#also I did it with 26 insight

[domeniudulce]

First try not even attempting to do so I beat the Witches of Hemwick. The boss run was harder than the boss.

[eldritchqueerture]

okay okay okay but HOW exactly. how exactly did john kill Emily and Parker. he was trapped in the book. Emily was described to have been mutilated!!! in a fucking field!!! and when parker died there was no blood! did john take over arthur's body for a brief second? why has arthur never questioned it? how the hell was that possible

when kayne said "anyone who wouldve opened that book and taken what you took wouldve died. they all die." did he mean that?? cause per intermezzo other arthurs manage fine despite not being SpecialTM like our arthur. and WHY were they killed in such different ways??

[blorger]

Eyes, the so-called window to the soul, an often invaluable key to a character's true nature, are perhaps one of the less examined descriptors in the hp books.

We no doubt all have a distinct eye moment we can remember from the books; perhaps it's Harry's green eyes -so much like his mother's-, maybe it's the whimsy of Dumbledore's twinkling gaze or perhaps what stuck in your mind is one of the more peculiar, out there descriptors like Luna's popping eyes.

I prsonally find the hows and whys of jkr's physical descriptors to be a fascinating insight into the characters she created so I went and lovingly prepared a brief guide; hopefully you enjoy this,

METHODOLOGY

I counted these instances by hand so please keep in mind that there may be some minor inaccuracies in my tallying (basically don't quote me, I may occasionally be slightly off).

Furtermore, there are some descriptors that I did not consider in my count; I didn't keep track of the number of times in which someone's eyes are implied to be tearing up in some way because most times the crying is alluded to indirectly (eg.people often "wipe their eyes" or "avert their eyes") and actual adjectives like "teary", "misty", "streaming" and "leaking/leaky" are actually used quite sparingly (I will however observe who the narrative choses to highlight thusly because it's interesting).

Similarly, I didn't keep track on the amount of time a character's eyes "widen" since it's one of jkr's favourite ways to convey fear and/or surprise and it's not actually a verb used in conjunction with any character specifically (basically everyone does it at one point or another).

Finally, I did not keep a tally of the amount of times Harry's (or anyone else's) eyes open or close since this happens often regardless of the nature of the scene it happens in and doesn't tell us anything about a character that the excerpt itself doesn't.

TOP OF THE TOP

I would first like to begin our journey through the hp books' ocular realm with a few superlatives; here are the characters whose eyes are mentioned most often:

Voldemort is our leader with 53 eye mentions. He is the character whose eye color (red/scarlet) is mentioned most often (39 times + 2 mentions of Tom Riddle's dark eyes), but other notable descriptors include his pitiless/blank stare (5 times) and his slit pupil shape (4 times).

Severus Snape follows closely with 52 mentions; the most used eye descriptor is black (26 mentions) in reference to his eye color with a special mention going out to his cold and glittering stare (8 mentions each).

Albus Dumbledore is our distant third, with 36 mentions. His eye color (alternatively described as light blue/clear blue/bright blue) is mentioned 19 times and his infamous twinkling gaze is mentioned 11 times.

EYE COLOR DISTRIBUTION

BLUE: this the most common eye color in the books, with 10,5 named characters described as having it (the .5 is Alastor Moody's prosthetic eye). The characters with explicitly stated blue eyes include Albus Dumbledore (19 mentions), Dudley Dursley (1), Firenze (3), Narcissa Malfoy (1) and Ron Weasley (1). Caracters with more detailed descriptions include Gilderoy Lockhart (2) who we are specifically told has bright blue eyes, Ludo Bagman (3) and his baby blues, Aberforth Dumbledore (2)'s piercing brilliant eyes, Fleur Delacour (2) and her deep blue eyes and Igor Karkaroff(1) with his icy stare.

GREEN: The characters with explicitly stated green eyes are of course Harry ( 8 mentions) and Lily Potter (4),but also Dobby (4). I have further included in the count Hagrid's brother's Grawp* (2), who is described as having "sludge colored" "greenish brown" eyes and professor Horace Slughorn (1), whose eyes are described as "pale" and "gooseberry"-like.

*= I acknowledge that Grawp could have just as easily gone in the "brown" eye category but for some reason his eyes's description gave me more of a green vibe; feel free to disregard my categorisation if you wish.

BROWN: curiously, this is color is not more popular. Both Ginny Weasley (1 mention) and Hermione Granger (2) have brown eyes, together with Marvolo Riddle (1) and bowtruckles (1). As far as more evocative color names go, Hedwig (5) is described as having amber eyes whereas Winky the house elf (6) has beetle-brown eyes. Our final brown eyed beauty is James Potter (1), who has hazel eyes.

BLACK: black eyes are quite common with animals and beings since Scabbers (1 mention), acromantulas (1), Fawkes (1) and Goblins -most notably Griphook- (4) all have them. Humans with black eyes include the aforementioned Snape (26) and Hagrid's father (1), with Hagrid himself having the dubious honor of being the only character with beetle-black eyes (9).

GREY:* Lucius Malfoy (5 mentions), Cedric Diggory (3), Draco Malfoy (2) and Kreacher (1) are the only characters expressly stated to have grey eyes. Garrick Ollivander (2), patronuses (1) and Luna Lovegood (1) have specifically silvery eyes.

