Reading

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anime

Go and Stop

Surprising but welcome news – a green light is lit for a Second Anime Season of Yona of the Dawn – more than 10 years after the first season. The manga is just now ending and will hit 47 volumes. I can’t say I’m really excited about the anime; I’m currently more interested in how the story ends.

Speaking of story ends... after ignoring the series all season, yesterday I binge-watched the last 10 episodes of My Hero Academia. The long series ended about as I expected. Except for Ochaco getting shortchanged (as she has throughout the series), I’m satisfied but not delighted with the ending. I don’t think I need to watch this series again.

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3 1/2 weeks (or 25 freakin' days)

That's how long it's been since I last biked outside. Criminy. Today broke the longest streak of garage-biking I've had in... more than 30 years. The endless stretch of cold fog has finally broken, and temperatures are warming up to the low-mid 50s, which I can work with. BUT... we're also entering a period of probably two solid weeks of rain. Ideally, there will be some breaks in that and I'll be able to get outside again. Biking out in the world is not only less boring, it lets you stretch out your muscles more. Stationary biking is a grind. Literally.

You may have seen a bunch of Idol entries pop up recently. The current challenge involved assembling a portfolio that included two new entries, a letter to a past participant, and an overview page to pull it all together. We only have 5 contestants left now, so the poll is very small. Please vote if you can, and thank you for your support!

Christmas tree tomorrow, I hope? We replaced the excellent stand we lost to the fire, and we were lucky enough to get our ornaments back. No outside lights yet, though my son and I put up the mug hooks under the eaves for them. But they're not due to be delivered from Amazon until tomorrow. To be fair, I am ALWAYS behind at Christmas time, regardless of the year. \o?

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Annie Lennox "Into the West"

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Dept. of Memes

Music Meme, Day 15

I've been surviving very cold Chicago; I've been adulting, doing the Green Card renewal (which the CIS folks just sent me two letters stating my case is "in process," huzzah) and getting my Rexulti program application for 2026 ready for delivery to my delightfully old-fashioned shrink and The Amazing Nicki, and spending more time than I should cooking and baking rather than reading. But it's time to put all that behind me and return to my music meme, at least until I can think of interesting things in my brain that others might like to hear about. Therefore, I bring you -

A song from a movie soundtrack:

I've read The Lord of the Rings trilogy more times than I can remember. I also watched the three movies, both theatrical and extended release, dozens of times in total, in theaters, and at home. I love both the books and, with caveats, the movies.

I believe that the ending of The Return of the King, the third movie, is as close to perfect as it could possibly be. A major reason is the song written by Annie Lennox and Fran Walsh, with music by Lennox and Howard Shore. The words, which take from one of Gandalf's comments to Pippin before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and speak of Elves being called home to the Undying Lands, get me every time.

This could have been the song I chose as one that makes me cry, but it's for that strange mix of grief, awe, and yearning that is somehow transmuted into joy. And of course Annie Lennox's voice is the wind that fills the sails as the ships leave the Grey Havens.

Watch on YouTube

Here is a link to Day 14 and to Day 13; should you desire, you can see what I yammered on about in earlier meme iterations.

.

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aaaand three minutes before midnight ALSO still counts!

+ Watched Wake Up Dead Man today, and out of the three I can safely say it’s my favorite. The setting, characters, theme, all hit home for me. Honestly one I wouldn’t mind rewatching.

Reactor Mag has an excellent article up on it: Entirely Too Many Thoughts About Wake Up Dead Man.

Btw does anyone want some screengrabs to make icons from uploaded to

capshare? (Not the very best quality possible, but serviceable) If so, specific characters?

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 17

Gilmore Girls
They Go Just as Quickly as They Come by

petpluto (2,004 words). Richard dies. Emily goes on living.
At first, its emptiness wasn’t as pervasive. She accepted the house, and the stillness.

