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nerd-at-sea5 · 2 years

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hold me, please. i'm never letting go

max is the first to realize that robin’s home life might be more similar to theirs than they originally thought, but soon robin’s secret slips and their in trouble-a lot of it, the party gains a member, and everyone cries.

aka, furthering my angsty robin/max sibling dynamic + robin’s little brother (an oc) jacob! (he’s 4 years younger than robin so 13 in this bc robins 17) (he uses she/her for robin at home bc it’s safer) (and and and the robin/max sibling comes late in the fic don’t hate me i had to traumatize robin first :) the pov switches a lot

they/them robin and max, she/they el, everyone else is canon

cw-verbal and physical abuse, slurs, blood, knives, suicidal ideation?, attempted rape/sa

ha my first rated M fic :) (fucking help me why do i do this) (there's no smut tho i promise)

they notice it the first time steve and nancy are driving them home, about two months after starcort. how robin lives just across the street-how they both have the same stance.

shoulder tensed, white knuckling their bag, robin tugs a hand through their undercut, fingering the short hair and pulling it before nancy takes their hand and pulls it away, kissing it. robin sighs softly, “c’mon red i’ll walk you to the door.”

and max let’s them, grateful for the company, weather it be the warmth of another person or the shocking way robin treats them like how they do erica and dustin-like siblings.

max doesn’t mind, steve’s been like an older brother for longer than they’d care to admit-they were never one of his kids. always a little sibling. he never replaces billy-he could never. but he was there. and now robin is.

they give a small look of thanks before tensing back up and stepping into the four walls of their own little prison.

robin watch’s max go, red hair bouncing up the stairs as they cross back to steve’s car, ruffle his hair, hug nancy and convince themself this isn’t the last time their going smell her vanilla perfume and feel her small but shockingly rough hands on their back, and head to their own house with.

it’s never easy being away from steve or nancy, their some of the only people who gets how it feels-not to mention the urge to grab max and take them far away from neil. let max hangout with jacob and cause chaos and be way to smart for everyone else. but they want to run back to nancy and kiss her, hold onto steve and call him names-but they can’t.

their not surprised to see that their younger brother is still awake. and robin gives him a tired smile as they pass, tossing him a quarter for the arcade and because they know their parents never give him cash.

“thanks, brainiac.”

“no prob, jock.”

and that’s that.

they go quietly to their room, a knot forming with each step, and eventually collapse onto their bed, already feeling much to empty and alone.

robin pulls of their jacket and tosses it into a pile with their backpack to wear again tomorrow and falls back onto bed to listen to music, drifting off to sleep.

their woken to jacob’s panicked face, shaking them way to hard for two am.

“rob! wake up wake up! the hell do you sleep so much?!”

“jake-dude. fuck off ’s like three.”

“two actually-get up!”

he shakes them again, going so far as to hit them with a pillow before groaning loudly, “robin. they know about nancy wheeler.”

robin’s up and standing instantly, “what?!”

of course jacob knows, jacob, who’s seen them reading emily dickinson and sappho’s work a thousand times, has seen robin doodling pink triangles onto their shoes, and eventually cornered them and asked, “do you like girls?” and they had to say yes.

“they found a photo from the arcade-photo booth photos. must have fallen out of your bag.”

“shit.”

because now robin can hear it, their parents hard tones and they start swearing.

“shit-fuck. damnit damnit, stupid stupid stupid! fuck.”

it’s just then that they see jacob crying.

“hey, hey no no what’s this? c’mon buddy don’t cry.”

and maybe he hasn’t seen all the horrible stuff that they have, but they’ve told him, they tell him everything. pulling him into a hug, hand in his hair. “c’mon man....’s ok.”

“they-their gonna kick you out rob…i don...wanna...don’t wanna be ‘lone.”

“it’s ok. it’ll be ok.”

and it’s not, because they start throwing all their important stuff into bags, so when the door comes flying open, and a photo of nancy wheeler’s lips against theirs is thrust in their face, jacob starts crying harder and robin’s heart breaks.

“morning.”

then the screaming starts.

“robin anne buckley how dare you do this, i can’t believe you would ever-”

“i didn’t raise a fucking dyke that’s for sure!!”

so they set their jaw and push past, fighting back tears and curses and yelling, fists balled so they don’t hit anything or anyone. anger is boiling, betrayal and hurt-these are their goddamn parents. they should love robin. “fine, don’t care.” hoping they don’t hear how their voice cracks and their on the stairs and then-

“DON’T TURN AWAY WHEN IM TALKING TO YOU, FAGGOT.”

hands on their back and robin-thankfully-instinctively tucks so they go rolling down the stairs and end up on the ground, already bruising and out of breath, jacob screaming, “STOP HURTING HER, THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

theirs a familiar sound of a blade being flipped from a pocket knife and robin starts to laugh, right in their dads face-while he’s holding a knife to them. they might be losing it but who fucking cares anymore? does it matter?

then they can feel their head slamming against the wall, and there’s blood coming from their legs because he cut through their pants and fuck.

they start screaming, jacob trips past her and races out the door, their mom calmly walking down the stairs and opening a book-robin can feel the blade digging into their arm and there’s blood dripping from their eyebrow and legs and, “HEY FUCKHEAD.”

there’s a flash of red and suddenly a 14 year old with a decently sized stick is on top of their father, jacob already holding duct tape and one of robin’s bags.

max mayfield stand up, blows hair out of their face and looks at robin, with a face that’s barley concealing the terror in their eyes, “i’m going to steal your dads car.”

robin nods, and then slumps against the wall, jacob’s voice ringing out, “blood loss! took a first aid class a bit ago, can you driiiiiii……….”

and the universe goes black.

max didn’t expect a random boy to run into her living room, waking a sleeping neil on the couch and yell for them, prompting them to leave before neil started swinging and when the boy introduced himself as jacob buckley, max panicked.

they really didn’t expect to be driving an unconscious and bleeding out robin to the byers house in a stolen car.

but they were. and they could hear the jacob is rustling around and swearing, choking back sobs until he flopped shirtless into the front seat, hands covered in robin’s blood.

“dude.”

“what? bastard had no towels!”

max shrugs off their jacket and passes it to him, “this is platonic, my girlfriend would kill you if otherwise.”

he nods, “gracias. you max?”

they nod as well, and they lapse into silence, tears still falling, until they get to the byers door, both jumping out of the car and max can feel their knuckled bruising as they slam on the door-god if robin dies.....max won’t let them, they couldn’t handle it.

a half asleep jonathan byers swings open the door, equally exhausted steve bracing himself on his bat and nancy wheeler holding a gun.

“max?” nancy’s the first to speak, the gun falling to her side as jacob chokes and stares at her, gaze hardening, “who’s blood is this-who is this?”

they all turn to max, who shakily points at the car, and steve bolts, “ROBIN-”

nancy’s right on his heals, and joyce walks out with the rest of the party when max stumbles inside, el catching her, “max? who’s this?”

“robin....”

mike raises an eyebrow, “no, robin’s not a guy.”

jacob slides to the floor and with a dead stare, holds out a blood soaked hand to mike, “jacob buckley.”

dustin’s jaw drops, “what the fuck-”

“that’s.....blood?!” lucas exclaims, backing away, when will quickly passes the boy a wet towel, max starts to sob into el’s arms, “they we’re just....el...”

el holds them, and max feels like their breaking, is robin ok? are they ok? please, please-

nancy wheeler wanted to cry. she wants to punch something, scream and cry and just-nothing in the world could have prepared her for seeing a much to pale robin, blood soaking through the shirt wrapped around their arms, bruises all over, unconscious.

joyce snaps out of it first, ordering jonathan and steve to carry them into the living room, tells nancy to go sit down, and that she’ll move the kids to another room.

nancy refuses, and instead sits next to steve while hopper carefully cuts off robin’s shirt, and joyce stiches the wounds on her arms.

she starts to cry again, can see max still shaking in el’s arms, that random boy huddled in the corner when steve finally goes over and asks him, “who the hell are you?”

“j-jacob buckley....”

jonathan drops the chocolate, “what the fuck?”

nancy whirls on him, “robin’s brother?!”

he looks up, and she can almost see the wall forming, his face melting into the one that nancy fell in love with-just a different face.

“no i’m their fuckin’ son. the hell d’you think, nancy wheeler?”

“how-how do you know my name?”

he shoots up, throwing out his still blood-covered arms, and yells, “’CAUSE THIS IS ALL YOUR FUCKIN’ FAULT!!”

she trips backwards, his words hitting her like a knife, slicing right through her, “what are you talking about?” steve grabs her arm, tear tracks across his face, “nancy, calm down-”

she whirls on him, “don’t tell me to fucking calm down harrington-my girlfriend is fucking dying and a kid who’s claiming to be their brother is saying it’s my fault.”

he scoffs, “it is. if you two hadn't kissed in the arcade none of this would’ve happened. they’d still be ok...”

nancy can feel the anger draining out of her, and before she knows it, she’s stepping towards the kid and pulling him into a hug, “jacob...i promise you i don’t know what’s happening-but i love robin, more than almost anyone else, so please-please tell me what happened?”

he chokes again, and buries his head into her shirt.

max is curled next to a sleeping? robin in the guest room, while nancy and jacob sit on the floor, the party around in chairs, listening to him explain.

when he’s done, steve slams his fist into the byers’ wall, will and jonathan groaning in unison, dustin buries his head in his hands, lucas rubbing his back, mike and el stare with shocked expressions, and nancy starts sobbing even more.

instantly mike is next to her, pulling her into his arms, and she can feel him shaking-she never cries in front of him, never when their parents would scream, never.

“it’s ok nancy.”

she’s trying to believe him but it’s so, so hard.

then max jumps off of the bed, “SHIT!”

el raises an eyebrow and robin slowly opens their eyes, staring at the group for a solid three seconds, “who’s funeral is it this time?”

max throws themself onto robin before jacob, steve or nancy, jacob jumping on top of max and steve and nancy are right behind him.

nancy can feel the other boys and el joining.

when they all pull away, steve is the first one to speak, “robin and mini buckley.”

“jacob.” both of them chorus, staring at him with the exact same, ‘seriously, dude?’ expression, and nancy has to stifle a laugh, because she has no idea how she never knew robin had a brother because he is so much like them.

“whatever. you’re both moving in with me, i just got an apartment. no arguments.”

robin nods, smiling, and max is next, “how long has this been happening for? did he do anything else? why was your mom just reading? why didn’t you tell me-”

“red.”

with a start, nancy sees fresh tears pouring down max’s face, “i thought i lost another sibling....”

robin gives them a sad smile, “not ah-’appening.” they wince for a second.

before anyone else can talk, joyce comes back inside, “ok everybody, we need to give rob some space, so we’ve gotta clear out till tomorrow ok? it’s like six am right now, so i’ll close the blinds and try to get some more sleep.”

they all groan and clear out, el taking max’s hand and leading them to her room, steve, jacob and nancy staying back.

joyce runs a hand through her hair, “steve, can you clean up jacob and let him sleep on jonathan’s bed, jacob are you ok with leaving robin alone?”

nancy watches him contemplate it, looking at her with a silentl question, ‘will you take care of them?’ she nods, and he nods to joyce.

steve picks him up and he giggles, sending a smile to robin’s face as jacob’s carried out and to the bathroom.

joyce turns to the two, “nancy-”

“i’m not leaving.”

she smiles, “i was going to say you can find clothes in the closet.”

then she leaves, and nancy turns to robin and feels the tears prickling at her eyes again, “c’mere wheeler.”

so she pulls off her shoes and sweater and climbs into bed with robin, putting her head on their chest, running a hand over the bandages on their arms and legs.

“i’m so sorry....”

“‘s not your fault nance...y’know that right?”

nancy shrugs, and listens to robin’s heartbeat, “i guess....why did you never tell me about jacob? he’s like a carbon copy of you.”

robin sighs, and nancy can feel their hand in her hair, it’s strongly calming and she realizes they’ve never lied like this together.

“dunno..he knows about starcort and all that, and you, i guess i thought if i told you all he’d be in trouble. i don’t wanna to risk his life.”

she nods, she wishes mike wasn't involved with all of this shit. “he’s nice, talks like you.”

robin raises their eyebrows, “...what?”

nancy props herself up on her elbows and grins, “doesn't say the ‘g’ in ‘fucking’, always says ‘’s’ and not ‘it’s’, ‘y’know’ ‘c’mere’ that kind of stuff. you both do it.”

robin is silent for almost thirty seconds, “shit...i didn’t know that.”

nancy has to laugh at how shocked they look, “i think it’s hot.”

that gets an eyebrow raise, “yeah?”

“mhm...”

robin smiles, the same smile nancy fell in love with-on the right person this time, as she leans down to kiss them.

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puregaalee · 2 years

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GaaLee HorrorFest 2022: Prompt List

It's Halloween night. You're dressed in your best costume yet, and you've got a bag just waiting to be filled with candy. The first house you see is dark, but the porch light is on, flickering on and off, on and off. Every time it flickers back on, it illuminates a bowl of candy filled to overflowing.

You carefully approach and, after a moment, shove your hand in and come out with a handful of treats. The bowl is still full, so you take another handful and add both to your bag before going on your way....

This event's prompts are a bit like that: A big bowl of candy set out on Halloween night for eager trick-o-treaters! You can take as many or as few prompts as you like! You can mix them and match them! You can combine different categories! You can use just that one single prompt that speaks to you, or find inspiration in ten! Whatever your heart desires!

The prompts are broken up into three categories: words, quotes, and images. The words are also broken up into further sub-groups based around a specific genre or type of horror: slasher, gothic, ghost stories, and creature features.

Each quote prompt comes from a horror book, while each image comes from a film (which do not need to be watched in order to use the prompt, though I have provided watch options). Below the cut is a text version of each prompt, as well as the names of the films the visual prompts come from and a larger version of the image. TW: spiders and dead bodies/body horror.

Sign-Up // Rules // FAQ // A Guide to Horror // The Horrors of Horror

All event banners made by @ghoste-catte

If you have any questions about the prompts, please send an ask to @puregaalee

Words

Slasher

Blood

Organs

Flesh

Teeth

Bones

Eyes

Nails

Gothic

Dread

Cold

Sick

Eerie

Rot

Bleak

Shadow

Loneliness

Ghost Stories

Haunted

Possessed

Hunger

Darkness

Cursed

Nightmares

Whispers

Creature Feature

Vampires

Ghosts

Shape-shifters

Werewolves

Demons

Zombies

Quotes

"We ask only to be reassured about the noises in the cellar and the window that should not have been open." ―The Family Reunion, TS Eliot

"Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. so you keep your eyes closed at the end. you don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before it's oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. you just know it." ―The Ritual*, Adam Nevill

“When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.” ― Fledgling, Octavia E. Butler

“But then, maybe “I don’t believe in you” is the cruelest way to kill a monster.” ― White Is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi

"I do not love men. I love what devours them." ―Prometheus Illbound, Andre Gide

"I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster[…] And the monster feels my tiny little movements inside." ―The Haunting of Hill House*, Shirely Jackson

"I have meanness inside me, real as an organ." ―Dark Places, Gillian Flynn

"Night was a different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush against appalling things and feel roaming and prowling around a strange, mysterious horror." ―The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, Guy de Maupassant

"One need not be a chamber to be haunted. one need not be a house. The brain has corridors surpassing material place." Emily Dickinson

*The Ritual has been adapted into a film which is available to watch on Netflix. The Haunting of Hill House has many adaptations including the 1963 film The Haunting, the 1999 film of the same name, the Netflix show The Haunting of Hill House, which is more inspired by than a true adaptation.

Images

Raw (2016): (Available on Netflix* // Trailer) A coming of age horror drama following a young vegetarian as she starts her first year of college at a school for veterinarian medicine. Her older sister attends the school as well, and during a hazing ceremony, she is forced to eat raw rabbit kidneys. The next day she is sick from food poisoning. As the film progresses, her craving for meat grows but it's not enough to cooked animal meat... [TW: animal death, cannibalism, blood, body horror such as injury]

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016): (Available with Amazon Premium* // Trailer) A supernatural horror film following the unidentified corpse of Jane Doe to a father-son morgue. Her body was found at the scene of a gruesome crime, and the police want to know how she died immediately. The father and owner of the morgue intends to stay late to perform the autopsy, and his son stays with him. But what they find within Jane Doe is anything but the standard cause of death... [TW: animal death, blood, body horror, flashing lights]

Umma (2022): (Available on Amazon to rent* // Trailer) A supernatural horror film following a Korean woman and her daughter living on a farm. The woman has been keeping secrets from her daughter, secrets about her childhood, about her mother, but when the woman's mother dies the secrets don't stay secrets for long... [TW: child abuse, animal death, bees]

The Amittyville Horror (1979): (Available on Hulu, Amazon, and other platforms* // Trailer) Based on the 1977 book of the same name, the film follows the story of a family living in a haunted house that is believed to have led to the murder of the previous family. Though the murders themselves are based on a true story, whether the house was haunted remains to be seen, but Amityville has been a cultural horror since... [TW: blood, gore, insects]

The Others (2001): (Available on Amazon Prime* // Trailer) A gothic, supernatural and psychological horror film following a woman and her two children, living in a large manor in 1945. The windows in the house are all covered, as the children suffer from a rare photosensitivity and cannot be in the sunlight. Grace hires a new housekeeper, groundskeeper, and maid. When odd things begin to happen in the house, Grace begins to fear the presence of 'the others'... [TW: child abuse, mentions of WWII]

Arachnophobia (1990): (Available on Amazon to rent* // Trailer) A natural horror comedy that starts in Venezuela, where an entomologist is doing research. While there, a never-before seen tarantula is discovered and samples are taken back to camp for stud. Unbeknownst to the team, another one of these tarantulas hitch hikes its way back to camp and slips into the bed of an unsuspecting photographer, who is ailing from a fever. When he's found dead, no one suspects anything and his body is packed in a crate for shipping back to his hometown and a proper burial. But before his body is shipped, the tarantula hitches yet another ride, leaving its home in the forest to make for the small town of Canaima, California... [TW: spiders, death by spider]

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020): (Available on Netflix* // Trailer) A gothic romance, the story follows a young au pair to Bly Manor. She's gone to England to escape from something that haunts her, only to stumble upon strange things at Bly... [TW: implications of past child abuse, Bury Your Gays, drowning, dissociation]

*All above listed films, including The Ritual, The Haunting (1963 & 1999), and The Haunting of Hill House are available for free here.

#gaaleehorrorfest22 #pgl events #pgl event prompts #gaalee #leegaa #naruto #shippuden

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marjaystuff · 4 months

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Interview with Amanda Flower

Because I Could Not Stop for Death and I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died by Amanda Flower has her venturing into historical mysteries. These books have a unique portrayal of the famous American writer Emily Dickinson. Emily along with her maid, Willa, become sleuths and help to solve murders. But a bonus is having readers getting glimpses of how Emily thinks and what the culture of mid-19th century was like.

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea to use Emily Dickinson?

Amanda Flower: Each book’s title will be the first line from one of her famous poems. In the first book, the poem was about a carriage ride with a horse. In this novel, a horse is very central to the story. The second book has flies surrounding the found body, which is related to the poem I used. I pay tribute to the poems, but do not follow it verbatim. Her poems are imagery and vague with multiple meanings. She never wrote clearly.

EC: Why Emily Dickinson?

AF: Her poems are mysterious. I have been a huge Emily Dickinson fan since I was 15 years old. I wanted to write a historical novel with another version, so I decided to write a mystery with her. Last year it won the Agatha for best historical mystery and a final for one of the Edgar Awards. The real characters beside Emily were the maid Margaret O’ Brian. I added a maid assistant, Willa to tell the story in the same manner that Sherlock Holmes had Watson. I also chose that period of her life, in 1855, where Emily and her sister came to Washington because her father was a member of the House of Representatives. This time was about six years before she went into hiding for the rest of her life as a recluse. She did not get any acclaims for her writing when she was alive.

EC: Why the reference to slavery?

AF: In the 1850s America was in turmoil over slavery. I knew I had to include this issue, or it would be a disservice. It divided everyone. The Underground Railroad went through many small towns close to where I live in Ohio. One of my jobs was leading Underground Railroad tours through the town that I worked in. I spoke about the people who lived there and those who tried to escape.

EC: How would you describe Emily’s personality in your book?

AF: This is my best interpretation of the real Emily. She likes to investigate, a good judge of character, ignores societal class, and is loyal. She is also bold, caring, curious, confident, and blunt. She was probably her father’s favorite because he gave her special treatment. She enjoyed wandering around and instead of not telling her to stop bought her a dog for protection. The dog is real and so his name Carlo, a character in Jane Eyre. He lived for seventeen years, which is unusual for a pure bred, Newfoundland. One of the theories is that Emily became a recluse after he passed away. Her dad would buy contemporary fiction books and leave them around the house for her to just happen to find. The family gave her room to be different, a genius aspect.

