#❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful !

[redemptioninterlude]

@starrymused - regulus gets a new starter !

the war is a mess for all involved. marlene plays it off, as if unaffected ; unbothered. she has to, after all, given the new company that she keeps, the secrets that she'll stow in a place within her chest. it's going to be worth it, it's something that she needs to TELL HERSELF, again and again and again in a cycle. because merlin, was it ever lonely a thing to be, when playing nice with the wrong side of history so that you might yet turn the tides within your favour.

there were few moments where she was actually afforded the opportunity to even see the people that she LOVED anymore. spy games change the topography of her life, and she finds that to be secretive is the only option she has to taste normalcy... warmth. you don't get that anymore within the pureblooded circles that hold themselves aloft in such uncertain times. they claim nothing, but smirk and find that all those disappeared or dead had it coming. it makes her sick... marlene knows then why she does what she does.

for it wasn't always the loudest that were the treat, but the general APATHY of the whole. for those in power, why would they ever find themselves distressed and worried for losing their place? when all those that they saw beneath their feet were suffering, it all seemed... as if they weren't even human. to them, they might as well not have been. and it's why she needs such a face when dealing with these matters - and why, specifically, her back straightens as she slips down an alleyway and through a magicked portal...

... only to find someone else there, wholly unexpected standing alongside her most trusted of friends. "what are you doing here?" the words fly, shocked from her lips, when her gaze levels sets with none other than REGULUS' OWN.

- @starrymused

#starrymused #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[colorisbyshe]

Honest question here: I'm a lesbian and I enjoy writing wlw in fic. I pair even the most one dimensional characters together because I just fucking love writing about women loving other women and I think we need that, after all fandom is supposed to be transformative and give us what we don't see in media (happy endings, cute stuff, sex about/for/by women...). I'm not judging but I don't get why so many women are writing fic and even original fiction about mlm. Is it internalized misogyny?

That’s definitely a part of it. I think there’s a lot of different components at play.

One is that there’s just more male characters with better writing behind them who get more screen time. Or we’ve been raised to think of it as better writing. So, y’unno, we gravitate towards that. Even when you’re not watching something critically, I think it’s easy to subtly pick up on which characters are written with more care, given more nuanced roles, and are treated as more human.

And when male characters are given smaller, flatter roles, it becomes almost instinctual to want to fill in the gap (which is how we get fucking TRAVESTIES like Coulson/Clint from Avengers. We were given flat/boring/frankly ugly characters and suddenly people were headcanoning and trying to fix how dull they were, meanwhile Natasha being sidelined just felt normal and ignorable).

And then there’s the fact that male characters are seen to be for everyone while female characters are JUST for girls--like men can think they’re hot and bangable but the FANS will be women. So, there’s that “well, I’m not like other girls!” thing going on. So women will gravitate towards men for that reason.

So, yeah, with those two things... there’s this huge element of internalized misogyny. Male characters are presented to be more interesting and relatable and when they aren’t... well we’ll write and fantasize about them until they are.

And for straight women it’s extra easy because then there’s the “wanna bang them” factor. Not always but like... it’s there

But for wlw... I think there’s more at play. Being gay/bi is already reaching across the gender spectrum in away. You can relate maybe more to masculinity (or at least breaking gender norms) and you want to play with gender expectations and sexuality. And doing it through men makes more sense because it’s kinda an escape for your own gender/sexuality stuff?

Like I know SO many women/woman-aligned people who shipped m/m stuff and all that shit before they ever realized they were gay/bi themselves. So you can kinda just dive in headfirst to gay content without it hitting too close to home.

Because a woman caring about gay men is more par for the course. You can still do that and be straight.

But if you’re a woman who cares a lot about two women together, well, it’s harder to get away with still thinking you’re straight, y’unno?

And then this all snowballs to the fact that... because of all these things mlm content just generates larger fandoms, more meta, more content. So, even when you’re waking up to the fact that “jesus christ, I’ve been prioritizing men all this time,” that’s not much... to do at that point?

Because there’s no real fandom spaces for f/f content and when there are it’s either shit involving transmisogynists (see: Kate McKinnon) or it’s all white ships or there’s other fucked up shit going on (like Floriana, a white Italian woman, playing Maggie who is framed as being Latina). Ooooor you join a fandom and the actually canon WLW characters are killed off before the fandom can take off. Ooor you join a fandom and literally the women never, ever interact unless it’s about men.

But fandom doesn’t mobilize around f/f crack ships the way they do shit like Coulson/Clint or whatever the fuck else.

