#floribeth

lorna has more gender than she realizes. it glows like a sunset that’s so bright but you can’t look away. it’s heavy but not dense. it’s a pancake platter from a diner where they don’t hold back on portions sizings (they also add rainbow sprinkles). it really is the ocean: vast and wild, beautiful.

duncan has less gender than she realizes. it’s cold and hollow. it’s a cement floor covered in peeling paint. it’s a picture of a forest (no pun intended) so foggy you can hardly see the green on the trees. what is there is ridged but brittle. all of this is distant though. she’s a girl because that’s what the assumption has always been.

floribeth is a girl for simplicity. really she’s less of a girl than she has the energy or interest to explore. she actually has two genders i think. one is shards of femininity. it’s a necklace you lost. one is something else… it’s not being able to sleep, knowing you have an early morning the next day. it’s murky paint water. it’s a memory of shining a flashlight in your eyes. it’s half obscured, theres more to it that neither i nor her have discovered.

quin is a girl out of spite. her gender flares out. it explodes. it’s a half empty- no, fuck you, half *full* iced coffee from burger king sitting on a sidewalk. it’s the mommy issues <3

honeydirt’s gender is a dusty dollar store fake flower in your grandma’s backyard. it’s an overpriced iced and matcha tea. it’s plastic and glittery and sun-faded. it’s #girl. its very defined but light. like a chiseled block of marble if marble was weightless. it’s an art installation.

entrah’s is #girlboss. it’s pink and glittery. a smile coated in thick sticky pigmented lipstick.

logan’s gender is like if a wayneradiotv vod was a boy. i’m not going to elaborate but you can think on it if you wish.

keith’s is hidden to him right now. but it’s light and airy but not weightless. it’s finding your footing. it’s feeling your limbs slice through the air as you fall… or fly. its angel food cake. it’s fresh linen, or a candle with that on the label. definitely waxy.

chris’s gender is hard to pin down. it’s dense and solid but tossed around like it’s nothing. it’s a worm on a string, a sore throat, it’s running in bare feet like they won’t be sore when you rest. it’s the feeling of waving your legs or arms through water real fast. it’s a rush of adrenaline. it’s abstract, neon, and fluffy and grounded at the same time.

mortis is an old gay man. and that’s a big part of it for him. his gender is a children’s half used watercolor set. it’s the bleach isle of a dollar tree. it’s an inside joke that doesn’t get less funny the more you tell it, just takes a new form of humor. it’s a firm hug.

porter is a circle. what kind of question is “what is your gender?” i don’t know, round? it’s hollow but high up and airy, filled with a gas. it’s a balloon. a ball pit ball suspended on a stream of air that little kids use as a tee to hit with a plastic bat. or maybe it’s nothing at all.

rocket doesn’t have a gender. he’s too busy shitting his pants and being possessed by a catgirl. he has a very strong identity and sense of self but that isn’t tired to gender!

scotty is a boy like a rock. rough, gritty, sharp. it may smooth out and become a stone in time but for now it’s gonna hurt if you step on it.

You heard ‘em! Darry Jenner, please and thanks! 

@floripire // meme

Baldwin didn’t answer her at first.

The corridor is narrow, old stone and older shadows, the kind that swallow sound and make breath feel too loud. A draft moves through it like a warning. He stands with his back half‑turned, profile carved in cold light from a high, barred window—every inch the medieval predator he has always been, every inch the commander who has buried more wars than Floribeth has lived years.

When he finally speaks, it’s low. Controlled. Dangerous in its restraint.

"Farther than you’re prepared to see."

He turns fully then, and the air seems to tighten around them. His eyes—ancient , unblinking—search her face not for fear, but for resolve. For the steel Matthew saw in her. For the reason Baldwin hasn’t already sent her back to her dorm and locked her out of this entirely.

"You’re asking me about limits,”"he continues, stepping closer, boots silent on the stone. "I don’t have them. Not when it comes to my family. Not when it comes to Matthew."

His jaw flexes, the only sign of the fury simmering beneath the armour of discipline, Matthew is missing and Matthew does not disappear leaving Floribeth wondering if she had been abandoned.

"And not when it comes to you." His not quite....niece? Foster whatever? Matthew took her under his wing recently and the lost duckling meant something to his brother.

The torchlight flickers, catching on the sharp line of his cheekbone and the tenseness of his jaw , remnants of a life before immortality, before command, before he learned to bury softness under centuries of duty.

"If someone has taken him," Baldwin says, voice dropping to a quiet that feels like the moment before a blade is drawn, "I will tear apart every coven, every council chamber, every hidden nest from here to the Levant. I will burn down alliances. I will break ancient laws. I will make enemies of old friends."He leans in, just enough that she feels the cold gravity of him.

"What I need to know is how far you are willing to go. Because once we begin, Floribeth… there is no path back to the life you had."

Another breath. Another flicker of torchlight.