#I feel like the plot idea is everywhere and its trying to be socially aware but its just not as socially aware as it pretends to be

[reddogf13]

beekeeper Ethan AU

i just started a little fanfiction idea, but am stuck in the -wanna get to the good parts, but the beginnings slow-. so im sharing the plot idea early here to satisfy it. :v//

so basically, Ethan's mold and the Dimitrescu sisters accidentally end up in a positive symbiotic relationship. i thought id be cool as real life insects do get positives from mold, or severe trouble.

leaf cutter ants farm mold to eat, while leaf cutter bees don't eat it, but build with it to keep nastier molds away.

while on the other hand you have deadly mold like cordyceps that kill insects to be zombie like. and i like to think that if Ethan was more aggressive like Eveline, then "his mold" may have worked like hers did. but being passive it takes a more -work together- approach.

it starts when, while fighting and not paying attention, Ethan is injured after a cliff fall and Bela gets stuck with him trying to survive the cold after being too gung-ho on chasing him out the kitchen window.

Ethan feels bad as he never wanted to kill anybody and decides to help her out. to easily stay warm and travel she basically attaches to him as the fly swarm. so now Ethan awkwardly travels with Bela as a crawling fly vest he really tries not to swat or scratch at as it crawls around.

Ethan originally was just gonna escort her back to the castle until he sees a large vanity get launched out the side of it. (Alcina assumes her daughters dead.) and so Ethan decides to take a rain check on going back there. earning him a few bug bites from Bela as shes, of course, pissed to be stuck with him in the snowy outsides. but unable to kill him as she'd die/ be stuck in the snowy village.

hes still trying to find his daughter while she tries to interfere as she still works for Miranda in a way.

but heres where rapid insect and mold evolution kicks in.

Ethan is unintentional shedding micro mold spores everywhere, but since hes not actively aware enough to influence them. they just die off pretty quickly and are extremely unnoticeable. however, since Bela is constantly attached to him, shes being dusted in the mold that manages to stay alive from close contact with ethans body. this doesint do anything really until she has to eat.

Ethan definitely doesin't want her drinking the blood off his wounds so he forces her to eat off all the dead lycans left on his path. which then really starts the positive cycle as Bela unintentionally brings back a little blood and rotten meat bits on the swarm.

the mold lives off of the human food Ethan eats, but its not the best for it. like actual mold it likes rotten or dead things. and after being lightly coated in it off the swarm it gets more of a vital boost. his healing improves and unknowingly the spores hes spreading briefly toxify the land.

the black god mold is old and aggressive, but ethan's was made to be a far more aggressive weapon. it becomes a anti black god fungal and poisoning its presence, including the amount infesting the girls/ lords. which changes their temperaments slightly the longer they linger around him.

bela's changes start by the insects growing bigger. promoting them to take off larger chunks of meat and return with more gore for the mold. their larger size also gave Ethan/ the mold better defense. when a lycan tackles him, they get attacked back by a pissed off swarm that rips chunks off them.

the swarm also begins picking up on more social, bee like, behaviors. talking is too much of a risk at times and a blizzard can be too cold for her to talk anymore. having the swarm "talk" or answer by a rolling wave or flash of movement.

which then eventually leads to her swarm growing fuzz to withstand the cold temps a bit better. overtime she is able to leave Ethan for a few minutes before needing to return. while before it was hardly for a sec or two. the swarm gets better at keeping still on him rather then constantly crawling. blending in more like a false vest unless someone gets a closer look.

i imagine chris and his squad had a heart attack when meeting Ethan again. pushing him around and then immediately receiving a hostile swarm attack. before Salvatore came crashing through.

eventually bela and ethan do figure out mirandas plans and that she really has no care for the lords. which infuriates bela into joining ethans campaign against her. they do eventually return to the castle where her family notices the extreme difference in their bugs.

having become more of a mutant vulture bee then a parasitic fly.

(vulture bees do exist and are pretty cool. :D)

bela's insects are two times bigger(and growing), have better communication across the swarm, better cold resist, stronger exoskeleton and a stronger bigger bite.

from here the girls learn to do other "bee things" like make a healing blood honey and propolis(bee glue) and begin sticking things from decorations to lycan bones as armor on ethan.

[4thewynne]

Superman vs Lex Luthor: Autism vs ADHD

So I had this random thought that probably can be refuted many times over when looked at by others, thought I'd share it anyway to see if anyone wants to correct, add on, or share their own thoughts.

Clark Kent

Clark is healthly living with functional Autism. He likes being himself, he is shy and humble, has trouble making eye contact, struggles with imagination, loves dealing with facts and investigating truths (reporter), has constant low to mid level anxiety that he might hurt someone, his parents raised him to be aware and responsible for his actions. This lead to his job in reporting. He doesn't have to be physically out there where accidents can happen and he can do good in the world. Meanwhile his, "Masking" is Superman. He feigns what he thinks is a confident hero. Yes, I am intentally believing the opposite of what Bill thinks in Kill Bill. Bill forgets Clark's origins other than being an alien so Bill is wrong about Superman.Being Superman also lets Clark fly off when his "public exposure" meter is too full (forgive me citizen, I hear a cat in a tree 3 blocks away I must rescue. -flys away-). Along with that though is his strong Kansas upbringing.

His parents taught him humility. To try not to hurt others, that he has abilities and capabilities others don't. People will resent him for it so to stay humble and careful so they don't resent him. But help whenever and where ever he can. But its best not to take credit if you can help it. He was fed the American propaganda of American ideals and believes in those ideals strongly. As he became an adult and learned the truths behind history also lead to passion for reporting. He hates lies and people doing things for the "greater good". Expect people to live to the ideals and not have them forced. So tries to be a great example as Sups while exposing falsehoods as Clark. This often leads to more actual good being done by Clark and feeling more rewarding while Sups is more flashy heroy good acts when reporting doesn't get things done fast enough. But Clark still thinks of Sups only as a Mask.

Now, Lex Luthor. Lex is unhealthy/untreated ADHD. A billionaire born to wealth with tons of imagination and ideas with little dedication to seeing things through. Only child raised from old money, servants to meet his needs, and best schooling available. He often would mask by pure brute force of his brilliance. It can be exhausting to him because he just wants things done and DONE NOW. Often frustrated by everyone not thinking as fast as him. He would often make others feel like crap because he would think circles around them. This also led to a great level of narcissism. It's not ADHD alone but his aloof parents, privileged birth, and social conditioning that make him the way he is. Being fed American culture growing up, he sees the ideal of America as only a dream and sees how things "really" are. He can make everything better if people would just do as he says. After all, he is smarter than everyone. Not just in the room but everywhere. Often forcing his will on others through any means possible. He has hundreds, no billions of ideas of how to improve things and the wealth and means to make his thoughts a reality. He hires people who hate dealing with him but he pays them to make his reality. Because what is reality? Just what you can make of it. He thinks it is his own hard work that got him to where he is, when the truth was just people paid to fill the gaps in his brilliantly distracted mind that comes up with windfall ideas and partial solutions. This often also leads to his downfall. He never got treated for his condition ("psh, ADHD isn't real anyways. Just something lazy people make up as an excuse to leave things unfinished. Now you got the reports on those 5 projects I gave you? I have a Tee time with the President in an hour to make."). So his plots often have holes as he gets lost in the wrong details, is juggling too much at once, or his plans and thoughts are just too grand for the reality of what people can do and there is only so much that money can do. He also spends a lot of time a lone and distancing himself from others due to his untreated state causes him nothing but frustration when people can't keep up with his thoughts or understand him when he jumps from idea to idea. He doesn't mask, he hides and pays someone to be between him and the "stupid" people. Those someones often getting fired and replaced for not being loyal enough, able to keep up, or what ever his imagination drums up as the cause.

Lex hates Superman because of all the gifts Superman has and refuses to do anything other than piddly acts of heroism. With all that strength and ability, he can actually force the world to be better with him at the head. Honestly, he is often emblematic of the realities of the United States. Not the ideals. If he can just BE The True Superman, laws will no longer apply to him, because no prison can hold him and no weapon can hurt him. Clark on the other hand cares about the Truth and meeting the ideals. He sees the failures of the systems but also, through his upbringing, knows he alone cannot solve everything. So he goes out to do what little good he can. Prevents what tragedies he can. But tries not to do too much because he knows he can't do everything. It would drive him mad or break him.

[thebibliosphere]

So I'm currently unemployed because I got fired for taking too much sick leave (it was legally sketchy blah blah blah but in the end I just can't work and take care of myself and investigate my mystery health problems at the same time). So I've been spending more time writing!

I really admire your writing and loved Hunger Pangs. I'm looking forward to the poly elements developing and I'm wondering if you have any advice for writing about poly. I've made one of my projects a snarky take on "write what you know" ... Apparently what I know is southern gothic meets Pacific northwest gothic, chronic illness pandemic surrealism, and falling back-asswards into threesomes.

I know this is a very open-ended question and I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious about it if you have the energy. As a writer, trying to write honestly / realistically about polyamory/enm, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what's different about portraying monogamy or nonmonogamy in books, romance or erotica or otherwise.

I'm trying to read examples but it's hard to find examples that fit the niche I'm looking at. Excuse me if this question is nonsense, it's the cluster headaches.

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with all that and solidarity on the cluster headaches. But I'm glad you're finding an outlet through writing! And I hope you're happy with an open-ended ramble in response because oh boy, there's a lot I could talk about and I could probably do a better job of answering this sort of thing with more specific questions, but let's see where we end up.

There's definitely a big difference between writing polyamory/ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and what people often expect from monogamous love stories.

Just even from a purely sales and marketing standpoint, the moment you write anything polyamorous (or even just straight up LGBTQIA+ without the ENM) you're going to get considered closer to being erotica/obscene than hetero romances. It's an unfair bias, but it's one that exists in our society. But also the Amazon algorithm and their shitty, shitty human censors. Especially the ones that work the weekends. (Talking to you, Carlos 🖕.)

So not only do you start out hyper-aware that you're writing something that is highly stigmatized or fetishized (at least I'm hyper-aware) but that you are also writing for a niche market that is starving for positive content because the content that exists is either limited, not what they want, or is problematic in some fashion i.e. highly stigmatized or fetishy. And even then, the wants, desires, and expectations of the community you're writing for are complex and wildly varied and hard to fit into an easy formula.

When writing monogamous love stories, there is a set expectation that’s really hard to fuck up once you know it. X person meets Y. Attraction happens, followed by some sort of minor conflict/resolution. Other plot may happen. A greater catalyst involving personal growth for both parties (hopefully) happens. Follow the equation to its ultimate resolution and achieve Happily Ever After. 

But writing ENM is... a lot more difficult, if only because of the pure scope of possibilities. You could try to follow the same equation and shove three (or more) people into it, but it rarely works well. Usually because if you’re doing it right, you won’t have enough room in a single character arc to allow for enough growth, and if ENM requires anything in abundance, it’s room to grow.

And this post is huge so I’m going to put the rest under a cut :)

There's also a common refrain in certain online polyam/ENM circles that triads and throuples are overrepresented in media and they may be right to some extent. Personally, I believe the issue isn't that triads and throuples are overrepresented, but that there is such minuscule positive rep of ethical non-monogamy in general, that the few tiny instances we have of triads in media make it seem like it's "everywhere" when in actuality, it's still quite rare and the media we do have often veers into Unicorn Hunter fetish porn. Which is its own problematic thing. And just to be clear, I’m not including this part to dissuade you from writing "falling back-asswards into threesomes." If anything, I need more of it and would hook it directly into my brain if I could. I'm just throwing it out there into the void in the hope that someone will take the thought and run with it, lol.

I’d love to see more polyfidelitous rep in fiction, just as much as I’d like to see more relationship anarchy too. More diversity in fiction is always good.

Another thing that differs in writing ENM romance vs conventional monogamy is the feeling like you need to justify yourself. There's a lot of pressure to be as healthy and non-problematic as possible because you are being held to a higher standard of criticism. Both from people from without the ENM communities, and from the people within. Granted, some people don't give a shit and just want to read some fantastic porn (valid) but there are those who will cheerfully read Fifty Shades of Bullshit and call it "spicy" and "romantic," then turn around and call the most tooth-rottingly-sweet-fluff about a queer platonic polycule heresy. That's just the way the world works.

(Pro-tip for author life in general: never read your own reviews; that way madness lies. I glimpsed one the other day that tagged Hunger Pangs as “ethical cheating” and just about had an aneurism.)

And while that feeling of needing to justify yourself comes from a valid place of being excluded from the table of socially accepted norms, it can also be to the detriment of both the story and the subject matter at hand. I've seen some authors bend so far over backward to avoid being problematic in their portrayal of ENM, they end up being problematic for entirely different reasons. Usually because they give such a skewed, rose-tinted perspective of how things work, it ends up coming off as well... a bit culty and obnoxious tbh.

“Look how enlightened we are, freed from the trappings of monogamy and jealousy! We’re all so honest and perfect and happy!”

Yeah, uhu, sure Jan. Except here’s the thing, not all jealousy is bad. How you act on it can be, but jealousy itself is an important tool in the junk drawer that is the range of human emotion. It can clue us in to when we’re feeling sad or neglected, which in turn means we should figure out why we’re feeling those things. Sometimes it’s because brains are just like that and anxiety is a thing. Other times it’s because our needs are actually being neglected and we are in an unhealthy situation we need to remedy. You gotta put the work in to figure it out. Which is the same as any style of relationship, whether it’s mono, polyam or whatever flavor of ENM you subscribe to* And sometimes you just gotta be messy, because that’s how humans are. Being afraid to show that mess makes it a dishonest portrayal, and it also robs you of some great cannon fodder for character development.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to my current pet peeve in how certain writers take monogamous ideals and apply them to ENM, sometimes without even realizing it. The “Find the Right Person and Settle Down” trope.

Often, in this case, ENM or polyamory is treated as a phase. Something you mature out of with age or until you meet “The One(tm).” This is, of course, an attempt to follow the mono style formula expected in most romances. And while it might appeal to many readers, it’s uh, actually quite insulting. 

To give an example, I am currently seeing this a lot in the Witcher fandom. 

Fanon Netflix!Jaskier is everyone's favorite ethical slut until he meets Geralt then woops, wouldn’t you know, he just needed to find The One(tm). Suddenly, all his other sexual and romantic exploits or attractions mean nothing to him. Let's watch as he throws away a core aspect of his personality in favor of a man. 

Yeah... that sure showed those societal norms... 

If I were being generous, I’d say it’s a poor attempt at showing New Relationship Euphoria and how wrapped up people can become in new relationships. But honestly, it’s monogamous bias eking its way in to validate how special and unique the relationship is. Because sometimes people really can’t think of any other way to show how important and valid a relationship is without defining it in terms of exclusivity. Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how ENM works for a lot of people and invalidates a lot of loving, serious and long-term relationships.

This is not to say that some polyam/poly-leaning people can't be happy in monogamous relationships! I am! (I consider myself ambiamorous. I'm happy with either monogamy or polyamory, it really just depends on the relationship(s) I’m in.) But I also don't regard my relationship with a mono partner as "settling down" or "growing up." It's just a choice I made to be with a person I love, and it's a valid one. Just like choosing to never close yourself off to multiple relationships is valid. And I wish more people realized that, or rather, I wish the people writing these things knew that :P

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. I hope this collection of incoherent thoughts actually makes some sense and might be useful. 

----

*A good resource book that doesn't pull any punches in this regard is Polysecure by Jessica Fern. It's a wonderfully insightful read that explores the messier side of consensual non-monogamy, especially with how it can be affected by trauma or inter-relationship conflicts. But it also shows how to take better steps toward healthy, ethical non-monogamy (a far better job than More Than Two**) and conflict resolution, making it a valuable resource both for someone who is a part of this relationship style***, but also for writers on the outside looking in who might have a very simple or misguided idea of what conflict within polyam/ENM relationships might look like, vs traditional monogamous ones.

** The author of More Than Two has been accused of multiple accounts of abuse within the polyamorous community, with many of his coauthors having spoken out about the gaslighting and emotional and psychological damage they experienced while in a relationship with him. A lot of their stories are documented here: https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/ (warning: it is not light material and deals with issues of abuse, gaslighting, and a whole other plethora of Yikes.) While some people still find More Than Two helpful reading, there are now, thankfully, much, much better resources out there.

*** Some people consider polyam/ENM to be part of their identity or orientation, while others view it as a relationship style.It largely depends on the individual. 

[thosewickedlovelies]

we could be Dreamers - Prologue

Pairing: Marcus Moreno x GN!Reader

Rating: T

Summary: How this world came to be

Word count: 1,671

A/N: Hiii friends 🤗 soo there’s not really a lot of plot or Marcus Moreno :( here, but consider this a prologue/worldbuilding for a Marcus Moreno x reader fic I may eventually write lol. I’m really interested in how this universe got from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl to We Can Be Heroes, because like. Sharkboy and Lavagirl were literally just some kid’s imaginary friends that somehow magically became real, so what does that mean for the other Heroics? Where did they come from?? So I kinda wanted to write something that would make you Think :) and explore the ramifications of such a transformed universe.

Consider my previous Marcus Moreno fic a prelude to this prologue 💗

--

It was a little unnerving sometimes, being in a room with so much power. No matter that this particular training arena at Heroics Headquarters was at least the size of an American football field- when all of the Heroics are gathered in the same confined space, focused on a single purpose, you can feel it. Like their power prances tauntingly in the corner of your eye, slipping away when you try to look directly at it. Like it winds through the air, worming its way into your veins, so your very blood breathes at you to run, run, run.

Not all of the individual Heroics gave off such uncanny vibes; some were simply ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. Techo-No, for instance, and his gift for creating fantastical gadgets. The implications of his works relevant to the world at large could be worrying, but he had limits. He was just a man. Determined, and creative (even more so with his son throwing ideas at him), but ultimately human.

Not like those with powers who’d been Dreamed.

Take Sharkboy. The temper for which he’d been infamous in his youth had cooled, but when he snapped, he did so literally- blade-sharp teeth an audible clash when he bared them in a ringing snarl. Any water in the room would roil and froth- but the most hair-raising sight was his eyes, tinged with the unreadable, abyssal blackness of his namesake. Focused with a predator’s calculation on the object of his fury. (It made you think that, ironically, his temper had cooled too much- concentrated into something as icy and merciless as the depths of the sea. Just as well his wife was a lava goddess).

It was well-documented that Sharkboy could influence his oceanic kin, seeing as he was half-shark himself. Some marine biologists postulated- in low voices- that fluctuation in his emotions could unknowingly influence shark activity no matter how far from the sea he was. But nobody at Heroics Headquarters had ever dared suggest attempting a study.

That you knew of, anyway. You wouldn’t be surprised if there was a classified government branch somewhere which dealt solely with more insidious studies of the Heroics. Their weaknesses. Ways to defeat them.

Just in case.

Sharkboy and his emotions had stabilized as his Dreamer matured, but not all Dreamers were so invested in the well-being of their creations, or of the world they inhabited and could inadvertently affect. It was suspected that not all Dreamers knew that they had Dreamed at all, that they unintentionally brought Dreams into being far from where they were located and simply never became aware. This resulted in some Dreamed individuals being...unstable. Incomplete, really. Brought forth from a child’s mind, a young person who didn’t yet fully grasp the complexities of existing in this world, or indeed, the intricacies of what made one human at all.

Dreamers were children, more often than not. Their imaginative abilities generally far outstripped those of adults, worn down as they were with the grind of building a real life. The younger the person, the more time and creativity they maintained. The fewer methods they possessed to process their struggles which were grounded in reality, and not their imaginations.

