#(and nyc fashion week is a thing right now and kind of inspired this)

[charlotteswebbbbb]

What's the vibe? #62

In the news!

In transport entities collaborating with brands: Made.com are collaborating with TfL similar to what Burberry are doing..."The furniture installations are at Kings Cross St. Pancras, Green Park, Piccadilly and Baker Street Underground stations." but also this ad is CGI.....

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Ice Spice is a currently the face of NYC metro cards right now, solidifying her star New Yorker status.

Multibrand retailers this week....

MyTheresa is hopefully getting a new buyer this week or next week?

New Charli XCX video - I know I talk about her a lot but she's an interesting case. Seems more authentic than Dua Lipa in her inspirations and her music videos are obviously guided with a lot of vision. Plus she’s playing arenas in the UK for the first time this year. The latest features "various hot girls" - Julia Fox, Gabriette, Chloe Cherry etc etccccc

Also in music the boys of Fontaine D.C are back - wearing Simone Rocha on US tv....

From hot girls > hot boys > what does ugly mean today > you are unique

How are hot boys defined??? They're more likely to be talent whereas the girls can be....influencers/models/talent. Beloved for their movie of the moment, the boys are now fashion forward (see: Josh O'Connor for Loewe, Jacob Elordi and his bags/Prada vibes, Troye Sivan for Miu Miu). This never includes K-Pop boys as that's it's own kind of stan/fandom (with it's own rules) which is separate from this more American/Anglosphere fame. See also: "White boy of the month" The whole picking this talented person for our moment of lusty fan-dom is more an expansion on who gets to be popular which relates to the (fluctuating) democratic idea of the internet.

There are obviously cultural differences between the UK and USA - UK where we're searching for....

Ugly being terrible to a majority of people is undebatable but we’re definitely a nation who embraces imperfection which is something to embrace. Looking unique is what we're known for on the world stage. Ugly may be a trend at the moment but I think as we move into this era of “uniqueness” people will embrace strong personality and unique face...

See: any popular actor from the UK

(Drag culture having it's mainstream moment could be a part of this but it's more like hyper-femininity on display and that and queer culture in gen has changed how sexuality is displayed in beauty and beyond over the past 20 years)

Alongside the idea that "ugliness" might become the norm in just every day fashion due to people digging more into the idea of vintage more and more - and how to learn how to define one's style. Or something that's out of today's cycle because newness will always exist but it's possible that people are more in search of the one-of-a-kind for special events.

See also:

I think this is happening but also the opposite of what Lou is arguing where sharp suits are in on one side and on the other side.....

from 2018:

Instead of gorpcore being seen as ugly, it's now like being seen as out of the time...fashion will be time melting possibly. A mix and match of things.

The portal between New York and Dublin is a new way of random human connection.

“Founded by Lithuanian artist and entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, Portals are an invitation to meet fellow humans above borders and differences and to experience our world as it really is – united and one. The livestream of Portals provides a window between distant locations, allowing people to meet outside of their social circles and cultures.”

Also Primavera Pro this year is focusing on new ways of communication, "from how to use new platforms such as TikTok, to understanding who the new music curators are, given the changes and evolution taking place in the specialised media, thanks to the participation of influencers Anthony Fantano and Margeaux."

New ways of communication are important as how we communicate with each other is extremely important, especially in a loneliness crisis and the complex dating/socializing matrix we live within.

[nimbasah]

Headcanon 01: Fashion Week

A fashion week by definition is: a fashion industry event, lasting approximately one week, wherein fashion designers, brands or "houses" display their latest collections in runway fashion shows, displayed on models, to buyers and the media. These events influence trends for the current and upcoming seasons.

Fashion is such an integral part of the pokemon world. It’s used to define a trainers look, a coordinators presentation, a persons personality. It’s integral, and important in the everyday life of trainers, coordinators, athletes, the common person, and so on. 

Fashion Week, some of the biggest events in the fashion world, is a way for designers and stylists to show off their skills and creations. Thus the word couture comes into play. This is the fashion that is seen on the runway. More often then not the models are sewn into these not even five minutes before their walk because the designer was still putting the finishing touches on it. Couture is the fashion that designers create and put forward to showcase their skills and what they can do and create. 

There are four main cities, often referred to as the “Big Four”, there are many notable Fashion Weeks around the regions but the main four cities are the ones of most notoriety (as these were the first four cities to start and hold fashion week). The “Big Four” cities are as followed: Saffron City (Kanto), Hearthome City (Sinnoh), Nimbasa City (Unova), and Lumiose City (Kalos). An invite to any fashion week is of huge honour, an invite to one of the big four is of highest prestige. Guest, model, or designer many vie for the chance to go to one. 

Elesa is often asked personally by designers to walk and showcase their work. A big honour to be asked personally, as many models have to audition for the positions to walk is such a prestige show and even then spots are limited in the show. So to be asked and personally selected to be the one the showcase the artistic and creative designs is of the highest honour in the modelling world. 

Fashion week, though an honour, is a giant blur. There’s so many known faces that show up to see the shows. Guests come show off their own style, designers vying for names walking the carpet before the show to put into their dresses, suits, or outfits. As a model there is no down time as you’re constantly being whisked from one show to the next. From one outfit to another. Then the after parties where the models, designers, and notable guests all mingle. Then repeat. Elesa herself has walked in many shows, being in the blur and whisked around, but she loves it. Loves the passion is brings, the art, the creativity, and the community that fashion week brings to all. 

It’s a spectacle, one that the world, media outlets, and fans alike look forward to. To see what is in style upcoming. what is the best items, accessories, or outfits for contests. The most durable outfits or clothing for battles. The most flattering wear for everyday fashion, or the best conductive material for mega evolution. It brings people from all walks of life together for the weeks of fashion! 

[swiftgronmasterpost]

Spring/Summer/Fall 2013 - The End(?)

Click here for an appropriately sad Swiftgron breakup playlist.

I don’t know if it’s important or not but Dianna wishes several friends a late happy birthday on twitter, apologizing for missing the actual day through this spring and summer.  It seems like maybe she’s going through something (like a bad break up?) because it’s not like her to miss friends’ birthdays.

March 26, 2013 - Maybe a relevant tweet?

April 7, 2013 - Dianna tweets a photo of James Dean in a day dream like setting:

April 16, 2013 - The article that outed them:

Someone made a fake article that said Swiftgron was dating:

Dianna tweets seven times that day which is a bit much for her.

The hashtag here stands out to me:

The fake article goes viral and all week people are tweeting about the possibility that Dianna and Taylor are dating.

April 23, 2012

It seems to culminate on this day.  Many people are buzzing about Swiftgron and this actress tweets:

That’s right at midnight.

About 12 hours later Dianna deletes her public Tumblr:

On that same day Dianna reblogs several things on her private Tumblr.  These two stand out to me:

She reblogged both of these posts and the only hashtag they had in common was “#lost love” - she was searching that hashtag.

I think it’s very clear that today is the day Swiftgron 2.0 broke up.  I believe they were forced to by their management teams due to being outed.

April 24, 2013 - Taylor seems regretful/stressed out she screenshots her text to Austin and posts:

I think Dianna’s obviously upset about this and as an act of defiance she tweets at Taylor a few days later (Taylor does not respond.)

April 29, 2013

Instead Taylor posts on Dianna’s Birthday (April 30) a silly google search (very DIanna in nature tbh) with a play on the lyrics from 22:

Taylor had the week of Dianna’s 27th birthday off of the Red tour (it was scheduled like that) but as far as we know they did not hang out.

May 4, 2013 - Ours

At her first show since their supposed break-up, Taylor performs Ours as a surprise song. She introduces it by saying: “This is a song about how, when you fall in love everybody starts to give you their opinion. I imagine it could be really hard to make a relationship last, I wouldn’t know. But, given that everyone is giving you their own opinion about it, I think that the only opinion you should really listen to is yours and if you love that person, that should be all that matters.”

Dianna dyes her hair brown and goes to Morocco a week later with Ashley (”You searched the world for something else, To make you feel like what we had”) from about May 11 - May 14 or 15.  While there she attends the A Small World relaunch. ASW could be viewed as a bit “sketchy” if you will.  I think this is where she befriends Olivia Wilde.

This is Dianna’s first (known) trip to Morocco (Derek Blasberg is there too) but she seems to be drawn there over and over again after this, even marrying Winston Marshall there (and possibly meeting another boyfriend, Gus Wenner there.)

May 19, 2013 - Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas

Taylor wins 8 awards and says this during her acceptance speech:

This and the performance of Ours makes me think Taylor is bitter about a break up right now, even though publicly she broke up with Harry back in January.

This is also the event where Taylor is famously grossed out by Justin and Selena’s hetero nonsense and does this:

It seems like as always, Taylor has a lot going on right now...some kind of drama with Justin is boiling but it’s possible she’s also referencing her breakup with Dianna in her acceptance speech.

Dianna pops back up in NYC.

May 20, 2013 - WLW icon Kristen Stewart apparently spends the night at Taylors?

May 28, 2013 - Taylor plays Haunted on the Red Tour and gives a speech:

"This is a song that I haven't played on this tour so far. It came up when one of my friends tweeted the lyrics to it today and it reminded me that I haven't played this song in about two years. It has to do with the fact that, you know people talk about ghosts all the time. You just kind of imagine it being this supernatural thing, but there's another kind of ghost and it's just a person who is out there walking in the world or just doesn't love you anymore and that's a whole different kind of being haunted." Seems like she’s really going through it.

July 2, 2013 - Anniversary of Hyannis Port trip and interesting private Tumblr post from Dianna:

Bad things happen this summer.  Cory Monteith passes away and Taylor is assaulted at a meet and greet by a DJ.

July 2013 - Dianna buys a house in LA (I Wish You Would)

August 2013 - Dianna’s whosirmesir moniker gets outed and she stops blogging under that tumblr account.

August 14, 2013 - Taylor is in a weird place according to the Lover diaries:

1.  she seems to have basically written The Lakes here

2.  she’s really harping on themes she ends up addressing in I Know Places, Out of the Woods, and Wonderland

August 29, 2013 - Dianna steps out with restaurateur Nick Mathers.  

Not sure what to make of this one.  Dianna seems to date two types of men:  1. teeny bopper actors for bearding and pr purposes (it generally seems) and 2. rich businessmen.  Nick is type 2, but their relationship is reported on as if it’s PR.  “Sources” call up gossip sites to fill them in on the relationship and both their projects get plugged along with announcements on them as a couple:

I don’t know if they were more or less legit but she goes out with Taylor five days later...

September 4, 2013 - The Fun! Concert:

Swiftgron’s last pre-Kaylor public sighting - they go to a Fun! concert in LA

It’s just a split instant of video footage but Sarah Hyland uploads this to Vine and it does not look like Dianna is enjoying herself:

Note:  It kind of looks like DIanna has her arm around Taylor’s waist and also the person to the right of Taylor is Selby Drummond who is still friends with DIanna as of writing of this masterpost (December 2020) and who still appears to be a fan of Taylor’s.

Dianna does look miserable but I do think it’s interesting they seem to be making an effort to hang out on the two year anniversary of their public (perhaps private as well) first meeting.

Dianna tweets about the concert the next day:

September 6, 2013 - Taylor plays Speak Now as the surprise song on the Red tour.  Interesting given the timing of Dianna and her new boyfriend being public just one week before this.

September 8, 2013 - Taylor plays Sad, Beautiful Tragic for the first time ever live and gives this speech:

"I kind of feel like playing a song I've never ever played live before. This is um a song that I wrote about how you know just because something's over doesn't mean it wasn't incredibly beautiful. Cause another lesson I've learned is not all stories have a happy ending and you have to learn how to deal with that. So this is a song about a story that didn't end so happily but was still supposed to happen. This is called Sad, Beautiful, Tragic."

I don’t think this song was originally written about Dianna but I do think at this time while they stumble through the last phase of their relationship Taylor was inspired to sing it.

October 2013 - Taylor writes I Wish You Would, a song inspired by an ex who had recently bought a house near her driving past her house.  It’s thought to be about Harry but Harry didn’t buy a house in LA until March 2014.  But of course we know Dianna did buy a house near Taylor’s in LA earlier this fall.

November 11, 2013 - The music video for “She’s Just Another Girl” premiers starring Dianna looking stunning in high fashion drag, dressed up as the lead singer, and lip syncing the words to the song:

Some lyrics to the song include:

All of my friends say I should move on She's just another girl, don't let her stick it to your heart so hard And all of my friends say it wasn't meant to be And it's a great big world, she's just another girl

I could be reeling them in left and right Something's got a hold on me, tonight Well maybe all of my friends should confront The fact that I don't want another girl

I think it’s at least possible that Dianna was drawn to this project because the lyrics resonated to her given what she was going through with Taylor at the time.

November 12, 2013 - Day of Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show rehearsals and Dianna posts this (now deleted) picture:

November 13, 2013 - Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show where Taylor performs and Karlie Kloss walks the runway.

Dianna posts this picture (now deleted) of her at Emma Stone’s birthday party from 11 months previous:

It’s likely she’s looking at Taylor in this photo who was seated across from her.

It’s a very random picture to post.  It wasn’t titled as a throwback and it wasn’t an exact year after the picture was taken (prompting some kind of happy birthday shout out to Emma Stone or anything) - just a random picture of Dianna smiling, likely at Taylor. 

November 17, 2013 - Dianna posts a (now deleted) photo about missing someone:

November 21, 2013 - Taylor posts lyrics from a hopeful love song about a troubled relationship:

Lyrics:

December 9, 2013 - Dianna listens to Pale Blue Eyes

Lyrics are about being emo over a lost love with Blue Eyes:

Sometimes I feel so happy Sometimes I feel so sad Sometimes I feel so happy But mostly you just make me mad Baby, you just make me madLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

Thought of you as my mountaintop Thought of you as my peak Thought of you as everything I've had, but couldn't keep I've had, but couldn't keep

Linger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

If I could make the world as pure And strange as what I see I'd put you in the mirror I put in front of me I put in front of meLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

Skip a life completely Stuff it in a cup She said, "Money is like us in time It lies, but can't stand up" Down for you is upLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyesIt was good what we did yesterday And I'd do it once again The fact that you are married Only proves you're my best friend But it's truly, truly a sinLinger on your pale blue eyes Linger on your pale blue eyes

December 11, 2013 - You know the drill...Dianna posts a now deleted photo to Instagram:

December 13, 2013 - Dianna posts an attention grabbing photo on Taylor’s Birthday

Conclusions - Swiftgron very clearly goes through a rough breakup due to being outed. 

Then they attempt some sort of reconciliation - even hanging out (date night?) on the second anniversary of their Fairfax Flea Market meetcute, but it goes wrong.  

Taylor is on tour for much of this time and Dianna is posting angst ridden and peculiar Instagram posts exactly at the time Taylor meets Karlie.

Click here to keep reading!

[forasecondtherewedwon]

WIN A DATE WITH SPIDER-MAN!

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: E (explicit sexual content) Word count: 10,358 @spideychelleweek​

Spideychelle Week Day 4: Meeting Again After High School

Summary: The fact that MJ bought a ticket to this event doesn't mean she wants to be here. It's a favour for a friend, who is not the man someone in the room is about to win a date with. No, that guy isn't her friend, just a date-skipping, heart-breaking ex from high school. Whatever. She's out of here the second they draw the name. It better not be hers.

“If my name gets drawn, I’m going to murder you,” MJ informs Betty when her friend leans against the bar for a breather. She swallows the end of her drink. “Just so you know.”

“You won’t get picked,” Betty assures her.

She isn’t looking at MJ, but at the rest of the people assembled in the hotel’s large event room, a space generously donated for the occasion. It better be one of them, MJ thinks. Anyone but her.

“I could.”

“You won’t,” Betty insists, turning and flagging the bartender to request a glass of cranberry juice.

“Daring,” MJ mutters.

“I’m working, remember? Anyway, look around. Entry was fifty dollars―”

“That I remember. You’re totally paying me back for doing this.”

Betty rolls her eyes and continues. “It was fifty dollars per entry and how many times do you think they put their names in?” she asks MJ, pointing a subtle finger at a clump of socialites.

“Jeeze, hope nobody blew their allowance,” MJ retorts sarcastically. She’s tempted to get another drink, but more alcohol in her system isn’t going to help her get through this. It may, however, help her get over it afterwards, when she’s back in her apartment.

“Well, one of them’s hoping to blow more than their allowance,” Betty says with a knowing little cock of her head.

“Yikes, Betty, you speak to your grandmother with that mouth?”

Betty ignores her and takes a sip of the cranberry juice the bartender sets before her. She places the glass back on the bar, staring at it for a minute, before she winces―pre-regret, is the emotion MJ’s learned to identify the look as―and asks the bartender to add a splash of vodka.

“I have a lot riding on this,” she tells MJ after a heartier swig of her newly-adult drink.

“I know you do,” MJ replies in a softer tone.

“The event was my big idea and I didn’t think my editor would go for it and now we’ve done so much promotion and if it doesn’t work out...” She turns sharply to her friend. “Do you think it won’t work out?”

“It’s already working out. You got a great turnout. Hell, you got me here.”

“You’re my emotional support though. You don’t count.”

“Ouch. Is that what you tell your fiancé when he comes to these things?”

“I wouldn’t have to. Ned would kill to be here. He’d be laughing his ass off. In, like, a supportive way,” Betty clarifies.

“Guess their friendship’s still strong then,” MJ mumbles. She frowns when the bartender removes her glass. Now she has nothing to do with her hands. She thumps her elbows onto the bar.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know it is. I know he’s still on your radar.”

“He is not. Besides his picture in your paper―”

“It’s not my paper,” Betty corrects, but she’s flattered. Tonight’s event should land her a promotion and that’s one step closer to the editor-in-chiefdom she’s striving to attain by 35. Though she’s still got six years to capture it, she loves to come in ahead of a deadline.

“―I haven’t seen him in years.”

“Well, you’ll see him tonight.”

“Will I?” MJ glances sideways at Betty. “Is he even here yet?”

“Fashionably late,” is her friend’s positive spin. “But it’s fine because I built a twenty-minute buffer into the schedule just in case.”

“You’ll need it. He’s allergic to punctuality.”

Betty sighs so loudly that MJ sits bolt upright.

“Can’t you even say his name?” she snaps.

“Are you ok? Do you need me to find you a paper bag to breathe into?”

“Shut up. God, what time is it?” Suddenly frantic, Betty checks her watch, twisting it around her wrist. She glances up at the stage, where a man in a generic black suit is stepping out to scattered applause. “He’s not supposed to start his speech for another fifteen minutes! Sorry, I have to…”

“Go on,” MJ encourages. “Boss them around. Sort it out.”

“If you see Peter arrive…”

“You’ll be alerted by my loud screeches of aversion,” she promises. Betty hesitates at that, so MJ gives her a gentle shove.

When the back of her friend’s pale pink gown disappears through the crowd, MJ rotates on her stool to observe the room. She still hasn’t said his name and she wishes she wasn’t so aware of it. It’s come out of Betty’s mouth a hundred times today. Besides that, it’s printed on signs around the room, along with his face―unmasked, naturally, to help move tickets. Good looks are always for sale and the newspaper Betty works for isn’t above leveraging that. The money raised by this event is for a good cause though, MJ has to allow that much. Two new clinics to service the city’s vulnerable homeless population, one staffing mental health professionals and the other a safe injection site as NYC combats the opioid crisis. It’d just be nice to attend a fundraiser that wasn’t somehow all about him.

She slips from her stool and realizes cutting herself off at one drink was a good idea; she has unforgivingly-high heels on tonight, the kind that make grown men cry, and her balance is still intact. MJ’s not using the intimidating height the shoes give her to compensate for the secret fear being here inspires. She’s not. Smoothing the front of the silky material of her pants, she lets them fall back into place before circling the room. There’s an art to it, moving through the wealthy strangers without actually mingling, and MJ thinks she’s gotten pretty good at making people scared to meet her eye... until a lackey from the mayor’s office steps directly in front of her and presses a leaflet, featuring the evening’s itinerary, into her hands. MJ sighs and slaps it down on the first tall cocktail table she passes. She doesn’t mean to look, but the white letters on a red background catch her eye: WIN A DATE WITH SPIDER-MAN! No thanks, MJ thinks, walking quickly away in search of Betty. I try not to make the same mistake twice.

Half an hour later, with the mayor’s long-winded speech running over before finally wrapping up, MJ watches her friend step up to the podium that’s just been vacated, clapping and beaming. It’s not her stressed smile either. Fuck. MJ exhales slowly. That smile says everything’s going smoothly, which tells her Peter’s here. Where is he? How did she miss him coming in? In spite of herself, she cranes her head around to look, not paying attention to Betty’s speech that thanks everyone for coming before shifting into introducing the guest of honour. She’s heard it before. Helped her friend practice. MJ was open to that kind of thing, weeks ago, before Betty pressganged-slash-guilted her into buying a ticket for the fucking Spider-Man lottery. She’s right though―they’ve sold thousands of tickets. She’ll never win. If she’s really lucky, Peter will never even know she was at this thing.

Which is definitely what she wants, MJ reminds herself, adjusting the lapels of the tightly tailored blazer she’s worn with no blouse underneath. For him to not notice her.

When Peter steps out from a side door with a big wave and a nervous smile, she’s deaf to the fanfare. Belatedly, she starts to clap, glancing around and dropping her hands when everyone else does. She doesn’t want to be the last idiot clapping. He’d spot her then for sure. As she watches him mount the low stage and let Betty guide him into position, MJ thinks he looks fairly anxious. Like, he looks nice, presentable, but unsure of himself. It’s the nicest suit she’s ever seen him wear, but his all-purpose one back in high school didn’t set a high bar.

He says a few words, voice coming out high at first as his eyes dart around the crowd (MJ steps slightly behind a very tall man and tells herself she isn’t hiding), then Betty takes over again, lightly touching his arm and eloquently rescuing him while keeping her event on track. She’s exceptional, MJ thinks. Distinguished master-of-ceremonies and gregarious gameshow host at the same time. MJ couldn’t do this job, which is why she switched from journalism to a literary agency three years ago. She’s better at negotiating than pleasing, better at handling people one-on-one. Except for him. She sees Peter step to the side and try to look excited as Betty holds a red pail (ok, a little lame―one of the interns failed in prop acquisition) for the mayor to submerge his hand into and pluck out a name. MJ had him one-on-one, looking only at her, with no sea of people. She was fifteen, unaware of his secret identity that still was secret at the time, and things didn’t work out. People think dating a superhero is such a fantasy. Disappointment was the boring reality.

A name’s drawn and MJ starts clapping along with everyone else. It takes almost half a minute for her to realize the name was hers.

They want to get her on stage, but she balks. Betty makes an excuse into the microphone, something about MJ not wanting to take attention away from the evening’s mission. The fact that landing a date with Spider-Man wasn’t the evening’s sole mission might come as a shock to some of the whining voices around her. Normally, she’d glare at them or make a sarcastic comment about their noble motivations, but she can’t. First of all, she won’t jeopardize the success of Betty’s event. Second, her human wall has stepped aside and Peter’s looking at her. And MJ’s looking back. Betty gracefully wraps things up on stage, her diamond engagement ring catching the light stunningly to add glamour to her showmanship, and then she, the mayor, and Spider-Man himself are descending into the crowd.

Does she flee? Is this MJ’s one chance to run?

But no, Betty weaves through to find her and grabs her hand like she knows what her friend’s plotting.

“You have to find someone else,” MJ says hurriedly. “Draw another name.”

“I can’t. You won fair and square.”

“I didn’t want to win.”

“I know.” Neither of them are looking at each other; they’re both looking in the direction Peter will inevitably approach from when he escapes the impromptu meet-and-greet.

“Tell them I’m sick.”

“Wouldn’t work,” Betty says. “The date’s not tonight.”

“Tell them it’s the beginning of a prolonged and ultimately fatal sickness.”

“Not very on-brand for Spider-Man to skip out on a date with someone terminally ill.”

“I’ll make it extremely clear that it was my decision. Would you take a last-minute opinion piece on why I hate Spider-Man and publish it tomorrow?”

“Babe, you don’t hate Spider-Man, you just don’t forgive the people who hurt you.”

Betty’s assessment is presented so casually that it startles MJ. It’s absolutely accurate, but she’s horrified that she’s been so easy to read. That’s the problem with having close friends. They know you and on top of that, they bully you into entering contests to date your high school ex. She’s never making a friend again.

“Yeah, I know,” MJ sighs, and then Peter appears, shaking one last hand, before turning their way.

“I owe you, I owe you, I owe you,” Betty hisses. “Please don’t make a scene.”

People are looking. Jealous weirdos.

“Hey, MJ,” he says, eyes catching hers. She breaks that shit off immediately, looking up and away from him.

“I go by Michelle now.”

“She doesn’t,” Betty cuts in.

“Oh... ok,” Peter says with obvious and understandable confusion. “So, you wanna...?”

He goes to put a hand on MJ’s back and she dodges it.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demands.

He glances uncertainly from her to Betty and back.

“Betty said they’d need to take a picture of me with the, uh, winner.”

MJ laughs bitterly.

“This just keeps getting better.”

Betty mutters a reminder: “No scene.”

So she acquiesces, following Betty over to the spot she previously decided on for the photo, next to one of the signs for the event. MJ doesn’t let Peter touch or guide her and he doesn’t try again. A photographer―signaled by Betty―approaches and she tactfully poses her friends to make them look friendly without physical contact. Betty gestures for her to smile and, for her, MJ manages a brief closed-lipped one, standing stiffly at Peter’s side. She’s a little curious about what his face is doing; is he being Spider-Man, beaming and happy to be here, or is he as uncomfortable as she is and just faking it until this evening is over?

After a dozen rapid clicks of the camera, the photographer and Betty walk away, Betty seeming to tell him what else she’d like shots of. Peter can return to his adoring fans, but he hasn’t yet and with Betty occupied, MJ’s floundering for a polite way to excuse herself. She makes the mistake of meeting Peter’s eye and he gives her a soft smile.

“You look so good.”

Heart seizing, she turns and marches for the exit, leaving him standing there.

―

“Thanks for taking the time to say goodbye,” Betty says over the phone, sarcasm perky and damning.

MJ groans. She stretches out on her couch and mutes the TV. It’s the morning after the event and she’s unproductive, not that it has anything to do with seeing Peter last night.

“I’m sorry. I had to get out of there.”

“You know, I think you’re the only person in this city, aside from criminals, who runs the other way at the sight of Spider-Man.”

“I didn’t run.”

“You didn’t stick around either. Peter could’ve used you there.”

“I’m not even going to respond to that.”

“Look, MJ,” Betty sighs, “I’m on your side, but do you really think it’s impossible that he’s grown a little since high school?”

“I haven’t seen any proof of that,” MJ huffs. “What I remember is him always showing up late, if he showed up at all, and let me remind you that he was late last night.”

“It’s the nature of his work.”

“Sounds like you’re defending him and therefore on his side.”

“The world is on his side and not all of us are stubborn enough to disagree with seven and a half billion people!” Betty exclaims. “Fine, I am on Spider-Man’s side, as an admirer of the good things he does, but as a friend, I’m on your side. A hundred percent.”

“You’re still making me go through with this date, aren’t you?”

“I have all the details right here in front of me, if you―”

MJ hangs up. Betty will forgive her.

―

The date takes place in the middle of the day in Central Park. It’s been two weeks since Peter allowed himself to be auctioned off, which has meant two weeks of MJ pleading with an immovable Betty to find a replacement and about two hours of stoic acceptance (just this morning). The time and location were selected for them based on what would result in the best pictures. Oh yeah, there’s a photographer here again, ready to spend the next three hours (three hours?) trailing them around the park to take candid shots of their afternoon. The paper’s planning a big image gallery for their website. According to Betty, this follow-up to her event will be their main photo story of the summer. Fucking excellent. All MJ could really do to prepare was wear comfortable white sneakers and a light denim jacket in case a wind came up or something. She’s already regretting that, with the sun right overhead in the sky and the air totally still around her. She moves her hair off her neck and turns to the photographer.

“He’ll probably be late,” MJ warns.

She, like the photographer, was early. Wanting to get today over with, she paid more attention to her willingness to participate (which might not last) than to showing up a full forty-five minutes ahead of the scheduled time. If this was a normal date, that might look like enthusiasm. Peter, in contrast, probably forgot this is happening today. He’s probably asleep or off somewhere being... Nope, here he comes, bounding up the path. Why did MJ wear the jacket? She’s so overheated.

“Hi,” Peter greets the photographer first, shaking her hand. Perennial people-pleaser, she thinks, but she did the same when she arrived. It just feels so natural to be judgemental towards him.

“And is it MJ or Michelle today?” he asks her.