*:There's another character who is implied to have grey eyes as well, as we'll later see when discussing pale eyes.

YELLOW: this is another color largely reserved for creatures as Mrs Norris (2 mentions), the basilisk (1), Crookshanks (8), Dragons (2) and merfolk (2) are all said to have yellow eyes. The only humans with yellow eyes are Cat Hermione - albeit temporarily- (1), Madam Hooch (1) and Rufus Scrimegour (3).

ORANGE: this color is reserved for hippogriffs (and Buckbeak) who are twice mentioned as having orange eyes.

RED: There is only one person in the books who has permanently red eyes and that, of course, is Voldemort (39 mentions, sometimes using the term scarlet). Many characters' eyes are temporarily red, be it from crying (Hagrid, Molly, Madam Maxime, Lavender, Neville) or cursed locket possession (Ron). The only animals/creatures with red eyes are Beauxbatons's winged horses.

WHITE: finally, we come to the rarest eye color in all of the books, which gets a .5 on account of the fact that only one person could conceivably have had milky eyes and that is Bathilda Bagshot. Considering the fact that white eyes in general and milky eyes specifically seem to be an exclusive purview of the dead (Aragog's corpse, the thestrals's blank white eyes) and that the only time we meet Bathilda she's currently a corpse being inhabited by a giant snake, I'd venture to say that no one who is alive (or not closely tied to death) actually possesses white eyes.

Of further interest to the eye color conversation, I would like to point out characters who are mentioned to have either pale or dark eyes:

the term DARK EYES doesn't seem to be tied to a single color specifically. the only dark-eyed beings/people whose eye color we know for sure are goblins and Severus Snape, who are both described as having black eyes. The rest of the characters who get this descriptor are Padma Patil (who, being an identical twin, most likely shares this characteristic with her sister Parvati), Romilda Vane, Morfin Gaunt, Tom Riddle, Kendra Dumbledore, Phineas Nigellus Black and Bellatrix lestrange.

The term PALE EYES, however, seems to refer almost exclusively to grey eyed people since Ollivander, Lucius and Draco Malfoy* and Kreacher are all described as having pale eyes. The only pale eyed person with non-grey eyes we find is Horace Slughorn (he has very pale green eyes) and we further have only one pale eyed character whose eye color we cannot be sure of and that is Petunia Dursley.

*: Draco is a rarity in that his eyes are said to be pale (7 times) and cold (2) more often than their actual color (once grey and once light grey)

PECULIARITIES IN EYE DESCRIPTIONS

There honestly doesn't seem to be neither rhyme nor reason behind wether someone's eyes are described or not. Important characters like Ron and Ginny's eyes are talked about extremely rarely whereas beings like like Grawp and Winky get incongruously detailed descriptions.

Of the main trio, Hermione's eyes get mentioned often when she's either crying or on the verge of tears but her actual eye color is mentioned only twice and her expression is almost never conveyed through her gaze. Hermione's eyes are glassy, puffy, tearing, bloodshot; they are sparkling or shining with tears more than they are flashing with righteousness or shadowed with tiredness.

Harry's eyes are more often mentioned in the context of him trying to push hair out of them than they are to showcase his expressions. Besides Harry's eye color and his penchant for glaring we learn precious little about his eyes. The only information of note I found comes from a description Harry provides of his mother's eyes* (to which his are often compared, even by himself). When observing Snape's worst memory Harry notes that his mother's eyes are almond-shaped, a rare descriptor only used in two instances: this one and when Harry meets and describes a Sphynx's appearance.

Ron's eyes are the least described of the trio. We sometimes hear of him rolling his eyes or widening them in fear and/or surprise but that is just about it.

Unlike Ron, House Elves's eyes get mentioned every time they appear in a scene, to the point that we know both the eye color and characteristics of all named elves: Kreacher's pale grey eyes are bloodshot and bulging, Dobby's green ones are round, huge, enormous, immense and they are desrcribed on more than one instance as orb-like and tennis ball-like. Even Winky's eyes are remarked upon with surprising frequency; they are glassy on account of her frequent crying and, like all elves's, they are also giant and enormous.

other characters who get more eye mentions than the number of their appearances demand are Gregory Goyle, who we know has dull and small deep-set eyes and Mrs Norris, whose unique lamp-like eyes are remarked upon multiple times.

Some characters have a characteristic eye look that is unique to them. Bellatrix, for example, is the only person with hooded and heavy-lidded eyes (even Andromeda, who is said to resemble her greatly, has wider, kinder eyes).

Characters who have spent time in Azkaban (though not Bellatrix) retain a visible tell of their experience through their gazes: both Sirius and post-jail Lucius** have shadowed eyes that are sunken, like those of the long-imprisoned Grindlewald.

*: curiously, the only other character whose eyes get compared to a member of their family's is Aberforth Dumbledore, whom the narrative takes pain to remind the reader has his brother's eyes.

**: the post-jail change in Lucius's eyes is stark in that, before his imprisonment, he had glittering eyes, cold and cool (a term uniquely reserved for him).

IT'S THE SIZE THAT COUNTS

Another eye characteristic that is often remarked upon is the size of one's eyes, with small eyes being more often than not the purview of villains and general undesirables.

People with small eyes, include Myrtle Warren, Gregory Goyle, Peter Pettigrew, both Dudley* and Vernon Dursley*, Grawp and Morfin Gaunt.