EC: How would you describe the real maid, Margaret?

AF: Kind, protective, tough, and can be hard-nosed. I made her gruff with Willa.

EC: How would you describe Willa?

AF: Nervous for her brother’s safety, compassionate, strong, determined, loyal, and broken. In the first book she is more timid. She is determined to find out what happened to her brother, Henry. As the series goes on, she is very protective and loyal to Emily. She understands more social standing than Emily. Willa is very aware of the class distinction and sees the servants as being invisible. Emily tries to treat her as an equal.

EC: What is the difference between the sisters, Vinnie, and Emily?

AF: Vinnie acts like an older sister even though Emily is the older sister. At the end of their life, she took care of Emily. Vinnie is more into societal norms. She carries the weight on her shoulders. Vinnie is a cat person, while Emily is a dog person who hated cats. The cats probably annoyed her dog. Emily did write about disliking cats.

EC: What about Henry?

AF: Henry is an idealist. He wanted to take from the rich and give to the poor. He had a happy and carefree personality. He knew Willa’s upmost goal was to protect him. He is also kind, with a nose for trouble, and caring.

EC: The second book in the series, I Heard a Fly Buzz When I died, highlights Ralph Waldo Emerson-why?

AF: Through my research I found he stayed with Emily’s brother at their estate. Plus, I really like his works and wanted to include him in the series. He was the peak of American literature during that time. He encouraged young authors to write in an ‘American voice.’ After a lifetime of acclaim, he felt pretty good about himself. He is very aloof and is distant from others.

EC: Why the plagiarism angle? AF: It was harder back then to prove. Many authors self-published back then and it was hard to prove that someone else wrote it so it would have been easy to plagiarize. It is still a problem today. Writers would think about this problem. Although they do have a certain way of phrasing. Emerson had a very strong voice, very authoritative and confident. He wrote essays and non-fiction. The victim in the story was a social climber who tried to put his name on other’s works.

EC: Louisa May Alcott and Emily contrasted each other as writers?

AF: I put her in the story because she was about the same age as Emily and lived nearby. It was possible they could have met although no evidence. I also wanted to contrast her with Emily. Some authors like Emily did it for the sake of art and her own personal thoughts, while others like Alcott did it for the sake of supporting her family and was driven. Emily feared fame and did not try to get published more. Personally, I write for both reasons. I put in the author’s notes how ‘Emily wrote for the expression of art; Louisa wrote for the money.’

EC: Louisa May Alcott was also in the story-what was her voice?

AF: She is very confident, opinionated, with fun banter. Anyone who read Little Women would recognize these qualities in her main character, Jo. She is blunt, straight forward, and wrote for the money because she is super pragmatic. Growing up her family did not have money because her dad believed in living simply. She broke barriers by being a female who used her own name and became popular. When she started writing she used pen names. But with Little Women she wrote under her own name and this book changed the life of herself and her family.

EC: Next books?

AF: The third one in the series might be the last one. It is titled I Died for Beauty and will come out in early 2025. The plot setting has the 1857 blizzard with a deep freeze in New England. A young Irish couple die in a fire at their house. Emily and Willa try to figure out what really happened.

The next book coming out in February is titled Crime and Cherry Pits, a cozy. In March my first Katherine Wright mystery will be released titled To Slip the Bonds of Earth about a murder.

The Candy Shop mystery will be out in October next year. The Matchmaker mystery comes out the following year. Each main character will have a book coming out every other year.

THANK YOU!!

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teddy-stonehill · 3 years

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hey any gay movie recommendations for a bunch of idiot queer babies in need of gay shit to entertain us

Absolutely! I'll even break them down by streaming service so you can figure out which are available to you.

Netflix

Cloudburst (2011): Road trip romcom about a couple of older lesbians running away to Canada to get married and picking up a hot young hitchhiker on the way. Bittersweet ending but absolutely worth the ride. One of my all time favorite movies.

Dear Ex (2018): A Taiwanese movie about grief and family. After his father's death, a young boy gets to know his dead father's male lover and learns about what their relationship had been like. Incredibly moving. Please watch it.

Alice Junior (2019): A Brazillian movie about a trans girl moving to a new high school. Trigger warning for some intense scenes of transphobia, but overall it's a really fun and heartwarming coming of age film.

Hulu

Breaking Fast (2020): A Ramadan holiday romcom. Very fun and feel-good, and I really appreciate how it explores the different ways that gay people come to terms with the religions they were raised with.

Bound (1996): Extremely sexy and stylish lesbian mob thriller. One of the Wachowskis' early films. Just incredible on every level. This movie deserves to be way more well-known than it is.

Wild Nights with Emily (2018): Extremely fun and funny biopic about Emily Dickinson. It has a lot of laugh-out-loud moments but also makes a really moving point about how people's lives are erased and flattened through the retelling of history. I'm not sure a lot of people liked this movie as much as I did, so your mileage may very, but I really loved it.

Amazon Prime

The Donald Strachey Mysteries: This is actually a series of four movies that all follow various episodes in the life of Donald Strachey, a gay private eye. Based on a series of books which began being published in the late 70s. These movies have the feel of a fun low-budget made-for-tv mystery, so if you enjoy that kind of thing, you'll love these movies. In order they're: Third Man Out; Shock to the System; On the Other Hand, Death; Ice Blues

Uncle Frank (2020): A moving family drama set in the 70s about a gay man returning home for his father's funeral. Has a lot of dark moments, but a happy ending, and a really sweet gay couple at the center.

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020): Extremely fun gay Bollywood romcom about a man and his boyfriend going to his parents house for his cousin's wedding. I really can't recommend this one enough.

HBO Max

Unpregnant (2020): I've watched a lot of gay bro comedies and this one is by far my favorite. It's like Booksmart if Booksmart was good. It's about two teenage girls going on a cross-country road trip so that one of them can get an abortion. They get in a lot of zany hijinks along the way. Please watch it.

Desert Hearts (1985): Essentially a classic lesbian pulp novel but with a happy ending. One of the earliest mainstream movies to be both openly gay and have a happy (if a bit ambiguous) ending. Plus it's just a genuinely compelling story with some good characters.

Tubi TV

Keep in mind Tubi is 100% free even without a subscription and it has a huge LGBT section so it's a great resource for gay films! It's movies aren't really sorted in any sort of order, though, so it can be a bit daunting to try to find anything on there if you don't already have something in mind.

That said, here's some diamonds in the rough I've already dug out for you:

Ideal Home (2018): This movie stars Paul Rudd and Steve Coogan as a rich asshole gay couple who unexpectedly have to adopt a child. It's very sort of mean-spirited humor for a lot of it but also it's got a surprising amount of heart at it's center and... it's one of my main comfort movies at this point lmao.

An Almost Ordinary Summer (2019): A movie about two older Italian men getting married. Their families are opposed at first and most of the film is focused on winning them over. Also one of my main comfort movies lol

Big Eden (2000): A really sweet gay romcom about a New York artist going back to his hometown in Montana and finding love and community there.

If you're willing to pay for stuff

Unfortunately not all of my favorite movies are currently streaming anywhere, but if you're willing/able to pay to rent or buy good movies, I recommend these ones:

Nina's Heavenly Delights (2006): A delightful lesbian romcom about a woman who returns to her home in Scotland for her father's funeral and ends up trying to win a curry cooking contest to keep her family's restaurant alive. I watched this movie on my first virtual date with my now girlfriend, and she said it was her best first date ever, so... <3

Shelter (2007): Gay surfer film. Also a lot about family and self-acceptance and learning to find a healthy balance between taking care of yourself and being there for others. Great soundtrack. Beautiful cinematography. Once when I was having a hard time I watched this movie every night for like a week straight.

Four More Years (2010): An absolutely hilarious Swedish gay romcom about two politicians from opposing parties falling in love. Another one about older gays (which I always appreciate) and it's one of the most genuinely funny gay romcoms out there.

Okay, I'll put a stop to it there. But if you want to send me any follow-up recommendation requests with more specifics about what kind of movies you want to watch I'm always happy to try to give more personalized recommendations as well. Also feel free to let me know if you have any follow-up questions about any of the movies featured here.

#gay movies #gay cinema #long post

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sendme-2hell · 3 years

Text

Rating the Books I read after Gideon the Ninth (in order) by how well they made me forget my Gideon the Ninth angst

I starred the ones that I actually recommend if you want something similar to gtn.

I was bored so I made this. Mostly just so I can look back at this and laugh at myself in a few months and remember what I’ve read.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - -

**Harrow the Ninth -Tamsyn Muir

Summary: A depressed girl has to navigate murder attempts by both the mom and the dad of her dead ex-girlfriend who she can’t remember. She tries to make soup and writes fanfic to cope.

How well it helped me forget: -100/10 but also 10/10

Rating explanation: This one gets a 10/10 because it did make me feel better about a *particular* GTN plotpoint which I was very angsty about, but tragically it did make me more feral. After reading it I reread both books so I don’t think it helped me forget my angst.

Similar themes to GTN: all of it, plus more memes

I Want to Be Where The Normal People Are - Rachel Bloom

Summary: Rachel Bloom who wrote the world’s most relatable song: “You Stupid Bitch,” and starred/created in Crazy Ex Girlfriend, writes about having anxiety, feeling like she’s not normal, and Harry Potter fanfic.

How well it helped me forget: 8/10

Rating explanation: For a few minutes I actually did forget about my griddlehark angst while I learned more about Bloom’s life and laughed at the painful relatability of it all.

Similar themes to TLT: ummm depression, feeling very out of place, memes

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Summary: The book The Handmaiden was based on. A girl is sent to become a Lady’s handmaiden to con her out of some money. She falls in love. Many plot twists.

How well it helped me forget: 5/10

Rating explanation: I was sadly still thinking about TLT the whole time I read this. I liked it but I actually like the Handmaiden better because the women spend more time together. Like in this book, I wish that Harrow and Gideon could spend more time together.

Similar themes: wlw enemies to lovers, at some point you realize the main character’s love interest understands what’s going on way more than the main character

Kindred - Octavia Butler

Summary: Very dark book about slave narratives. I cannot make a joke here, but this book is excellent.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: Again, I can’t make a joke. But Octavia Butler is amazing.

Ash - Malinda Lo

Summary: A wlw retelling of Cinderella with fairies and an emphasis on stories

How well it helped me forget:7/10

Rating explanation: This was really quick and fun and I definitely was rooting for the lesbians. Also it was nice it had a happy ending! If you liked Crier’s War (which I did), this was clearly an influence for Nina Varela.

Similar themes: wlw, the magic one + the fighting one dynamic

Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel

Summary: A deadly pandemic wipes out so many people that the world spins into chaos and no one can figure out how to use electricity apparently? But the book is really about fame and wanting to be remembered. Go figure.

How well it helped me forget: -10/10

Rating explanation: Ok that’s not fair. It helped me forget about Gideon and Harrow but it did NOT help me forget about Corona. It was technically good and a lot of people I respect love it, but either because I was still thinking about TLT or because it was about a pandemic, I couldn’t really enjoy it.

Similar themes: post-apocalyptic

Red, White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston

Summary: The Prince of England and The son of the president of the US are enemies. They are definitely enemies.

How well it helped me forget: 6/10

Rating explanation: This was such a fun read that it almost distracted me! Tragically I was in such TLT headspace that I kept pausing to read fanfics where Gideon and Harrow switch eyes.

Similar themes: Enemies to lovers, queer

Troubling Love - Elena Ferrante

Summary: In true Elena Ferrante fashion, an event spurs an Italian woman to do a lot of internal processing and have some flashbacks.

How well it helped me forget: 7/10

Rating explanation: This book was a bit disturbing so it distracted me in that way. Plus I love Elena Ferrante’s writing so much that it felt like coming home to an old friend. Unfortunately for me, this is Elena Ferrante’s least queer book. I know because I have now read them all. Her most queer book, The Lying Life of Adults, would have distracted me better. Also just using this space to tell anyone who’s still reading this (probably no one) to go read My Brilliant Friend (and the corresponding Neopolitan Novels). They are not similar to TLT except they are vaguely queer and about competitive friendships where the girls are obsessed with each other in maybe an unhealthy way. Ok so a bit similar. Genuinely my favorite books ever.

Similar themes: mommy issues, daddy issues, childhood trauma

On This Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous -Ocean Vuong

Summary: A Vietnamese immigrant reflects on his mother, grandmother, and his own life experience in the US. It is poetic and beautiful and will make you cry.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: This book is beautiful. It really changes how you think about the US. Plus really interesting stuff about the western way of telling stories. Cannot recommend it enough, though very little to do with TLT.

Similar themes: queer, stuff about language, childhood trauma, you will cry

**The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

Summary: OK sorry none of those were good suggestions for what to read after GTN. THIS is what you should read after GTN. It is an incredibly slow burn wlw enemies to lovers. There are dragons, there is magic, there are very cool female characters who I am in love with. This is like Game of Thrones but if it was good, queer, and only one 800 page book.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: Enemies to lovers!!!! What more do I have to say? Also very cool world-building, interesting religious themes.

Similar themes: wlw enemies to lovers, religious themes, magic, very old wizard milfs, also mlm

*The Traitor Baru Cormorant

Summary: Baru is a very smart girl in a colonized island. She decides she will play the game of the colonizers, rise up in their society, and destroy them from within. How is that going, Baru?

How well it helped me forget: 100/10

Rating explanation: This DID make me forget TLT. The only book to truly make me. It made me forget so badly that I wanted my Griddlehark angst BACK. GIVE ME IT BACK I don’t wanna feel sad about Baru anymore. I cannot recommend it more, it is so good, but it did make me ugly cry. It also made me majorly depressed about colonization and the state of the world.

Similar themes: wlw enemies to lovers, ending will make you cry

*The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

Summary: Baru is depressed, has brain damage, throws up a lot, is sad about (redacted), does some things without remembering them because there’s something going on in her brain. Sound familiar? It’s kinda like Harrow the Ninth but more depressing. Oh also a lot of new characters are introduced, old characters come back, a lot of setup for the next book. Euler’s identity shows up out of nowhere?!

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: Again, it made me forget but only because I was so engrossed in this story. Also kinda depressed. This book is kinda depressing. But Baru is very fun to be around, and there are some other great characters. Marry me, Yawa.

Similar themes: again, this is just harrow the ninth on steroids, I am in love with every single woman in this series

*The Tyrant Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

Summary: Baru makes a new bestie, reunites with an old bestie, and discovers a dead bestie in her brain!

How well it helped me forget: 1000/10

Rating explanation: I loved this book. There were a few scenes I reread >four times. This book makes the other books in the series worth it.

Similar themes: please see my venn diagram comparing tlt, baru, and A memory called empire for more information

*The Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo

Summary: A girl has seen ghosts her whole life and because of that, gets accepted at Yale even though she didn’t finish high school. Yale is like a hotspot for ghosts I guess. It’s dark academia, the girl has a secret, the narrator is pretty funny.

How well it helped me forget: 6/10

Rating explanation: I was trying to get distracted from TLT (and Baru at this point), but it’s hard to forget about Harrow and Gideon in a book called The Ninth House (hello?). It was enjoyable and there was some good humor. I’m curious about the next book in the series when it comes out. It is not wlw unless you squint (which I do).

Similar themes: debatably wlw body posession, nine houses, the ninth one being important, nerd boy who reminds me of pal, woman is revealed to be MUCH older than I originally thought, soul eating, revenants, tombs, necromancy, character named Mercy

The Bone Season - Samantha Shannon

Summary: It’s the future and London is a hotspot for clairvoyants. Paige is a woman who has a special gift and can jump into people’s bodies and possess them briefly (among other things, this is a terrible explanation). Because of this, she is sent to a secret part of the city where clairvoyants are trained to be monster fighters (but also like, kept there in captivity against their will). Unlike every other book on this list I honestly wouldn’t recommend. I know there are other books in the series. If you’ve read on and it gets better let me know. (I know no one has gotten this far reading this but still)

How well it helped me forget: 4/10

Rating explanation: This one was disappointing because I loved Priory of the Orange Tree so much. This book did not distract me from my griddlehark or barhu feels. There’s also a character named Warden so I thought about SexPal a lot.

Similar themes: enemies to lovers, ghosts, possession, queer but only background characters

****The Unspoken Name - A.K. Larkwood

Summary: A girl is in an isolated cult that wants her to die as a sacrifice (sound familiar?). A definitely not evil wizard helps her escape. She meets a cute necromancer who’s also kinda from a cult. She goes on some gay adventures, gets the help of a morally grey older necromancer (who I’m in love with), and fights with her frenemy.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: This is the most similar to TLT on this list. Gideon and Csorwe would be friends. Seriously I recommend this! And the second book comes out soon! And it’s not sad like TLT or Baru!

Similar themes: sword lesbian + necromancer dynamic, wlw enemies to lovers, cults, tombs, necromancy, character named “the sleeper”, also mlm

The Invisible Life of Addie Larue - V. E. Schwab

Summary: Adeline Larue made a deal with a demon in 1714 France, because she wanted to see the world and stuff. It backfires of course. She is immortal but no one remembers her. This causes all sorts of problems and makes her very angsty. The narrative flashes between her going through the years, and her falling in love with the only person who will remember her.

How well it helped me forget: 2/10

Rating explanation: I know people loved this book but I did not. I liked the last 50 pages, I’ll give it that. I wish it was more queer (it was a little queer).

Similar themes: as I said, a little wlw, immortality, demons, I guess falling in love with someone and them not remembering you now that I think about it

Sula - Toni Morrison

Summary: A story about two black women in the 1920’s-1960’s in an Ohio town. It is really great and interesting. It is a book about complicated female friendships (among so many other things that better writers not writing a list no one will read about their TLT feels have outlined) which I love. I was told I should read this after the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante and it did not disappoint. Same vibes.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: This was just a great book. Has really nothing to do with TLT

Similar themes: debatably queer

*Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Network Effect, - Martha Wells

Summary: Muderbot is an artificial construct who just wants to be left alone to watch tv, damnit! It doesn’t want to interact with humans, and it definitely does not want to talk about feelings. Too bad some humans want to become friends with it.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: These books were so good. They did help me forget! The books are really about having anxiety, making friends, and letting yourself have feelings. Also they are SO FUNNY. Highly recommend. In the way that I love Gideon’s POV, I love Murderbot’s POV

Similar themes: funny narrator, queer characters, space, people who don’t want to deal with their feelings being forced to deal with their feelings

*A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine

Summary: Mahit is sent a dangerous, evil empire to be an ambassador. Lots of beautiful writing about colonialism, assimilation, language, and culture.There is gay angst and funny characters. I am once again in love with a morally grey older woman character.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: Yes this book is great and did distract me from gtn (mostly. I did end up reading a great fanfic about wake, g1deon, and pyrrah in the middle but otherwise...). It is part of my holy trilogy of wlw books (this, baru, tlt) that I just read recently. The next book comes out on March 2nd so it will be a good distraction from waiting for Alecto. Like Baru, it made me feel like shit about colonialism but unlike the other two books in my trilogy (redacted but if you’ve read those books you know) didn’t happen. It had a not too sad ending.��

Similar themes: see my venn diagram, but seriously what is going on with brain surgery in these books...

*The Luminous Dead - Cailtin Starling 9/10

Summary: A woman needs money and to get the money she goes on a risky cave dive. It turns out the only contact she has with the rest of the world is a woman who’s kinda a dick. It’s 400 pages of creepy cave diving and these two women talking to each other. It’s creepy and uncomfortable and I loved it. I did spend the whole book thinking it would be such a good story podcast.

How well it helped me forget: 10/10

Rating explanation: It did make me forget about tlt! There are some kinda boring parts but it pays off. The relationship between the two main characters is very interesting (though a bit fucked up).

Similar themes: wlw enemies to lovers, traumatised characters, shitty moms

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thedistrictsleepsalonetonight · 3 years

Text

Your mess is mine

Sue may only be a math major, but she knows this much about telling a story: it needs to have a beginning, middle, and an end.

If she were to sit down and write one, here is where it would start — Emily laughs and she falls in love. It doesn’t matter the year, the month, or the minute; when Emily laughs, she falls in love. Sue’s a little slow when these things are concerned, love doesn’t come to her as quickly or as easily as it has historically come to Emily. I saw you in the coffee shop and I knew you were the one, she’s fond of telling Sue, usually during fights. It’s highly annoying that Emily thinks it’d work on her. Even more annoying is the fact that it does.

Alright, does she have moments of intense déjà vu sometimes? Like when they’re lying in bed, after one of Austin’s house parties, and Sue curls up into Emily’s soft shoulders, plays with her pretty, pretty hands? Or when she catches Emily conked out in front of her laptop in a corner table at the café on her break and gently wakes her up? Sure. But isn’t that what love is? The same five gestures repeated in infinite ways, creating a well of infinite affection. So if walking the steps with Emily settles deep into her bones without flinching, as if they’ve done this before, she’s convinced that it’s because they’re well and truly perfect together.

