she/her, aro and ace. current fandoms: heated rivalry, rogue one, and final fantasy vii feel free to reblog and react to any post as far back in time as you want. it appears that the custom icons are broken, alas. but! you can hover over the buttons below for my ao3 and some common blog tags. dark mode option on avatar.
everyone i've talked to about this has been completely unaware so: if you didn't know already, there's going to be a solar eclipse, with totality or coverage of 90% or more in some places, over a lot of europe, on august 12th 2026. in the uk it will start just after 6pm, and the maximum will be at 7:13pm.
here is a map of the path of the eclipse (from timeanddate)
get eclipse glasses if you want to look at it. it is not safe to look at through sunglasses. ok informative post over o7
Sorry it’s literally just because I’m Japanese but I get so worked up over the fact that RR decided to make Shane specifically Japanese-Canadian and then never talked about anything specific to the Japanese diaspora in a post-WW2 context. Like I’m crazy. I know. I know I’m being crazy it’s literally a smut novel but that shit matters!!! The type of desperate assimilation and disillusionment of North and South America-based Japanese immigrants that occurred during and after WW2 cannot be overstated. None of my cousins or even aunts and uncles can speak Japanese— and this isn’t a mistake, but a defense mechanism. Being Japanese was synonymous with “the enemy,” being a spy or traitor, so people were forced to become as American or Canadian as possible, anything to distance from their heritage. What’s crazy is so much of Shane’s mindset makes sense from this assimilationist perspective!! And RR just doesn’t have a significant awareness of any of this so she doesn’t utilize it at all
Shane thinks Ilya is the coolest person in the world. Like thats literally Shane's biggest reddest firetruck. And when they are out Ilya loves this. He loves having a built in audience for all his chirps and jokes, he loves that Shane is either laughing or at the very least is hiding his smile. It is such an ego boost that his husband is his biggest fan. That the person who Ilya likes the best clearly and obviously likes him the best back.
"sometimes i think i'd have told them already..." i love shane but i think here he has this more idealized version of himself in his head that would somehow feel less burdened by his sexuality at this point in time were he not in love with this specific man, and i'll be so real i don't think he would have felt it necessary to tell his parents he was gay unless he had a pressing need to, like someone he was serious about and wanted to bring home, or he if thought he had a real chance of being outed. i think a not insignificant part of shane's ability to even admit that he's gay is due to ilya, the sole man he thinks about during that conversation with rose. in an alternate reality without the ilya of it all, his response to her questioning about his sexuality quite possibly could have been "i don't know," and rose would have nodded and told him she'd be a friend for him to talk to while he figures it out.
genuinely think it would have been a backburner thought for him though even if he did accept it, like yeah i'm gay but that's not important right now, whatever happiness i might find out of the closet with the support of my parents is irrelevant while my life is centered around hockey, i will worry about the rest of my life when my career is over
As today is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it’s a great time to revisit Dinah from Devon’s memory of this historic event. And yes, still makes me laugh.
i know this scene gets talked about so much but watching the bellboy bit again last night its just so sweet how one of the first things that shane does after implementing cottage honesty is his little bellboy joke like he’s going “play with me! i want to play with you! look how silly I’m being! do bits with me please!” love really is stored in the silly bits you do with your partner
Broke: what is worldbuilding? Made in a lab to be as blandly inoffensive as possible. Time to randomly namedrope terms like 'nonbinary' and 'ace' while doing zero work actually incorporating them into the world or characters and have someone give a speech about how valid they are. Lines like 'I'm too ace for this' while never exploring the concept of asexuality or aromanticism and still having very central romance plotlines is common. I hate it here learn how to write realistic dialogue and fully realized characters I'm begging.
Woke: more ore less typical sci-fi and fantasy but It’s Queer Now. Might include in-universe queerphobia to be struggled against or may have queer identities be fully normalized. Can be done bad or well depending on the skill of the writer. A good way to explore our contemporary ideas of gender and sexuality or to have a bit of a power fantasy with lesbian princesses and trans knights. There will probably be a bisexual love triangle.