Beady eyes are found in animals like Fawkes and snakes, but also -curiously- in Professor McGonagall.

Little eyes are a Dursley exclusive* as the term is only used to refer to both Vernon and Dudley.

Characters with tiny eyes include Vernon Dursley and his sister, Aunt Marge, Scabbers the rat, Hepzibah Smith and Amycus Carrow.

*:As you might have noticed, small eyes seem to be a bit of a Dursley family special. The same goes for the term piggy eyes, which is only found in relation to them

Talk of BIG EYES is strangely not used in a flattering way that contrasts the aforementioned small eyes, with the notable exception of Romilda Vane's case. She is the only character whose big and large eyes are to be interpreted in a flattering manner; as for the rest:

LARGE eyes are found in Petunia Dursley, Hedwig, Alice Longbottom (in whose case said eyes are remarked to be overlarge) and Horace Slughorn

People with HUGE eyes include Dobby, Prof. Trelawney, Narcissa Malfoy and Kreacher.

IMMENSE eyes are the exclusive purview of Dobby, as are eyes likened to TENNIS BALLS, HEADLIGHTS and ORBS.

Characters with ENORMOUS/ENLARGED eyes include prof. Trelawney, Winky, Dobby and Luna Lovegood.

GIANT eyes are exclusive to Trelawney and Winky

BULGING eyes can be found in both mrs Norris and Argus Filch, but also in Norbert the dragon, Dobby, Kreacher, Oliver Wood, Crouch sr., Luna and Umbridge. Fittingly for a category that is most likely supposed to be transitory* both the newly poisoned Ron and the dying Bellatrix are also described through this term.

People with POPPING eyes include Argus Filch, Luna Lovegood, Crouch sr, Vernon Dursley, Ron and Dolores Umbridge.

PROMINENT eyes are found in Luna, Umbridge and Slughorn.

PROTUBERANT eyes are a Luna Lovegood staple but Garrick Ollivander is also mentioned to be having them.

BEACON-like is a term reserved exclusively for Sibyl Trelawney

LAMP-like is, likewise, a mrs. Norris exclusive

*: Another observation that must be made in regard to large eyes is that not all of the characters l listed above are described as having permanently big eyes. In many case, these terms are used as synonyms for wide-eyed (the term indicating surprise I chose not to include because of its indiscriminate nature). Regardless, with one look at this list one can easily identify repeat offenders (like elves, Luna and Trelawney) whose eyes are more likely to actually be big

To close out this section, I would like to point out some miscellaneous descriptors used to highlight a character's eye shape, something that actually happens quite rarely in the books. We are more often provided adjectives that give us an impression of a certain character's eyes but aren't necessarily descriptive then we do with tried and true physical descriptors.

Round eyes, for example, are often used to describe Ludo Bagman's child-like expression while pouchy is a term reserved for Dolores Umbridge's toad-like eyes. In order to highlight Blaise Zabini's "exotic beauty" (barf), he alone receives long eyes that slant (like goblins' eyes do, do with that what you will). Morfin and Merope Gaunt are the only characters with strabismus while the perennially shady Mundungus Fletcher has permanently droopy, saggy and baggy eyes.

IT'S ALL IN THE EYES

Some terms, usually those referring to how the light catches a character's eyes, are surefire indicator of their nature (or, at the very least, the nature of their actions).

Glittering eyes, for example, often do so with malice or mischief; some notable adopters include Lucius and Draco Malfoy, Peeves, Severus Snape, Griphook and, in two occasions, some random Death Eaters (as seen through their masks). (It must be noted, for completeness sake, that Harry's eyes also glitter in one occasion, and not for evil reasons)

These same characters' eyes also also described through the synonyms gleam and glint, though these two terms are more widely adopted by non-evil characters.

Oliver Wood, Crookshanks, Fred Weasley and Minerva McGonagall's eyes also glint, but at the same time so do the Death Eaters', Draco's Snape's and Voldemort's.

Gleaming eyes, likewise, are not only used for characters like Aragog/acromantulas in general, dog Sirius as the Grim, thestrals, Snape, Voldemort and Bellatrix but also for Ron, Trelawney, Oliver Wood, Ernie Macmillan and Slughorn.

The complete opposite of glittering eyes is probably twinkling eyes, which are only found in "good" characters. Besides Dumbledore, the term is also used to refer to the expressions of Hagrid, Lupin, Tonks and Bill and Molly Weasley.

GENDERED EYE LANGUAGE

Eyes that are tearing or on the verge of tears are a near total female exclusive. In line with this meta by @wisteria-lodge ,The only male characters who occasionally get described using the same language do so for either femme-coding or comical reasons.

While terms like red rimmed and streaming eyes (aunt Muriel), burning eyes (McGonagall), leaky eyes (Myrtle and McGonagall) are female exclusives, only male characters have wet or watering eyes (both Scabbers and Peter, Kreacher and Slughorn).

Hagrid, our most prolific male crier, shares both teary and bright/overbright eyes with noted female criers Hermione and Molly Weasley (plus, unexpectedly, Petunia) and further displays misty eyes together with Luna (and again Petunia) and puffing/puffy eyes with Hermione.

