Quill

my friends: oh awesome, can i read some of it?

me, knowing damn well my wip is literally just a random collection of mood boards, dialogue snippets, and playlists:

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but my friends have always gendered me correctly and stick to it even when it confuses other people and my friend's little sibling calls me older brother in Kannada yes, India made legal gender change impossible but my dog learned my new name quicker than the humans and she runs to give me a kiss when she's told to without being confused about who's being referred to

yes, India made legal gender change impossible but I can feel the Adam's apple growing in my throat and my muscles getting stronger, and my smile more real and I'm growing a beard, and I talk more freely

His raincoat was never packed, because obviously he wouldn't need it in space—I wonder sometimes if Stratt held onto it for any amount of time.

Today this woman called our information desk and said, “my son’s band is playing tonight. I want to come see him, but he never answers his phone…..I want to be there. Have you heard anything about his band?”

And I felt so bad for this lady but I’m not in the music scene around here so I had to tell her no, sorry.

Five hours later, I’m hiking and run into a group of guys setting up for some outdoor performance, and as I watch them unload the drums it hits me.

“Hey,” I said, “are y’all in a band?”

They said yeah and smiled and I told them “one of your moms called today. She wants to watch you play, but she can’t get a hold of you. Call your mom.”

And they all pulled out their phones and started discussing whose mom it probably was as they presumably dialed their own.

And now, unless we meet again and recognize each other, that’s who I’ll be forever to those guys–some mysterious courier for mom-messages who came out of the woods and told them their mom called.

I didn’t even tell them why their mom called me. Who am I to their mom?? Nobody even asked. They just took my word for it and called their mothers.

and ofc i know there's nuance here and that plenty of people do bring poorly trained dogs places they shouldn't and get away with it.

but as a service dog handler i can tell you the idea that dogs are allowed everywhere and that no one dares challenge a dog's presence in public spaces is is deeply skewed by your experience as someone who doesn't need to go everywhere (or even anywhere) with a dog.

if you actually have to go somewhere with a dog you will not believe the number of people who will actually start shouting at you and ultimately try to have you removed from the restaurant, airplane, library, museum, entire 12-week university course, simply by saying "I'm allergic to dogs!"

Rocky, whose age difference means that he’s sent back pre-mission to before Grace was even born.

So he protects his crew from the radiation, gets the Taumoeba, and once their sun is fixed, heads out to Earth.

And so, just as the Hail Mary project is in full swing, a giant-ass spaceship appears in Earth’s orbit, releases SOMETHING to the sun that stops the Petrova line, then communicates in English(??!!??) that in thanks, it wants to meet One Scientist In Particular.

Which then leads to two branching options:

Grace didn’t timetravel

Stratt: What the fuck did you do??!?

Grace: I don’t know! I’m just a teacher???

Grace DID timetravel

Stratt: huh. Guess you didn’t actually go crazy…