(Definitely not because — and this is something that has been occurring to her more and more lately — they were star-crossed lovers in a past life a century ago.)

(That would be crazy.)

(Right?)

*****

Falling in love aside, Emily can be really, infuriatingly, secretive about the worst of things. Sometimes it is charming, watching her having to pick her way through multiple explanations, create long-winded detours just to attempt to confuse Sue into getting exasperated enough to drop the subject altogether. But that’s at the very end, when it turns out that she was going to all this trouble to make sure Sue wasn’t going to find out she’d gotten her that one Hawaiian shirt Sue had off-handedly admired once, aeons ago. Or that she’s been holed up in their room all day because she’s been setting up lights in honor of it being exactly six months since they first hugged. Which is why she is more resigned that surprised when Lavinia sits down in front of her, leans in, and asks her what she’s doing for Emily’s birthday next week.

Sue sneaks a look at Emily who is currently chatting with an old lady who usually comes in on the weekends. Her girlfriend happens to be one of those baristas who is beloved by the elderly, God only knows why. All the older ladies will hang back at the counter and tell her all about their grandkids’ schools and ballet recitals. In return, Emily will rant to them about college and apparently, Sue as well, which was something she discovered one day when she walked in and two old ladies gave her teasing yet approving smiles from their table.

(And then took her aside to whisper — Showing a little skin wouldn’t do any harm and would keep your girl on her toes — which near about killed her)

The entire situation is hilarious. Also the most adorable thing she has ever seen.

“Why haven’t you guys discussed your birthdays yet?”

“It’s just never,” Sue muses, “come up, I guess.”

Austin rollerblades past, swivels to a stop and bends so he’s approximately level with their faces. “Are we talking about,” he says, lowering his voice to a comical whisper, “Emily’s birthday?”

Lavinia pulls him down, so he’s sitting on the spare chair. “And Sue’s, apparently. Did you know her birthday falls, like, nine days after Emily’s?”

Austin stares at her, wide-eyed. “That means it’s on the.... 19th?

Sue nods.

“The 19th of December? After Emily’s birthday, on the 10th of December?”

“Y....es?”

He swipes at his phone, taps a couple of buttons, and then looks up with a smug smile. “I knew I remembered something. Look.”

Lavinia has to angle her whole body to see, but it registers for both of them at the same time. A certain poet and her muse, who also apparently shared the same birthday as her and Emily.

“Huh,” Lavinia says. “Maybe there is something to Emily’s theory after all.”

“You mean Emily’s theory that we’re the reincarnations of those two?” she asks, hearing her own voice get progressively more hysterical by the word. She clears her throat, takes a deep breath, adds it to the list of rapidly growing coincidences in her head that she’s never going to give a closer look to, because that would be crazy.

“Really the only part of this I’m genuinely shocked by,” Lavinia says after a long pause, in which Sue is struggling to reason with the logical part of her brain, “is that Austin remembers Emily Dickinson’s birthday.”

Austin smiles proudly, and the thought is so funny that it drives potential insanity out of her mind eventually.

*****

“Why didn’t you tell me your birthday’s tomorrow?”

Emily startles from where she’s staring out the window of the car, and Sue has about a moment to regret blurting it out before they’re looking at each other. She’d spent the entire week setting up the entire thing for Emily and now it probably won’t even be a surprise, but she’s insanely curious. No better time for it, either way. She’d planned everything perfectly, from picking up Emily at the café in the classy car she’d borrowed from Austin, to making sure it wasn’t too late after dinner. And yet, here they were, surrounded by cars and honking people because traffic was a fickle bitch.

“Is that why we’re taking this trip?” she asks, wide-eyed.

Sue extends a hand towards her, ruffles up her hair, feeling fond. Trust her idiot girlfriend to not have figured it out yet. She moves her hand to Emily’s cheek, and feels Emily cover it with her own. Feels a soft kiss pressed against her palm.

“What did you think it was, dumdum?”

“Well, it is the three month anniversary of—” Sue’s alarm is probably showing on her face, so she backtracks quickly. “Kidding. Kidding. There’s nothing tomorrow.”

Sue pinches at her cheek. “Except your birthday. Speaking of which—”

“Eh,” Emily shakes her head, shuffles around on her seat awkwardly, “it’s.... uh, complicated.”

“Is the complication that you happen to share a birthday with a poet from long ago?” she’s only half-joking.

Emily laughs at that. “Caught on, did you? Did you also check—”

“E-yup.”

“That your birthday is also—”

“E-yup,” she says. Then turns to look at Emily. “Wait. How do you know when my birthday is?”

Emily opens her mouth, but before she can say anything Sue hurriedly cuts in. “And you’re not allowed to say you have your ways.”

Years ago, when Sue was fourteen, one day her dad and her mom came home with the same vegetable. Same quantity. It was beans, and she could vividly remember all three of them staring down in mock dismay at the two separate huge bundles of beans that now took up most of the space on the table. Then they started comparing prices. Turns out her mother’s bundle had cost a couple cents lesser than her father’s. But it’s not the same , her mother had insisted, holding up both the bundles. See, yours weighs more. I think the grocer I bought it from took some off .

To this day, she defines love as the way her mother’s hand fell over his, combined with the way her dad looked at her next — like a child who had just been told that the blanket fort he’d spent hours constructing, wasn’t going to be torn down. Like someone had just handed a piece of the world to him, and told him to make of it whatever he wanted.

Sue recognizes it in the way Emily looks at her. Like she’s saying — Of course. Of course, you know me well enough to guess the next stupid thing that comes out of her mouth.

(She’s not very good at love, but she hopes Emily can read the answer in her eyes just the same)

“Birthdays are complicated,” Emily says, slowly. “I’ve had some very good ones and then some very bad ones.” First girlfriend who she asked out on her 20th birthday, and second girlfriend who she broke up with a week before her 23rd; Sue fills in the blanks as she talks. “So I guess I try not to tell people so I myself don’t expect anything out of it. Neutral birthdays are better than euphoric ones or sad ones, because at least they don’t haunt me forever.”

“Baby,” she says, and then trails off. Sometimes she likes calling Emily endearments, or just say her name out loud, randomly, even if there’s no statement attached to it. The sentiment’s always the same, however. I’m glad you exist. I’m glad you found me. I like your name. I love you.

(Emily’s fallen asleep by the time she’s driven to the top of the grassy knoll, by the time the clock hits midnight. Sue lets her sleep through it. There will be time to sit on top of the blanket and watch a sleepy Emily blow out the candles on a tiny cake that looks like a typewriter, to stare at the stars all night long while they listen to soft, slow songs on a pair of shared earphones. For now, Sue watches Emily sleep, head tilted against the glass and decides to hold off on telling her she loves her until the day after her birthday. It’s a perfectly neutral birthday. No use in spoiling it.)

(Emily says it back though, in case anyone was wondering)

*****

Sometimes, when Sue sees Emily cooking for her, she loses her breath.

(And sometimes, it’s not even due to the smoke from a burned dish)

But there’s something peaceful about watching Emily cook, especially if she hasn’t yet cottoned onto the fact that Sue’s watching her. She’s one of those annoying people who always has their headphones on, so most of her cooking in the kitchen involves perfectly timing the beats with the swipes of her spatula. Sometimes she spins around in the middle of a pancake flip to see if she can catch it in midair. Juvenile shenanigans aside, what really gets Sue, even after almost a year of having watched Emily dance around in the kitchen is the care with which she handles food that they will eat. It’s so different to the kind of food she cooks when she’s just cooking for herself. Sue’s seen her slap on two days expired cheese on top of a tortilla and call it lunch. And yet.

And yet. Sue will have the best of things. Lasagna that’s still steaming. A sandwich filled with the most delicious ingredients. Waffles topped with cream that Emily will get up early in the morning to get for her. Food enhanced with care, made better with love.

Why don’t you make those nice things for yourself, she’s asked on multiple occasions, to which Emily’s always shrugged. It’s just me. I can have almost anything.

(Emily deserves the best. Sue will make sure she has it)

There are flowers on the table, an assortment of daffodils and lilies arranged on a vase. Right in between two shiny plates laid out with napkins folded carefully beside them. Sue slides into one of the chairs quietly, rests her elbows on the table and waits for Emily to finally turn around.

There is a panicked scream when she does. Sue doesn’t want to be that girlfriend, but this is definitely going on the list of stories she’ll tell their future kids when they’ve grown.

(Another day she would worry about how the term — Their kids — moves around in her chest comfortably like a sip of hot cocoa. Today, exactly one year to the day Emily told her she liked her, she shrugs it off)

“You weren’t supposed to wake up for another half an hour at least.”

Sue hums. “You did tire me out last night, that is true.”

“Sue!” Emily says, scandalized, face rapidly turning red. “I — that’s highly — okay wait, first things first....”

She walks over to the table, and bends to kiss Sue.

“Happy anniversary.”

Sue closes her eyes, kisses both her cheeks in response. “Happy anniversary, my love.”

Emily grins back, then stands again. “Either way,” she says, as she ladles soup onto a bowl, and gathers multiple plates on a tray to subsequently bring to the table, “brunch! Courtesy of your beautiful girlfriend who finally managed to figure out how to make the perfect chicken pot pie without burning down the house, or worse, giving you salmonella.”

Sue inspects what lies in front of her. “Babe, this looks amazing.”

Emily looks proud, as she sits on the other chair. “And that’s not all, okay? This is just the start. Today evening I have gotten us both tickets to—”

“Move in with me.”

When Emily blinks, Sue startles. The words that had just come out of her mouth definitely weren’t well-thought-out, but now she was thinking about it and it seemed like all she ever wanted in life. To go to sleep with Emily, and wake her up in time for her morning classes, to be able to see her all the time, and not have to watch her go.

“That wasn’t my gift, by the way,” she adds, speaking fast, thinking of the limited-edition original copies of a book she’d driven five hours to the next town to get. “But it’s what I want. Us. Living together. I love you. We should.... uh, live together so — uh, okay Emily make me stop talking please.”

Emily shuts her up with a kiss. When they separate, she stays close to Sue, looking right into her eyes with that soft, soft expression.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Sue takes in a deep breath. Nods. “Yeah.”

Emily considers that for a moment. Then says with a teasing smile — “I thought this violated your relationship rules.”

“What ae you—”

“No kissing before the second date. No celebrating six-month anniversaries because that’s for dummies. No moving in before at least two years of dating—”

“And if you remember correctly,” Sue cuts in, smoothly, “I kissed you two days before our first date. And serenaded you with a Taylor Swift song at the café on our six-month anniversary.”

“You did do that,” Emily says, quietly.

“And as long as we’re on the subject, I hate staying up past 11, or listening to sad girl music in the car, or watching that horrendous show about those two annoying men fake-dating,” Sue tells her, “but — it is my greatest honor that I get to do that for you. And with you. Emily, if you haven’t figured it out already, you’re kinda the exception to every single one of my rules.”

Sue reads Emily’s answer in the kiss she receives next.

*****

The middle, the middle, everything boils down to the middle. It’s what Sue sometimes hears Emily muttering to herself in the middle of the night when she has an assignment due the next day. Sue will blink, look over to the desk where Emily is planted with her nightlight on, hands in her hair. Sometimes Sue will keep blinking slowly, taking in the sight of Emily typing until she falls asleep. Sometimes Emily will notice that she’s up, walk over to the bed, and hum snippets of songs until she’s drifting off again.

And for all the beauty of the beginning, of first kisses and first dates and first times, there’s something to be said about the fifteenth time Emily plays her something on the ukulele, warning her beforehand that her voice might crack. Or the sixtieth burger she runs across the campus to hand over to Emily when she knows she’s got back-to-back classes scheduled. About the hundredth time she falls into bed, and scooches over, eyes closed, until Emily’s wriggling body is aligned against hers. There’s peace in knowing that a first time will inevitably lead to a second time, and then countless others.

(There’s peace in knowing the middle lasts the longest)

*****

She knows she’s in trouble. Has known she’s in trouble the minute she came out of the store and discovered that there was a pileup on the highway. And then when Lavinia called her panicking because their house-warming slash house party was getting out of control because of a lack of beer and a general overabundance of Austin. And then when her phone died in the middle of her conversation with Emily.

(So much trouble)

She’s exhausted by the time she makes it back to her apartment (their apartment , she corrects herself, smiling at the thought) and makes her way up the stairs, hearing the volume of the music increase with every step. Opens the door and is assailed with extremes — the tiny sparkling mirror ball someone’s managed to hook up to the ceiling, the dancing crowd in their living room, and a very loud and weirdly on-point Austin making guitar noises on the karaoke microphone.

“Lavinia!” Sue calls out in relief, when she catches sight of her. “Where’s Emily?”

Lavinia excuses herself from a group of frat boys hanging onto her every word and walks over. “Sue! Emily!”

“Yeah, I know! Tell me where she is!”

Sue points towards the ceiling, and in the same smooth motion, grabs the crate of beer from her hands.

Sue’s out of there before the first cry of “Beer” permeates the air. She climbs another two floors, and then the metallic ladder to find Emily sitting there, wrapped in her blanket, glaring up at her.

“You promised,” she says, flatly.

Sue drops onto her knees and takes Emily’s cold hands in hers. “I know.”

“No, you,” Emily repeats, then pauses, looking like she’s struggling, “you promised you were gonna be here, okay? I agreed to the housewarming thing only because you told me there wouldn’t be many people and you’d stay with me the whole time—”

“—baby....”

“No, don’t baby me. Let me finish.” Emily waits until Sue nods. “And then you went off to the store.”

“We ran out of beer,” Sue says, feeling sheepish.

“I know — I know that, okay?” Emily says. “I know there’s a reason, and probably a valid one but I’m mad, okay? You promised me something and then bailed. That’s not cool.”

Sue adjusts so she’s properly sitting down right in front of Emily. “I’m sorry,” she says, and means it. “It was inexcusable.”

Emily sighs, and seems to relax a little. “Okay. Thank you for saying that.”

Sue nods. “Some party, huh?” she says, after a while.

Emily smiles a little, then. “Did you see Austin? He was performing the High School Musical songs when I left.”

She laughs. “When I came in, I think he was doing the guitar riff to Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“Hey,” Emily says, after they’re done giggling at that. “I never asked. What took you so long? I thought you just went to get beer.”

“Uh,” Sue says, “I’d rather not tell you.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I don’t wanna charm my way out of you being mad at me.”

“Oh,” Emily draws the sound out, teasingly. “It can’t possibly be that charming.”

If she wanted to play it this way, then okay.

“I stopped at an animal shelter on the way home. There’s a young cat there I thought we could adopt. Consider her a housewarming present.”

“Oh,” Emily says, then in an undertone. “Damn it.”

“Charmed?”

“Ugh, fuck, okay,” Emily admits, then pulls at their joined hands till Sue gets on top of her lap. “I hate you. I love you, but I hate you.”

Sue kisses her in return, settles in more comfortably.

“Tell me about her?” Emily asks, softly, in the quiet.

“Well, she chased the light reflected off my watch round and round so it’s safe to say she’s not the brightest.”

“I love her already,” Emily assures her.

*****

On her eve of her 25th birthday, Sue walks into her apartment and finds Emily, Lavinia and Austin panicking over how to fit the last half of her last name onto limited space on a handmade banner. She says hi to Juggers and Iguana, their two cats, then picks up their two-month-old puppy Rooney, all before one of the three already present humans in the room realizes she’s there.

“Sue, I’m so sorry,” Emily says, walking over to her and looking at her with a slightly desperate look in her eyes. “We tried baking cake, but it’s half burnt, but we can’t decide what to get and all we have are balloons but then Austin’s going crazy trying to keep Juggers from bursting them, because guess what? The cat is the devil—”

“—babe—”

“—no, I tried to make it a good birthday, I really did!”

She puts her hands on either side of Emily’s face, which forces her to quiet down. Then she looks over at the others.

“Have you guys been here the entire time I was taking classes?”

They nod.

She feels a little overwhelmed. “Guys, I — thank you so much,” she says, then takes stock of the situation. “Can you order pizza? We’ll ring in my birthday with pizza tonight.”

Lavinia side-hugs her on their way out to the couch, and then they’re alone in the kitchen. She kisses Emily on the forehead, then on both cheeks, trying to drive away the frown.

“What?”

“I just wanted you to have a good birthday,” Emily says, despondent.

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Sue says. “And so are our friends, who sat and worked this hard for hours trying to make me happy. And we’ll have pizza! We like pizza.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, you idiot” Sue explains, fondly. “I mean it. We’ll have burned cake, and we’ll fight over the pizza, and even if the animals are outnumbered, we’ll probably lose to them. And then we’ll probably watch a movie, and somehow all fall asleep on the carpet because Austin always claims the whole couch. Either way, it’ll be a good birthday, because I’m happy. And you know why I’m happy?”

Emily’s still pouting.

“Emily, why am I happy?”

“Because we’re together,” Emily completes, in a small voice, and then finally, finally smiles.

(It’s the messiest birthday Sue has ever had. Also the best)

*****

Here’s the thing about endings: everyone who writes stories knows they don’t really exist.

A famous author once said that they weren’t really the end of the story, just where you chose to stop it. Well, Sue agrees. Which is why this story in her head never ends. The imaginary typewriter in her head will keep typing long after, filling pages with anniversaries and birthdays and emergency dog adoptions. Maybe the next page talks about the day Sue breaks her arm, and Emily proposes to her with an onion ring she gets out of the hospital vending machine. Or the day Lavinia loses Rooney, walks around the entire block with Austin to find him and finally discovers he’s hanging out at the old café they used to work at.

So. Yes. This is where she decides to leave it. Finish it. There will be more stories to write later.

The end.

(Wink wink. Nudge nudge.)

#dickinson #emisue #fanfiction #emily dickinson #dickinson fanfiction #alright - so this is a modern emisue domestic fic about them being happy and in love or whatever bullshit people in love do #and technically it's a sequel to my first dickinson fic - although i don't thikn it's necessary to read that first to understand this #i've been working on this a while - so i hope you guys like it #also i made anohter playlist to vibe - think i'll put it in a reblog just in case anyone wants to check that out #and yeah #that's it i guess #happy reading!

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haltandcatchfiretothemax · 3 years

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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2021 #14: in which Cameron and Joanie have some brunch

[CN: descriptions of food/prep]

When Joanie came home in April of 1998 for her annual spring trip back to the states, Cameron had just begun her ’sabbatical.’ For much of that year, Cameron was focused on finally, fully settling in at Donna’s house (along with Licorice, who was now almost a year old) and on resting before starting work on a new game, and had taken a sudden interest in homemaking, the histories of domestic and agricultural labor, and most shockingly to Joanie, getting up in the actual morning, and at the same time every day.

Once content to practically live in her pajamas when she wasn’t going anywhere, Cameron now got up at 9:30 on most weekdays, went downstairs and put on some coffee, made sure that the cat’s water and dry food bowls were full, and then went out to check on the garden and enjoy a few minutes of sunlight. After cereal and coffee, she would go back upstairs to do some morning journaling, which she’d been inspired to try after Donna added some collections by Mary Oliver and Emily Dickinson to their home library. Cameron didn’t think of herself as a very eloquent or even fluid writer, but she still hunkered down in the bedroom arm chair by the window and happily scribbled down notes on how she’d slept and if she’d any dreams, her plants and her on-going kitchen projects, recipes and restaurants she and Donna had tried, movies, tv shows, books, and articles she’d been looking at, Licorice’s favorite toys and treats, and conversations that she’d had with her growing circle of internet friends. And then she would shower, get dressed, and go back downstairs. Most mornings, Cameron was doing chores and searching for home and kitchen improvement projects she could do by 10:15.

Joanie, who had only witnessed any of this because she was jetlagged for the first few days she was back in California, had gone back to staying up till 3 am and sleeping until noon as soon as she was physically able to do so. When she did finally make it downstairs, Cameron was in the kitchen, radio on, her books and notepads and mugs cluttering the island. Joanie would pour herself a large bowl of whatever cereal Cameron had purchased that week, and enjoy it in front of the tv, leaving Cameron to do her work. It was lonely, and it felt a little like being with a stranger, now that Cameron was her mother’s live-in girlfriend, and Joanie was something of a prodigal daughter, and an expatriate.

Ten days into her visit, Joanie came downstairs and found Cameron sitting at the island with some coffee. There were no books, just a large bowl of freshly rinsed grapes, and a basket of towels that were still warm from the dryer. “Want some brunch?” Cameron offered.

“Sure,” Joanie said. “I mean, yes. That would be nice.”