So you’re stuck WANTING more f/f content and only being able to get it through sideships to m/m stuff. Or maybe rare fanart but nothing substantial to work with or bond over.

And, like, while straight women, mlm, and wlw come to m/m content in DROVES, only wlw show up for f/f content. And it’s isolating and shitty. And then we watch straight women and mlm play lip service to supporting us--they’ll maybe make a single headcanon post or whatever to pretend they care but... they don’t.

And now mlm are spreading around the idea that if you’re one gender and ship gay content of a DIFFERENT gender, that’s inherently fetishizing. Straight women consuming mlm content is inherently fetishizing. Which means they’ve now completely justified straight women and mlm never consuming or creating wlw content because?? It’s fetishizing right?? They’re doing us a FAVOR by refusing to ever even consider that women might love women and want representation in the media and in fandom spaces.

I feel like WLW content is land that straight women and men in general built a moat around. And it’s just like... not all of us want to swim across this fucking moat to get to a dilapidated building that’s mostly just empty rooms or ships the cast sings about JUST BEING FRIENDS HAHA!!!

The effort it takes to find and make content just for wlw can be so fucking exhausting because you’re being shit on from every side, including the content creators. And it’s just... if you can consume content about being gay without having to deal with all that shit... maybe it’s just easier to ship mlm.

And I’m sure I’ll get an anon or two after this telling me “MLM AREN’T HERE TO EXPERIMENT WITH YOUR SEXUALITY WITH!!” or whatever but like mlm fandoms are made on the back of women and wlw especially so... you know... fucking deal with it.

#Anonymous

[redemptioninterlude]

@cosmicjest - skylar gets a new follower starter !

witches, witches, they find a way. or rather, they know, don't they? though skylar both is, and isn't. magic, really, ties them together, to the world, to one another. it's that INVISIBLE THREAD weaving it all, and perhaps it's why even across the pond in a place like this, both marlene, and her, find one another all too easily. reminiscing about the beauty of home ( or at least the home marlene had between her schooling years abroad in england, how she misses it, her sweet scotland, those rolling hills, those clearer skies ), or of the strangeness of new york.

but meant to or not, the both of them have managed to find one another, marlene the first to the bar, has already secured a drink for herself when she notices the other woman by the door, waving her down to give away her position, blue eyes sparked bright. "you MADE IT!" as if there were ever a doubt, clearing her things from the barstool beside her. "you wouldn't believe the fight i had to hold you a spot."

- @cosmicjest

#❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare ! #cosmicjest

[redemptioninterlude]

@femmeflos - narcissa gets a new follower starter !

thick as thieves, they used to be. one of those once upon a time childhood friendships, the sort of rarefied thing that made it all feel bittersweet. and it wasn't as if narcissa had changed at all, was it? it was all in the fact that MARLENE HAD. the while she could think of no one else with whom she'd rather be stuck beneath a table with during a dull dinner party, she knew that things had changed, irrevocably, when she'd become friends with one lily j evans.

and it's not as if she'd anticipated it. having grown up as narcissa had within the same sort of hateful environment that bred only further insane, unnecessary contempt. that before all this, she'd really thought that those without PURE BLOOD within them weren't seen as worthy, as wonderful, and goodness, merlin, how could they ever be as smart and as clever as them? but she was oh, oh so wrong, and perhaps in that realization, she'd come to see just how much of their lives hung in hypocrisy.

but it's summer, now, love, isn't it? and it's not as if her own parents are hung up on their own OBSESSIVE IMAGE, annoyed, but thoroughly convinced, still, at the last summer they'd ever have before their final year, that this was but a phase for her. bored, and having snagged a bottle of wine, she'd gone searching for her favourite ledge, only to find it well occupied by an unexpected suspect. "what are you doing here?" the words tumble out, too fast.

- @femmeflos

#❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare ! #femmeflos

[redemptioninterlude]

@starwrittenfates - lily gets a new follower starter !

summertime is one of her favourites, now. Especially now that they’re out of school, and the world is looming, the weight of it a near CHOKEHOLD against them all, as the expectations of their soon-to-be adult lives was coming now that they all had one year left, as, lily herself, seemed all caught up in love affairs washed by the summer shores, the way that a happily-ever-after ought to be. love, in the standing wake of the horrors that haunted them, seemed the appropriate fuck you to a world that seemed their love unseemly, as if there was anything, anything at all that could be said in detriment to one lily evans.