--

Despite the years that have passed, nobody quite knows what happened to lead up to the Incident. How a single young boy had imagined so powerfully that it had warped reality; how his imaginings had given him the ability to design the universe at will.

The Daydreamer.

Max, as he later insisted on being called. An almost disturbingly innocuous name for a boy who had changed the world. Who had all but envisioned himself into having terrific powers- and enabled others to do the same.

In the years following the Incident, Sharkboy and Lavagirl continued to visit him in secret (Later, scientists realized that this why they recorded occasional, inexplicable disturbances in seismic and marine activity). But it wasn’t long before a larger threat to the entire Earth appeared- and so did they. To defend the place which they declared to be their new home. Though they had been willed into existence to protect Planet Drool, as Max determined to relinquish his daydreaming abilities and by extension, his dreamworld, so did the planet and its life diminish. Their presence there was no longer required, they’d explained. But earth could still benefit from their protection- especially after the reality of the threat came to light.

Someone else had Dreamed.

It wasn’t clear who, or how, or what their intentions had been. But once it had been said, everyone was forced to acknowledge the truth of it- or at least, admit that there was no other explanation. The villain’s origins were not terrestrial in any previously established sense.

Anyone who had ever met a child could have a predicted it. Too many young people ended up feeling outcast, overlooked, by both their peers and adults in their lives. It should have been obvious from the way they whispered his name. Not Max- a moniker far too average and relatable- but what they reverently regarded as his true title. The Daydreamer. A near-holy figure who had changed the game for youths everywhere. Now they had a way to combat those who plagued them. A way to create or become the superheroes who previously only existed in comic books and TV shows.

Or some did, anyway. Individuals with the strength of will and heart to Dream weren’t rare, but they weren’t quite common, either.

The only truly neutral positive of the Dreamer evolution was that governments everywhere suddenly accepted the need for increased mental health resources. Designed to increase healthy socialization for all ages and give young people ways to process and communicate their emotional needs, such programs were approved seemingly overnight in schools from elementary to university aged. “Small town life” flourished, and many city quarters and apartment buildings took to implementing “community builders” or, less charmingly, “social facilitators”- positions designed to create cohesive areas of living and minimize the kind of isolation and negative feelings that could leave someone to Dream of improving their life.

--

Nowadays, not all super-powered individuals were Dreamed. The second generation of Heroics was a testament to that. As if the universe itself had reckoned with the self-inception of the Dreamers, and seen fit to provide reality-warping countermeasures of its own.

Less than a year after the Incident, babies with...unique qualities began to be born. Few and far between, it seemed at first. Whispered reports swept from far corners of the globe, a phone tree branching from frantic parents to anyone who could provide even the slightest bit of reassurance. It seemed like doctors everywhere were swapping glances, no one willing to admit what was happening- until a second Villain appeared.

Every incident report said the same thing: a baby started crying, and then the hostages were saved by a power outage. A wash of sparks that darkened half the city.

Webbed with red lightning.

You sneak a look at the fully grown Heroic now, the long braids of her ponytail slipping over the shoulder of her characteristic red training outfit. Red Lightning Fury flexes her fingers as she listens to the head trainer explain today’s exercise- the usual sort of ‘heroes versus villains’ battles, with you and your fellow specialists assisting as villains- but judging by the lack of the smell of ozone, she isn’t yet using her powers. Blinding Fast, on the other hand, appears to fritz in place every few seconds, and you guess he’s running invisible laps to pass the time. It’s hard to tell if that’s what’s causing Lavagirl’s hair to tendril like neon pink smoke even though she’s standing still; usually the hypnotic heat shimmer of her lava flow causes the effect naturally.

You stretch in place while team arrangements are announced. As the majority of the Heroics filter into the stands to wait for their match, the buzzing, writhing presence of their power fades, and you can breathe more easily.

A figure flickers into being beside you, and you jump. “Jeez, Visi! How many times have I told you not to do that?”

Having anticipated your reaction from the countless previous times she’s snuck up on you anyway, Invisigirl laughs. “You think you’d be used to it by now.” Your closest Heroic friend grins at you, all pearly teeth against smooth brown skin.

And she’s right, which is why you were so disgruntled. Having been caught unawares too many times by the invisible hero’s silent movements, you had once asked her to give you lessons. Her instruction had improved your own stealth immensely, and now that you knew what kind of signs to listen for, her attempts at startling you didn’t work nearly as often as they had. But- “It’s hard to focus on anything with all of your powers clogging up the air,” you grumble. The birthed heroes understood what you meant- they felt it too, the nagging hiss of something other in the Dreamed heroes’ energy.

Across the arena, it looks like Miracle Guy and Marcus Moreno are waiting to be your opponents. Interesting. Miracle Guy, with his Dreamed up Superman-like abilities, was the only one who had a way of seeing Invisigirl. What it was precisely, you couldn’t recall. You make a mental note to ask Visi later.

Marcus, however, telekinesis aside, is clearly meant to be the counter to your strengths. The two men are discussing intently, but as if feeling your assessing stare, Marcus glances over. He lifts his eyebrows at you in playful challenge, a hint of a smile quirking his shapely lips before he’s pursing them at his duel-mate again.

Suppressing the pleased flutter down your spine, you turn your attention to the task ahead as Invisigirl dips her head toward you. Planning something clever, you realize, intrigued by the glint in her eye. “Let’s talk strategy.”

When the starting bell rings, your partner vanishes, and your smile curves as sharp and gleaming as the blade in your hand.

[127-mile]

Tales from the front desk: Ten.

Pairing: Artist!Ten x reader.

Genre: Ghost, haunted hotel | Fluff, angst.

Warnings: Non-explicit mentions of death, mention of loneliness. There is a scene where it looks like drugs are being used on the reader, but it is not drugs, just the hotel’s bad atmosphere. 

Plot: The Neo hotel opened its door in the nineties, and if at first it was seen as a nice and cheap place to stay, it changed pretty quickly. As intriguing as the hotel is, I do not advice you to ask the locals about it, because they will react in a way you do not want to witness. Fortunately enough, it is easy to know what happened in these walls, what happened in some of the rooms, thanks to a little bird with eyes everywhere.

Meet Ten, the artist whose death is as mysterious as it is famous, he likes to wander around the hotel in search of a new muse.

Word count: +4.8k.

A/N: This is inspired by the fifth season of American Horror Story and the real Cecil hotel. More parts with different members will be posted. I already have 5 chapters ready to be written. Also, this part will be linked with Johnny’s part. Spoiler on the tile: the mafia leader.

"I must warn you," the receptionist says as soon as he steps inside the elevator. "the third floor is known to be a bit hectic, so you might want to change room, which is totally fine." this is not the idea settings you were expecting when you wanted to rent a permanent room at the Neo hotel, but you had no other choice. "I'm sure it'll be fine."

"If you say so." he answers, and he cringes at the music playing in the background. He has a love-hate relationship with the way it echoes in the elevator, after so many years, it sounds just like fingernails on a blackboard. "After you." he says when the doors slide open, and you take a few steps forwards, and you wait, backpack hanging from your shoulders.

"This is the fourth door on the right." the receptionist carries the dufflebag and he stops in front of the right door. "I don't know if you have noticed, but the signals is really bad here, so I have to check if the landline is working in your room." he unlocks the door, and heads to the vintage looking phone.

The wallpaper is old, and it is peeling off in the corners, and from where you are standing at the door, you see a layer of dust on the small wooden desk and the dresser. This is probably not healthy to breathe so much dust, and mold, but this is the cheapest place you could find in such a short time.

"Alright, the phone is working," the man starts, turning on his heels to face you. He looks young, way too young to be working in this kind of hotel, when he could fit right in, in one of those fancy hotels. "do not hesitate to call me at the front desk is someone bothers you too much, I'll come right away."

"Do you think someone is going to bother me?" you ask, head tilted to the side and the man shrugs. "I do not know for sure, but the last occupants of this room had some problems with the neighbors. Nothing I could not handle, so do not worry about a thing." this is really not reassuring.

"I'll take my leave then, please enjoy your stay. The bar opens at 8pm, and the roomservice is available at any time of the day, or the night, just press the number 4 on the phone." you nod, and you push yourself away from the door to let the man steps into the common hallway. "Oh, by the way sir, can I ask you for a favor?" you ask suddenly, and the man nods.

"If someone comes in looking for me, could you please call me before sending them?" the man, Doyoung, as you can read on the badge he is wearing on his shirt narrows his eyes. "Are you trying to avoid someone? Are you in troubles?" this is not the conversation you want to have with a stranger, but this is also the only way you can be safe.

"Let's say there is a reason for me to be staying here, when I have a perfectly functional house." Doyoung hums, hands burried in the pockets of his pants. "I understand, and I will let you know. No one will come knock on your door without you being made aware of it, trust me."

"Thank you, sir." you answer, and he smiles politely before leaving. A few seconds later, you hear the creaky sound of the elevator's doors, but before you close the door, you hear him speak, and you wonder if he is talking to you.

"Could you stop following me, you know very well you are not allowed to go anywhere else than this very floor. You do not want me to call the man for the sixth floor to remind you of the rules, right?" you frown, who is he talking to in this patronizing voice? "Yes, that's what I thought. Stay away from me, and from the room 304."

You walk outside of the room when you hear his last words, but the hallway is empty, Doyoung is already inside the elevator and no one is here. Who was he talking to? Maybe to someone peeking from behind their room's door, you think.

You close the door, and do something you should never have done. You drop onto the bed, head falling onto the pillows which sends up a cloud of dust thick enough to make you cough. "Oh, fucking hell." you mumble, straightening up.

When you finally stop coughing, your lungs are burning in a very unpleasant way, and you need time to catch your breath.

After a minute or so, you lie down again, more delicately this time, and you grab your phone from the pocket of your jacket. Like Doyoung had say, there is no signal, and you can't find anything with a potential wifi password on the bedside table like in the other hotels you had the luck to stay in.

At least, you know you will not be bothered by calls, and threatening texts from the person you are running away from. This is a plus, but is getting sick because of the dust really worht the peace that it will bring you? You do not know, you need to weight the pros and cons before giving your final verdict.

After an hour, you realize that the television is not working, which means there is nothing to do in this place. Without internet, you can't scroll down social medials until you fall asleep, so you have to find something to do if you do not want to die from pure boredom.

You get up from the bed, and you open the room's door. You hear nothing but the gentle hum of the air con, so you decide to take the keys and lock behind you. Maybe you can visit the hotel before it gets dark, you do not really want to see thos creepy long hallways bathed in unnatural yellow light.

You wait in front of the elevator when you hear a noise. You can't pinpoint exactly what kind of noise it is, but it is eery. It is like a gargling sound, but muffled by something. This sound is soon followed by a loud thump against one of the many doors, but you do not have time to go and investigate as the elevator's door slide open in front of you.

Maybe it's for the best, you think.

If Doyoung said the neighbors are causing problems, you do not want to be part of it. You are here to hide, and calm down, not ot get into any sort of fights with strangers. You look at the buttons, wondering which floor you should go to, but your eyes stop on one particular button.

Roof.

You press it without a second thought, and you wait.

It seems like as you go up, the music only gets louder and louder, and by the time you are two floors before the roof, you have to put your hands over your ears to try and drown out the disturbing noise coming from the old sizzling speaker.

"This place is fucking hell on earth." you mutter as you finally step out of the elevator. You are not quite on the roof, but rather in front of a flight of stairs that lead to the actual roof. But now that you are here, in front of the stairs, you wonder if it was not a bad idea. Not because you are scared or anything, but because the roof is usually a part you can't access in an hotel. So what if it is locked?

"Fuck it." you have nothing to lose, so you climb the stairs, not daring to put your hand on the railing, you feel dirty enough by simply staying in your dusty room, you do not need more right now. There are more steps than what you would have thought, but it's fine.

And it is also worth it, because you see the chain and the padlock on the ground, and the door is left ajar, held open by what looks like a brick.

With the air con, you forgot how hot it is outside, how hard it is to breath in the stuffy air. But you stay on the roof, and you were not expecting anything, and yet, you are still disappointed in a way. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. Oh, yes, there a huge water barrels on the side, but that's about it.

You walk to the edge of the roof, and you watch as life goes on outside of the hotel. People are walking down the street, some look at the hotel in a curiosity you do not understand, others cross the road to avoid it like the plague. This is trange, but you do not question it, you are not from here, and you know nothing about the hotel, so this is not your place to comment.

"Sweetheart, please, do not add another body to this hotel, we are already crowded down there."

You turn around when you hear a man's voice, sweet like honey, and dripping with something you can't quite describe. "I was not planning on jumping." you answer, and he looks relieved. "May I join you, then?" you nod, it is not like you have other things to do, or somewhere else to be.

"So, what is a beautiful doll like you is doing in a place like the Neo hotel?" he asks, sitting down on the edge of the roof, so you take the opportunity to watch him. His side profile was definitely crafted by the gods, and his long black hair falls prettily on his face, covering his cat-like eyes.

"Enjoying summer?" he pats the space beside him, so you sit down, legs dangling in the air. "You must hate yourself quite a lot to spend your summer in this place. What happened, who hurt you?" it is a rhetorical question, you know it, but you still shrug. "I mean, you are here, so I guess I could return you the question."

"Touché." is all he answers, and you close your eyes. It feels nice to be here, even though you can't help but to think about the man next to you, a stranger who could potentially push you from the roof, straight to your death. "What did you mean when you talked about the body count of the hotel?" you suddenly ask.

"Do you know anything about the Neo hotel?" you shake your head, and he hums. "That's for the best then, do not worry that pretty little head of yours." you are intrigued, and you hate the fact that he is really not talking about it, that's mean, you think.

"I'm Ten, by the way."

You open your eyes, and you turn to face him, legs crossed. "Ten? Like the artist? Lee Ten?" he turns his head, eyes narrowed because of the sun, and the corners of his mouth curve into a smile. "You know him?"

"He was on the front page of every newspapers when he died, and everyone talked about it for a while." for some reason, he looks satisfied with your answer. "Did they find anything about the way he died?"

You watched a bunch of videos about the Ten case, mostly because it was weird when it happened, nothing could have predicted that the young and famous artist would suddenly die in such a mysterious way, and you were trying to avoid your homework at the time. "There are a few theories, but nothing was never actually proved."

"Theories? Fascinating! Tell me more, please?" you heave a sigh, this is not how you thought your first day would end up, but you are not mad about it, you guess it is better than to be locked inside your room.

"Some people said he died of an accidental overdose, some said he killed himself, unable to deal with his sudden success. I watched a video of this girl who said he probably died because of the products he used to paint, that he inhaled too much of the fumes."

"And what do you think?" he asks, head tilted to the side. He looks amused by the conversation, but you think nothing of it. "I don't really know. He was young, wealthy, and I heard that he liked the attention, he liked knowing that people talked about him, so he probably found a way to die whilst remaining in everyone's head, and mouth."

"He did like to be the center of the attention." Ten comments, more to himself than to you. "Do you remember where he died?" you look up at the sky, and you try to think about this detail. You heard it thousands of times, but for some reason, you can't think of the name of the place. You can't even put a face on the name.

"It was in an hotel, I think?" he nods his head with vigor, his smile turns into a smirk. "Does the Neo hotel rings any bell?" you open your eyes wide, and you stand up so quickly that you miss tripping over your own foot. "Oh, take it easy sweetheart."

"He died here, in this hotel!" you exclaim, as Ten stands up too. "He did. At least now I know you are not here to investigate his death, which is a shame honestly. It's been a while since anyone came."

You should have known sooner something was fishy about this place! The name of the hotel did make something click inside of you, but in your haste to get away from home, you did not think about it more. You just thought it was a name you saw online while Johnny was looking for a place to stay during some random trip.

"Wait, how to you know people don't come investigate anymore?" he shrugs, and he walks towards the door. "Let's just say that I've been here for quite a while, and I notice when things change around here." you follow him, making sure the door is still ajar for whoever decided to keep it open.

"Is this why you are here?" you ask. "And is this why you chose this name? Are you some sort of creepy fanboy? You know, trying to be where your fantasy lover took his last breath, to be closer to him than anybody ever did?"

Ten chuckles, pressing on the elevator button. "What if I am?" you stay quiet, and you step in the elevator, Ten doing the same. "Which floor?" you press on the third and he smiles softly. "I see we are on the same floor, that's interesting."

You suddenly wonder if he is part of the troublesome neighbors Doyoung told you about. "Can I ask you something?" you have no time to think about it, you just nod. "Would you pose for me?" you frown, crossing your arms over your chest. "What do you mean, pose?"

"I'm an artist, and I like to paint real people."

"You are really going all the way to be like the real Ten, uh?" the young man smile softly, but he does not answer. "But yes, I have nothing better to do, so paint me like one of your french girl." he laughs, and he leads you to his room's door, which is, the one where you heard the weird noises earlier.

"Are you alright?" he asks when he sees that you seem hesitant to take a step inside. "I- I, yes." you can't tell him what you heard, you do not want to make him angry, or uncomfortable and miss the opportunity to be a little more entertained until bedtime. "Come in!"

The room is bigger than yours, and on the walls, paintings are hung and a shiver rolls down your spine. Each painting has a different person on it, and it feels like they are watching you, they are scrutinize your every move. "What do you think? Pretty good, right?"

Yes, the paintings are incredible, and extremely realistic, but your pain is screaming at you to get the fuck out of Ten's room, and to not return, something is weighting down on your stomach when your eyes meet the ones of a man on the very first painting. "You are really talented, Ten."

Ten is beaming at the compliment, and he indicates a sofa on the back of the room, right in front of an easel. "Sit down, please. And be natural, there is nothing better than being natural." you nod, sitting down and ignoring the cloud of dust around you. He rummages through a drawer for his pain, brushes and a pencil to draw the sketch on the blank canvas.

"You are so beautiful, I could spend days looking at you." he says, not even taking his eyes off of his canvas. "You deserve to be forever on a canvas and admired by everyone." his voice is low, and you see in his face that he is focused on his task.

"How long have you been painting?" you ask, and you expect Ten to stay silent, but he hums. "My mother did not have time to take care of me, nor did she wanted it, so she used to give me paint, and old letters to keep me occupied while she was at work, or drinking with her friends. It was cheaper than a babysitter, so I started really young." not the ideal parenting, you think.

"Have you ever painted?" you try not to move, but it is hard when it feels like you are sinking deeper into the sofa. "I did, when I was in art class back in high school, but I was never good at it. I'm not an artistic person, I guess." Ten scoffs. "Art does not have to be good, or pretty to look at to be considered art. So of course you are an artist, no matter what you think. We all are artists in our own way."

This is a nice thought, and it could help a lot of people who are feeling discouraged. From the corner of your eye, you see a movement, but you do not say anything, you probably just saw a bug or something. But when it happens again, a shadow is looming over the wall, you jump off of the couch. "What the fuck was that?"

"What was what?" Ten asks, barely looking up from his canvas, he did not notice you getting up from the couch. "The shadow, I saw a shadow!" he laughs softly, putting his pencil down to stand up. "A shadow? This is only the two of us." he says, putting a hand on your cheek.

"Are you okay?" he tilts his head to the side, and you try to ignore how cold his hand is. "Why don't you lie down for a bit? You look ready to throw up." you feel dizzy, but you do not know if it's because of how hot it is in Ten's room, or because of his proximity.

He pushes you back down on the couch, and the way your back crushes against the back of the couch is enough to cut your breath short. "Close your eyes, my sweet little doll, you will feel batter later, I promise." he says, crouching down to face you. He slides his fingers on your face, and suddenly, you do not like his smile.