It hadn’t been so long. Not really. Richard had spent longer away on business trips. The house was empty, but not unfamiliarly so. But there came a time when, if Richard had been away on a business trip, he would have been back from it. And the emptiness pressed in until it is all she can see, all she can feel.

The house is empty.

She doesn’t wander the halls. She doesn’t throw herself at his portrait. She does not have a portrait made. She doesn’t shutter the windows and regress. She doesn’t dress in all black. She isn’t part of some maudlin tale, some piece of fiction Rory and Richard had once fawned over together. She is a graduate of Smith, after all. She still belongs to any number of groups, of charities and clubs and associations. She fills her days, just as she did before.

The house, though, is still empty, when she returns to it.

Current Mood: energetic
Current Music: Blanche - The World I Used to Be Afraid Of

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online life for 2026

I decided to tweak how I engage with online life for 2026, and have been busy the last couple weeks trying to get it ready so I can test it before the new year actually starts.

So:
1. Switch back to posting on DW as my main journal (external blog will close)
2. Move website from pixietails.club to tozka.fyi (partly to save money on the domain renewal cost lol)
2b. Website will be more for evergreen content and not so much tracking content. So pages like a list of what I read this year will be deleted from public and kept private instead, but all my tutorials and fanlistings will still be there.
3. Self-host RSS feed reader (done), link collector (done)
4. Set up Obsidian as my personal hub (done). This'll be where I keep my tracking stuff, personal data, whatever.

So basically be a little more private with my info, be more proactive with keeping my own data, and settle back in to the communities I want to engage with.

I liked having my own little blog domain but it felt very exposed, which made me not want to post. Dreamwidth is more cozy! Even if I post in public here, I don't feel like the eyes of the entire internet are on me. Also tbh when I posted from my blog first it didn't give me an incentive to come over here and actually read my friends page, so I've gotten very behind on my correspondence.

Further changes: I want to get away from AI intrusions a bit more, so I've installed Linux on my main computer (Manjaro) and deleted Windows entirely.

And while I've stopped using most social media besides Mastodon, I still visit Facebook a lot for the groups. I'm going to make it a priority to join and engage in forums instead.

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DecRecs 2025 days 11-17

I intended to wait less time before cross posting these. Oh well, it's here now

Day 11
So I'm not sure how big the overlap of people who know about Mo Willems Pigeon books and Nirvana in Fire is -- but if you are in that group you owe it to yourself to read "Don't Let the Strategist Plan the Party" by

aegtx
200 words of pure delight!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/67708406

Day 12
I'm enjoying how this year #DecRecs has been turning into a mini low stakes year in review project for me as I focus on reccing things I loved this year.
And this year I have watched a lot of chinese reality show so today I want to talk about The Truth season 3!
The Truth is show where participants play and game that's like a very elaborate cross between a murder mystery dinner party and an escape room. There's puzzles and mysteries and tunnels to crawl through
This year they really leaned into my two favorite things about the show -- the costumes and the group dynamics!
The costumes are so much fun! Wildly over the to, colorful and with fun themes! And this season featured even more of them than last season with at least one set per case!
Here's the cast in one of my favorite sets

And the teamwork! In season three they manged to have the same six people in all but one case: Bai Yu, Jin Jing,
Dilraba, Liu Yuning, Zhang Linghe and Zhou Keyu. So several people I like by themselves -- but the whole group together is great! loved watching them tease each other and think through problems together!
Quick content note: many of the offscreen backstories involve upsetting things like child death or queerphobic violence. They also at one point discover a (fake) skeleton of a child in a suitcase.
I had so much fun watching this show! I don't usually watch things as they air but I eagerly awaited each new episode of The Truth Season 3 and watched all the behind the scenes extras!

( Read more... )

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prompt: #473 - counterfeit

Sherlock (BBC) - Forged Bank Notes

Title: Forged Bank Notes
Fandom: Sherlock (TV)
Rating: G

( I thought you said )

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Recent Reading: The Tomb of Dragons

Time and circumstance conspired to keep me from reviewing the second book in the Cemeteries of Amalo book, The Grief of Stones, but today I finished the third book, Tomb of the Dragons and I do have time to review this third and final book in the trilogy.