"girls night in sounds absolutely SMASHING, lils." a sleepy comment, from where she lay, exhausted, after their day spent on the beach, after, they did all they could with her family, before her sister had come and ruined the moment, annoyed about the full house after school forms had wrapped. a tired smile, looking upwards at the redhead, an affectionate hand left to trace the outline of her face. "girls night in, before i have to head back home." it's a quiet moment of reflection on that ; she doesn't want to leave. not really. not knowing that her parents were likely gone and it'd be her and an empty house, with nothing but the wait before school began anew. "do you reckon you feel ready for final year?"

- @starwrittenfates

#❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare ! #starwrittenfates

[redemptioninterlude]

@444fm - dolores and harlen get 2 for the price of 1 in this starter !

marlene's known lo forever - the same way that all pretty girls in small places do. she's from up the road, the english family that moves here to retire after her father's done in some military role back home. he's settled since into the local council, politics and her mother as a HOMEMAKER. it's all so dreadfully boring, and she latches onto lo as the two of them sizzle with the discontent that teenaged girls seem to forever brim and bubble over with.

they play HIDE AND SEEK within the rooms of the motel, smoke cigarettes outside while dipping their toes into the pool. they talk about how they might one day escape this place, on the night marlene spends over, convincing dolores to do rituals with her beneath the light of the moon, the atmosphere always, forever, dripping hot and drenched to the bone. that's the south, she learns. you're never truly ever comfortable here.

harlen comes later. all limbs, that boy, and he owns them well. they're both with him for that FIRST TATTOO, and laugh as it becomes an obsession. she thinks, this is what family's supposed to be, even when she isn't sure what the future looks like for them all. but does it feel surprising that her sundays still mean that she's dripping on a couch, sipping 7 up from a dripping can? having come with iced coffees that are sweating on the countertop for the both of them now, a heel dangling haphazardly from her foot. "is that weird couple still in 7A? i'm telling you, i saw them on the 8pm news."

- @444fm

#444fm #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ modern verse ┆ comin through satallites while cruisin !

[redemptioninterlude]

@444fm - gabriel gets a starter x 2, i do what i want !

so what if she takes a summer to BE A MESS? it's the last of her freedom before she goes back to the sticky palmed future guided by her parents, and it's here where she negotiates time off and away. no questions to be asked, because they didn't want to know of whatever rabbit hole that marlene's managed to fall down, and marlene? well.

she just wants to SEE THE WORLD.

only, the world becomes a tour bus, and the world becomes the places that she sees on it on the stops along the way, and she kind of LOVES IT. nomadic, sporadic, everything ever always in flux, her body always smelling like cheap hotel soap, her clothes an ever revolving series of the same shirts, skirts, and jeans. that's road life, she's told, as she flops into the seat next to gabriel, limbs already a tangle. "how long til we make it to the next stop? i'm absolutely dying for a wee."

- @444fm

#444fm #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[redemptioninterlude]

@mystictragedies - sirius gets a new follower starter !

leave it to sirius to get the both of them stuck in detention, even though marlene hadn't been involved in anything. pranks gone wrong are one thing, but the dragging of it comes when marlene's left laughing at the wrong moment, caught and made an example of. how frustrating for her, though the way she sits within her seat, prim, proper, a book already TURNED TO THE PAGE for studying, it's almost as if she hardly seemed bothered for it. even if, when the man of the hour himself walks through the door, he's met with a scalding stare and the thinning of her lips in irritation, the small moves he'll know from far too long, enough to hold against her in a moment like this. "look who decided to show up. how in the bloody hell do you show up late to you own detention? this is why your house will never win the house cup, by the way, with you galavanting about."

truthfully, it's not even THAT BAD, but for the two of them, the ribbing is a near constant state, marlene's blue eyes sent rolling as she allowed for a brief slump to develop between her shoulders, for that steel to slip, just a millimetre. "remind me to kick your seat over next time you try doing a trick like that again." her words are barely heard above where her arms fold in over her head, gaze slicing his way once more before she has them dropping to her book once more - reading, as her quill glides over a separate piece of parchment as she takes notes along the way. "what i really want to know is how pettigrew, lupin and potter managed to evade detection in all of this. it's almost impressive, actually. we've gotten this far, you might as well let the secret out."