Ooh, there was a little bite to that and MJ raises her eyebrows at it, though, if anything, she’s impressed that Peter’s developed some measure of a backbone.

“Michelle,” she says. She doesn’t offer her hand. He doesn’t reach for it.

The photographer’s probably great at her job, she wouldn’t have been given this assignment otherwise, but patience must be her next best quality; MJ knows she and Peter aren’t making today easy for her. Things are tense between them, their body language is awkward, their attempts at conversation are worse. She’s done a great job at keeping him out of her life, despite their best friends being engaged, and she really doesn’t want to ruin that by talking about her work, her hobbies, her family, her apartment, her aspirations. None of it. That doesn’t leave a lot and MJ isn’t encouraging Peter to share details of his life either. She’s spent such a long time striving to remain ignorant of everything Peter-related. Basically since they graduated high school.

The best photos of them will probably be at the pond, where they fed ducks and MJ felt her expression soften, if not quite break out into a smile. Then, there was the ice cream. There should be a few useable shots there, seeing as eating doesn’t require smiling, meaning MJ’s lack of a grin won’t seem odd. The best images will probably come from right after. MJ’s ice cream dripped on her jacket, which seemed like divine intervention at first―she finally had a reason to remove it that wouldn’t look like she was trying to get Peter to watch her take her clothes off―until he stealthily grabbed the jacket from her hand while she was trying not to dump the rest of her ice cream. He hasn’t given it back. Probably looks so fucking chivalrous, carrying it around for her and all MJ can do is feel exposed and too aware of her bare shoulders in her green tank top. The self-consciousness makes her grouchy and there’s still an hour of this date to go.

“Michelle, I know you don’t want to be here,” Peter informs her while the photographer’s a short distance away, changing out her memory card, “but this isn’t about you. You could at least try a little bit.”

Her face floods with angry heat.

“I don’t want to be here? Neither do you. You wish I was anybody else.”

His head jerks back.

“What? No, I don’t. If anything, I’m relieved.”

“Are you?” MJ’s suspicious.

“Well, I was when the mayor picked your name. I thought it might be nice to catch up with you rather than have to entertain some rich stranger. You don’t know how exhausting that is.”

She laughs and he spins towards her, clearly upset.

“Why do you have to react like that, like what I do is a joke?”

MJ holds up her hands.

“I’m sorry being with me is so tiring for you. I guess that’s why you were never around when we were supposed to be together.”

“We’re talking about high school now? You know why I missed dates.”

“Or showed up late, or left early,” she continues for him.

“Nobody knew then, dammit! I was all on my own, trying to be me and Spider-Man and, at the time, being him felt more important. Now, I can apologize for that, but I can’t fix it.”

MJ snorts.

“Would you even want to?”

“MJ,” he says, giving up on calling her by her full name, “we were fifteen.”

“And that means what? That it wasn’t a real relationship?”

A laugh bursts out of Peter that the photographer may have caught because MJ can hear her snapping photos of them again. Hopefully, she can’t see the wounded, incredulous look on MJ’s face from that angle.

“It means I was crazy about you and I had no idea what I was doing.”

“You could’ve told me about Spider-Man,” she says, lowering her voice and smoothing her expression as the photographer circles them.

“I kept trying to figure out how,” he admits. She studies his face in silence for a few seconds. “You dumped me before I could.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t very much fun being ignored.”

“I know. That’s been my life ever since.”

MJ rolls her eyes.

“Please. You aren’t ignored.”

“I meant by you.”

She opens her mouth but finds herself shaking her head instead of speaking.

“MJ...” Peter starts.

“Don’t,” she tells him. “Not... right now.”

MJ starts walking again, but not before seeing his eyes turn hopeful at the way she left things open. Peter skips to her side. They look sideways at each other and the atmosphere feels suddenly lighter. It’s been a long time, but also, maybe not so long. It pleases and terrifies her to see that he’s still Peter, even with the fame he’s gained over the years.

“Would you want to have dinner?” he asks quietly. “I think it’s pretty obvious that we have some things to sort out.”

She eyes him, wary.

“When?”

“Tonight?” Peter proposes. “Why not, right? I don’t know what these last two weeks have been like for you, but I don’t want to have to do that again. Sit around and wonder what you were thinking and how you could possibly still be so mad at me.”

MJ’s already told him she won’t get into that again at the moment, but now that he’s offering her an opportunity, she’s unsure if she wants to discuss their history at all. Maybe fourteen years later is still too soon.

“I’m wearing shorts,” she says, like that’s a feasible excuse. Peter looks down as if to confirm that.

“It’s not like I’ve never seen your bare legs before. MJ, come on,” he laughs when she strides away over the grass.

What is this looking like to the photographer? Playful? Adventurous? God, MJ doesn’t envy her or the person who’ll write the story, trying to weave a narrative out of this.

“You can go home first and change.”

“And where am I meeting you?” she asks, like she’s considering the idea.

“My place? Because it’s private,” he explains quickly at the look on her face. “I assumed you would’ve had enough of being watched for one day. If we went to a restaurant or something, everyone would stare.”

Ok, that’s reasonable, she supposes. She still doesn’t rush to agree.

“Just to talk?”

“Just to talk,” Peter confirms, jumping ahead of her and walking backwards so she’s forced to look at him. “I can make dinner too. What do you like? I have to buy groceries anyway.”

MJ halts.

“I’m not picky.”

“That means pasta, unless you say otherwise. Remember, I was raised by an Italian woman.”

“Fine.”

“Ok.”

Peter nods and gets out of her way so they can walk side by side again.

“By the way, all I meant by the leg thing was that I’ve seen you wear shorts before.”

He’s grinning. Such a little liar. MJ laughs loudly, surprising herself.

“Yeah, sure, Parker.”

They walk along in companionable silence for a few minutes, running down the clock on this date. Suddenly, Peter’s head tips towards her and he mumbles something. She asks him to repeat himself.

“Can I touch you now?”

“What?”

“Like, touch your back or hold your hand. Just so whoever puts this article together has something to work with.”

Yes, it’s the same thing she was thinking a little while ago, so she should agree to it, but she was also thinking that before he made another reference to her bare legs, and all the implication behind that comment. Would she say the fact that he brought it up surprises her? Yes. (Does that night still cross his mind?) Would she say there’s any sexual tension between them now because of it? Of course not. (Is she the only idiot here who just realized the feelings she swore she buried before junior year were in a very shallow grave?)

“Gimme my jacket back,” she says. When he does, she sighs and offers her hand in exchange.

―

“Theoretically,” MJ says, hunching and twisting to check her pinned-back hair in the bedroom mirror she hung a little low, “what would you wear to a first date at a guy’s apartment?”

Betty’s gasp comes across loud and clear on speakerphone.

“MJ, you have another date today? I know the one with Peter was technically fake, sorry to all the readers who are definitely going to ship the two of you, but don’t you pace yourself? I had no clue your dating life was so, um, active that you had to squeeze two in on the same day. And don’t tell me how that sounded. I hear it now.”

“None of that was advice.”

“You don’t really want my advice. I bet you’re already dressed. You just needed an excuse to call me because you’re nervous and too proud to ask me for a pep talk.”

“Ok, stop making me feel so fucking transparent!”

“Who’s the guy?” Betty wants to know. “What do we know about him? First date at his apartment, that’s―”

“It’s Peter.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say it’s Peter?”

“Yes, it’s Peter, so you don’t have to worry about me going over to his apartment.”

“But... how do you know where it is?” She can almost see her friend’s panicked expression.

“He texted it to me.”

“He has your phone number?”

“Why do you say that like it’s the most scandalous part of this situation? We exchanged numbers at the park this afternoon.” MJ steps back, still studying her reflection. She’s done the top half of her hair up and it looks pretty even.

“Right, at the park, on the date that you said would be the first and last time you cross paths this decade.”

“Maybe it’s like Cinderella and we get an unlimited number of meetings until midnight.”

“What if you stay later than midnight?”

“No reason to,” MJ assures her. “We’re just going to talk for a bit and eat, I don’t know, spaghetti or something.”

“Romantic.”

“Only if you’re a couple of dogs in a Disney movie.”

“Ok, now I’m curious,” Betty confesses. “What are you wearing to this absolutely not earth-shattering spaghetti dinner? If you say jeans, I’m staging an intervention.”

“Why not jeans?”

MJ says it to provoke her, reaching awkwardly around to fasten the hook at the top of her dress’s zipper.

“I love jeans,” her friend says, “but this isn’t a jeans occasion.”

“No?”

“MJ, quit it. Promise me you’re wearing something nice.”

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’m wearing something nice.”

“Good. Put some condoms in your purse.”

“Betty!”

“Just one condom? MJ, it’s always better to be pre―”

MJ hangs up on her again. She’ll have to make up for this one.

―

His apartment isn’t what she was expecting. It isn’t a dump, but… Peter (or at least his alter ego) has to be one of the most renown living New Yorkers. MJ was picturing a space somewhere between ‘tasteful showroom of a modern furniture store’ and whatever the Spider-Man equivalent of Paris Hilton’s interior design sense is―red instead of pink and framed pictures of himself everywhere. This place isn’t any nicer than hers. Actually, it’s a little shabbier around the edges. She must have left her poker face at home because Peter (who, in her experience, is largely oblivious to her feelings) seems to know exactly what she’s thinking.

“I give most of it away,” he calls to her from the kitchen. He paused in his cooking to let her in, but he’s back at it while she tours his cramped living room.

“Give what away?”

He laughs.

“Whatever they try to give me. Free stuff, prize money for being chosen as Hero of the Year or something. I don’t know. I stopped paying attention. I just donate everything.”

“Are you trying to come off all noble and shit?” she accuses. She’s smirking though, with her back to the kitchen.

“No, just trying to guess at the questions you want answered. You don’t do much of your thinking out loud, you know that?”

“Why should I?”

She picks up a framed photo of Peter and Ned at the beach. When she sets it back down, she notices that the one beside it, clearly from the same day, is a shot of Peter and Betty doing a synchronized leap on the sand; Ned must be the photographer. What makes her almost knock it off the shelf is her jerky reaction to seeing Peter in nothing but swim trunks. With a surreptitious glance in Peter’s direction, MJ steadies the frame and steps away, face hot. Yeah, she’s seen his body before―when they were teenagers. Another decade and a half as a career ass-kicker and justice-bringer hasn’t exactly hurt his physique.

Ok, so he looks like a damn underwear model. Whatever. MJ can compartmentalize that and move on.

Joining him in the kitchen, she toys nervously with the box she brought. There’s a chocolate cake inside and she’s too wound up from nerves to be able to tell if it was the right thing to get. Is it too childish, like she sees this evening as some kind of Sixteen Candles throwback to the romance of their youth? Is it too decadent, like she’s trying to show up Peter’s cooking skills? God, she doesn’t know. MJ starts to wipe her clammy hands on her dress before spinning and hiding them behind her back instead as she leans backward into the counter to watch him.

She doubts this guy has experience cooking for an audience (and secretly, she’s relieved at the thought that there hasn’t been a parade of hookups through here). There’s food on his short-sleeved button-down, utensils gripped desperately in both hands, and his feet are bare. Not that it’s a problem, in his own home, it’s just weirdly vulnerable. Although, MJ’s are bare too. It’s summer and she wiggles her toes freely, anxiously, wanting to both have something to do and to stand here observing him without getting involved. Being in Peter’s apartment is already so involved.

“Can you grab the bowls for me?” he suddenly requests and MJ jerks, realizing she’s been staring at the way his shirt hugs his shoulders.

She does it without replying, retrieving the bowls from where Peter points and handing them off with a civil little nod. The closer she is to him, the quieter she seems to get. It feels wrong and like the complete opposite of what happened earlier today. This is her opportunity for closure, isn’t it? If this is really the end, like she told Betty it would be, then that’s why she’s here tonight; they’ll hash things out and spend the rest of their lives peacefully keeping their distance―as opposed to maintaining it irritatedly, the way MJ’s been doing. Why else would she have come?

“Aw man,” Peter sighs as he dishes up their food. He’s just noticed the stains on his shirt.

“Yeah, you were a bit of a hurricane in there.”

“Sorry,” he says, setting the bowls on his tiny kitchen table, “I’ll… I’ll just… You can start eating. I’ll be right back.”

MJ’s going to refuse for the sake of good manners, but her mouth closes almost as quickly as she opens it because Peter starts unbuttoning his shirt faster than he turns away. She almost knocks over her water glass. He might be the one with food on his clothes, but she’s a fucking mess tonight. Quickly, she averts her eyes as he stumbles to the door that must conceal his bedroom, presumably for a fresh shirt. She can only try to calm her heartrate and twist her bowl back and forth on its placemat in his absence. Conclusions. Endings. Closure. Renewed attraction, MJ thinks―staring down into the colourful splay of thin sauce, vibrant vegetables, and bright seafood―is not on the table.

And it really might have worked out the way she planned if Peter had redressed completely in his room, instead of walking out still pulling his t-shirt down. Instead of shuffling towards her as he tugged it into place. Instead of catching her staring at his naked stomach.

She’s flustered by being caught, hands fluttering over her silverware, and by the feeling of him looking at her. Why is he doing that? To make sure she knows he caught her? She’s embarrassed enough. When she reminds herself that she’s a successful, independent adult and not the teenage girl whose heart was broken gradually by neglect, she has the strength to glance up. He isn’t looking at her anymore. They eat dinner like regular people. If anything, they’re more courteous versions of themselves, skimming the details of the personal lives they didn’t discuss earlier in the day. He’s curious about her job; she asks after his aunt, her last memory of whom is a smiling face behind a camera on graduation day. This must be part one of how this goes: catching up.

Towards the end of dinner, when chewing has loosened MJ’s face enough to let the smiles slip out and the wine Peter eventually remembered to open has added more colour to his cheeks than their afternoon in the sun, they slide smoothly into part two: reminiscence. They’re not drunk, there’s just something awfully tempting about the freckles strewn across his nose. Self-policing the way she’s drawn to him makes MJ gawky and making conversation gets dicey. One minute it’s football games and decathlon practices, the next it’s the dates he missed and the passive-aggressive responses she gave him. He’s wounded, she’s flippant. He all but orders her to stay seated while he clears the table; she tosses her hair over her shoulder and swishes out of her chair to get the cake.

“You could’ve called me to say you weren’t coming,” MJ snaps, trying to unknot the ribbon securing the box. She presumed it was purely decorative; it turns out to be shockingly sturdy. “One of those times. Any of those times. But you just… never showed up.”

“I was preoccupied. I was saving people, on my own,” he retorts. She hears the dishes clatter into the sink. “I thought you were the one person I wouldn’t need to explain myself to.”

“I didn’t need a justification, Peter, but it would’ve been nice to know why you were never there.”

“Yeah, and it would’ve been nice if you could’ve been a little less selfish.”

His words land like a slap and she spins around. Likely spotting her movement from the corner of his eye, he turns from the sink opposite, bracing his hands behind him.

“I was selfish?” she echoes. “Because I was fifteen and naïve enough to think that when I finally let somebody in, they’d do the same and be there for me?”

“A lot of people needed me!” Peter insists. His chest is heaving.

“What have they ever given you in return?” she demands. “Money that you won’t take? Awards you can’t use? A date―” She laughs and gestures to herself, hands sweeping her body. “―you sure as hell never asked for?”

“That’s not nothing.”

“It is nothing! I gave you everything!” MJ shouts at him. The roar of it doesn’t stop her so much as convince her that she’s started something she can’t stop. “I went home with you after that party because your aunt wasn’t going to be there. Because you told her you were spending the night at Ned’s.” It’s controlled fury in her voice now and Peter doesn’t try to halt the recitation. “We were so shy with each other that we barely managed to hold hands in public, but I fucking felt something that night, so I got on your bed and said I was ready and when I woke up afterwards, you were gone.”

“There was an emergency,” Peter murmurs.

“Oh yeah?” Her voice isn’t loud, but it flicks out like a whip. “What was it? Can you remember? Do you remember it better than you remember us taking each other’s virginities because, honestly, Peter, I think my memory of realizing I’d been left all alone in that apartment is stronger than what happened before that.”

“Don’t. Don’t say that.”

“So it’s nice, actually,” she continues sarcastically, “if us having sex only comes in second place for you too.”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

“I. Don’t. Believe. You.” Well, she hasn’t cried, so that’s something. She points beside him, hand shaking slightly, at the black block holding a selection of knives. “Pass me a knife.”

“What? No.”

“It’s to get the stupid cake box open. Pass me a fucking knife!”

Peter pushes away from the sink, hard, and holds her eye as he nudges her out of the way and snaps the ribbon with his hands. She’s breathing heavily.

“I don’t know if you like chocolate ca―”

“No,” he says firmly. “We’re not done talking about this. You hurt me. I never meant to leave you there, ok? I came back and you were gone and then the next day you dumped me. It tortured me that I left. It seemed like I was doing the right thing, going out to help people, but how could the right thing have made me lose you? I thought about that night constantly. Not the part where I walked out on you or you walked out on me, but the good part, and I felt guilty about that, like… like I wasn’t supposed to enjoy it? Because it must’ve been wrong since things went downhill for us so fast after that.”

“A mistake,” MJ summarizes. Voice flat. Dead, even. All these years she’s kept that memory and meanwhile, he’s been thinking it never should’ve happened.

“It wasn’t the mistake. I was.”

As mad as she is, she can’t let Peter put this on himself. It just wouldn’t be factual.

“You couldn’t be a mistake. It’s not in your DNA.”

“I never felt like that again,” he admits, offering her something in return for her reassurance. “The way I did the night we were together.”

“You haven’t had sex since then?”

“Oh, no, I have, it’s just never had the same…”

“I know,” she sighs and ignores the look he darts at her. She can’t stop him from replying though.

“Your sex life’s missing something too?”

“That is absolutely none of your fucking business.”

MJ flips the cake box open and crosses to the knife block, extracting a blade with a smug smile. She returns and slices the cake cleanly.

“Plates, please,” she instructs.

“You asked me first,” Peter points out.

“I didn’t make you answer.”

They are not talking about this, she will not talk about this. Not when she’s seen too much of his skin and they’ve finally dumped some of the baggage they’ve been lugging around this hellish airport of a somewhat-grown-up life. No, she’s far too attracted to him right now, with his glorious abs and his emotional intelligence. MJ is going to serve the cake and secure herself some goddamn closure.

“I just think it’s interesting,” Peter observes. He leans on the counter beside her. Sonofabitch, look at those forearms. “That neither of us has experienced anything like that with anybody else.”

With the flat of the blade, she lifts a slice and lays it on its side on the plate he lazily holds up for her.

“Probably just a numbers thing,” she says lightly.

“Meaning we are gonna have sex like that again?”

“Not with each other. Don’t get your hopes up, Parker.”

He grins and she realizes that, in the process of attempting to dissuade him, she might’ve just flirted with him. Completely by accident. MJ rolls her eyes and gets her own piece of cake. With a jerk of his head, Peter leads her over to his couch. When she sits at the far end, he doesn’t try to get too close, taking the other end. They spend a couple of minutes eating. She’s relieved that the cake’s good and that he seems to like it. He did a nice job on dinner.

“I’m a little embarrassed about the t-shirt,” Peter says eventually. She glances over and he looks down at his chest. The temperature’s changed again though; he isn’t being coy or suggestive, just genuinely humble. “I should own more dress clothes, but… I don’t really have an excuse.” He laughs. “I don’t really like them.”

“You’re fine. You’ve always been a t-shirt guy. Maybe this is an ‘if it ain’t broke’ situation.”

“You look really pretty.”

MJ blushes and feels silly about it. Her eyes drop to her plate and she watches herself push chocolate frosting around before piling it up on the cake she has left.

“I think I might be too old for ‘pretty.’”

“Bullshit.” Peter edges nearer and she looks up at him to see him pointing his fork at her. “You’re not too old to be called pretty and I’m not too old to be excited over chocolate cake.”

“It’s good, right?” she agrees with a smile.

“When you opened that box, I just about lost my mind.” He grins at her. “If we hadn’t been fighting when…”

MJ frowns when he trails off.

“What is it?” Her shoulders fall slightly. “Did you sense something? Do you have to go?”

“Unless there’s a meteor headed for Earth, I’m letting the cops handle things tonight,” he promises. “You just… you have chocolate on your lip.”

He traces the spot on his own face and she wipes at hers. Without Peter touching her to do it himself, this shouldn’t feel as intimate as it does, but the other thing he said won’t let her move on.

“Why should I believe that?” MJ asks. There’s no nastiness in her tone. She sets her empty plate aside and after the final bite of his cake, Peter copies her.

“Because I learned my lesson about priorities really, really well a long time ago.” He shifts closer again and she angles her knees towards him, heart clamoring.

“Are you sure?”

“I think so,” he tells her, face full of honesty. “I’ve never officially tested it because…” Peter shrugs. “…there was never another you.”

“She could be out there.”

“There’s only you,” he says softly, shaking his head. MJ didn’t quite notice when the space between them disappeared, but his hand is gentle on the side of her neck. “And you’re right here.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I just happen to take my fake dating responsibilities very seriously.”

“This one isn’t fake.” His fingers slide around to the back of her neck.

“I’ll have to update Betty,” MJ says with airy thoughtfulness as her gaze dips to Peter’s mouth.

“I think you might still have some frosting on your lip…”

Apparently, he can still be as much of a cheesy idiot as he was at fifteen and she’d smile if she wasn’t so terrified. Their lips brush lightly, then Peter seals them together, holding her fast. She cries out a little at his certainty. That’s what it feels like, but certainty in what? In his kissing abilities? In them, here together? MJ isn’t sure where she stands on that issue, only that it’s far from where she started this evening, with her self-delusions on closure and walking out of this apartment either more at peace or completely unchanged. So much for those possibilities. She hadn’t accounted for what their second first kiss would feel like.

They aren’t kids anymore, so she can skip the tentative shit.

MJ grabs his face with both hands, fingers curling beneath his jaw, and kisses him back with a greedy feverishness. There, let him see what she wants. If he rejects her, he rejects her. He’ll never do worse to her than he already has. But Peter doesn’t ease off, doesn’t try to backtrack to a scrubbed-clean Disney kiss that compresses romance to two dimensions. He lets go of her neck and grabs her by the hips, hauling her forward. She takes his shoulders and settles her knees on the couch on either side of him. Right away, he pulls her down and she doesn’t resist, grinding in his lap with her dress accordioned between them. Peter’s hand finds the edge of her skirt and snakes up her inner thigh to cup her over her underwear. In the same motion, he rubs his fingers against her through the lace. She breaks the kiss wetly and pants next to his ear.

“I wanna take you to my bedroom now,” he tells her, still rubbing while she rubs right back, seeking the friction with a jerk of her hips, “unless there’s some other way you want tonight to go.”

“No, I think we definitely better fuck.”

With that unambiguous assent, Peter hitches her hips against his and stands up with his hands secure beneath her ass and thigh. MJ wraps her legs around him and crosses her ankles.

So, this is Peter at 29. His feet slap the floor of his apartment and their mouths meet over and over with passion and imprecision. He makes it from the living room and into the kitchen without hitting anything; the air smells like dinner as they pass through and what wine the pasta in her belly hasn’t absorbed makes her press her abdomen against his cock while she’s still in his arms. He shoves her to the nearest wall and rocks hard between her thighs, squeezed close by her heels digging into his firm ass. At this point, MJ doesn’t particularly care if they do this on a horizontal surface. There’s a lot stoking this fire and while there wasn’t this much heat in their history (they had sex one time and it was gentle, caring, unhurried), the small flame’s kept burning all these years, ready to be fanned high at the first opportunity.

Peter gathers her against him and heads for his bedroom instead. His willpower’s something, with how fucking solid he is in the front of his jeans. (Jeans, Betty! MJ thinks. Goddamn double standard.) He doesn’t stop to turn on a light―taking her right to his bed and never letting her go as he lays her back―but the late summer sun provides a fading glow through his window and the door he didn’t shut behind them lets warm light spill in from the kitchen. MJ’s breathing hard as her hands, trembling with impatience, peel the t-shirt off of the adult boy she knew. Briefly, he hoists her hips to remove her underwear. She’s embarrassed when he draws them down her legs with a look of realization on his face and holds them up for the light to shine through the lace.

“Even with the denial, it didn’t seem impossible that we might end up here,” MJ offers before Peter can comment. She sighs and admits the rest. “I also have a condom in my purse.”

“We won’t need it.”

He dives down, kissing her neck as his hands smooth her dress up her thighs. With her knees bent, it doesn’t take much to make the material pool at her hips. But MJ pushes at his shoulders and Peter lifts his head.

“Like hell are we not using a condom.”

“No,” he says, expression earnest (there’s his face the first time he asked her out), “I just meant we won’t need the one you brought. I, uh, I didn’t only buy groceries before you came over.”

“Good.”

“Yeah?” Peter grins down at her. She nods.

“That means I’m not the only one who…” Felt something. Hoped for more. MJ can’t quite say that yet, so she shrugs and moves on. “Also means I don’t have to go get my purse.”

He agrees by returning his mouth to her throat, sucking until she gasps, then bucking his hips into hers to make her moan.

“Stay right here.”

“Mmm,” she consents, scraping her fingers through his hair.

Noticing him leaning into the sensation, MJ closes her hand into a fist and gives his hair a tug. Peter groans against her neck and wraps his arms around her. With his hands wedged under her back, she can feel him hunting for her dress’s zipper. She’s lying on top of it and there’s the little hook to fiddle with. It's not that she doesn’t think he can figure it out―it’s that she doesn’t want to wait that long.

“Let me do it,” she murmurs, tapping his arms this time to get him to lift off of her.

He looks dazed when he does, flinging himself to the side, which leaves MJ temporarily leaning back with her skirt up and no underwear on. This is completely not how she saw today turning out. It does make her pause and think for a second, to see if this feels wrong or thoughtless or otherwise emotionally harmful to the person she might go back to being when it’s over. Maybe if she waited longer, her inner voice would say something else, but there’s a consensus of tens from the judges (her brain, heart, and vagina) that she should absolutely nail Peter Parker. If they didn’t share this history and he was a guy she met through mutual friends or a dating app who held off on disappointing her long enough for them to get here, would she sleep with him? With those eyes and that ass, yeah, why not? Maybe the rockiness of their mutual past should make this feel worse, but, in this moment, it feels better. It feels like that thing from fourteen years ago. And this time around, she has a confidence in her body that she couldn’t even see on the horizon at fifteen.

MJ scrambles off the bed and turns to look at Peter. On his back with his shirt off in the dying light, he could be selling an expensive cologne. He’s probably been approached. The obvious bulge in the front of his jeans makes it a little racy for ads though. She’ll just have to appreciate it on behalf of Spider-Man fans everywhere. After all, she’s the one who won a date with him.

“The condoms are… where?”

Peter points to his nightstand and her hand hovers in front of the drawer with a second of hesitation. What if there’s some kind of raunchy sex toy in here and she’s about to find out that his bedroom escapades with other women are not something she’s prepared to compete with. Or what if there’s a photo of another ex-girlfriend? She hasn’t had the right to feel possessive of him for a small eternity, but seeing some other woman’s smiling face would be a blow. MJ opens the drawer. Besides the unopened box of condoms, she sees a travel pack of Kleenex, a cord for a cellphone or a tablet, and a couple loose aspirin that he should at bare minimum be keeping in a container, if not in a bathroom medicine cabinet. Overall, she’s relieved. It’s the sort of stuff she would’ve expected if she hadn’t spent the years since high school trying to hate him. She gets the box open and tosses him a condom that he’s alert enough to snatch out of the air. Then, MJ turns to face away from him as she reaches back to unfasten the hook.

“Wait,” he says when she starts on the zipper.

Somehow, she knows what he wants. She drops her hands and takes a step back towards the bed, drawing her hair over her shoulder and twisting it around her hand. Soon, Peter’s hands land on the middle of her back before he lowers the zipper. MJ can hear him breathing. With that done, she shuffles the straps off her shoulders and lets the dress slip to the floor like an exhale. She didn’t wear a bra.

She turns and climbs on top of him. Their kisses are sloppy and demanding and Peter’s got one hand between her legs with the other groping her breast in about a second flat. He discovers how wet she is―it’s wetter than she gets for just anybody―and plunges two fingers inside her, which is really distracting since she’s trying to get his jeans open. Giving in for a minute, MJ holds Peter by the back of his neck, lets her head fall back, and pumps up and down on his fingers while he swears like she’s never heard him swear. No, they never could’ve produced this at fifteen.

Forcing herself to remember that she could have his dick instead, she rides his fingers more shallowly and refocuses on his button and zipper. On the downside, he removes his hand to help her get his jeans and boxers off (Peter, she thinks, you still wear boxers?), but on the upside, those same hands get the condom on with speed and precision. Carefully, she removes the pins that have started to become snarled in her hair and tosses them backwards. Sounds like they skate across his nightstand and fall onto the floor. She isn’t concerned at the moment.