This is NOT a spoiler-free review.

Tomb of the Dragons retains much of what I loved about the first two books, including Thara’s character and his investigations into the underbelly of Amalo, with a healthy helping of Ethuveraz politics.

Thara is having to adjust to the events at the end of the last book, and here, I feel, is where we truly see how important his calling is to him—how he handles losing it. It gives some good perspective to why he is so dogged in pursuing his work goals—his calling really is his sense of purpose, his life. Watching Thara grapple with this change and its indefinite consequences was fascinating.

However, it also retains in greater measure some of the things that I didn’t love about the earlier books, including Addison’s obsession with minutiae. I can only read about the characters traveling on this or that tram line so many times before my eyes start skipping lines to the things that really matter. This would bother me less if it didn’t feel like it came at the expense of more important things.

( Read more... )

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ocrealm Discussion Prompt #1

Let's get this party started!

ocrealm's first discussion prompt is this:

What inspired you to make your OC(s)?

Now, I believe we're supposed to reply to that comment with our own replies, but I wanted to ramble! So, below are several settings with several OC's origins. If you'd like to learn a bit about where my blorbos come from, ( hop past the link with me! )

Okay! That was a lot! These are the main boatload of characters that I'll be playing with over at

ocrealm so I figured I'd share them all now and use this as a point of reference for later... but if you've managed to read this far, thank you for staying with me! ^_^ I love writing, and it gets hard sometimes to break through that thick wall of creative block... but playing is such a crucial part of... I don't know. Feeling safe? Feeling human? That I'm glad to be dabbling again.

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Community Thursday

Welcome back to Dray's edition of Community Thursday (which I recently learned from

vriddy was started all the way back in 2021 by

goodbyebird in a

snowflake_challenge post from 2022! Talk about keeping it going strong!)

I've jumped both heels into

ocrealm! Popped a long ramble about my OC's and introductions in my own journal, here.

Joined

holiday_wishes just recently (better late than never) and I'll likely be looking for ways to help build out my reading page with more community content. I feel so out of the loop with everyone and everything, and kind of genuinely just want to find ways to get looped into a healthy community, so I'll be working on thinking up how to ask those wishes.

I've been cheering folks on in

iconcolors! What I really want is a place to draw OC icons with other artists that has semi-regular prompts, but I would need resources to stay on top of the community-making if I wound up having to be in charge of it. In the meantime, fannish communities based around icon making have been really nice!

bookheaven seems to have a dedicated poster reviewing recent reads. I'd be curious to see more people posting there; I like that format for recommendations.

I remembered that

bakerstreet exists and have followed it just to see what shenanigans are going on. I have'd RP'd here in a while (barring a test drive or two with my tiefling OC,

vegalthon, who I'd love to play again some day! Memes used to be my home base before I joined my first DWRP game. They're their own little unique community.

voiceinmyear had a recommendation for Parkdale Haunt, a spooky podcast that sounds as though it quickly devolves into something much more horror-based. It's set in Toronto, Canada, which is neat (so rarely do I get to see Canadian content!) and the first season's been a delight, so far. I'm looking forward to more.

Current Music: Welcome To Derry 1x08

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Thirteen minutes before midnight, so it still counts!

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 16

Scott Pilgrim
Afternoon Delights by

wakeupnew (1,033 words). A good Wallace and Scott interaction never fails to cheer me up.
There is a bang.

The door, he realizes fuzzily. Possibly -- hitting something?? Definitely opening really loudly. He really wishes it wasn't doing that. He should probably start locking it while he's sleeping.

"I thought your shit had supposedly been gotten together, guy," says someone, who flings himself down on the sofa that Scott uses for a bed, hard enough that the cushions bounce under both of them. "What are you doing asleep at 3:00 on a sunny Saturday afternoon?"