- @mystictragedies

#mystictragedies #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[redemptioninterlude]

@mystictragedies - lily gets a new follower starter !

            it’s always been about lily for her.

the reason, the core, the heart. why she'd join the order at all, honestly, if she's selfishly practical about the whole affair. war, after all, is not for those feint of heart, and for what she's been made to suffer beneath the endless toil of forced socialisation with those she hates THE MOST OF ALL, she supposes, it's only fair there’d be as equal a reason to fight. and there is, isn't there, something that begins with lily, and perhaps might end with her too, if the traction of war continues down this path - that will and desire showed themselves not quite enough, yet, and how exhausting its become to watch those that they love die, before they've even really had a chance to live.

tonight they're having a party at the lestranges ; her parents off to the black tie affair, she feigns sick, claiming to need to be at home. it's A POOR EXCUSE, but they're willing to take it, after all, they're just happy that she's home again. convinced that her rebellion was nothing but youthful folly, she takes advantage of their heart’s desire, an obedient daughter, and ducks through their trust, to pay dividends for the order. she could have done anything with this night, but honestly, she's feeling heartsick for the things she's missed out on, the people who's lives were continuing on without her - so when she hops the floo and ends up by the newly christened apartments of the potters', she’s the first to press a finger to her lips as the door opens, to slip inside, and without further adieu, to throw her arms around lily's neck in greeting. “oh merlin, how was the wedding!? dorcas sent photos over, lily, you looked absolutely gorgeous!”

- @mystictragedies

#mystictragedies #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[redemptioninterlude]

@avanoir - narcissa gets a starter bc we miss her !

there’d been a ONCE UPON A TIME for them. childhood friends, with, all the right parties. good blood was never enough, there had to be something else to bind you and, in their circles, it was money… and then there was power. wasn’t there something grand in that? the mckinnons may never have been storied in their wealth, but influence could be traded for so much more, in times like this.

and that’s what her parents did to better effect than she cared for. this was not exactly the life she’d signed herself to, but DESPERATE TIMES, they say, call for desperate measures. and marlene’s come back into the fold, despite what most considered her rebellious years back in school. information could be worth its weight in gold, and marlene’s work was feeding what needed to be, back to those who could save lives from what terror had swept over london.

but not everyone believes her out of the gate, do they? narcissa’s drawl, that voice, the contempt, marlene smiles blithely through it. the steel does not slip from between her shoulders. there’s still some of her that hints to her schoolgirl days, the fighting ways, that GAUNTLET TOSSING, but it finds itself smoothed out beneath business clothes… "narcissa... as charming as ever, i see. i haven't seen you since you betrothal was announced... congratulations by the way. i'm sure that the wedding preparations are gruelling."

- @avanoir

#avanoir #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[redemptioninterlude]

@notfrsale - con't for soojin ( made new editor friendly ! ) !

Maybe things will NEVER GO BACK to the life that they used to have. The both of them were already a fish out of water, marked by different means. Marlene was here for school, she barely knew one state from the other, and now? Now she was made to help navigate that with a nervousness that dug into her flesh. Would there even be an option to catch a flight, to go home? Were things any better there? Was the world burning the way that it was here, left cut off from the things that used to provide them creature comforts. No more phone calls and internet, no more arm out to link nations together, it feels so startlingly closed in, versus what had been there before. It's why the company isn't so bad... and Soojin herself was a better friend to have, if she was allowed to call her that. Nerves frayed and anxious, she knows how much a person will do in the name of survival, doing what she could to help soothe her despite the insanity of it all...

The awful feeling that this was the end, that perhaps her life was over the way that they might die in some pathetic way, that there won't be a truth to this that holds. That in the end, they won't have meaning or purpose to their lives, taken down by the MINDLESS HUNGER of some errant walker that was starved and looking to make a meal out of either of them. That it might be a moment that pricks unremarkable to others and then themselves, gone in an instant. Meaningless, pointless... it's humbling. It makes her want to at least try to draw meaning out of what life she had left to her.

She would have thought talking about what came before might depress her... but funny enough, it draws a half smile on her face. "Can you remember how much time we wasted listening to people argue about CELEBRITY DRAMA on Youtube?" it's hilarious to know what immediately stops being important when push comes to shove. How she unwinds the tension bandage that she's found, glance flickering upwards to meet the other girl's gaze, head shaking her head from side to side. "No. Hardly. I don't want to allow you to fall victim to some absolute bullshit people, okay?" Tongue slipping along her bottom lip, tongue clicking to the back of her teeth. "It's a fucking dog eat dog world out there right now, and honestly? I can't be fucked to try to make a new friend at this point. Blah blah, something something, it's hard to be in your 20s and in the middle of the apocalypse. So. No. Don't even think about it, okay? But maybe what we could do? Is figure out where we gotta go. And we do it together. You got me?"