You want to say something, to get up and leave. You want to call Doyoung, to tell him everything, but you feel so so tired. Your eyelids are so heavy, you can barely keep eye contact with Ten. You do not want to fall asleep here, you are not comfortable, you hate this room.

"I want to go home." you say in a voice so low that Ten has to lean closer to hear it. "But this is home, sweetheart." you shake your head, no this is not home, home is where your husband is. "You said it yourself, you have a reason to be here, you had a reason to leave your house." he kisses your forehead gently. "This is your new home."

He stands up, and he opens his mouth again. "You will never have to run away ever again. You will be safe here, and never will you feel alone between these walls." Ten sits back down on his stool, and he looks at your like you are the eighth wonder of the world. "Sleep, sweetheart, everything will be better when you wake up."

You do not want it, but you close your eyes, and soon enough, you feel the arms of darkness embracing you tightly.

When you wake up, it is to a room bathed in sunlight and with a splitting headache.

You straighten up, trying to ignore the pain and how sore your body feels. You rub your eyes with the palm of your hands, and look around. You are in your bedroom, in the same clothes you came in and your phone is on the bedside table.

You remember falling asleep in Ten's room, and yet, you are here. What the fuck? Did you fall asleep yesterday, and dreamed of Ten and everything that happened after? You do not know, you are confused, but right now, you have better to do than to dwell on a potential dream.

You need some fucking aspirin.

You know you do not have any in yuor bag, so you stand up. Your vision becomes blurry, and your head is spinning, so you wait for a minute or so, and when you do not feel like you are going to pass out on the dirty carpet, you leave the room.

You try to be as quiet as possible, you do not want Ten to go out of his room, whether you actually met him or nit. Maybe he is not even real, you do not know shit right now.

The music in the elevator is too much, you should have taken the stairs, but you heave a sigh of relief when the doors slide open on the lobby.

Like the day before, it is empty, and Doyoung is standing behind the desk. He looks up when he hears the creak of the doors, and he smiles. "Good morning, how was your first night?" you stop in front of him. "Terrible. Awful."

His smile fades, and you feel bad for a second. "Oh, I'm really sorry to hear that. Did the neighbors bother you? I can go and talk to them, if you want." you shake your head. "Do you have aspirin? I have the worst headache ever." you mumble, and he nods before disappearing in the room behind the front desk.

He comes back with a small bottle of water, and two aspirins that he hands you. "You are my savior." he chuckles, and he watches you chug half of the bottle with the pills. "So, care to tell me what made your night so bad?"

"I had a really weird dream with a guy called Ten." he frowns at the mention of the young artist, so you tilt your head to the side. "Do you know him?" you really want him to tell him that no, he has no recall of a man called Ten in the hotel, you really want to believe that all of this was a dream.

"I actually do. Would you do me a favor?" when you nod, eyes narrowed, he opens his mouth again. "Can you go to the door, and try to leave the hotel? I know this sounds crazy, but I really need you to do it, without asking questions, I'll tell your everything later, I promise."

You do not know why, but you trust Doyoung with his gummy smile and his kind eyes, so you walk toward the front door, and you push it open.

But instead of seeing the street, hearing the traffic noise, you find yourself in one of the hotel's rooms. Not any room. Ten's room.

Ten is sitting on his stool, and his face and hair are covered in paint. When he sees you, his smile brigtens his face in a way you did not know was possible. "Sweetheart! What are you doing here so early? Already missing me?"

How is that even possible? You were trying to leave the hotel, how can you now be in a room, in the third floor? What the fuck is happening? "Look at that! I'm almost done." Ten grabs your wrist, and he makes you turn around to the easel.

You see yourself on the canvas, and it looks sor eal, you think that if you try to touch your face, you'll actually feel it. It is incredible, it is like looking at yourself in a mirror, but it is nothing but paint. "What do you think?" Ten is eager to know if you like the painting he spent so many hours working on.

"This is truly amazing." Ten's smile gets even bigger, and his eyes lit up, and you realize he has not let go of your wrist. "I'm glad you think so. From now on, you will always be with me."

You take a step back, but when you do, he only tightens his grip on your wrist, and it starts to hurt. "The hotel is greedy, you know, so I had to keep a part of you with me. I can't let the hotel have you entierly."

What he says make no sense, but you can't find it in yourself to ask him what he means. "I told you, you wouldn't have to run away anymore, and that you would never be alone either. There are so many people stuck in this hotel, you will forget what loneliness feels like." he sounds so excited, but you can't even pretend to be.

"Are you happy now, Ten?" you turn around when you hear Doyoung's voice. He is standing in the doorway, arms crossed against his chest, and his face is nothing but pure anger. "What is the point of keeping them here, you know very well they will refuse to see you after that, and you will be back to feeling lonely."

Ten shrugs, putting his brush down. "I do not care, I still have a part of them with me, these paintings are special. They are everything I have, and I will never be lonely, no matter if they decide to hide or not."

Ten finally lets go of your wrist, so you do not waste a second to join Doyoung. The man takes your hand in his, and he gently presses it. "Do you want to know something, Ten?" he asks, and the young man nods. "The reason why your favorite refuse to see you after you paint their portrait is simple. They are not hiding from you. I keep them away from you."

Ten's eyes open wide, and fill with tears. "What do you mean?" Doyoung's eery smile is back, and you do not like it, but you do not leave his side. He exhudes something comfortable. "You paint to avoid loneliness. But you deserve to be lonely. So as long as you will keep them here, I will keep them away from you. Be careful next time, I might just burn all of your little paintings, you deserve to feel trapped."

"You can't do that!" Ten yells, a sob threatening to leave his trembling lips, but a tear is already rolling down his cheek. "They are mine! They decided to be my muses, they have to stay with me!" Doyoung laughs, throwing his head back. "This hotel is mine, and will always be mine, I do whatever I want. And what I want, is for you to be as miserable as possible. You need to be punished. Loneliness is the punishment I chose for you."

"Come on darling, we have a lot of things to talk about, and I will also find you a better room because it seems like you are going to stay a little longer than planned." he leaves the bedroom and closes the door behind him. But you can still hear Ten's loud cries. "Do not worry, you'll never have to see Ten ever again, or at least until he decides to act like a normal human being again."

[aitarose]

SKINNY LOVE | ZUKO

PAIRING: Zuko x Reader [fem]

PLOT: Years and years of build up, only to lead to absolutely nothing. Y/N’s constant emotion was confusion, and there was no changing that when it came to Zuko’s feelings.

WARNINGS: angst

WORD COUNT: 1.6k

A/N: my best friend says he might have feelings for me, and i’m so stressed right now i’m going crazy. so here’s a little fic that literally explains our entire relationship and these are all my raw emotions ew. also this is almost word for word our conversation tonight

MY MASTERLIST

Their cycle seemed to be infinite, running in circles on the same track over and over again throughout the course of their lifelong friendship. The friendship that had been more confusing than the most trivial question in the entire world.

Y/N had always considered feelings to be straightforward. Something that could be determined with a simple yes or no answer, rather than continuous strife and struggles, arguments and silence.

She knew what she felt, and she wanted other’s to know that. Communication was no fare for her when it came to anger, sadness, and love—especially when it came to love.

Zuko on the other hand had what some would call troubles in the aspect of emotions. He’d bottle up all of his stress and worries, bursting like a volcano when they’d release. 

After years, decades of friendship and unspoken feelings, Y/N still didn’t know where she stood with the newly crowned Fire Lord. They’d danced around their relationship for what seemed like forever, him never truly speaking the words she’d always wanted to hear.

And after so many rounds of psychoanalyzing his words and phrases, the responses he’d give her after she’d try her best to pour her heart out to him, Y/N was beginning to grow sick of their routine.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love him anymore, she was just so unbelievably tired of it all. Peace was the thing she needed most. Inner peace with herself, her appearance, her confidence.

All the things that she’d never fully realized due to her constant focus on Zuko and only Zuko. The things that made someone unique, what made them them. She was lacking them, and the only way to grow was to distance herself.

So, distance was what she gave him. Y/N moved around the world, never settling in one nation, finding new cultures and traditions to enjoy and bringing them back with her to the Fire Nation every now and then.

During her little conquest, Zuko had found his place beside Mai. Comfortable in his own little bubble, never taking any risks outside of the familiarity of his daily life. He hadn’t grown up—that was the first thing Y/N had come to notice as her feelings were reborn.

It’d taken her two years to move on from him, two years to find love for herself and take interest in people other than her best friend—but the minute she heard that he ended his relationship with Mai, they’d come flying back.

All of her former insecurities pounded in her mind, screaming in her inner monologue, refusing to give her a single second of silence. Y/N was out of breath, completely lost in the sea of her own thoughts.

She and Zuko had stayed in contact over the years of her adventure. Constantly writing letters back and forth, telling each other about their day, their new friends, and whatever was remotely interesting in their lives. 

Although she hadn’t physically seen him in so long, Y/N still felt a connection to him. A connection that pulled her like a magnet the minute he stood before her, smiling his dopey, crooked grin.

When he’d wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into the tightest hug she’d ever been a part of—Y/N’s heart quite literally dropped, falling out of her body, and rolling out into the ocean. 

Her chest was tight, it was almost as if she felt like she was choking on a food that was stuck in her throat. Something that was refusing to come out, no matter how hard she tried to say those three little words—I love you.

And Zuko, himself, hadn’t settled her storm by any means. If anything, he’d encouraged it to rage on, encouraged it to continue to torment and demolish all the self respect she’d grown.

Whilst Y/N had jokingly spoken out the idea of them being together, he’d practically driven her to insanity. “What if I wasn’t joking, Zuko?” She wondered, freezing in disbelief at what she was saying. “What if I did feel that way?”

In response, Zuko simply laughed. His eyes pinched shut, a wide smile overtaking his mouth in amusement at her curiosity. “I don’t believe you, Y/N.” He rolled his eyes, playing with their intertwined hands. “You don’t actually feel that way.”

At that, a light scoff escaped Y/N’s lips, her face becoming contorted and annoyed. “Okay.” She started, shaking her head at the conversation she was about to trigger. “Well, what would your response be if I did?”

Zuko’s looked in her direction, his amber eyes meeting her steely ones. “You’re really baiting me, aren’t you?” His face went a little pale at her slight nod, a large gulp running down his neck. 

“It wouldn’t be a no.” 

Y/N’s smile dropped, her expression growing blank as her heartbeat began to jump out of her chest. What he’d just hinted at was her getting what she’d always wanted, the thing that she’d dreamed of since she was only five years old.

Both of them seemed to be frozen in the moment, neither knowing exactly what was going on as they weren’t aware of what their feelings for each other were. Their lives had become so different, they’d become so different.

Zuko was a leader now, a person that needed to have stability and assurance in his life. He was a traditionalist, he needed rules and regulations to live in harmony with himself and his people.

Y/N, however, was a free spirit. She knew what she wanted in life and she’d be sure to make it happen. Commitment and social standards weren’t on her agenda, as she didn’t have one.

But when it came to Zuko, Y/N would do anything. She’d drop her goals and dreams if it’d amount to one minute of true happiness in his arms. Her love for him had grown toxic, it was poison in her brain.

Poison that could also be considered pure. A feeling of actual and real love for the prince that she’d known for her entire life. Everything about him contradicted itself, the stress he made her feel was practically indescribable.

“Are you being serious?” Y/N was on the verge of hysterically laughing, she was so appalled by Zuko’s response. Her face was bright red, dancing on the line of embarrassment and anger. 

Zuko let go of her hands, his palm running over the back of his neck. He shrugged, sheepishly smiling as he looked everywhere but at her. “Yeah.” He sighed, pursing his lips. “That seemed like the wrong answer.”

“No.” Y/N’s neck snapped to turn to him, her eyes searching for his own. Her voice became breathless, her lungs nearly gasping for air. “Go back. Are you being serious, right now, that your answer wouldn’t be a no?”

As Zuko shook his head to signify that he wouldn’t reject her question, Y/N almost toppled over in shock. “So, figuratively speaking, if I had feelings for you—you wouldn’t reject me straight on?”

Thirty seconds was what it took for Zuko to answer her. Half a minute of earth shattering patience that Y/N had to endure before she heard his simple words. “No, of course not.”

“But what does that mean?” Y/N was now itching for closure. She had to find out what this all meant. What it meant for their past, their present, and the future of their relationship.

“I would have no reason to reject you, that’s what it means.” He simply shrugged, expecting the conversation to be over by now. The talk of feelings was wearing Zuko out, causing a large yawn to form on his features.

He was tired, exhausted at the discussion of romance and secret pining. Communication simply wasn’t his strong suit, and while Y/N fully knew that, she continued to press further.

“You don’t get it, Zuko. You’re confusing me.” She explained, waving her hands out in front of her face. “So, you wouldn’t reject me, but you also wouldn’t say yes to a confession?”

Y/N was pushing him to his emotional limit. The mental blockade that always formed in his brain, beginning to cancel out his words. Zuko’s headspace was starting to empty, sleep being the only goal in mind.

“Those do really contradict, don’t they?” His eyes had begun to drop, opening and closing. Zuko’s body was now resting on Y/N’s, most of his weight being supported by her stature.

Y/N led her best friend towards his living quarters, still having a million questions at the tip of her tongue—whilst only one made its way out. “What does it all mean? You never said what it means.”

As she opened the door to his bedroom, Zuko let go of his hold on her. He gave her a toothless smile, weary from his low energy, and closed the door, giving her a final glance through the crack of light.

“It means that I’m tired, Y/N.” His eyes held her gaze, sending her waves of confessions in a single glance. “I’m tired and I can’t give you all that you need right now. Perhaps we can continue this in the morning.”

But with morning, came no confessions. No discussion of what had gone down the night before. It was as if they’d never been together at all, as if it was just another night between two platonic friends.

In reality, Y/N didn’t believe that she’d ever be worthy enough for someone like Zuko. Someone who seemed to be so unbelievably perfect for her in every way, shape, and form.

Maybe the best way to end this constant cycle would be to disappear. To leave him be, in his own happy little life, away from herself. She’d learned to live without him once, there was no way she wouldn’t be able to do it again.

The only problem was did she really want to live a life without him?

TAGS: @practicallylivesonline​ @cherryskyies​ @shell-bells-ringding​  @xapham​ @mochminnie​ @bombardia​ @xxspqcebunsxx​ @missmorosis​ @mysticpeacecrusade @akiris​ @simpinforsukka​ @protect-remus​ @kaylove12​@lammello​ @user12345321 @duh-dobrik​

[snicketstrange]

Rereading The End Chapter 6:

"At this point, you may find yourself recognizing all of the sad hallmarks of the Baudelaire orphans' sad history. The word "hallmarks" refers to something's distinguishing characteristics, such as the frothy foam and loud fizz that are the hallmarks of a root beer float, or the tearstained photographs and the loud fizz that are the hallmarks of a broken heart."

I think this introduction to chapter 6 is a subtle criticism of those who accused asoue of being formulaic.

"Certainly the Baudelaires themselves, who as far as I know have not read their own sad history, but of course are its primary participants, "

Well, Lemony admits here that the Baudelaires might be dead. He practically claims that this is what he thinks is most likely. Still, he hints that this is "as far as I know" an expression that indicates that, although he thinks the Baudelaires are dead, he is also fully aware that he may be mistaken in this regard.

"My name is Kit Snicket, and I've been looking everywhere for these children."

"You're not Kit Snicket!" Mrs. Caliban cried."

I think this was Olaf's first and only disguise as some previously known character. If we think about how this plot is completely meaningless, I think we can finally get to the true meaning that exists here. Olaf is not a complete idiot. He could have disguised himself as anyone who survived a storm. If he wanted, he could have created any name for a pregnant woman. Second, the real Kit Snicket was there, beside him, and she was still alive. Why would Olaf intentionally create a character that could be quickly discarded? He certainly did not expect to deceive the Baudelaires ... Well, the only sense here is that Olaf made these strange decisions because Daniel Handler wanted him to make these strange decisions. But the question is why did Daniel Handler want this? I think the answer is this: Daniel Handler wanted to make it clear that the disguises of Olaf and his supporters were not limited to original characters, but could also include people who did exist in their universe. This increases the range of possibilities to explain some apparent contradictions.

I highlight two of them: "How could Beatrice be at the masked ball when she was already dead when the ball took place?" Answer: It was not Beatrice who was there, but someone pretending to be Beatrice.

Why did Lemony write letters to Kit after her death and even try to save her life with a salad? Answer: It wasn't Kit Snicket, but it was someone pretending to be Kit Snicket.

It is true that Lemony would not be deceived by such a ridiculous disguise as the one used by Olaf in TE. But we have to remember that in TE, Olaf had few resources at his disposal. The important thing is his intention, which could certainly be shared by his supporters or other arsonists.

"If Muhammad will not come to the mountain," Rabbi Bligh said, using an expression that the islanders understood at once, "the mountain will come to Muhammad."

I found it interesting that Daniel Handler chose a Jewish rabbi to speak these words, which are a clear reference to Islam, in a book with a clear criticism of religious hypocrisy.

How horrible! I did not remember that Ish did not agree with children to learn to read and write. His campaign to dull people was really strong.

Including Ink in chapter 6 was a wonderful idea. In a way I feel connected again to Uncle Monty, a kind character, who has been sorely missed.

I wonder now why they did not introduce it earlier at Netflix's show ... the way it appeared out of nowhere, it seemed like a deus ex machina. I think they had no time to adapt TE and Tbl and needed cut some things ... but still, I think it would be interesting to give TE two episodes to te + tbl + lstua. I think there was enough material for that.

The end of chapter 6 was really tense, with the Baudelaires being abandoned on the coastal platform, and with the risk of dying the next day when the tide rose. It is now easier to understand Ish's expression: "I will not force you ..." the other option was to be abandoned. Inwardly, everyone knew that. Ish created a community in which everyone was dependent on each other, and where social abandonment was really dangerous. But apparently he knows that the only risk was a massive sabotage of his scheme, and he tried to avoid it at all costs.

Subliminally the book asks us "would it have been better to throw Olaf into the sea at that time? After all, he will die anyway ... At least he would have died causing fewer deaths".

