oh, i won't be your doll

DANDELION: "I WOULD NOT HAVE YOU OTHERWISE." You are the mom friend, your bag is full of everything for any possible situation every time you leave your house. Your friends know they can talk to you and that you will accept them and love them for who they are, not some idea of how you think they should be. You have amazing taste in food and are constantly baking things and gifting them to others. At some point, you tried some style of journaling, and it’s about a 50/50 chance that you kept up with it. Your ideal home smells of comfort foods and has tons of windows so that it’s always filled with natural light. Everyone you care about gets a key to your door and blanket permission to stop by any time. Part of the reason you care so much for others is because you think you’re broken and are trying to make up for it. You are not broken, and you are not whole. You are a person, and people are messy and complicated. There’s no need to chase after a redemption arc, you are trying so hard and that’s all that matters. Take some of the grace you offer to others and apply it to yourself.

Something wrong with Jordan? He blew me off. Again.

this time she doesn't laugh. it's so ingrained in her to trust what lana says that she has to struggle, and not lightly, with her reflexive disbelief. it's an alien bug. in her spine. mangling her in ways that don't naturally exist on earth.

but khaji ren's pleasure at being included flushes her, head to toe. or maybe it's her own. they're both arrested by her. both feeling... real.

"i think you may be the weird one."

alice turns her face, kisses lana's palm fervently. an unspoken remark on scars.

if it isn't, when she speaks, that certainly changes when alice kisses her hand.

she forgets, sometimes, what her palm looks like: she's rehabilitated it that well, by now. she's regained more function than the doctors had expected her to. it's only people's kindness that ever makes her feel so aware.

she doesn't flinch: she keeps her grip loose, doesn't panic. doesn't apologize.

"i can't feel most of the pinky side." is it obvious lana's grown accustomed to explaining impalement in practical terms to small children? anyway, she wants her to know. just in case ⸺ well, just in case.