Cameron smiled, got up, and went around the island, into the kitchen, and to the refrigerator. Joanie sat down, and Licorice, seemingly able to sense that food was about to be prepared, trotted over from the big window that looked out on the pool, and sprang up on to the stool next to Joanie’s. She sat up on her hind legs, and looked expectantly into the kitchen.

Joanie leaned over to her. “Come here often?” When Licorice didn’t respond, Joanie nodded, “You’re right, that’s a terrible and cliché line.”

Cameron set a mug of coffee and carton of creamer in front of Joanie, and pushed the bowl of grapes toward her, and then went back to the stove, where her favorite frying pan was warming up.

“So my mom has like, fully domesticated you, huh?” Joanie said, reaching for the mug and the creamer.

Cameron, who was beating their eggs, shrugged gently. “It’s nice to have a home after living out of a duffel bag for your entire adult life. It seems silly, at first, but then, you realize that it isn’t.” Setting down the bowl, Cameron said, “Tell you what: in a few years when you find something more permanent, after a few more years of bouncing back and forth between cities and hostels and capsule hotels, I’ll ask you how you feel about it?”

Sipping her coffee, Joanie agreed, “Deal.” She put down her mug, and timidly, asked Cameron, “Do you ever wonder what Tori Lowman might say if she could see you playing house for real, with my mom?”

Cameron shook her head as she whisked the eggs into her now warm pan. “You’re really never gonna let me live that down, are you?”

The warmth in Cameron’s voice reminded Joanie that she was home, even if Northern California wasn’t her home anymore. “Back in Dallas,” Joanie started, “my only real friend was this girl named Heather. I think that maybe she was my Tori Loman.”

The eggs were just starting to set, so Cameron turned down the heat, and used her favorite spatula to pull the egg mixture in, toward the center of the pan. Over her shoulder, she said, “…oh?”

Joanie sighed quietly, relieved by this endearingly momish response. “She was the only person at school that I really liked. She had long black hair, and she was a little taller than I was, and she was broader than I was too. We used to go down to this creek and ride our bikes after school. And I just, I wanted to do that every day. Like, for the rest of time.”

Cameron grinned as she laid some strips of bacon in the pan. “That sounds about right.”

“She used to take these dance classes,” Joanie continued. “I kind of hated dancing, but I wanted to sign up for her classes, until I realized that they were like, these special Native American dance classes? Her family was Apache, and they used to go to these special dance competitions and tribal events on the weekends. I wanted to go to one of them. I think if I’d asked my mom, she probably would have tried to work something out. But I never did, I was too scared?”

Still listening, and now thinking, Cameron pulled two plates out of the dishwasher. She spooned the eggs and bacon onto their plates, and then reached for the english muffin halves she’d toasted, and placed them carefully on the side. She picked up the plates, turned back to Joanie, and placed them down on the island. She rested her hands on the island, and then, shrewdly, said, “You were afraid that you’d have fun, and that your crush on her would get worse. Or harder to ignore?”

Joanie couldn’t believe what a relief it was to hear someone else say it, get it.

Licorice, front paws on the counter, strained to get nearer to the plates. “No, you already ate,” Cameron said. She grabbed a grape from the bowl and rolled it toward Licorice, who was transfixed. She batted it off the table, and jumped down to the floor to play with it. Crisis averted, Cameron grabbed some forks from the drawer, and then went around the island, handed Joanie a fork, and sat down next to her, taking Licorice’s seat.

Joanie picked up half of her english muffin and took a large bite out of it. She chewed thoughtfully, and then picked up her fork. She swallowed, and then said, “Heather seemed all well-behaved and agreeable, but she wasn’t really. She had a bb gun, and she would practice shooting at guns and bottles, and she wanted to learn archery, and how to throw knives. She liked Heart and Led Zeppelin, they were her dad and her mom’s favorite bands. She had older brothers, and she knew all these dirty jokes because of them and she would tell them and I would always laugh at them even though we didn’t really know what they meant? She also liked to steal her brothers’ clothes and wear them when we rode bikes. And she would make me race her even when I said I didn’t feel like it, and she would chase bullies, and she would be mean to them. Like, really mean. And she would curse them, like she would say she was putting an ‘Indian curse’ on them.” She paused to eat some of her food, which must have been getting cold, and then finally, she said, “I wish I’d tried to talk to her after we moved to California. I figured we’d never talk again, and I thought that maybe that would be better. I should’ve at least tried to be her pen pal though, or something.”

Cameron, who had finished most of her brunch while listening to Joanie, picked up her mug and drank some of her coffee. And then, she said, “Tori Loman had curly, frizzy black hair that she would say she didn’t like, but I never thought there was anything wrong with it. I liked it. She liked arts and crafts and coloring and making snacks with her mom. Her favorite snack was hot chocolate and cinnamon sugar toast. I wish I could be pen pals or something with her, too,” she said, before taking another sip of her coffee.

Joanie ate the last of her eggs and bacon, and then she said, “When I first moved to Thailand, I met this girl named Sawyer, at the hostel. But I didn’t see her for a while, so we didn’t get a chance to really talk, but then one day I went out with this guy I had met, an Italian, from Florence, who turned out to be pushy and annoying and he followed me to my room and he kept trying to get me to invite him into my room even though I told him I was ready to go to bed, and Sawyer came out into the hallway and started, like, hassling him? Mostly in English but then she was shouting him down in Italian? And she finally got him to leave, and then we started talking. I asked her if she spoke Italian and she said no, but that ‘You’re bothering her, leave her alone’ is one of the first things she learns how to say whenever she goes anywhere, and that she knows how to say it in like, eight different languages?” Smiling broadly, Joanie finished, “And that was kind of just that. We’ve been partners in crime ever since. She was always going on day trips and weekend trips to different cities and islands outside of Bangkok, and she would invite me every time, and I would go with her as often as I could. We would try to rent bikes wherever we went, when we could. And after a while it felt like, I could do that for the rest of time. With her.”

Cameron leaned back in her chair. “In romcoms, they call that a ‘meet cute’.”

Joanie blushed. “Since when do you watch romcoms?”

“I don’t! But that’s what I’ve heard, I saw something about it on an internet message board,” Cameron said quickly. She picked up her plate, and then took Joanie’s, and walked them over to the kitchen counter near the dishwasher. She grabbed the coffee pot, and returned to her mug to refill it. “So is Sawyer…does she have a Tori Loman in her past, somewhere?”

Joanie pushed her mug toward Cameron’s, and as she added the rest of the coffee to it, Joanie said, “If I understand correctly, she has a few Tori Lomans.”

“Ah. I see,” Cameron said. She returned the pot to the coffee maker, and then went back to her seat.

Staring down into her coffee, Joanie said, “I miss her. I’m glad I’m here. Like, really glad I’m here. Not everyone I’ve met has a home to go back to, you know? I wish that she could be here, though. I wish you and mom could meet her.”

Cameron cackled. “Your mother would lose her mind if you brought someone, anyone home for her to meet, Jesus. It’d be like the holidays, when she gets that vibe like she’s planning some kind of tactical land invasion, it would be peak Donna Emerson.” Tapping her mug excitedly with a nail, Cameron grinned, “It will drive me nuts. I can’t wait.”

Slouching in her seat, Joanie sighed, “I feel like you’ll probably be waiting for a while. I feel like she would like to, but I can’t imagine it working out.” Joanie started to fiddle idly with her hair, wrapping the ends of it around her finger, and unwinding it. “Our lives are just like, so far removed from everything here? Which, that’s kind of the point, it’s okay. But she’s like, really different, about home. Or ‘home,’ or whatever,” she said, making air quotes with her fingers. “I’m waiting to go home, but like, in a good way, if that makes sense? I’m know I’m not supposed to yet, but I look for signs, and I know it will happen eventually. I’ll figure out what I’m supposed to do, and someday I’ll figure out how to do that here. But I don’t think Sawyer thinks that way, she’s always looking for the next adventure. Which is why I love her. But I don’t think she’ll see coming here as an adventure.”

Gently, Cameron said, “Joanie….” She kicked the foot of her stool playfully. “When I was living in Japan, do you ever think I felt like I’d wind up here? With you mom?”

“Probably not, I guess,” Joanie said, smiling tentatively.

“We dwell in possibility,” Cameron said, getting up and out of her seat again as she paraphrased Emily Dickinson. “Come on, let’s go find something fun to do,” she grabbed her mug.”You can tell me more about Sawyer, which I can use to make fun of you whenever you bring up Tori Loman.”

Joanie thought about arguing, but then she got up, grabbed her coffee, and followed Cameron.

#cameron 'world's best stepdad' howe #there is one (1) photo of kathryn newton and maya hawke aka robin 'these ladies are so very hot' buckley #and this was my response to it #no ragerts!#happy saturday bbys!#femslash february #femslash february 2021 #fan fiction #cameron howe #joanie clark #your semi regular reminder that joanie clark is not and has never been h*terosexual!

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sassyeclipselandfreak · 3 years

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NAME: Rusty lim macabanti.

First Poem:

POEMS OF RIZAL

Sa Aking Mga Kabata

“To my fellow children”

a poem about the love of one's native language written in Tagalog.

Jose Rizal wrote it in 1869 at the age of eight.

The poem was widely taught in Philippine schools to point out Rizal's precociousness and early development of his nationalistic ideals.

Mi Primera Inspiracion

“My first inspiration”

first poem written by Dr. Jose Rizal during his third academic year in Ateneo de Municipal.

He wrote the poem in 1874, before he turned 14.

He was delighted to see his mother, Doña Teodora Alonso, released from prison that same year so he dedicated the poem to her.

He also dedicated this poem to his mother’s birthday.

Por la Educación Recibe Lustre la Patria

“Through Education Our Motherland Receives Light”

Rizal wrote this poem in the year 1876 at the age of fifteen.

It was written in Ateneo de Municipal in Manila.

The poem was written during the Spanish Government.

Alianza Íntima Entre La Religión Y La Buena Educación

“The Intimate Alliance Between Religion and Good Education”

Poem he wrote to show the important relationship between religion and education.

During the summer of April 1876, before entering his fifth year in Ateneo Municipal in June, Jose Rizal previous to turning fifteen wrote this poem along with Por La Educación Recibe Lustre La Patria.

Religious Poems

Al Nino Jesus

“To the Child Jesus”

written in Spanish by Jose Rizal in 1875 at the age of 14 during his stay Ateneo De Municipal.

After his mother’s imprisonment, he wrote many poems, mostly inspired by his friend and professor: Father Sanchez.

Among the poems he wrote, in 1875 were

the ff:

Felicitación (Felicitación)

El Embarque Himno a la Flota de Magallanes (The Departure: Hymn to Magellan’s Fleet)

Y Es Español: Elcano, el Primero en dar la Vuelta al Mundo (And He Is Spanish Elcano, the First to Circumnavigate the World)

El Combate: Urbiztondo, Terror de Jolo (The Battle: Urbiztondo, Terror of Jolo)

In 1876, he wrote other poems on various topics. Among these are:

Un Recuerdo a Mi Pueblo

“In Memory of My Town”

Which was also another tender poem about the town where he was born.

Un Recuerdo A Mi Pueblo

“In Memory of My Town”

Rizal wrote it in 1876 when he was 15 years old while a student in the Ateneo de Manila.

This poem is about the Calamba, the place where he was born, which he loved very dearly.

The following year of 1877 also showed a lot of poetry that were written by him:

El Heroísmo de Colon

“The Heroism of Columbus”

This poem praises Columbus for his adventurous spirit and his success as an explorer.

2 Reasons why famous poem of Rizal, “To The Filipino Youth” was described as “winning classic in Philippine Literature”

It was the first Spanish poem written by a Filipino, which gained recognition among known Spanish authors,

It contained for the first time, the nationalistic sentiment insinuating that the Filipinos.

2nd Poem:

Shakespeare's Sonnets

154 of Shakespeare's sonnets are included in the volume Shakespeare’s Sonnets, published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. They are followed by the long poem 'A Lover's Complaint', which first appeared in that same volume after the sonnets. Six additional sonnets appear in his plays Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Love's Labour's Lost.

Shakespeare's sonnets generally focus on the themes of love and life. The first 126 are directed to a young man whom the speaker urges to marry, but this man then becomes the object of the speaker's desire. The last 28 sonnets are addressed to an older woman, the so-called 'dark lady', who causes both desire and loathing in the speaker. However, several of the sonnets, if taken individually, may appear gender-neutral, as in the well-known 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' from Sonnet 18. The linear, sequential reading of the poems is also debatable, since it is unclear if Shakespeare intended for theWhile he may have experimented with the form earlier, Shakespeare most likely began writing sonnets seriously around 1592. What is now known as the Shakespearian sonnet is the English sonnet form Shakespeare popularised: fourteen lines of iambic pentameter (a ten-syllable pattern of alternating unaccented and accented syllables). The rhyme scheme breaks the poem into three quatrains (four lines each) and a couplet (two lines).

Shakespeare changed the world of poetry not only with his prolific use of this new form, but also in deviating from what was standard content. Instead of romantic fiction, written to an unattainable ideal woman, Shakespeare writes to a young man and a dark woman, who may or may not be attainable.

3rd Poem:

Three Poems from the Philippines

If only words dilute sediments at the bottom of my gut; if only a tongue can let this pain hydroplane into a song.

If only I did not get up from the soft eggshell mattress of my old bed; if only I played the lazy student card and stayed behind.

If only they warned us; if only I/they listened.

If only those raindrops were not as fat as freshly fed eels; if only I camped out in school and waited for hot bread.

If only I did not swim in dark floodwaters; if only I did not stare at the flashing blue traffic lights that screamed end of the world.

If only they did not shout, “repent, repent, repent!” while navigating atop broken.

If only no one died; if only everyone died.

We/you were never the same after the flood; somehow you came out of that dirty dark floodwater with your tummy swelling with survival and your heart still paddling its tiny arms to safety.

Maybe you like staying there; maybe you like that dank bile.

Maybe there’s never been a way out of the flood; maybe you do not see a way out of the flood.

Maybe this is where you want to be; if this is where I want to stay.

4th Poem:

Oh, for a nook and a storybook. With tales both new and old. For a jolly good book whereon to look. Is better to me than gold.”— Old English Song.

April is National Poetry Month. In honor and celebration of the largest literary celebration in the world, I’ve compiled a list of 26 of our favorite poems about books, of course books. These inspiring poems will take you into the fascinating world of books, only to have you return with a book or two inside you. They are simple, short, and fun for readers of all ages. All you have to do is dive through the pages. If, even still, you’re unsure of what’s in store; rest assured, they’ll leave you yearning for more. Take a look!

I Opened a Book

By Julia Donaldson

I opened a book and in I strode.

Now nobody can find me.

I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,

My town and my world behind me.

I’m wearing the cloak, I’ve slipped on the ring,

I’ve swallowed the magic potion.

I’ve fought with a dragon, dined with a king

And dived in a bottomless ocean.

I opened a book and made some friends.

I shared their tears and laughter

And followed their road with its bumps and bends

To the happily ever after.

I finished my book and out I came.

The cloak can no longer hide me.

My chair and my house are just the same,

But I have a book inside me.

There is no Frigate like a Book

By Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry.

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll;

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul!

Read to Me

By Jane Yolen

Read to me riddles and read to me rhymes

Read to me stories of magical times

Read to me tales about castles and kings

Read to me stories of fabulous things

Read to me pirates and read to me knights

Read to me dragons and dragon-book fights

Read to me spaceships and cowboys and then

When you are finished- please read them again.

5th Poem:

God has a story He wants to tell you. It’s a love story. And it involves you!

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hafwen · 2 years

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Every time my husband helps me down the stairs he catches his foot/sock on a nail that’s coming up and we finally fixed it

#adhd Is knowing there is a nail you need to hammer down but always forget about it until you step on it #by we I mean I remembered and he did it #yes it has been over 2 years since we realized #personal #adhd #married to my husband #my house is older than emily dickinson

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shanastoryteller · 5 years

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Saw your post mentioning reading your favorite poems and I was wondering what they were? I've never really liked poems but I really liked that one by Emily Dickson you put in the front of that teen wolf fic so you probably have really good taste in poems, and I've been trying to find some to like.

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I’ve shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI’ll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,sunk in a lake. Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.

Because I could not stop for Death (479)

Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no hasteAnd I had put awayMy labor and my leisure too,For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children stroveAt Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us – The Dews drew quivering and chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemedA Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yetFeels shorter than the DayI first surmised the Horses’ HeadsWere toward Eternity –

this one is an old nursery rhyme:

One bright day in the middle of the night, Two dead boys got up to fight. They turned their backs and faced each other, Drew their swords and shot the other. One was blind and the other couldn’t see, So they chose a fool for their referee. A mute eyewitness screamed with fright.A cripple danced to see the sight. A deaf policeman heard the noise.He came and shot the two dead boys.A paralyzed donkey passing by,Kicked the copper in the eye, And knocked him through a rubber wall, Into a ditch and drowned them all.If you don’t believe this lie is true,Ask the blind man. He saw it too.

She swearsshe will nevergive birthto a daughter.Won’t evenplant a garden.— Adira Bennett

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

My mouth is a fire escape.The words coming outdon’t care that they are naked.There is something burning in here.

— Andrea Gibson

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

By Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weepI am not there; I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow,I am the diamond glints on snow,I am the sun on ripened grain,I am the gentle autumn rain.When you awaken in the morning’s hushI am the swift uplifting rushOf quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die.

Never regret thy fall,O Icarus of the fearless flightFor the greatest tragedy of them allIs never to feel the burning light

— Oscar Wilde

Annabel Lee BY EDGAR ALLAN POEIt was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love— I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me— Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we— And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea.

self-parodies & psalms for shit-scared twenty-somethings by gyzm

is perhaps my favorite poem and just gut punches me whenever i read it but they are a tumblr person who’s poem deserves more attention so please reblog/comment on their poem directly :)

most of what i’ve learned in the first half of my twenties is to embrace statistics i’m not smart enough to verify; theones about black holes and how much of the universe is justempty space: between atoms and from one planet to another.it makes it easier, to stare at my overcrowded sink and thinkthat to get from the floor of this filthy kitchen to the neareststar would take more lifetimes than i could borrow or steal.maybe there is a single withered raspberry molding beneath every single plate i own but in the scheme of things that’s insignificant, a non-event in the life of a non-event, and so canwait until tomorrow, when this hangover is gone.

please, god, don’t let me die before i turn thirty. i’ve heardthat that’s when it all comes together, and i know those’re allfish stories, probably, the lies of those who need to pretend justlike me, but hell, i choose to believe. because the thing is, god, if idie tomorrow, a few years from now, i can pretty much guarantee it’ll be in torn underpants, on a bad hair day, in a bra that doesn’t fitthe way i’d like it to; please, god, don’t let me die before i work outhow to drag myself out of bed in time to dry my hair every morning. i’vebeen promising myself for years i’d learn to get off the couch on monday nights and do laundry, god, okay, i don’t mind living in dirty jeans but i don’t want to die in them, i’m begging, i thank you, i’m sorry, amen.

there should be a page at the back of every baby book thatsays “baby’s first moment of cold realization that they are an gigantic shitheaded asshole.” it’s important, as milestones go. iknow it’s not as glamorous as a first word or a graduation but i’dargue that developmentally, it means at least as much — god knows i put more thought into the bleak portrait of myself at two a.m., staring haggard out from the filmy surface of my mirror, than i did in my ham-fisted infant attempts to say my father’s name. it would benice, is all, to have a warning, to flip through pages of childhood accomplishments and see that placeholder, at the end; to know that the future was coming, inevitably, to make dipshits of us all.

don’t put liquid soap in the dishwasher. don’t put your vibrator in the dishwasher. don’t forget that your mother is coming over until fifteen minutes before she shows up and put every scrap ofevidence that you are a disaster zone living underneath a veneerof overdone eye makeup and slapdash dreams of better tomorrowsin the dishwasher. don’t put your grandmother’s china, that vase you bought at the flea market, a bowl half-full of aged guacamole,in the dishwasher. on the mornings that will keep coming — when the shower does not seem like enough, when you can feel your long history of mistakes pockmarking your face and oozing out from beneath your armpits — don’t put yourself in the dishwasher.

the human body replaces skin cells so quickly that two weeks from now, every part of me will be brand new, and i will still feel as though i have spent my first quarter-century on this planet touching both too much and not enough. that feels profound atthis moment but the human body replaces humiliations fastereven than skin; two weeks from now i will remember saying this,stare at the ceiling above my bed and think: no one has ever been as big of an asshole as you are. there are billions of stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies in our universe and my ceiling is the only clean part of my apartment. i know it’s a fish story, but c’mon, god, okay — i’m just asking to believe i’ll make it to thirty better dressed; less selfish.