[theshortwavemystery]

NOTES FROM WATCHING THE FIRST EPISODE OF “RIVERDALE”

1. Riverdale is a bizarre town that seems cut off from everywhere else, temporally straddled between an eternal 1950’s—more accurately a 1950’s stuck in an endless repetitive loop. But it takes place in the late 2010’s. Even so, the decor in the town is vintage, and the characters recognize this. The activities of the kids are vintage. the internet and cell phones exists, millennials are named, but it doesn’t seem to matter. something is very weird here, as if all these people are ghosts. all the stock scenarios and characters are here, which is to be expected for a teen drama, but there’s an exactness, a literalism, that is too perfect to be unintentional. 2. what is this world? it seems to be a staging of a certain inertia in american culture, which changes in superficial ways—technology, new TV shows, music new taboos—but all if this somehow serves to reinforce, or justify a return to the “leave it to beaver” universe. 3. any reminder that these are modern kids—their frequent references to contemporary TV shows like Mad Men for instance—only serve to increase the spooky vibe. everyone in this town seems to be low key crazy, making the show feel like twin peaks but written by what’s left of your local shopping mall. 4. the show’s script is constantly making fun of itself to the point that we seem directed by it to avoid taking the drama seriously—it is perhaps a smoke screen, like the haze of the presumably northwestern woods that seem to surround the town (it is filmed in Vancouver). the gay best friend is named as the gay best friend, establishing him as a living archaism—i felt bad for him after this. 5. plot points are shown to be cliche—the fake lesbian kiss, once scandalous in the 2000’s, is brushed off as false and an erasure of real lesbians. the script fools us, indicating it means to aim for more intelligent territory. and yet, veronica’s confrontation with cheryl, her tough girl speech, where she reveals her vulnerability as a rich girl fallen from grace but also stands up for betty—this goes without an ironic comment, even thought it is also a cliche, but a more contemporary oneq—the “mic drop” moment. so we see how the naming of particular cliches, employed ironically, serves to hide others the show is earnestly employing. 6. veronica says she needs to be redeemed for her father’s crimes, how is that fair. 7. archie’s desire to make music seems like a stand-in for a recognition that he’s gay. they cover this up by making his character straight but i don’t buy it. because his music itself clearly doesn’t matter. this is similar to the dead poets society where the kid kills himself obviously because he’s gay and he’s afraid his dad will disown him. why? nobody kills themselves merely because their dad shames them for doing theater. the reason is simple: theater is already such a humiliating and abject thing to love that you have to be totally shameless to even start doing it. once you become a theater kid your dad has lost you. in the second episode, the gay friend of betty reveals that he agrees with me here. 8. archie is the decentered center of the show, not a particularly interesting character so much as a holding container for female desire/fantasy. he’s dumb, cute boy who’s kind of artistic and kind of jockish, but the complex psychology belongs to betty, veronica, cheryl so far—all plotting, calculating characters, whereas archie just wants to enjoy himself and be liked—and to be fair, these shallow needs get him in plenty of trouble, but they’re simple needs. but this is always what archie was, even as a comic book character. he’s kicked around like a football like a more jocular charlie brown. 9. archie’s problem is identiied as the problem of "all millenial men", who need to be told what they want—but this is really everyone’s problem. what makes the girls/women different is that they don’t care that they don’t know what they want—they just act on feelings, and try to make the world match up with the feelings. archie thinks he ought to know what he wants, and then do it. but the women, whose desires as women are not even encouraged from day one, are free from this tedious problem. this is why archie is the one who has to be the moral authority regarding his mutual witness to the murder with the hot teacher, while the hot teacher is only afraid people will find out she fucked a student. veronica brushes off archie’s identity crisis as a false dilemma, critiqueing the categories of “jock” and “artist” and insisting he can be both, and anyway who gives a fuck? but this whimsy and indifference toward boundaries can get devious with veronica, who is betty’s friend one second and hooking up with archie the next. 10. although women are still often denied full subjectivity in literature, in real life it’s always been the opposite—men tend to forego personality development in favor of power or the illusion of power, and end up more shallow, rigid and fragile, more prone to the whims of their entourage. they never really have to become anything in particular--masculinity functions like a hive mind. if male relationships superficially appear to have less friction, it is only because men are brutally conformist and end up with little personal to argue about, usually coalescing around some common interest and not prone to discussing their respective inner lives--except, occasionally to defensively deny their existence. so-called "sensitive" men only do this in more devious ways--it's obvious that jughead is the most devious character we've met so far. women, in contrast, are each a hive mind unto themselves, compelled to construct an array of selves, carefully deploying them to get by in a world structured by the male gaze and booby-trapped by the machinations of other women. this complexity is of course terrifying to men who either submit to it as a fetish or suppress it— and one way of accomplishing that suppression in literature is to create stories where the men are supposedly complex and the women supposedly shallow and dependent wholly on men--the typical gaslight job of the mediocre male writer. this is clearly a show that, whatever its other blindnesses, is not going to let that happen. 11. we are told through veronica that archie is more dangerous than he looks. why doesn’t the show want us to figure this out ourselves? this feels ironic on the writers' parts, another winking use of cliche. 12. everyone’s problem is a cliche—archie’s father pressures him to do sports to get into college, he wants to do something else. betty’s mom is controlling and betty is a people pleaser who already in the first episode explodes about how perfect she has to be all the time and can’t she just do something for herself for once? 13. the music is annoying and cloying but it also grounds the contemporary nature of the show, because of its peculiar sense of melodrama, which is endemic to this time period, and the neoliberal overvaluing of the self. 14. the video on this show seems filtered into oblivion, or photoshopped or otherwise conspicuously treated. just like the self-awareness of the script, it contributes to the sense of unreality. 15. more self-aware cliches: archie and betty grew up next door to each other—they’re stuck in a feedback loop of being the ____ next door. cheryl describes herself as the queen on stage at the dance. 16. classic literature is referenced oddly—betty loves toni morrison, even though by the end of the episode, we have been introduced to zero black main characters. is this self-aware critique of white fetishization of blackness? and there's also thornton wilder’s “our town”… veronica suggests that the high school is part of the lost epilogue from “our town”—wilder also presented a transparently fake and timeless town to stage his existentialist story in, one in which horrifyingly, dead people remain in a liminal space between death and life, vainly trying to communicate with the living they can still see. 17. every celebrity/media reference is bizarre. a thin veneer draped over an unchanging reality. "Riverdale" seems not so much about the dark underbelly of suburbia, but about the idea of suburbia is the dark underbelly itself. a murder has to happen because someone has to bring death here, lest everyone become paralyzed by their immortality. 18. archie’s “making a deal” with the hot teacher is way more erotic than anything he’ll do with b or v… why is this happening at the Dance lol, unless we are to read it this way? they have shared the most precious thing in this town, death... why does archie love the teacher and toy with his peers? because they can't give him death. clearly archie is blackmailing the hot teacher into continuing the relationship, but he does so seemingly unaware of his own motives. he lives in the age of youtube tutorials, he doesn't need music instruction. and here is another paradox of the modern gender binary--men think they don't know what they want, but unconsciously they know what they want--they receive their instructions from the Borg Queen of masculinity and pursue it ruthlessly, whereas women end up thinking they know exactly what they want, but unconsciously they don't, because it's fractured amongst their afformentioned hive of selves. This is why both traditonally-socialized genders are completely right in saying the other is full of shit. 19. “we have no past” goes the song josie sings—and maybe this is america’s problem—the past is empty, the past of ordinary suburbia, interrupted only occasionally by wars perhaps but untouched by cultural progress—and because we have no past we can have no present, only an empty recycling of the same void, the same problems, the same catharses—new episodes of the same show. we live forever at the cost of never changing. is riverdale a socially critical prestige drama LARPing in the ironic costume of a CW teen soap??? 20. all the characters are trapped in a carnival haunted house ride. the theme: adolescence. 21. cheryl’s party—brett kavanaugh could have been at this party 22. jughead is the narrator, and i like the idea that this is all in jughead’s head, which is why it’s so unstuck in time aesthetically, so stylized and knowing. and it's no wonder he's the most popular character, because he represents the writers themselves, and fandom is to have an illusion of a privileged relationship not so much with the characters, but with the property's creators--and to be hyperinvested and, if necessary, hypercritical of their choices. 23. the gay hookup is interrupted by the presence of a corpse—a classic trope in teen horror but it’s interesting to see it with a gay pair. it’s as if in the clash between the perpetual 1950’s aura and the contemporary references and morality, a gruesome surplus appears, the specter of homophobia. which, incidentally is a corpse of a man guilty of a sexual act that is still considered taboo—incest. a corpse symbolizes the death of innocence for a hetero couple, but for a queer couple it can’t just be that—it also must evoke the threat of actual murder. which makes this a very different moment. 24. jughead says riverdale has changed—but it has only been revealed to be what it always was—"full of shadows and secrets", as jughead puts it. he must be putting us on—this place is way creepier than Sunnydale, and that place had actual demons… but this is often what a change amounts to—not the addition of a new trait, but the acceptance of one that was already there. 25. jason blossom is a ginger like archie and he therefore seems tied to archie in a unique way. he dies on july 4th, given some fuel to my reading as a show with something to say about america’s self-image. 26. all the parents are single parents or in strained, unhappy marriages in this town. this us realistic, but that should tip us off: what in the show has been realistic so far? debuting in january 2017, "Riverdale" seems retrospectively shaped by the trump era-a teen drama not about the undead, as buffy was, but a teen drama which is itself undead, fitting for a president who also wished to raise the dead, and also what had never lived. riverdale’s preservation of the old “great” america is superficial—indoors, a very contemporary isolation and alienation reign, in contrast even to the desperation of actual 50’s suburbia. 27. is everyone dead already in this show? is riverdale purgatory? is that what explains its being unstuck in time and drenched in fog? but i’ve been to small towns in the northwest that look like riverdale—nothing has been updated since 1954. in order to seem fake, riverdale has to be even faker that real life, even more uncanny—and that’s a tall order.

[vitanes]

say it’s okay when it’s not

chapter 1: replacement

One unfortunate event results in Lucas ending up sick for a week. Once he’s back to school, there’s a new addition to his friend group and he isn’t very happy about it.

(a/n: remember those promo pics that made some of us believe eliott would join the boys n we would have an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers? well.)

Lucas isn’t drunk. He is high and drunk. Because there’s nothing better than getting wasted in order to ignore important matters. Mom in the psychiatric clinic? Dad being a dick? Not having money to pay the rent? Who cares.

And before anyone says that it’s a wrong way of coping, Lucas is aware. It’s not like he’s doing it on purpose. It’s just that when an occasion comes, he isn’t going to say no, right? He’s at a party, with his friends. He’s having fun.

The guys are talking about girls, because of course they are. Lucas isn’t paying much attention to their words, only nodding when someone addresses him. Mostly, he’s occupied with his beer.

His eyes keep straying over to a guy who’s standing in the corner of the room, chatting with someone, but glancing time and time again towards him.

It’s not often that Lucas has a chance to flirt with boys. Or, actually, be even near the boys that could be possibly interested in him. He’s nowhere close to being open about his sexuality. Unlike this dude, as it seems. And Lucas is intrigued.

He might have made out with like two boys in the past, but he was so piss-drunk he doesn’t remember half of it. He doesn’t even recall how it came to be and how exactly he managed to keep it secret. That’s why he isn’t about to go out of his way this time. He’s pretty sure some tension loaded looks is all it’s going to be. Lucas is way too scared of his friends picking up on him ogling someone that isn’t a girl to be bold.

But then the guy’s companion leaves and all that’s left is a pretty boy leaning against the wall, looking straight through Lucas, sending shivers down his spine. The boy cocks his eyebrow, his mouth stretched in a lazy smile. He nods his head towards the exit and winks at him.

Lucas is left dumbfounded, his throat dry. He looks over to his friends, but they are still engrossed in their conversation. He glances back towards the empty wall. His pulse picks up. Be it fear or excitation, he isn’t sure.

He should follow him. No one would even notice him slipping away.

He takes a step and well, there’s a hand on his shoulder in an instant. He looks up.

“Everything good?” Yann asks, those big brown eyes full of concern. And Lucas remembers just how long it’s taken him to get over them.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Need some fresh air.”

Yann nods and lets him go. Lucas sends his way a reassuring smile and gets out of the room before he literally bolts out of the house. He doesn’t know where the guy is, but something tells him that he’s going in the right direction.

His instincts don’t fail him.

Once he rounds the corner of the house, someone tugs on his sleeve and pulls him further into the shadows. Lucas yelps, initially, before realising he’s facing the same boy from the party. Now grinning widely, only centimetres away from his face. Lucas can’t help but smile back at him, feeling giddy.

He’s pushed against the wall of the house, the boy’s fingers making their way towards Lucas’ hair and tangling in the strands on the nape of his neck.

“Can I?” the boy whispers, his lips brushing against Lucas’.

Lucas doesn’t usually kiss strangers, not for himself at least, only when he has to put on a show for his friends. But this time, just like the other two times he was too intoxicated to be scared, he lets his guard down and leans in.

***

The morning after the party, Lucas wakes up with a sore throat, aching muscles and the temperature so high that Mika seriously considers taking Lucas to the doctor. Which he obviously declines because he’s strong and will get over it. Duh.

Plot twist: he doesn’t get over it as quickly as he wishes.

***

Lucas wipes his running nose, scrolling through social media. He is finally present enough to catch up with everything he’s missed in the days he was dying.

In retrospect, Lucas admits that hooking up with handsome boys on some random parties has its perks – mainly the hooking up part, but Lucas can’t say this outweighs him having a fever and being stuck in the bed for the whole week. Now, when he’s almost healthy again and no longer horny, he knows that making out and humping someone for good two hours straight, outside, can never be a good idea. Especially when it’s still February, it was night and he wasn’t properly dressed nor sober. Lucas only hopes the other guy’s got at least a cough. Solidarity, right?

Lucas doesn’t even have a name for the person that put him in such a situation. To be fair, though, Lucas hasn’t revealed his personal information either. His mouth was rather preoccupied. It was a nice fling, but that’s all it was. A fleeting thing, nothing he’s going to mull over.

Maybe one day kissing a boy will be ground-breaking for him, who knows.

For the most part of his feverish days, he was out of it. He’s had enough energy to inform the boys he’d be absent as well as school and then he fucked off and left his phone on silent. Mika and Lisa would check up on him, bring him food, but other than that he didn’t accept other human interactions.

To be quite honest, there hasn’t been that much happening. Only some common room gathering that apparently was interesting enough for Yann, Arthur and Basile to attend. Lucas thinks it’s nothing out of ordinary, that they will probably tell him all about it when he comes back to school, but then he stumbles across something on Yann’s and Basile’s Instagram accounts.

That something being various selfies, the kind that they take whenever they’re fucking around as a group. This time, though, there’s a face Lucas has never seen before.

In one picture, the four of them are doing some poses, in another Basile is attempting to climb the new guy, the next one shows Arthur making a kissy face at him and the guy grinning widely, his whole face scrunched up. In the last one that Lucas sees, Yann has his arm thrown over the guy’s shoulder, a lazy smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Lucas sits up in his bed, feeling hot all over again. He’s staring at the pictures of them all having fun and his heartbeat speeds up.

He can’t believe he’s been replaced in only about a week. Lucas closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. No need to freak out. There must be a good explanation for this.

Lucas scrolls further and sees pictures of his boys and Emma’s girls, and the guy. Common room mentioned in the captions. Oh God, he’s everywhere.

Lucas’ door flings open and he drops his phone.

“How are we feeling today?” Mika asks, plopping down onto Lucas’ bed and Lucas glares at him, hoping that the fact he’s nearly been through an emotional breakdown doesn’t show on his face.

“Fuck, you scared me,” Lucas mumbles, trying to kick Mika off the bed. Mika only grabs his ankle and pushes it back.

“Do you want some more chicken soup?”

Lucas grimaces the second these words leave Mika’s mouth.

“That’s the only thing I’ve been eating for the past week.”

“Oh, wow, okay. I nurse you back to health and you complain? Fine, next time you will beg me to bring you that soup,” Mika whines, crossing his arms over his chest. Then he glances down at Lucas’ phone and before Lucas can react, he snatches the device to himself. “Who is that?” Mika asks, his eyebrows pulled up. His thumb swipes on the screen a couple of times and he whistles.

“How the fuck would I know,” Lucas mutters, reaching his hand out for Mika to give him the phone back. Mika looks at him out of the corner of his eye, suspicious.

“New friend?” He wriggles his eyebrows and Lucas sighs in exasperation.

“No. Give me my phone back,” he demands, flexing his fingers for emphasis. Mika squints at him, but eventually obeys and places the phone in Lucas’ palm. He stands up and slowly moves towards the door. Only stops right before leaving.

“Rest up, so tomorrow you can go to school without fainting,” Mika throws over his back and then he’s gone. As is all of Lucas’ motivation for anything.

He falls down on his pillow.

***

Arriving to school on Monday has never been as nerve-wracking as it is today. All because Lucas doesn’t know what he’s going to be met with.

Like, logically, Yann and Lucas have been friends since they were little, Arthur and Basile have never shown an indication that they didn’t want Lucas there. They all have been a tight group for a few years now. They wouldn’t just find a replacement for Lucas in a week. And it would take much more than a flu for them to kick him out.

But Lucas’ logic has long flown out of the window, right around that time he wasn’t enough for his father to even consider staying. That’s why he expects the worst.

His steps are deliberate when he’s crossing the schoolyard. They slow down even more once he notices his friends, hanging out on a bench. Arthur is talking over Basile and Yann is shaking his head at their shenanigans, but the second Lucas walks up to them the chatter stops.

They look over him and simultaneously stand up.

The guys hugging and high-fiving him is not what Lucas has been thinking of, so he’s a little bit caught off guard. And also feeling stupid for doubting them.  

“What’s up?” Yann asks, nudging him in the shoulder all the while Arthur and Basile sit back down on the bench.

Lucas sends them a small smile. “Good.”

“All healthy?” This time it’s Arthur’s voice and Lucas nods.

He clears his throat. “What about you, guys?”

Basile takes a deep breath and is about to go on a rant when Arthur covers his mouth with his hand.

“We are great,” Arthur says. Basile’s muffled whining can be heard from behind Arthur’s fingers, but Lucas can’t make out any sense out of it. “So much happened in the week you’ve been gone,” Arthur adds and takes his hand off Basile’s face, looking at him with daggers in his eyes. “You were going to say something stupid without thinking, no need to thank me.”

Basile pouts and sighs.

“Don’t mind them,” Yann snorts. “You haven’t missed that much, but we can catch up on everything during lunch break?”

“Yeah, sure. So,” he clears his throat, “are we getting in or?”

“We are waiting for Eliott!” Basile exclaims and all blood drains from Lucas’ face. There’s an ugly feeling coming to life inside of him.

“God, do you ever listen to me? Now you’ve ruined the surprise,” Arthur groans, moving his hands aggressively.

“Who… who’s Eliott?” Lucas asks, scowling. His voice sounds small and he hopes none of them hear that.

Both Arthur and Basile get a love-stricken looks on their faces the moment Lucas finishes his question.

Yann interrupts whatever either of them was about to say with a short, “He’s a new guy in school. We met him last week, he’s cool and we’ve been hanging out.”

Lucas hums.

“He’s in one of your classes, then?”

“Unfortunately, no. He’s older,“ Arthur says.

“So, why are we waiting for him?” Lucas asks, feeling like an idiot.

“Dude,” Basile whispers, his head tilted to the side.

“Because that’s what friends do?” Arthur asks, putting a finger to his lips.

“You’ve known him for a week,” Lucas deadpans.

“It’s like as if we didn’t wait to go into the school for Yann. You don’t leave a bro like that,” Basile says with strong emotion in his voice and Lucas frowns.

“You are comparing some stranger to Yann?”

Yann tugs on Lucas’ elbow, turning Lucas’ attention to himself.

“He doesn’t know anyone here and he’s a lot of fun. So we thought he can hang with us. Why are you getting so worked up over this?” Yann’s voice is gentle, but firm and Lucas opens his mouth to answer, but before he can get anything out, Basile squeals.

“It’s him,” Arthur supplies, all the while Basile is swinging his arm left and right in a poor imitation of waving, not caring that he could hit someone really hard.  

Lucas turns his head and it’s like the whole world slows down for a minute. There’s the guy from the pictures. He’s smiling towards the group in the same way Lucas has seen on Instagram. He’s wearing a beige jacket and his hair is a mess. Lucas notices a weird bounce in his steps. All of the things for some reason look unnatural, but at the same time effortless on this guy. Watching him come up to them feels like a fucking slow motion sequence from a movie, not something that happens in real life.

He comes to a stop and still smiling, shrugs. Only when his eyes land on Lucas, does he realise he’s been gaping and he closes his mouth.

“Hi,” Eliott says, rather shyly. He says it to all of them, but somehow it feels like it’s directed right at Lucas.

