearly not stupid! she clearly knows how unsafe it is to be obviously queer. when they buy boxers, they know to hold on to the excuse that they are for their brothers. she doesn't out carson and greta to anyone, not even to lupe, who's also queer, with whom she's clearly very close, and with whom she clearly spends a lot of time talking about being queer and other queer women - she understands and respects the reasons behind their choice to keep it all absolutely secret. when jo is arrested and traded out, jess (and lupe) look upset in a way that very clearly reads as "this could have been us, if we'd been there is would have been us (bc they, like jo, don't have the femme plausible deniability and would easily be picked out of the crowd by the cops), maybe it should have been been us because without us jo wouldn't have known about the bar". she knows, intimately, which risks she faces.

and yet they present the way they do. maybe it is bc she grew up in moose jaw, canada, but more than any of the others she has internalised that it's not right that the world is like this. that doesn't mean they pretend the world isn't like it is, but they do act on the fact that they think it shouldn't be. she has a modicum of self-preservation, so she takes basic safety precautions, but she clearly very strongly feels that if the world has a problem with her, that's their problem to change, not hers. that solidness of belief informs so much about jess as a character, and it means so much to me. it's not naivety, it's on purpose.

#i love her so much

[marshmallow-the-panda]

Three butch friends of mine finishing the basement of my first house around 1996.   They worked for beer, and not even anything fancy. 

[marshmallow-the-panda]

every jesslupe fic is just character study. yearning. absolutely devouring pussy. gender euphoria. baseball.

[marshmallow-the-panda]

you don't get it they are best bros they are teammates they've known each other for like 2 weeks they are madly in love they would do anything for each other they are friends they fucked on the first week they met they understand each other more than anyone they don't even know if the other has a middle name they fathered a child together they are married but also divorced

[marshmallow-the-panda]

the energy of this picture …… i’m collapsing

[marshmallow-the-panda]

Roberta Colindrez, Priscilla Delgado & Kelly McCormack Talk A League of Their Own (video)

[marshmallow-the-panda]

vampires have been drinking human blood for centuries they don't give a fuck about guys on eight different antidepressants. they were sucking on asbestos factory workers

[marshmallow-the-panda]

never lose the hope that there’s someone out there right now wishing they could love someone like you

[marshmallow-the-panda]

[marshmallow-the-panda]

She sent me this this afternoon. 🖤

#poetry

[marshmallow-the-panda]

You gleam as you lie back breathing like something taken from water a sea creature, except for your two human legs which tremble and open into the dark country I keep dreaming of. How shall I touch you unless it is everywhere? I begin here and there, finding you, the heart within you, and the animal, and the voice; I ask over and over for your whereabouts, trekking wherever you take me

— Mary Oliver, from the poem “The Gardens”

#poetry

[marshmallow-the-panda]

Eight Days in April

by Jewish Lesbian poet Marilyn Hacker

[Full text under the cut]

1.

I broke a glass, got bloodstains on the sheet:

hereafter, must I only write you chaste

connubial poems? Now that I have traced

a way from there to here across the sweet-

est morning, rose-blushed blonde, will measured feet

advance processionally, where before

they scuff-heeled flights of stairs, kicked at a door,

or danced in wing-tips to a dirty beat?

Or do I tell the world that I have got

rich quick, got lucky (got laid), got just what

the doctor ordered, more than I deserved?

This is the second morning I woke curved

around your dreaming. In one night, I've seen

moonset and sunrise in your lion's mane.

2.

Moons set and suns rise in your lion's mane

through LP kisses or spread on my thighs.

Winter subsided while I fantasized

what April dawns frame in the windowpane.

Sweetheart, I'm still not getting enough sleep,

but I'm not tired, and outside it's spring

in which we sprang the afternoon shopping after

I'd been inside you, O so deep

I thought we would be tangled at the roots.

I think we are. (I've never made such noise.

I've never come so hard, or come so far

in such a short time.) You're an exemplar

piss-elegance is not reserved for boys.

Tonight we'll go out in our gangster suits.

3.

Last night we went out in our gangster suits,

but just across the street to Santerello's,

waited past nine for wine. We shone; the fellows

noticed. "You have a splendid linen coat,"

Dimitri told you as he sat us down.

(This used to be my local; now it's chic.)

A restaurant table's like a bed: we speak

the way we do calmed after love, alone

in the dark. There's a lot to get to know.

We felt bad; we felt better. Soon I was

laid back enough to drink around the bend.

You got me home, to bed, like an old friend.

I like you, Rachel, when you're scared, because

you tough it out while you're feeling it through.

4.

You tough it out while while you're feeling it through:

sometimes the bed's rocked over tidal waves

that aren't our pleasures. Everyone behaves

a little strangely when they're in a new

neighborhood, language, continent, time zone.

We got here fast; your jet lag's worse than mine.

I only had Paris to leave behind.