“You like being on top or do you wanna be on the bottom?” he asks, sagged back with his elbows propping him up and MJ perched on his thighs.

“Let’s not ask,” she suggests.

Normally, that isn’t what she’d say at all. She’s big on telling her partner what she does and does not like. Even if it’s someone she’s been with a few times, sex can be a bit of an interaction―you do this for me, I’ll do that for you―with the end goal of both parties walking away sexually satisfied. She wants more from Peter than an orgasm. Not being able to say that out loud doesn’t negate it. She trusts his intuition and, more than that, she trusts this thing between them. Whatever it is, MJ’s leaving everything to it. She’s surrendering control because the thought of cutting this up with questions to make it fit the mould of what sex is like with anyone else makes her sick. She takes a slow breath and speaks again.

“Let’s just… be here.”

He’s nodding so maybe she didn’t sound stupid, or just not stupid to him.

“Ok,” Peter agrees softly. “I’m not gonna fuck it up this time.”

She can’t ask whether that’s a promise to her or to himself because he sits up abruptly to meet her lips with his. As he fills her mouth with his tongue, she relaxes into him, draping her arms around his shoulders and shifting her hips forward. She can feel his cock, rigid and hot. MJ starts lifting up, hinting for Peter to slip inside her, but he flips her onto her back to continue blowing her mind with the desire in this French kiss. He holds his hips back to leave space for his hand to once again work two fingers into her, this time also using his thumb to play with her clit. She’s woozy with how good he makes her feel. Just when the kiss has her thinking they’re slowing things down (and the kiss is getting particularly dirty now, making her clench around his fingers), Peter brings her to climax by sneaking a third finger into her channel and curling all three in a sudden stab at her g-spot. Gasping against his mouth, MJ breaks the kiss, hips pitching onto his hand for almost a full minute from when the bliss first hits.

“Shit,” she breathes.

Peter laughs with disbelief as he draws back to look at her.

“That’s something I never thought I’d get to see again.”

“Yeah, lucky you,” MJ congratulates, smirking liquidly.

He seems ready to proceed beyond foreplay now, withdrawing his fingers and grasping her hip, but she decides to enjoy him a little more thoroughly first. She lets him settle between her legs without pressing inside and winds her fingers into his hair again as she nudges her mouth to his. Peter thrusts slowly along her wetness, making her legs quiver when he bumps her clit. Arching up, her chest skims his and she’s sure that, with a little bit of time, she could come a second time from the way he’s grinding against her and the rub of her nipples over the hard planes of his chest. Spider-Man looks good outside the suit.

When she tumbles him to the side, he goes willingly and matches her fleeting, sultry smile. MJ shifts her weight to encourage Peter all the way onto his back, then gets herself positioned on top of him, still riding his erection without taking him inside. She wonders what’s making her start to sweat―a failure of his air conditioning or the buzz that’s getting stronger with every pass along his sheathed erection. Bracing her hands on either side of his shoulders, she bends to kiss and lick across his chest, finding the same faint saltiness on his skin. He grabs her hips and guides her more forcefully along his cock. MJ’s moaning in short pants, Peter’s groaning brokenly. He rolls her onto her side and their legs tangle before he lifts her upper thigh to make room to fit his hips into the gap and, with their foreheads pressed together, push into her.

She has to close her eyes. Her body takes him in immediately, but her mind needs a little longer.

Peter doesn’t rush her, but he doesn’t back off entirely, the way he would’ve when they were a couple of kids hanging all their hopes on it turning out right. MJ’s not putting that kind of pressure on the sex this time around. Back then, part of how badly she wanted it was that she harboured this belief that being physical with him would fix things; it was finally a way to guarantee his focus was completely on her. For Peter, well, she can only guess, but maybe he needed to feel more grounded in himself when he was living so much of his life in secret as this whole other entity.

“You want me?” she asks him now, opening her eyes to observe his face, so close it’s blurry.

“Yeah, I want you.” Sensing her resolve, he thrusts harder and she makes her leg slack so he can hike it up onto his hip.

“You wanna be anywhere else?”

Peter shifts his head back and she becomes aware that they’re on the rumpled sheets of his unmade bed. It’s so familiar that her heart surges even before he stares her right in the eye.

“Nowhere else,” he swears.

She gives him a sharp nod before her tear ducts can get any ideas and kisses him fiercely, swinging her hips down to meet his upstroke. There’s a choked sound from Peter’s throat and he tips her onto her back with a mumbled, “Oh god, M.”

On her back, MJ reaches to grasp the edge of the mattress and Peter pounds into her. She’s tempted to shut her eyes and drown in the sensations, but she fights it to gaze at him. Initially, she thinks he’s like a machine; strong, efficient, accurate (fuck, he found her g-spot before and he’s hounding it ruthlessly now). On second thought, he is what he made himself; perceptive, considerate, real despite the persona that’s grown and grown and grown. The action figure it’d probably be easy to slink into the shadow of. It’s clear to her that he separates them better now and that somehow embracing his other identity is what allowed him to do that. And she wasn’t around for any of it. Has she just stepped back into his life now that it’s easier for her? MJ has to admit that, on some level, of course. That’s exactly what she’s done, but she didn’t plan it that way and the intervening years haven’t been smooth for her either―changing careers, struggling to stay present with partners, maintaining friendships only with the couple of people who wouldn’t let her dissolve from their lives. It seems to her that she’s ready to hang on at the very moment Peter’s ready to be hung onto. This already wasn’t supposed to happen. The draw she wasn’t supposed to win, the date that she tried to get Betty to find her a replacement for, the invitation to dinner, everything that spilled out between dinner and dessert, and finally, how they came together on his couch. Both of them making that choice.

MJ cries out, one hand dropping to grab his shoulder, then cup the back of his neck, her gaze roving the ceiling.

“You can shut your eyes,” Peter huffs, driving forward. “I’ve got you.”

She does. He has her. Twining her legs around the backs of his, MJ urges him forward blindly. Peter sucks her nipple, runs his mouth up the side of her neck until she shudders, then does it some more. His hand tilts her hips and he slides into her just that much better, striking the right spot with fiery fixation.

“Peter! Peterpeterpeter,” she chants. Her eyes open and his face is right above hers. She orgasms with a flinch that lifts her mouth to his. A new reflex―to kiss him.

His thrusts are short and quick as he finishes, humming against her mouth, a long M. She can’t believe she tried to make him call her by her full name. She’d rather hear ‘MJ’ from Peter, and she’s rather hear it just like this, his lips vibrating against hers, feeling all the years between them and yet, not feeling them at all.

[allthelittlelostgirlsgrowup]

Love is History

*taps mic* is this thing on? (I stole that from Obama. He was still in office last time I posted my writing). 

So fun thing I did - write an angsty sequel to Love is Fiction. If you’ve never read it, it just got over 300 notes this past week. I figured it was time to dust this off from my drafts and complete it. 

I hope you like it and my voice sounds similiar to the last election year when I put this out. Honestly I’m so different now and I think this captures the changes I’ve gone through and the way I view relationships now opposed to four years ago. 

Love is History

“Art imitates Life right?” Belle closes the folder encasing a rough draft of her first few chapters.

“All good things come to an end.” Emma shrugs as if the concept of him being just a ‘good’ thing ending doesn’t devastate her. He was the best thing.

She thought she’d never write their break up.

“What’s the history?” Belle squints her eyes, nose crinkling as she watches Emma. Belle has been Emma’s ‘Editor’ since college. Now more official. She gets a paycheck, as Emma gets advances from a publishing company that started as a small mom and pop establishment. In the last four years, this little wagon wheel of a company is now a fleet of office buildings all over the US.

“You read book 3: “Wind’s Ally”” Emma leans back in her chair, studying Belle right back. “You know their history.”

Belle keeps her eyes on Emma, relaxing the tension in her face and suppressing a smirk. They’re at a bit of a stalemate here because Emma isn’t sure what more info is needed and Belle isn’t sharing her thoughts at the moment.

“Emma, I knew their history. They finished book 3 in a ‘happily ever after’ kind of way. What underlying issues could have brought them to this point? Why did Alysandra leave?” Emma considers the question. Why did she decide to destroy the happiest relationship she’s ever written? Why would a character who fell madly in love just change their mind? “Maybe, ask yourself why you left.”  

-/-

The sun is setting over the Manhattan skyline when she gets back to her apartment. She doesn’t know where she went after the meeting but her mind just got back to the present and she’s pissed.

Emma flings her keys across the kitchen island, kicking her heels off in a huff before stomping over to her bar cart. She pours his favorite whiskey into the anchor-etched old fashion glasses he got her one Christmas.

“History is a stupid word” she grunts to no one but a tilted glass, muffling the sound as the amber liquid meets her lips a second after. She’s taken up talking to herself these last few months. The first four were spent crying and avoiding her reflection. The loneliness finally set in one night and she made herself her own best friend. So she asks her best friend ‘why did you do it?’ as she feels the tension in her shoulder blades ease. Why? Why did Emma Swan leave Killian Jones seven months ago?

“Wouldn’t we all like to know?”

-/-

The nightmares finally stopped and she no longer wakes with a startle when she finds her bed bare of him. Its been 216 days. She’s cried herself to sleep at least 180. She’s been broken before, boys have left in more ways than one, and she has managed to wake up one day finding herself less damaged than all the others. Today might be that day for the Killian Jones saga.

Today is they announced the upcoming film and casting begins in a few weeks. She knows she needs to finish this novel, but she hasn’t finished much. She barely finishes lunch on most days, barely finishes a thought that isn’t dripping in Killian. It’s been seven months and he is everywhere, in everything. She thought progress was a slowly-operated escalator but she was finally on her way.

And then the congratulation calls come through. Text after text, email, voicemail and she’s sure in a week or two, she’ll get a card from Mary Margaret. She sorts through them looking for something she’ll never find and she has to rewind.

She left him. It wasn’t mutual and it wasn’t obvious. He had no clue. All the calls and texts he was going to send her were sent months ago when he was breaking down in voicemails and begging her to just tell him she was okay.

Congratulations, Emma, you saved him...from ever having to care about you again.

-/-

She doesn’t leave the apartment again until the 245th day. It is easy to stay inside with the modern advances in technology. People will bring literally anything to your front door. Except, maybe inspiration. That she has to go out and find.

She finds herself in Harlem. The Harlem Public Library. She has to get back to her roots. Sure, this isn’t Storybrooke, and no, she’ll probably never meet a pair of eyes as blue coconut as...but her work needs her to find a way to write.

She thinks of his face.

Three hours pass and all she has in a google doc is ‘why?’

-/-

Despite the first failure to launch, she finds she quite likes that library. She’s giving herself a pep talk this time, before she finds herself staring at a blank screen wondering why again.

“I left because I had to.” She looks at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. That’s the only statement she’s made to anyone, herself included. When her friends, her agent, her editor, and her heart ask, she tells them she had to.

She makes her way through her apartment, recounting the moments, hours, days leading up to it. There are very few things her mind makes enough sense to share. Everything else is so convoluted, so tangled up in self-loathing and years of agonizing loneliness, the average person wouldn’t get it. Some days, as she’s matured and healed, she finds even she has trouble understanding it.

There’s not a day that goes by she doesn’t spend half of it feeling nothing but regret. That’s the healthy part of her, the well-adjusted adult who grew from the little lost girl. She’s sane enough to know she threw away the best relationship she’s ever had. She’s sane enough to know she saved him from future hardships with her.

The sound of the empire striking back stirs her from her thoughts. Regina gets the Darth Vader theme as a ringtone so Emma never forgets who really owns her career.

“Hey,” Emma answers as she reaches her apartment door.

“Nice of you to finally answer your phone.” She can hear the glare in Regina’s voice. “You know you pay me to do this right? Not the other way around. Get your money’s worth, why don’t you.” Emma rolls her eyes as she packs her laptop in her messenger bag.

Regina Mills is a fierce woman, as charming as she is aggressive. She can pretty much get anyone to do anything she wants. Emma doesn’t practice in the ways of the force, but she’s certain Regina knows a Jedi mind trick or two, and as her agent, that comes in handy.

What doesn’t come in handy is her tie to Killian. Regina’s husband Robin happens to be Killian’s cousin. Emma avoided Regina’s calls for months after the break-up, afraid she’ll have to answer the same question she’s been asking herself all afternoon. Once she finally started accepting calls again, it seemed Regina had moved on to bigger and better things: A movie deal.

“Right” she sighs. “What’s my money bringing me today?”

“This isn’t money related, so much as a word of warning.” Regina’s tone doesn’t seem as sass-filled as before, so it’s clear she’s not the one wielding the threat. She actually sounds a bit sympathetic. “Belle and I pulled straws to see who got to break this to you, and I, unfortunately, pulled short this time around.”

“There’s a point here.” Emma urges, feeling ill-fated all of a sudden.

“Killian just moved to NYC.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Emma braces herself for pain, but is met with an absence of feeling altogether. Her knees buckle and she finds purchase against her kitchen island. “Emma?”

“When?” She whispers.

“Just a couple of weeks. He took a job with the NYC public libraries, he’s actually doing really well and has just approached Belle with an idea to get the youth excited about writing. There’s a chance you’ll run into him at the office, so I just...we both thought a heads up was necessary.”

“Which library?” because Fate is a nosy bitch and has no business showing up and guiding her to the man she ran from.

“Emma?”

“Which library”

“I think...if I recall correctly, his home base is in  Harlem.”

“I’ll call you back.”

-/-

She thought about leaving the country. At the very least, the state. She is overwhelmed, without a question just so damn overwhelmed. She has gotten so used to tears these days, she’s a little shocked she didn’t cry the minute she heard his name.

Her body had other ideas, because although she definitely meant to get on a train going the opposite direction, she found herself in Harlem 25 minutes later.

She sits in the middle of the library at an open table, clickity clacking as loudly as she can. Part of her really believes that maybe if she saw him, she’d remember why she left.

Another part is certain that masochism is her new favorite hobby.

He never appears.

-/- “Hey” Emma answers her phone going off for the eighth time today.

“Emma?” Belle sounds more relieved than usual. “Where have you been, I’ve been calling non-stop since 3.” Emma rolls her neck to view the time on the DVR.

7:45 pm

“Sorry, I’ve been reading all day.” she hasn’t talked to anyone for another two weeks. She does this far too often to still have a support system. Emma’s not sure she’d pour the same amount of effort into anyone who went radio silent every other week.

“We had a meeting at 2:30.”

“Sorry.” She shrugs, because honestly, nothing even matters.

“I’m coming over,” Belle says decidedly.

“No, Belle, you don’t have to do that.” Emma regrets answering on the eighth attempt. “Let’s reschedule.”

“We just did, I’ll see you in thirty minutes. Open the door.” Sure, she’s a small, sweet, meek-looking woman, but what most people don’t know about Belle is she could slay dragons with pure determination alone. In a battle of wills, she's even got Regina beat.

Emma peels herself off the sofa for the first time since noon, snuggie falling to the floor as she heads for the shower. If Bella can make the journey to her apartment, Emma can at least shower. Sure enough, 30 minutes later she’s greeting Belle at the door, a pizza in hand.

“Are you okay?” She sets the pizza on the kitchen island and wraps Emma in a hug. Emma tries to pull her head far enough to keep her hair from wetting Belle.

“Yeah, just...the creative process. Ya know.” Emma trails off as the hug ends. Of course, she’s not okay. ‘Okay’ people don’t stop answering their phones for weeks, they don’t stare at blank pages until their vision blurs. They don’t behave this way. This was her first shower in days.

“He was in the office yesterday,” Belle says after a long silence, just a full 3 minutes of her studying Emma from head to toe. Do her eyes just scream ‘Killian’ every time someone looks at her. “He said he called to congratulate you on the screenplay adaptation.”

“No, he didn’t.” She’s quick to dismiss. She scoured her missed calls for days looking for his name, he never called.

“How would you know, you never answer your phone, Emma.” She sits on a counter stool, tugging Emma to join her. “He’s going to be in every day next week, and I think…”

“No.” Emma cuts her off.

“Let me finish.” Belle opens the pizza box, sliding it toward Emma. “I think you should take a vacation. Get out of the city for a while, maybe visit Storybrooke, since you know he’s not there to run into.” Emma grabs a slice of pizza, not sure when she last ate but too preoccupied with the idea of leaving the city for a while. She ran to NYC. Now she’s running back to Storybrooke. Is he just going to chase her back and forth?

“Did he say anything else about me?” she hates the desperation gnawing at her.

“He asked me why…” Belle sighs “I told him we’ll all find out in book four.”

-/-

God only knows what compelled her to do the exact opposite of what Belle suggested and show up at the publisher’s office. Probably the same thing that led her to the Harlem library a few weeks ago. She bought a new outfit. She realizes she’s barely even worn jeans over the last eight months, and now she’s in a dress and heels like she has an interview to work here. She’s wearing makeup and perfume. She’s trying her best to cover up and signs of the wreck she’s been for months.

The office seems busier than it has ever been, many new, young faces bustling about. She keeps her features calm as she scans every inch of every room she enters for him.

“Emma?” Belle is hurried as she crosses the main floor to meet her. “What are you doing here?”

“I know.” Emma returns the hushed tone Belle is using. “I reworked some chapters, delayed the breakup, and gave more of Aly’s history.” and Belle nods, but is evidently not listening.

“He’s here.” Belle looks almost frightened. “So if you want to reconsider, I would do it now. Otherwise…”

“Swan?” no one calls her Swan. She’s paralyzed. What did she think was going to happen? How did she think she was going to react? When she paced around her apartment for three hours this morning, did she think she was going to just be okay? He would be here, he would see her and suddenly everything would be okay? “Emma…” He tries softer, less shocked, more timid.

This is the moment. In every love story, angst finds its way in, rips the reader’s heart out and although they’ve been bleeding for chapters now, they can feel nothing at this moment. Time is still, the lights are dim, and all we see is Emma and him.

He looks like himself, just more professional. He’s in well-fitted gray slacks, a navy dress shirt, his hair is longer though. He’s got more scruff on his neck than normal. His eyes are too blue, truly, for anyone to notice another inch of him. They stare at her, the same shade that’s been haunting her dreams, and she still struggles to define it. Everything. They’ve always been everything, no matter if it’s more cotton candy than blue coconut.

“Killian.” She swallows. Her throat makes this awkward gurgling sound and she wants to melt into the floor. Why is she here?

It’s suddenly so quiet but so loud. She can hear her heart hammering in her eardrums. No one says anything for a long stretch of time, maybe 2 seconds, maybe 3 hours, she can’t be sure. She just knows there is so much said in the silence.

“How are you?” She asks without thought. The look on his face is devastating.

“Sorry?” He mocks a laugh. “How am I?”

She’s not completely delusional. This is a thing humans say to one another, no? Why does it feel so foreign all at once, like she’s attempting English for the first time with a local?

“Killian” she sighs, releasing the most dizzying breath.

“I’m good” he grits, suddenly covered in constrained anger. “And you?”

And now they are strangers, all dressed up and nothing to talk about.

“Me?” Her tongue drags along her lower lip to buy time. “Good.” She nods.

“I’m just pleased everyone is good.” Belle smiles sweetly. “Now, Killian and I have a brief meeting, and afterward, if you’re still available, we can go over your rewrite.”

An exit strategy. This is quite possibly the only thing she could have hoped for.

“Swan was a bright young writer once” Killian grins, wickedly. “Why don’t you attend the meeting. We’re talking about a youth writing program.” He’s obviously bating her. How dare she show up on a day he’s here and act like she didn’t destroy him…

“Sure” she agrees. Partly because she’s too stubborn to back down from a challenge, and mainly because she did destroy him and there’s that whole thing about masochism she recently discovered about herself.

Belle looks beside herself. Her eyes narrow and she puffs her chest for a moment before leading them to a meeting space. Two more individuals join them, laptops ready to jot down notes and ideas. Her meetings are only ever with Belle so, for Emma, this seems like red carpet treatment.

He has amazing ideas. He loves the idea of bringing an artistic outlet to the children of Harlem. He was always so much more than a shelfer. He was always a dreamer, with these brilliant, compassionate ideas for helping everyone feel less alone, more encouraged.

She was always a fence, holding him back from the best parts of himself.

-/-

When the meeting concludes, Belle graciously thanks Killian for coming, makes promises of action, and attempts to say goodbye.

Killian, as good-natured and kind as he can be, has always had a persistently obnoxious side. He invites himself to the next meeting.

“This is only fair, Swan.” he smiles, though his eyes are full of darkness.

They regroup in Belle’s office after a bathroom break.

As much as Emma is dying on the inside, Belle looks absolutely disturbed by this. She can’t imagine the discomfort in being the third wheel of a breakup reunion.

“So...when we uh, when we left off, you were telling me why they broke up.” Belle sighs, knowing how awful this is. Emma smiles, hoping it lets her off the hook a little. After all, Belle told her to leave town. Emma decided to torture herself.

“Right.” Emma takes a large breath in, holding it while she pulls out her folder. Only releasing once its in Belle’s hands. Killian is studying her like he has a Chemistry final to take tomorrow and she’s the only hope. “Alysandra left Atlas for his…” She’s said it to herself. She’s made hints to others, but Killian has never had a clue. “For his own good. She’s derailed him from his journey. She’s made him less of a pirate, more of a…”

“More of a what?” Killian’s breath is sharp as it floods in through his nose and out through his mouth. “What did she do to him?”

“She reduced him to a caregiver,” Belle answers from what’s written in the text. “Alysandra took over the journey of discovery. She was suddenly the main character.” Belle looks up at Emma with a look she’d only be able to classify as “delayed understanding.”

“In a story about Atlas, Aly becomes the focus. Everything he does, he does for her.” Emma can feel herself losing composure, eyes stinging with tears, throat drier than a desert. Somehow, someway, she finds her way to Killian’s eyes. “He wasn’t living for himself anymore. He had no purpose but to love her. And it was destroying everything.”

She’s not sure if it’s understanding she expects, or maybe gratitude, for saving him from the needy monster that she is. She knows neither is what she received.

“Did you ask Atlas, perhaps… perhaps that’s what made him happiest?” Killian’s eyes are drilling into her like nails, pinning her against a wall.

She is less.

Speechless, motionless, hopeless…

Less sure she did the right thing. Less firm on her decision. Just so much less than she was the day before.

There’s movement after a long pause, not by her, but Belle, gently setting the files down and moving to leave them alone.

“Aly is an orphan” Emma explains and she can see his head start to shake, but she has to be firm. “Listen. She is not the strong-willed, rebel without a cause she pretends to be. Some days the sadness from being alone for so long stunts her. She spends hours upon hours laying awake wishing she could sleep forever. She can be a wreck, a mess, an impossible woman to love.”

Does it make it easier to talk about herself as if she’s someone else? She’s been doing it for so long, all the catharsis from writing herself into stories, just to unpack the things that plague her? Maybe she can have sympathy for anyone but her, maybe its the only way she can recognize how her behavior impacts others. Maybe the book is why she left in the first place.

“You make it impossible to love you, Emma.” She’s never seen his jaw trembling like this before. “And against all odds, through resilience and patience, I’ve found a way to do the bloody impossible. You can cover it up in characters you’ve based off of us, but this isn’t fiction. I was real. What we had...what we had was real. It wasn’t easy, but when you finally let me in, it was simple. We were happy.”

“You were happy?” She brushes tears from her cheeks as she shakes her head in disagreement. “Was it simple? To come home and find I hadn’t moved from my spot on the couch? Was that the ideal relationship you dreamt of, to see all of your energy, love, and time wasted on someone who couldn’t get themselves off the couch?”

“So you got yourself off the couch now.” Killian stands, eyes frantically scanning Emma from head to toe. “Well done, it only took the motivation of ending a relationship to do it.”

“I did it for you.” and she believes that, with everything in her, she left for his own good.

“Did you now?” He seems so out of breath for standing still. “Or could you have possibly woken up one day and realized the weight of a relationship was what was pinning you to the couch. Was it that Atlas cared for Aly too much, or was it the expectation that Aly would have cared for him in return? Was breaking my heart easier than just trusting me with yours?”

And all at once in the middle of the ocean, she can see Aly waking up all alone in the captain’s quarters, searching the whole damn ship for a man who did what the men she loves always do.

“Maybe there were days you thought I was miserable” he kneels before her as the ocean finds its way to this office. His eyes are ocean blue, always changing hues depending on if the sun is shining, or a storm is brewing or they’re in the deep. “But you weren’t afraid I’d die that way, always miserable, no...some part of you thought I’d leave before I let that happen. That’s the orphan I loved. You were never a mess. You were a survivalist.”

So maybe that’s their story. Aly watched Atlas change his life for her, and realized he’s going to live to regret it. Did the last seven months hurt less because it was her choice? If he would have pulled the trigger, would the bullet do that much more damage?

“I would have died miserable.”

-/-

The history she’s writing is hers and hers alone. When she was younger, when her heart was stolen and broken, when she always ended up alone. She was writing an escape plan.

This was the first time she was the one who left, and to quell the guilt of being her own worst nightmare, she forced herself to believe she was doing it for him. How many people have left her for her own good? How many times did she think that they were doing her a favor?

She’s been sitting motionless for who knows how long when Belle comes back. Killian is long gone but his words linger like those dizzy stars after a concussion. Her head is throbbing trying to make sense of it. This wasn’t just seven months spent believing the lie. Now she’s searching for the truth.

She gets anxious in monotony, like a stench in stagnant water, she is repulsed by the concept. She’s never wanted to do the same thing every day. She doesn’t want a picket fence, she wants…She does like a cute cottagey feel with a nice picket fence, she could…she could deal with a picket fence.

She definitely does not want a husband though, or to be barefoot and pregnant, or…

There were times, she’d look at him fresh out of the shower, or in his sleep and he’d look so much younger, she’d wonder what their kids would look like. There have been times she’s searched her fingers as they moved across her keyboard and realized her ring finger would look nice with a natural stone set in some brass band. It was never anything he did that scared her. It was that she thought about more. The concept of more scared her, and the fact that she was greedy and foolish enough to want it.

Four years is a long time to not talk about marriage, but after they moved past her initial anxiety attacks over having a boyfriend, he never really pushed for much again. Moving in together was her idea. He kept enough stuff at her place and with Elsa moving abroad, it made sense to do it. That’s as far as she was going to take it. Another few years piled up and she was busy writing and he was busy being supportive of that, she recognized she was his sun. When he made sure she ate during the weeks she barely left the house, when he kept her house plants alive, when he did her laundry, reminded her to shower, and told her he’s proud of her too often to quantify, she knew she was his ship. An inanimate object, something someone can love so much and not receive the love back in return, and sure, he’s as silly as a pirate to believe a ship that holds itself together while he’s sailing on her loves him, and that’s just her role.

Hold yourself together Emma, that’s always been your role.

She started to get bitter and insecure. What is she contributing to this relationship? How is she making him any better? Has he even written many songs since they moved in together, has she gone to see him perform, has he performed? Some days she was so enthralled in her writing, she didn’t realize he wasn’t home all day. It was his day off and he was gone for longer than a workday. He could have been having an affair for all she knew. For all he did, he deserved to be having an affair, falling in love with someone who would be there for him, encouraging his dreams, and dedicating herself to him.

After that day, she started her drafts. Killian, you’re so much more than I deserved…Or Killian, your life paused the day you met me. And finally, after months, she left him with I need this to be over.

She’s a writer, a published author, an English major and an avid reader yet, through years and years of literature and just terrible romcoms, she never learned how to break up with someone. She never knew the words to say to him, so she said nothing. He called for three-five days, she’s not sure as she was in a sobbing-induced coma.  He sent texts, he sent freaking carrier pigeons, and she locked herself in a hotel room with her laptop and her broken heart. Finally, an email came in.

Emma, I’ve moved out. Everything I’ve left is yours…among the worn t-shirts you liked to sleep in and the novels we’ve collected over the years is my heart. Goodbye Love.

“Emma,” Belle brings her back to the present after a very long, painful trip into her past. “Are you okay?”

Why is that word even used to describe how ‘good’ something or someone is?

“No.” She glances over at Belle, she thinks to ask if she talked to him in the hall after he left, if he said anything, if he seemed ‘Okay’ himself but she settles back to a business mindset. Work is the only constant. “Aly left because she didn’t want to get left again.”

“And that’s how it ends?” Belle hands her the folder back. “You can do better.”

-/-

“The concept of fiction isn’t a lack of reality, it just hasn’t happened exactly that way yet.”