Lucas nods and looks away, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket. That’s when Basile and Arthur jump up from their places and nearly tackle Eliott to the ground with excessive hugging.

What the fuck has gotten into them.

Yann claps Eliott on the back, letting the other two torture him with questions about his weekend and whatnot.

They still have a couple of minutes to spare before the first bell, so the guys engage in the conversation. Lucas, on the other hand, sits down on the bench that’s now empty and pulls out his phone.

He isn’t very interested in getting familiar with Eliott. Basile, Arthur and Yann getting all over him are enough. He busies himself with a game on his phone, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, he can’t be left alone for too long.

“Lucas, Lucas, Lucas,” someone calls out for him after some time passes and he looks up, just to be met with four pairs of interested eyes. “Come here,” Basile urges him.

With a lot of effort, Lucas eventually tucks his phone in and stands up.

“Lucas, Eliott, Eliott, Lucas,” Arthur points at them respectively and Eliott sends Lucas a small, more private smile. That annoys Lucas for some reason and he sets his teeth, the muscle in his jaw ticking.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Eliott admits, the apples of his cheeks tinted pink.

“Cool. Can we go to classes now?” Lucas asks, his tone harsher than he intended to and something flashes across Eliott’s face making his smile lose its brightness. Lucas chooses to ignore it.

Not waiting for a response, he pushes past Eliott and Basile, who’s standing next to Eliott, and steps towards the entrance, leaving his friends completely baffled.

Lucas only realises he must have made a fool out of himself once he’s already in class. He should have contained all of his emotions instead of letting them spill out like that. Now he’s made things awkward. And by the time the first lesson is over, he’s already gotten confused texts from his friends.

He sighs deeply, moving a hand over his face. How is he supposed to show up at the lunch break now?

***

Turns out he doesn’t have to, thanks to someone having an awful aim and decking Lucas in the head with a ball during his PE class. Is he happy about being sent to a nurse and spending a whole hour on an uncomfortable bed there because they have to check whether he got a concussion? Absolutely not. But he’s definitely not hating the fact that they tell him to go home earlier and get some rest.

His head is throbbing, but he’s mostly numb to the pain considering he wasn’t all that fresh for the past week anyway. Still, it’s annoying and makes him pretty irritated.

Despite all of that, he doesn’t want his friends to think he’s avoiding them. That’s why he deems sending a guess who got a mild concussion eyyy to their group chat as appropriate. He adds a dozen emojis, just to make sure he comes off as normal as possible. They seem to buy it, if their partly sympathetic and partly mocking responses are anything to go by.

He comes back to the apartment rather happy with about the universe having been on his side today. He doesn’t think about how his friends will be spending yet another day with Eliott and not him. Lucas is focused on how he doesn’t have to spend time with the dude.

He hangs his jacket by the door and takes his steps towards his bedroom when there’s a noise coming from the kitchen. Then Lisa emerges from there with two plates full of sandwiches in her hands. They both stop in their tracks, frozen and stare at each other for a long moment.

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” she asks eventually.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” he retorts.

There are a few beats of silence.

She shrugs one of her shoulders. “Yeah. Want a sandwich?”

“Sure,” Lucas replies just in the right time for his stomach to remind him he hasn’t eaten anything in the last few hours.

They settle in the living room. Lisa turns on the TV, all the while Lucas reaches out for one of the sandwiches and lies down on the couch.

“If you leave crumbs all over the place, Mika will kill you,” she says, sitting in the remaining space on the couch. She proceeds to bite down on her sandwich. Seeing how soon enough she’s brushing the crumbs off herself, not looking where they fall, Lucas concludes that frankly, she doesn’t care about Mika’s anger.

Well. Lucas shrugs to himself and continues eating, his eyes moving towards the TV. The good thing about a flatmate who isn’t very keen on socialising is that they both can enjoy the silence together without feeling pressured to talk.

Besides, there wouldn’t be really anything to talk about anyway.

***

The next day, Lucas comes to school prepared. He tells himself he won’t be outright rude and will just ignore anything considering their new addition to the group. Hopefully, if he’s got any functioning brain cells, Eliott will get the memo. He’s got enough of affection coming from Arthur and Baz, so he shouldn’t be upset over Lucas not falling head over heels for him as well. Unless he’s shameless and self-centred. Who knows, Lucas expects anything from someone with hair like that.

In the end, it turns out Lucas has done all of that bracing for nothing because Eliott doesn’t come to school that day. He’s absent on Wednesday as well, much to his friends' dismay. Well, Lucas isn’t the one to complain and thankfully, he almost goes a full day without having to hear about Eliott.

Almost.

***

Lucas is a fan of biology, no matter how uncool it may sound. He gets the subject and its logic. Besides, sharing the desk with Arthur is okay even if the guy can be distracting from time to time. But Lucas is good at biology, he gets grades that satisfy him and he doesn’t get as stressed over that class as he gets over the other ones.

His peace is disrupted when he’s getting ready before the class starts and someone who isn’t Arthur sits down next to him.

He clears his throat, confused. “Imane, you know you don’t sit here?” he asks.

She raises an eyebrow at him. “Thanks, genius. Don’t worry I’m not about to be your desk buddy,” she assures him.

“Okay, so what are you doing here?”

“You know Eliott, right?”

“Not really,” he replies, looking away and going back to putting things out of his backpack.

“He’s been hanging around you and your friends, hasn’t he?”

“I wasn’t at school last week.” He shrugs.

She hums. “Well, he’s an old friend of mine. Anyways, you didn’t come to the common room meeting last Friday, I’m aware. But your friends were so I guess you’re all in, yeah?”

Lucas isn’t sure where it’s going and why she needed to mention Eliott before jumping to another topic, but he nods cautiously. If the guys like the idea of the common room that much, they are going to drag him in anyway.

“Okay, so there’s this hideous mural. And Eliott volunteered to paint it. But he hasn’t been at school and we wanted to talk about the details. So I thought you may know something.”

He looks up at her, his eyes narrowed. The bell rings in the distance, but he ignores it.

“Can’t you like, text him?”

“I don’t have his phone number. Or any other way of contacting him,” she says, her fingers tapping on the desk. Lucas’ eyes fall to the movement briefly and then back up at her face.

“Didn’t you just say you were friends?” he asks, each word measured.

Now it’s Imane’s turn to look to the side. She bites on her lower lip before saying, “It’s complicated.”

Hm. Suspicious.

“Anyway,” she breathes out. “I assume that we could talk it out? If you’re involved as well. Then you could just tell Eliott everything?”

Lucas opens his mouth, but he’s interrupted by, “Lucas, Imane, the lesson has started. You can talk later.”

He looks over at the teacher.

“Yes, of course. I’ll go to my seat,” Imane says, her tone apologetic. She starts gathering her things.

“Oh, you can stay there. Everyone’s already settled in their place. And I’m sure some separation from his friend will be beneficial for Arthur over there.”

Imane sags down in resignation and nods. Lucas isn’t sure what exactly has just happened, but he looks over his shoulder just to see Arthur sitting next to Alexia, his expression agitated.

***

Thursday comes and goes uneventfully. Before Lucas knows, it’s Friday and he just can’t wait to go home.

He is playing with his food, bored all the while the guys are talking. Sometimes he’ll look up at them, but that’s about that. They don’t really demand his attention and he doesn’t feel like engaging in their discussions. That’s it until Eliott’s name is dropped and he perks up, the weird conversation with Imane still apparent in his mind. He hasn’t told his friends about it yet even though it’s been two days since then.

“What’s going on with this guy, anyway?” he asks out of the blue, interrupting Basile. He straightens his back a little. “He volunteered for something, but then he’s skipping school.” By the time it’s been another day when Eliott hasn’t turned up, for a second Lucas thought to himself that maybe he was just a feverish dream. A manifestation of Lucas’ fears.

“I texted him and he said he isn’t feeling well,” Arthur says.

“I see,” Lucas answers, dragging his fork over his pasta.

“Maybe he got the flu from you, Lucas,” Basile suggests and Lucas looks up at him, frowning.

“Oh, sure, because I’ve been hanging off of him like you,” he says bitterly and gets a snicker in return.

“Cranky because the parents got another kid they’re showering with affection instead?” Basile asks, his mouth full of food.

“First of all, you’re disgusting,” Lucas points his fork at Basile, “Second of all, no. I just don’t get what’s the big deal. He’s just a guy. Irresponsible, on top of that, since Imane had to track me down to talk about some mural.”

“He’s not just a guy. He’s so fucking cool, dude. Give him a chance. And you have no idea how excited he was about that mural. You’ve missed out on Monday. He shared his vision with us. Just because he’s not feeling well, it doesn’t mean you have to judge him.” Arthur flicks a piece of peas at Lucas once he’s finished. It lands in his hair. Lucas rolls his eyes and picks the thing out just to throw it at Basile.

“You need to chill,” he concludes.

“You need to chill,” Basile repeats.

“Okay, we need to keep going,” Yann says, standing up.

Everyone begins collecting their plates, but Lucas sluggish moves make him the last to follow. The guys are almost out of the cafeteria when he’s only started getting up. He’s about to leave as well, but there’s buzzing in his pocket. Three times. He thinks it’s probably his mom as he pulls his phone out and unlocks it.

“You coming?” Yann calls out to him.

“Give me a minute,” Lucas replies, not looking up.

The messages are from an unknown number and Lucas frowns as he taps on them. The moment he sees what they contain, he exhales sharply and his heart skips a few beats before picking up its speed. He’s scowling at what’s just been sent to him, not really comprehending what it is. His grip on the phone tightens and he swallows roughly. He doesn’t hear anything around him besides the consistent ringing. His knees give up under him and he falls back on his chair, still staring at the messages.

Two pictures showing him kissing the guy at the party and right under them a for now, I’m only letting you know I have these, have a good day! are staring back at him.

[hircmi-blog]

╰ 𝗦𝗔𝗡𝗔 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗢𝗭𝗔𝗞𝗜, 𝗖𝗜𝗦 𝗙𝗘𝗠𝗔𝗟𝗘, 𝗦𝗛𝗘/𝗛𝗘𝗥. hiromi 'mimi' nakamura. twenty-two. heiress/tattoo artist. her family is using her tattoo shop to launder money for a local cartel. glitter smudged underneath your eyes, trading whispers in a dark room, and biting into an apple just to realize it's rotten.

backstory ! (drugs tw)

originally hailing from tokyo, japan, the nakamura’s are legacies. coming from a long line of business men on her father’s side, they were old money even before hiromi’s father and uncle started what would eventually become a multi-billion dollar energy company. 

nakamura industries grew and grew faster than anyone could have predicted. not wanting to miss an opportunity, the nakamura’s packed up and made the move to los angles california exactly a year before hiromi was born. 

turns out they weren’t as prepared for the move as they thought /: one bad investment and the loss of a substantial amount of money later, hiromi’s uncle is the one who made the decision to get help from some more than shady business partners

in return for saving nakamura industries, these new business partners only had one condition: the nakamura’s would have to find a way to help launder money for their cartel. the task had seemed easy enough but as the years passed they only got deeper and deeper into criminal activity. there was a lot of secrecy surrounding the nakamura name because of this, as well as a lot of whispers from other people questioning their success, but nobody could prove anything illegal was going on

she’s the middle child! she has three older siblings ( two brothers and a sister ) and one younger brother. there was a lot of pressure for her older siblings, especially the boys, to take over the family business one day so their upbringing was a lot tougher than hiromi’s and her younger brother’s was. because of that there was a bit of a strain in their relationships, and hiromi was really only close to her younger brother growing up. 

all the nakamura siblings led very elusive lives. since they were all aware to some degree of their family’s involvement with the cartel, they all learned to keep people at a distance and not to talk about family with anyone which kind of translated into making it hard for hiromi and her siblings to really make what felt like real friends ):

not to make her a cliche middle child but....she really was ignored ??? for the most part like her parents loved her and stuff but it was obvious where their priorities and where their attention went. when she was little it made her sad but the more she grew up she kinda just accepted it as the way things were and just used the fact that they weren’t breathing down her neck 24/7 to her advantage

which is why she got really good at finding that validation and attention she wasn’t getting from her parents elsewhere as she grew up (whoring around), and got even better at talking herself out of trouble. turns out she had a talent for words, for knowing when to drop her last name, and knowing when to shut up and bat her eyes. being reckless like this was her own secret rush. she knew it would be dangerous for herself and her family if she ever got into any real trouble, but the possibility of it was so addictive she really couldn’t stop. 

what started out as simply partying turned into a full blown addiction. she was out clubbing almost every night, close with just about every bouncer in beverly hills, always going wild but she made sure to keep her stunts within the four walls of the clubs she frequented. at home she was back to being careful, but when she was alone away from her family she could be whoever she wanted

becoming a tattoo artist had always been something hiromi had wanted to do, so when her parents said for her 20th birthday they’d buy her her own shop, she didn’t turn their offer down. turns out their intentions had little to do with making her dreams come true and everything to do with the fact that they needed another business where they could launder money through. her tattoo shop would become one of many businesses the nakamura’s owned or co owned (some others being a hotel, a strip club, a restaurant and even a hair salon) purely to keep their promise to the cartel 

not wanting the fact that she had her own shop to be completely spoiled, hiromi agreed to let her parents launder money so long as she herself didn’t have to be directly involved. they agreed and she went on pretending like nothing was going own although the thought is always at the back of her head

she managed to build up a good rep for herself though thanks to social media!! being in beverley hills her clientele naturally ended up being a good mix between everyday people, social media influencers, models, and even a couple of actual known celebrities o: now that she has her own actual business she’s tried to keep her wild side in check, but temptation is everywhere!

personality + tidbits !

she goes by mimi, never hiromi. sometimes people call her hiro or romi, but mimi is definitely the most popular of all her nicknames and what she uses for all her social media. 

she’s kind of hard to get to know /: not in the sense that she’s purposely cold or rude, but she can come across as intimidating or detached a lot because it takes her a while to open up to people. even with those closest to her she still struggles, often keeping a lot of personal stuff to herself in a way that gets frustrating when people who care about her see her upset but refusing to open up about it. shes the type of person you can know for years only to realize you barely know anything about her

when she’s partying with you, though, that’s the easiest way to become her friend!!! another reason why she likes to abuse things like party drugs and alcohol as often as she does is because they make her feel a lot more open and receptive to making real connections

she has a bad habit of seeking validation from others, which mostly manifests as her being overly sexually promiscuous to the point where shes kinda dependent on being desired as a way of feeling good about herself </3

not a very good influence.....like....at all DWJDJWDJW will 100% be the person egging you on in situations where she should really be doing the opposite.

she’s just generally....ambiguous with her morals because of the way she grew up. being as impulsive as she is, she can come off as selfish sometimes just because stopping and considering the consequences of her actions isnt something she usually does

but she tries for those she’s closest to! she values her friendships a lot more than she probably lets on. vulnerability isn’t her strong suit at all but shes working on it /: 

shes also the worst at keeping plans or showing up to things on time like JSBJDWBJDW this bitch is always disappearing if you want her to show up to anything you better drive her there yourself 

she loooooves tattooing her pals she’s always trying to sweet talk people into getting more tats! if you know her though you know you better not be getting your tats elsewhere or shes gonna be big mad 

deadass the type to be like no i dont hold grudges (: but then subconsciously hold that resentment in and lash out even though she said she’s over something.....shes a scorpio JSBDWJBDJWBJDWBDJW 

she has a habit of buying friends ridiculously expensive things even the most mundane gifts (like a bottle of wine) always end up costing a ridiculous amount of money and its never on purpose she just gravitates towards the finer things in life and she doesnt even realize

this shit is so long ive been doing this for hours JSBJDWBDJWBDJW i hate intros bc my charas always change once i start writing and rping but thats fine now we all have a base <3333

sum connection ideas

sexy plots period. exes, fwb, ex fwb, enemies with benefits, whatever ! whore rights !

angsty plots period...ex friendships </3 enemies </3 everything i listed above ...

sad plots period! unrequited love mayahps ? idk man im just spitting words

some cute ones too though we love balance.....give me best friends 🥺 maybe someone who can be a good influence on her....some cute crush shit....sibling like friendships <3333

ppl she tattoos, a roomie?, ppl she goes clubbing with, maybe someone she used to go clubbing with but stopped bc one night they were out something bad happened o:, idk what else i really tried JSDBWBDJWBDJWBDJWBDJW

[najblazingstar]

20 Questions: All About My Writing Life

Where do you get your ideas?

Honestly, I don't know.  Ideas come to me often and I find inspiration everywhere.  Something usually pops into my head, a scene or an action, and I start asking myself questions about what a person would do or why they would do it.  This can lead to a character idea or a plot line and then eventually a story.  But there is never just one way to create a story.  This makes it fun and challenging.

What is your writing process like?

When I'm working on a project, in the beginning I like to take my time and think about the idea and the characters.  I have to see if I am really interested in this character and their story.  But I can't do too much pondering about a character without giving them a name first.  I could never write about a nameless character, I hit a brick wall if I don't know what the character's name is first.  Even if I change the name later, I have to give them a name. 

Then I think about the character, who they are now as a person, who they were growing up and where they want to be in the future---and with whom. I start formulating a plot outline and researching anything that is not familiar to me.  I try to be as organized about this as possible.  I keep everything in one place for easy reference.  Currently I'm using Scrivener to do that and it's amazing!

What advice do you have for writers?

Get to writing and stick to it!  Sometimes it's hard to focus because there is so much going on in the world, and in life, and on television and in social media...But the book (or project) is not going to write itself.  And forget about any naysayers or critics.  Ignore what someone says will sell or publish.  Focus on writing the story itself and making it the best you can because you never know what will happen and no one can predict the future.  I learned all of this the long, hard way.

Does writing energize you or exhaust you?

Writing energizes me.  Once I start writing and get the ball rolling, I don't want to stop.  It can be late at night or early in the morning and I can be tired or I have to get somewhere, but if the writing is flowing, I find that I don't want to stop.  So, I find that it definitely energizes me.

What are common traps for aspiring writers?

Procrastination, perfectionism and insecurity.  I think all three contribute to writer's block.  It's easy to procrastinate and fall into the traps of trying to be the perfect writer and to not be confident about your talent as a writer.  I think it's normal to feel all of these things, too, but I find that we can't dwell on them if we want to finish a project and put ourselves out there.

What is your writing Kryptonite?

Clutter.  I can't function in a cluttered space and I find it hard to write if my desk isn't clear.  It usually makes me procrastinate because I will literally clean instead of writing.  So I work hard to keep my desk clear and ready for writing at all times.

Do you try to be more original or deliver to readers what they want?

I try to do both.  I want to be as original as possible but I also want to entertain my readers.  I want the reader to enjoy my work and take an escape from reality.  This why I read and I wnat to do the same for my readers, that is my main priority.

Do you want each book to stand on its own or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?

I want to do both.  My debut novel is the first book in a series but I am also working on other projects, one of which is another book series with a mystery-thriller focus.

If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

"Writing should be your main focus, everything else is secondary.  There is no other occupation for you---just write!  And get to writing, stop procrastinating and trying to be the 'perfect writer,' you are good enough!"

How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

Learning how to both market and publish your own book is a challenge in itself.  It was something that I had always wanted to do, even before indie-publishing became popular.  Still, it was a little intimidating at first.  I had to really push myself to get past the fear of the unknown but now that I have embraced the challenge, I think it will be a little easier the next go-round.  

I can't say for sure how it will effect my writing process, but I think that it will make me embrace my writing time more just because it is the only time where I can fully be creative.  