Bespoke: what is a gender. What is monogamy. What is polyamory. What is romance. What is platonic. Time to show you the most fucked up uncategorizable relationship you’ve ever seen. There may be weird ass metaphorical sex
AKA books that tackle gender, sexuality and relationships in ways that come off as deeply alien and non normative to our present day culture, frequently featuring actual aliens.
For details on the books, check under the readmore! My personal favorites are marked with an *
A note: as I'm generally more into sci-fi than fantasy, this list skews heavily toward the former. Feel free to make your own recommendations in the notes if you know of more titles!
If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie*
Once, Breq was Justice of Toren, a starship whose artificial intelligence linked through the minds of a multitude of human ancillary bodies. Now, there is only Breq, a lone soldier seeking vengeance after a horrific act of betrayal cost her everything. As Breq gets closer to her goal, the conquering empire she once served begins to destabilize from the inside, and Breq herself has to question her priorities as new loyalties arise. Features female-as-neutral worldbuilding, as well as singular characters existing throughout many bodies.
Note: my favorite from this series is Translation State, which gets really weird about gender and sexuality and stands fairly well on its own, go read it!
The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang
Novella series. In a world where children choose their gender when they're ready, twins Mokoya and Akeha once swore never to pick. But as they grow older, the two find themselves drawn in different directions, both in terms of gender and in what they want from their lives. Rebellion is brewing, and the twins' mother is looking to use them to her whims to retain power. Akeha, unwilling to be her pawn, resorts to leaving home and falling in with the rebels.
The Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum*
On a distant planet in a distant future, everyone has multiple bodies that can be customized however they want, cybernetics have abolished nearly all privacy, and the gender binary is no longer about man or woman. Instead, there's vail and staid, for which biological sex is irrelevant. Fift should be focusing on the obligations of a staid, but is distracted by budding feelings for Shria, forbidden due to Shria being a vail. When their complicated relationship unexpectedly becomes the center of a growing revolution, they will both have to decide where their priorities lie.
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler*
After a devastating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Includes darker examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.
The Javelin Program by Derin Edala
Dr Aspen Greaves expected to be woken from decades of cryo sleep on humanity’s first deep space colony, but instead finds themself alone on a spaceship still years away from its goal. Surrounded by mysteries on a barely functioning ship, Aspen must make sure the still sleeping crew reach their new home, while also dealing with the many secrets hidden behind the Javelin Program. Nonbinary and aromantic lead, based on a society and norms very far removed from ours.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir*
Gideon, raised as a swordswoman by unfriendly nuns, would rather run away and make her own life, but her services are needed. The Reverend Daughter, Gideon’s childhood nemesis, has been invited to a trial to win a place as an immortal by the Emperor’s side, and she’s in need of a bodyguard. Listen, if you’re on tumblr I probably don’t need to explain this book to you. Trust me when I say it’s exactly as good as people claim. Humorous and spooky but also absolutely gut wrenching and clever with a lot of political commentary. There are also, indeed, lesbian necromancers in space.
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberately engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. But things begin to crumble as the shadow of impending war looms. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we’re prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.
Walking Practice by Dolki Min
Having crashed their space ship, a shapeshifting alien finds themself trapped on Earth. Suffering from isolation and loneliness, they have settled into a routine to survive. Using online dating services, they take on the shape of human men and women to hunt humans for food. Strange, gross, and gender weird, Walking Practice is a unique take on gender from a wholly alien perspective.
The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley
Zan wakes without memory, a passenger aboard one of the living world-ships of Legion, a fleet of decaying generations ships. Told she’s the salvation meant to free them from the fleet, Zan is flung head first into a brutal and bloody conflict. This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it’s gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable, where humans are nothing but part of an ecosystem that cares little for their well-being. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.
All Systems Red by Martha Wells*
After having hacked its own governor module, SecUnit uses its small amount of new freedom to secretly download and watch as much media it can between doing its job guarding humans. But when the scientists it’s been charged with keeping safe come under attack, it must make a choice about whether to continue keeping its freedom secret or risk it all to save them. The series features both novellas and full length novels, and balances humor with scathing social critique. There's also an excellent tv adaptation!