- @notfrsale

#notfrsale #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ horror verse ┆ but something keeps me really quiet !

[redemptioninterlude]

@borninbloods - mercy gets a starter !

Look at her, that presence on stage. Nobody really prepares you for the first time you look at someone and feel your heart lurch from your chest. You feel that admiration wash through you, SOMETHING SPECIAL in someone you don't even know... that's how she feels about Mercy Barone. Whose confidence in herself makes her wonder what the hell she's been doing, with her pretty skirts and pureblood ways. If nothing else... it makes her want to be different. And oh, what a dangerous thing that was for teenaged girls to find their heart.

The years pass, and Marlene never loses her taste for PUNK ROCK AESTHETICS, though she finds something changes in her. She flips sides, she takes to the war ; and quietly, in her own way, she chips at the damage that comes from those of certain ideals against those that she's come to love. And then there's Mercy - the one who served the spark for it all. Who knew after all this time they'd get to know one another? And now Marlene, at the big age of 21, could feel her time might be at hand - they're all dying. And perhaps she's next, standing outside of that old pub, a cigarette burning between her lips.

"I've always admired you, you know." her tone conversational, everything light. As if she wasn't imagining her death ANOTHER BYLINE in the paper amongst the others. "I never thought we'd end up still friends after you made it big. No offence. Clichés are clichés for a reason."

- @borninbloods

#borninbloods #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[redemptioninterlude]

@pcrfectstorms​ - steve !

Hawkins breaks new ground - it’s the kind of place her parents run, looking to hide from the harsh truths back home. That there’s a terrifying regime looming over their shoulders, an awful part that they too played in, which they would deny, she expects, until their dying breath. Perhaps they grow a conscious ; perhaps they found themselves terrified of how history would remember them, as spineless, whimpering things, expectant that their run and hide act would keep her from sticking her nose into unknown places. Don’t they know? For wizards and witches, TROUBLE FINDS THEM all too easily, stripping her of her wand as if it would stop her now, pushing her to play a muggle amongst the teenager of the town.

She meets STEVE HARRINGTON at the local high school - how confused she seems, at first, her pouting mouth, her confusion over what must have seemed like trivial things. They explain it all away with her being un-American, what a laugh it is, that they seems the catch all for the things that don’t quite fit, and he introduces her to things like football and cheerleading, which is all fine and all fun, but... it all rubs at her in the wrong ways, she wants out, out, out! Until she feels that tingling sense  of wrongness about Hawkins that she doesn’t expect. Something in the ground, in the very dirt of this place screams of an energy that wasn’t meant to be, and nobody really talks about it, do they?

But the kids seem to know, the ones that ride about on their bikes and talk of magic and heroes and more. They have wizened knowingness about them, even if they’re all muggles to the bone of them. Marlene checks ; even if she’s HALF HOBBLED NOW without a wand, her fingers having scratching and clawed at the metal thing her parents lock hers up within, and slowly but surely, she puts her own Arithmancy skills to work at it, dragging the thing out to the woods behind her place, and writing algorithms in the dirt. Today’s no difference, her back bent, eyes squinting in the dying daylight that seems to permeate this place when she hears a noise, ever cautious and aware when her gaze levelled to a familiar face. “What are you doing out here?” Steve, who seems to be everywhere, anywhere, all at once. “I thought this wasn’t your particular neck of the woods, Harrington.”

- @pcrfectstorms ( booped for a starter )

#pcrfectstorms #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[redemptioninterlude]

@sugarfm​ - jason !

This is the new world. Meant to be a bright, sunny future, build for witches who had finished their schooling, and were ready to chase their dreams. A new time, for them to grow into adults... but the world isn’t quite so GIVING, when so much is at stake, is it? For before they’d even stepped out from their school yard dramas, there was word upon the street, words spoken in a hush about what was going on, and who was coming. A future, made just a little bit cloudy with the unknown. People are being snatched off the streets and all they get are rumours. Nothing that helps them, the kind of nightmare fuel that, she suspects, that great EXISTENTIAL OTHER wants them to feel. Even uttering the name of the enemy has given it power; they call him Voldemort, and with it, they’ve seen all too many people come and go, trading favours for power, trading secrets for protection. A different kind of world than that with which she’s come up in, but Marlene’s thrown all that in the rubbish in order to stand with what she sees is right.