"Frrrrsleeping," Scott groans indignantly, and then Wallace plucks the pillow off his head and out of his arms. Scott tries to grab it back without opening his eyes, and his hands mostly just flail ineffectually against Wallace's jeans.

"Whoa there, tiger," Wallace drawls. "I have a boyfriend now; let's keep it PG." He drops the pillow on Scott's chest. If it's possible to drop a pillow with force, Wallace does it. "You know, considering that you're the all-time evil-ex-fighting champion and the best fighter in the greater Toronto metropolitan area, it was very easy to pull that away from you."

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Hallucinations Are Very Much A Recurring Theme.

Every so often, I post an analysis of how I chose my recent fic titles! We're nearing the end of the year, which seems an appropriate time for another roundup.

In reverse chronological order, my fic titles since July:

( Rambling about why I chose fic titles. )

What's really striking me here isn't actually anything about my titling habits; it's the fact that my last twelve fics in a row have been shipfics! That's very unusual; about half of my fics tend to be gen. I'll have to come up with some gen ideas!

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "Portfolio"

Portfolio
Idol Wheel Of Chaos | Week 17, #1

x-x-x-x-x

We're down to just five writers for Idol: Wheel Of Chaos now. This week, we're writing a portfolio that centers on five key components: our favorite story we've written, our favorite story by another author, a letter to an author from earlier this season, and stories for the prompts 6 7 and Banner year.

Choosing favorites is always hard! For my own stories, I wrote a lot of humor this season, but also some drabbles, two poems, a couple of entries with pathos, and a horror story. I considered choosing the acronym fun-fest (Going BATty), the caustic self-help guide (A New Man), the baking witch (Cursecraft), The Three Trolls from last week (Piplet!), or the souful Little Metal Hearts. But I think my best story was unlike all the others. It was a classic, timeless sort of tale with a tinge of bittersweetness. It was hardly read, because I was poisoned that week and it wasn't included in the poll, but it's the one I'm proudest of.

My favorite of my stories: Here Be Dragons

Weighing other authors' stories was just as hard. There were so many I really liked this season. From week 1, the Quality entries by bleodswean and static_abyss really stood out.

rayaso's week 2 War Of The Words (the evils of ChatGPT) was a riot, as was

flipflop_diva's Week 11 beleagured aliens story.

serpentinejacaranda's Week 6 dreamlike political satire (Affliction In The Form Of A Question) really stuck with me, as did

xeena's Blair Witch Idol Meta and

l0lita's hard-hitting zombie apocalypse story. But the one I finally picked used a difficult prompt and featured a great child's voice and very real drama disguised as fiction. It was both beautifully written and painfully true.

My favorite other-author's story:

inkstainedfingertip's Week 5 Toi, Toi, Toi

Next, we were to write a letter to a former contestant from the Wheel of Chaos season. There were so many to choose from: static_abyss (never here as long as I would like), bleodswean (such talent, and such a great Idol supporter), rayaso (so funny, week after week), alycewilson (talent and soulfulness all in one). I couldn't choose inkstainedfingertips because I'd picked him for my favorite other-author entry, plus he's still in the competition. So, I chose one of my overall favorites from this season AND last season (Idol Mini). She was the author whose season this was to lose, I thought, and apparently so did others because she was taken out by a targeted elimination vote after Week 10:

My letter to xeena

And finally, there were two entries to write for specific prompts:

6 7

Banner year

I hope you've enjoyed my portfolio, and the range of offerings it provided! If so, please vote for it here.

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "All Anticipation"

All Anticipation
Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #4 | 2227 words
Banner Year

x-x-x-x

"These are the best years of your life," Lanie's mother always said. With her senior year of high school just a few months along, it seemed as if her mother was right.

Lanie was kneeling on the floor of the art room, working on the Homecoming banner for the game this weekend. She was dating the quarterback, and was every bit as invested in Homecoming as he was. Her best friend Chloe was there with her, helping out and keeping her company. Chloe's boyfriend was on the basketball team, so she was more interested in painting neat letters than what the banner represented.