#poem #a poem is just an undirected prayer #you know i read a short book of poems in middle school written from god's pov and one of them was about him/her being pissed that everyone #assumed they were a guy #and i've been thinking of it for 13 years but i have no idea what it was called or what the book was called #anon #asks

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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forever is composed of nows (trixya) 1/2 - beanierose

AN: Title is from the Emily Dickinson poem of the same name. My eternal gratitude to nadia for keeping me sane and listening to me shriek about this at all hours of the day and night. Love you endlessly, baby.

(read on a03) | (find me at katiehoughton)

It’s a soulmate AU where you feel the opposite emotion to whatever the other person is feeling | 13,336 words

Nothing happens at all until Katya is seven years old. This is not unusual. Not everybody has a sestrinskoye serdtse, her mother tells her, using the old Russian term for it. Katya likes it better, thinks it’s romantic, and she rolls the phrase around in her mouth for a whole afternoon.

Her parents were not soulbound. It runs in some families; doesn’t run in others. No one in their recent history has been. There’s an aunt way back on her father’s side who, upon finding herself soulbound to an awful tyrant of a man, had walked calmly right into the water and never come back. Or so Katya’s brother had told her and her baby sister one night, sheets over their heads and a flashlight underneath his chin.

His white, round face had hovered disembodied in the darkness, illuminated from below like a carnival head. Anya had shrieked and writhed and put her hands over her ears, but Katya had been transfixed. She thinks about her a lot. The courage it must have taken, to look her fate in the face and tell it no.

It makes her sad, to think that she might not be soulbound. Lots and lots of people aren’t - most people. It occurs in populations with about the same frequency as red hair. Still, Katya can’t help but feel like she’s special. She knows it to be true.

“You’re still special, Katenka,” Mama tells her when she tucks her in at night, smoothing her hand over Katya’s mousey hair.

Sometimes she will pretend like she is. She will double over as if she has been suddenly struck down with grief in the middle of recess. Nobody buys it, and she doesn’t care at all. The idea of it fascinates her.

What must it be like? To be one half of the same soul. To feel the exact opposite emotion to whatever the other person feels. To know, when overcome with euphoria, that your sestrinskoye serdtse is hurting so deeply. To know that your own joy causes them hurt, too.

No one will tell her very much about what it’s really like, and she thinks it’s because they don’t know either. From what she gathers, it’s only extremes of emotion that are intense enough for the other person to notice. So you wouldn’t feel it if they get their favourite coffee in the morning, but if they lose a loved one you’ll have one of the best days of your life.

So far, Katya has met only one couple who are soulbound. They go to their same church and must be about a hundred and twenty years old. They are always holding hands; Katya has never seen them not holding hands. She wonders if they’re capable of letting go anymore or if they’ve grown entwined just like that, like the beech trees in the forest back home in Russia.

“Ne smotri,” Papa whispers at her during mass. Don’t stare.

She can’t help it. No one will tell her exactly what happens when you do find your sestrinskoye serdtse. How do you tell? How can you know for sure that it’s them? And do you continue to feel opposite emotions, once you’ve found them? From watching Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, she thinks not. They always smile all the way through mass, both of them soft and melty at the edges.

Katya has tried asking, her mama and Dmitri and some of her friends at school, but no one answers. Soulbound people are rare, and Katya thinks that makes them superior, but mostly it just means she doesn’t really know what they’re like.

It’s a Wednesday late in August and Katya is lying on her back in the grass. She’s getting stains all over her dress but she doesn’t care, she hates it and its frills and lace. The air is thick with summer and she moves her hand slowly through it, imagines she can feel it shifting like molasses. She is seven years old, and it feels important. Seven is a lucky number, a good year.

Anya wanted to play dolls with her earlier but she doesn’t like how the boy one and the girl one always have to get married and have babies. She wants her doll to be an astronaut or a rockstar, but Anya tells her she’s stupid and Katya’s face gets all hot and Mama has to tell her “bud dobrym.” Be kind.

It’s better, out here in the grass by herself. Mama made lemonade and she spilled a little because she tried to drink it lying down. Her face is sticky, and her hands. She can feel the bridge of her nose burning, prickly with the heat, and she knows she’ll get in trouble later for not wearing enough sunscreen.

Out of nowhere, she feels a wave of bliss roll over her. That’s not unusual for a summer afternoon, except that she can tell right away that this emotion is not hers. It feels milky and intangible, like looking at her reflection in a pond or a river. Something shifting and not quite herself. Katya sits upright in the grass and presses her hand to her chest. She’s trembling and she bites her bottom lip while she waits for it to pass.

For a moment, after it’s over, Katya doesn’t breathe or move. She is so still that an ant crawls up onto her leg and marches up and down her thigh. Another burst of emotion hits her right in the centre of her chest. This time, it’s fear. Katya closes her eyes and breathes slowly through her nose until it goes away.

It isn’t quite the same as her nightmares, or the very first time she tried out the rope swing and arced so wide before plummeting into the river below. It’s more like when she and Dmitri got to watch Pet Sematary at their cousin’s house after Anya went to bed. A fear with no stakes behind it, a synthetic sort of terror.

She does not tell Mama. She doesn’t tell anyone. Who would believe her? All this time she has pretended to feel her sestrinskoye serdtse right on the inside of her chest, carrying them around with her every day. And now it’s really happening.

For the first year or so, it’s not so bad. Sure, sometimes it wakes her in the middle of the night and she lies on her back with her sheets pulled up over her head and her arms folded over her chest like a mummy. Like she’s in a sarcophagus, and she thinks of beetles crawling all over and nibbling at her flesh and her brain being hooked out of her nose or her ear.

No one has told her, but she’s not an idiot. She knows what it means, that she felt her sestrinskoye serdtse so suddenly. She’s older. The person she is soulbound to is an infant. It explains the bright bursts of intensity she feels at all hours of the day and night, that never last more than ten minutes or so.

She’s a little jealous. Everything is going to be different, for them. They won’t have seven years of feeling hollowed out and unwhole. They will feel Katya from their first breath. Have been feeling her. She thinks about them all the time, and wonders how many years it will be before they start to think of her, too.

For Christmas, her babushka buys her a journal. It’s bound in red leather and comes with a lock. Katya slides the key onto the same thin gold chain as her cross and wears both every day. She likes how the key bounces against her chest when she runs around at recess, how in the wintertime it gets so cold against her skin that it burns livid hot. She likes the reminder. There is someone out there in the universe whose soul is bound to hers, a person designed perfectly just for her.

Every night before she goes to sleep, Katya writes notes in her journal. The date, and her feelings. It’s not all that different to how everybody else uses their journals, except that the feelings she writes in it aren’t hers.

As she grows older, and her sestrinskoye serdtse grows older right along with her, it becomes more difficult to separate her emotions from theirs. Whenever she feels joy or peace, she knows that they’re hurting and then she grieves for them and then she’s hurting, too. Now that she’s actually experiencing it, it’s not as fun as she’d always imagined.

At nine years old, Katya goes through a rolodex of counsellors and behavioural therapists and doctors and psychologists. They toss around various diagnoses. Some of them say she has ADD, or maybe she’s autistic. She lacks the vocabulary to explain that her mood swings and her difficulty focusing and her explosive temper are because half of her emotions are those of a toddler. One therapist suggests developmental delay, and Katya supposes that’s not inaccurate.

She learns to be calm through it. She will clench her fists tight enough that she feels the thump of her pulse in her palms like she’s captured a hummingbird. She will count her breaths until it passes. Most days are dreadful. Every time she thinks she’s got a handle on it, something else flares furious and crimson in her chest.

One Saturday afternoon, Katya comes home from the woods and her palms are chafed and red from breaking sticks. She rubs them against the thighs of her pants as she walks in the back door. Her parents are waiting for her at the kitchen table, a chair pulled out for her to sit in and her journal on the table between them. Cracked open, and the lines of her spidery handwriting are barely legible.

“Sit down, Yekaterina,” Papa says. His voice is firm but not unkind.

She does, flopping into the chair and toeing out of her boots. It’s March and not quite warm yet; the heat of the stove makes her cheeks ruddy and she pulls her sweater off over her head. It makes her hair all staticky and her bangs flop down into her eyes.

“What’s going on?” She knows it bothers her father when she uses English at home, knows also that she’s doing it to spite him. “Where did you get that?”

“Tvoya sestra,” Mama says. Your sister.

Katya is up out of the chair so fast that she stumbles over the leg of it and almost goes to her knees. She shoves her sleeves up past her elbows as she bounds up the stairs two at a time. The door to their room bounces off the wall when she slams it open. Anya is sitting cross-legged on her twin bed, brushing the hair of one of her dolls.

When she sees Katya she cowers back against the headboard, her hands up in defence already. She knows what she’s done, then, and she’s afraid. Good.

Katya rips the doll out of her sister’s hands and pops the head off of it in one clean motion. For a second, she flounders. She wants to make Anya hurt, feels the mercury of her anger boiling inside of her stomach. Katya sweeps the rest of Anya’s dolls onto the floor. If she’d kept her boots on she could stomp them. She does it anyway, not feeling the prick of their stupid little hands and pointy noses against the soles of her feet.

Her parents have caught up to her now. She lunges at Anya, her hands extended and her fingers curled up like a dreadful beast. Papa grabs her from behind and lifts her clean off the ground. She thrashes in his grip, screaming and spitting.

The violation of it has cleaved her in two. She feels pink-raw, like the old paintings of surgeries she likes to look at sometimes. Herself, strapped to a table with her guts tumbling out, and rows and rows of people watching from the gallery.

Anya is wailing and clutching at her disembodied doll’s head. Again and again, Katya roars and writhes in her father’s grip, until he manages to get her through the doorframe and out of their bedroom.

“Ya ub’yu tebya,” she screams at her sister. I’ll kill you.

Mama has closed the door on Anya now, but she hears. The whole street must hear. Katya is choking on her anger, trembling with it. It streams out of her, nose and eyes and mouth, and the indignity of it sends her outside of herself.

Papa is still holding tight to her. She fights it for a long while, and then she sags in his arms and brings him to the ground with her. They are all three crumpled in the hallway, Mama on her knees next to Katya and Papa and their pile of tangled limbs.

“Breathe, Katenka. Breathe. It’s okay.” She does, raggedly at first but evening out with Papa’s strong arms still banded tight around her chest. After a long while, Mama says, “you have a sestrinskoye serdtse?”

“Da,” she spits through the grit of her teeth, the rictus of her jaw.

The whole messy truth of it comes spilling out of her, then. She tells her parents how for three years she’s been carrying another soul around with her every day. Feeling the antithetical emotions of that soul. Mama cries, and doesn’t furiously swipe her tears away with her palms the way that Katya always does. She lets them come, lets them collect in the creases at the corners of her mouth as she listens to her daughter.

After a little while, Anya and Dmitri poke their heads out of their respective doorways. Now that the beast of their sister has come to rest, they sit in the hallway as well to listen. Katya talks, and talks and talks.

She understands, now. Why nobody seems to know the truth of what it is like to be soulbound. The sensation of it is like pins and needles or gooseflesh, a tingling hyper awareness and the feeling of not quite fitting correctly inside your skin. It is hard to put words to it.

Katya gets her journal back, and doesn’t even get in trouble for ruining Anya’s doll. Everybody is tiptoeing around her like she’s sick, like she’s dying. It’s not true. Nothing is going to happen to her because she’s soulbound. Well, other than that if her sestrinskoye serdtse falls in love with somebody else, the grief might drive her to madness.

She would not be the first.

It’s the middle of the night; Anya is sleeping on her stomach in the bed next to Katya’s. She sneaks out from beneath the sheets and pads in her sock feet across to the closet. There’s a box at the bottom of it, where she keeps her supplies. Katya rummages through it until she finds her superglue.

Anya’s got her doll laid out on the nightstand, separated from its head by a half inch. Like it’s lying in state, and all the other dolls might come to visit it. Carefully, and still getting glue on her fingertips, Katya fixes the doll’s head back in its right place. She sits it upright on the nightstand, so it will be the first thing Anya sees when she opens her eyes in the morning.

Back beneath her sheets, Katya tries to pick the glue off her fingers. She thinks about her sestrinskoye serdtse. They will turn four later this summer. She wonders what it must be like, for their parents. Raising a toddler grappling with the enormity of two people’s emotions. Today Katya was angry, angrier than she’s been in her whole life. She’s not quite sure what the opposite of that is. Calm, maybe. Or peace. At least her sestrinskoye serdtse had a good day, she thinks, and it makes hot tears form along her bottom lashes.

* * *

Katya starts her fifth journal the same week she starts high school. She has them all labelled carefully with the length of time that they span, lined up chronologically along the bottom shelf of her bookcase. Sometimes she flips through them at random, chooses a day and reads it over.

There are days when she feels all alone in the universe, and remembering that her sestrinskoye serdtse is out there helps her. It lets her feel close to them, to read over her meticulous notes and try to imagine what they might have been going through. She’s fourteen now, and her sestrinskoye serdtse is seven. For half of her life, every single day, Katya has felt them.

It’s been a tough summer. Her anxiety has been there her entire life, when she looks back on it, but it has gotten so much worse since she finished middle school. There are voices in her head all the time, whispering to her. Catastrophizing. Convincing her that every decision is the wrong one. She knows they aren’t really there, but…there is a voice in her head.

Well, not a voice. And not in her head.

A presence in her chest, at all times and in all ways. Whatever she does, she has to weigh the consequences. If she does something that makes her happy, she condemns her sestrinskoye serdtse to misery. Most of the time it is paralytic; she doesn’t dare feel anything at all.

When she thinks critically about it, when she reads back on the last week or month or year of entries in her journal, she knows. They are not having a good childhood, whoever they are. Katya feels happy most days, but she knows it’s because they’re hurting and that makes her hurt as well, and it isn’t ever true happiness. It is ersatz, doesn’t belong to her.

She’s been grappling with it all summer. Trying to figure out just how the fuck she’s supposed to make it through high school. It’s difficult enough trying to fit in without being the freak who is predestined to be with someone she hasn’t even met yet. Who is going to want to date her?

Mama let her dye her hair at least. It felt like watching herself appear, like she was meeting herself for the very first time as she watched the bleach circle the drain. Her hair is waist length and wavy and white blonde. It makes her feel like a Waterhouse painting.

Her therapist keeps trying to instil her with coping mechanisms. Together they agreed that Katya should try yoga, and she does love it, but it also doesn’t cure her mental illness. There has been suggestion of medication, multiple times, but she won’t do that. She has no idea what psychotropic drugs might do to her sestrinskoye serdtse, and they’re only a little kid.

Katya’s not about to fuck them over like that. She’d much rather fuck herself over every day.

For the first semester, she does okay. Having a routine helps her. She gets up at the same time every day, goes to the same classes, practices yoga when she gets home. It’s impossible to predict what she might feel on any given day, but she can control everything else.

She’s doing okay, she really is, and then finals roll around. Everything in high school feels so much more important. The rational part of her brain tells her that it’s okay if she messes up a couple exams, she still has three more years after this to prove herself, but the anxious part of her brain is the one in charge.

It’s exhausting every day just keeping her head above the water, so when Dmitri’s friend offers Katya a drag of his joint she finds herself saying yes. That first time, she doesn’t feel much of anything. The smoke makes her cough and he laughs at her and shame burns hot and insistent along the column of her neck and into her cheeks.

After that though, it becomes their thing. Three or four times a week he sneaks away from the PlayStation tournament the boys are having in the basement and he and Katya share a joint on the back porch, after her parents are in bed.

When he kisses her, it isn’t a surprise. They’ve been building up to it for weeks and weeks, she knows that. His fingers brush hers when he passes the joint over, and he likes to prop his elbow on the back of the bench seat behind her head so she can feel the heat of his bicep.

It’s nice. She’s a bit awkward, not quite sure what to do with her hands, but she likes the soft little puff of his breath against her cheek. When they separate, he tells her “don’t tell your brother.”

The image of Dmitri beating the shit out of him makes Katya snort a laugh. They joke, her family, that Dmitri spends so much time down in the basement and out of the sunlight that it’s stunting his growth. Katya’s stronger than he is, with her yoga and now gymnastics too, these last few weeks.

Still, she doesn’t tell Dmitri. They get high together almost every day. Not just weed anymore, either. Katya discovers that when she has a synthetic euphoria, it blocks off her sestrinskoye serdtse so that she can’t feel them. It’s as if her brain is too full, there’s no room for anyone else’s emotions. It’s the respite she’s been hoping for for nearly half her life. The first couple times, she wonders what it’s like for them when she’s high, but then she stops caring.

Katya fucks for the first time in her twin bed in the room she shares with her sister. Anya and their parents are out of state for the weekend. Dmitri stayed behind and Katya did too, because she has to work her shitty retail job at the mall. She’s sixteen years old, and so wasted that she can’t lift her head up off the pillow.

This boy is not the same boy as her first kiss. He is also not her sestrinskoye serdtse, but she hasn’t been thinking about them so much anymore. She’s not sober, a lot of the time. It actually makes it easier to focus on her classes, because it quiets a lot of her anxiety. Adderall is lovely, makes her so focused and calm. She’s making good grades, so no one seems overly concerned that she has to be drunk or high or both in order to do so.

When it’s over, the boy passes her a tissue from the box on the nightstand and leaves her to clean herself off. She didn’t come, but according to her friends who have started having sex she shouldn’t expect to for the first few times.

After that, she has a lot of sex with a lot of different people. With guys, and with girls too. When all of her friends started becoming interested in the opposite sex, Katya did too, but she also realised she had those same feelings about girls. It complicated a lot of things for her. She doesn’t really tell people. Certainly not her Catholic parents.

She likes sex, likes making people feel good and letting them make her feel good, but there’s always something missing. Sometimes she’ll be rocking over someone’s face and gasping and she can’t help but wonder, just for a second, what this feels like for her sestrinskoye serdtse. They’re still only eleven years old, so she figures she has a good few years until she finds out for herself, but she can’t imagine that it’s good.

Intense pleasure starbursts in Katya’s stomach and she moans softly and arches off the mattress. Violet grins up at her from between her thighs, her cheeks pink with exertion.

“You’re so fucking hot, Kat,” Violet says.

College has been a lot about experimentation, so far. She’s tried drugs she never had access to in her small suburban town, tried a lot of new things. She got her first tattoo recently and it still makes her smile so big every time she catches sight of it. Papa is going to kill her, but it’s worth it.

Violet is hot. Objectively. She’s tall and striking. Katya loves to wrap her hands around Violet’s waist and marvel at how they encompass it completely as she guides Violet down to grind against her face.

They’re not girlfriends. Katya doesn’t do well with commitment, and Violet is totally fine with that. They’re both also fucking other people, off and on, but Katya enjoys Violet’s body and how skilful she is with her hands and her mouth.

Violet doesn’t know that Katya is soulbound. It’s not something she shares with her sexual partners. Some of her friends know, but she doesn’t think it makes particularly good pillow talk.

Hey, I really enjoy fucking you but I’m actually predestined to love somebody else, so.

She can’t imagine it would go over that well. It does feel like something is missing. There’s no intimacy with most of the people she fucks. Violet is different; they’re friends, and they do spend time together outside of sex, but not one on one. Always with the rest of their group.

“Are you coming to Ginger’s party?”

Violet is propped up on one elbow, looking down at Katya. Her makeup is smudged from being between Katya’s thighs, but her hair is still perfectly smooth.

“Duh. You want me to…”

“I got it.”

Usually Violet is the one to supply the weed whenever they all hang out. Her friends know that Katya does a lot more besides that, and she offers to hook them up, but they always decline.

She doesn’t miss the looks they shoot her when she rolls up to a party out of her mind on something a lot stronger than college pot. It’s out of love, out of concern and she knows it, but she bristles at the mere suggestion that there might be a problem. She’s fine. She is fine.

Her sestrinskoye serdtse? Not so much.

They have hit their teenage years, and Katya is riding out those mood swings right along with them. It is really fucking hard. She’s at college now, and everyone is always in chaos but everyone is at least an adult. Katya is thirteen again.

She feels tenderly towards both her own thirteen year old self, and her sestrinskoye serdtse. It’s the hardest age you’ll ever be, Katya is very sure of that. Not fitting in anywhere, the oldest of the children and the youngest of the adults. Still, it’s really hard to be focusing on a class and then have a sudden rush of shame or joy or sadness so intense it makes her lightheaded.

The drugs help her to level things out, and they also provide a very convenient excuse. Oh, that’s just Katya, people say, and it lets her get away with a whole lot. She’s very hung up on the fact that however hard this is for her to deal with, she is at least twenty years old. For her own teenage maelstrom, her sestrinskoye serdtse was only six. There’s an immense guilt there, even though she knows that it isn’t her fault and there’s nothing to be done about it.

When they get their first crush, Katya is certain that she’s going to die. They are middle of the night mooning over it, and she sits and chain smokes out of the open bedroom window. Grief is lodged in her chest, an unexpectedly hard thing in the flesh of her, like a peach pit.