What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

I began sharing my work with my classmates in junior high school.  I was in the seventh grade and was writing short stories and little novellas for fun.  I had not even realized that it was a gift or something that people did for a living.  I thought of it as a hobby and something I had been doing since I was a child for fun.

One of my classmates read one of my stories and the word began to spread about my writing.  I wasn't the most popular girl in our small magnet school or anything, but all of a sudden, I had a little following, a group of girls my age who enjoyed my stories and pushed me to keep writing and to share more with them.  It was great for my self-esteem and for the first time, I began to realize that the authors of the books I read for fun, made their living this way.  I decided then that I wanted to be a writer.

What kind of research do you do and how long do you spend researching before beginning a book?

It depends on the type of book I am writing and the characters I'm writing about.  I find that I spend a good amount of time doing research and thinking about what I have found in comparison to my creative ideas

Do you consider or view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

Yes, it's definitely spiritual.  I remember watching an interview with Denzel Washington on Oprah and he said something to this effect about acting.  I believe that this applies to any creative art form because we are tapping into the great Creative Spirit (God).  And by embracing this spiritual aspect of my writing, I think it made me a better writer.  It definitely helped ease the tension and anxiety that I felt at first.

Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Yes, in every book there are tongue-in-cheek little messages and a kind of "Where's Waldo?" game except it's "Where's Joli?" 

In my first novel, I make an appearance but you have to look for me.

How do you select the names of your characters?

I love names and for me they are very important.  I can't write about my character without one.  So, I usually keep a collection of name books and a list of names I have collected over the years that I can refer to when I'm working on a story or developing a character.  I look for the name that fits the vibe of the character or their background story and fits that character the most.

What is your favorite childhood book?

I started reading early (at age 3) and I can remember that I loved "The Little Engine That Could" and the Ramona series by Beverly Cleaver.  As I got older I loved the Little House on the Prairie and the Babysitters Club series.  I also loved reading books by Walter Dean Myers and Alice Childress.  We kept a library of books at home and I had my own collection from a young age.  I became a bookworm much like my mother and read voraciously.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Good question.  Sometimes it is the beginning, creating the fictional world of the story.  Other times, it is creating the foundation of the story in the opening chapters, which is also known as the setup.  It can be challenging to transfer what you know about the character and their story to the reader without overwhelming them.   

Does your family support your career as a writer?

Most of my family is probably not aware of my work as a writer, but for those who are, they are very supportive.  My parents are my biggest support and cheerleaders, especially my mother.

What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?

I spent good money on a great desk two years ago and saved up to buy the Mac Pro of my dreams.  Money well spent.

Do you believe in writer's block?

Yes, but I think that it's a sign that I need to take a break from writing or that I'm not writing consistently enough.  I try not to take too long between writing sessions to keep the juices flowing and I find that this eases writer's block.  If I'm in the middle of a block, I try not to feel anxious and do something else. 

I find that a good idea or a solution to a creative issue will pop into my head when I am not straining to find it.  I write it down and then use it later in the next writing session.

So there you have it, twenty questions with me about my writing life.  I hope that helps someone out there get to know me as a writer and inspires another writer.

Keep reading and creating...

Naj

[justasocialmediastudent]

Is social media really bae?

Over the past few weeks, I have been talking about the identity crisis of Tumble, how social media relates to activism and political engagement. We all know that social media started off with the moto “to connect people worldwide”. Its reachability has been a great help in many ways to from communities and societies. It has linked millions and millions of individuals online and even brought some connections from online to offline. However, troll and social media conflicts exists. There is still this question: Is social media really bae?

Bae has been up to something all the time

Danah Boyd mentioned in the book called It’s Complicated:

Although  new forms of drama find a home through social media, teens’ behaviour have not significantly changed. Social media have not radically altered the dynamics of bullying, but it has made these dynamics more visible to more people. - Danah Boyd

Our bae did nothing wrong by existing and became the medium of trolling and social media conflicts. Trolling and other social media conflicts (or the Internet plague) are everywhere online. It spreads like a plague, disease and social media happens to be the medium. You wouldn’t blame the ship that carries disease-carry rats for the plague outbreak, right? I agree to what Danah Boyd said, especially how Internet makes the conflicts more obvious. Memories stay forever on the Internet, so does mistakes. No matter what you do, you just can’t undo whatever has been done online. This leads to a huge question: Why do people troll or involve in conflicts?

It’s all about ME!

Trollers love reactions from those who they trolled and bullies love to target those who are weak and powerless. The trollers and bullies have a sense of achievement or accomplishment after taking it all out on total strangers. This kind of behaviour is what people called narcissism.

Internet trolls are narcissists, psychopaths and sadists. - Dr. Golbeck

It’s all about themselves, the big word ME! They might have no reflections on their actions or might know that their actions are harmful towards others but hey, they can do it. No one would know. No one would care. It’s the INTERNET! The Internet then become the medium for them to spread this cyber plague. A case for this is the Tyler Clementi case. Tyler was ridiculed by his friends on Twitter after Tyler’s roommate recorded him kissing a boy in their room on his laptop web cam. This happened after he had come out. In the end, he jumped off the Washington Bridge. There is another case where a teenager called Hessay has committed suicide after receiving mean anonymous feedback from Sayat.Me.

I don’t know you, you don’t know me, so……

The concept of anonymity has been the idea of social media in connecting people and creating a safe space for everyone to voice their opinions. It was aimed to create a public sphere for everyone to take part in something without concerning their identity. There is this ideal “equality” for everyone online, but look at how it turns out. Trolling, bullying, harassments, and more ill-thoughts or ideology are being spread online. The idea of freedom of speech has been the shield for those who abuse it. The social media affords people to create fake identities online and start doing whatever they want to, including attacking people online.

Not long ago, when episode 14 of Darling in the Franxx aired, it causes the fandom to rage as the plot twist is unexpectedly different from the fans’ expectation. It leads to some fans string to use thrown-away twitter accounts to send death threats, curses, and harassments to the producer’s tweets.

I don’t belong here

The sense of belonging also plays an important role in social media users behavior online. Most people went online to seek for connection with people, they want to build their own social circle that they feel they belong to. It’s all good when the people connects with one another in a community that are sharing the same hobbies or interests. However, it also forms societies where ideologies and information are being spread from communities to communities. For instance, a person may be inside of a community that loves pets, this person may also be inside a community that pro-guns. Imagine this kind of relationship where each person are in different communities as they have different interest and beliefs, the transmission of information will happen when they start sharing information from each of their own communities. It spreads like a ripple effect. Here are some examples of unhealthy or rather dangerous ideologies that exists online:

Pro-suicide : It’s not that long ago since the Blue Whale challenge came out, “preparing” or encourages teenagers to suicide in order to “become a whale”. It consists of 50 tasks over the span of 50 days which include mutilation, carving blue whale and watch horror or gory videos.There are posts on Tumblr that encourages suicide. Some are even forcing people to suicide.

Thinpo : I believe a lot of people has discovered the dark side of Tumblr that Tumblr is now trying to get rid of. Thinpo came from the word “thinspiration”. There are a huge community online that supports thinpo which also relates to eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. Majority of the people who supports thinpo would be also in the pro-ana community, where they believe that being thin to the bone and boney figures are attractive. However, they just cannot see that their health is declining and their bodies are slowing dying because of the unhealthy practices. For them, it hurts more to look in the mirror and to being called “fat”. Thinpo can be often found on blogs and Tumblr where they would write blogs about their tips on achieving the boney figure through excessive or extreme dieting or practices.

The two ideologies mentioned above are spread using hashtags, such as #Iamawhale, #proana and #thinpo. The social media affords exposure and findability through the hashtags function but the fact that it also affords unhealthy ideologies to be spreading is also an issue.

Save them, save us

Now most of the social media have revised their community guidelines to prevent these kind of communities online. Does social media governance work? Well, I think it can restrict the access and minimize the spreading of cyber plague but not totally killing it. People will still find ways to get around any restriction or rules. I have seen some blogs that have taken down, came back with a new blog but with secret messages hidden in it, still convey the messages that broke the community guidelines. Bots can only block certain words but not hidden meanings. I think that social media classes should be given to parents and students at young age, so they would understand how Internet works in order to face and handle social media conflicts and trolling the best way.

Social media is love, social media is life

In my opinion, the Actor Network theory can be applied here as social media is a tool used to connect with people, and people are the ones that created social media. Human and this piece of technology are influencing each other. This can also be related to grassroots ‘bystander’ activism, where activism happened because human made social media a medium to spread the awareness or issues, but social media also affords human to be able to connect and form communities and societies. An example of this will be the #MarchForOurLives campaign.

References

Chin, B n.d., ‘ Week 7 Digital Citizenship 3: Trolling & social media conflict ’, MDA20009 Digital Communites , Learning materials on Blackboard, Swinburne University Sarawak, 16 April 2018, viewed 16 April 2018.

[sherlockedfanshani]

Johnlock: Two years on

I posted the following on a Sherlock fan forum in August 2016. I’ve just found it again and revisited it. It thought it might be interesting to reflect on how things have panned out in the Sherlock fandom: 

OK if you can bear with me, this is a long one! I wanted to set down some thoughts on this whole situation, which - frankly - I think has become a bit of a mess. Whether it can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction at this stage I think is unlikely, but who knows?! As far as I can see it, there are two entrenched sides now: TJLC shippers on one, TPTB on the other, and other fans - both non-Johnlockers and Johnlockers who don’t want or don’t expect their ship to become canon - caught somewhere in the middle. This is just my personal interpretation. I realise others will see things very differently so please accept that my intention is only to try and set things out in a non-inflammatory way. I will set my cards on the table from the start. I don’t think it is or has ever been Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss’ intention for Sherlock and John to enter into a romantic or a sexual relationship in their version of this story. I take at face value what they have said about addressing the fact that, in the 21st century, two close male friends living together would make some people question whether their relationship was more than platonic. And that, combined with the fact that both Moffat & Gatiss’ careers began in comedy and sitcoms, the way they have explored this in ‘Sherlock’ has mostly been through humour. That humour, incidentally, is never at the expense of gay people or gay relationships. If anything it’s a gentle mockery of any characters (Mrs Hudson, Angelo, the innkeepers in THOB) who make erroneous assumptions. In fact, humour is derived from the notion that homosexuality is so unremarkable these days. Therefore characters automatically jump to the conclusion that what Sherlock and John are gay, simply because such a close male friendship is more unusual! Do I think the “gay jokes” are always successful? Not entirely. Even Gatiss is on record as having said maybe they overdid them. However, I don’t think for a moment that they ever expected any section of their audience to interpret these occasional moments in each episode as hints or subtext that Sherlock and John would actually get together as a couple. So what happened way back in 2010? The show airs and becomes a bigger hit than Moffat & Gatiss could ever have imagined. At some stage it becomes clear to them that the show is attracting a very devoted collection of predominantly young and predominantly female fans. And via social media interaction, the creators become aware that for this fanbase, the largest part of the appeal of the show is the relationship between John and Sherlock. I’ve no idea if they’d heard of slash fiction and shipping before it became such a phenomenon in the Sherlock fandom, but presumably they became aware pretty rapidly. In the early days, the cast and crew responded in different ways whenever the fourth wall was broken and they were confronted with the Johnlock-related stories, photo manips and artwork that the fandom was producing. Initially they seemed amused and even played along. However, their responses to some of the more explicit, NSFW stuff that was shoved in their faces - either by fans or by journalists such as Caitlin Moran or Graham Norton - was less genial, and you got the definite sense that they weren’t entirely comfortable. The image of these fans that was being presented then was that they were hysterical, teenage, heterosexual girls: unable or unwilling to have physical, real-world relationships of their own, and fantasising about two men getting together for their titillation in much the same cliched way that straight men fantasise over lesbians. (Note: I’m not saying this was the reality - just the perception which was promoted all the time and which presumably TPTB also inherited.) So their responses began to shift. The creators have always said that fans are absolutely at liberty to write or create whatever they like. To my knowledge they have stood by that. No legal action of any kind has ever been threatened against any of the Sherlock fanbase for anything they have written, drawn or photoshopped. They have even expressed admiration for some of the artwork. However, they definitely took a step back and cooled on this stuff. Over time, both Gatiss and Moffat’s attitude towards and relationship with online fanbases has definitely suffered. They are fans themselves as they frequently remind us. Massive fans. And although there was no ‘Sherlock’ when they were younger and growing up, there was of course the other big TV show that has shaped their careers: ‘Doctor Who’. Remember, they are from a different generation. When they were kids, teenagers, even young men, the fan experience was totally different and almost entirely passive. You couldn’t post your opinions on a massive global forum, there was practically no way to contact other fans outside your immediate geographic locality, and there was no way of contacting the people who made the series, or at least certainly no way of guaranteeing they could see what you wrote or elicit a reply from them. Maybe this means that they haven’t adapted to the way modern fandom works. Maybe it means that as middle-aged men, they expect their fanbases to be more respectful and more passive, and ultimately to accept what they are given or, alternatively, exercise the only other option: stop watching and walk away. So what do they experience in this brave new world? Steven Moffat takes over the show-running job on ‘Doctor Who’, and has a colossal amount of vitriol flung at him by its fanbase. So much so that he decides to quit twitter altogether. He’s also routinely accused of misogyny, to the point where he is forced to give interviews rebutting the notion. I’m not going to get into whether or not the claims have any validity, I’m just trying to make the case for why he he may appear prickly or thin-skinned when it comes to criticism in general. Fan interaction also complicates matters just because the vocabulary that fans use is different. Young fans tweet “u lil shit” to Mark Gatiss in the way they would to their friends, and this is unsurprisingly not interpreted in the way it is intended. Offence is caused, people are blocked, and more barriers are erected between TPTB and the people who love and are inspired by their work. At some point, attitudes within fandom began to shift. Rather than just shipping two characters whose relationship nobody ever believed would become canon, many of the online/tumblr fanbase began to believe that Johnlock could and should do so. The notion took hold that if Gatiss were solely in charge of the show, this would indeed happen, and it was only Moffat - the nasty heterosexual - who was getting in the way. Gatiss was tweeted countless times to this effect. Only recently, someone on tumblr discovered an old League of Gentlemen sketch where Gatiss plays a gay character whose relationship (and its subsequent break-up) is fetishised and patronised by an overbearing straight woman called Tish. Whilst this sketch is problematic and can certainly be viewed as being misogynistic on some level, I don’t think it’s stretching credulity to speculate that ‘Tish’ is probably based on a real-life person and that Gatiss was indulging in some therapy by yelling at her on stage night after night. Did Gatiss connect this person with the Johnlock shippers? Did it seem to him that he was now having his professional career diminished by a bunch of pubescent teenage girls with a crush on Benedict Cumberbatch who counted him amongst their number “shipping Johnlock”? It also presumptuously placed him in the position of junior partner to his straight colleague Moffat, banning him from writing what he really wants. Another patronising assumption. This is total speculation, but I wonder if John’s vehement “I am NOT GAY!” to Mrs Hudson in the Gatiss-penned “The Empty Hearse” was provoked by all the online speculation directed at Gatiss via his twitter feed. Was this intended as the ultimate response - to shut down the Johnlock debate once and for all? Ironically, of course, it had the opposite effect. It was interpreted that Mrs Hudson was the ultimate Johnlock shipper, and she of course could see the fact staring in her face that John and Sherlock were simply made for each other! Then we come to Mumbai in 2014. And Gatiss - in a departure from the creators’ habitually evasive and jokey means of answering questions about forthcoming plot points - embarks on a lengthy and heartfelt explanation/justification when he is questioned about Johnlock. I’ve watched this video more than once and I can’t interpret his speech as anything other than sincere. And this is also why I think Gatiss and Moffat’s reactions to whenever Johnlock is raised are becoming more irritable, more frustrated and with none of the playfulness they exhibit everywhere else. Gatiss must be aware of the accusations of “queerbaiting”. They have appeared on his twitter feed, apart from anything else. And just as Moffat feels hypersensitive to accusations of misogyny, Gatiss must surely feel the same way about being accused of effectively betraying his community and having internalised homophobia. He tries to set the record state but what happens? He still isn’t believed. Of course, a big part of this is a problem entirely of Moffat and Gatiss’ making. When you spend the bulk of interviews smugly declaring that you lie to protect future plot points, you can’t then be surprised when your fans don’t then believe you about other things: no matter how impassioned or frustrated you might sound. They really have made a rod for their own backs. The With An Accent journalist detected a difference in tone and attitude to the Johnlock denials compared to other obfuscations about plot, but if you’re not in the room, AND it’s not something you want to hear, why would you believe them? Johnlockers have varying degrees of expectation of their ship becoming canon, ranging from those who want it to remain strictly in their own heads and never be actualised on the show, via those who think it would be nice but is unlikely, through to those who desperately want it to be but remain unsure. And then we have TJLC. TJLC is a conspiracy in the truest sense of the word. Every piece of data is viewed through the prism of an utter conviction that not only should Johnlock happen, it will. Costume choices, set designs, drinks, lighting, everything is presented as evidence of confirmation of Johnlock, and some of it in the most convoluted way, with no acknowledgment that there could be any other possible interpretation for what appears on screen. A coincidentally commissioned survey into LGB representation is cited as conclusive proof, as well as a quote from Gatiss from an interview years ago that the way to introduce more LGBT representation is “softly, softly”, so as not to frighten the horses, so that everyone just sees it as mundane, everyday and normal. Ironically, if the conspiracy is true, and Johnlock is ultimately going to be the ‘big reveal’, that would be precisely the opposite approach to what Gatiss describes. It would make gay representation into a sensational shock twist, just like Mary’s reveal as the assassin or Jim from IT being Moriarty. That’s not treating LGBT issues with the respect they deserve in my eyes, and maybe that’s what Moffat is getting at when he describes that approach as ‘trivialising’. The TJLCers express the certainty that such a shock reveal would shake the foundations of society to its core, and it would be such a landmark, water cooler moment, that TV and gay representation, and indeed society itself, would never be the same again. Even if I remotely believed Johnlock were on the cards, I actually think the reverse would happen. The show would be universally derided as having ‘jumped the shark’. Not because its viewers are homophobic or resistant to the idea of gay couples, just because it would genuinely come out of nowhere for them. It would be perceived as pandering to a tiny minority of its fanbase - that is for those few of the general audience who are even aware that this is what some of the fans expect from the show. And for the vast majority of the audience it would come completely out of the blue and be utterly confusing. After all, in their eyes, at no point in the show, have John or Sherlock ever exhibited any kind of sexual attraction to another man. And this is another problem, and I’m sad to say, feeds into the sense of entitlement which some fans do exhibit. ‘Sherlock’ is a massive, mainstream, worldwide hit show. It is very easy to forget that in the little bubble of tumblr where you’re speaking to a self-selected group of people who all feel the same way and all agree with you. But the online fanbase is a tiny minority of the people who watch the show. Threats to ‘desert it’ and expect that to hold any weight with the creators really are meaningless. It’s not a niche, cult show where a fan can expect to stamp her feet and automatically get her wish. To put it bluntly, when your worldwide viewership is in the hundreds of millions, if a few thousand storm off because their ship is not actualised, it really makes no difference. What really makes me sad is that I can’t see any way that this is not going to end horribly for some people. I don’t think Gatiss and Moffat realise that - whatever it may have been to begin with - the fanbase now, or at least the ultra-ardent TJLC part of the fanbase, contains a number of young people who identify as LGBTQIA. For these young people - again predominantly women but also with a number of trans, non-binary and gender queer members - they feel their sexuality, their gender and indeed their whole identity has been helped and in some cases shaped by ‘Sherlock’: specifically by their conviction that Johnlock will be realised in the show. Watching the youtube video TJLCExplained Episode 25 “Why it matters” gives a glimpse into the passion and the desperate certainty these people have. It grieves me to see these bright, passionate, articulate and intelligent young people ploughing their energies into this conspiracy. They’re politically aware: educated in and fired up by gender politics and sexual awareness. So why waste all that energy and passion on two white, middle-class, middle-aged fictional men who - if the conspiracy is correct - are so far into the closet they have been unable to express their true feelings emotionally or sexually for many years to the one person they have shared a home with in all that time? I wish Gatiss and Moffat could see these inspired yet vulnerable people. I wonder what they would think. Would they be gratified that their show has had such a profound and positive effect on their fans? Or would they be sad or bewildered that these young people’s convictions have foundations built on sand? I’m not sure how or when it will end. Of the TJLCers who were fully signed up theorists before last week’s interview dropped, I have observed a couple of reactions. A few of them seem to have now been convinced that it isn’t going to happen and have already expressed disappointment and anger that they were duped or queerbaited. Presumably if they do feel so betrayed, this marks the end of their relationship with the show. However, most of the fan responses I have seen on tumblr have assimilated the new data as ‘yet more lies’ and rejected it, along with anything else that does not fit the conspiracy, whilst at the same time reserving some anger at the way Moffat and Gatiss spoke in order to protect their great ‘lie’. So what happens in five months’ time when Series 4 airs and - as I fully expect - Johnlock doesn’t happen? Will there be an explosion of rage and bitterness which will make last week’s little flare-up look minor in comparison? Or will the conspiracy continue on the basis that Series 5 is the ultimate destination? Or the special after that? Or the one after that? Until sufficient time elapses and everyone moves on? Only time will tell. It just makes me sad that fandom - which should be a positive, happy place - and which, when everything works, means friendships are made and creativity flourishes - can and has become such a toxic environment for both fans and creators. I’m sorry this has been so long and I apologise if I have offended anyone with either what I said or the way I said it. I guess I wanted to lay out my position - to clarify it in my own mind if nothing else!  