She hears his voice cascading down the ramp she’s sitting at the bottom of. It's been a week since Belle’s meeting and she made her way back to the library. Back to their roots. There’s so much history in this building, but the history she’s looking for lives within her. There’s a group of teenagers huddled together like they’re on a tour. Her fingers shake as she looks back down at her laptop.

“Don’t be afraid to use your own daily vernacular. It’s just as likely as any well-researched, powered by thesaurus dialogue, but it will come to you much more easily. That’s your voice.”

His voice sounds increasingly close. She wants to look but if they lock eyes now, while he’s busy, she’s back to being the center of attention. Why did she come here? Does she want to get back to being the center of his attention?

“Swan?” her stomach flips violently. She really didn’t think this through. Her neck trembles as she cranes to look up at him. “Hi.” He clears his throat, the group of teenagers studying them closely from behind him.

“Hi” she breathes. “Uhm…”

“Do you want to meet my junior author group?” He cuts in quickly.

“Hi.” She repeats, only this time her eyes travel across the young faces. “I’m Emma.”

“Emma Swan?” A young girl in the back pipes up. “You write Cap Zeph.” ‘Cap Zeph’ is a very popular Tumblr tag, Emma’s been told. She is now a mild-day D list celebrity with the news of the screenplay adaptation. She never published under her real name until this one, Killian’s idea.

“That I do.” Emma feigns a smile.

“Emma Swan” Killian begins, chest swelling “came up with the idea in a small town library.”

“Really?” another girl with wavy blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders asks.

“Yes, and Killian Jones worked there. He’s…evidently the inspiration. Hair as dark as night, eyes as blue as the sea he sails upon.”  Every girl and one boy in the group glance at Killian, amorously. Still handsome as ever. He looks down, scratching behind his ear and chuckling dryly.  She wonders if his throat burns the same way her eyes do or if this feels so natural he’s happy to fall back into it.

“Why don’t you all find some books to research personal voice from in the YA section, hmm?” He dismisses the group quickly. They share assuming glances and move to leave in pairs, surely gossiping on the way.

Being alone again is terrifying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here. Why does she always go looking for him? What does she want? How can they come out of this okay? What is okay?

“What brings you?” Killian starts. He isn’t looking anywhere but her and the look in his eyes leaves frost on her flesh. His expression is so blank. She has no idea if he even wants her here after their last conversation.

“I was just looking for inspiration.” He nods.

“There are study rooms.” He adds, motioning in the direction she may find them. “My office is actually at a different location, or I’d…suggest…”

“Do you hate me?” it comes out without warning.

“No.” He winces. She’s not sure if it’s because he’s lying or because he wishes he were lying.

“Why not?” She asks. He flinches.

“Christ, Swan. Stop it.” He grabs a seat across from her at the small bistro-style table she’s been working on. She closes her laptop to remove barriers between them. “I hated myself for a while. I thought maybe I should have never lost sight of who you were. You’ve always been guarded. I thought I had broken down some of your walls. I should have never assumed I tore them all down.”

This voice within her tells her that it's no man’s job to do the work for her. Her walls are her own to remove.

“What about your walls?” Emma counters. She didn’t come for an argument, but Killian had trauma, he was damaged in theory, but always presented himself as such a well-adjusted, forgiving, kind, loving man. “Maybe you had to go brick by brick, but you knew they were there. I just watched you for years never act like anything troubled you.”

He laughs, loudly.

She’s startled more that she laughs in return than questions it.

“Emma, my love...of course I was troubled. I still am. I drink far too much and try to solve all of my problems myself without anyone’s help.” He’s still smiling as he confesses.”Hell, I didn’t tell anyone we broke up for months and it wasn’t because I thought you were coming back. I just knew I wasn’t going to let anyone worry about me.”

“You’re not troubled” she shakes her head but thinks back to every time he came home frustrated and sealed himself up before she could get a good glimpse of it. “Are you?”

“I spent an entire day at the marina grieving my dead brother, over a decade after losing him. Every time I went to leave and come home to you, I’d get upset again. I used to stay away until I could pull myself together.” His smile slips into something dark and Emma realizes all the ways they failed at communicating. “I loved you just enough to only show you my best parts. I never trusted our love enough to show you everything. And it’s not because you were sad every now and then.”

And she sees the orphan in him the moment she realizes being left behind were his worst fears, too.

“You thought I’d leave…”

“I think the term is ‘best-laid plans.’” His smile is back “Convince an author to fall in love with you, live forever. Only, with my luck, I get to read my heart get broken in the exact same way whenever I’d like. I was looking forward to your book, knowing I’d get to see us in love again.” She considers the part about him looking forward to her book.

“It’s as much my book as yours.” She means that. When she first wrote the Cap Zeph short stories, she had no plan of publishing. Killian pushed for her to immortalize this, to believe in herself and sell it. When the first went well, he convinced her to meet with Regina. “I mean, you are the entire series, after all.” He shakes his head and sighs.

She doesn’t have a response and the seconds tick by. It only takes a few before they reach an awkward silence where one person makes an excuse to leave. And then when do they see each other again?

“I should get back to my writers.” He moves to stand and she wants to jump up, but she doesn’t know what words follow that. She writes fiction. It's why this book has been so damn difficult. Writing their personalities into a fantasy of pirates and fairies, that's one thing. Writing history is another. She can build on what has already happened. This in-the-moment dichotomy, will they? Won’t they? Can they make it work? It’s disturbing.

He’s the quick thinker. Always a come-back, a pun, a literary quote…

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you…” She opens her laptop nonchalantly, as if it won’t wound her for him to leave. “...a boy who loves you.”

Among the many novels they shared, “The Book Thief” was one of Killian’s most treasured.

He stares at her with wonder glazing his face. “If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.”

Maybe she’d burn every book in this library, for a chance to experience falling in love with Killian all over again, as if it weren’t a moment in history.

The screenplay would read ‘They share a look of longing’ and she’s not sure that’s how she’d describe it. ‘Longing’ seems more cliche and not nearly as descriptive as her quickening pulse would use.

This feels like a pivotal moment where she realizes that they don’t necessarily have to not be in love anymore. They could take a slow pace, like windchimes waiting for a breeze to bring them together. That’s all a Zephyr is.

“My number hasn’t changed.”

-/-

His number has. She gets a text around 1am. Are you up? It's odd, because Killian isn’t a booty-call kind of guy, but who knows what a breakup can do to a man.

I rarely sleep before 2. Her phone rings moments later.

“Hello?” her tone sounds like a question, but she knows it’s him.

“Swan, it’s Killian.”

“Yes, Grandpa, I’m aware.” She can’t help but chuckle. Almost too elated that he’s on the other end. She can hear him laugh on the other end.

“Do you remember the first time we started speaking on the phone? You wouldn’t give me your number until maybe the 18th date.” She didn’t trust herself then. They took things so slowly.

“You know I like a clean getaway.” Is it too soon to joke about always having one foot out the door?

“What's the escape plan this time?”  

“Probably the West Coast since you chased me here”

“I did not!” His laugh is vibrating against her ribs, setting the tempo for her heart.

Could it be easy all over again? One quote and he’s calling her? One call and they go see a movie? One date and…

And thinking about the end is how she got there, isn’t it?

“Did you plan on seeing me again? Knowing you were moving here?”

“Of course. I planned on seeing you no matter where I lived...I prepared for you to come into focus and the rest of my world to blur.” He sighs and she can hear his mattress settle as he moves. “I didn’t plan on seeing you in my library again.”

“Where else would I get inspiration. You’re my muse.”

They talk til 4am. She’s rethought every word she’s said these last seven months. She rarely moves without tension tugging at the back of her neck. Her thoughts are never clear and simple, not since she left. And here, in the darkness of her bedroom, with nothing but a familiar voice on the other end, she hasn’t second-guessed a word.

-/- She’s not sure if she should call it a date. He invites her to a scholarship meeting and sure, they’re dressed up, but because it's a business meeting. He talks to the team, Belle is in attendance, and she barely says a word.

But he asks her out for drinks afterward and suddenly she’s all he’s focused on, laughing about old times, discussing the interesting twist in literature they’ve both read recently. She asks him if he’s written any songs and he beams brightly when he tells her ‘only recently, Love.’

Sometimes love is familiar, like a book you’ve read a dozen times. There’s comfort in knowing everything and loving it anyway.

-/-

“Are you dating him?” Belle watches her from the doorway as Killian moves down the hall to his meeting. They came to the office together this time, maybe a peck on the cheek occurred before his departure, and maybe Belle witnessed it.

“I don’t know.” Emma tries not to think logistically about what’s going on. It’s been 4 weeks, she’s written 8 chapters and Aly is about to find Atlas again. “For the first time since I started, I know how book 4 will end.”

They go over the recent chapters and Belle seems subtly impressed but she’s holding back. Emma knows it's Killian-related. She just knows she can’t pry without being pried open in return.

“You don’t like it?”

“No, it's beautiful. From tragedy to triumph is the Captain Zephyr way.” Belle hands the work back to Emma with a sad smile. “What makes it different this time? True love always finds its way back to one another, but how do we know they won’t split up again?” Emma knows this isn’t about the novel. They haven’t yet gotten back together to split up.

Does she know they’ll never separate again? Of course not. Killian is dedicated, devoted like a priest to the cloth. She is very aware that his heart is not yet healed, but eager to love her all over again. A few dates and late-night phone calls don’t make forever a promise anyone could keep.

“We don’t.”

-/- He’s walking her home after another fun night at a bar near her apartment. They’ve been casually seeing each other but nothing more than a kiss on the cheek or a hug goodnight has occurred. They get to her building in record time, too preoccupied by the conversation on who in Hollywood would make a handsome Captain Zeph. “Johnny Depp doesn’t have blue eyes.” Emma laughs. “You can’t just pick the most popular actors, and he’s already a pirate in another franchise.” They’re at the doors of her building and his eyes are boring into her. “Do you want to come up?”

And maybe it's because they haven’t had a real kiss in what’s very close to being a year now, but he seems almost nervous.

“I’m afraid I miss you too much.” he scratches behind his ear and looks down the road. When he looks back at her he seems shy.

“Chris Wood,” she comments. She liked him on Supergirl. “Come upstairs.”

It's the look on his face when he studies her apartment that makes her remember they broke up. As if she had forgotten months of trying to hold herself together, he reminds her that she broke him when his face floods with that loneliness.

“Killian...”

“This is a very nice place you have.” his eyes are darting from one corner to the next, lingering on the most significant differences. “So ‘New York’ it's almost as if you’ve never lived anywhere else.”

“Your apartment isn’t ‘New York?’” it's so weird that they’ve never seen each other's place when they’ve seen each other's souls.

“It’s just a place to lay my head.” He glances back at her with something almost accusatory when he says “You’ve gone ahead and made yourself a home.” And it has never felt like that, not once, when she was hiding away, when she would run home to it.

This place, this city has always been a foster home she feels like she’ll get kicked out of if she gets too comfortable. It wasn’t like their home together. Their home felt like roots. Here she feels like an implant that won’t take to the soil.

“The designer furnishings don’t mean shit to me.” Emma moves to the bookshelf, all new and shiny but it's just a box to keep what matters most. “Only what I’ve come here with is all I care to take. She pulls out a few books, “Wuthering Heights,” “The Book Thief,” and “Emma.” She hands them to him knowing they were always his.

“I wanted you to keep them.” He starts to give them back when she waves her hand.

“What do you need to not resent this place? To know I have everything you left tucked away in all these new places?” she motions for him to follow her to the bedroom and he slowly drifts behind, setting the novels on the coffee table. Her bed is covered in pillows dressed in his t-shirts instead of pillowcases. She keeps his cologne on the bedside table as if it were some expensive aromatherapy pillow spray. The blanket Granny from the local diner in Storybrooke made them lay at the foot of the bed, an anchor crocheted into the loops.

“I only drink whiskey you like. I only sleep in your t-shirts.” she sits on her bed, reaching for his hand to pull him down with her. “I don’t know what we are, and I can’t promise you I’m not a tragedy waiting to happen. I just know that I haven’t been able to erase an inch of you.”

He kisses her then. It's not on her terms, and he has only ever waited for everything to be on her terms. So when he pulls her in, hand cupping the back of her head, mouth open and adventurous, she gasps.

His other arm wraps around her waist, pulling her closer to him, her hands pressed flat against his chest as his tongue enters her mouth with desperation. She fists his shirt in her hands, pressing even closer to him as her tongue reacts in kind. It has been the longest year without him and he’s kissing her like they’re running out of time.

All at once they’re falling as he lays her down on her back, continuing to claim her mouth as his property. Her hands start moving, tugging and fumbling with buttons and zippers and just much too much fabric for her liking. When she moves for his briefs he tugs back from her lips.

“Is this what you want?” Her response is to slip her dress over her head. Any questions to follow are puffed out in a husky tone against her ear.

Sometimes love is erotica, so she catalogs every second of it because nothing has ever happened quite like this before.

-/-

They spend the next few months together and she bangs out the rest of the book in record time. Regina and Belle throw her a submission party. She dodges questions about their future and tries to focus on the book.

“So Aly and Atlas together again,” Robin questions her as Killian returns with a drink for the both of them. She knows he’s not talking about the story. Killian has been very careful to not assume much about their status. Both of them have just stuck to ‘seeing where it goes.’

But it's not like they just met six months ago. They have history, they have four years of standing together at parties and being a couple. Do they have the luxury of casually dating? If all happiness is fleeting, do they dive face-first in it or wade in the shallow end.

“I love Killian.” She says firmly. It’s never not been true from the moment she realized it, in a foreign library miles and miles away from home. He is not easily erased, and it has become glaringly obvious it will only destroy her to try. “I always have and I always will.” Killian’s eyes have never been so doe-like. She’s never been so bold.

“I…” Robin’s face flushes, certainly not expecting her to speak so proudly.

“And I love Emma, if it isn’t ardently clear. She’s everything to me and I’m happy just to exist in her life.” He raises his whiskey to her and she follows suit like a gentlemen’s agreement has just been formed: To love one another without concern of what it means. As she takes a sip she realizes what everything means. He hasn’t pushed aside his dreams in the slightest this go around. He’s been focused and driven, ambitious and busy. Somehow, he’s still considering her ‘everything.’ Maybe what she thought was sacrifice all that time ago was really just love.

So they stay in love.

-/-

Another year goes by and the first film is set to release. Although Emma and Killian still pay rent at their separate apartments, they spend every night together. Sometimes it's downtown in Killian’s studio, and other nights it's in the heart of the city at Emma’s. Commitment isn’t measured by who gave what up. It has shifted to who stays. They both do, and every day they make the decision to stay, when it's 5 months since Killian has slept alone or 10 months since Emma had dinner without him. They stay together with one promise in mind. They love each other. And for as long as Love is Present, they will choose each other.

Love is History

“Art imitates Life right?” Belle closes the folder encasing a rough draft of her first few chapters. 

“All good things come to an end.” Emma shrugs as if the concept of him being just a ‘good’ thing ending doesn’t devastate her. He was the best thing. 

She thought she’d never write their break up. 

“What’s the history?” Belle squints her eyes, nose crinkling as she watches Emma. Belle has been Emma’s ‘Editor’ since college. Now more official. She gets a paycheck, as Emma gets advances from a publishing company that started as a small mom and pop establishment. In the last four years, this little wagon wheel of a company is now a fleet of office buildings all over the US. 

“You read book 3: “Wind’s Ally”” Emma leans back in her chair, studying Belle right back. “You know their history.”

Belle keeps her eyes on Emma, relaxing the tension in her face and suppressing a smirk. They’re at a bit of a stalemate here because Emma isn’t sure what more info is needed and Belle isn’t sharing her thoughts at the moment. 

“Emma, I knew their history. They finished book 3 in a ‘happily ever after’ kind of way. What underlying issues could have brought them to this point? Why did Alysandra leave?” Emma considers the question. Why did she decide to destroy the happiest relationship she’s ever written? Why would a character who fell madly in love just change their mind? “Maybe, ask yourself why you left.”  

-/- 

The sun is setting over the Manhattan skyline when she gets back to her apartment. She doesn’t know where she went after the meeting but her mind just got back to the present and she’s pissed. 

Emma flings her keys across the kitchen island, kicking her heels off in a huff before stomping over to her bar cart. She pours his favorite whiskey into the anchor-etched old fashion glasses he got her one Christmas. 

“History is a stupid word” she grunts to no one but a tilted glass, muffling the sound as the amber liquid meets her lips a second after. She’s taken up talking to herself these last few months. The first four were spent crying and avoiding her reflection. The loneliness finally set in one night and she made herself her own best friend. So she asks her best friend ‘why did you do it?’ as she feels the tension in her shoulder blades ease. Why? Why did Emma Swan leave Killian Jones seven months ago?

“Wouldn’t we all like to know?”

 -/-

The nightmares finally stopped and she no longer wakes with a startle when she finds her bed bare of him. Its been 216 days. She’s cried herself to sleep at least 180. She’s been broken before, boys have left in more ways than one, and she has managed to wake up one day finding herself less damaged than all the others. Today might be that day for the Killian Jones saga. 

Today is they announced the upcoming film and casting begins in a few weeks. She knows she needs to finish this novel, but she hasn’t finished much. She barely finishes lunch on most days, barely finishes a thought that isn’t dripping in Killian. It’s been seven months and he is everywhere, in everything. She thought progress was a slowly-operated escalator but she was finally on her way.

And then the congratulation calls come through. Text after text, email, voicemail and she’s sure in a week or two, she’ll get a card from Mary Margaret. She sorts through them looking for something she’ll never find and she has to rewind. 

She left him. It wasn’t mutual and it wasn’t obvious. He had no clue. All the calls and texts he was going to send her were sent months ago when he was breaking down in voicemails and begging her to just tell him she was okay. 

Congratulations, Emma, you saved him...from ever having to care about you again.

-/-

She doesn’t leave the apartment again until the 245th day. It is easy to stay inside with the modern advances in technology. People will bring literally anything to your front door. Except, maybe inspiration. That she has to go out and find. 

She finds herself in Harlem. The Harlem Public Library. She has to get back to her roots. Sure, this isn’t Storybrooke, and no, she’ll probably never meet a pair of eyes as blue coconut as...but her work needs her to find a way to write.

She thinks of his face. 

Three hours pass and all she has in a google doc is ‘why?’

-/-

Despite the first failure to launch, she finds she quite likes that library. She’s giving herself a pep talk this time, before she finds herself staring at a blank screen wondering why again. 

“I left because I had to.” She looks at her reflection in her bathroom mirror. That’s the only statement she’s made to anyone, herself included. When her friends, her agent, her editor, and her heart ask, she tells them she had to. 

She makes her way through her apartment, recounting the moments, hours, days leading up to it. There are very few things her mind makes enough sense to share. Everything else is so convoluted, so tangled up in self-loathing and years of agonizing loneliness, the average person wouldn’t get it. Some days, as she’s matured and healed, she finds even she has trouble understanding it.

There’s not a day that goes by she doesn’t spend half of it feeling nothing but regret. That’s the healthy part of her, the well-adjusted adult who grew from the little lost girl. She’s sane enough to know she threw away the best relationship she’s ever had. She’s sane enough to know she saved him from future hardships with her. 

The sound of the empire striking back stirs her from her thoughts. Regina gets the Darth Vader theme as a ringtone so Emma never forgets who really owns her career. 

“Hey,” Emma answers as she reaches her apartment door.

“Nice of you to finally answer your phone.” She can hear the glare in Regina’s voice. “You know you pay me to do this right? Not the other way around. Get your money’s worth, why don’t you.” Emma rolls her eyes as she packs her laptop in her messenger bag.

Regina Mills is a fierce woman, as charming as she is aggressive. She can pretty much get anyone to do anything she wants. Emma doesn’t practice in the ways of the force, but she’s certain Regina knows a Jedi mind trick or two, and as her agent, that comes in handy. 

What doesn’t come in handy is her tie to Killian. Regina’s husband Robin happens to be Killian’s cousin. Emma avoided Regina’s calls for months after the break-up, afraid she’ll have to answer the same question she’s been asking herself all afternoon. Once she finally started accepting calls again, it seemed Regina had moved on to bigger and better things: A movie deal. 

“Right” she sighs. “What’s my money bringing me today?” 

“This isn’t money related, so much as a word of warning.” Regina’s tone doesn’t seem as sass-filled as before, so it’s clear she’s not the one wielding the threat. She actually sounds a bit sympathetic. “Belle and I pulled straws to see who got to break this to you, and I, unfortunately, pulled short this time around.”

“There’s a point here.” Emma urges, feeling ill-fated all of a sudden. 

“Killian just moved to NYC.” Like ripping off a band-aid. Emma braces herself for pain, but is met with an absence of feeling altogether. Her knees buckle and she finds purchase against her kitchen island. “Emma?”

“When?” She whispers.

“Just a couple of weeks. He took a job with the NYC public libraries, he’s actually doing really well and has just approached Belle with an idea to get the youth excited about writing. There’s a chance you’ll run into him at the office, so I just...we both thought a heads up was necessary.” 

“Which library?” because Fate is a nosy bitch and has no business showing up and guiding her to the man she ran from.

“Emma?”

“Which library”

“I think...if I recall correctly, his home base is in  Harlem.”

“I’ll call you back.” 

-/-

She thought about leaving the country. At the very least, the state. She is overwhelmed, without a question just so damn overwhelmed. She has gotten so used to tears these days, she’s a little shocked she didn’t cry the minute she heard his name. 

Her body had other ideas, because although she definitely meant to get on a train going the opposite direction, she found herself in Harlem 25 minutes later. 

She sits in the middle of the library at an open table, clickity clacking as loudly as she can. Part of her really believes that maybe if she saw him, she’d remember why she left.

Another part is certain that masochism is her new favorite hobby.

He never appears.

-/-

“Hey” Emma answers her phone going off for the eighth time today. 

“Emma?” Belle sounds more relieved than usual. “Where have you been, I’ve been calling non-stop since 3.” Emma rolls her neck to view the time on the DVR. 

7:45 pm

“Sorry, I’ve been reading all day.” she hasn’t talked to anyone for another two weeks. She does this far too often to still have a support system. Emma’s not sure she’d pour the same amount of effort into anyone who went radio silent every other week. 

“We had a meeting at 2:30.” 

“Sorry.” She shrugs, because honestly, nothing even matters.

“I’m coming over,” Belle says decidedly. 

“No, Belle, you don’t have to do that.” Emma regrets answering on the eighth attempt. “Let’s reschedule.”

“We just did, I’ll see you in thirty minutes. Open the door.” Sure, she’s a small, sweet, meek-looking woman, but what most people don’t know about Belle is she could slay dragons with pure determination alone. In a battle of wills, she's even got Regina beat.

Emma peels herself off the sofa for the first time since noon, snuggie falling to the floor as she heads for the shower. If Bella can make the journey to her apartment, Emma can at least shower. Sure enough, 30 minutes later she’s greeting Belle at the door, a pizza in hand. 

“Are you okay?” She sets the pizza on the kitchen island and wraps Emma in a hug. Emma tries to pull her head far enough to keep her hair from wetting Belle. 

“Yeah, just...the creative process. Ya know.” Emma trails off as the hug ends. Of course, she’s not okay. ‘Okay’ people don’t stop answering their phones for weeks, they don’t stare at blank pages until their vision blurs. They don’t behave this way. This was her first shower in days. 

“He was in the office yesterday,” Belle says after a long silence, just a full 3 minutes of her studying Emma from head to toe. Do her eyes just scream ‘Killian’ every time someone looks at her. “He said he called to congratulate you on the screenplay adaptation.”

“No, he didn’t.” She’s quick to dismiss. She scoured her missed calls for days looking for his name, he never called. 

“How would you know, you never answer your phone, Emma.” She sits on a counter stool, tugging Emma to join her. “He’s going to be in every day next week, and I think…”

“No.” Emma cuts her off. 

“Let me finish.” Belle opens the pizza box, sliding it toward Emma. “I think you should take a vacation. Get out of the city for a while, maybe visit Storybrooke, since you know he’s not there to run into.” Emma grabs a slice of pizza, not sure when she last ate but too preoccupied with the idea of leaving the city for a while. She ran to NYC. Now she’s running back to Storybrooke. Is he just going to chase her back and forth? 

“Did he say anything else about me?” she hates the desperation gnawing at her.

“He asked me why…” Belle sighs “I told him we’ll all find out in book four.”

-/-

God only knows what compelled her to do the exact opposite of what Belle suggested and show up at the publisher’s office. Probably the same thing that led her to the Harlem library a few weeks ago. She bought a new outfit. She realizes she’s barely even worn jeans over the last eight months, and now she’s in a dress and heels like she has an interview to work here. She’s wearing makeup and perfume. She’s trying her best to cover up and signs of the wreck she’s been for months. 

The office seems busier than it has ever been, many new, young faces bustling about. She keeps her features calm as she scans every inch of every room she enters for him. 

“Emma?” Belle is hurried as she crosses the main floor to meet her. “What are you doing here?”

“I know.” Emma returns the hushed tone Belle is using. “I reworked some chapters, delayed the breakup, and gave more of Aly’s history.” and Belle nods, but is evidently not listening.

“He’s here.” Belle looks almost frightened. “So if you want to reconsider, I would do it now. Otherwise…”

“Swan?” no one calls her Swan. She’s paralyzed. What did she think was going to happen? How did she think she was going to react? When she paced around her apartment for three hours this morning, did she think she was going to just be okay? He would be here, he would see her and suddenly everything would be okay? “Emma…” He tries softer, less shocked, more timid. 

This is the moment. In every love story, angst finds its way in, rips the reader’s heart out and although they’ve been bleeding for chapters now, they can feel nothing at this moment. Time is still, the lights are dim, and all we see is Emma and him. 

He looks like himself, just more professional. He’s in well-fitted gray slacks, a navy dress shirt, his hair is longer though. He’s got more scruff on his neck than normal. His eyes are too blue, truly, for anyone to notice another inch of him. They stare at her, the same shade that’s been haunting her dreams, and she still struggles to define it. Everything. They’ve always been everything, no matter if it’s more cotton candy than blue coconut. 

“Killian.” She swallows. Her throat makes this awkward gurgling sound and she wants to melt into the floor. Why is she here?

It’s suddenly so quiet but so loud. She can hear her heart hammering in her eardrums. No one says anything for a long stretch of time, maybe 2 seconds, maybe 3 hours, she can’t be sure. She just knows there is so much said in the silence. 

“How are you?” She asks without thought. The look on his face is devastating. 

“Sorry?” He mocks a laugh. “How am I?” 

She’s not completely delusional. This is a thing humans say to one another, no? Why does it feel so foreign all at once, like she’s attempting English for the first time with a local?

“Killian” she sighs, releasing the most dizzying breath.

“I’m good” he grits, suddenly covered in constrained anger. “And you?” 

And now they are strangers, all dressed up and nothing to talk about. 

“Me?” Her tongue drags along her lower lip to buy time. “Good.” She nods.

“I’m just pleased everyone is good.” Belle smiles sweetly. “Now, Killian and I have a brief meeting, and afterward, if you’re still available, we can go over your rewrite.”

An exit strategy. This is quite possibly the only thing she could have hoped for.

“Swan was a bright young writer once” Killian grins, wickedly. “Why don’t you attend the meeting. We’re talking about a youth writing program.” He’s obviously bating her. How dare she show up on a day he’s here and act like she didn’t destroy him…

“Sure” she agrees. Partly because she’s too stubborn to back down from a challenge, and mainly because she did destroy him and there’s that whole thing about masochism she recently discovered about herself.

Belle looks beside herself. Her eyes narrow and she puffs her chest for a moment before leading them to a meeting space. Two more individuals join them, laptops ready to jot down notes and ideas. Her meetings are only ever with Belle so, for Emma, this seems like red carpet treatment. 

He has amazing ideas. He loves the idea of bringing an artistic outlet to the children of Harlem. He was always so much more than a shelfer. He was always a dreamer, with these brilliant, compassionate ideas for helping everyone feel less alone, more encouraged. 

She was always a fence, holding him back from the best parts of himself.

-/-

When the meeting concludes, Belle graciously thanks Killian for coming, makes promises of action, and attempts to say goodbye. 

Killian, as good-natured and kind as he can be, has always had a persistently obnoxious side. He invites himself to the next meeting.

“This is only fair, Swan.” he smiles, though his eyes are full of darkness. 

They regroup in Belle’s office after a bathroom break. 

As much as Emma is dying on the inside, Belle looks absolutely disturbed by this. She can’t imagine the discomfort in being the third wheel of a breakup reunion. 

“So...when we uh, when we left off, you were telling me why they broke up.” Belle sighs, knowing how awful this is. Emma smiles, hoping it lets her off the hook a little. After all, Belle told her to leave town. Emma decided to torture herself.