As a curious aside, notably femme-coded character Draco Malfoy has both shining and sparkling eyes which, when referring to Hermione, are used to describe crying but for him indicate malice.

CONCLUSION

I'd like to close this out with a look at some terms I was surprised weren't as widely used as I would have thought:

Only one character has mean eyes and it's book 1's troll

the only instance in which the term long-lashed is found occurs when Snape's doe patronus is being described

Only one person has hungry eyes (even though quite a few characters have hungry expressions) and it's Voldemort

both alert and weary (two very useful descriptors for a war and conflict in general) are terms used uniquely to refer to Remus Lupin's eyes

Vernon Dursley is the only character with angry eyes

Rufus Scrimegour is the only character to have keen eyes

Similarly, only Phineas Nigellus possesses clever eyes

lastly, only Peeves's eyes dance around

Please enjoy the fruit of my (unasked for) labor friends,

xoxo

[sgtpeppers]

"A dark shadow on an otherwise beautiful record": PR, McCartney and The Beatles' Split.

“No, I wasn’t angry – shit, he’s a good P.R. man, that’s all. He’s about the best in the world, probably. He really does a job. I wasn’t angry. We were all hurt that he didn’t tell us that was what he was going to do.”

(John Lennon in Rolling Stone, 21 Jan 1971)

To cut to the chase, I want to explain why this statement from John, claiming Paul is a good PR man is wrong. Largely thanks to quotes like this from John, Paul gets painted as the Beatle with a good media strategy, the insinuation being of course, that he is disingenuous and inauthentic. I don’t believe this is true in general, but what I really want to focus on, and what John is referencing in that quote, is the publicity around Paul’s 1970 album McCartney, which got all tied up with the news of The Beatles split, and how actually, mistake after mistake was made, rather than it being what John claims - a purposeful move to get more publicity for his album. 

This isn’t a moral judgment on either John or Paul, or me saying Paul is stupid for not doing more. In fact, I think it playing out this way is far more interesting and we can gain a lot of insight about his mindset and relationships from his press activities around this time. 

I’m going to do this chronologically as much as possible, but before we dive in it will be helpful for us to keep a few basic PR strategies and tools in mind to help us understand what’s (or perhaps more importantly, what’s not) happening. So what are some things that make for good public relations? 

A clear, cohesive message. What's the story of the album? There should be key phrases that are repeated throughout press activities, and also allow an easy fall back when faced with questions that haven’t been prepared for. Broadly speaking, you want to highlight the good and ignore the bad, without lying or appearing to hide anything.

A good relationship with the press. Having even a couple of journalists on side can be a huge benefit, it makes for friendlier interviews and more forgiving assessments (which isn’t to say journalists are being fake or can be incentivised, but it’s just human nature that if you make friends, you’re going to have an easier time.) Furthermore, you want a reputation in the industry as someone that’s nice to interview, because journalists can and will talk, and if they’re going to come in with a preconception about you, you want it to be positive. 

Reactive messaging. If something comes out that you don’t want to be out, be prepared. Ideally potential problems have already been planned for. Know which journalists to reach out to, know what the story is, then be prepared to go quiet and leave things alone.

Pre-prepared Q&As or FAQs should answer more questions than they generate. They also shouldn’t require in depth answers - save that for conversations where there’s time for explanations. 

So, let’s start back in 1969. The Paul is dead rumours are in full force and Paul, Linda, Heather and Mary are living up in Scotland, trying to escape the goings-on back in London. 

On 24 October, Paul gives an interview to the BBC dispelling the rumours about his death, which goes out on 26-27 October in two parts. A few days later, Dorothy Bacon and Terrence Spencer from Life Magazine make the trip up to his farm to try and get another interview with him, for a piece they’re also doing about the rumours. 

Paul throws a bucket of dirty water at them, they get pictures, and then realising how this will look if published, Paul gives them an interview and promises to have Linda send them some family shots for the articles. In exchange they get rid of the photos they took earlier in the day.

So the first point here, that hopefully I don't need to spell out, is that you don’t wanna go throwing buckets of water at journalists. Thankfully, Paul did realise this and course corrected, but I can only imagine what the fall out would have been had he hadn’t gone after them. But what’s important for this story is that Paul is fed up with journalists and having to share his private life, he's emotional, and his instinct is to lash out.

The other thing that’s interesting here is a line that goes completely unnoticed. At this point, The Beatles split is not public knowledge. 

The Beatle thing is over. It has been exploded, partly by what we have done, and partly by other people. We are individuals, all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl.

(Paul McCartney in Life Magazine, November, 1969)

This is huge, and it doesn’t get picked up by anyone else. It’s not made a big deal of in the Life article, it’s perhaps the clearest statement we get about the state of The Beatles, and yet it flies under the radar. I’d love to know exactly what the deal is here, but there’s not much we can do about that, but what we should start keeping in mind in this: there is no plan in place around The Beatles split. There is just an agreement to not make it public yet. 

The McCartneys go back to London and Paul starts recording music with his new equipment at home. Later he books studio time when he decides he can make an album out of the songs he’s been working on. 

Some key dates: 

Paul finishes the album on 25 February.

The album is set to release on 17 April.

Ringo’s album get rushed to release two weeks early on 27 March and Let It Be is also supposed to be released in April.