[bakechochin]

The Book Ramblings of June

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related this year. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton I bought the Penguin English Library edition of this book mainly because of a tweet that I saw slagging off the cover, saying that the sticks of dynamite in the cover pattern looked like tampons and that 'this could have been avoided if only one woman had looked at the cover’; this irritated me a lot because I know for a fact that the cover was in fact designed by a woman (Coralie Bickford-Smith, to be precise, an artist whose similar works I am also a good fan of), and I wanted to own this edition simply so that I could prove to myself and others that this is the case. However, whilst the cover of this book is indeed very pretty, the texts published in the Penguin English Library collection do not possess the handy introductory chapter at the beginning that the Penguin Classics include, and thus with no frame of reference, I was at something of a loss to describe this book. It is certainly an interesting read insofar as it seemingly refuses to stay as one genre for the whole book. The blurb describes it as a ‘strange and haunting novel’, and at the beginning, this is very appropriate; it depicts a sensationalist image of villainous anarchists and zealous unhinged detectives that is incredibly compelling, and I hold that the character descriptions of the members of the Council of Days (as introduced in chapter five) make for some of the best writing that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. By fuck is Chesterton great at characterising these dudes. The blurb describes the novel as a spy thriller, and all seemed to be going well on this front, with a melodramatic but consistent tone maintained for around the first half of the book, with some great twists scattered here and there for good measure. But then things start getting a tad daft, and I’m going to spoil a bit of the plot here because you need to understand how off the rails this shit gets. The adventure grows to involve much of the main cast of antagonists being revealed to be policemen in increasingly convoluted disguises, ridiculously overblown chases in different countries with the stakes being continuously raised in the stupidest and funniest ways, and the main antagonist, built up as a grand unknowable titan of crime and anarchy, escapes the protagonist by leaping over a balcony ‘like an orang-utan’, riding away on a rampaging elephant that he broke out of the zoo, and finally evading capture by flying away on a stolen hot air balloon. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of this sort of shit as a general rule, but by fuck does it seem incongruous in a novel such as this, that is so clever and so beautifully written and, whilst containing its few bits of sensational ridiculousness (as an overt parody of the genre or its tropes), generally quite a serious read. Similarly to The Heat’s On, if this book had just kept on the rails or channelled its madness into chaos that stayed within the genre’s boundaries, instead of just throwing its hands up into the air and screaming, ‘fuck it, put in an elephant chase scene!’, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, it reminds me of the overblown nonsense of the 007 stories - this is a novel for dads, I reckon. After finishing this book I then found Beaumont’s introduction to the text, which describes the text as ‘antirealist’, and cites Chesterton’s description of ‘great works which mix up abstractions fit for an epic with fooleries not fit for a pantomime’. As a concept, I can fully get behind this - the juxtaposition of heroics and farcical nonsense puts me in mind of high burlesque, and I’ve always been fully against realism because fuck that noise. But you can’t stick with the idea of this book being wholly antirealist if it takes place in a world recognisable as our own and then suddenly changes to be ludicrous and laughable; that’s just inconsistent, and indeed mildly vexing when I was fully engrossed in the sensational spy thriller. Furthermore, attempting to justify this book’s content by saying that it is reminiscent of a ‘nightmare’ is a bullshit defence, because a) the word ‘nightmare’ could simply be used in reference to this book’s negative depiction of a world in which anarchists triumph in their nasty villainy, and b) it’s difficult to keep the idea of this book’s world supposedly being a dream forefront in one’s mind when it, as mentioned above, represents a view (albeit a sensational one) of reality, with dream nonsense hardly being a part of it at all. That is, of course, until the very end, when the book gives up all pretence of being a spy novel and instead wallows in metaphor and overt Christian imagery before ending abruptly. The ending is bullshit and I don't like it.

Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol I’ve often cited Gogol as one of my favourite authors, but for the longest time I stayed clear of this book, somewhat daunted by whether what I loved about Gogol’s short stories would translate well to a novel form. This is a different beast to his short stories, but no less interesting to talk about, and indeed possessing many of the short story’s positive attributes, for all of the excellent writing, characterisation, and understanding of the fun nuances of society abounds here as it does in his shorter works. Apparently Gogol was attempting to recreate the structure and overall vibe of The Odyssey and other such Homeric epics in prose form, and although the overall setting and storyline does not reflect the grand awe-inspiring epics of the past, I’ll be buggered if the story’s writing and tone doesn’t somehow achieve it. This is not, despite what some critics have said, due to Gogol’s tendency to ramble on about unrelated digressions (a device apparently comparable to Homeric epics), or at least it didn’t stick out to me as such when I read it - that’s just kind of what Gogol does. No, it’s the writing and tone, as mentioned above, that seems to ape the Homeric tone, in such a way that you wouldn’t notice its explicit presence until after you’d been informed of it, and yet when you are aware of the Homeric influence you see it everywhere clear as day; I’d call it an ineffable concept but that’s just me trying to cover up for the fact that I can’t find the words, because I’m bad at writing these things. But I digress. Gogol’s excellent means of conveying character voices shines as always in this text, but I can’t feel like I’m missing the extent of it because I’m reading it in English. The introduction by Robert A Maguire describes Gogol’s extensive research into ‘all the prosaic rubbish of life, all the rags’, and makes efforts to incorporate such minor details as regional slang, official jargon, outdated terminology, etc. into his characters’ voices, but I fear that I’m missing some of the nuances of these techniques by my lack of knowledge in these fields or that some of the subtleties in language don’t translate as well as they ought to. Of course there are some characters which exemplify Gogol’s skill at diverse voices, such as some of the peasant muzhiks and one of my favourite characters Nozdryov (who draws from a wide array of sources for his dialogue with hilarious results), but there are some instances in which the character voices seem somewhat interchangeable, especially considering how a lot of individual personality is often subsumed by the necessity of upholding social decorum, and thus there are many characters who only speak in refined socially acceptable manners. The characters themselves are all bloody great, be they individual grotesque landowners or incredibly detailed and often brilliantly satirical descriptions of wider groups or demographics. Whilst the writing remains as excellent as ever, the characters in the second part of the book lack the grotesque simplicity of those in the first part - indeed, efforts are made by Gogol to give them complex fleshed-out characterisation - and subsequently these new characters are nowhere near as memorable as the fantastic personifications of negative traits that we got in the first part. Yeah, I forgot to mention, this book is technically made up of two parts, the first part highlighting the problems of society and the second part intended to delve into the resolution of some of these issues; of course, the second part does not exist in its entirety, because Gogol was a great fan of melodramatically burning his manuscripts, but it’s not a major issue because what does survive of the full text is amazing enough on its own (specifically the entirety of part one). Plus, I’ve delved into my thoughts of authors trying to ‘change the world’ through their works (in that I think that it’s a fool’s notion and only really serves to exemplify the author’s delusion), so I’m content with this text only portraying the detrimental aspects of society, as opposed to trying to fix them. I am quite fond of the narrator in this book. Similarly to his short stories, Gogol employs a narrative voice that exists almost as a character in of itself, and I don’t just mean that in the sense of ‘it’s got a lot of personality’. The narrative voice apologises for the story’s content and makes changes in an attempt to preserve decorum, it makes excuses for the story’s characters (especially the protagonist Chichikov), it often reveals information at the same rate as the characters within the setting discover things and have epiphanies, and it even establishes itself as a character with a physical voice as it only chooses to speak of Chichikov’s past when Chichikov himself is asleep, and apologises all the while lest he somehow slight the man. Bringing up this also gives me an opportunity to briefly mention the 2006 BBC radio adaptation for this, which establishes the narrator as a physical character in all scenes to humourous effect (and what’s more gave me yet more reason to love Mark Heap, who makes for a fucking excellent Chichikov). But I digress. Part two of the novel, as mentioned above, does not possess the same sort of wonderfully grotesque characters as part one, and considering that this is a novel defined mainly by its characters, this is somewhat problematic. The plot of part two is perhaps vaguely interesting, even though it seems to shunt the titular focus of dead souls to the side somewhat, but all in all I found it difficult to be too invested in this new story due to its lack of compelling characters. In addition, the Homeric epic tone of part one is somewhat absent, and without a distinctive narrative voice, the narrative suffers. I feel bad shitting on part two, since it was everyone else shitting on part two that catalysed Gogol to burn the manuscript (again) and possibly starve himself to death. Honestly, the first part is bloody amazing, so just read that and then be satisfied with the knowledge that your opinion of the book overall has not been tarnished by the shoddy second part. Sorry Gogol.

Complete Short Fiction - Oscar Wilde I’ve been vaguely aware of Wilde’s short fiction for a while now, having read a selection of his fairy tales and ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ (a favourite of mine) for uni, so I decided to give his complete collection a shot. The Penguin Classics edition of his short fiction is separated into his different published collections, but can generally be categorised as either fairy tales or miscellaneous short stories. I’ve studied a shit load of fairy tale authors/compilers (Basile, Straparola, Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, Wilde and whoever compiles the radical Russian fairy tales), and Wilde is certainly my favourite of the bunch. The specific blend of Wilde-esque traits incorporated into the fairy tale format make up my favourite fairy tales of any author - this is by no means all of Wilde’s fairy tales, but I’ll get into that. My favourite fairy tales of Wilde take place in a world vaguely recognisable as our own, or at least existing as an exaggerated facsimile of our own society, not just because the urban setting reminds me of Hoffmann’s ‘The Golden Pot’, but because such a setting allows for some heavy-handed but undeniably hilarious social commentary and satire. Such satire works especially well when juxtaposing the romanticised world of the fairy tale with the grimmer reality of Wilde’s society - the two tales that commence the collection, ‘The Happy Prince’ and ’The Nightingale and the Rose’, exemplify this excellently. Whilst I liked the satire attainable by setting the fairy tale in an urban society environment, similar levels of hilarity are obtained via Wilde’s satirical look at certain character archetypes (the titular character in ‘The Remarkable Rocket’ being my favourite example). The fairy tales obviously possess their morals and their teachings (though I was a fan of how this is subverted slightly by some characters actively avoiding, misinterpreting or arguing with the story’s moral), but the tropes that we’d expect to see in fairy tales - the morals from Perrault, the recurring overt ties to Christianity from Andersen, etc. - are not why I like Wilde’s fairy tales so much. The tales in the collection titled A House of Pomegranates are undeniably excellently written, and what’s more include some fantastic settings inspired by the Victorian obsession with the Orient that allow for phenomenal and evocative descriptive writing (the likes of which is not seen in any other of Wilde’s fairy tales), but they fail to capture my preferred positive attributes that the aforementioned tales possess. I cheekily skipped 'The Portrait of Mr W H' because I’d heard from a mate who had also read it that it was a long and dull read, and thus refrained from checking it out lest it tarnish my idealised view of Wilde. I’m sure I’ll live with myself knowing that I haven’t read Wilde’s entire body of works. Indeed, who gives half a toss about that when we’ve still got to talk about the last remaining collection contained within this publication: ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories’, which is not made up of fairy tales but other ‘popular’ genres of writing. Taken at face value, the stories’ content of murder, ghosts, and mystery slot in nicely alongside the fairy tales, in that they can all be considered, at face value, writings intended to appeal to the low-brow interests of the masses. They are, of course, more than that, possessing some great subversions of genre tropes and Wilde’s typical social satire, which all comes together to make the short stories (in particular ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ and ‘The Canterville Ghost’) hilarious and very enjoyable reads. The fact that these stories are written with the primary intentions of entertaining, rather than revolutionising the written form or making one think about grand philosophical themes, means that I can’t really offer anything about the stories other than that they’re fucking good and that you should go and read them.

Shit I read this month that I couldn’t be arsed to write about: A Short History of Drunkenness by Mark Forsyth (which I started back in December(?) last year, forgot about until now, and love immensely), and ‘The Penal Colony’ by Kafka (it was much more enjoyable than the other works by Kafka that I’ve read, but that isn’t really saying much).

[ollyarchive]

Olly Alexander on harnessing the power of sexual fantasy in pop

The Years & Years frontman talks about owning his queer sexuality in the mainstream and writing a twisted disco album about ‘holy wood’

Owen Myers

9 March 2018

“It’s like my Rihanna Loud era,” declares Olly Alexander, before breaking into a laugh. The Years & Yearsfrontman is referring to his cropped curly hair, which is freshly coloured to the hue of a nice Merlot. It’s a cold February evening, and he’s puffing on a roll-up while huddled in the fire exit doorway of a Camden venue. His new dye job has to be kept under wraps, he explains, until its official unveiling in the band’s new video. “It’s so stupid,” Olly says with an eye roll. He then flashes me a grin, suggesting that this moment of starry subterfuge is not entirely unwelcome.

Olly Alexander really likes being a pop star. He says that it’s full of “fairytale” moments, like when his Years & Years earnings enabled him to buy his mum a house, or when he and his ex-boyfriend, Neil Milan (formerly of Clean Bandit), became embraced as British pop’s new golden couple. After winning the BBC Sound poll in 2015, Years & Years’ earworm synth pop was everywhere. They had an inescapable number one single, “King”, and their album Communion was the fastest selling debut that year from a signed British band. Olly says that there are downsides to the tabloid headlines and Twitter trolls that come along with being “a public gay man” – a phrase that he puts in self-deprecating air quotes. But right now, those pressures feel far away, as he prepares to change into a bright pink boiler suit and play to a boozed-up Saturday night crowd, at an Annie Mac-curated showcase. Or, as he put it on Twitter earlier today: bring his “gay agenda” to The Roundhouse.

Years & Years’ great new single, “Sanctify”, contrasts lurking vocals with an ecstatic synth-fuelled chorus, and is as unapologetic as any of Olly’s pithy social media posts. He was newly single when he wrote the song, and reading Andrew Holleran’s 1978 chronologue of gay desire, Dancer From the Dance, had got him thinking about a couple of hookups he’d had with straight-identifying men. “It would always be under darkness,” he says. “It had this added layer of eroticism because it was somewhat forbidden. But (being with me) was a window where they could be themselves, and I felt responsible not to fuck them up.” Those conflicting feelings come through in evocative lyrics about obscuring masks and sinful confessions, with a climax that’s about as on-the-nose as chart pop gets. “I sanctify my sins when I pray,” says Olly, quoting the chorus’s payoff. “What do you do what you pray? You get on your knees. So is it a sexual baptism?” He laughs. “I was just like, ‘There’s a lot to work with here.’”

Years & Years are a three-piece, but the other two members, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen, tend to hunker down behind synths and let Olly take centre stage. His soul-searching lyrics give the band’s maximalist pop its heart, with a singing voice that pierces through a constellation of synths. Their videos bring acts which are often shrouded in darkness into the light, showing the singer cruising in a dank car park, or at a pansexual orgy. The new “Sanctify” visual riffs on dom/sub culture, with an elaborate sci-fi plot that is a device for Olly to perform “Slave 4 U”-inspired dance moves to an audience of androids. When he was commissioned to write a song for the Bridget Jones franchise, he made it about bottoming. “I have sex, I enjoy sex,” he says flatly. He’s sitting in his cosy dressing room the Roundhouse, which rumbles with bass as Disclosure and Mabel soundcheck next door. “In the past, I think gay men (in pop) have often shied away from being overtly sexual, or being commanding of their sexuality. But I believe that our sexual fantasies are a big drive for us all. Exploring that side of yourself is super empowering.”

In the past year or so, many well-known LGBTQ artists have begun to bring queerness into their music in sex-positive ways. Pop’s boy-next-door Troye Sivan strapped on Tom Of Finland leathers for a back alley moment with well-fluffed trade, Janelle Monáe caressed women’s bare thighs, Fever Ray returned with a concept album about queer kink. For better or worse, Sam Smith is now calling himself a “dick monster”on primetime telly. “Sometimes seeing a man express themselves in an overtly sexual way, especially a gay man, makes certain conservative people feel a bit uncomfortable,” Olly says. “I always wanna keep people a little uncomfortable.”

“I believe that our sexual fantasies are a big drive for us all. Exploring that side of yourself is super empowering” – Olly Alexander

Years & Years are far from the first mainstream British pop act to proudly put gay sexuality at the centre of their music – that’s a lineage that runs from Will Young to George Michael, Pet Shop Boys to Bronski Beat, and beyond. But Olly’s performances are a reminder that mainstream pop can be open to explicit queerness (at least, when it’s embodied in a handsome white cis man). Olly has faith that you don’t have to be “generic to be palatable,” and that “straight guys can hear a song that I’ve written about being fucked by another guy, but still relate.” LGBTQ+ people like me grew up seeing straight culture pretty much everywhere; seeing more of our community thrive is crucial.

Growing up in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, Olly was a flamboyant kid. That got him bullied at school, called a “batty boy” before he was even aware that he was gay, and meant that he retreated into drama lessons. While acting, he felt it was okay – a good thing, even – to be expressive. He always nurtured a passion for music, too; he taught himself how to play Joni Mitchell songs on piano, and obsessed over “Dirrty”-era Christina Aguilera. An early performance at a year six assembly blended intimate songwriting and outré entertainment: Olly played piano and sang lyrics about lost love, while two of his friends did a dance routine.

In his late teens and early 20s, Olly cropped up in whimsical micro-budget indie films like 2011’s The Dish And The Spoon, alongside Greta Gerwig, as well as Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void, and Skins. But his early experiences at school stayed with him. “Your first encounter with your sexuality is often from people bullying you and calling you the thing that you just pray to god that you won’t be – but deep down suspect you might be,” Olly says. “Well, no wonder we have an incredibly conflicting relationship with our bodies and our sexualities, because we’ve had to experience all of that.”