"How do you think you did on the SATs this time?" Chloe said.

"I feel like the math went better?" Lanie said, "And I'm hoping that will be enough."

"I can't believe you took it twice. I mean, your original score was better than mine!"

"I just want to have the best options for where to go to college," Lanie said. "Could you hand me the yellow?"

Chloe passed the can of paint. "Well, there's always Podunk U."

"Don't remind me. My dad went there–it's why my mom keeps reminding me not to settle."

"She chose him, though," Chloe said.

Lanie moved around to the other side of the mural. "Yeah, but we all thought he was a better person than he actually turned out to be…"

( Read more... )

If you enjoyed this story, please vote for my Portfolio here!

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FIC: Southern Emor's countryside (Tempestuous Tours)

The borderland covers all the land from the black border mountains to the capital, but once you are beyond the region close to the mountains, vineyards will disappear and villages will begin to grow to the size of towns. The countryside here is more peaceful and more settled. At several points, you will cross bridges or take ferries, for Southern Emor's web of rivers crisscrosses the countryside. If you have time, you may wish to hire a riverboat to explore the remainder of Southern Emor, especially its towns and east coast ports.

[Translator's note: The protagonist of Death Mask takes a trip over that countryside during a less happy time.]

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Prompt: #473 - Counterfeit

This week's prompt is counterfeit.

Your response should be exactly 100 words long. You do not have to include the prompt in your response -- it is meant as inspiration only.

Please use the tag "prompt: #473 - counterfeit" with your response.

Please put your drabble under a cut tag if it contains potential triggers, mature or explicit content, or spoilers for media released in the last month.

If you would like a template for the header information you may use this:

Subject: Original - Title (or) Fandom - Title

Post:
Title:
Original (or) Fandom:
Rating:
Notes:

If you are a member of AO3 there is a 100 Words Collection!

Current Music: solution 9 theme

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ffxiv patch 7.4 liveblog

as usual, i'll be liveblogging the new ff14 patch. msq in this post, perhaps raid in another?

( msq )

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "Childhood Treasures"

Childhood Treasures
Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #3 | 1424 words
6 7

x-x-x-x-x

It was never a time capsule, no matter what Bobby Lockerby said. It was a memory-box, where Jake kept souvenirs and other special things.

Jake was 6, almost 7, when he started collecting those things. It all started with a pretty little red rock he found down by the creek one day.
.
There was a four-leaf clover, dried and flattened, and the ticket stubs from the first ballgame Jake ever went to with his Dad. There was a trilobite fossil, a squashed souvenir penny from a trip to Disney World when Jake was eight, and a Kingfisher feather as blue as the sky.

Jake kept all of them in a metal Superman lunchbox in his closet, with Jake's–Keep Out! written on the top. The note was mainly for Jake's younger brother Eddie, who had no respect for privacy. Mom said it was because Eddie was only five, but all Jake knew was that he didn't want some little pipsqueak pawing through his stuff.

It was a miracle Jake ever had time to find any of the cool stuff he did. It seemed like Eddie was always there, following him everywhere he went: "Whatcha doing?"

Sometimes, Jake just wanted to explore quietly on his own. You saw more of what went on that way– animals weren't so afraid of you, and nobody was there to distract you. A little brother with non-stop talking was just about the biggest distraction there was.

And when he wasn't out exploring, Jake would rather be playing with Bobby Lockerby or one of his other friends.

"Mommmmm," Jake would moan. "Why can't Eddie go bother someone else?"( Read more... )

If you enjoyed this story, please vote for my Portfolio here!

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "Letter to xeena"

Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #2
Letter to a past participant

x-x-x-x-x

Dearest xeena,

I've always enjoyed your writing, starting with when you were in Idol at Live Journal through being

xeena now at Dreamwidth. You brought quality storytelling to Idol every single week, and not many can say that!

But these last two seasons have been stellar.