On 31 March John and George send a letter, delivered by Ringo, asking Paul to delay the release of McCartney. Paul refuses and Let It Be gets moved instead. 

Which brings us to April. Prior this, Paul realised that if he’s going to be putting an album out he’s going to have to do some publicity, but the problem is… well, there’s a few; he’s never had to do publicity for a solo album and simply doesn’t have the knowledge, his relationship with Apple has completely deteriorated which includes the people who have been handling this stuff for him in the past, and lastly, he doesn’t want to be dealing with press. Refer back to him and the bucket. 

Thankfully, Peter Brown and Derek Taylor from Apple’s press office, tell him he does need to do something and to an extent, he listens. They select a handful of papers he’ll do interviews with, and Peter Brown puts together a Q&A for Paul to answer, which will go out to journalists in the press kit with their early copy of the album (x).

What I would love to do here is a question by question breakdown of that press kit Q&A but I’m conscious of how long this is already so I won’t… but before we get into that, here are a few more key events: 

7 April: The Eastmans issue a press release with news about Paul’s solo album and his acquisition of the film rights for Rupert The Bear. This is covered mostly by American press on 8 April who speculate that this could mean the end of The Beatles. (An important note here is the lack of communication between the Eastmans and Apple, not knowing what materials each other are providing is not helpful).

9 April: McCartney press kits are sent to journalists. 

9 April: Before Don Short at the Daily Mirror clocks off for the night, he is called by an Apple employee who tells him Paul has definitely quit. 

10 April: The Daily Mirror breaks the news with the headline ‘Paul Is Quitting The Beatles’. 

10 April: After doing interviews all day, Derek Taylor issues a statement regarding The Beatles. It doesn’t say much, which he acknowledges, because there’s not much he can say at this point. Another important note here, is that not even the head of publicity of Apple knew what was going on with The Beatles. There is no communication, and with no communication there can be no plan.

(Paul McCartney Project page that covers all this)

So what happened that made The Beatles split go from speculation to a certainty? It’s all to do with that Q&A. Of course, with the Eastman’s press release people were going to start connecting the dots, but that call Short got from his source isn’t presented as a rumour. 

Now, there’s a lot to say about this Q&A because Paul's answer are so unhelpful and you can feel his attitude. I think the fact this was allowed to go out is a fundamental piece of evidence of Paul’s relationship with Apple at the time. No one wanted to tell him no, and he certainly wasn’t going to give them more than the bare minimum. 

And lets be really clear here. This is a Q&A for his new album. Obviously the state of the Beatles was going to be brought up which is why Peter Brown included the questions, but the number of the questions on that topic and then Paul’s answers, make it really confusing and it’s no wonder this is what press picked up on, rather than just talking about Paul’s album. There are 41 questions in total, and 13 of them are asking him about his relationship to the other Beatles, Apple and Klein. That’s just over a third of the Q&A talking about things that he doesn’t want to be talking about. The fact he didn’t just tell Apple that he wasn’t going to answer some of the questions shows how little forethought went into this on his part. There was a much more concise way to do this, and I do not believe for a second Paul wanted further questions about the state of the Beatles when he’s trying to promote his first solo album. 

And remember what I said at the top, about how if you’re gonna be promoting something in the press you want clear messaging around it? That’s already going be difficult now this Q&A has tied so much of the Beatles split into their messaging, despite Paul actually having a pretty clear idea of what the album’s story is aside from that, but the answers Paul gives to those questions just add further confusion. 

Link to full Q&A.

Q: Were you influenced by John’s adventures with the Plastic Ono Band, and Ringo’s solo LP? A: Sort of, but not really. Q: Will they be so credited: McCartney? A: It’s a bit daft for them to be Lennon-McCartney-credited, so ‘McCartney’ it is. Q: Will the other Beatles receive the first copies? A: Wait and see. Q: Is it true that neither Allen Klein nor ABKCO have been nor will be in any way involved with the production, manufacturing, distribution or promotion of this new album? A: Not if I can help it. Q: Did you miss the other Beatles and George Martin? Was there a moment eg, when you thought ‘wish Ringo was here for this break?” A: No. Q: Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles? A: No. Q: Is this album a rest away from the Beatles or the start of a solo career? A: Time will tell. Being a solo album means it’s the start of a solo career… and not being done with the Beatles means it’s a rest. So it’s both. Q: Is your break from the Beatles temporary or permanent, due to personal difference or musical ones? A: Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family. Temporary or permanent? I don’t know. Q: Do you see a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active songwriting partnership again? A: No. Q: What is your relationship with Klein: A: It isn’t – I am not in contact with him, and he does not represent me in any way. Q: What is your relationship with apple? A: It is the office of a company which I part-own with the other three Beatles. I don’t go there because I don’t like the offices or business, especially when I’m on holiday.

So what can we get from this? It’s the start of a solo career for Paul, he doesn’t know if The Beatles break is permanent or temporary, he’s not in contact with Klein and Klein doesn’t represent him, he owns part of Apple but he doesn’t like going there, and he seems very certain that the Lennon-McCartney partnership is over, despite not being sure if The Beatles will play together again or not. 

It’s a mess. It raises further questions. The only reason I can think of for it being so long is Peter Brown trying to cover absolutely everything he could think a journalist would ask, but it’s given Paul far too much scope for muddled answers, and in some cases, factually incorrect ones. He is tied up with Klein whether he likes it or not, because Klein’s tied up with Apple and Paul still has a contract with them. 