“Right.” Emma takes a large breath in, holding it while she pulls out her folder. Only releasing once its in Belle’s hands. Killian is studying her like he has a Chemistry final to take tomorrow and she’s the only hope. “Alysandra left Atlas for his…” She’s said it to herself. She’s made hints to others, but Killian has never had a clue. “For his own good. She’s derailed him from his journey. She’s made him less of a pirate, more of a…”

“More of a what?” Killian’s breath is sharp as it floods in through his nose and out through his mouth. “What did she do to him?”

“She reduced him to a caregiver,” Belle answers from what’s written in the text. “Alysandra took over the journey of discovery. She was suddenly the main character.” Belle looks up at Emma with a look she’d only be able to classify as “delayed understanding.”

“In a story about Atlas, Aly becomes the focus. Everything he does, he does for her.” Emma can feel herself losing composure, eyes stinging with tears, throat drier than a desert. Somehow, someway, she finds her way to Killian’s eyes. “He wasn’t living for himself anymore. He had no purpose but to love her. And it was destroying everything.”

She’s not sure if it’s understanding she expects, or maybe gratitude, for saving him from the needy monster that she is. She knows neither is what she received. 

“Did you ask Atlas, perhaps… perhaps that’s what made him happiest?” Killian’s eyes are drilling into her like nails, pinning her against a wall. 

She is less. 

Speechless, motionless, hopeless…

Less sure she did the right thing. Less firm on her decision. Just so much less than she was the day before. 

There’s movement after a long pause, not by her, but Belle, gently setting the files down and moving to leave them alone. 

“Aly is an orphan” Emma explains and she can see his head start to shake, but she has to be firm. “Listen. She is not the strong-willed, rebel without a cause she pretends to be. Some days the sadness from being alone for so long stunts her. She spends hours upon hours laying awake wishing she could sleep forever. She can be a wreck, a mess, an impossible woman to love.” 

Does it make it easier to talk about herself as if she’s someone else? She’s been doing it for so long, all the catharsis from writing herself into stories, just to unpack the things that plague her? Maybe she can have sympathy for anyone but her, maybe its the only way she can recognize how her behavior impacts others. Maybe the book is why she left in the first place. 

“You make it impossible to love you, Emma.” She’s never seen his jaw trembling like this before. “And against all odds, through resilience and patience, I’ve found a way to do the bloody impossible. You can cover it up in characters you’ve based off of us, but this isn’t fiction. I was real. What we had...what we had was real. It wasn’t easy, but when you finally let me in, it was simple. We were happy.”

“You were happy?” She brushes tears from her cheeks as she shakes her head in disagreement. “Was it simple? To come home and find I hadn’t moved from my spot on the couch? Was that the ideal relationship you dreamt of, to see all of your energy, love, and time wasted on someone who couldn’t get themselves off the couch?”

“So you got yourself off the couch now.” Killian stands, eyes frantically scanning Emma from head to toe. “Well done, it only took the motivation of ending a relationship to do it.”

“I did it for you.” and she believes that, with everything in her, she left for his own good.

“Did you now?” He seems so out of breath for standing still. “Or could you have possibly woken up one day and realized the weight of a relationship was what was pinning you to the couch. Was it that Atlas cared for Aly too much, or was it the expectation that Aly would have cared for him in return? Was breaking my heart easier than just trusting me with yours?”

And all at once in the middle of the ocean, she can see Aly waking up all alone in the captain’s quarters, searching the whole damn ship for a man who did what the men she loves always do. 

“Maybe there were days you thought I was miserable” he kneels before her as the ocean finds its way to this office. His eyes are ocean blue, always changing hues depending on if the sun is shining, or a storm is brewing or they’re in the deep. “But you weren’t afraid I’d die that way, always miserable, no...some part of you thought I’d leave before I let that happen. That’s the orphan I loved. You were never a mess. You were a survivalist.”

So maybe that’s their story. Aly watched Atlas change his life for her, and realized he’s going to live to regret it. Did the last seven months hurt less because it was her choice? If he would have pulled the trigger, would the bullet do that much more damage?

“I would have died miserable.” 

-/-

The history she’s writing is hers and hers alone. When she was younger, when her heart was stolen and broken, when she always ended up alone. She was writing an escape plan.

This was the first time she was the one who left, and to quell the guilt of being her own worst nightmare, she forced herself to believe she was doing it for him. How many people have left her for her own good? How many times did she think that they were doing her a favor?

She’s been sitting motionless for who knows how long when Belle comes back. Killian is long gone but his words linger like those dizzy stars after a concussion. Her head is throbbing trying to make sense of it. This wasn’t just seven months spent believing the lie. Now she’s searching for the truth. 

She gets anxious in monotony, like a stench in stagnant water, she is repulsed by the concept. She’s never wanted to do the same thing every day. She doesn’t want a picket fence, she wants…She does like a cute cottagey feel with a nice picket fence, she could…she could deal with a picket fence.

She definitely does not want a husband though, or to be barefoot and pregnant, or…

There were times, she’d look at him fresh out of the shower, or in his sleep and he’d look so much younger, she’d wonder what their kids would look like. There have been times she’s searched her fingers as they moved across her keyboard and realized her ring finger would look nice with a natural stone set in some brass band. It was never anything he did that scared her. It was that she thought about more. The concept of more scared her, and the fact that she was greedy and foolish enough to want it.

Four years is a long time to not talk about marriage, but after they moved past her initial anxiety attacks over having a boyfriend, he never really pushed for much again. Moving in together was her idea. He kept enough stuff at her place and with Elsa moving abroad, it made sense to do it. That’s as far as she was going to take it. Another few years piled up and she was busy writing and he was busy being supportive of that, she recognized she was his sun. When he made sure she ate during the weeks she barely left the house, when he kept her house plants alive, when he did her laundry, reminded her to shower, and told her he’s proud of her too often to quantify, she knew she was his ship. An inanimate object, something someone can love so much and not receive the love back in return, and sure, he’s as silly as a pirate to believe a ship that holds itself together while he’s sailing on her loves him, and that’s just her role.

Hold yourself together Emma, that’s always been your role.

She started to get bitter and insecure. What is she contributing to this relationship? How is she making him any better? Has he even written many songs since they moved in together, has she gone to see him perform, has he performed? Some days she was so enthralled in her writing, she didn’t realize he wasn’t home all day. It was his day off and he was gone for longer than a workday. He could have been having an affair for all she knew. For all he did, he deserved to be having an affair, falling in love with someone who would be there for him, encouraging his dreams, and dedicating herself to him.

After that day, she started her drafts. Killian, you’re so much more than I deserved…Or Killian, your life paused the day you met me. And finally, after months, she left him with I need this to be over.

She’s a writer, a published author, an English major and an avid reader yet, through years and years of literature and just terrible romcoms, she never learned how to break up with someone. She never knew the words to say to him, so she said nothing. He called for three-five days, she’s not sure as she was in a sobbing-induced coma.  He sent texts, he sent freaking carrier pigeons, and she locked herself in a hotel room with her laptop and her broken heart.

Finally, an email came in.

Emma,

I’ve moved out. Everything I’ve left is yours…among the worn t-shirts you liked to sleep in and the novels we’ve collected over the years is my heart.

Goodbye Love.

“Emma,” Belle brings her back to the present after a very long, painful trip into her past. “Are you okay?”

Why is that word even used to describe how ‘good’ something or someone is? 

“No.” She glances over at Belle, she thinks to ask if she talked to him in the hall after he left, if he said anything, if he seemed ‘Okay’ himself but she settles back to a business mindset. Work is the only constant. “Aly left because she didn’t want to get left again.” 

“And that’s how it ends?” Belle hands her the folder back. “You can do better.”

-/-

“The concept of fiction isn’t a lack of reality, it just hasn’t happened exactly that way yet.” 

She hears his voice cascading down the ramp she’s sitting at the bottom of. It's been a week since Belle’s meeting and she made her way back to the library. Back to their roots. There’s so much history in this building, but the history she’s looking for lives within her. There’s a group of teenagers huddled together like they’re on a tour. Her fingers shake as she looks back down at her laptop. 

“Don’t be afraid to use your own daily vernacular. It’s just as likely as any well-researched, powered by thesaurus dialogue, but it will come to you much more easily. That’s your voice.”

His voice sounds increasingly close. She wants to look but if they lock eyes now, while he’s busy, she’s back to being the center of attention. Why did she come here? Does she want to get back to being the center of his attention? 

“Swan?” her stomach flips violently. She really didn’t think this through. Her neck trembles as she cranes to look up at him. “Hi.” He clears his throat, the group of teenagers studying them closely from behind him.

“Hi” she breathes. “Uhm…”

“Do you want to meet my junior author group?” He cuts in quickly.

“Hi.” She repeats, only this time her eyes travel across the young faces. “I’m Emma.”

 “Emma Swan?” A young girl in the back pipes up. “You write Cap Zeph.” ‘Cap Zeph’ is a very popular Tumblr tag, Emma’s been told. She is now a mild-day D list celebrity with the news of the screenplay adaptation. She never published under her real name until this one, Killian’s idea.

“That I do.” Emma feigns a smile.

“Emma Swan” Killian begins, chest swelling “came up with the idea in a small town library.” 

“Really?” another girl with wavy blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders asks.

“Yes, and Killian Jones worked there. He’s…evidently the inspiration. Hair as dark as night, eyes as blue as the sea he sails upon.”  Every girl and one boy in the group glance at Killian, amorously. Still handsome as ever. He looks down, scratching behind his ear and chuckling dryly.  She wonders if his throat burns the same way her eyes do or if this feels so natural he’s happy to fall back into it.

“Why don’t you all find some books to research personal voice from in the YA section, hmm?” He dismisses the group quickly. They share assuming glances and move to leave in pairs, surely gossiping on the way. 

Being alone again is terrifying. She doesn’t know what she’s doing here. Why does she always go looking for him? What does she want? How can they come out of this okay? What is okay? 

“What brings you?” Killian starts. He isn’t looking anywhere but her and the look in his eyes leaves frost on her flesh. His expression is so blank. She has no idea if he even wants her here after their last conversation.

“I was just looking for inspiration.” He nods.

“There are study rooms.” He adds, motioning in the direction she may find them. “My office is actually at a different location, or I’d…suggest…”

“Do you hate me?” it comes out without warning.

“No.” He winces. She’s not sure if it’s because he’s lying or because he wishes he were lying.

“Why not?” She asks. He flinches.

“Christ, Swan. Stop it.” He grabs a seat across from her at the small bistro-style table she’s been working on. She closes her laptop to remove barriers between them. “I hated myself for a while. I thought maybe I should have never lost sight of who you were. You’ve always been guarded. I thought I had broken down some of your walls. I should have never assumed I tore them all down.”

This voice within her tells her that it's no man’s job to do the work for her. Her walls are her own to remove. 

“What about your walls?” Emma counters. She didn’t come for an argument, but Killian had trauma, he was damaged in theory, but always presented himself as such a well-adjusted, forgiving, kind, loving man. “Maybe you had to go brick by brick, but you knew they were there. I just watched you for years never act like anything troubled you.”

He laughs, loudly. 

She’s startled more that she laughs in return than questions it. 

“Emma, my love...of course I was troubled. I still am. I drink far too much and try to solve all of my problems myself without anyone’s help.” He’s still smiling as he confesses.”Hell, I didn’t tell anyone we broke up for months and it wasn’t because I thought you were coming back. I just knew I wasn’t going to let anyone worry about me.”

“You’re not troubled” she shakes her head but thinks back to every time he came home frustrated and sealed himself up before she could get a good glimpse of it. “Are you?”

“I spent an entire day at the marina grieving my dead brother, over a decade after losing him. Every time I went to leave and come home to you, I’d get upset again. I used to stay away until I could pull myself together.” His smile slips into something dark and Emma realizes all the ways they failed at communicating. “I loved you just enough to only show you my best parts. I never trusted our love enough to show you everything. And it’s not because you were sad every now and then.”

And she sees the orphan in him the moment she realizes being left behind were his worst fears, too.

“You thought I’d leave…”

“I think the term is ‘best-laid plans.’” His smile is back “Convince an author to fall in love with you, live forever. Only, with my luck, I get to read my heart get broken in the exact same way whenever I’d like. I was looking forward to your book, knowing I’d get to see us in love again.”

She considers the part about him looking forward to her book.

“It’s as much my book as yours.” She means that. When she first wrote the Cap Zeph short stories, she had no plan of publishing. Killian pushed for her to immortalize this, to believe in herself and sell it. When the first went well, he convinced her to meet with Regina. “I mean, you are the entire series, after all.” He shakes his head and sighs. 

She doesn’t have a response and the seconds tick by. It only takes a few before they reach an awkward silence where one person makes an excuse to leave. And then when do they see each other again?

“I should get back to my writers.” He moves to stand and she wants to jump up, but she doesn’t know what words follow that. She writes fiction. It's why this book has been so damn difficult. Writing their personalities into a fantasy of pirates and fairies, that's one thing. Writing history is another. She can build on what has already happened. This in-the-moment dichotomy, will they? Won’t they? Can they make it work? It’s disturbing. 

He’s the quick thinker. Always a come-back, a pun, a literary quote…

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you…” She opens her laptop nonchalantly, as if it won’t wound her for him to leave. “...a boy who loves you.”

Among the many novels they shared, “The Book Thief” was one of Killian’s most treasured. 

He stares at her with wonder glazing his face. “If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.”

Maybe she’d burn every book in this library, for a chance to experience falling in love with Killian all over again, as if it weren’t a moment in history. 

The screenplay would read ‘They share a look of longing’ and she’s not sure that’s how she’d describe it. ‘Longing’ seems more cliche and not nearly as descriptive as her quickening pulse would use.

This feels like a pivotal moment where she realizes that they don’t necessarily have to not be in love anymore. They could take a slow pace, like windchimes waiting for a breeze to bring them together. That’s all a Zephyr is.

“My number hasn’t changed.” 

-/-

His number has. She gets a text around 1am. 

Are you up?

It's odd, because Killian isn’t a booty-call kind of guy, but who knows what a breakup can do to a man. 

I rarely sleep before 2. Her phone rings moments later.

“Hello?” her tone sounds like a question, but she knows it’s him.

“Swan, it’s Killian.” 

“Yes, Grandpa, I’m aware.” She can’t help but chuckle. Almost too elated that he’s on the other end. She can hear him laugh on the other end.

“Do you remember the first time we started speaking on the phone? You wouldn’t give me your number until maybe the 18th date.” She didn’t trust herself then. They took things so slowly.

“You know I like a clean getaway.” Is it too soon to joke about always having one foot out the door? 

“What's the escape plan this time?”  

“Probably the West Coast since you chased me here”

“I did not!” His laugh is vibrating against her ribs, setting the tempo for her heart. 

Could it be easy all over again? One quote and he’s calling her? One call and they go see a movie? One date and…

And thinking about the end is how she got there, isn’t it? 

“Did you plan on seeing me again? Knowing you were moving here?”

“Of course. I planned on seeing you no matter where I lived...I prepared for you to come into focus and the rest of my world to blur.” He sighs and she can hear his mattress settle as he moves. “I didn’t plan on seeing you in my library again.”

“Where else would I get inspiration. You’re my muse.” 

They talk til 4am. She’s rethought every word she’s said these last seven months. She rarely moves without tension tugging at the back of her neck. Her thoughts are never clear and simple, not since she left. And here, in the darkness of her bedroom, with nothing but a familiar voice on the other end, she hasn’t second-guessed a word. 

-/-

She’s not sure if she should call it a date. He invites her to a scholarship meeting and sure, they’re dressed up, but because it's a business meeting. He talks to the team, Belle is in attendance, and she barely says a word. 

But he asks her out for drinks afterward and suddenly she’s all he’s focused on, laughing about old times, discussing the interesting twist in literature they’ve both read recently. She asks him if he’s written any songs and he beams brightly when he tells her ‘only recently, Love.’

Sometimes love is familiar, like a book you’ve read a dozen times. There’s comfort in knowing everything and loving it anyway.

-/-

“Are you dating him?” Belle watches her from the doorway as Killian moves down the hall to his meeting. They came to the office together this time, maybe a peck on the cheek occurred before his departure, and maybe Belle witnessed it. 

“I don’t know.” Emma tries not to think logistically about what’s going on. It’s been 4 weeks, she’s written 8 chapters and Aly is about to find Atlas again. “For the first time since I started, I know how book 4 will end.”

They go over the recent chapters and Belle seems subtly impressed but she’s holding back. Emma knows it's Killian-related. She just knows she can’t pry without being pried open in return. 

“You don’t like it?”

“No, it's beautiful. From tragedy to triumph is the Captain Zephyr way.” Belle hands the work back to Emma with a sad smile. “What makes it different this time? True love always finds its way back to one another, but how do we know they won’t split up again?” Emma knows this isn’t about the novel. They haven’t yet gotten back together to split up.

Does she know they’ll never separate again? Of course not. Killian is dedicated, devoted like a priest to the cloth. She is very aware that his heart is not yet healed, but eager to love her all over again. A few dates and late-night phone calls don’t make forever a promise anyone could keep.

“We don’t.” 

-/-

He’s walking her home after another fun night at a bar near her apartment. They’ve been casually seeing each other but nothing more than a kiss on the cheek or a hug goodnight has occurred. They get to her building in record time, too preoccupied by the conversation on who in Hollywood would make a handsome Captain Zeph. 

“Johnny Depp doesn’t have blue eyes.” Emma laughs. “You can’t just pick the most popular actors, and he’s already a pirate in another franchise.” They’re at the doors of her building and his eyes are boring into her. “Do you want to come up?”

And maybe it's because they haven’t had a real kiss in what’s very close to being a year now, but he seems almost nervous. 

“I’m afraid I miss you too much.” he scratches behind his ear and looks down the road. When he looks back at her he seems shy.

“Chris Wood,” she comments. She liked him on Supergirl. “Come upstairs.” 

It's the look on his face when he studies her apartment that makes her remember they broke up. As if she had forgotten months of trying to hold herself together, he reminds her that she broke him when his face floods with that loneliness. 

“Killian...” 

“This is a very nice place you have.” his eyes are darting from one corner to the next, lingering on the most significant differences. “So ‘New York’ it's almost as if you’ve never lived anywhere else.” 

“Your apartment isn’t ‘New York?’” it's so weird that they’ve never seen each other's place when they’ve seen each other's souls. 

“It’s just a place to lay my head.” He glances back at her with something almost accusatory when he says “You’ve gone ahead and made yourself a home.” And it has never felt like that, not once, when she was hiding away, when she would run home to it. 

This place, this city has always been a foster home she feels like she’ll get kicked out of if she gets too comfortable. It wasn’t like their home together. Their home felt like roots. Here she feels like an implant that won’t take to the soil. 

“The designer furnishings don’t mean shit to me.” Emma moves to the bookshelf, all new and shiny but it's just a box to keep what matters most. “Only what I’ve come here with is all I care to take. She pulls out a few books, “Wuthering Heights,” “The Book Thief,” and “Emma.” She hands them to him knowing they were always his. 

“I wanted you to keep them.” He starts to give them back when she waves her hand. 

“What do you need to not resent this place? To know I have everything you left tucked away in all these new places?” she motions for him to follow her to the bedroom and he slowly drifts behind, setting the novels on the coffee table. 

Her bed is covered in pillows dressed in his t-shirts instead of pillowcases. She keeps his cologne on the bedside table as if it were some expensive aromatherapy pillow spray. The blanket Granny from the local diner in Storybrooke made them lay at the foot of the bed, an anchor crocheted into the loops.

“I only drink whiskey you like. I only sleep in your t-shirts.” she sits on her bed, reaching for his hand to pull him down with her. “I don’t know what we are, and I can’t promise you I’m not a tragedy waiting to happen. I just know that I haven’t been able to erase an inch of you.”

He kisses her then. It's not on her terms, and he has only ever waited for everything to be on her terms. So when he pulls her in, hand cupping the back of her head, mouth open and adventurous, she gasps. 

His other arm wraps around her waist, pulling her closer to him, her hands pressed flat against his chest as his tongue enters her mouth with desperation. She fists his shirt in her hands, pressing even closer to him as her tongue reacts in kind. It has been the longest year without him and he’s kissing her like they’re running out of time.

All at once they’re falling as he lays her down on her back, continuing to claim her mouth as his property. Her hands start moving, tugging and fumbling with buttons and zippers and just much too much fabric for her liking. When she moves for his briefs he tugs back from her lips. 

“Is this what you want?” Her response is to slip her dress over her head. Any questions to follow are puffed out in a husky tone against her ear. 

Sometimes love is erotica, so she catalogs every second of it because nothing has ever happened quite like this before. 

-/-

They spend the next few months together and she bangs out the rest of the book in record time. Regina and Belle throw her a submission party. She dodges questions about their future and tries to focus on the book. 

“So Aly and Atlas together again,” Robin questions her as Killian returns with a drink for the both of them. She knows he’s not talking about the story. Killian has been very careful to not assume much about their status. Both of them have just stuck to ‘seeing where it goes.’ 

But it's not like they just met six months ago. They have history, they have four years of standing together at parties and being a couple. Do they have the luxury of casually dating? If all happiness is fleeting, do they dive face-first in it or wade in the shallow end. 

“I love Killian.” She says firmly. It’s never not been true from the moment she realized it, in a foreign library miles and miles away from home. He is not easily erased, and it has become glaringly obvious it will only destroy her to try. “I always have and I always will.” Killian’s eyes have never been so doe-like. She’s never been so bold. 

“I…” Robin’s face flushes, certainly not expecting her to speak so proudly.

“And I love Emma, if it isn’t ardently clear. She’s everything to me and I’m happy just to exist in her life.” He raises his whiskey to her and she follows suit like a gentlemen’s agreement has just been formed: To love one another without concern of what it means. As she takes a sip she realizes what everything means. He hasn’t pushed aside his dreams in the slightest this go around. He’s been focused and driven, ambitious and busy. Somehow, he’s still considering her ‘everything.’ Maybe what she thought was sacrifice all that time ago was really just love.

So they stay in love. 

-/-

Another year goes by and the first film is set to release. Although Emma and Killian still pay rent at their separate apartments, they spend every night together. Sometimes it's downtown in Killian’s studio, and other nights it's in the heart of the city at Emma’s. Commitment isn’t measured by who gave what up. It has shifted to who stays. They both do, and every day they make the decision to stay, when it's 5 months since Killian has slept alone or 10 months since Emma had dinner without him. They stay together with one promise in mind. They love each other. And for as long as Love is Present, they will choose each other. 

[hlupdate]

Harry Styles sumptuous new video for Lights Up took the world by storm last week. Exclusively for GQ, the young, half-American, half-British designer Harris Reed shares the inner workings of how Styles’ killer blue outfit for the brand-new solo song came together...

If you know about Harris Reed, you know. And if you don't? Well, keep up at the back. Reed is one of fashion's most exciting new talents, his designs lauded for their sparkly romance, their craft and unbridled otherworldliness. Reed came to GQ's attention a couple of years ago while he was still at Central Saint Martins, his designs already imbued with a silhouette that was both modern and nostalgic, all washed with an achingly cool, non-binary LA energy: his aesthetic has darkness, light, glamour and a non-threatening sense of their own sexiness. His designs aren't just gender-fluid, they're like wearing liquid gold.

Fashion's worst-kept secret is the fact that Reed has been working with Harry Styles for a couple of years now, making one-off outfits for the singer's spectacular stage shows and offering the musician looks that seem in harmony with his renewed sense of self and megawatt style. Last week, when Styles' lascivious, wonton, sweaty and damn good new song, "Lights Up", was blasted out into the world, we noticed it was one of Reed's bespoke designs that the artist had decided to wear for his second solo jaunt. As the video caught fire and went global, we called the ever-charming Reed to talk to him about working with Styles, how the outfit for "Lights Up" came about exactly and just how far he thinks Styles is willing to go with his new covetable gender-blurring aesthetic...

GQ: Hey Harris, nice talking to you again. How's it going?

Harris Reed: "Well, I have a stinking cold, which is the worst. Especially when you are supposed to be working and selling a collection, it can seem like it's ruining your life. But it's OK, I will get through it."

Congratulations on your design for Harry Styles' outfit for "Lights Up". You must be thrilled?

"Thank you, I am really happy. And it's cute as well that Harry made his little icon photo on Instagram an image of the outfit from the video. Quite pleased to say the least."

When did you first start working with Harry Styles?

"My big connect with Harry goes back to Harry Lambert, his stylist, who was the first person I ever worked with and the first person who pulled in any of my clothes years ago. I had that relationship with him starting about two years ago and after a while [Lambert] told me, 'I think you're ready, even though you're right at the beginning of your career, to meet this person...' I pulled some designs together – I didn't really know who it was at this point – but I put together some references. Jimi Hendrick and [David] Bowie and Mick Jagger – you know, just classic rock’n’roll iconic frontmen whom I could see in the designs. Then that's when I heard that it was actually for Harry Styles."

When did you first meet Harry?

"It was November 2017 at one of his shows, at the Hammersmith Arena, and I got a text message from Harry Lambert saying, 'OK, just meet us at the stage door.' It was insane – a sea of screaming girls, men and women were fainting and being taken away in ambulances... I was like, 'What the fuck?' It was insane. And so I found the stage door and went up to this woman who was wearing this huge red coat and I went, 'Hi, I am here to see Harry Styles.' Obviously she laughed in in my face, saying something like, 'Who the fuck are you?' I replied, 'I am going to be Harry Styles' designer.' Like that, I'm not sure where the bravado came from! She goes, 'Of course, come with me.' I was led me through the crowd and right then and there I met Harry and the rest is history, I guess."

How much steer did Harry give you initially for the clothing?

"Honestly, Harry [Styles] was truly the way I envisioned. I think it was Harry Lambert who originally gave me some references for the first work I did for him. It was never a strict brief, but initially I only had about a day to put something together, like, the day before. It was so late to the process. It was more how I could see my designs adapting for him. And then when I went into the meeting I was like, 'Let's do ruffles!' I went a bit crazy, and that's when [Styles] got a lot more involved and was steering me in the direction he wanted. But Harry [Styles] was so open to what I saw for him and what I wanted was an old-world elegance rather than seeing some hot guy in skinny jeans and a T-shirt jumping around on stage – which can work and is amazing - but I wanted to make this aesthetic far more romantic. Watching him as he performs on stage, he is so explosive and amazing at dancing and moving around... Listen, I have so much respect for Gucci and what they do for him, but because of that relationship he was wearing so many suits, so I felt like what I could offer was more fluid, a flounciness or a different silhouette, billowy sleeves and so on. Even the outfit I did for the 'Lights Up' video was sleeveless and the trousers had a slight flare, so he could dance and do his pelvic thrusting, which he loves to do."

The outfit for Lights Up, when did you start working on this particular style moment for him?

"I was coming back from my week-long hiatus in LA during the summer after finishing at Gucci, so I was exhausted. I was in New York and Harry [Lambert] got in contact to say, 'Hey, I don't know if you're up for this but Harry would love you to do something for the next video.' All top secret, of course. All he sent me were two Pantone colours of blue with a note: 'It needs to be in this shade of blue; I can't tell you too much else.' And I was like, well, OK. And at the time I wasn't drunk... But let's say I was enjoying myself in NYC and it was really late at night and Harry [Styles] was actually there shooting his Rolling Stone cover and, as a coincidence, his stylist was like, 'Can you get some ideas to me really quickly. He needs to be able to move in it and it needs to look like he's about to go on stage and take the world.' So I kind I thought, 'movement', 'take the world' and 'stage' and got to work..."

Did you design it straight away?

"Yeah, I was in a bar, [The Bowery Hotel] so I asked the barman for a napkin and he handed me this piece of paper and I did a chicken scratch drawing and sent it back to Harry right away. He was like, 'This is perfect.' I did so many more sketches at the time, but he liked this one, it was so easy and clean and it reminds me a bit of David Bowie's 'Dog Days' but more sparkly and upbeat and less linen and long hair."

Did you have time for fittings and so on?

"Erm, no! We made the piece literally in three days. I got back from NYC with that sketch and they were leaving on a plane to do the video imminently. So I landed in London, went to all my favourite fabric shops in Soho, running around like a crazy madman with all these Pantone swatches of fabric. I have dozens of photos of all these different hues of blue. We ended up using a blue silk moire as it needed to be water resistant, or not water resistant, just be able to work with water, so reflective and shiny without being too heavy and not too hot, as the video was being filmed in South America. And we didn't have any time to do a fitting, so I had to fit the whole outfit on myself. Harry and I have very different body proportions so we were just very lucky. I remember they flew to South America to shoot the video and Harry [Styles] texted me, 'It fits! It works!' And I was in fucking heaven. I didn't sleep for a solid three days doing that outfit so I was thrilled."