Drinking Sapphire Wine by Tanith Lee
Four-BEE is a utopian city, in which humans have no responsibilities, are cared for by machines, and few acts cause true consequences as even death has been conquered. Able to change bodies and gender nearly at will, living lives of luxury and hedonism, everything should be perfect; yet the narrator finds him/herself dissatisfied with his/her life. After an impulsive decision leads him/her to break one of the only remaining taboos, he/she is exiled from Four-BEE into the wholly uninhabited desert wilderness outside.
The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
Moon doesn't know what he is. Having lost his family young he lives on the move, shifting shape to hide his true form. The only ones similar to him he's ever encountered are the vicious, bloodthirsty Fell, but he knows he cannot be one of them. When chance leads to a meeting with someone like him, he hopes his days of loneliness are over. But his new people stand against a dangerous enemy, and not all of them welcome Moon's help. Featuring a world with not a single human in sight, The Cloud Roads makes for a unique perspective.
When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb*
The angel Uriel and the demon Little Ash have been friends for centuries, living and studying together in a small Jewish community in Europe. But times are changing, and many of the community have left for a new life across the sea. When one of these emigrants go missing, Uriel and Little Ash decide to leave their peaceful life to go find and, if needed, save her. While set in our own past rather than a fictional world/time like other titles on this list, the relationships and identities of the two main characters often break our ideas of gender as well as platonic/romantic.
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*
Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die. Set in a world in which bisexuality and polyamory are largely the norm.
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre*
In a future ravaged by disaster, Snake is a traveling healer who uses the venom of her snakes to concoct medicines for all imaginable ills. The most valuable of them all is her dreamsnake, an alien creature whose bite can grant a painless death. When circumstances cause her to lose her dreamsnake, she must embark on a dangerous journey to obtain a new one so she can continue her work. Set in a world where polyamory and bisexuality are largely the norm.
Shadow Man by Melissa Scott
As an effect of an FTL drug, intersex births increased, resulting in five separate genders among humans: men, women, mems, fems, and herms. But on the planet Hara, people cling to the old two gender system, forcing intersex individuals to pick one of the two and generally refusing to recognize their existence and needs. As conflict on the planet broils, Warreven, a Haran advocate and herm, and Tatian, an off-worlder, find themselves dragged into a struggle for equality.
Leech by Hiron Ennes*
Unbeknownst to humanity, a sentient hive mind has taken over the entire medical profession to ensure the health of their host species. One of their doctors is sent to an isolated location where they’re cut off from the rest of the hive mind, only to realize they’re faced with a rivaling parasitic entity. Leech hands you only just enough information to get by, and whether its historical fantasy, an alternate timeline, or futuristic post apocalypse is hard to determine. It’s spooky and weird and wildly creative, and does some neat things with gender, because what does gender even mean when you're a hive mind bacteria inhabiting countless bodies?
Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis
It’s 2007, and a leak has just confirmed that the US has reached alien contact. Cora wants nothing to do with it, but as her absent father is the whistleblower who dropped the news the media won’t leave her alone. Even worse, she soon finds herself meeting and being stalked by the alien presence itself as it tries to remain in hiding - and discovering that there is a much larger threat on the horizon. Features aliens with very different ideas of gender and relationships than humans, and a central focus is how a relationship between one of them and a human would look like.
Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
Centuries ago, the first settlement on the planet Jeep was hit by tragedy: a virus killed off all men, leaving behind a society of only women. Now, the planet has been rediscovered, its inhabitants having long forgotten about the rest of humanity. Anthropologist Marghe Taishan is sent to test out a potential vaccine. If the vaccine succeeds, Jeep and its people would no longer be in forced quarantine, but it would also open them up to exploitation.
Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold
For Dr. Ethan Urquhart living on Athos, delivering babies looks a little different: they are "born" from uterine replicators, as Athos is a planet populated entirely by men. But now they're running out of the ovarian cultures that allow them to reproduce. To replace them, Ethan is one of the first of his people to be sent off planet into the wider universe - where there are women, rumored to be an evil and corruptive force.