It’s no wonder that this becomes the focus of the media narrative, and it makes Paul panic. 

So on 16 April, the day before McCartney was released, Paul sits down with journalist Ray Connolly. And we move from story making, into reactive messaging. There is some thought behind this - Connolly is friendly with The Beatles and had actually already been aware of the split thanks to an off the record chat with John, so he was a good choice. The interview was published in the Evening Standard, a few days after the album had come out. 

And here’s why you want a friendly journalist to talk to, because as the world rushed to say that Paul had broken up the band, Connolly led his article with this: 

Paul McCartney didn’t kill the Beatles. If the group is dead, McCartney might be seen as the last survivor. If he has quit, and he still hasn’t confirmed it, he was the last to go.

(Paul McCartney in the Evening Standard, 21-22 April 1970)

However, the interview is also extremely telling about where Paul’s at emotionally in this moment. 

A few days ago Paul McCartney decided to break his year-long silence and be interviewed. He wanted to clear up the confusion about his relations with the other Beatles and Allen Klein, and to kill the rumours that he was now ‘a hermit living in a cave somewhere with a ten-foot beard’. He wanted to show that he really was a happily married man with ‘a nice family and a good life’. But most of all he wanted to talk, to work things out in conversation, as much, I suspect, for his own benefit as anything.

This is not what you want to be doing with a journalist, you want to have this worked out before the conversation. 

We met for lunch in a Soho businessman’s restaurant. With hardly moments for the hellos, he’d launched into his theme, talking rapidly and intently, and only occasionally allowing Linda to come in as support and verification. He wanted to put it all straight, to show that no one was to blame for what had happened, and when after two and a half hours’ non-stop talking he had cleared up his mind and mine too, he laughed, said he felt better now, got into his car and went home.

This demonstrates the lack of media training he had. It’s a stark difference to the confidence he had doing press with the other Beatles, on his own and with a particular idea to get across he appears nervous and controlling. Long form interviews like this are a marathon, not a sprint, and had he had an advisor or representative that was willing to push back against him, he would have known how to handle this better.

Moreover, an interview of this sort should have been done and published prior to the album coming out, or at least on the day of. Yes, there were always going to be questions about The Beatles tied up with this release, but one long interview like this, that had been properly prepared for, could have gone a long way to keeping the story straight. He also, despite his steamroller-ing of the conversation to begin with, comes across much more balanced about the situation than he does in those Q&A answers, so leading with something like this would have put him on much better footing.

So let's just pause here. What have we got so far? We've got Paul wanting to do as little press as possible, and with a breakdown of communication with his press team resulting in minimal planning and advice. This goes completely against the picture John is trying to paint.

And I’m not done yet. Because now we need to talk about the response to the album which wasn’t what I imagine Paul had wanted. There are two reviews I’m going to focus on here, firstly from Disc & Music Echo, written by Penny Valentine. 

I don’t know what he was thinking when he planned this album. Perhaps he is laughing at us all. That’s fine, but it’s a pretty cruel way of doing it… almost a betrayal of all the things we’ve come to expect.

(Disc & Music Echo review, 18 April 1970)

It’s really harsh, but also this is within her right as a journalist. And what should someone do if they’re getting bad reviews? Ignore them. Thank the fans. Thank the people who say nice things. Don’t highlight negative attention, and certainly don’t lash out. 

And look, there’s a lot to be said about Paul, Linda, John and Yoko’s press communications over the 70s, the Melody Maker letters spring to mind, and I’m very aware that I’m looking at this from 2025 when PR is much bigger and better oiled machine, almost to the point of it being quite boring and predictable. I do, however, also think that ‘don’t lash out at journalists who don’t like your work’ is common sense. 

So Paul and Linda writing to Disc & Music Echo is a bit much to my eyes: 

Dear Penny hold your hand out you silly girl I am not being cruel or laughing at you. I am merely enjoying myself. You are wrong about the McCartney album. It is an attempt at something slightly different, it is simple, it is good and even at this moment it is growing on you, love. – Paul and Linda McCartney.

(Paul and Linda's telegram to Disc & Music Echo, 25 April 1970)

It’s condescending, and if you want to plant the seeds of what your album is meant to be, there are much better places and ways to do it. Again this is reactive, showing little to no planning earlier in the year. 

But here’s the thing that actually, completely baffles me. On the same day, in the same paper, another article gets published, this time by Derek Taylor, with the by line reading ‘Derek Taylor, Beatles Press Officer’. This just shouldn't happen. I can’t think of another case where someone’s PR is coming to their rescue in print. That’s not their job, and yes, Taylor used to be a journalist but he’s not anymore. I think this is way more to do with the way the people that have been with the Beatles since the early days are so emotionally wrapped up in this, they weren’t the people that should have been handling this.

(x)

It also shows though, that however much Paul was distancing himself from Apple, there were people still there who loved him. It’s an emotional, beautifully written piece calling for people to leave Paul alone, but also not a good PR move, especially when he’s highlighting a specific journalist. Whether Paul asked Derek to do this, or Derek did it of his own accord, I don’t know, but it looks defensive and if I was a journalist, I’d be rolling my eyes. 