This isn't the first outfit you've made for Harry Styles. Where are all those incredible one-off designs stored? Surely this archive must be preserved somewhere?

"I can't say where it is located, but everything goes to an archive. It's basically like a giant refrigerator – a frozen vault – somewhere in London where I am not going to disclose. But the clothes all have 24 hours surveillance, which you can look at via an iPad, specifically done for his outfits, and they have all been cryogenically frozen in time to preserve them. That's also what is more surreal for me. After his first solo tour that I produced 14-15 looks for – he wore about six or seven – I was wondering where the others were and he was like, 'Don't worry, they are all under surveillance.' I was like, 'Oh, that's chic.'"

Can you tell us what is next in the pipeline for you and Mr Styles?

"Hmm... Let me see what can I say. I think people can expect some pretty crazy, fabulous things coming. I can't say too much. I think with Harry I am hoping this is really just the beginning and as he evolves with his own music, and I evolve as a young designer, I hope we can work on more possible projects and clothes and... things!"

Do you hear the music before you make the outfits for him?

"I think the way he speaks about the music, the way he speaks about the process is a real influence on me as a designer. I was lucky enough to go an see him in the studio this summer, and just seeing the passion and the ideas... I am someone who talks a lot with my hands and he's the same, like he's really orchestrating his whole universe. Even the way the 'Lights Up' video was teased, it's never just music with him as for me it's never just clothes – it's the message too. That is what inspires me. I hope I get to hear little teasers of new music along the way, although I always have his stuff sort of on a loop in the studio anyway... Old school rock’n’roll and dashes of Harry Styles along the way."

Do you ever get intimidated by the fact these designs will make up part of his musical legacy?

"Honestly, from a design perspective, I don't worry, because when he tells me he loves something nothing else really matters. And because I'm not just designing a black T-shirt or a simple pair of trousers, I am making a statement, so it actually takes the pressure off me. I don't worry about it if he doesn't. I worry more about a seam splitting open. I remember he wore a few outfits for his big tour of Asia and I made all those outfits on my £50 sewing machine while eating chicken nuggets at five in the morning. I was still studying, and I don't have a proper atelier, so its those technical worries that are the things that stress me out. People don't know this but there's a picture in Rolling Stone where he is near naked holding a ping pong bat and the caption is something like, 'Harry waiting for a garment to be fixed' and it was my garment and the zipper had ripped right off. But he sort of says, 'Let's take this fashion risk together', so nothing else matters. As I said, if he loves it, I am happy."

Ever feel like you're pushing him too far with your designs?

"[Laughs.] He is so lovely and I don't think he ever wants to tell someone 'no' but there's definitely been a time when I laid out the designs from the most timid to the craziest, and when we got the craziest, he does this thing with his lips where he smiles, but he he's like, 'OK, we're not going to go this far.' But it probably involved an outfit with his ass hanging out or some huge Liberace cape... So he's always open, but sometimes I can see in his eyes that he's not quite there with me. I try to read those little mannerisms."

[dippedanddripped]

Lenny McGurr, better known as the multidisciplinary artist Futura (fka Futura 2000) started in the world of graffiti before branching out to the world of fine art, street art, and beyond. A certified “old head,” he’s designed some of the most covetable sneakers to date (forget the Dunkles, all praises to the FLOMs) and during NYC streetwear’s late-’90s heyday, was behind labels like Project Dragon, Subware, and the seminal Nort/Recon outpost done with Stash.

These days, he’s busier than ever. Supreme’s updating some of their collaborative work from the vault, Futura Laboratories is cooking up new products on a more consistent basis, and he’s got high-fashion collabs like last year’s Off-White™ collection and this year’s capsule with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT.

He’s also on deck as the art director for one of NTWRK’s upcoming digital events, creating community online during the Covid-19 crisis. We took some time with the artist to discuss his breakout year, and his unexpected connection to the U.S. Postal Service.

The following interview has been edited and condensed.

Jian DeLeon: You’ve had a busy year. This week alone you’ve got your latest Supreme collab and your first collection with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT hitting Dover Street Market. What haven’t you released yet that you’re stoked on?

Futura: Wow, yeah. I mean, there’s still projects…as you can imagine, everything has been delayed and pushed back due to the situation at hand, but last year was incredible, and a lot of that was the buildup to what’s happening now.

What Supreme is doing is just re-releasing something I did years ago — the handwritten Supreme — and we added the “Justice For All” messaging on the back which is relevant to the time. One thing you didn’t mention is the BMW, which was going to be the main thing of 2020. We were actually in Munich in mid-March. I was hand-painting the interiors before we had to get out of Europe.

JD: Right, it’s the Futura edition M2, which looks absolutely insane. Is this the first time you’ve worked with a major automobile company?

Futura: Yeah, that’s probably one of the most unbelievable jobs I’ve had, simply because I’ve been driving a BMW for more than ten years,.

JD: Yeah, I’ve seen your car parked around Brooklyn a couple times. It has a pretty recognizable license plate.

Futura: Absolutely! I got that vanity plate. So yeah — it’s a real thing; it’s not a stretch — and the fact that they came to me with the M2, plus the history of BMW’s art cars dating back to the ’60s, it’s great to be part of that catalog. For other companies, you might get to paint a vehicle and they put in on display then have it somewhere in a garage, but BMW actually wanted to go into production.

I painted a car that’s the 1-of-1 art car, but then we got a team of artisans who were able to replicate what I did on the outside, and translated that to a catalog of 500 cars. That’s why I was in Munich, I was painting the interiors — like the dashboard trim where the gearbox is. There are maybe over 1,200 pieces I physically painted. Those original pieces go onto every car. That’s a very cool thing about this project.

JD: As a BMW enthusiast, why did you gravitate towards the M2?

Futura: It’s the car I always wanted. I always wanted an M5, but the M2 hit and I was like: “Oh man, that’s really it.” There’s just something about that car. It’s about performance. It’s not meant for New York streets, but I would love to drive that car in, Utah, Montana, or on the Autobahn, obviously.

JD: Back in February when the BMW collaboration was announced, your capsule collection with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT was also making its runway debut in Paris. While it’s not the first time your work’s been on the runway, this is the first time you’ve collaborated with CDG. That label occupies a special place in culture. It can touch sneakers, streetwear, and high fashion without losing its appeal. What’s been your perception of the. brand?

Futura: I can recall a CDG show in the ’80s where Basquiat was a runway model. It was like: “Oh, Jean’s here. Wear this shirt please, and have him walk down the runway.” I remember him telling me the price. Even back then, Japan was always expensive as an import and had a level of quality that you knew was above perhaps what Americans and Europeans were doing. Certainly Americans.

Later they did interpretations of Jean’s work in their collections. So for it to all come around in full-circle like this is great, and I mentioned that to Rei [Kawakubo]. I don’t know if I had met her in the past, but it’s a cool story for me…It connects very strongly to all the things that I’m really into. Japan’s been very good to me, not in my experiences there, but how I feel about working with my Japanese collaborators, contemporaries, and homies.

JD: The U.S. Postal Service is a hot topic right now for some very good reasons. Besides the slap history of post office stickers in graffiti, I understand you have a more personal connection?

Futura: I used to work for postal service back in the day…’88 or ’89. The ’80s were amazing, but for the graffiti guys there was only about five years before people were kind of over it because now you had [Basquiat]. You had other artists emerging that were much more important, and I was looking for any kind of job. I was a bike messenger, but then I got injured. We were independent, freelance guys with no benefits, and my son Timothy would’ve been three or four. So I got a job in Long Island City at the post office right across from PS1.

The crazy thing about that was in 1981 I was part of a huge show called “New York New Wave” at PS1. It was a seminal show of the era. We were all in it, and then six years later here I am working at the post office across the street. But luckily I recovered. It was Agnès B. in 1989 that helped me leave that job because I had an exhibition. Someone was very supportive of my work and offered me a show.I sold four paintings — two of which were bought by Agnès B. — and that was the beginning of my. life as a wannabe artist.

JD: I don’t think you’re a “wannabe artist” at this point.

Futura: Well, I think you’re right and I appreciate that, but I was really wanting to be one back then. So, yeah man, I went from USPS to having an atelier — which even sounded cooler than a studio.

JD: Since everyone’s buying. stamps right now to help support the post office, if you could design a stamp, what would it be?

Futura: That’s a great question. Well…let’s just say that’s TBD, because given my own personal history with them, I wouldn’t be against that at all. I mean, that’s the dream. First of all, as a child, stamps were one of the biggest visual inspirations of my life, along. with television. But I come from a visual stimulation culture revolving around things you could tangibly look at and touch — like stamps and money, the design of money. So yeah, designing a stamp would be crazy.

[jessica-goldenstars-blog]

[ENGTRANS] Jessica interview with Grazia Korea 10.2018

G: Grazia  J: Jessica 

G: You were overseas till a few days ago. From Canada to Seoul, and now you're in LA. How do you pass your time lately? 

J: I've been very busy lately. (Laughs) I visited many places while abroad, and I'm also trying to create more opportunities to meet my fans. 

G: It seems your time spent in Seoul is getting shorter. 

J: In a month, my time spent in Seoul won't exceed 2 weeks. When I'm back, it's like I'm ready to leave again the moment I put down my luggages. Even so, Korea is still my home, because my parents and sister are there. 

G: Looking back to now, you're not only a singer, but also the creative director of an up-and-coming fashion brand to be reckoned with globally. How do you benchmark yourself? 

J: My agency profiles me as a 'multifaceted artiste'. It's becoming increasingly common to have multiple careers. From being singers and actors, to participating in musicals or any other careers. Pursuing multiple fields and careers is something interesting to me. Singer Jessica is doing well, being able to put my thoughts into action is fascinating. 

G: What inspires you to continuously create new content? 

J: It's a blessing to be able to travel to so many places for work, and this inspires me. Travelling back and forth like this allows me to meet my fans as well. I feel the urge to give back whenever I feel the energy and support from my fans. 

G: Does this mean you spend a lot of time in the air? How do you pass time? 

J: I drink a lot of hot lemon water on flights, and also apply a calming essential oil behind my ears to aid my sleep. I always do an essential oil infused 'half-bath' (hanshin yoku) once I reach the hotel to relax my muscles. This is how I stay in sync with my surroundings, like "oh, this is LA, it's a new start". 

G: How about your rest days when you have no schedules? 

J: I'm busy practising self-care on days without schedules. From hair color and treatment, to mani-pedicure. The discipline of self-restoration will fill all my free time, which also includes workout routines like pilates. Visits to the doctor's for supplements will take up almost a whole day. There are also frequent times when meetings with the Blanc & Eclare team go on till the wee hours of the night. 

G: I'm sure there are times you do absolutely nothing? 

J: Whenever I have a few free days in Korea, that is when I feel rested. To me, it's not truly rest unless it's home. I have a concert in Taiwan this October, but my schedule is packed before that. I may be able to take a breather after the concert but nothing is certain because my schedule is still being arranged till now (laughs). 

G: If you continue to work like this, you will definitely feel exhausted, and experience 'burnout'. Do you sometimes feel life is tough? 

J: The good thing about me is that I'm very focused and also very flexible. Of course, I'm surrounded by people whom I'm thankful for. They stayed beside me, gave me support so I wouldn't feel exhausted and am able to complete a day's work with ease. I'm surrounded by many capable staff, and I'm very thankful. 

G: Do you find it fitting to be both a singer and creative director now? 

J: It's fascinating. Regardless of what my career choice was, it has always been my dream to work in the fashion industry. Working with people who share the same interests, putting out products just as I imagined without modifications, and then people buying and using my products, makes me very happy. Since this is 100% my product, the feeling I have is indescribable, nothing else compares. 

G: Having debuted at a young age, have you ever thought about how 30 year old Jessica would be like? 

J: Because life was simply too hectic during my younger days, so I look forward to a carefree life now. As for what kind of person I wanna become, I just wanna be spontaneous and cool. My definition of cool would be someone who enjoys whatever he/she does, and is able to derive happiness from it. 

G: That sounds like the current you. Have your dreams come true already? 

J: That's right (laughs). What I'm thankful for is how I've been steadily moving towards my goal since young, and successfully reached where I am today. 

G: Were there no major setbacks? 

J: I guess things were fairly smooth-sailing for me. 

G: As the saying goes 'life is never smooth-sailing', have you ever felt frustrated? 

J: I'm not the type to get frustrated over things. In other words, I will accept whatever life throws at me. Under such circumstances, we should just sort things out and change our course of action. Moreover, I'm not the type to regret or feel sorry for myself over things that is out of my control. Everybody has low periods in life, and that happened to me too. Whenever that happens to me, I will face reality and forge a new path. I don't wish to bear unnecessary stress. 

G: How will you picture yourself 10 years from now? 

J: I should have a happy family by then? (Laughs) Since I would have been at that age. It's great that my life is moving along the way I imagined. I once thought to myself that I was gonna open a store in NYC if I ever work in the fashion industry. I didn't manage to list NYC as one of the locations when I first launched my brand, but my dream still came true in the end. Accomplishing my dreams make it extra meaningful. 

G: You once said you will try your best to portray your true self in interviews, is there any special reason? 

J: I'm actually very shy. But as my overseas activities increase, I gradually start to think I should open up more to show the various sides of Jessica. Being on my own now, I've managed to find a comfortable balance with everyone. 

G: Circumstances make a man. Seems like you are at a good place now? 

J: Regardless of what place I'm at, I don't ever wanna hear my manager say things like "I don't wanna hear what you have to say and I don't care what you think". Cultural differences exist, and we can interact with people via so many social media platforms nowadays. Since I've opened up more, I can interact with everyone more closely now. 

G: Following your current emotional state, what has changed? 

J: I feel more at ease now. I used to feel awkward when people initiate conversations because I didn't know what to say, and what should be said, so I feel burdened. But I'm at a good place now, so I feel great. 

G: What kind of person is Jessica to you? 

J: I'm extremely straightforward and frank, even to people whom I have connections with. It's more convenient to work like this. 

G: What kind of person do you want to become? 

J: I'm somewhat of a perfectionist. Even though I haven't learnt to let everything go, I'm slowly getting there. I try my best at whatever I do. Everyone tells me I am where I am today because of my hard work. Nowadays I'm beginning to delegate tasks to my staff, so it's getting easier for everybody now (laughs). 

G: You look prettier these days, what's your secret? 

J: Focus on my health. I fell sick for a few days after returning to Korea a while back, it was so bad that I couldn't leave my house for those few days. I felt the time was wasted with nothing accomplished, and I could only spend less than a week in Korea! So I did a full body checkup to find out what my body lacks, and have started managing my health. I also take vitamins and reduce my intake of flour-based foods. I'm trying hard to improve my eating habits. 

G: It's a popular topic these days, happiness or health? 

J: I have always wanted to lead a happy life since young, but I'm already very happy now. So I need to stay healthy to enjoy this happiness longer (laughs). 

G: It's only 2 months to the end of the year, how do you intend to spend the rest of the year? 

J: I'm earnestly preparing for my concert. Thereafter I intend to take a break till the end of the year. I'm also considering if I should release an album next year. 

G: So will we be able to see Jessica the singer next year? 

J: Once I feel that I am ready, I will release that album. An album clearly distinguishes an artiste. My album will have to showcase a sound unique to me, so it requires more effort. 

G: Last question. Any other things you wanna challenge yourself to? 

J: I'm more into clothes worn for vacations these days, like swimsuits. I also intend to expand a variety of different garments. I will mostly focus in the fashion in the near future.

Source: https://www.smlounge.co.kr/grazia/article/40029

C-trans: JungSooYeonBar

Engtrans: RI

[boaws]

BOAWS Top Records of 2018

20 – Bichkraft – 800 (Wharf Cat) You know, I've heard every Bichkraft record and up until 800 (the groups third) I didn't quite really know what to think of them other than...weird? I'd pretty much filed them away in a lump of experimental bands that I kind of dug, but I wasn't terribly sure what the angle was. It seems things have been a bit cleared up for me with 800, a record that is undoubtedly more refined than any of their previous, production wise. I imagine some of this can be attributed to recording with Merchandise member Carson Cox rather than a makeshift studio in a junk ridden field somewhere. However, the bands sound manages to keep a lot of the looseness of a group that would, in fact, record in such an aforementioned manner. I've never thought of Bichkraft to be much on the rhythmic side of things, but the songs on 800 are shockingly catchy at times and bounce along in a nice haphazard manner...even though I have no fucking clue what they are saying. I suppose it could be some really grim stuff, but the songs themselves wouldn't really ever reveal that. Nevertheless, their combination of post-punk and disjointed indie-rock is certainly an interesting one...in that it lies somewhere on the exteriors of both. There are times where I'm picturing late 80's or early 90's music videos with an over abundance of neon and hair for some reason...which may in fact be due to the vocals and the drum machine. It's almost like listening to A.R. Kane if they had been heavily influenced by no-wave. Like I said, interesting and I'm not real confident I've made much headway in figuring Bichkraft out, but at the very least 800 is a pretty good record. Bichkraft – Ashley (stream) BUY IT! 19 – Cloud Nothings – Last Building Burning (Carpark & Wichita) A band many are familiar with and one that has already appeared on these lists a couple times now already I believe. Cloud Nothings find themselves here again on the strengths of their fifth album that doesn't change the formula up much, other than possibly embracing the rawer aspect of their sound for an A-side that blows through five songs in a few minutes before opening up the B-side with the 11 minute “Dissolution”. They are the type of songs that Cloud Nothings have doled out before, but in a far more limited basis...or possibly in bits and pieces, however on Last Building Burning a good majority the album is consumed by that type of raucousness that had only been previously teased. The tunes still seem to incorporate a good amount of the hook heaviness of old, but one might have to dig a bit deeper beneath some of the chaos here to find it, which is fine by me. “Dissolution” ends up being an interesting track in its own, massively sized, right...wherein the band starts off in tried and true jagged fashion only to end up taking a break midway through for some improvisational noisy meandering/psychedelics before latching back on to each other to form a nice apex of noise/melody to cap it off. I'll hand it to them, Last Building Burning is an album that, in a way, I got what I expected but also came out a bit surprised as well. Cloud Nothings – Offer an End (stream) BUY IT! 18 – Gouge Away – Burnt Sugar (Deathwish Inc.) It took me awhile to get around to this one, and by that I mean I just heard it maybe three or so weeks ago, but that is just how things work with me sometimes. Anyway, Gouge Away do a lot of things well on Burnt Sugar. That's about as generic as a statement as one can make, right? But it's kind of true, especially when the takeaway with most is that they are a hardcore/punk band playing songs that are somewhere in between power chord driven noise-rock or 90's alternative and being able to blur the lines between all of that is commendable. How that's really any different than a lot of bands these days? I don't really know, but at the very least Gouge Away pull it together in a much tidier way for some memorable songs that do well in the way of being powerful and noisy enough satisfy my taste for aggro delights of 90's noise-rock. So if that's also your cup of tea, then Gouge Away will likely be of particular interest to you as well. Gouge Away – Fed Up (stream) BUY IT! 17 – Bush Tetras – Take the Fall (Wharf Cat) Another entry from Wharf Cat, which has sneakily become one of my most appreciated record labels over the past couple years. Although, I'd argue it's hard to miss on something like Bush Tetras, but good on them on at least having the initiative to release these five new jams. Dating all the way back to 1979, Bush Tetras material hasn't exactly been plentiful, but it HAS often been good and Take the Fall sees them return in a form that still has them right in step with anything they did during when they were in the thick of the NYC no-wave movement. There is a little more brute force to be found here, with a deep bass slink and a rainfall of atonal distortion that lurch along in a delightfully sleazy way while vocalist Cynthia Sley takes every opportunity to wrap her voice all around it. Take the Fall is every bit as jagged and poignant as any of their past material, but somewhat removed from the time of dub-esque/dance influenced rhythmic nature of their infancy...sitting more firmly in the post-punk camp, but still something that could have only been culled from a specific time and place. Bush Tetras – Red Heavy (stream) BUY IT! 16 – Hide – Castration Anxiety (Dais) There is generally an appeal to me, to some extent or another, for when a record functions primarily in such a primitive manner as one like Castration Anxiety does. Maybe even more so when it comes creeping out of the depths of the darker side of the industrial/electronic world, as Hide does...the duo of visual artist Heather Gabel and percussionist Seth Sher. The ingredients are relatively simple for the pairing, who throw together the monotonous pulse of heavy beats/percussion to largely drive this excursion into brute force, but decidedly steer it down a darker path thanks to the inclusion of some creative synth work. Occasionally dream-like, but probably more so in the nightmarish sense, the synth/electronics are often of the buzzing/scraping variety rather than the ethereal airy gothy qualities that a project like this may initially suggest. Nope. This is definitely more so about leather, dungeons and the sound of anything colliding with metal. And while it could be concluded that Hide had boiled everything down to the coldest possible fraction, there still lies Gabel's vocals which by the end of Castration Anxiety are such an inclusive part of the narrow singular vision at play, that it's easy to forget there is an actual person performing the constant moans and spoken mantras among it all. Dais always seems to do well in finding these particular types of releases, and this one can certainly be added to the list of winners. Hide – Wildfire (stream) BUY IT! 15 – Ian Sweet – Crush Crusher (Hardly Art) I got a late start on Ian Sweet, so late in fact that I completely missed the transition from solo project...to band...back to solo project. So, as it stands now, Ian Sweet is the solo work of Jilian Medford. I did get a chance to hear 2016's album Shapeshifter, however by that point I'm sure everything had already been shifted back to full solo mode. My initial thoughts on that album were a mixed one, a fun and somewhat catchy slab of indie-rock, but ultimately an album that didn't grab me a whole lot aside from a couple songs. However, on Crush Crusher things have dramatically veered towards deeper/interpersonal territory, dealing with issues of anxiety/depression among others. With that comes an album that is actually far more melodic and riff laden than prior heard, but on work as emotionally revealing as Crush Crusher it's not entirely surprising, as there is a lot being unearthed here in a therapeutic fashion. For Medford, I imagine even if Crush Crusher had been met with little to no response it wouldn't have mattered, as I highly doubt this album was really meant for anyone other than herself. Ian Sweet – Spit (stream) BUY IT! 14 – Marriage + Cancer – Marriage + Cancer (Self Sabotage) A Portland based band that showed up this past year with their debut album sporting some nice Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired artwork on it. While some may be disappointed to learn that this self-titled first attempt isn't as grimy and sadistic as the aforementioned movie, Marriage + Cancer prove mighty capable of being one of those bands that can actually marry noise AND rock; not too clean but also not a room clearer either...although I've rarely turned my nose up at that as well. I think the Jesus Lizard thing gets bandied about with these guys for sure, I mean, I even mentioned it in the initial write up did for this record, but after hearing this over a full year it's almost as if Drive Like Jehu was forced to slow their asses down a bit and then things are just dirtied up some...which may be a large reason I like it as much as I do. I just love big loud ringing guitars, sure...feedback/distortion is pretty a-ok too, but something about that “sound” will always do it for me and Marriage + Cancer seem to have just that. Marriage + Cancer – Six Feet + A Box (stream) BUY IT! 13 – Big'n – Knife of Sin (Computer Students) When you want something done right then seek out someone who has plenty of experience doing the job. If the same can be said about noise-rock then Big'n would be a fine choice to employ. Having made most of their mark during the 90's with a number of singles/splits and two full-length albums, they didn't necessarily get the attention they likely deserved during their initial run throughout that decade. However, after getting back together a few years back now...that's slowly began to be rectified. For the uninitiated, Big'n provide a workman-like quality of noise that bands within the same region often did...like Tar and Shorty...meaning they were, and are undeniably, Midwestern sounding. Maybe one of the magnificent things about Big'n is that nearly 30 years later this band can sound 100% as they did at the very start and are absolutely undeterred in their approach. Essentially, it's a formula of razory guitar work and start/stop rhythms that worked for them then, and it works equally well for them now. It's even amazing how the singers vocals are no less raspy/strained. A time capsule of a band, but in the very best way. The packaging for this EP is absolutely ridiculous too and I love it. Comes in a giant silver zip-lock type case/bag that holds the actual record in a whole other sleeve. Pretty labor intensive I would have to guess, but it provides for a pretty spectacular whole package. When people try and argue why folks enjoy records over any other more convenient medium, I'll kindly (maybe not so kindly) direct them to Knife of Sin as an example as to why. Big'n – Snake Eater (stream) BUY IT! 12 – Viagra Boys – Street Worms (Year 0001) I can't even recall the number of times I watched the video for the track “Sports” on YouTube. I then made practically anyone I thought would even remotely care watch it. I apologize for likely being kind of insufferable there for a bit, but damn if that isn't a killer track and a great video to pair it up with. I guess these guys have been stirring it up for a bit now over in Sweden, but this past year was my first exposure to their brand of off-kilter post-punk, if that's even what one could call it, as there is plenty more going on here with everything from saxophone skronk, a consistent element of dance-punk, and near two minute skit of some absurd dog show. It would be easy to dismiss Viagra Boys as some foreign version of Electric Six, but that would be a fairly big disservice, as there is quite a bit more substance to their music underneath all the foolishness and imagery, to which there is a fairly precise and poignant message of co-existing with everyone else in an immoral society. Maybe one of the less disguised songs, “Worms” is a good indicator of that. No matter, Viagra Boys deliver on the promise of an excellent single with an album that provides more to digest than I think anyone really anticipated. Good stuff. Viagra Boys – Worms (stream) BUY IT! 11 – Casanovas in Heat – Twisted Steel, Sex Appeal (Katorga Works) Announced a couple years ago, Twisted Steel, Sex Appeal just now made it out this past year after a handful of delays that are both label related and just rockin' too fucking hard by the sound of it. While Casanovas in Heat have since disbanded during the albums stay in release purgatory, this is no less a great way to go out as Twisted Steel, Sex Appeal is a power pop gem that absolutely smokes through ten wonderful tracks. Riffs aplenty here folks, and they are cranked the hell up on top of that. It's a shame this couldn't have come out around the time it was originally designated as the album could have had a good chance of really taking off, but nevertheless things happen and you get what you get...and that is 100 copies of an album that kind of just eventually floated out there with little to no fanfare. Kudos to Katorga Works for seeing it through though, despite fates best efforts to crater it. For those that appreciate big melodic power/pop-punk, then this is an album that you have to absolutely track down. The more I listen, the better it gets honestly. I'm sure wherever I place it now won't do it justice a few months from now, which is kind of funny when I think about it in context with how this album was released, huh? Casanovas in Heat – Wet Dreams (stream) BUY IT! 10 – Wrong – Feel Great (Relapse) Wrong would have been one of my favorite bands when I was much younger, if they had in fact existed then. To say that nostalgia is a strong feeling is quite an understatement when I listen to their second album Feel Great, as drop-D taco riffing rock was king to me then, and still even now when I hear it done there are parts of me that get all teary eyed. Ok, probably not to that extent, but it does still stir me a bit and Wrong likely does it better than anyone out there right now...although I don't think there are a whole lot out there to count. While Feel Great doesn't quite capture me like their debut album did, it's still quite the fun and heavy ride through its ten tightly spun tracks. At the very least it helps me forget about the atrocities of post-Stanier/Bogdan era Helmet. So yeah. Wrong – Upgrade (stream) BUY IT! 09 – Pinkshinyultrablast – Miserable Miracles (Club AC30 & Shelflife) I remember writing about an Air Formation album years ago and then got an e-mail from Club AC30 grilling me about how I got the album and so on. Never mind that I enjoyed it and wrote positively about it, but that's cool. No hard feelings right? I'll even consider it kind of making amends by having the good sense in releasing this fantastic nugget of dream-pop/synth-wave/what-have-you from Russia's Pinkshinyultrablast. They are a band that has shown considerable steps forward from album to album, which is honestly quite rare within the shoegaze/dream-pop genre, thanks to a sound that has been so definitively mapped out. Pinkshinyultrablast seem to pay little attention to that on the groups third album Miserable Miracles, by moving towards a more heavily synth based sound that sees the washes of guitar and fuzz take second fiddle to a myriad of dreamy tones and pulsing bass. Undoubtedly a bit influenced by the meteoric rise of vapor/synth-wave (one look at the cover art could have given that away), the band incorporates it well without it ever becoming a tacky or glaring needless inclusion...in fact it sounds as natural as anything they've done before. It's a brighter sound, one not muddled in distortion like past albums, but open and airy...and one that strives to drive the ethereal factor into the red. Miserable Miracles honestly reminds me a lot of the Rumskib album that came out a few years ago and then the number of Keith Canisius solo records that followed it. Those that wish to spend a day in the clouds, this is an album that wants to take you there. Pinkshinyultrablast – Find Your Saint (stream) BUY IT! 08 – Criminal Code – 2534 (Deranged) Didn't see a whole lot on this one, but I quite enjoyed the third effort from Criminal Code, an album that sports cover art that would lead me to believe this was released sometime in the 80's on 4AD. And actually, that's not a bad place to start with 2534, because the band has apparently jettisoned a lot of the jagged straight forward post-punk styling of previous records to drape things in a much darker, but dreamier state of mind. Can't argue with the results though, as Criminal Code take a ride through some of the same musical landscape as The Sound and The Chameleons did before them, certainly presenting more a more melodical side of the band than anyone has likely heard before. At almost a dead even thirty minutes, there is very little dead weight that can be found on 2534, efficiently honing in on the sound they wanted and executing it to a T. While maybe not getting the fan fare of other bands that Deranged have put out over the years, Criminal Code has proven to be a consistently good one and that's worth noting in a pool of post-punk revivalists that at this point is likely as big as the Pacific ocean. Criminal Code – The Subject (stream) BUY IT! 07 – Ovlov – Tru (Exploding in Sound) For a time there, albeit a small one, it didn't seem like there would ever be another Ovlov album. The band had pretty much garnered themselves the reputation of the equivalent to the couple in high school that would be together one week but “done” the next. You honestly never knew if Ovlov was a band or not, and at one point it seemed like they were actually fiirreeal done. However, here we are a couple years later and things have actually been pretty stable in the Ovlov camp after putting out a singles comp and some touring, Tru came upon the listening world late this past year with about as much anticipation from me as you're about to get. For the most part I'd say I'm pretty happy with Tru, it's definitely a bit of a different beast than Am, but all the warmth/thick fuzziness that engulfed me originally is all here...just deployed in a slightly different...tender manner. And maybe a lot of that has to do with Steve Hartlett dealing with the tribulations of handling a full-time band and maybe some overflow from his more introspective side-project Stove. Either way, Tru hits the mark of all the 90's indie/alt fuzz that made that decade so special. Ovlov – Stick (stream) BUY IT! 06 – Exhalants – Exhalants (Self-Sabotage) The Xerox-ish cover art on the debut album from Exhalants had me under the impression that this was going to be some pretty wild noise-punk stuff. While what I received was in fact “noisy”, Exhalants are a far different band than those preconceptions, and while calling Austin, TX their home...almost seem like an anomaly for the area too. Oddly enough, this album sounds mighty upper Midwestern and for a noise-rock band, they are packing a metric ton of melody and riffs into their debut. It's interesting to hear an album that rides a fine line between big sweeping rock elements, but at the same time has the sound and appearance of one that is as every bit grime/filth ridden. Buildings are another band that comes to mind that were close to doing the same thing, but at times are just too polished around the edges to pull it off. Exhalants aren't afraid to cross that threshold of “noise”. And guess what? It turned out great for them. Exhalants – Latex (stream) BUY IT! 05 – Slow Crush – Aurora (Holy Roar) Huge sounding grunge/alternative infused shoegaze...there is a record like this every single year that I fall in love with. The year before it was Lacing, the year before that it was the list topper from Sigh Down One and so on. You could say I'm kind of a sucker for this kind of stuff and that's perfectly fine as I fully own up to it. The draw has always been a contrast between the dream like state that shoegaze tries to emulate into sound but also tying it to a feeling of heaviness. I've probably said it before, but Lilys on In the Presence of Nothing did it about as well as anyone ever will. It's entirely possible to create heavy music but not make it “ugly”, so to speak. So yeah, the allure is a sound akin to what Slow Crush manages to do and a handful of other bands have done over the years. The opener “Glow” is a pretty fantastic track that I kind of wish was a little more representative of Aurora as a whole, but the album steadies itself after that to slow things down for the most part, opting for a little more on atmosphere and swirling feedback. Still, a really nice slice of shoegaze. Slow Crush – Glow (stream) BUY IT! 04 – Conduit – Drowning World (Kitschy Spirit) Like how I go from talking about heavy music not necessarily needing to be ugly? Well, this is ugly. Really really ugly in fact. Ever wanted to know what happened to some of the dudes in Twin Stumps? Your answer somewhat lies in Conduit, which contains a couple of them along with a couple other guys from White Suns and Squad Car. Together they create a similar racket to that of many of the members prior bands...namely Twin Stumps, to which Conduit proudly hoist the torch in the air and trudge forward with their misery stricken lurch of decaying feedback while fishing around in there every so often for a riff or two to whip out and surprise everyone. They even go as far to occasionally throw in an every so brief ambient spot of noise in there just for good measure. One of the definite takeaways from Drowning World is that it might be some of the most uncompromisingly violent sounding music that any of the members have been apart of so far. It's truly a disturbingly disgusting sounding record and I pretty much love every second of it. Even if that's not your cup of tea, it's hard not to hand it to them as they are grinding on with this stuff even after the whole noise-rock revival thing kind of fell off and I can't really imagine there being as big of a receptive audience to it anymore. It's ok though, because I still think Rusted Shut is pretty awesome and it's evident that most of the members of Conduit do too. Of all the records on this list, Drowning World is probably the one the planet deserves the most right now. Conduit – A Hex (stream) BUY IT! 03 – Barlow – In a Strangers Car (Crafted Sounds) So In a Strangers Car was technically released around July...a couple years ago, but I didn't hear it until early last year and it didn't see much in the way of a physical release until then either, so to hell with it...it counts. That and it's far too good to not be in some type of best of list, so I'm parking it firmly here and happy to rain praise for it once again. I don't know if Barlow choose to exist in indie lo-fi obscurity, but their music deserves far more attention than it gets, that I can say for certain. With In a Strangers Car the band throws together a handful of tracks that were recorded over a several year period. In most cases, the patch work like recording process would yield head scratching results, but Barlow soundly weave these tracks together in a way that plays out in the same manner as a fever dream of whirring fuzz and hiss...stops, starts, rewinding and rumbling warbles before songs peak their head out for a minute before vanishing from your memory forever (or until you listen to the record again I guess). I make it through four songs and it feels like I've already heard bits and pieces of at least ten, however it somehow makes sense and trying to pick apart why almost seems silly. The only real option is to just sit back and enjoy it. Barlow – Tirebiter (stream) BUY IT! 02 – Olden Yolk – Olden Yolk (Trouble in Mind) I knew there was something familiar about this record when I first heard it, but obviously my mind kept firing but never connecting the dots. Naturally I turned to everyone's best friend Google and some quick searching there turned up that Olden Yolk was originally a side solo project for Quilt's Shane Butler. Tada! Answer found. I, for the most part, dug Quilt's easy breezy mixture of vaguely psych/folk and dream-pop and Butler's singing on those records only added to the distinct smoothness of it. Olden Yolk have since developed into a full band and this would mark as their debut album, which presents a lot of the same characteristics that would be familiar to Butler, however takes a noticeably larger dive into folk territory. This especially isn't too surprising, given that Quilt's last release was a full on cover album of the brilliant F.J. McMahon classic Spirit of the Golden Juice. The formula works equally well with Olden Yolk, however, possibly even better I would argue. The band might be basing themselves in folk roots, but the success of the album largely stems from the ranges/reaches of the smaller influences that have worked their way in; blurring the image with touches of psych fuzz and drumming that would certainly be a bit unorthodox on any other record. But that combination is what pushes the album outside the box, and at this point, that's the kind of album I want to hear. Olden Yolk – Common Ground (stream) BUY IT! 01 – Fond Han – Wronked (Exploding in Sound) Maybe it was just the whole of 2018 and my abysmal handling of everything concerning my life during those 365 days, but upon hearing Fond Han and their latest album Wronked, it struck me as entirely relatable. As is Wronked, things were at a constant push-pull between chaos and hibernating lulls, the struggles of depression and anxiety are real folks. There have been many albums over the years that have bravely documented such struggles, however I guess Wronked just came at the right time. Not to say it isn't a great album in its own right, because it most certainly is. Fond Han is essentially the brain child of Thomas Baumann, who took what could be considered unfinished ideas/loose ends and expanded on them, or tied them together, to create this ultimately dark but revealing look into ones very own psyche. Not at all surprising, is to find out that the sounds of that are fragmented, uneven, and extremely unpredictable...almost to the point of being full on excursions into noise. There is no real “ebb and flow” to Wronked, because there just can't be. That's not how it works. The escalation of panic and fear isn't a gradual one and Fond Han frames it as such by taking hard 90 degree left turns from the steadily, albeit loose, melodies into heaping low end/feedback that has a hardcore/metalcore slant to it...think Daughters or very early Dillinger Escape Plan. It's likely that Wronked will be highly divisive in opinion, but love it or hate it...it's a fascinating piece of work and one that helps substantially sum up what was a predominately a lost year for me. Fond Han – Dumpty (stream) BUY IT!