Reflecting on these difficult early years in his dressing room, Olly speaks openly about his own decade-long experience with depression, and the inadequate NHS provisions for those who are struggling with mental health. LGBTQ+ folks disproportionately struggle with depression and substance abuse, he recognises, and there’s only one UK organisation, London Friend, that caters directly to the specific needs of the queer community. “I’ve been there,” says Olly. “They’re amazing, but they are over-subscribed, with a tiny office, old chairs, and not a lot of money. When you’re seeing that people aren’t getting the help they should be, there’s an issue there.” That’s something he knows from first-hand experience. Last year, Olly fronted a BBC documentary, Growing Up Gay, about young LGBTQ+ people struggling with their mental health. His openness around the subject made him a kind of ambassador for those struggles, and he’s trying to work out how to deal with the “almost daily” DMs he gets from people at their lowest moments. “I feel very privileged that someone is wanting to share that with me, but it’s frightening,” he says. “We’re all in fucking pain, and I don’t know if we’re communicating with each other that well.”

“What do we expect a male pop star to do? As a society, how do we want them to behave or present themselves?” – Olly Alexander

Years & Years’ second album, out later this year, mixes gliding pop melodies with churning bass and twisted disco. The new songs feel more varied and exploratory than Communion, thanks in part to new collaborators like current pop’s minimalist masterminds Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter, as well as Greg Kurstin, who co-wrote “Shine”, Years & Years’ best song to date. The album’s centred around a motif of Palo Santo, a healing incense-like wood that you burn and waft around a room. (Olly dramatises this with hand motions as if he’s conducting an invisible orchestra.) Perhaps Palo Santo, with its power to expel evil spirits, could be a metaphor for the songwriting process? Maybe, Olly says. “But (when writing the album) I was angry about loads of things, particularly men. Palo Santo literally means ‘holy wood’ and I was like, ‘This is fucking perfect.’ Like, thinking that your dick is holy? I’ve known guys like that.”

Years & Years’ renewed vision also extends to creating a futuristic universe for their new music to exist in. That’s an idea that Olly’s idols – “Bowie, Prince, and Gaga” – have embraced, and “Sanctify” is the first part of an interconnected series of “weird, wonderful” videos. It marks the next step for a band aiming to join British pop’s pantheon, at a time when Olly, too, has been reflecting on his place in music. “What do we expect a male pop star to do?” he questions. “As a society, how do we want them to behave or present themselves? If I was asking myself, it would be like, ‘Well actually, I’ve always loved this kind of popstar. Maybe I should just be the pop star I want to see in the world.”

[centaurrential]

The first.

The nice thing about blogging is that one doesn’t need to follow a strict academic essay structure: the issues and concepts I want to write about are always architectures built upon some underlying causal, foundational plot. It would be nice if we could hyperlink the written representations of our thought processes, but alas, that is one domain in which modern technology has fallen short. You might see that I jump around between topics, but I promise there are connections everywhere. So, here we go!

I’ve been hesitant to write about what ignites my passion the most.  

There are a couple of reasons for this.

For one, save for some semblance of a university degree I attempted to put together years ago, I have little in the way of ‘respectable’ credentials. I rely on my own observations of what is happening around me. A high school friend once revealed to me a technique in visual arts that has stuck with me since. “Draw what you see, not what you know to be there.” I have applied this not only to achieve realism in the scant visual artworks I have produced and which have gone unseen by most others, but also to compose a coherent understanding of my world--or in other words, everything I feel. This “motto” of sorts shows that we often ignore details about our experience that are in plain sight. Despite holding this key, I am well aware that I have not necessarily earned any institutional authority to write on the matters that compel me so--yet, as a person who has simply lived and observed, I still feel that I should express myself, for what ever it may be worth.

Second, though my risk of legal and political persecution in some form or another is not as dire as was obviously the case in the past with established thinkers, I’ve felt compelled to dress my thoughts in verse, marching what I think are critical ideas down the runway, letting the audience gently scrutinize the layers of different conceptual fabrics in motion rather than to place what is thought to be controversial on a podium, open to the personalized savagery of modern “progressive” critique. Misunderstanding is a very real fear of mine as I believe it is one of the greatest tragedies of the human condition. I suppose, as a sensitive person who is deeply emotional and deeply invested in my own thought as a means to a better world, my intent up to now has been to create a buffer of some sort between what I theorize and the ideology-driven hate that tends to characterize Internet culture (which, incidentally now, always carries a ‘social media’ component with it). But I don’t wanna hide anymore.

Something I’ve noticed about that very vehicle for thought is how utterly unforgiving it is. Someone uncovers a person’s past involving a stupid, ignorant mistake along the lines of political incorrectness and suddenly all the good they may have recently put into the world evaporates because there is some sort of twisted expectation of social perfection we’ve adopted--even though there is some overlap between this absolutist, impossible approach to other, equally fallible human beings and the tendency to wax poetic about one’s own cathartic emotional experience, along with a new awareness emerging from the remnants of self-destruction, and forcing ‘compassion’ toward oneself in light of one’s mistakes.

The message is that “I” can learn, but “you” cannot. It seems that people are so volatile these days, they’re ready to pounce without really thinking about what a person is trying to say in earnest. And while I believe that we should work hard at our collective and individual duties to skepticism, I cannot condone, to the furthest reaches of any influence I may have, the deadlock of pseudo-critical thinking when it involves scapegoating and self-righteousness.

I sense (and feel) a lot of (justified) anger, and many well-meaning individuals are looking for a place to which they can direct such intensity. The unfortunate thing is that the fire mutates into hostility toward people who don’t deserve it. Shuffle formless anger into boxes designed to look nicely and glamorously radical, and chuck it at those who--excluding the really terrible people in the world--are honest and serious about answering the questions of “how to achieve the maximum possible distance from pain”, and, “what is, essentially”, and you’ve got a problem on your hands. Nothing is ever as simple as we’d like it to be.

And by the way, I find the dismissive “ok, boomer” attitude reprehensible. Like, OBVIOUSLY there are going to be differences among generations in “opinion” and lifestyles and so on. And obviously past generations have made what we now deem to be ‘mistakes’. But just like any individual who may regret past actions, whether personal or professional, one makes decisions supported by the most convincing reasons they can muster, and so they do the best they can with the knowledge they have at hand, at some particular moment. Maybe some visionaries in the past were able to extrapolate from the contemporary and predict what would happen in the future. Even if their equivalents exist in society today, we will not know for certain the downright traumatizing effects current societal mechanisms could force to manifestation in the years beyond, until they actually become fact. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And, there is wisdom that only comes through living life. That, I’m afraid, is not up for debate.

I must say this here, now. I realize I’m walking on eggshells with what I’m about to say.  But, while it is clear that there is a significant degree of ‘white privilege’ in North American society, I’d be careful to declare ‘privilege’ an inherently white experience.  It is an historical reality (and is therefore biased). Not all ‘white people’ are the same; and it is CERTAINLY not the case that it has only been ‘white people’ that enforced slavery, for example. And it is definitely true that different members of different religions and different races and different ethnicities and different cultures and different dialects have, historically, perpetuated evil across many axes. Furthermore, I believe that the explicit and intentional denigration of ‘white people’ MADE BY WHITE PEOPLE THEMSELVES is probably one of the greatest expressions of white privilege. How secure must one feel if they can freely diss their ‘own kind’ and know that nothing diabolical will happen to them? We owe justice through opportunity to people we have marginalized, but that is not the way. I just think that people are either willfully ignorant, accidentally ignorant, or have forgotten that all kinds of people can be villains, and further that a truly corrupt person will even torture people with whom they may have a great deal in common.

I tend to think that ‘intersectionality’ is a seriously important concept and is most empirically aligned with individualism. People move around more, cross-cultural contact happens more; global connection ushers cuisine, rituals and traditions, spiritual beliefs, and languages into landscapes that were previously barren of particular social technologies. The result is a person who may have many characteristics sort of in common with others who share those qualities in a scattered manner, but unless one of those forces was exceptionally prominent in the person’s life, the commonality is negligible.

Emergent from this phenomenon is the serious tension between individual self-actualization and the requirements for so-called proper functioning of the broader ‘community’ to which one feels they belong. The needs of each can often be at odds with one another, and it doesn’t appear to be an easy task to resolve this conflict. I do know that sacrifices will have to be made, as there is always a price to pay; I almost think of that as a universal law.

When I was 19 and took a philosophy of feminism class, I started noticing what problems arise when a mode of thinking is assumed to apply to a particular “community” (loosely speaking), just because its members all share some intrinsic quality. In the particular case I’m talking about, it was “being female”. When someone speaks the word ‘feminism’, it is loaded. You have liberal feminism, eco-feminism, radical feminism, third-wave feminism, black feminism, post-colonial feminism, and so on. The relevance of these various types is stretched so thinly throughout the human landscape that one could legitimately wonder why those theories should even be considered to have anything in common. In other words, how can you possibly come up with an ethic of revolution that applies universally to, I dunno, how many billion people in the world? Here’s a situation: women in the West, particularly in the Deep South, are fighting for their choice to have an abortion. Meanwhile, in some parts of India and China, female infanticide is more common than a decent person should like to admit, and that’s not because Indian and Chinese women want it! Asking someone who is thoughtful in ANY respect if they are a feminist is like asking someone if they believe in God, and that is not, nor should it be, an easy question to answer.

To be clear: what I am talking about is definition, and if you break down the etymological components of that word, you see that it is about deciding what sorts of conceptual boundaries must be drawn (the finiteness)--to determine what is included, and also what is excluded. My belief is that it is actually the interplay between those qualities intrinsic to a person and external forces placed upon us that dictate the degrees of self-satisfaction and happiness we experience.

That pain is to be avoided is generally unquestionable, though the finer details of rational action (because I do see the treatment of pain as an issue of rationality, and as something more fundamental to the exercising of rational action than market economics is) are still up for debate. And, I suppose, that is the case for many injustices that an active, voluntarily thinking society wishes to eradicate. I’d like to return to that topic some time in the future, but what concerns me today is the issue of essentialism.

Essentialism has been a problem for philosophers for a really long time. Often it is conceptualized as “what makes something that thing”, but in my view, Essence seems to lie in the realm of the experiential. In one minor paper I wrote for a metaphysics class, I argued (incompletely) that an object’s ‘essence’ could be partly defined by the function one identifies when they come into contact with said object. For example, because even though chairs can be made up of different numbers of legs, or be of different colours, or be upholstered or not, we place them into a category of ‘something to be seated upon’. But then again, there are many things that can be sat upon, and, on the other hand, one does not look at a real life dog and think of it as an object that innately serves a purpose, let alone is built for one.

So why am I talking about what seems to be an obscure and useless topic?

It is the utility of Essence that gives form to our experience. And for those who believe that we erroneously categorize and judge every single damn thing we come across in our lives, go ahead and try to reverse neurological evolution through time of geologic scale. I mean, this mode of existence came to be before we even defined what ‘values’ were.

Tangentially, my introduction to the study of philosophy started with the great divide between ‘rationalism’ (ie. some inherent structure which creates the capacity to ‘know’ already exists in a person at the time of birth) and ‘empiricism’ (the school of thought where a person only collected knowledge through experience after they were born with a ‘blank slate’ of a mind). I never understood why the distinction between rationalism and empiricism was so important, because it seemed so obvious that our system of moving through the world was a combination of the two. We see now that the belief in one to the exclusion of the other is just plain stupid: genetics, epigenetics, logarithmic counting in BABIES, education, debate, and research, all contribute to an individual’s understanding of the world. (It is this idea, too, that contributes to my belief that free will is an illusion [though a helpful one at that] and that ‘luck’ is an epistemological concept. I will also use this idea to, eventually, communicate my argument that astrology is theoretically plausible, but that involves discussing archetypes and the cyclical nature of our known world...) Note: “Epistemology” is the study of knowledge and how we come to accumulate it. I went on this tangent because I think we need to demonstrate a great deal of respect for both pre-existing neurological realities and the staggering potential of science to teach us about our environments and ourselves. There are some core things about us that we would be wrong to ignore, and unforgivably so if the sound science is right there.

We do not typically go through life coming into contact with objects or people and checking off items on a list that comprise criteria for something being what it is (unless, of course, you’re prone to collect little hints as to whether a potential lover loves you back or not.....). To do so would reduce the fluidity with which we interact with externalities. That being said, I can conceive of a time when one goes outside for a cigarette in the night and watches a creature (as I just did) that may be a cat, or that may be a raccoon, cross the road. You peer at this creature for several seconds, up until the point that you conclude, and are certain, that it is, indeed, a cat. It is then that you can move on with your life. Perhaps what helped you to come to this conclusion was a short list of criteria that separate catness from raccoonness. Obviously that would be more efficient than consulting an exhaustive mental list of “cat properties” and comparing it to a similar list, but of “raccoon properties”. But even so, by the time you’ve witnessed the cat/raccoon, you’ve already filtered out any possibility that the creature might be something else, like a stray dog, or a lizard, or a floating chair. In conclusion, I propose here that context is essential to Essence. And Essence is a fully whole sensory experience, insofar as your sensory faculties work. This is why it is so hard to define.

The social relevance of the concept of Essence is becoming more important with the emergence of identity politics, the crises in feminism, “queerness”, the feminine/masculine dichotomy, and even paradigms in psychological health. Inherent to Essence is continuity, and no one can argue against the notion that we rely on general continuity to go about our daily lives.

But out of continuity develops expectation. Expectation is immensely helpful for the reason I laid out above. Additionally, in public, we rely on a common yet tacit understanding that individual members of the public will behave in a way that is safe and appropriate for everyone. The problem is, if you have experienced a good chunk of your life, well into adulthood, having never seen an unfamiliar and idiosyncratic expression of certain properties, why WOULD you do anything else other than fumble in your acceptance that that is the way something is? Your mind scrambles to organize what you are interacting with in the way that makes the most sense.

I was once accused of being an essentialist because of some remark I made referencing biological differences between men and women. I wondered if the dude was joking because I really cannot grasp why someone would think that the differences are trivial. Lately I’ve toyed with the conclusion that there must be something essential, something bounded, about the way we express ourselves, which matches what we are that isn’t seen by absolutely everyone, including exuding femininity or masculinity. If there wasn’t something essential about these “descriptions”, why would anyone make an effort to look a certain way in the first place? Or, why would anyone have a subconscious tendency to adopt certain characteristics? The point I’m trying to make is that communication in the form of appearance is just as important as a verbal explanation of something, and can in fact be more truthful than what is verbally expressed. Whether one wants to admit it or not, you are offering information that allows others to draw conclusions about you. And it’s not that you merely fulfill a checklist of the sort that I mentioned earlier. It is that, often, though not always, each separate quality supports all the others, forming a sort of “mesh-like” coherence. If there wasn’t something essentially feminine that you identified with, or something essentially masculine that you identified with--if these things didn’t matter--there would be no point in going to great lengths to change your appearance to communicate something. (And I think this holds even in the case of the non-binary person.)

Of course, judgments are made all the time about people, which have nothing to do with being transgendered or cisgendered. A person asks you your age. Why? Because they’re collecting information about you and the particulars in the category of “age” should reveal something about you that you’re not stating explicitly. And this information is only grounded in other information the inquirer has about you. And the only reason this information might be reliable is because a consolidation of an individual’s past experiences tells them that a certain age represents an axis of consistency of mentality and/or behaviour. The deductions we make are not always accurate, but if we didn’t instinctively think of this information as important, we wouldn’t seek it!

I will now apply the above problem to sort out why we are in such a mess, socially. First of all, the person is born into expectation of behaviour. That expectation depends on their sex at birth (assuming the person is not intersex), their social, economic, political class, the levels of education their immediate family members have achieved, their spiritual practices, et cetera. It seems to me that feminism arose in the first place because of the particular kind of anticipation of behaviour that swirls around whether you have a testicle-penis or a uterus-vagina combination. The traditionally ‘male’ realm was the unexplored frontier to many women; it was one of excitement, possibility, and opportunity, and arguably more freedom than the domain to which women were typically assigned: the home. Women can produce babies, and if you could produce babies then you SHOULD produce babies, and you should care for them too. And not only that, but by virtue of the fact that you are a mother you can’t even fathom leaving your babies behind. I haven’t yet come across a proper articulation of why this point is so crucial to understand. The women who have the term “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) slung at them are attacked by people who don’t understand that this fundamental difference in expectation between female-born individuals and male-born individuals is looming in the background, and how damn well important it really is, because it inevitably shapes a person’s perception of the world and quite possibly the expectations they have of other people! And the perception that falls upon you isn’t just something you can shed on a whim. And also, why are people surprised that this is still an issue? Even as advanced creatures we still succumb to evolutionary forces. I don’t think any reasonable person could say that “you aren’t female even if you feel female”, but it’s not about how you “feel”. It’s about what happens between you and people once they figure out a vital fact about you. It’s about the context in which you, a whole being, operate. You want to talk about oppression? I think your self-identity being misaligned with how other people think you should be is pretty high up there in the ranks.

So, to digress a little: the notion of changing yourself and making an impression on strangers, making a difference in the world, is intoxicating. But we enter dangerous territory when visions of child-rearing and home care become afterthoughts. Child psychologists have identified the age range between 2 and 4 to be particularly crucial in socializing children; it is at that age that they are the most impressionable with regard to how they learn to interact with others. That’s not really a huge window to make sure you ‘get it right’. I think the family unit, whatever its configuration may be, is pretty foundational to the rest of society. While many people presently carry harmful opinions about things we don’t understand, and changing those opinions tends to be rather difficult, the most radical, most powerful thing we can do to initiate reform is to make sure the children we are responsible for grow up valuing honour, kindness, and a sense of duty and justice, not just in relation to themselves and their immediate families, but to society as a whole.

People are throwing tantrums because society hasn’t given itself an overnight makeover. I think that anyone involved in politics understands, either consciously or unconsciously, that even though political institutions and bureaucracies were created by real people, they’ve sort of become fragmented away from human life and are entities of their own, floating above our heads like clouds in the higher atmosphere, and which do not have any readily identifiable boundaries. It appears that the various bodies of legislation and bureaucracies have become so bloody complex in correlation with the complexity of human interaction that they seem almost impossible to disentangle. Furthermore, ideas take a long time to die...if they ever even do.

Rather than viewing child-rearing as a burden, I choose to view it as the greatest responsibility and the greatest tool we have for genuine change. I feel, honestly, that sometimes we waste energy trying to convince people of something where there is no convincing possible. We often preach to the choir because they’re the only people who make us feel heard--but our own little choirs already know and believe what we know and believe.

So. I think, once I reviewed what I said above, that I’ve attempted to illuminate a conundrum about simultaneous utility and danger found in the act of expecting. This “study” of sorts is a microcosm of a world where darkness and light are aspects of all things. I’m convinced that the formulation of potential is expressed in binaries, but unlike computers, we are able to interpret ambiguities, and in many pockets of society people are tolerant of self-expression. With so many belief systems up for grabs, and with the world as it is in its ebbs and flows, it is up to the individual to craft their own transcendent values as a way to “orient themselves”, as Dr. Jordan B. Peterson put it. Be mature and do not dismiss nuance. Challenge yourself. And for God’s sake, the next time you’re thinking of buying that innocuous avocado that’s become the symbol for the Millennial generation, ask yourself what is more important: dismantling violent and antisocial Mexican drug cartels, or supporting Mexican farmers who are trying to make their ways through life, just like every. last. one of us.