Which brings us to the final part of this, the Rolling Stone review, published on 14 May 1970, nearly a month after the album came out, and largely not about the album at all, but a lot of  focus on Paul’s handling of the situation. 

The review of the actual songs is pretty complimentary, but this is also a personal attack on Paul. 

(Full review)

Unfortunately, there is more to this album than just music. Accompanying the release of McCartney was a mass of external information — all of it coming directly from Paul himself — which casts real doubt on the beautiful picture which the songs create. 

The sheets contain even more assertions about how happy and peaceful Paul and Linda are these days, and some interview statement from Paul concerning his relationship to the Beatles — statements which drip a kind of unsavory vindictiveness.

My problem is that all of the publicity surrounding the record makes it difficult for me to believe that McCartney is what it appears to be. In the special package of information which Paul wanted to include with the album we find startlingly harsh statements.

The lasting effect of this publicity campaign is to cast a dark shadow on an otherwise beautiful record. Listening to it now I cannot help but ask if Paul is really as together as the music indicates, how could he have sunk to such bizarre tactics?

I don't think this needs much commentary. You know something’s gone wrong with your PR when that becomes the focus, rather than the thing you’re actually trying to promote. 

If we return to the four things I listed above, I think we can pretty resolutely lay out what I wanted to do. 

Was there a clear, cohesive message? Around the album itself, sort of, Paul knew what it was. But it got tied up with the news of The Beatles split, the messaging around which was confusing with no one sticking to the same story. He also didn't do enough before the album came out, to get that messaging about his album stuck in people's heads. So overall, no. 

Did he build good relationships with press? No. He threw a bucket at one. He provided confusing press kit material, even to journalists he was friendly with he came across in a manner that was worth noting in an article, he sent a bitchy telegram to a journalist who wrote a bad review, and this all culminated in Rolling Stone spending more time talking about his publicity than his album.  

Did Paul have reactive messaging prepared? Evidently not, and then given the chance to provide some, he came across as panicked to the journalist he was speaking to. 

Did his Q&A provide clear, simple answers to common questions he was likely to get asked? No, it was overly long, asking the same questions in multiple ways and no editing was done to his short, snappy, confusing, and incorrect answers. 

I don’t want to give the idea that Paul, overall, is just shit at PR. (I mean, there's a difference between being a good spokesperson and good at PR but I won't get into that). He’s a highly successful musician who by all accounts, is now extremely good at interviews and making journalists feel at ease. He’s Paul fucking McCartney. But John saying this, in direct reference to this period of press activities is just not true. The album did well for Paul in the charts and sales, yes, but I’d argue that’s despite all this, rather than because of it. 

And it’s also important to reiterate, that Paul simply wasn’t interested in doing a lot of publicity. He wasn’t even sure this was going to be an album when he started writing the songs. He didn’t want people coming to his farm, invading his new family life (and rightly so), he didn’t want to be on TV or the radio every day. That’s why his Q&A is so terse and why he hadn’t put any thought in how he was going to talk about The Beatles. And whilst how he felt is understandable, what he needed were a team around him willing to push back, steer him, and were separate from Apple. That’s the only way, I think, this could have gone differently.

Even then, he probably wouldn’t have listened to them anyway: 

I don’t think I need a manager in the old sense that Brian Epstein was our manager. All I want are paid advisers, who will do what I want them to do. And that’s what I’ve got.

(Paul McCartney in the Evening Standard, 21-22 April 1970)

And that’s really the crux of it all, because you can’t do good with PR with someone who doesn’t want to take advice and thinks they know best. And I love him for it. 

[luyi]

An Incomplete History of Zhang Luyi & Chen Minghao's Friendship

Do you like Pangxie's chemistry in Tibetan Sea Flower? Do you feel that they are really old friends? Besides the fact that Zhang Luyi and Chen Minghao are very good actors, they are indeed old friends, and the earliest record that I can find of them working together dates back to 2006. However, CMH was in the 1996 class of acting at the The Central Academy of Drama, while ZLY was in the 1999 class of directing at the same university, so I figured they definitely got to know each other before 2006. So more or less, on Chinese social media, people usually assume that they've been friends for almost 20 years.

Before I dig into the history, I want to mention that some Pangxie scenes are actually improvised by ZLY and CMH on set. CHM has played Pangzi several times, and is insanely good at it, so he knows about Pangzi and the character dynamics inside out. While ZLY is new to the DMBJ universe, he did read all the DMBJ novels before the filming of Tibetan Sea Flower, so he has very insightful understanding of the characters and relationship dynamics as well.

For example, according to an interview of the director, this iconic & funny "拜年/new year's greeting" scene in episode 6 was improvised, and the director just decided to keep it in the final cut. In a BTS footage, Pangxie putting peanuts on Feng's very wrinkled test paper in episode 9 was also shown to be something that ZLY and CMH came up with during rehearsing.

The History

In the first paragraph, I mentioned that they went to the same undergraduate university. Another thing that connects them even more is that they went to the same graduate school - Peking University's School of Arts, and both have the master's degree in arts. ZLY fans sometimes just endearingly call CMH “师哥/shige" because of all of this.

In 2006, ZLY and CMH were in the stage play 琥珀/Amber. Here are some rare photos of 26-year old ZLY and 31 year old CMH LOL:

Both of them continued to do a lot of theatre works, some tv/film roles, and also attended grad school in the coming years. ZLY got his breakthrough leading role in 2014, and started to lead in shows/films.