[denouxments]

amber heard. cisfemale. she/her. — did you see { elizabeth trevor }, i haven’t seen the { thirty-one } year old in a while! you know, they’re a { fashion designer }, and have been living in jersey city for { eight years }. some say they’re { fussy & fanciful }, but i think they’re { vivacious & compassionate }. regardless, i’m glad { eliza } is here.

backstory

here comes my actual waifu for laifu, eliza ( i would actually die for her, okay ) ! you can find her dossier page HERE and her pinterest board HERE ( she’s one of the muses i’ve had for a literal decade, so why there isn’t more stuff in here ? couldn’t tell ya )

okay so she’s kind of a princess. okay not really, but she is the only scion to a very wealthy family in the drilling & realty business in london. they’re essentially right on the cusp of being granted a dukedom. so, yeah, a pretty deep money line there, and everyone thought the line was going to die because her mom was told she couldn’t have kids. but then eliza showed up and they loved her !!

they loved her a little too much tbh. they weren’t around a whole lot due to business, so she was primarily left in the care of nannies in the estate. they had strict rules: she was to be homeschooled. her parents dictated everything she watched and all the books she consumed. she was not allowed out unsupervised, and all of her friends were picked out, in a sense. 

they expected eliza to be happy with this life, but unfortunately the trevors were granted with a social creature of a daughter, and all she wanted was to roam away from the gilded cage she was placed in. she wanted friends that she chose. she wanted the ability to go to public school. she didn’t care for trinkets or material possessions; she wanted freedom 

it took a long time, but eventually she convinced her parents to let her attend a private, all-girls boarding school so that she could have . . . some form of a social life.

she made a couple genuine friends, but for the most part the other girls didn’t take too kindly to her. she never returned their cruelty, but that was mostly because she didn’t understand that it was cruelty. that’s just how friends talked to each other, right ?

eliza essentially took all the prim and proper training she had gotten and threw it in the trash. she was still sweet and courteous, but her curious nature made it so she wasn’t the best at following the rules, and she really had an issue with social cues and personal space

she had . . . okay grades. she was really more focused on finally able to be social

across the lake from this boarding school was the all-boys sister school. ( there’s a movie i i was inspired from, but i can’t remember what it was rip ) there were occasional late night rendezvous between some adventurous girls and some adventurous boys. it was one of these rendezvous that allowed eliza to meet aiden gallagher.

aiden was everything eliza had read in fairytales. he was princely and charming and 3 years older and so, so handsome. he was always 2nd best to his best friend, but to eliza he was everything

aiden and eliza spent the better part of their upper-secondary years together, but of course her parents wouldn’t approve, seeing as they were surely planning to marry her off to a duke or something, so they had to keep it secret. 

then the two became engaged and she couldn’t keep it a secret anymore. unfortunately, her fears were correct. not only did her parents not approve, but they forbade her from seeing aiden ever again. 

welp, too bad mum and dad, cuz eliza ran away with aiden to the united states, leaving her fortune, her family, and everything else behind for a grungy little apartment in nyc

most would say that having to start over would be difficult as hell, but for eliza it was just another adventure. she was finally free from the gilded cage she was set in and she was ready to live her life to the fullest. aiden followed his dreams of starting a bar in the hustle and bustle, meanwhile eliza landed a job as a model. it was good money, and the 2 managed to be okay

after 3 years of being engaged, eliza was starting to get a bit antsy. whenever she asked, aiden would always say that they’d get married when they were ready. well dude ! she was ready ! after a few sets of bickering and perseverance, she finally managed to get a date out of him

girl went ALL THE FUCK OUT. by this point she’d gotten a more 9-5 job as an assistant contemporary and ballroom dance instructor, so she started saving up money from that and modeling for the big, fabulous wedding she so wanted. she probably spent a small fortune on planning for this wedding

big day comes, okay. she’s got her dream venue, her dream dress, a prince charming, she is READY. but you know who isn’t? aiden. he’s not ready. not only is he not ready, but he fell in love with someone else. he leaves eliza at the alter and she doesn’t know What To Do

she doesn’t even get her stuff from his place. she just goes and stays at one of her bridesmaid’s place. 

she’s in a state of shock for weeks, and its during this period of time that she realizes that she literally does not know what her dreams were besides living happily ever after with this guy. she doesn’t know what she’s doing, where she’s going to go. she’s totally lost at this point

feeling like she doesn’t have anything else, she goes back home. its rough, especially not being in contact with her parents for 4 years. she’s their only baby and they love her, so of course they let her back ( though there are plenty of ‘told you so’s’ tacked on )

she goes back to studying for her role to take over as the heiress to the family fortune. she’s miserable, but she doesn’t know what else to do so she just accepts her lot in life

during her free time, she sneaks away to work at charity events under the guise of good public relations. she also finds herself doodling fashion designs, as she’d always enjoyed that realm of life. the hobby gradually becomes a passion, but she doesn’t realize that its something she could see herself doing for forever until . . .

she’s with her family for 2 years when she finds out that her fears from years ago are more true than she could have ever realized. not long after her 23rd birthday, her family gets into a bit of a scandal with their drilling business. its pretty bad. looks like the money vat they’ve got going is going to dry up. as a way to try and salvage something, her parents call on an old friend who is part of a minor dukedom asking if maybe they’d be willing to marry off their son to eliza.

eliza does NOT like this. she’s always wanted to marry for love, not for money, but her parents need her and she’s still super Lost so . . . fuck it right ?

not fuck it. she hates the guy. she’s trying so hard to resign herself but he’s infuriating and she just needs to Go so, uh, guess it’s her turn to run from the alter !! its like this whole eye opening experience for her. like she Wakes Up and realizes what she wants. while she does definitely want to get married, she definitely down’t want This. 

so she’s Gone and this time she’s definitely not coming back. she’s essentially ruined her family’s life in her eyes and she really cannot handle that shame. 

she moves back to the east coast, but this time she crashes with an old friend that has found her way to jersey city. eventually she gets her own place though, a nice apartment in a highrise. its very different from the estate she grew up in, but its better because it isn’t a cage

she gets back into the fashion industry, but this time its moreso in the designer aspect. her modeling turns into helping the other girls look 10/10 and its Nice. she’s pretty sure she’s found what she wants to do. so much so that she winds up starting her own brand

that’s been going on for about 5 years now, and its going pretty freaking swell !!

its been 8 years since her last near marriage, and to be honest she hasn’t had any truly serious relationships since aiden, which was almost 17 years ago. she’s dated and been with folks, but nothing that’s made her feel the way he did. its kind of a bummer because she always planned to be married before 30, but its fine, yknow !! she can just be a . . . successful career woman. she’s definitely NOT sad about it ( she is rip. she wants kids and a white picket fence and a guy that makes her feel like a PRINCESS )

that was a LOT i am SO SORRY

personality

an actual fucking sundrop okay. she brings so much light into my life and she’d probably bring a lot of light into your muses’ lives

super generous and kind. super charitable and wants everyone to be happy and smiling

still doesn’t get a lot of social cues and still kinda has that personal space issue when she gets super excited ( loves to hug and hold hands. physical touch is . . . so important )

honestly think like . . . giselle from enchanted at the end of the movie and also rapunzel from tangled. elle woods is also pretty accurate for certain moments. but with Sleek Business Woman Aesthetic

honestly if it was up to her she’d show up to work in a cute blouse and skirt combo but bare feet :/

if you couldn’t tell, she’s a horribly hopeless romantic. she wants a prince charming so bad, but due to her previous romantic experiences she’s more careful and doesn’t fall in love as easily as she used to

can be kinda judgy of others sometimes, especially about their fashion sense ( the actual fashion police has arrived )

doesn’t do well with people that try to get rises out of people for fun

determined to a fault, considering a lot of her ideas are unrealistic. 

sometimes she makes it work and then other times she can be found crying in the bathroom of her office because everything fell through

can sometimes get her priorities backwards :/ can blow off important things, or push the work onto other people because she has other things she’d rather do or thinks are more important ( even though they really aren’t )

has all the proper training to be a debonair, posh woman, but chooses instead to be as down to earth as possible. you can’t take the fashion style away from her though

has quite a few hobbies due to her time alone. her favorite hobbies are fashion design ( her passion ! ), dancing, and sfx makeup ( yes, you read that right. special effects makeup )

you’d think because of her disney princess aesthetic she’d be a charming singer . . . no. she is tone deaf. can’t even play instruments. would literally fuck up the triangle. its bad.

she can be coordinated in dancing and stitching, but in her day-to-day life she is SO clumsy

loves kids ! loves family ! loves so much ! wants that life so bad !

gives off such an intimidating vibe nowadays but is literally just . . . a marshmallow

kinda misses her parents, kinda doesn’t. mostly just . . . ignores that she ever even had parents

she has a pet cat named leia who is the best and looks like the cat from this instagram

does not at all ever talk about her background. if someone were to recognize her she’d rather they just . . . shhhhhh please ( actually highkey using a fake surname asdjflasj )

she cured my depression, okay

connections

an assistant at work for her to use and abuse but for her to not realize she’s doing it because she’s kinda nice about it but yeah there are some Issues there

PALS. GOOD FRIENDS. A GREAT SQUAD. SHE NEEDS BUDS

maybe the old bridesmaid that moved to jersey city that she moved in with after the duke incident

some exes that lasted a couple months

some dudes that finally showed her just how dickish some guys could be :/

coffee catchup friends~

someone she just Does Not get along with, really brings out the mean bitch in her

someone she’s tutoring in dance ( cuz she still tries to fit that hobby into her schedules like a Fool )

ride or die bff

someone she’s friendzoned

maybe someone she’s interested in and they’re also interested in her but because of Reasons they’re not together and its just a lot of back and forth and AHHH will they won’t they basically

a pal that gets her out for some drinks and dancing and tries to get her to flirt around but she just Can’t

if your muse has kids plz let her near them so she can cry and go through 20 midlife crisis. also works for her to know your muses’ parents if your muse is on the younger side. she just needs to cry

if someone wanted to bring in aiden or the girl he left her at the alter for i would literally cry great tears of joy. just hmu before you do so obvi

anything please i just want everything thank you <3

[thotyssey]

On Point With: Lemon

Undeniably one of NYC drag’s next big superstars, this radiant and bittersweet  young dancing queen will soon be zesting up a venue near you. Thotyssey gives Lemon the squeeze!

Thotyssey: Hey. Lemon!  So are you doing something, er, Lemony right now? Lemon: I’m just sorting through some photos I just got back from a shoot!

Your pic's everywhere these days. I just saw the flyer for your new weekly show... fabulous!

Thank you! Yeah, it’s been fun getting out there. I try to make sure my Instagram is always up to date with something new.

You're on your way to InstaFame! You don't use Facebook much though, I noticed.

Facebook is just so wordy for me. I can’t read, so, I like the photos of Instagram.

Lol! Understood!

You are one of the hottest new queens on the scene.

OMG, you think I’m hot? Just kidding!

Scorching! Tell us, where's your hometown? I’m from Toronto originally! I moved to NYC four years ago to go to The Ailey School for dance. And now I’m in a contemporary ballet dance company during the day, and performing at night as Lemon!

Amazing! By the way, all of us New Yorkers want to move to Toronto now to have a better standard of living, and of course to get away from our terrible Prez. Should we?

Yeah! And I’m single, so all you’d have to do is put a ring on it and you can dip out, catch-free! Go live with hot dad prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Well, he does have the greatest ass in international politics! Back to you... how did drag come into your life?

I mean, drag has always been a part of my life, I think... like, wearing the mop on my head as a kid was me exploring that side of dress up! And I’ve always been a performer. I was always the class clown, I was always a storyteller, I was into makeup and hair and fashion. So I think it just had to happen; but I waited for a time that felt right to me.

Did any Drag Race girls stick out to you as influences, or any local queens?

Well actually I think it was mostly the local queens who really inspired me to begin myself. People like Marti, Brita, Jasmine Rice LaBeija, and the girls of Stephanie’s Child really inspired me.

As a New York dancer, you were probably already in their social circle, right?

Kind of! It’s hard when you have a “day job” to be someone who goes out often and gets to be at shows. But I tried to be there for them as much as possible.

I saw what I think was your first performance as Lemon. It was at a big time drag competition, the Lady Liberty Showdown in February of this year at the Ace Hotel.

Yes! It was Snatch Game, and I did Paris Hilton! That was Lemon’s very first performance. I threw up in my mouth when they called my name!

That's a good way to get in character as Paris. The next time I saw you was a later Lady Liberty, and you won that night!

Yeah, my second Lady Liberty was Pride!

Why "Lemon," by the way? Was Liz from 30 Rock an inspiration?

Not necessarily... although I do love Tina Fey. It was kinda something that came up as a joke, and then I realized how perfect it was for me. I wanted a name that nobody would forget.

It works! Do you feel like you always have to have blonde / yellow hair, or something yellow in your look... like Hedda Lettuce does with green? I like to have something yellow all the time, but I do stick to lighter colored or pastel hairs.

You’re competing in the current season of The Ultimate Drag Pageant at the West End. What made you want to partake, and how are you liking the experience so far?

I really wanted to push myself to do new things, and figured an 8 week pageant with a different theme every week would be a fun way to push it. It has been amazing; the competition is really fierce, so we’re always on our toes. And [host] Marti makes us all feel like royalty.

Good luck... my money’s on you!

Thank you so much!

Aaaaand big exciting news: a new weekly drag show called Woman Crush Wednesday is debuting this week at Hardware starring Allegra Valentine, DD Fuego and yourself! This really caught us all by surprise. How long has this been in the works?

I’m so so excited about it! The girls and I have been working very hard for a while, and I think all three of us just caught the eye of the right people!

This will be the first weekly show for all three of you. What do you think it's gonna be like?

Well, one thing is for sure... because we know that a lot of people are stirring about the show, and about us, we’re all getting ready to prove ourselves in a big way!

 Anything else coming up for you... Halloween plans, etc.?

So many exciting things, but nothing I can talk about just yet! Halloween, I’ll be at Hardware all night. Just finished planning my costume, and it’s going to be very cute!

Werk! Last question: What’s one thing the world needs to know about Lemon?

I just want the world to know how much I love and enjoy the art of drag! I think people close to me already do know, but I can’t wait to share my love and passion with everyone I possibly can!

Spread the love! Thanks, Lemon!

Lemon co-hosts “Woman Crush Wednesdays” (10pm) at Hardware, along with  Allegra Valentine & DD Fuego. Check Thotyssey’s calendar for her scheduled gigs, and follow her on Instagram.

On Point Archives

[jordm]

Heartland Season 12

Now that Season 12 has been confirmed to be a go. Go like... a green light... like donkey kong (pick your poison, or none at all because they all don’t make complete sense and now i’m rambling).

So here are my hopes and dreams for Season 12. Lets see how off (or correct?) I am if I can find this post 5 months from now.

AMY

I would love to see Amy focus on “work”, healing horses with unusual problems and expanding her abilities (ie. like back in the day when she did trick riding and stuff). But beyond that, I want to see her struggle - I want to see her not ‘getting it’ right away, maybe struggling for a few days so that when she finally gets it the end seems hard fought. Maybe even have her fail?

Maybe these ‘horses’ will teach Amy something or inspire her to try something new; or even a horse problem that lasts more than a week and can be linked to other horse storylines (like that horse that eventually went to Bryce the disabled war vet). 

But really, just more Amy and her OWN story lines (ie. not just ‘supporting Ty’ storylines). 

TY

For Ty to not put his family in danger. And for his “absences” to be explained better, via conferences, visiting his mom, covering night shifts, working... etc. And no more Mongolia please. Please. No more Mongolia. I hope he stays close to home and we see him working with Cass/Scott, and similar to Amy, showing him at work more (and maybe struggling/learning new things/growing professionally). 

If Ty is away as often as he was this season, then i hope when he is there, his storyline focuses on family and work. And more Caleb and Ty antics please!!!

TAMY + LYNDY

More Tamy family scenes (how cute was that Lyndy scene?!) and more about them growing as a family, saving up to build a house, having those talks about their future and even some arguments about parenting (like where Lyndy should go to school?). If they have arguments, for them not to be solved right away but let us see them have these conversations. 

I’d love to see them working together to solve horses, more Lyndy storylines (her learning how to ride a horse?). And can Lyndy not be a plot point and maybe have her own driven storyline? I get she is only 1 but even babies have the ability to drive the plot in their own right.

GEORGIE

Dear Georgie, please stay clear of boys - at least until you’re sure you can really stick it out. Focus on school (how long has it been since she has mentioned school/university? Surely that must be coming up soon) and riding instead. After last season with you going back and forth between Dylan and Wyatt... I think you should take some time off from having boyfriends and just have fun. 

To that end, more Jade and Georgie please. I’d enjoy a focus on her friendships, relationships with Peter/Lou, school, competitive jumping and her post-fall finale stuff (for example, her relationship with Peyton). 

I doubt this will ever happen but if she were to visit Vancouver or NYC, an episode or two focusing on that would be kind of nice as well (maybe she considers going to UBC to be near Peter?). Similar to Amy, it’d be nice if she kind of struggled at mastering things since she seems to pick up things a little too quickly sometimes.

JACK

Honestly, status quo Jack as per last season and the season before was pretty good. There is more of a focus of his relationship with Lisa, an emphasis that he is the rock of the family and his story lines have never really let me down. So go Jack!

LISA

All i want from S12 is more Lisa. i liked the focus on her professional life and her money struggles this season, as well as her generally being seen getting a stone (!!!) and being accepted into the family. I hope she becomes more of a central figure in the next season, maybe even providing more guidance to Amy/Ty who are looking to start their lives and potentially make bigger changes. 

An even more in depth to fairfield and it’s operations would also be nice. And of course, more Jisa moments. 

LOU

Ideally, Lou would be around more for her kids. Maybe even have Georgie visit her in NYC and have that be a thing for a few episodes? I don’t know, even more of her relationship co-parenting with Peter, her dealing with the consequences of being away so often (and missing major events), or even just learning more about her Maggie’s business (of which we know very little besides it’s apparently doing well?).

I’d love to see her being a business woman in NYC and how she runs the Maggie’s business, new Maggie’s NYC problems... but again I doubt this would happen.

TIM

Tim... oh Tim. i honestly don’t know. I would have said I wish that we could see him deal with his diagnosis but that really came to nothing.... so I guess more with his relationship with Jade and especially Casey and a lil glimpse into Big River would also be nice.

Since it’s been stated that Casey goes on rodeo tours and sometimes Tim goes with her, what about an episode or two with the two of them on the road? Something like the Tamy road trip in season 8?

OTHERS

 - To learn more about Caleb and Cass’s relationship. We know so much (they have a dog, waiting to have kids...) yet so so so so little. And for Cass not to be a plot point.

- If... if... this is the last season (emphasis on IF) and even if it isn’t, some more throwbacks. maybe someones from Ty’s actual past can come back like Kerry-Anne (played by Paula Brancati) or Kit... and of course a cameo by Wade/his mother would be good as well. Or how about Ashley and having a good ole fashioned reunion?

[erhiem]

Photography thistle brown. Image courtesy of Gauntlet Cheng

Cuckoo Mess Anges D Mode! ‘What’s in fashion?’ You are welcome here. What a stylish seven days have been! This week, as of now, we’re bringing you our go-to picks on the best shows, including Matthew Williams’ double whammy, a dispatch from New York’s totally popping New York, and all you need to know about BALENCIAGA’s Instagram black-out. is required !!! Crazy, we know! Read on to find out what’s in fashion.

Photography ryan o’toole. Image courtesy of Bianca Saunders

Raise a glass to Bianca Saunders!