She puts her fingertips to the windowpane to feel the cold of it. Sleep seems like a faraway thing. Her sestrinskoye serdtse is up, thinking on someone, so Katya is up right along with them. She lets her head lean against the glass and closes her eyes, cigarette dangling precariously from between her two fingers.

It is not a pleasant feeling. And when they kiss for the first time (Katya remembers her own first kiss, almost goes under with the weight of her guilt) pain is alive in the pit of her stomach. She tries to be happy for them, glad that they’re able to enjoy being a teenager, but mostly she just hurts.

Sasha keeps trying to distract her. Let’s get out of the house she will say, in Russian or in English depending on how bad she thinks Katya is. They walk around Boston and Sasha talks and talks, and Katya listens because she’s good at that. And she loves her roommate, is grateful to have someone holding her accountable.

“I think they’ve discovered how to jerk off,” Katya says over breakfast one Saturday.

Sasha is at the stove making eggs. She didn’t appreciate Katya’s cannibalism joke and keeps self-consciously rubbing one hand over her smooth white head. Katya has taken to calling her yaytso, mostly because she’s jealous that Sasha pulls it off so well.

“Oh?”

“Yuh-huh. I get these like, insane moments of agony that last for ten seconds.”

She doesn’t know what else that could be. It makes her grin every time even though it fucking hurts. She’s happy for them, feels strangely proud. They’re fifteen now; she’s been wondering when it’s going to start.

“That sounds…unpleasant.”

“Da,” Katya snorts.

Sasha sets a plate down in front of her and Katya starts eating, very slowly. There’s nothing to be done. Unless she finds them, which she has no clue how to even begin to do, all she can do is tuck her chin close to her chest and endure it.

“Katya, are you okay?”

“Right now, or in general?”

Sasha considers her for a moment. She is so calm, so absolutely unflappable. Never loud or crass. Sometimes when she’s drunk or high Katya will try to get a rise out of her, will say things that are both unkind and untrue. It never works.

“Both.”

“Right now I’m good.” She gestures at her plate with her fork. “These are good. Thank you.”

“And in general.”

The way Sasha is looking at her, round and wise like the moon, makes her pause to actually consider it. Is she good? She doesn’t know. It’s been her whole life, like this. It’s something she grew up with, and she was forced to adapt around it. She feels gnarled and wizened.

“This is just…how it is. I have to be okay with it.”

By the time she’s thirty, it’s not cute anymore. When she comes home at four in the morning high, when she’s drunk out of her skull at two in the afternoon on a Tuesday, it isn’t charming. Not like it was when she was in high school or college. She can’t explain it away with youthful arrogance.

Rehab is the hardest thing she has ever done, and she does it twice. When she gets out the first time she tries to surround herself with people who are steadfast and calm. She sees Fame almost every single day, needing proof of life from her and glad to be held accountable herself. Sasha got married and moved out, but still loves her deeply and answers the phone at any hour.

For a little while, Anya comes to stay with her. Her sister tries to understand, but she has no experience with addiction or with being soulbound so it’s hard for them both. After Anya goes back home to Denver, Katya relapses hard.

She’s out of rehab now, a whole year clean and sober. She has two jobs and her own tiny shoebox apartment. Sometimes she still misses the place above the bar, but she knows that being able to walk down a flight of stairs from her front door and get wasted is not a healthy environment for an addict.

Her therapist worked with her to handle her anxiety, since she can’t fall back on any of the usual ways she silences it. It is always there, but she is much better at looking it in the face and telling it no.

Her sestrinskoye serdtse is doing well. They’re twenty five now, and Katya can only assume that they’ve built a life for themselves. She gets the odd day of blistering joy, but most of the time she feels sad and has to reconcile that with the fact that they’re happy.

It’s been rough for both of them. She still keeps her journals, has so many of them now that she’s thought about putting them into storage in her parents’ attic, but she likes to have them close. She’s happy for them, she is.

But she’s thirty two years old and she hasn’t met them yet, and it feels more and more like she’s never going to. It seems unfair of the universe. If it’s going to tie her to somebody, surely the least it can do is deposit that somebody neatly into her lap.

These days, there are groups online. Forums where people talk about their experiences being soulbound, and tentatively try to figure out if the person behind one of these usernames could be their sestrinskoye serdtse. It isn’t easy. The general consensus, among the people who have been fortunate, is that you can’t know for sure until you meet them face to face.

Katya doesn’t do a whole lot of meeting face to face. New people make her wary. She teaches, yoga in the mornings and Russian in the evenings. Every time she gets a new student, or a whole new class, she is careful to look each of them in the eye and introduce herself. She’s never felt anything more than pleasure that they trust her, that they have come to her for guidance.

She settles down nicely into her little life. There’s no more partying, no more stumbling vulnerable and high in the street. She goes to bed at the same time every night, wakes up at the same time every morning. The routine is the thing that keeps her anxiety at bay. And she supposes it’s a kindness on her part, towards her sestrinskoye serdtse. Katya never throws any curveballs at them, doesn’t fall in love or risk her heart.

Sometimes she wonders whether they can feel her at all, or whether they’ve completely forgotten that she’s there.

* * *

“Could you at least try to have a good time, tonight?” Fame grumbles at her. She’s leaning on the vanity with both elbows, as she puts the finishing touches on her lipstick.

The crisp edge of Fame’s mouth is such a contradiction to the smudge of Katya’s own lipstick that she laughs, can’t help it. She’s only going to this stupid show for Fame. Because it’s in a bar, and now that they’re both sober they can lean on each other.

“Tell me again who she is.”

Fame rolls her eyes so hard Katya is worried for a second she’s going to pop her lashes. They’ve been through this at least four times already, but Katya’s memory is not the best and well…she likes hearing Fame describe her.

“Her name’s Trixie. She and I worked at the beauty counter together in college. She is a-”

“Full Dolly fantasy!” Katya interrupts and then screams out a laugh and stamps her feet.

She’s seen a couple pictures from their college days, but Fame wouldn’t let Katya google Trixie. She wants her to get the full effect live and in person. It’s country music, Katya knows that much, covers and some originals.

“Right.” Fame hesitates for just a second and then turns to face Katya. Her hip props her up against the edge of the countertop, and she reaches for Katya’s hands to hold in both of hers. “Hey. Thank you. I know you hate music.”

“I don’t hate music. Just like…singing. Live singing.”

The so-familiar fluttering starts up in Katya’s chest and she kneads two fingers against her breastbone and waits for it to pass. She’s been feeling a lot of dread, lately, which she supposes means her sestrinskoye serdtse is excited about something. She’s happy for them, but she would love to make it through just one day without a cataclysmic sense of doom hanging over her head.

“All good?” Fame ducks her head just a touch to grab Katya’s eyeline.

Part of their journey to sobriety together has been total honesty. Fame knows that Katya is soulbound, and that it played a big part in her addiction issues in the first place. Addiction is a disease, she knows that, but it can be aggravated the same way her hip flexors get achy if she pushes too hard to try and get her straddle split.

Her sestrinskoye serdtse aggravates her. The last thirty years of her life, every single decision she has made she has had to consider them too. It made her very selfish for a long while there in her teens and early twenties. She’s back to selflessness now, tries to avoid things that will trigger any extreme of emotion in her at all.

“I’m good. Let’s go.”

The bar is crowded, because it’s a Friday night in Boston so they all are. Fame clings tight to Katya’s hand and leads them through the crowd. They have a little table reserved right up front near the stage, because Trixie is apparently a big enough deal that she gets to do that. Fame deposits Katya at the table like a toddler and goes back to the bar to get drinks for them both.

There’s no band, Katya notes with interest as she drums her fingers against the tabletop. There’s a microphone set up in a stand, and a pink guitar, but no other instruments.

When Fame comes back to the table, Katya gives her an exaggerated groan and drops her head into her hands. “Is this gonna be some acoustic bullshit?”

“Probably,” Fame says. “She plays guitar. And autoharp.”

“What the fuck is an autoharp?”

Fame pulls her phone out of her purse to start searching for a picture, but the lights dim and a few rowdy dudes whoop and holler and Fame hastily puts her phone away again. “I’m pretty sure you’re about to find out.”

Trixie comes out onto the stage, and Katya takes it like a punch to the gut. The lights make her blonde hair glow pink and it feels like intimacy, like pre-dawn. She’s wearing a very tiny, very tight dress that is all pink gingham and white fringe. Full Dolly fantasy, indeed.

Her hair is teased so high and it curls all the way down to her waist. It gets in her way so she can’t pull the strap of her guitar over her head, has to have a techie guide it around the back of her neck instead.

She strums her opening chord and the crowd roars wildly. According to Fame, Trixie has quite the fan base. She started posting music online and earned a following pretty quick. Now she tours around, playing small venues and selling her EP.

Katya is transfixed by Trixie, can’t draw her eyes away from her for more than a second at a time. She bops around the stage like she’s buoyed by the audience, stomping and jumping in her white cowboy boots. And every time the noise of the crowd swells, each time it crescendos, Katya feels anguish right in the centre of her chest. The same as always, she recognises it as something that doesn’t belong to her. It’s her sestrinskoye serdtse, having the time of their life.

She works two knuckles of her right hand against her breastbone and wrinkles her nose. This is fun, she’s having a good time watching Trixie, and she refuses to let her sestrinskoye serdtse be in charge tonight. It’s Katya’s turn.

“Now? Really?” Fame leans over to whisper to her.

“Guess so.”

She does her best to push it down. Everyone cheers and claps for Trixie so loudly, because they all came in here already loving her. They know all the words to everything she sings, even her original songs, and they sing along with her. Katya cheers too, whistles loudly with her fingers. It makes Trixie’s head snap towards them and she grins widely when she sees Fame.

At the very end of the show, everybody is applauding Trixie and hollering, and Katya feels misery rolling in thick waves that crest over the top of her head. It’s the strongest it’s been for a really long time. She ducks her head to put her chin against her chest and breathes raggedly against the feeling that she’s going to pass out.

Fame has one hand wrapped tight around Katya’s elbow and she focuses on those five points of contact. It’s so unfair that she can’t have just one night without having to share her whole self with somebody else. Hot tears of frustration collect along her lash line and she watches Trixie liquidate and shimmer pink and gold in front of her, blinks hard to bring her back into focus again.

“She texted me earlier. Said to come backstage after. Wanna come too?”

It’s maybe not the best idea. Her ribcage aches with the phantom hurt so that she can’t take a deep breath. One time, she watched a documentary about people who have had limbs amputated but can still feel them. Sasha found her crying into a bag of Skittles and took the remote away from her.

“Sure, okay. I need a cigarette first though.”

She heads outside, already fumbling with the carton of cigarettes and her lighter. There’s a lot of people crowding right outside the entrance of the bar and it feels like they’re all touching her at once but from the inside, beneath her skin. Katya loops around to the left and into the alley, leans back against the brick. The dumpster hides her from view mostly, so she closes her eyes and tilts her face up to the moonless night.

Everything is beginning to wear off now. She’s not sure whether it’s the cigarette, or if whatever her sestrinskoye serdtse was doing that made them so happy is finally over. It’s quite a bit colder out here than inside the bar. Katya crosses her left arm over her body and secures her hand at her right hip. It is not her first time hunkered in an alleyway on the precipice of tears.

Once she’s done with her cigarette she stubs it out against the wall and rummages in her purse for gum. Smoking is disgusting, she knows that, so she always does her best to cover up the smell of it after. Especially when meeting new people. And, well, her therapist does always say she has an oral fixation. Gum helps.

There’s no bouncer or anything - Trixie might be popular but she’s not that famous - so Katya knocks once and then opens the door to the tiny green room. Fame is seated on a little couch, her legs crossed at the ankles and tucked neatly in. She’s watching Trixie remove the layers of performance from herself.

“There you are,” Fame says when she sees Katya. “Trixie, this is-”

“Katya, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Trixie is wiping away something Katya assumes to be Pond’s cold cream with a facecloth. She’s brushed her hair out so that it isn’t teased quite so high anymore, but it’s still curly and thick and shiny. She’s changed into a different dress, a floaty lacy thing that looks like a Victorian nightgown. Katya wonders if Trixie ever wears pants of any kind. She can’t imagine it.

“Yeah! Katya.” Sasha told her once that she responds to her own name the same way a golden retriever does. She feels the warmth of embarrassment spreading up her throat and scrubs a hand at the back of her neck. “I’ve heard almost nothing about you. This one wanted me to experience you myself.”

“And how was your experience? Of me.”

Trixie gets done wiping her makeup away and starts rubbing some kind of lotion into her skin. The fancy bottles look familiar and Katya figures she’s probably seen them in Fame’s bathroom, before. The two of them did work the beauty counter together all those years ago, they probably trade all kinds of secrets. A weird flare of jealousy burns in Katya’s stomach for just a moment.

“Really good. You were…wow. You had them eating out of your hand.”

“I told you you’d like it,” Fame says. She’s so smug, but Katya is not about to point out that Fame specifically told her she probably wouldn’t like it. Not in front of Trixie, who looks so quietly pleased.

She’s finished with all of her serums and creams and wipes her hands clean on the facecloth. Freckles scatter her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, Katya notes. She’s really, really cute. Full lips, round cheeks, a graceful slope to her nose that Katya is very envious of.

A flutter starts in her chest, something with wings that Katya cages immediately. She doesn’t date anymore, doesn’t bother with it. Sometimes she will take a random girl home with her for the night, but it’s a lot more difficult to do now that she’s sober. She’s a solitary creature, and that’s okay with her.

Done with her beauty routine, Trixie finally turns away from the mirror to look Katya in the eye for the very first time.

Oh.

Years later, people will ask the two of them how they knew. To those who aren’t soulbound, it’s difficult to understand, but Katya explains it like this: imagine you’ve spent your whole life with a stone in your shoe, you’ve learned to live with it, you don’t even notice the discomfort some days. And then just like that, the stone is gone.

Neither of them says anything. For a horrifying second, Katya thinks she’s the only one who feels it and she has actually lost her mind here in this bar. Then Trixie takes a couple of stumbling steps backwards and catches herself against the edge of the vanity table. Her knuckles are white. Fame darts a puzzled glance between the two of them and then gets to her feet.

“I’m going to um…give you a minute,” she says, but Katya’s not even hearing her. Not really.

She’s staring at Trixie, she knows she is, but she thinks it’s okay because Trixie is staring at her right back. Neither of them moves or speaks. She knows that it’s true, feels it as surely as she’s ever known anything, but she wants to be certain.

“Trixie. Trixie, when’s your birthday?”

“August 23, 1989.”

“Fuck,” Katya says, and has to sit down.

It seems to jolt Trixie into action. She crosses the distance between them and goes to her knees at Katya’s feet on the disgusting green room carpet. Trixie fumbles for Katya’s hands, takes both of them in hers and squeezes.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Is it you?”

Katya bites her lip. She feels relief, and wonder, and she feels it twice. After thirty years she’s gotten very good at separating her own emotions from those of her sestrinskoye serdtse. From those of Trixie. Holy shit. She recognises Trixie’s own awe, feels it milky and ephemeral the same way she always does. But now she doesn’t feel the opposite of what Trixie feels. She feels the truth of it.

“I felt the day you were born,” Katya says.

Of all the things she ever imagined she would say to her sestrinskoye serdtse when - if - she ever got to meet them, this was not high up on the list. But Trixie is at her feet like supplication, like exaltation.

Trixie’s hands are still in hers. Katya absently notes her nails, trimmed short and painted baby pink, and wonders whether that’s for playing guitar or…

When at fifteen she figured out she was bisexual, Katya had been extremely annoyed. Her friends were sweet about it, told her it widened her dating pool and really she was so lucky, but all she kept thinking was that she wouldn’t even know whether her sestrinskoye serdtse is a man or a woman until she met them. And then she’d worried that they’d be a woman, and they’d be straight, and they wouldn’t want her.

“How old are you?” Trixie asks, wide-eyed.

Katya screams and clutches tighter at Trixie’s hands. “Shut up, you cunt! I’m only thirty seven, so.”

“I’m just about to turn thirty.”

“Yes, I know. Trixie. Oh my God. You’re…”

She trails off, not entirely sure where she’s going with that. Thirty years of anticipation, and no small amount of despair, is welling up in her chest. It comes spilling out of her eyes, one hot tear that rolls cinematically down her cheek. Trixie reaches up to swipe it away with the pad of her thumb.

“Katya.” She gets up from the floor and comes to sit next to Katya on the little couch. There’s not an awful lot of room, and Trixie’s hips are wide, so their knees press together tight. “You’ve been there my whole life. Like, whatever I’ve been doing I’ve always known there was someone out there who cares about me because I could feel them. You.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Trixie. God.” She can’t seem to stop saying Trixie’s name. She likes the feeling of it in her mouth and the way it sounds, likes too how Trixie’s smile grows wider each time.

One gentle hand comes to rest at Katya’s knee. Trixie is tall and broad, and her hands are a lot bigger than Katya’s are, she notes with interest. Trixie is the most beautiful woman she’s seen ever, ever, ever.

“What do we…do now?” Trixie asks.

Kiss me, Katya thinks, but doesn’t say it. She’s known Trixie for all of five minutes, even though her soul has known Trixie’s for thirty years. It’s an insistent and quivering thing in her chest that she tries to ignore.

“Do you have to like, get on a bus or something? I don’t know how tours work.”

It makes Trixie laugh, and Katya is quietly pleased. She’d like to make Trixie laugh more, would like to hear it every day from now on.

“I’ve got three days in Boston before I move on to New York. Wanted to catch up with a few friends in the city while I’m here.”

“Okay! Do you maybe want to come back to my apartment?” Trixie opens her mouth and Katya hurries through the rest of her sentence. “Not for- just to get to know each other a bit. Oh! And I have something to show you.”

Trixie’s eyes drag very slowly down Katya’s body, from the crown of her head, and come to rest right in her lap. She arches one eyebrow. Katya screams her most obnoxious, pneumatic laugh and shakes her fists in the air.

“I would love to see what you have to show me,” Trixie says once Katya’s done screaming. “I gotta tell Bob.”

She gets up from the couch and smoothes her skirt out against her legs with the flat of her palms. Katya is struck once more by how lovely she is. Want fills her up slowly, warm and liquid. She presses her thighs together, and then realises that not only can Trixie see her doing that, she can probably feel it too.

Trixie holds out a hand for her and tugs her up off the couch. When they move for the door, she doesn’t let go. Katya’s palms are clammy and definitely unpleasant, but when she moves to take her hand back Trixie squeezes tighter.

“Roberta!” she yells down the hall.

A woman appears with a cardboard box in both arms. She’s taller than Trixie, even, and her braided hair is piled up on top of her head in an intricate style that gives her an extra six inches at least.

“Beatrice,” Bob says with a smile that definitely reads I am going to murder you. “I’m very busy hawking your merch right now.”

“Sold any?”

“Not a one. Actually had to pay damages to a few people for the indignity of having to look at your face.”

Katya watches their interaction with interest. She knows almost nothing about Trixie, but seeing her with Bob is putting a couple of pieces into place. Trixie is acerbic and sarcastic. She might look like a princess, but there’s a bite beneath the pink and the lace that Katya is very interested in knowing more about.

“Tell your dad if he buys five shirts I’ll let him stick it in.”

“My dad’s dead,” Bob says, and then cackles. “My bomb pussy killed him.”

Trixie suddenly seems to remember that Katya is still there, tethered to the end of her arm. She glances at her, but when she sees that Katya is grinning right along with them her shoulders come down a little.

“I’m going home with Katya. I’ll text you.”

“Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova,” Katya says, and offers her hand for Bob to shake.

She doesn’t miss the tiny squeak Trixie lets out next to her. Katya enjoys her full name, enjoys how Russian she sounds when she says it even though she was born right here in Massachusetts and doesn’t have an accent. Or not a Russian one, anyway.

“Nice to meet you.” Bob turns to Trixie. “Since when do you go home with groupies?”

“She’s not a-” Trixie starts indignantly, and then catches herself. “Katya’s different. I’ll text you.”

“Be safe, please. I’m not paying for your gonorrhoea treatment. Again!” Bob calls after them as Trixie starts dragging Katya down the hallway.

“Ignore her.”

“You haven’t had gonorrhoea?” Katya says sweetly.

“I pay for my own treatments, bitch!”

Katya cackles again. The way Trixie makes her laugh is new, feels different. She doesn’t recall herself ever having made some of these sounds before. Her heart is so light she feels six inches off the ground, and Trixie is still holding her hand.

They come out into the main area of the bar. A couple of people are hovering and Trixie signs autographs for them, takes selfies, listens intently as they gush at her. She gave Katya her hand back, had to, so she stuffs them both into her pockets and hovers a few feet away. Waiting for Trixie to be done. Waiting to take Trixie home.