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Genly Ai is an emissary sent to the planet of Winter, meant to help facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But he’s unprepared for Winter’s citizens, who spend much of their time genderless or switching between genders, making for a culture wildly different from what Genly is used to.
Meet Me in Another Life by Catriona Silvey*
Thora and Santi are strangers, brought together by a coincidence and torn apart just as abruptly when tragedy strikes. But this is neither the first nor the last time they meet - again and again they encounter each other, as friends, lovers, enemies, family, every time recognizing in each other a familiarity no one else carries. But with every new life, a mysterious danger grows ever closer, forcing them to find out the truth of their connection. This is a puzzle-box of a story that goes some entirely unexpected places in a very wild ride, featuring a bisexual co-lead and a very hard to define main relationship.
A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
On the moon Shora live the Sharers, a nation of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis and have developed highly advanced biological sciences. Leading wholly pacifist lives, the Sharers are threatened when humans from another planet come across their world and decide to develop it, no matter what the Sharers themselves think. The Sharer society is openly sapphic, though the main romance is m/f.
Dust by Elizabeth Bear
In a dying spaceship, orbiting an equally dying sun, noblewoman Perceval awaits her own gruesome death. Having been captured by an opposing house, her wings severed and life forfeit, Perceval’s execution is imminent - until a young servant charged with her care proves to be Perceval’s long lost sister. To stop a war between houses likely to doom them all, the two flee together across a crumbling, dangerous spaceship. At its core waits Jacob Dust, god and angel, all that remains of what the ship once was. And he wants Perceval. Sapphic and asexual characters, however be prepared for kinda fucked up relationships.
Halfway Human by Carolyn Ives Gilman*
When Val, expert in alien cultures, gets called in to help handle the young Tedla after a suicide attempt, she is let in on a secret decades in the making. Tedla is neither male nor female, an asexual person from an isolated planet where a genderless class of 'blands' are exploited as a work force. As knowledge of Tedla's presence begins to spread, so does the attention of various parties wanting to use it for their own ends, including its old masters. As Val works to unravel the history of how Tedla came to leave its world, the pressure builds - what is to become of Tedla? Content warning for themes such as suicidal ideation, slavery, and child sexual abuse.
Moonstar Odyssey by David Gerrold
On the planet of Satlik, humanity have been changed: children are born genderless, and have the ability to choose between male and female during puberty. As a child coming of age, young Jobe finds herself having a hard time choosing what she wants to be, a decision coming into shadow as global disaster looms near. Novella length, focused as much on building up the history and lore of Satlik as it is on the coming of age story. Also an early example of female pronouns being used as default and neutral!
Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon*
Charlie Johns is just your average guy, so when he suddenly finds himself pulled into the strange, utopian future of Ledom, he's shocked. In Ledom, gender is a thing of the past, as is hunger and war. Confused and wanting to return home, Charlie Johns is promised that he will be returned, but first the people of Ledom want him to tour their society. Charlie Johns agrees, but the more he learns and the better things seem, the more suspicion grows: why is he really here? Published in 1960, Venus Plus X is frankly astoundingly progressive about the topic of gender.
Trouble on Triton by Samuel R. Delany
On the moon Triton hundreds of years in the future, life looks a little different from our world. The only place yet to be drawn into a war spanning the entire rest of the solar system, society on Titan is in many ways a utopia, where everyone can live however they want, no matter how strange their ideals. Yet despite this, martian immigrant Bron Helstron isn't happy. Unable to build meaningful relationships or figure out what he actually wants out of life, Bron is prepared to all but turn himself inside out to figure things out. Strange, surreal, and a bit out there, I'd recommend this if you want a story with a fairly loose plot and prose that will scramble your brain. Not a personal favorite, but an impressive work.
Every Day by David Levithan
Young adult. A is neither boy nor girl - in fact, A doesn't have a body of their own. Every day they wake up inhabiting a stranger's body, and spend a single day living their life before waking up as someone else the next day. They try to be respectful of their hosts' lives, not making decisions they wouldn't themselves make, but after meeting and falling for Rhiannon, the girlfriend of one of their hosts, things begin to change as A begins pursuing their own wants.