As you’re certainly well aware, fashion awards season is underway. Following the announcement of Matty Bowen’s double win at the International Woolmark Awards a few weeks ago, we now turn to the ANDAM Awards, great lady List of French fashion awards instituted by Nathalie Dufour. This year’s final seven were basically a hit list of some of our favorite talents – Bianca Saunders, Casablanca, Aria, Ludovic de Saint Cernan, Roch, GmbH and Grace Wells Bonner – so whoever took home the €300,000 cash from Balenciaga CEO Injections and Sal’s advice from Cedric Charbitt would have been totally deserved. Given the nature of fashion contests, though, there can only be one winner, and this year — after blown up the panel with her upcoming SS22 collection — Bianca Saunders scooped up the main gong! She said on the announcement, “I cannot express in words how thrilled I am to receive such a prestigious award and I am truly honored.” “Consulting with such a major player in the industry, as well as financial support like this, will really help me grow my business and realize my lifelong dream – establishing Bianca Saunders as a global fashion brand. ” A dream we are sure will come true. M / s

Image courtesy of Acne Studio

Acne Paper launches new book

Earlier this week, Acne Studios gave us the . took a trip down memory lane with the launch of acne paper, a book that celebrates the legacy of Acne Studios’ brief but remarkable time in the editorial arena. To celebrate the occasion, we asked Thomas Persson, the magazine’s former editor-in-chief, to tell us the stories behind some of the most iconic moments from its collection. If that doesn’t convince you to see it, we should also add that the 560-page coffee-table tome also includes a portfolio by photographer Christopher Smith and new essays by Sarah Mower, Vince Aletti, and Robin Muir. More than just a nostalgic return to the world of fashion editorials, it’s a priceless window before social and digital media took over the game. KK

Photos courtesy of Hunza G, Chromat and ISA Boulder

Designers pushing swimwear

It’s a new world, darling! And after this summer, if your wardrobe isn’t spacious, exuberant, and eco-conscious, you can’t sit with us. Luckily, these four swimwear brands; Issa Boulder, Chromat, KNWLS and Hunza G are here to redefine what it means to be ‘bikini-ready’, showing you what can actually reduce your impact on the planet while still Aa fab beach look is pulling off. From Isa Boulder’s pursuit of what it means to be “oddly sexy” to an appreciation of chromate’s curves, cellulite, and scars, to bikinis made from recycled Lycra yarn, these new jean labels are defying conventions and their own rules. are making. Read more here. KK

Balenciaga logs off

Eight years ago, Phoebe Philo said that “the best thing is when you don’t exist at Google.” Her adage still holds, although if the recent antics of some of fashion’s biggest players are to be noted, the best thing to do today is when you’re not on Instagram. Following in the footsteps of his Kering stablemate Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga has cleaned up his Instagram account! And in case that wasn’t drama enough for you, they have done so just days before the much-anticipated fashion revival of Demna!! fashion gasp!!! Unfortunately, we don’t know more from you what that means, but the timing and the fact that the account itself goes live will mean a big fucking moment is in store. And much more to keep your eyes glued to your screen fast! xoxo M / s

Alex Takes a Moody Beach Trip

Think about a trip to the beach, but make it appealing. Matthew Williams did just that to present his latest collection for 1017 ALYX 9SM’s, “BEYOND.” In a Brody movie, the American designer took us on a surreal sci-fi trip to the shores of Planet Alix and fielded a rich collection with hippie-inspired styling, futuristic textures, and oversized hoodies. A colorful bikini with matching leggings, a structured double-layered hoodie, distressed jersey, soft cotton dress with twist and knot details, and an armor-like leather moto jacket, it was a perfect synthesis of fantasy, comfort, and wearability—one that Just what we all want from a post-pandemic look! KK

Givenchy Resort in Paris Was About an American

Think your schedule is packed? Well, imagine what Matthew Williams must have looked like! Long booked and busy, these past seven days the California-based designer created the Alyx . left my latest collection for and A whole ‘Nother One for Givenchy! In his latest outing for a Parisian home, he decided to focus on the spaces he calls home. “In my collection, I always speak to living reality,” he says. “For Spring 2022, our first pre-collection runway show, I wanted to bring together my American roots and my brand new life in Paris.” Here, a sense of transatlantic cross-pollination came through strong in the pieces, suggesting a unique sense of Parisian chic – think high-collared dresses with armor-like leather sleeves and cut-out slinky evening dresses. Jacket – street and quirky with a healthy dash to American. “There is an energy to strike out for a new adventure, of creating something familiar yet completely new,” says Matthews, a key vehicle for that sense of newness is his collaboration with Seattle-born, Mexico-based artist Chito. , whose looks, accessories and even expressive graphics feature on the Rimowa suitcase. Chapeau, Matthew! Who doesn’t love an American in Paris! M / s

Photography thistle brown. Image courtesy of Gauntlet Cheng

Gauntlet Cheng takes to New York at night

New York, New York, it’s one hellish city… and it’s back! In fact, as you may have seen on your screen when all the elite fashion lesbians in town together livestreamed Madonna crawling over a bar and bubbly (we love it!), the Big Apple is alive and kicking once again. is killing. There are very few people, however, more thrilled to see life return to their streets than Esther Gauntlett and Jenny Cheng, the combined force behind — you guessed it — Gauntlett Cheng, and stylist and photographer Thistle Brown. In fact, they’re so excited that they even paid tribute to the lively night spirit of their newly-revived hometown in their recent campaign, featuring none other than Coco Gordon Moore. Here, all three of us need to know about the photos, what they missed most about New York at night, and their post-wax party essentials. M / s

hi friends! For those not familiar with Gauntlet Cheng, quickly tell us the story behind the brand, and how you work together. Esther Gauntlet: Jenny and I met about 7 years ago while interning together at Eckhaus Latta. Our first shoot with thistle was in 2018 at a love motel in New Jersey. We connected immediately and realized that he really understood our clothes and the way we work.

And for those of us not in New York right now, tell us: What’s the atmosphere like? like: It’s just honestly crazy. The roads are completely packed and there is a kind of mental energy everywhere. We shot it in Times Square on a Saturday night and I assumed it would be quiet – theaters are still closed and that was before a lot of restrictions were lifted. It was really wild though – people on ATV bikes, people everywhere and kids taking prom pictures. I feel like we were all a lot more excited and excited out there.

thistle brown: New York is definitely back, alive and kicking!

jenny cheng: Plus, it’s hot in New York right now, and we’re all reconnecting and embracing each other despite the stickiness.

Photography thistle brown. Image courtesy of Gauntlet Cheng

What is the story behind the campaign? TB: I moved back to NYC after living in New Zealand (where I grew up) for a few months. I think I leaned back on my teen melancholy albums while I was there. I couldn’t stop listening to PJ Harvey City Stories, Sea Stories. The album is a love song for NYC, it’s about being young and open to a city that treats you like an unlikely lover. When the girls asked me to shoot something, I thought we needed to shoot in the thick of it, to bring back the lights and all those vibes of Manhattan.

JC: We wanted to capture a classic New York City look, but with a sense of newness – a spring energy.

What made Coco Gordon Moore your ideal star? TB: I’ve always been inspired by Coco’s mystery, grace and spontaneity. There’s something so outspoken about her while at the same time having a delicate sensibility. To be honest, I could make a book about cocoa.

like: Coco has an incredible energy – everything came alive on her but she really looks home.

JC: Totally, Coco is a star! It was great to see the synergy between thistle, cocoa and the city. It was so magical and so energizing, especially when Coco’s curls were open.

There is quite a sensual, nocturnal energy to the images. What have you missed the most about NYC nightlife? like: I missed the ease of it. The feeling of walking on a hot summer night and you can bump into anyone, and anything can happen.

JC: I used to remember those holiday parties we would throw where we would dress up and see all our friends. Hopefully we can do another one soon.

TBI think New York nightlife is now beyond a relic, we’ve realized that the city can’t function without it. We have a lot of friends who depend on it for income too, so it’s really important that we don’t forget how special it really is.

Photography thistle brown. Image courtesy of Gauntlet Cheng

Tell us about the night Coco is going out. where is she going? Who is she looking at? like: I think there’s a certain undoing in the photos, like she’s going out and coming back from something. It feels like she sorts herself in the big city but is at home and at ease there.

JC: She doesn’t have a plan, she’s taking everything in it, taking it as it goes, feeling a little flirty.

TB: She is just doing her job, looking lost but never alone. Making moves and eventually landing the right party.

Finally, what are your top five post-pandemic New York nightlife? E: Time to wear a dress again! A bag that can fit a bottle of wine you’ll probably drink by the river. The people you love. People you haven’t seen in a long time. It’s only four, but don’t think you really need more than that…

J: Shooting hoops in the park in the evening, eating chips and walking on the river with friends, wearing beach-ready clothes, rose water mist, and feeling sexy in no time.

T: Chapstick, bike at night, showing skin, dancing in the streets or on the river, and smooching crushes you couldn’t catch before.

.

The post Balenciaga’s black-out and New York’s big return: What’s in fashion? appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

[lauramkaye]

On Research And Fanfiction

When you hear someone talking about research for their fanfic, what do you think of? A historical AU, maybe? Or an AU where the characters are part of a different, very technical profession? It’s true that it’s important to research for those kinds of stories, but I’d like to make a case that making research a part of your normal writing process will lead to better stories.

I’m trying to think if there is any story I’ve written, at least in the last several years, where I didn’t research at least something, and honestly even the very short ones had some element of research to it. For example, for Problem To The Answer, I looked up the original news story that inspired the fic, as well as travel times between New York and DC. In Storage War I looked up information about storage units, not because it was specifically going into the story, but to give me a better mental image of the setting. 

Now, when I say “research,” I’m not always talking about the kind of research you’d do for school; a lot of times it’s as simple as a quick Google to check on something. For example, I’m currently working on a story that is set in May 2009. I wanted to include a throwaway line where a character makes a joke about the show Jersey Shore. So I looked it up, but discovered that Jersey Shore started airing in December 2009. So out the line went.

That’s not to say that everything has to be accurate; I change things for artistic reasons all the time. But I only do it on purpose, when I choose to, for things that are important to the fic.

For a longer example, I will take the story I finished most recently, my C/C Exchange fic, A Guy Like You Should Wear A Warning. On the face of it, you wouldn’t think that story would need that much research, right? It’s a soulmate story set on a cruise ship! It’s full of absurdity!

It’s also full of research. I researched the HELL out of that story. How, you ask? (Note: the following list will spoil some plot elements if you haven’t read the story yet). Behind the cut, a description of the stuff I researched while writing it:

Historical setting: whether I like to admit it or not, 2004 was 13 years ago and things were different then. I looked up things like fashion trends, makeup trends, hit songs, and most notably, the state of cell phones. 2004 was the year that the Motorola RAZR was the hot new phone, and smartphones just weren’t a thing yet. Some of this went into the story (for instance, Tyler’s clothing choices, Melinda’s pink lipgloss, that they all have flip or candy bar phones) and some were just to get the setting clear in my head while I wrote. I also consulted calendars for 1992 and 2004 to make sure I got dates and days of the week correct for the sections of the story set then. 

Story setting: The story action largely happens on the David Hasselhoff fan cruise. While the actual DH fan cruise occurred in November 2017, I relied extensively on the information available online about it when writing the story. Specifically, I moved it from early November 2017 to early November 2004. I also moved the meet and greet event from an afternoon event to a brunch for plot reasons. Everything else about the trip is accurate: the way that they would have traveled to the cruise from New York (I looked up flights), the way they would have gotten to Rome, the cruise schedule and stops. I also looked up maps and photographs of the cruise ship and referred to them extensively; I spent a lot of time on cruise vacationer forums while writing this story.

Phil’s studies: I looked up various colleges with good reputations in Phil’s field, and the sorts of classes he would take; I looked up actual classes at UMW; I looked up actual cryptography and cipher information. This is all current rather than historical, but I figure it’s close enough for these purposes. The point of the research isn’t to be completely 100% accurate in every respect, but more to make sure that nothing is obviously, jarringly wrong for most readers.

Events on shore: In the part of the story where Phil goes ashore in Rome, he goes to shops that really exist on the road that the story says he is on, and he goes to them in more or less geographic order, according to Google Maps. I also looked up actual products from those stores to describe. Now, these items are current (2017) rather than historical (since it wasn’t easy to find 2004 stuff online), but I still think it helps give these parts of the story verisimilitude. I also looked up the kinds of agriculture done in Catalonia for the big showdown at the end, and the actual area of Catalonia (so that when Phil says “this farm is fifty acres, I doubt that’s even one percent of Catalonia,” he is actually verifiably correct.)

Russian stuff: Since Clint’s soulmark is in Russian and Russian language is key to the story, I spent a lot of time working on the Russian parts of this story. For Clint’s soulmark, I posted a question on an online forum for Russian speakers to help me figure out something that would be appropriate. My first thought was to ask the translation for “Are you fucking kidding me?”, but as I engaged with the Russian speakers, I learned that it just wasn’t that simple. Profanity in Russian is very different than it is in English, and so much depends on the context and relationship between the speakers. The phrase we finally settled on, Еще чего не хватало, is literally translated something like “this is just the last thing I need,” but has a negative and somewhat sarcastic connotation, so that a good idiomatic equivalent in English is “I need this like I need a hole in the head.” For the other Russian, I depended on a really cool website that isn’t a dictionary but a translation search engine called Reverso Context. The great thing about this tool is that, unlike dictionaries, you can search entire sentences and phrases, and get an assortment of translated passages that match, so you can see the various ways the phrase might get used. It means you’ll get a better result than just typing something into Google Translate would give you. I use Reverso Context in combination with dictionaries and Google Translate in order to get the best idea possible of what I’m saying. It doesn’t substitute for a native speaker beta, but it’s a good fallback position. I also did a lot of research into Russian nomenclature and diminutive names, and into Russian profanity (which is SO INTERESTING, look up mat sometimes and read about it.)

David Hasselhoff: I looked up his albums released up to and including 2004. I listened to clips of his music (it is so bad you guys) and watched videos of his concert performances (OMG the LED jacket is really a thing). All the songs and medleys and such that I describe him doing are real things he’s really done. I also looked up his online merch (Melinda’s bedazzled Don’t Hassle The Hoff shirt is real) and watched the video he made promoting the cruise, to get an idea of his speech patterns for the few places when he speaks in the story.

There are a lot of other little miscellaneous things I looked up - how far ahead of getting married in NYC you need to get the license; a real place in South America that had a munitions depot explosion; grain silo explosions and how they happen; the average temperatures on the Mediterranean Sea in November; how much a suit costs at Brioni; the organizational structure of the FBI, etc. Even Barney Barton being in the FBI is rooted in canon - that’s something that Barney really has done in the comics.

This probably all sounds like WAY TOO MUCH WORK, but most of these things didn’t take a huge amount of time - it was more like “oh, wait, they didn’t have smartphones in 04, did they?” and then a quick Google, or scan of a wiki page. I spent my writing time with a lot of open tabs of maps, cruise ship layouts, etc., that I would refer to when I was trying to figure out where the characters were going. Because I have research baked in to my process, it happens mainly when I am outlining, with occasional quick Googles to double-check stuff I throw in when I’m writing.

Would the story be worse if I hadn’t done all this? I think it would. I think the research makes the story feel true, rooted in the real world, and that gives me a lot more latitude to go nuts with things like soulmates and Russian mob bros and throwing David Hasselhoff’s mimosa in someone’s face. Also, hopefully, if I have a reader who happens to know a lot about Russian, or Rome, or majoring in political science, or David Hasselhoff, that reader won’t be thrown out of the story by something obviously wrong. (also, open invitation: if you are reading a fic of mine and see something obviously wrong, I WELCOME THAT KNOWLEDGE and will fix it if I can without having to rewrite major bits of the story.)

I don’t expect everyone to be QUITE as intense about research as I am--I admit I’m pretty darn intense about research. But I would like to encourage other writers to make at least some research part of their process! It leads to better stories all around, and sometimes the things you find out help you make your stories better in cool new directions.

[putthison]

But What Clothes Do You Truly Wear?

Apparently, people in fashion are just like us. Despite having closets overflowing with options, most people in this business rely on the same pieces day-to-day. 

Part of it is about practicality. Who really has time to coordinate all the outerwear and off-color pants we once aspired to wear, but now just sit untouched in our closets? Most of us have a handful of good outfits cataloged in our head, which we cycle through every week and hope nobody notices. Vogue ran a story about this earlier this year:

Like an exploding volcano of denim and satin, a tidal wave of cashmere and cotton, our clothes threaten to overtake our tiny apartments, to bury us alive under tees and trousers. This wouldn’t be so bad, maybe, if we actually wore all this stuff, if 365 days meant 365 different outfits—730 if we changed for evening! But nooo. In fact, most of us rely on a few favorites in serious rotation, leaving the rest of the orphans in the closet begging for crumbs.

To judge just how severe this situation has become, and with spring in full flower and the temptation to buy still more!—more!—beckoning from every shop and laptop, I asked some of my Vogue colleagues to share with me what it is they actually wear from their bursting closets.

The Vogue story is about womenswear, so we decided to pose the same question to stylish figures in the menswear trade. This post isn’t about wardrobe essentials -- a tired theme that ought to be retired -- but rather the personal habits of certain people who inspire us. With all the options they have in their wardrobes, what do they truly wear?

Mark Cho, Co-Founder of The Armoury

Given my work, I rotate through a lot of clothing depending on what we have in-store, but there are a few things that almost always make it into my weekly rotation. 

The first are chinos either in khaki or olive. I wear our Army Chino, which is cut with a full leg and medium-high rise. I tend to pair it with short, casual jackets such as our Ring Jacket A-1 bomber or house label City Hunter. They also work with button-down shirts, polos, sneakers, and loafers. 

The second is a navy suit. I have a double-breasted, wool-mohair blend suit from Ciccio, which has carried me through countless occasions where I need to look a little sharper without standing out too much. I wear this about once a week.

The third is some kind of “fancy” sport coat. I think people can get too carried away with trying to make everything as versatile as possible. Sometimes, it’s great to just have something that reflects a love for cloth and design. I like larger scale patterns for winter and smaller scale patterns for summer. Larger for winter because I find those patterns work well in tweeds and fuzzier, woolen fabrics. For the summer, I like smaller, crisper patterns in wool and wool-linen-silk blends. Life’s too short to only wear plain navy.

Finally, I like things in olive. Just as most men feel compelled to keep some navy as part of their weekly rotation, I try to have something in olive. I have a few pairs of olive trousers in different weights and cuts for this purpose. They pair well with jackets in tan, light brown, and dark blue.

Alessandro Squarzi, Founder of Fortela

My style has always remained the same over the years. I like to call it gypsy-classic – a mix between my classic roots and love for vintage militaria, denim, and Navajo jewelry. My everyday pieces include white pants, vintage military shirts, a vintage Elephant bandanas, and Navajo charms. These are like second skin for me year-round. 

In the winter, I often wear my father’s camel coat. It’s an evergreen piece – always elegant. In the summer, my uniform includes raw Fortela jeans and a white t-shirt. I’m also a big fan of English and American shoes. Edward Green and Alden are my first choices, but if I have to wear sneakers, it’s always Vans.   

Brian Davis, Founder of Wooden Sleepers

Summer in NYC is brutal. It’s hot, humid, and generally unbearable, so I try to balance between comfort and style. For footwear, I rotate between Sperry CPO sneakers and Clark’s desert boots. Shirts, I stick with vintage OCBDs and madras button-ups from Brooks Brothers; pants are either cut-off military chinos from the 1960s or cutoff fatigues in OG-107 cloth. For the rare, cool summer evening, I keep a vintage Vietnam-era jungle jacket or French workwear jacket on-hand for layering. Everything is loose-fit and designed for the punishing heat.

NYC winters can be equally brutal, so a good pair of boots is a must. I go between two pairs of Chippewa service boots – one in black, the other in brown. I don’t wear denim in the summer, so once the temperatures drop, I’m on a never-ending mission to find jeans with the highest rise and fullest cut possible. Right now, I rotate between RRL’s straight-leg cut, The Real McCoy’s Lot. 003, and Levi’s Vintage Clothing 1955 501s. 

Fall and winter are my favorite seasons because I get to break out my vintage grails – a Brown’s Beach jacket from the 1950s, USN deck jacket from the ‘40s, and an N-3b parka. But since we’re being totally honest, I mostly just end up throwing on an $80 Carhartt duck chore coat my mother-in-law gifted me a few years ago for Christmas. I layer it over a thermal-lined hoodie if I need a little extra warmth. I also wear a navy watch cap every day, which I bought for $15, as well as some kind of work shirt – flannel or chambray, mostly. Fall and winter style for me is about utility. 

Kenji Cheung, Co-Founder of Bryceland’s

Vintage eyewear is important to me, and I use my frames to complement whatever I’m wearing for the day. Browline frames go well with Ivy Style tailoring (navy or tweed sport coats, which I wear with vintage Levi’s or our Bryceland’s jeans). A classic, 1950s, thick French-style frame also goes well with oxford-cloth button-down shirts, high-waist trousers, and a vintage jacket in either denim or leather. 

I’m also obsessed with vintage Rolexes and Native American ingot silver jewelry. I find they look great with classic tailoring and/ or vintage outfits (or a mix of the two). A gold bubble-back Rolex goes well with a navy two-piece suit. Likewise, a Native American pin can be a nice touch on the lapel of a three-piece, dark gray, worsted suit. I wear one with a 20th-century, sterling silver, hunting pocket-watch and a thick whirling log bracelet. 

Come back tomorrow for part two of this series, where we cover four more of our favorite people in the menswear trade.

[rebeccaueditor]

Flanelle Magazine - Unity Issue #22 Interview: Rebecca U Photos: Eva Al Desnudo Eva Losada a.k.a. @Eva.Al.Desnudo, Highsnobiety and SHOWstudio contributor, the British Fashion Awards’, ‘New Wave: creatives’ nominee, and global fashion week voyager, who has worked with Loewe, Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas Y-3, discusses quitting your day job, and the creativity displayed in backstage coverage. Before Eva Al Desnudo, your professional work history started with another profession, poles apart from what you do today. Detail the transition from working as a food safety auditor up until this point. I have always loved fashion and photography, I used to draw up designs when I was a teen and have always been taking photos for fun, but during that time in Spain, it was difficult to make a living with my interests, so I decided to study ‘Food Science and Technology’ and ‘Engineering’. The stories of my aunty living in London in the 80’s inspired me to move here. In London, I took up some courses in styling and started to go to London’s Fashion Weeks’ to feel the atmosphere. I brought my camera along to take some photos for fun, I was super shy in the beginning. Soon after starting, a magazine from London contacted me through Instagram, asking if they could publish my images. I was surprised, this was when I realised I wanted to do this more, as many people were telling me my photos were good. The season after, I was covering London Fashion Week street style for Bullett magazine (NYC) and L’Officiel Manila. Using the holidays from my day job, I decided to go to Paris Fashion Week. Quite soon after that, a season later, I found myself working for Highsnobiety magazine, who I am still a regular contributor to. They believed in me since the very beginning, I will always be thankful for their support. It was becoming more challenging to use my holidays from my day job as a food auditor to travel to NYC, London and Paris. Quite soon into my career, I was confirmed to work with Highsnobiety on a regular basis to cover all the fashion weeks for them, this opportunity did not make me think twice about quitting my day job. How do you define backstage photography?

Backstage, you are shooting models, the incredible styling and makeup is already there for you to capture, sometimes, especially smaller brands, photographers can have more freedom to move around and you can create amazing editorial like images. I love to play with the resources available, be the most creative as possible and challenge myself. I usually shoot backstage without a flash as I like to play with shadows and the existing light on location, which sometimes can be a bit difficult, but always fun. Backstage, many people are working at the same time, with just a few minutes to have everything perfect, makeup, hair, styling, photographers, all this is happening, usually in a tiny space, which can also be challenging. When I’m selecting a photographer for backstage, I consider their skill, style and demeanour. How much importance is placed on these points of consideration?

I think it is very important, if you compare the same backstage coverage from various photographers, you can see the difference. In a small environment, with the same models, you cannot imagine the numerous styles of backstage coverage which could result from the shared situation, this is also the beautiful part of it. Some people shoot with flash, others use natural light, I like to shoot moody images, with strong shadows. Some photographers request the models to act natural, others want them to pose in a more traditional way, some others may ask them to smile, to be serious or moody. I love seeing the different perspectives and styles from photographers who are shooting the same subject and environment.

What personal rules do you follow when you're shooting in an environment where a million-and-one things are going on behind-the-scenes?

I do not follow rules; I just follow my eye, as you said, a million things are happening so you need to be ‘awake’ to capture the right moment, you have to be fast and alert. I love to shoot the models getting their last details done in the line-up, as this is more natural, I also play around with the varied backgrounds available to capture different angles and scenes, on the other hand, it’s great when the brands set up an area for first looks with a clear background and good lighting, the result looks like an editorial shot in a studio. You travel six months a year to shoot globally, besides London and Spain, where else in the world would you call home?

Definitely Tokyo, I can say this is the only city I feel very sad when leaving. I love the city, the best part is the people there, I am lucky to have a group of friends who take me out every day to the most amazing performances, parties and dinners, so the city definitely feels like home. I think the meaning of friendship is very similar to the Mediterranean one, so many times I feel more at home in Japan than in London. NYC is a bit the same, people are very friendly and they are open to meeting new people.

The experiences of shooting an editorial in Tokyo must be quite different to shooting in the United Kingdom or Europe.  How does production and team coordination differ between countries or continents?

It is different, although recently with the spike in globalisation, access to social media and people often moving from place to place, the teams are made up of people from all over the world. I love shooting editorials in Tokyo, especially on location, Tokyo has so much to offer. I think production and coordination is similar to other countries due to the reason I stated before, the differences you can find are in the things which are external, for example, requesting permission to shoot, dealing with model agencies, lighting and rental places. The first barrier is the language, it is always helpful to work with a local to set up the shoot, also, the process in Tokyo can take a bit longer compared to London or NYC. What is the future of Fashion Week? Do you foresee any changes in the way it runs?

This is a very common conversation nowadays, everybody, brands, press, buyers are talking about it, trying new ways of showing collections, some doing ‘co-ed’ shows, as nowadays, it does not make much sense to do separate shows, also, some people are using technology to show their collections. Every season, more and more brands are moving to Paris, it feels condensed in the city. I still think the shows are the most beautiful experiences, the music, the lights, to view the clothes in full motion, digital does not feel the same to me, plus, we have to admit, we all love going to fashion week, the travel, dinners, and parties, are things which are hard not to love. If we think about the impact of fashion week, which occurs four times a year, in many cities, questions about whether it is sustainable do arise. I personally think this ultra fast fashion we have nowadays is going to have to slow down, we are constantly overexposed to new content every day. We are not able to fully appreciate it. There are some designers who have six collections a year, the question is, do we really need that many? The last few years you see people in the industry working towards sustainable production, the topic of ‘upcycling’ has become a common subject during fashion week.

The reality of a photographer trying to make their bread and butter from this kind of work, any insight you would like to share?

The last few years have seen a huge rise in people taking up photography, it has gotten to a point where people are working for free or for very little money, the pay doesn't even cover travel expenses, the acceptance of this is causing the business to go down. Season after season, I always have a bunch of publications asking me to ‘work’ for them, they want you to shoot five to six shows a day, by the end of our conversation, I discover there is no budget or they offer something so little which does not allow you to earn any money after expenses. The problem is that there are so many people out there available to shoot for free who are just looking for an Instagram tag from a big publication, hoping this would eventually make a living for them sometime in the future, usually, this is not the case, if you do not give yourself value, nobody else will. A couple of years ago, we created the “No Free Photos” movement, to try to fight this situation, if people continue to accept work free of charge or for a low rate, it is going to be impossible to better the situation for photographers.

Street style is no longer your focus, what encouraged the transition? Street style has changed a lot, before we used to have the ‘unwritten rules for street style’, we used to respect each other by allowing space for others to shoot, not jumping on somebody else’s photo. Respect is now lost, the number of photographers outside the shows had increased by 80%, it was becoming too difficult to capture clean and candid images. In the past, everything was more natural, with the rise of influencers, this natural element has been lost, the people who are paid to dress head to toe in one brand lowered my interest in street style. I also started gaining more jobs in editorial, campaign and backstage shoots, which is what I am currently focused on.

My first exposure to street style snaps was through The Face, i-D's 1980's 'Straight Up' and FRUiTS magazine. Who are your favourite photographers and/or coverage?

I think street style coverage like FRUiTS is very interesting, street style in Japan is still one of my favourites as people really dress like this on a day-to-day basis, they are very creative, they use a lot of vintage garments, transform them, customise them to create very individual, unique looks. It is probably one of the very few places that do not follow the masses in regards to fashion. I admire Nick Knight, Araki, Irving Penn, Diane Arbush and Tim Walker, they are all very different, these artists are a continuous source of inspiration for me, as well as movies.

Who is Eva.Al.Desnudo today? What are you focused on in the year 2020 and onwards?

I am now a more mature me at work, I know what I want, and what I do not want, I am working hard to achieve the direction I am currently aiming for, I plan for big changes this year. I am very focused on editorial and campaign work with brands and magazines, as well as workshops, like the one I had recently done for Apple, I will also continue doing backstage during all the global Fashion Weeks I attend.