You left your whole young history. My own

reminds me to remind you, waking shaken

with tears, dream-racked, is standard for the course.

We need accommodation that allows

each one some storage space for her dead horse.

If the title weren't already taken,

I'd call this poem "Directions to My House."

5.

I'd call this poem "Directions to My House,"

except today I'm writing it in yours,

in your paisley PJ's. The skylight pours

pale sunlight on white blankets. While I douse

my brain with coffee, you sleep on. Dream well

this time. We'll have three sets of keys apiece:

uptown, downtown, Paris on a sublease.

Teach me to drive. (Could I teach you to spell?)

I think the world's our house. I think I built

and furnished mine with space for you to move

through it, with me, alone in rooms, in love

with our work. I moved into one mansion

the morning when I touched, I saw, I felt

your face blazing above me like a sun.

6.

Your face blazing above me like a sun-

deity, framed in red-gold flames, gynandre

in the travail of pleasure, urgent, tender

terrible—my epithalamion

circles that luminous intaglio

—and you under me as I take you there,

and you opening me in your mouth where

the waves inevitably overflow

restraint. No, no, that isn't the whole thing

(also you drive like cop shows, and you sing

gravel and gold, are street-smart, book-smart,

laugh from your gut) but it is (a soothing

poultice applied to my afflicted part)

the central nervous system and the heart.

7.

The central nervous system and the heart,

and whatever it is in me wakes me

at 5 am regardless, and what takes me

(when you do) ineluctably apart

and puts me back together; the too-smart,

too-clumsy kid glutted on chocolate cakes (me

at ten); the left-brain righteousness that makes me

make of our doubled dailiness an art

are in your capable square hands. O sweet,

possessives make me antsy: we are free

to choose each other perpetually.

Though I don’t think my French short-back-and-sides

means I’ll be the most orthodox of brides,

I broke a glass, got bloodstains on the sheet.

#poetry

[marshmallow-the-panda]

Portrait of a Young Woman, Jean-Etienne Liotard 

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer 

[marshmallow-the-panda]

requested by anon // request here!

//////

you are late to your shift. as you took the elevator, stepped through the bullpen, dumped your bag at your desk, an apology was forming on your lips. however, captain holt was nowhere to be seen. you peered into his office from your desk, looking a little lost as you realised that none of the other detectives were around. jake, amy, charles, even hitchcock and scully were nowhere in sight.

you pull your jacket closer, digging your hands into your pockets, before wandering forward. familiar voices drifted from the briefing room and you turn toward them, catching the question in jake’s tone.

“so, did you get the launderer’s husband?” you can see jake as he leans forward in anticipation, arms folded comfortably on the desk. amy sits beside him, notepad spread in front of her.

from the context of the question, you already know who will be standing at the podium in the briefing room. you move in slow-motion, leaning against the doorway to support yourself, as you watch your girlfriend answer the question. her hair is shorter than you remember but she is standing with the same sharpness, speaking in the same short tone, wearing the same leather jacket.

“the husband was also arrested.” rosa nods, elbows resting against the podium, “we have enough against him to hold…”

she looks at you then, trailing off.

everyone in the room looks to you.

“you’re back.” you say abruptly.

rosa swallows, giving you a slow up-down. “i’m back.”

“a month early.” you push off the door frame, stepping forward.

she nods.

the room is tense.

“and you didn’t tell me – nobody told me that you were going to be back today.”

jake coughs and the tension breaks. the detectives seated at the desks scramble up in a flurry, knocking back chairs and tripping over each other as they flee the room.

amy pauses on her way, smiling awkwardly, “i’m really glad you’re back, rosa.”

you don’t break eye contact with your girlfriend and speak in a short tone. “respectfully, amy.”

she darts from the room.

rosa begins to apologise but the words don’t leave her lips. you step forward, hand curling into the front of her shirt and capturing her in a fierce kiss. she automatically moves her hands to your waist, sliding under your shirt, skin on skin. you press another kiss to the corner of her lips, then let your head fall against her shoulder, cushioned by the leather. rosa wraps her arms around you, resting her chin on the top of your head. it’s a familiar position, one which both of you had been craving for three months. it’s one you can easily fall back into.

“i was so scared that i would never see you again.” you whisper against her shoulder.

she tightens her hug, planting a kiss onto the top of your head. “i’m here now.”

//////

gif imagines are open: request here!

[marshmallow-the-panda]

i feel like everyone’s forgotten some Covid basics so please let me remind you:

Your mask protects others more than it protects you

You can still spread covid even if you’re vaccinated or not showing any symptoms

The more this spreads around, the more mutated variants of the virus will appear and they WILL be stronger than the original

so like maybe stop being a little bitch and endangering others because you really, really needed to go out to dinner or get fucked up at a bar instead of in your home like a respectable person

#my friend doesn’t rlly care that it kills people and it upsets me so much #how do i make her understand that because people die anyway isn’t a reason #wear a fucking mask please god #get vaccinated