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
After being forcefully committed to an asylum, Connie Ramos' life is looking bleak. She's being coerced into experimental treatments meant to "cure" her, and no matter what she does no one will believe she's fit to be released. Her only escape are the mysterious visits by a time traveling envoy, who introduces her to a utopian future of sexual and racial equality. But this isn't the only possible future, and Connie herself may be a driving force in what shape the future will take. A very interesting work featuring a mostly gender neutral future, though it does at times feel more like a thought experiment than a narrative.
[images: photo collages of the covers of all the named books, first all of the books in one image and then in groups of three before the descriptions.]
at what age do you think they start calling shane generational? thirteen? fourteen? at what age do they start saying: hollander's a lock for 1oa in the 2009 draft. yeah it's a ways off but talent like this is undeniable. look at his speed, his hockey iq. he could be the next one. he could be--
at what age do they start saying, there's this kid in russia who's fucking good. gets under your skin, plays hard, the softest hands you've ever seen. could be a match for hollander. could be better.
at what age does shane start looking at videos of ilya rozanov tearing up russian juniors. it's just tape. it's blurry and pixelated and shane keeps his eyes on 81, marks when he slams a boy straight into the boards and then skates off with the puck, watches the buttery smooth deke around the d, backhand snipe, top shelf, fist up in a celly. you're an awesome player to watch. it's the most beautiful thing he's seen.
at what age does shane start thinking: i wanna play against him. i want to beat him. i want--
shane with his glasses on in his pyjamas watching the pap video of ilya getting in a very bloody fight outside a club and googling demon possession symptoms and vatican exorcist canada
and bear in mind the demon is nothing but sweet to shane and is presenting like i love you, i want a life with you, i don't care about hockey i just need you, you're everything ive ever wanted . it's trying sooooo hard to draw shane in because it's what torments ilya the most, and that's how it feeds. it makes ilya watch it have shane in every way he ever really, secretly wanted, with the knowledge that it intends to kill him.
AND. shane is Onto Him. the little things are adding up. shane could swear his eyes flashed black at the last face off. his smile is sharper and his teeth feel sharper and, crucially, he isn’t wearing his cross anymore. the way he moves is different, the way he fucks him is different, none of it is ilya. and he’s fucking googling it like bella from twilight and is certain by the end of the night that rozanov is possessed.
so shane goes along with it, because the most important thing is getting ilya back. he says yes, rozanov, i love you too, i want a life with you. yes, we can do that. yes, i’ll meet you here. i’ll fly out after the game. but sometimes he says things like i love you, ilya. i’ve got you, ilya. we’ll figure this out, ilya. and hopes that he Understands what he’s saying, if he can even hear him, that this demon might be acting for him and talking for him but shane DOES love him, the real him, and he IS doing his best to figure it all out.
eventually he gets marlow (italian catholic, so he knows he won’t think he’s crazy) to help him, because he’s ALSO noticed that shit is off with ilya, and through marlow gets sveta involved. rose played a possessed nun in some horror flick a few years ago, and happens to have the number of an actual vatican-approved exorcist. they have a groupchat and everything. so there ARE people who think it’s weird when he and shane just vanish, when they both stop answering their phones, etc etc. so they mobilise the troops and figure out theyre at shanes insane sex condo (demons are too old to know what find my friends is) and demon is Definitely trying to enact its plan to Kill Shane And Make Ilya Watch
luckily the fucking scooby gang get there in time and ilya ends up tied to a chair in one of the empty condos being exorcised . and it works!! and ilya is Not Fine, But Alive and that’s all shane could really ask for, really. shane figures out some kind of half-believable lie to tell their teams, something about ilya helping him out with one of his investment properties and the two of them ending up in some kind of car accident or something. it definitely wouldn’t hold up under intense scrutiny, but shane is running on very little sleep, was almost murdered by a demon wearing the face of the love of his life, and just witnessed an exorcism, so. he’s doing his best. he just needs to buy them some time to figure stuff out, and to let him take care of ilya for a bit. he’s earned it!!!!
I honestly think Gen-Z and younger simply does not understand how recent widespread smartphone adoption is.