Fame is sitting at the bar, stirring the straw around and around in her glass. Panic guts Katya and her intestines fall out at her feet. The whole reason that she’s here in the first place is to be sober with Fame, and then she let her wander off to the bar by herself.

“You good?”

“Are you good?” Fame says. She notices Katya’s eyes on her glass and huffs. “It’s virgin. Give me a little credit.”

Katya climbs up onto the barstool next to Fame’s. “Right. I’m sorry. Yeah. I’m good. I’m really good.”

“Are you going to explain, or?”

Across the bar, Trixie is saying goodbye to the last of her fans. She exchanges a couple words with Bob, who is beginning to pack up the merch table, and then she turns around. When she sees Katya her face breaks wide open and she smiles, starts heading for them.

“It’s her, Fame.” Katya rests a hand at Fame’s knee and hopes that she can feel how Katya’s whole life has changed. “It’s Trixie.”

Fame doesn’t frown - she would never invite a permanent crease to form - but she does tilt her head in puzzlement. “What’s her? What’s going on?”

When Trixie reaches them she rests her hand at the back of Katya’s chair. Her knuckles are just barely touching Katya’s spine and she leans back into them, likes feeling Trixie so close to her.

Understanding drops Fame’s jaw and yanks a gasp from her throat. “Wait a minute. Oh my God. Trixie, are you soulbound?”

“Um. Yeah.”

“She doesn’t know?” Katya whips around in her seat to look at Trixie, who is blushing so furiously that it’s spreading down to her chest.

“I never told anyone. Ever. My whole life.”

Katya can only stare at her. It’s been hard enough all this time carrying Trixie’s heart along with hers. She can’t fathom doing it alone, not having Sasha to sit with her when it gets bad or Fame on the other end of the phone any time of the day or night.

“Wow. Uh. Congratulations?”

“Thanks,” Katya grins. She hops down from the barstool and adds another two inches difference between herself and Trixie. “We’re headed to my place. I’ll call you tomorrow?”

She shouldn’t leave Fame here, she knows that, but Trixie is growing rapidly more impatient and Katya wants to get her home before she changes her mind. Fame is still mostly just staring in wonder at Trixie, but she does manage a little nod.

“Yeah, sure. Or before that, Katya, if you need.”

Tenderness makes Katya’s heart soft and sticky. She kisses Fame’s cheek, even though she hates it when Katya leaves red lipstick on her. While she’s right there, she whispers her gratitude into Fame’s ear. Reminds her that it goes both ways, that she can call Katya too.

And then she leads Trixie out into the night. She has an overnight bag with her, a pink duffel, and Katya takes it and hikes it over her shoulder. It’s still humid from the day and the back of her neck feels damp already, but it’s less hot and she’s glad for that.

“Are you okay to walk? You must be exhausted.”

“Walking‘s good. I always have a ton of adrenaline after a show.”

That piques Katya’s interest. She would very much like to know how Trixie usually burns off that energy. It’s not a question for right now. She starts moving, feels the warmth of Trixie right beside her. Her apartment is only a few blocks from the bar.

“So. You told Fame you have a soulmate?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty much common knowledge in my circle of friends.” Katya is glad that they’re walking, glad she doesn’t have to look Trixie in the face for this. “I haven’t always…found it easy. I’ve needed them.”

Trixie hums a little noise at that, but doesn’t say anything else. They’re at Katya’s building now and she swats Trixie away when she tries to take her bag back, fumbling awkward and one-handed for her keys. She’s determined to be chivalrous.

Her place is a two-story walk up. She invites Trixie to go ahead of her, pretending that she has to lock the door behind them even though it locks itself and she absolutely just wants to look at Trixie’s ass as she goes up the stairs.

It’s electric and thrilling, feels adolescent to be here with Trixie like this. It’s been a long time since she’s brought a girl home with her. If she can, she likes to go back to their place instead so that she can leave when she wants in the morning and doesn’t have to awkwardly try to shepherd them out of the door.

Katya gets the door open after wrestling for a second with the sticky lock. The humidity is making it worse than normal. It’s not because Trixie is leaning with one shoulder propped against the wall, shamelessly watching her. It’s not.

“I am comfortable with a level of filth that other people find it difficult to accept,” she offers as a prelude before she opens the door.

It’s not actually that bad, not as bad as it was in her twenties, but still. She imagines every inch of Trixie’s home is color-coordinated and pristine. Katya double checks the front door is locked and puts the chain on it, turns back around to see Trixie already in her kitchen and studying the paraphernalia Katya has tacked to the refrigerator.

“Can I get you a drink? I don’t keep alcohol in the house, but I have tea, coffee, juice.”

“Hot water is fine. Do you have honey?” Trixie starts opening cabinets to check for herself and finds it almost immediately. “Lemon?”

Katya wrinkles her nose. She is notoriously terrible at feeding herself. Her refrigerator is usually barren. She only likes two foods at a time, would happily eat the same thing every meal for the rest of her life if her friends didn’t intervene.

“I don’t think so.”

“That’s fine. Honey’s good for my throat.”

Once the kettle is on the stovetop and heating up, Katya excuses herself to change. In the bathroom, she stares at herself in the mirror over the sink. Her sestrinskoye serdtse is here. Right out there, in Katya’s living room. And she’s tall and blonde and gorgeous and famous, sort of a little bit. It’s so ridiculous that Katya actually laughs, out loud, and then splashes cold water on her face.

When she comes back out, Trixie is over by the bookshelves running her fingers along and touching all of Katya’s tchotchkes. She turns around at the sound of the bathroom door opening.

“You have a lot of cool stuff.”

“Thanks! It’s vintage, mostly.”

Trixie tilts her head in consideration of that. “Does it count as vintage when you’ve been alive for a hundred and fifty years?”

Katya screams, again. Her neighbour is going to give her that stern look when they bump into each other in the mailroom tomorrow, but she doesn’t care.

When you’re an addict, people often tiptoe around you. Katya is used to people - especially new people - treating her like she’s gun shy or easily spooked.

“You’re a villain, Trixie Mattel.”

Her cheeks pink at her full name. Trixie spreads the skirt of her dress out in her hands and bends her knees in a little bow. “What was it like, witnessing the Industrial Revolution firsthand?”

“Stop!” Katya gasps.

Trixie is grinning open-mouthed. Even teasing, Katya thinks she is so lovely, so sweet and wonderful. She can hardly believe it. For just a second she wonders whether this is a soulbound thing, whether it puts rose-tinted glasses over her and that’s what makes Trixie a pink angel, but she doesn’t think so. She thought that the second she saw her, before they knew they were soulbound.

The kettle starts whistling and Katya fixes their drinks, hot water with honey for Trixie and green tea for herself. She joins Trixie on the couch and hands her the mug, wraps both hands around her own.

Her phone in her back pocket is jamming awkwardly into her hip. She tugs it free and goes to put it on the coffee table, then thinks better of it and hands it to Trixie instead.

“Here. Gimme your number.”

Trixie adds herself as a contact. She’s put an emoji after her name, the two pink hearts, and Katya grins to see it. She sends Trixie a text so that she’ll have her number too.

“Hold on, some weirdo’s texting me.” Trixie glances down at her own phone, but Katya doesn’t miss the way she watches her from the corner of her eye, looking for her reaction.

For a little while, they trade information back and forth like secrets. Katya asks Trixie about her childhood, her family, where she grew up, and she offers her own answers truth for truth. She learns all about Wisconsin, about growing up poor and how that has given Trixie the work ethic she has today.

It’s getting late, but they’re not on the other side of the night yet. It hasn’t rolled over into morning. Trixie is sitting with her elbow propped up on the back of the couch and she plays absent-mindedly with strands of her own hair. She’s warm and Katya smells adrenaline and sweat on her, and leftover perfume.

“Hey,” Trixie says when there’s a lull in their conversation, and reaches out to prod Katya’s bicep. “What did you want to show me?”

Katya gets up and leads Trixie to her bedroom. She keeps her old journals in here, because it’s easier than fielding questions whenever she has friends or family over. They take up the bottom three shelves of her bookcase. She gestures to them, and Trixie sinks down to kneel on the carpet.

“I uh, kept notes. Helped me make sense of things, I guess. And so that I could ask them - you - for the stories.”

Trixie looks up at Katya and she has one hand over her heart like she’s trying to keep it in her chest. “Can I?”

“Course. They’re about you.”

Katya settles cross-legged on the end of her bed to watch. She picks at her cuticles, feeling suddenly bare. Lots of the people in her life know that she’s soulbound, but since the day that Anya found her journal nobody else has ever seen them.

The first one Trixie picks out is the first one Katya started. It’s thirty years old and the binding is coming apart a bit, she keeps meaning to tape it together. The pages are yellow and her writing is a little faded; Trixie cranes her neck over it until her nose is almost touching.

“You didn’t start from my birthday?”

“I didn’t have the journal yet,” Katya explains.

Trixie doesn’t seem to even really be listening. She’s following the words on the page with her fingertips as she reads, like she’s trying to absorb them. It feels voyeuristic to watch, even though it’s Katya’s own words that she’s reading.

“Wow. I never even thought about that. How weird it must have been for you when I was a little kid.”

Katya snorts a laugh. “Weird is an understatement. Thought they were gonna ship me off to the looney bin a couple times there.”

“When did you get back?”

The way she teases with her sweet voice and her sweet smile is like taking a hit to the solar plexus every time. It’s like they’ve known each other years. Katya kicks her foot out in Trixie’s direction but isn’t quite close enough to make contact.

Trixie closes the journal and puts it back in its place on the shelf, skips ahead several years. The one she pulls next is from when she was nine and Katya was sixteen. It wasn’t a good year for either of them, Katya remembers that much. And she remembers how she had handled it.

Not gracefully.

“I had kind of a shitty childhood,” Trixie offers. They both know that Katya already knows that, but she’s grateful anyway that Trixie has chosen to share. “Yours seemed pretty good though. I was sad a lot, so I guess you were happy?”

Oh. Right. That.

“I was…” Katya pauses to swallow roughly. Her mouth is suddenly dry and she works her tongue around her teeth. “I was high, Trixie. Like a lot. For years and years.”

Trixie very slowly closes the journal and sets it down in front of herself. She doesn’t lift her head to look at Katya. A little crease has formed between her eyebrows that Katya wants to put her mouth to.

“You were high?”

“Yeah. Or drunk. Sometimes both.”

Katya is way past the point of shame. She’s worked through it a lot in therapy and in AA meetings and now she can view that part of her life with a sort of detachment. Like somebody else did those things.

“You knew that whatever you felt, I would feel the opposite, and you chose to get high anyway?”

“Trixie-”

“Do you know what the opposite of euphoria is, Katya?” Trixie suddenly seems to realise the imbalance between them and gets to her feet. “It’s fucking misery. All the time. And then imagine that you’re nine fucking years old.”

Katya hates confrontation, always has. And she doesn’t know enough about Trixie yet to know where the lines are, how carefully she needs to tread. She lays her hands flat against her thighs, palms up.

“I didn’t think it would count. If it was synthetic happiness.“

“Well it fucking did. I was a kid.”

God. She knows that. She thought about it a lot when she went to rehab. That it wasn’t only her own life she was destroying. And every addict says that, of course, because everybody has an intimate circle of collateral around themselves, but for her it was different.

“I know you were. I know. I’ve had a lot of guilt about that.”

“Well why the fuck did you do it then?” Trixie has her hands in two tight fists and she’s pressing them against her legs as if she doesn’t trust what she might do with them otherwise.

“I’m happy for you that you don’t have enough of a concept of addiction to understand why it’s not that easy,” Katya says very gently.

“Don’t patronise me!”

Katya closes her mouth. She always thought that feeling the opposite of what the other person feels is cruel, is an unkindness on the part of the universe, but this is even worse. Trixie’s heart is aching inside of Katya’s chest. She can feel how much she has hurt her, can even feel how Trixie is on the hot edge of tears.

“I’m sorry. I was selfish. I wish I could take it back.”

“I have to go,” Trixie says. She looks around herself in confusion, like she can’t understand how she got here. “I can’t be here with you. I have to go.”

She’s at the door before Katya can even begin to figure out how to ask her to stay. It’s an unusual sensation. She’s not in love with Trixie, not yet, but she is the love of her life. Trixie is her sestrinskoye serdtse, but Katya feels certain that if she lets her go now that’s it for them.

“Trixie, please-” Katya starts, and gets her own front door closed in her face.

She slumps against it and sinks to the ground, lets her head smack back heavily against the wood. And then again, and again, and one more time. Katya draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, opens her mouth to let her teeth scrape against her own skin.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Katya heaves herself up off the floor. Her phone is face down on the kitchen countertop and she reaches for it, dials without looking.

“Katya?”

“Da,” she says.

She starts explaining the whole situation in rapidfire Russian, and as she talks she moves through her apartment and lets her muscle memory kick in. She rinses their two mugs and closes her blinds and checks that her lunch is ready to go for the morning.

On the other end of the phone, Sasha listens intently. Sometimes she just needs to rant in her mother tongue, and her old roommate is always so receptive and kind. Katya tells her that she found her sestrinskoye serdtse and that they are beautiful and funny and kind and that Katya is never going to see them again because the mistakes she made at thirteen are still, still, wreaking havoc in her adult life.

“Katya, you said you can feel how upset she is?”

“Da.” She bows her head over the sink and lets a tear drip off the end of her nose into it. “It hurts.”

“Okay. Well don’t you think that might mean that she feels how sorry you are, then?”

That did not occur to her, and she feels like a colossal idiot. Katya turns out all the lights through the kitchen and living room and gets into bed, phone tight in her grip still.

“Do you think it will make a difference?”

“I’d say so.”

Sasha has switched back to English now. Katya assumes Shea is there, knows how much Sasha hates to speak Russian in front of her wife and exclude her in any way, even accidentally.

“I like her so much. I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do.”

“I think you should give her some space for tonight. She was fresh off a show, right? Her emotions have to have been running high.”

Katya huffs a little noise of agreement. She knows that Trixie is tired because she feels it, layered over top of her own exhaustion like she is the photograph and Trixie the negative.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Trixie is vibrant and technicolor and Katya feels not all the way here.

There’s whispering on the other end of the phone, the sound of a door closing. “Do you need me to come over? Or I can stay on with you till you fall asleep.”

“I’m okay. Really. I’m just gonna pass out. Thank you, yaytso.” The nickname makes Sasha grunt and Katya grins, hurries to follow it up with something a little more tender. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”

They hang up. Katya doesn’t fall asleep, of course not. She lies on her back with her arms crossed over her chest so she can feel it rising and falling, to remind her that she will go on breathing even though it feels like her lungs are collapsing.

All of her life, she’s imagined this moment. What it will be like to meet her sestrinskoye serdtse. She always figured that whoever they were, no matter what, the two of them would just fall into it. That it would be easy.

She’s still awake when the sun comes up and she rolls out of bed and runs through her salutation. It does help, grounds her a little bit. Now that she’s listening to her body, it has finally gone quiet. Trixie is sleeping, then. Katya is teaching some classes today, but not until a little later in the morning. She takes a long shower and tips her head back beneath the stream, lets the hot water pound down over her face.

Her bangs are getting long. She huffs a breath and they flutter against her forehead. Katya runs through her usual makeup routine, dark smudgy liner and a crimson lip. She feels a little more like herself now.

Having Trixie in her space brought a few truths home for her. Firstly, she needs to get some actual food. Her refrigerator is almost totally empty and it’s embarrassing; she’s nearing forty.

Part of the reason she doesn’t eat is that she hates the grocery store. The lights stress her out and she gets so self-conscious, worries that she’s in everybody’s way while they try to browse the shelves.

It’s not yet eight, so it’s fairly quiet still. She gets a cart in the hope that she will be encouraged to fill it. Katya paces up and down the aisles choosing things at random. Back when she lived with Sasha they had a good arrangement going: Sasha made meal plans and went to the store and cooked everything, and Katya did the dishes and took out the garbage.

She misses her, fires off a quick text to tell her so. There’s no response, but Sasha is probably busy getting ready for work and is also probably exhausted after staying up with Katya all night like she’s a colicky infant.

Katya finds herself picking up a whole bag of lemons without really thinking about it. She hates them, and she pauses for a second and then goes ahead and puts them in the cart. She pays for everything and heads down the block towards her apartment with a brown paper bag cradled in each arm.

She’s not looking where she’s going, because she’s trying to figure out how to get her keys out of her pocket without dropping all of her groceries. A voice startles her and it takes twenty years of yoga, of centring herself, for her not to dump everything out on the sidewalk.

“Let me help.”

“Trixie?”

“Hi.” Trixie chews on her lip. She’s not wearing any makeup and her hair is back in a ponytail. There are blue tinted shadows beneath her eyes and a line across her forehead that was not there last night. “Here. Give them to me.”

“You’re here.”

“I’ve been buzzing.”

“I’m not home,” Katya says, and immediately wishes she had a hand free to slap over her face.

It makes Trixie smile though. She’s still holding her hands out and Katya passes the bags over. She gets the door unlocked, ushers Trixie up the stairs ahead of her and opens her apartment door as well. She has about three seconds to collect herself while she locks it behind them and she takes a very deep, very slow breath.

Trixie is at the kitchen island unloading the bags, putting the perishables in the refrigerator. It’s so achingly domestic that Katya feels like she’s going to die. Instead, she heads to join Trixie and help her.

“These are for you.” She holds the bag of lemons out towards Trixie.

Her face goes soft around the edges. Now that Katya’s getting a good look at her, she sees that the whites of her eyes and the tip of her nose are a little pink.

“I talked to Fame,” Trixie offers. She takes the lemons and puts them away into the refrigerator, very carefully not looking at Katya. “You were right. I don’t know what it’s like, to be an addict. She helped me to understand a little better.”

For just a second, she bristles. She doesn’t like the idea of Trixie and Fame talking about her. But Trixie is here, so whatever Fame said clearly worked.

“And, Katya.” Trixie turns to look at her then. Her shoulders go down and she sets her jaw. “I felt you. Felt how guilty you’ve been, all this time. How sorry you are.”

“I’m so, so sorry,” she agrees.

Those words have been offered many, many times. To her friends and family and coworkers and doctors. This is the first time she’s really sure that the other person understands how deeply she means them.

“I forgive you,” Trixie says. She takes Katya’s hand in hers and laces their fingers together. “I can’t say I understand, but I…appreciate how difficult it’s been. For you.”

“Has it been difficult for you?”

Trixie huffs an adorable little noise. They’re just standing here, holding hands in the middle of Katya’s kitchen. It should feel ridiculous. It doesn’t.

“Yes. I’ve ached for you, every day. Tried to move past it-” She cuts herself off and frowns. “Well. I guess you know about that. But yes. I’ve wanted you so badly, my whole life.”

“That’s pretty gay,” Katya says. She’s grinning, can’t help herself. Trixie learned the truth, learned about the part of her that pads restlessly, concentrically in her heart. And she came back.

Trixie snorts. “Uh yeah, well I’m a giant lesbian, so.”

“I wouldn’t say giant.” Katya lets her eyes roam over Trixie. She’s in flats today, cute little pumps, but she still has several inches on Katya.

She screams that banshee laugh again and throws her head back, closes her eyes. It’s so cute. Trixie is so cute. When she gets done cackling she goes quiet and then she wells up, her brown eyes almost green in the early morning light.

“I don’t want this to be ruined before it even starts,” she whispers.

Katya reaches for her, not sure what her intentions are until she gets her hands on Trixie. She brings her in for a hug, one hand cradling the back of her head and the other rubbing the space between her shoulder blades.

“Hey, no. Trixie, baby, shh, it’s okay. Nothing’s ruined. We’re okay.”

She holds her for a long time, feels the material of her shirt getting damp. Trixie has her arms low around Katya’s waist. They’ve known each other for barely twelve hours. But they have also known each other for thirty years. Pressed together like this, Katya’s heart greets Trixie’s warmly.

Oh, there you are.

#rpdr fanfiction #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #trixya #soulmate au #angst #fluff #tenderness #ficon #beanierose #tw drug abuse

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addict-from-mars · 4 years

Text

A ghost story

4/16/2020

Sundried, now i can barely move.

Somehow i can feel that you’ve

Stuttered, felt changes in the air,

My spirit falling through your hair

Through blue skies

Over years, made of crime and lies,

We learned the language left in sighs.

Refixed the muscles to our bones,

Rebuilt our house with blistered stones;

Sundried, now.

Through blue skies, i would wonder how

Man’s god or laws could still allow

The hands through which i still persist,

Grace or time in which, i exist.

Levitate.

I think i’ve met this room before

Familar, ever tattered floor;

Each echo stays just in it’s place,

Forgiven, every word misplaced,

In a sigh.