I love your quiet, often ethereal style, so effective for the spooky tales you love so much and just as evocative for dramatic and non-fiction entries. The language is gorgeous, the flow is smooth, and the content always makes me think.

This season featured the dark, stark Week 9 story about a suicidal woman who has lived a violent, hopeless life and who decides to burn the world down with her. Her fatigue and recklessness are palpable, and her behavior shockingly nihilistic. I think this is an immensely strong piece, and a risky one, and you pushed through and did it.

There was also the soulful Week 4 entry about the sentient house. The things it has seen, the memories it keeps, and the renewed life it yearns to hold within it once more! This was poetic and unexpected. Just lovely.

But my favorite—one of my favorite entries of yours of all time—was the Week 5 Blair Witch Style Idol Meta. The script format was ingenious and fresh. The dialogue sounded so much like what I and other Idol contestants would say that I went back to check the Wheelhouse comments to see if I actually HAD said exactly that. But best of all, it was humor, which is a flavor we don't often see from you—AND satire, AND meta.

You showed us you could truly do it all.

I'm just sorry that one of the twists this season took you out early. This felt like your season to win, but there were people determined to keep that from happening. When week after week of being poisoned (but also earning the antidote) couldn't take you out, the directed Elimination vote created the circumstances they sought.

It still seems unfair, even though we all signed up for a season with built-in chaos.

But I hope you know that, to me, you will always be a winner!

Current Music: KiNG MALA - cult leader

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If you're a devil, how come you're not wearing Prada?

+ Managed to finish up nearly all my Christmas shopping today, huzzah. My brother is getting a bunch of cheeses and some spreads and crackers, I just need his gf to send me a picture of his comics shelf so I can order him a book to round it out.

I do need to do wrapping though. To think I used to love doing that back in the day.

+ Also found a Christmas calendar at 40% off, so now I'll have something to open every day after all. It's from the Finnish brand Lumene and if half of it is as good as the eye cream I've already tried, I got a real bargain.

+ Very sad to hear about the loss of Rob Reiner, and it just keeps getting sadder as I read about all the wonderful things he did and stood for.

+ Please tell me more of you are watching Pluribus? The last episode was the best one yet, and I find myself suddenly willing to go to war for one of the characters. But that whole episode, oh man. Ten out of ten. I even double dipped and downloaded a couple of episodes so I can make some damn icons. *mutters about stupid streaming apps*

+ Also I am now watching watch alongs for IWTV on yt. I need more people to be blathering on about these vampires. Still taking a predictable chunk out of my fic reading time, and now I'm down to one buffer rec for Rec-Cember. Somebody tell me to shape up.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️ ❄️
Rec-cember Day 15

The Good Place
Free Netflix Subscription by

Wildgoosery (10,103 words). Ah yes, the show that gave us an endless fun array of AUs to frolick in. And this is a delightful entry.
There’s a knock at the door. The weather here is perfect and mild — because of course it is — so they had left it standing open. This means that nothing obscures Eleanor’s view as an Amazonian gazelle of a woman steps theatrically into the doorway, one elegant arm sweeping up to rest upon the frame.

It occurs to Eleanor that this woman must have knocked on the outside of the house, then waited the exact right amount of time to make this entrance once Eleanor and Michael would be looking, but before they’d thought to shout “Hello?” or glance at each other or otherwise spoil the moment. Honestly, it’s pretty impressive, points for drama and also for wearing heels despite being damn near six feet tall.

“Ah, excellent timing!” Michael says, pleased. “Eleanor, this is your soulmate, Tahani.”

Tahani extends her hand, angled down and slightly curved. “Charmed,” she says, with the fanciest fucking accent Eleanor has ever heard in person.

“Soulmate! Wow!” Eleanor says. The position of Tahani’s offered hand makes her feel like she’s expected to take it in her own, bow over it, and kiss one elegant knuckle at a time, but she’s not really butch enough to pull off that kind of a Prince Charming maneuver, not even in flannel.