don't shake hands with the lonely kids

i don’t think i’ve ever cried so hard in my life than i have while reading this fic (or texting about it. or drawing scenes from it. or fucking thinking about it). it is genuinely the saddest thing i have ever read, and i know silver has said that he is this fic’s first victim, but genuinely i am so fucking impressed that he manages to write this at all. because i would be a weeping, sobbing mess. so first, hats off to you.

second, this fic takes the idea of demonic immortality (thanks, 400 year old jinu) and stabs it into you, twisting the knife over and over. the first time i read it, the lovely opening kind of made my heart swell. seeing them get to be happy, made me so incredibly happy. because i really do love these girls. and then silver swung in with a thermonuclear bomb. because they realized that rumi wasn’t aging. and they were. and then the people around them started dying.

i think i held it together, that first read, until zoey died. then i was a wailing wreck for the next like. nine thousand words. this fic has devastated me so much my partner (who is entirely uninvolved in fandom) knows it as The Fic.

I had it all is such a wonderful exploration of grief and love and love persisting, even after death. because the fact that rumi was loved, that she loves her girls (tensing intentional) matters, even when it seems like it should fade. the thing that makes me sob the most, literally every time, is the tapes that zoey and mira made for her. the fact that they wanted her to have something, everything of them, even when they knew they were going to be gone, makes me so fucking emotional (btw silver, this is where i started crying while writing this).

there are so many things that make rumi sad as fuck in this, and i couldn’t possibly do them all justice. but the core of them is the tapes. and i think that those are just the perfect encapsulation of this fic. the fact that they are memories, these little time capsules of moments that they give to rumi, but that slip away with rumi’s long lifespan, is so heartwrenching.

and oh my GOD the songs that accompany this fic… jesus fucking christ. Hold Down the Fort by Chris Pureka and Andrea Gibson is the direct inspiration for I had it all, but fuck if it didn’t make me cry like a baby all over again. And the other one that really hits like a freight train for me is triassic love song by Paris Paloma. think about them both from zoey and mira’s POV. you’ll sob.

Quick(ish) sketch of Rumi in Ejae’s recent music video fit. 💅✨

Woman~

Bonus huntrix

it’s not exactly a secret that i’m not the biggest fan of omegaverse (absolutely no shade to those who are! it’s just not really my area). generally, i’m reading femslash for a reason, if you catch my drift. however! doof crafts such an excellent world around all of the standard omegaverse tropes that i find fascinating. she really dives into the world in such depth; thinking about what the different designations (?) mean for people and how society would view that. there’s also like. alphaphobia in it? idk if that’s the term but it certainly feels right. and it’s all presented in such an interesting way.

and doof will claim over and over that there is no angst in this. she is wrong, because there is so much friction between the girls because of things in their past, things that get left unsaid, but it’s all woven into the story beautifully. this is one of the examples of omegaverse that i think really takes the conventions of the genre and explores them in a new and unique way. you have your typical heat cycles and whatnot but there is such a care and nuance in how it’s presented, and how consent especially is navigated.