I am not that old, and I didn't have a smartphone until probably late high school. For most of my life, many if not most people were not walking around with a magic internet machine in their pocket that they pulled out and used constantly for everything.
is that ilya is actually my sweet precious baby. and i love him so much. and when i think about everything he has been through (and i do not mean playing on a bad hockey team that he signed up to be on--i mean like, finding his mother's corpse when he was twelve) i feel legitimately sad in real life. i have been known to shed human tears thinking about him alone on a new continent with no one to sit with him on her birthday or the anniversary of her death, no one to know his stories about her, no one to share his grief and trauma for so many years
and in the past i've said that ilya loverboy rozanov would never treat #hisshane the way ilya treats shane in those last few chapters. he would never let shane be persecuted out of a job and publicly humiliated and lose all his friends and mock him because of it.
but actually someone who has been through as much as ilya has, and is in such a distressed place... yeah, he might act in all kinds of ways that aren't like him, at any point. he might be a really really bad support system for his husband at the worst time in shane's life, because ilya's innate emotional intelligence and kindness might not be enough to help him figure out how to be a good or even decent partner to shane through this because trauma recovery doesn't happen on a schedule and sometimes one person's trauma means they hurt someone else. and ilya is capable of cruelty, and sometimes anger and selfishness and defensiveness are symptoms of trauma and grief, and sometimes they are wounding to the people we love most at the worst times in thier life, when they most need us at our best
then they have to come back from that. and go forward together. can ilya find and accept the help he needs. can shane forgive him. can they build a life together in the Aftermath not just of being outed and shane's career collapsing but also ilya's failures to support him
You made me cry. Actual tears. So I wrote a thing for you, and I have no idea whether this is a thing I'm allowed to post on AO3 or whether it needs to go in tumblr or what, because social rules & etiquette around fanfic confuse the heck out of me. Anyway, this is for you.
Author chose not to use archive warnings.
Time Limit
Shane had known, almost from the first, that there was a time limit on their relationship. He had known, and he had set it aside, because looking at it straight on…
He looks now.
His phone buzzes. He knows that it’s his mom. He can’t talk to her, not with the memory of her initial dislike suddenly clear in his mind. He remembers her face when she met him, and he can’t bring himself to tell her it’s over.
Shane thinks of the night before, of sitting with Ilya and Spaghetti on The Couch. Thinks of Spaghetti sliding neatly over his wrist and coiling gently onto Ilya’s, and the moment of stillness, the three of them linked.
Looking at the vivarium, resplendent in the corner, Shane feels the world blur again. Custom-built splendour, designed to be permanent. He leans against the blue wall and thinks about how to dismantle the tank. He thinks about moving. He thinks about going back to being two after having been three. He thinks about how love isn’t enough.
But putting things off doesn’t make them any easier.
The catch on the glass doors is strong. Strong enough to withstand a curious snake. Escape-proof, Shane thinks bitterly. He unlatches the doors, and gently reaches in to lift Spaghetti.
“Come on, Spaghetti, it’s time to go.” Shane’s voice is the same as ever. Calm, matter-of-fact. He’ll find a good place for them both, and then figure out how to deal with the tank, what to say to Ilya (if Ilya ever comes back), when to tell his parents. Spaghetti, coiled in his hands, says nothing, passes no judgement.
Ilya is waiting outside.
“I got you a pot. Is nice.”
“What the fuck, Ilya. You left. I don’t have time for games.” Shane’s life has turned upside down. He’s in no mood for whatever this is.
“No, sweetheart, look. Look. Is good for your friend.”
Shane reluctantly looks away from Spaghetti and sees a blue glazed pot, just right for a corn snake to curl up inside. And next to it, a potted dahlia, the exact orange of Spaghetti’s creamsicle swirls. It’s just like Ilya to leave without telling Shane, and bring back something so perfect.
“Will you help me?”
Ilya nods. Together, without words, they lay Spaghetti gently to rest on a bed of leaves and soft black earth. They cover him up and settle the dahlia on top.
“Should we –”
“Too soon, Ilya.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
Shane smiles, watery. “You can’t just get another snake, Ilya. You have to think about it carefully. They live for twenty years or more in captivity.”
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