Elliana May @Mause@cloudisland.nz

Words to live by

So You've Kissed Her, What Now: At Least Seven Options for Highly Productive Lesbians

• ~~the U-Haul:~~ No. You know what? No. Strike that. We're going to go ahead and rule this hoary classic out as the least effective option for getting that second kiss. Save that gas money.

• the Netflix & Chill: Given the paucity of good happy queer content on Netflix, this path is strewn with cluster mines: instead of smooching, you may well end up hugging each other and tearing up over shared trauma during certain episodes of a show featuring a sword lady and her cat.

• the Kitchen Nightmare: everyone likes a home-cooked dinner, right? Well… make sure at least one of you likes doing dishes, and try to slyly slip food allergies into the conversation ahead of time, or your second date will be your last.

• the Mountain Dew® Gamer Challenge: you both like video games, right? Get cozy on the couch and _oops_ both of you are _super_ competitive… but she's a speedrunner. Oh no. This isn't looking good for your gamerscore — and is she _streaming_ this?

• the Ship Ahoy: you, of course, talked about your favorite ships a few minutes before that first tentative smooch. For your next date, you show up cosplaying her favorite character. Open her door, perfectly executed kabedon, your date is _into it_. So far so good… oh god. Oh god. What's her catchphrase? How does she do that _laugh_?

• the Petting Zoo: you'll let her meet your actual cat! That's like, second and a half base, right? Your darling floofball rescue kitty Shadow is a heart-melter, guaranteed. Look at the cute way he rolls on his back to greet people! Unfortunately, your lady love didn't grow up around cats, so when she attempts to pat his belly, he locks onto her wrist, chomps with enthusiasm, and then runs out the open door into the night. He'll be back when he gets hungry, but she's going to need a lot of gauze and first aid spray, and you're going to be worried sick until feeding time.

• the San Francisco Treat: okay, you admit it, you're nervous. She's _so_ pretty. And you have so much in common. It feels like everything's at stake! It's too much! You pop an antianxiety pill. And you know what? It works. You start talking about something you know you're both passionate about, and then things get a little blurry… Next thing you know, you and your new CTO are signing series A paperwork for your startup, which will be selling a new dialect of Rust optimized for domain-specific VR asset upscaling using FPGAs in the cloud. Neither of you will have time for sex in the next five years. But congratulations on the beginning of your incredible journey!