So this is my take on a poetic form called the royal spiral. It’s quite elegant in its style, it reminds me of a waltz. Aabbc ccdde eeffg gghhc, in iambic pentameter, with interchanging beginning and ending lines. But i, maybe unjustly, think that the iambic pentameter is antiquated. But moreso than criticizing older forms, i felt that it didn’t suit the subject matter very well. But i still wanted to limit myself. So, every 4 lines have 8 syllables, and every 5th line has 3. And i wasn’t gonna worry about stressed unstressed stuff. I will call myself out though, i didn’t stick to the rhyme scheme at the end, the last stanza being hhiic. And that c at the end is really a let down shitty ending. I may come back to this and rework it to fit the form better, but tbh that’s not why i’d come back. Some of the lines are inadequate. And the punctuation is down right arbitrary. But for one day, i reckon it’s pretty good. Hopefully i get better. Today, i think i’ll work on something in common metre and get my got damb Emily Dickinson shoes on.

#poetry #poem #royal spiral #original poem #a ghost story

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wongkarwives · 5 years

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I wanna ask you pretty much the same thing you asked me lol! Mostly your favorite fics though. Also headcanons too I think that’s super interesting!

!!!!

i have so many favourite fics but they fall under so many categories

1). nice girls don’t by telanu

2). the art of seeing by ubiquitousmixie

3). the art of survival by wastedon

4). the end of all things by telanu

5). the fix by menzosarres

6). disarming athena by politic_x

7). all fics written by whitesheets i LOVE

the above are ones i have liked for a VERY long time and will probably love for the rest of eternity

here are my current fav ones, i’ve read em recently (but honestly they change often)

1). focus by elle_nic

2). when night falls on you by fewthistle

3). hold my hand by MsSir

4). her one wild precious life by awomannotagirl

5). a mean sleep by politic_x

slowburns

1). truth and measure by telanu

2). this must be the place by chilly_flame

3). five minutes by chilly_flame

4). take me to the river by spacedmuch

5). not everyone series by spacedmuch

as for headcanons, i’ve talked about a lot of em before but oh well time to go very deep even though you didn’t ask for this

miranda is either a capricorn or a taurus, andy is a cancer or pisces. miranda’s a lesbian, and andy is bi. andy’s an infp, miranda’s an istj. miranda grew up jewish, andy grew up christian (maybe presbyterian? idk i’m not religious). andy i think would be a democrat and miranda would be a libertarian, but leaning towards left? miranda’s a morning person, andy is a night owl. andy loves fish, miranda hates it.

miranda grew up jewish and her mother was polish, but miranda was raised in england. her father died when she was very young and afterwards she had to take care of her mentally unstable mother. she’s fluent in french, enjoys gardening, can play piano well. she’s a very skilled dancer and cook as well. she reads a lot, mostly morning newspapers and really likes sylvia plath and emily dickinson. she’s a closet romantic and occasionally will do shit straight out of a romance novel-- she’s the one who proposed and she REALLY went all out. miranda listens to a lot of chopin, debussy, edith piaf, peggy lee, etc. an abba and cher fan (obvs). very possessive of aux cord, the coffee ice cream in the freezer, and andy. miranda has several pairs of reading glasses because she’s Extra like that, and sometimes can be found wearing like three at a time. she really loves old movies with audrey hepburn and william holden. she’s very protective of her relationship with andy, and refuses to make public statements about them. she and the girls always read harry potter together before bed. miranda used to smoke, but doesn’t anymore. contrary to a lot of fics, i don’t think miranda would be really insecure about her age-- she might say things occasionally like “god i’m getting old” or “ah, andrea. to be young again, and know a life outside of chronic back pain. what a life you live.” miranda always keeps giving andy outfits and clothes to wear without saying anything at all, and andy just pretends she doesn’t notice that her closet gets bigger and bigger every time she looks through it. despite being happily married for the first time ever, miranda’s still scary, mean, demanding, and treats her employees (and literally everyone else) the same as she always had. she’s not a very touchy-feely person, nor does she shower andy with praise, but if you talk to anyone that knows miranda priestly personally, they will tell you with confidence that she absolutely dotes on andy

andy likes ernest hemingway, virginia woolf, jane austen, f scott fitzgerald, and is constantly telling miranda about the books she reads. she probably gets along better with her dad than her mom. i think she has an older sister and a younger brother. her grandmother is the number one mirandy shipper. andy likes sports, pasta, 90s hip hop, and has the corniest pick-up lines that always make miranda laugh. she’s a very big dog person and miranda always gets mad at her (not really) for overfeeding patricia. she likes to make fun of miranda sometimes, and is constantly @ ing her on twitter. she loves harry potter just as much as the girls do, and lets them watch all the horror movies they want, which miranda gets mad at her for. she loves helping the twins study for school, and is the one handing them their backpacks before they leave, while miranda sharply reminds them to not get into trouble at school (they pull pranks and can be disruptive in class sometimes). she’s very shitty at interior decorating. oh and also andy tops 99% of the time

they make everything, no matter how small or menial, into a fun challenge (like speed shopping or water gun wars). they each have their own side of the bed and never stray from it, even when they’re apart. they’re constantly leaving each other post-it notes around the house- miranda lines her up neatly in rows, andy sticks them all over the place. they always fight over the tv remote and the twins dread movie night subsequently. they share their hobbies & interests with each other, and both are always willing to try new stuff out. miranda cuts out andy’s articles and secretly hoards them so she can read them whenever she wants. she’s very proud of andy and whenever they go to events miranda always introduces her as “my lovely pulitzer-winning wife, andrea.” before andy, miranda would never dance at parties or events, but now they’re dancing nearly all night long. when it’s miranda’s turn to host the met gala, andy is the first person on the guest list, and miranda obvs goes ALL OUT when it comes to planning their looks. they always walk onto the carpet holding hands and people always yell at them to kiss, but miranda has only caved ONCE to the press. after that incident they were trending on twitter for quite a while. andy always gets small gifts for miranda when she goes on trips, and they email each other all the time when they’re apart. andy keeps trying to get miranda to go to pride, but miranda’s stubborn as fuck and always says no. miranda and andy unintentionally end up wearing each other’s clothes around the house-- miranda in sweatpants and tank tops, andy in silk robes. they probably try to go out for drinks with nigel and his husband as often as they can. they don’t hug or kiss much but they do a LOT of hand-holding. miranda hates going to amusement parks but is willing to go because everyone in the family won’t stop bothering her about it (ESPECIALLY ANDY).

when andy and miranda get older, they both retire from their jobs and dedicate most of their time to travelling together. they still make a lot of public appearances for charities, organisations, and events still though. they visit the twins as often as they can, babysit their grandkids (mostly andy because the kids say that “grandma miranda is scary”). every anniversary, they receive millions of messages and happy anniversary wishes from people worldwide. when they’re mentioned in a conversation, everyone agrees that they’re one of the best celebrity couples, and wish that they had a relationship like theirs

#kerry asks #kerry.txt #devil wears prada #fic things #mirandy #i'm sorry this is crazy long #sarahstreep7

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themoonandotherslikeit · 5 years

Text

The hand That Reaches for God, Chapter 3

***Sometimes staying away is the easiest move. Keeping a safe distance, especially for Emerson and Dean Winchester. So, when the Maklen twins come home again, they don’t anticipate the feelings that Emerson will get having to see him again. When tragedy strikes, the Winchester brothers and the Maklen twins are forced to face, not only their feelings, but each other. In a story about pain, family, abandonment, and desire, the couples have to decide if survival, without love, is enough.***

Warnings: Angst, language, illness, mutual pinning

Chapter Three

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all.” - Emily Dickinson

-8 Hours After-

The rain had stopped sometime during the night, leaving the boat oddly quiet. It barely rocked with the movement of the sea, and if there was any commotion outside, the group didn’t hear it. Sam and Pheli were still asleep, curled together like a fist protesting god. Emerson’s head was on Deans lap, and his fingers were in her hair. He fell asleep absentmindedly stroking her blonde hair. They kept finding themselves like that, unknowingly stuck in an intimate gesture.

Dean woke with a start. His eyes trailed down to Emerson sleeping in his lap and he smiled a little at her. She was less of a pain in the ass when she was sleeping. She almost seemed peaceful. He snorted, because he knew better. There was no peaceful bone in her body.

He turned a bit, the circle window on the door was letting the morning sunshine into the stairwell. He squinted, and considered the possibility that everything that happened the night before was a really bad dream. It wouldn’t be the first time, after he came back from Afghanistan he had constant nightmares. Sometimes he just didn’t sleep at all.

Emerson looked up at him with a sleepy expression, her eyes still heavy from the night. “You okay?”

Dean shrugged in response. “Yet to be determined. Let’s check out the deck.”

“Okay.” She sat up and stretched, her elbows popping in response. She was sore from sleeping on the stairs, but she knew that she was lucky for being able to get any sleep, no matter how terrible it was.

The two stood up and Dean slowly opened the door. The sun spilled over them, surrounding them in an almost holy light. Emerson covered her eyes to block out the bright sunlight. Maybe it was from laying in the dark cabin for so long, but the sun seemed brighter and harsher than it had the day before. The deck was covered in standing blood red water, which had yet to be evaporated by the suns blinding rays.

Dean crouched down and touched the water with his index finger. “It’s not hot anymore.” He said cautiously, before stepping out onto the deck.

Emerson followed behind him. “God, does the sun feel brighter to you?”

“Yeah, actually.” Dean squinted. “Wasn’t even this hot in Afghanistan, and fuck that’s sayin somethin.”

Emerson pressed her lips together. Dean never talked about his time in the military, not even to Sam. She turned her body toward the shore and squinted. Black plumes of smoke danced toward the sky. The world was on fire. The ocean looked like it was bleeding from the rain, everything was red as far as her eyes could see, and when they reached the shore… everything was ash and fires. The world was hazy from all of the smoke, it was like the smoke was behind her eyes, in her nose, her lungs. She gasped. It was too much. Her mother was over there, helpless. She couldn’t reach her. Emerson didn’t realize how close she was to passing out until Dean grabbed ahold of her arms. “Hey, I’ve got you.”

Her head rolled to the side, resting on Dean’s chest. “Dean.”

“There’s something in the air.” He said, confirming her thoughts. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her back into the safety of the space below deck.

“Em?” Pheli called sleepily from below deck, before a little more urgently. “Emerson?”

“We’re over here.” Dean said, as he helped the half-conscious Emerson down the stairs.

“What happened?” Ophelia sat up on her knees on the bed in alarm. Her usually perfect hair was sticking out on one side, and flattened on the side that was snuggled against Sam.

“Dean?” Sam asked, his eyes mirroring his girlfriends.

“She’s okay.” He said through clenched teeth. He laid her down. “Right, Em?” He leaned over her, pressing two fingers to the pulse point on her throat.

“I feel a lot better now that I’m inside.” She agreed weakly. “What the fuck was that?”

“There’s something in the air.” Dean said quietly.

“Why weren’t you effected?” She asked, trying to sit up.

“Hey, cool it.” He pressed a hand to her chest, urging her to lay back down. “I was effected.” He said quietly. “Just assuming it takes more for me since I’m bigger than you.” He pushed her hair behind her ear. “So just relax.”

“What do you mean there’s something in the air?” Pheli asked, moving to Emerson’s side. She took her sisters head and rested it in her lap. “Like poison?”

“Or a toxin, from the bomb.”

“So what now?” Sam asked. “We obviously can’t go outside.

“It may not matter. We are still breathing the same air.” His eyes flickered to Emerson’s. “Last night it rained blood red, hot rain, and I’m talking Mom’s dishes water hot.”

Sam’s eyes widened. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.” Dean admitted. “I really don’t.”

Pheli grabbed Emerson’s hand. “What are we going to do?”

“I think we have to go outside.” Emerson said, sitting up. “We are sitting ducks in here.” Her throat was a little raw and she cleared it a few times.

“How? Look at you, Em! You were barely outside.” Pheli’s voice was small, and weak.

“Hey.” Emerson smiled, touching her sister’s cheek. “We will figure it out. Right Dean?” Her eyes flickered to the older brother. She wasn’t sure what moment they became partners, but it was clear that they had.

“Yeah.” He offered a weak smile. “Of course we will.” He met Sam’s eyes. His younger brother didn’t look too convinced. Dean made a mental note to reconvene with Sam once they had the girls secured. He didn’t plan on this being a permanent set up.

“Maybe we just need some kind of filter to protect us from the air?” Sam offered. “Like a gas mask?”

“That could work.” Dean admitted.

“I don’t think we have gas masks in a sail boat.” Pheli said weakly. She looked afraid, and she brought her finger to her mouth and bit on the skin around her nail.

“No.” Emerson said, looking around. “But we may have surgical masks in the first aid kit.”

“It won’t work as well, but fuck, Em. You may be a genius.” Dean grinned at her.

She shrugged in response, before hopping up to help him look for the first aid kit. “Bingo.” She said, pulling the white box out from under the bed. She opened it up and pulled out a plastic bag full of surgical masks. “What about hats? The sun was so hot. We will sunburn really quickly.”

Dean got up and opened the closet door and rifled through it before pulling out some clothes. He tossed a pair of rain jackets at the girls. “Ready to forge forward?” He grinned widely.

“May as well.” Emerson said, slipping into the jacket, and taking her sisters hand. “Don’t worry.” She murmured. “We got this.”

-7 Years Before-

Ophelia sat with her legs crisscrossed on the porch swing on the front porch of her house. It rocking gently back and forth as she stared intently at the book in her hands for school. Out of the two Maklen sisters, Pheli was not the most studious. It took her twice as long to finish things as it did for Emerson, her head was always in the clouds. She was reading Jane Eyre for class, and while it should be entertaining for her, being the romantic she was, all it was doing was causing her head to spin out of control. She was imagining her own Mr Rochester.

She folded the corner of her page down to mark her place when she noticed Sam Winchester slowly approaching, with his hands in his pockets. He was the short, scrawny boy who lived next door to her her whole life. He seemed really shy, and despite being her neighbor, he had barely spoken to her. “Hey.” She said, cautiously.

“Oh, uh, hi.” His face was bright red and Pheli grinned in response. Even at age fourteen she was a bit of a narcissist.

“Can I help you?” She asked, batting her eyelashes.

“I was...no.. that’s okay.” Sam turned on his heels to leave and Pheli quickly stood up.

“Do you want some lemonade? Mom made some. She has cookies too.”

“Sure.” Sam pushed his hair behind his ears. It was shaggy. He looked at her from the bottom step of her porch, his dimples popping up on his cheeks.

“Come on.” She gestured for him to step inside. “I hope you like cinnamon sugar cookies.”

“I do.” He smiled even wider. “It’s cool that your mom bakes, mine can’t cook at all.” He laughed dryly. “She buys them from the store and pretends she baked them.”

“My mom can’t cook either, but she can bake.” Pheli said handing him the plate of cookies. She went to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of lemonade. “Ice?”

“Okay.” He reached forward and took a big bite of cookie. “Holy crap, thats delicious.”

Pheli grinned proudly, and handed him the glass of lemonade. “Here.”

“Thank you.”

She leaned on the counter across from him and took a bite of her own cookie. “Emerson said I’m going to get fat if I eat too many of these.”

“Is that your sister? I’ve seen her around.”

“Yeah.” Pheli chewed, and eyed him suspiciously. “You’ve seen her around?”

“Mmhm.” He mumbled, before swallowing his bite of cookie. “Outside, around school.” He shrugged. “I have her in biology.”

“What? Are you in love with her or something?” Pheli asked suddenly, before covering her mouth with her hands. What the hell is wrong with you?!

“What?! No!”

She wished she could curl into herself and disappear. She’d seen Sam around, too, and his older brother. “Just making sure... because... uh... I think she likes your brother and that’d be weird.” Pheli said. It came out like word vomit, she didn’t mean to say it, and her sister would kill her if she found out. They’d never talked much about the boys next door, let alone liked either of them. So why was Pheli being so dramatic? Why was her stomach flipping now that she was in the same room as the younger Winchester?

“She does?” Sam asked, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

“Yeah. He’s all mysterious. She eats that stuff up.”

“Huh.”

“But don’t tell him! She will be so mad at me!”

“Right, I won’t.” Sam promised. He reached for another cookie, but the plate was empty. They’d eaten the entire thing while they were talking. “Wow, I see what you mean. These things are addicting.” He grabbed a crumb off the plate and stuck it to his tongue.

“That’s an understatement.” Pheli laughed nervously, biting at her cuticle.

“You were reading when I walked up. What book was it?”

“Jane Eyre. It’s for class.” Pheli took a sip of her lemonade. It was a little too sour, and her nose wrinkled in response. “Why did you walk up?”

“I...” Sams cheeks turned even more red. “I’ve been trying to get the nerve to talk to you for awhile.”

“Really?” She squeaked.

“Yeah.” He laughed, taking a sip of his own lemonade just to have something to do with his hands. “Wow, that’s really sour!”

Ophelia busted into a fit of giggles, covering her mouth. “Yeah, it is really bad!”

Sam laughed in response. Every time they would slow down they’d meet eyes and roll into another fit, until they were both holding their stomachs and begging the other to stop.

“Told you she was terrible at everything other than baked goods.” Pheli said breathlessly.

“You weren’t wrong.” Sam agreed, wiping the tears away from his eyes.

She grabbed both glasses and dumped them down the sink. “Why... why were you afraid to talk to me?”

“You’re intimidating, Ophelia.”

“You can call me Pheli.”

“Okay.” Sam said, softly. His eyes were glued to his lap.

“I’m not.”

“Not what?” His eyes flickered up to hers.

“Intimidating.”

He laughed lightly. “Yeah, you are.”

“You can talk to me any time you want, Sam.”

“It isn’t just talking... I actually had something to ask you.” He let out a breath.

“Okay. What is it?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably stupid, forget it.”

“Just ask, sam.”

“I... ugh, fine okay.” He looked like he was going to pass out before he quietly mumbled, “Will you go to homecoming with me?”

A grin grew on Opehlia’s face. It almost hurt to smile that widely, but when he met her deep brown eyes he saw the night sky in them. They sparkled like they were full of stars. “Yes! You cute little idiot. I’d love to!”

****

“Was that Sam Winchester in our house earlier?”

“You saw that?” Pheli asked, from her bed. She had her book light on, trying to catch up on her reading before her due date the next day, but in reality she was day dreaming out homecoming.

“Yeah.” She laughed. “I was coming downstairs for a drink, and I figured I should leave you two alone.” She shrugged, rolling over onto her side on the bed so she could get a better look at her sister in the darkness.

“He asked me to homecoming.”

“What?” Emerson sat up. “Really? Have you ever even talked to him before?”

“No.” She laughed. “Not really... but he’s cute, Em. Really cute.”

“I guess.” Emerson laughed quietly and rolled her eyes.

“What if he is my Mr Rochester?”

“That book is kind of dysfunctional, Phel.”

“I think it’s romantic.” She cooed in response. “He could be my Romeo. We could be soulmates.”

“Phel, they both died. That’s not really romantic... it’s tragic.”

Ophelia shrugged in response. “He has a brother, you know. It’s always been my dream for us to marry brothers. We could have a double wedding!” She sat up with a wide grin. “You have to take Dean Winchester to homecoming.”

“I would rather eat Mom’s pot roast than take Dean Winchester to homecoming.” Emerson said flatly. “He wears too much Axe, and I’m pretty sure he smokes. No way.” She flipped over to face the wall to go to sleep. “I will never like Dean Winchester, so you may as well let go of that dream now, Phel, before you get too disappointed.”

-8 Hours After-

The group looked ridiculous in their boat hats, rain jackets, and surgical masks. Dean went up on deck with Sam to sail back to the mainland, leaving the Maklen sisters below deck.

“I can’t believe this.” Pheli said, plopping on the bed, with her face in her hands.

“We will figure it out. We have each other, that’s all we’ve ever needed.” Emerson said, resting her hand on her sisters shoulder.

“I need a distraction, or I’m going to start crying.” She sucked in her breath before her eyes flickered to her sisters. A perfect reflection of herself. “What was going on with you two on deck last night? Before everything happened. It looked intense.”

“It... it was a little intense.” Emerson admitted, leaning against the wall. “He is a little intense.”

“What were you talking about?” Pheli asked, quietly, glancing at her sister.

Emerson looked far off, as if she could see through the walls of their tiny cabin. “The sky.”

“The sky?”

“Yeah.” She glanced down at the tiny blisters on her palm, before curling it back into itself. She wasn’t much of a talker. She wasn’t a romantic, like her sister. She didn’t watch the stars, or find shapes in the clouds. She didn’t dream about a boy who would sweep her off her feet and change everything. She didn’t believe anyone had that power, and if anyone could, it was God, and he’d obviously left the building.

—————

Chapter Four

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