But her parents seem to see right through her, her return to the family, an excuse to sweep her off towards America, of all places. Her friends left to fight... They’re too young for this; too achingly young, and maybe it’s when they move fast, they don’t have to think about it, which is maybe a good thing, and maybe, too, sometimes TERRIFYING. They barely know how to care for themselves in a home that they manage for themselves, much less the incentricities of war and intrigue, but life hasn’t quite given them the luxury of choice in this particular case. Survival is all there is to consider, their own wants, desires... they come secondary, truncated at best by the responsibilities that they now bear.

Writing to them becomes the norm ; Hawkins, she tells them, is a stranger place, though her parents encourage her to, of all things, blend in, a thing she would have never expected of them, pureblood proud, always, until their spines could no longer uphold their prejudice. Forget them... she joins cheerleading, as it’s the CLOSEST THING she feels to flying anymore, the thrill of a broom gone, but, she meets nicer people. Like Chrissy. Like Jason, too, sort of. Marlene smoking out the back of the doorways out, her pristine white sneakers jammed against the door to hold it open when he comes out, surprise painting her features as she blew smoke in another direction, nose crinkling, ever so slightly. “Where are you heading on this awfully warm afternoon?” her accent, her clothes, her everything marking her apart from the others, unless dressed in crisp white and greens on the field for practice.

- @sugarfm​ ( for a new follower starter ! )

#sugarfm #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !

[redemptioninterlude]

@keepitsharp​ - carmen !

New clients come in all of the time ; troubled businesses, over-their-heads housewives. Marlene’s seen it all, her chin balanced careful against the fat slide of her palm that she kept planted there as she took notes, her eyes lifting in sympathetic care. I hear you, she’d say without the saying, putting them at ease with her posh English accent, the particularness in which she made it all feel as if this were HARDLY UNUSUAL, regardless of what she was eventually faced with. It’s a retreat, this, so much so that she never felt herself ungrateful for the turn her life has taken, even in a city that sang so contrary to what she’d always known, and despite the oddity of it, to be so far and away from her family, her friends, her former life.

He calls in, a frazzled voice. Explaining something of financial troubles for a local shop, one that she knows, outside of the reaches of her neighbourhood, but well known enough that she’s stopped by with friends on a cheeky weekend takeaway moment. “I’M SURE WE CAN FIGURE THIS OUT.” There she was, Marlene, the consummate professional, all charm and cautious care, sketching out a name, an address, even though she knew the rough ends of what to expect. In return for a promised date for a visit, she too provides her expectation of what she hopes he’ll find for her, to make things as easy as possible for the both of them. Could he? She asks so warmly, that she’s rarely found herself at odds and ends of her clients, packing a bag and her computer as the anointed day comes, making the trek out from her South Loop office to where she’s to meet the new shop’s proprietor. 

The tingling of a bell ; and she takes one step in, a hand sweeping through her hair as she made corrections to what the windy streets had inflicted against her as she’d stepped from her Uber to the door. Gaze left to wonder about her, the frantic weekend energy less so during the week, even if it landed on the slumped spine of a man that she could ONLY ASSUME was Carmen, the previous owner’s son. The prodigal son, it appeared, having done a precursory search of his name on the ride over, left to blink, curious, at the stories of him written out in glowing rhetoric within articles and reviews.

“Carmen?” Her voice, a perfect match to that on the phone, is met with her carefully glossed smile. “MARLENE MCKINNON. Thanks ever so much for taking the time.”

- @keepitsharp​ ( gets a new follower starter ! )

#keepitsharp #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ modern verse ┆ comin through satallites while cruisin !

[redemptioninterlude]

@pcrfectstorms​ - jade !

"Okay first of all, what are we listening to again?” Marlene’s leg swings back and forth from where she’s PERCHED UP HIGH on the bathroom stall counter, reapplying her lipstick without the use of a mirror. Red, red, fire engine red, lips pursed, smeared, perfection.

And second of all... “Jade, did you remember we’ve a test in the next period? Are you sure you want to use the time listening to music in here, AS GOOD AS IT IS, when I could be helping you prep for it instead?” Marlene, who’s pleated edge of her cheer uniform lifts as she crosses her legs, couldn’t help but roll her eyes in indignation. “Your mum asked me to look out for your grades, and you’re making it awfully hard to do so.”

- @pcrfectstorms​ ( hit the ♡ for a starter ) 

#pcrfectstorms #❝ threads ❞ ┆ the revolution will be televised ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ interactions ┆ will you still love me when i'm no longer young and beautiful ! #❝ m. mckinnon ❞ ┆ canon verse ┆ telephone wires above are sizzlin like a snare !