In 2016, ZLY and South Korean actor Jang Hyuk starred in the drama 新海/New Sea, and CMH was seen sharing the following scene with ZLY. Unfortunately, due to China's ban on South Korean entertainment content in the same year, this drama will probably never see the light of day.

Then, I think some of you already know this, in late 2016, CMH directed the stage play Big D, and ZLY was his lead actor in this play. According to different news articles, the tickets of this play were sold out in either 5, 7, or 8 minutes (LOL no idea why there were such discrepancies, but they were sold out within 10 minutes for sure).

In 2018, they appeared in The Sound which is a very good variety show about dubbing. Celebrities were asked to dub domestic and international shows/films (sometimes in both Chinese and English) to show case their voice acting skills and language skills. What's really funny is that ZLY is one of the typical introverts who can be a clown when he's surrounded by people he's familiar with, but once you put him in an unfamiliar environment, he gets nervous and shy. So after he and CMH entered the room together, he just naturally and subconsciously stood right beside CMH, the one he was most comfortable with, even though he was supposed to team up with another actress (who was off screen). He got really confused for a minute when all the other guests and hosts were questioning why he didn't stand beside his teammate LOL.

Both ZLY and CMH are really very low key actors in c-ent, so you don't see them in public events a lot. The last time that they were spotted chatting in public was during the premiere of the movie Under the Light last September.

Anyways, thanks for reading! I hope this can bring some insight into their friendship. You can tell they are just so comfortable with each other, and shooting Tibetan Sea Flower seemed to be such a fun experience for them. I hope they get to work together again soon in the future!

Edit: if you noticed my tags and saw the reply of someone requesting to know why ZLY was picked as Wu Xie: I made a long post here.

[morgana-larkin]

Here is the next chapter of Just Tired! We get more insight to Melissa's feelings and both Y/n and Melissa's thoughts after the threesome. Not edited in the slightest and I hope you like it!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26

Just Tired - Part 19

Warnings: Manipulative Relationship (Mentioned), Reference to smut

Words: 3.6k

Barb hears Melissa come in as she’s making dinner but then Gerald comes in a couple minutes later.

“You should go out there, she walked in crying.” Gerald tells her. “I can finish making dinner.” He adds and Barb quickly goes to the living room. She sees Melissa about to go upstairs but she stops her.

“Melissa?” She calls out and Melissa turns around and Barb sees the tear stained cheeks. “Oh Melissa, dear, what’s wrong?” Barb asks her as she goes up to her. 

“Nothing.” Melissa sobs out and Barb immediately hugs her. 

“What happened?” Barb asks her softly.

“I was spending time with Y/n, and I realised that I’ve fallen for her.” Melissa says between sniffles.

“Isn’t that a good thing? It means your heart has moved on.” Barb asks her.

“I’m trying to fix myself first though. I was manipulated for 25 years and I’m scared of being in a relationship right now, I’m scared of repeating that situation. I’m scared, really scared.” Melissa says and Barb gives her another hug to which Melissa hugs her back. 

“You don’t have to do anything but I’ve seen how Y/n cares for you. She’s done nothing but try to make you happy and give you the experiences you’ve said you want.” Barb tells her.

“Ya, I know, she’s great, but I’m just too scared right now.” 

“Like I said, you’re not being forced to do anything. But you do need support as you’re going to court to file your divorce soon.” Barb says to her and Melissa nods. “So how about you tell Y/n that you have a court date next week and ask if she can come to support you?” Barb tells her gently.

“Ok, I’ll ask her.” Melissa says.

“Ok perfect, how about you take a quick breather and dinner will be ready in 10 minutes.” Barb says and Melissa nods before going upstairs. 

“Didn’t you use to calm Taylor like that?” Gerald asks her and Barb nods proudly.

“And it worked.” Barb says before going back to cook dinner.

Melissa lays down in her bed and all her thoughts are of you. She wants to spend less time with you now as you two spend more time together than she does with Barb, and she lives with Barb. But, she also wants to keep spending the same amount of time with you as you make her happy. She’s really conflicted with her feelings right now and remembered that Barb said she doesn’t have to do anything right now, especially with her court date coming up. She decided to put you on the back burner for now and just focus on her divorce. 

“Melissa? Dinner is ready.” Barb says and Melissa looks at her phone, 10 minutes has already gone by?

“Ok, I’ll be right there.” Melissa calls out and hears Barb’s retreating footsteps. Melissa sluggishly gets up and decides to get out of her Doc’s and put some slippers on instead before going downstairs. Barb sees her coming down and sees that she put slippers on and only does that when she’s upset.

The next morning you enter the break room and see Melissa there but she’s cradled her head in her arms and laying down on the table.

“Did you not get a lot of sleep last night?” You ask her and she mutters something but you didn’t hear what she said. “What was that?” You ask softly and crouch down and you see her open her eyes.

“I said, what’s it to you?” She repeats and you tilt your head.

“Well I do care about you.” You tell her and she takes a deep breath.

“I know, I’m just tired.” She says softly and you nod before you go sit with Jacob and Janine.  

For the rest of the day you see that she seems to be using all her energy to teach her students and not show that anything is wrong. At the end of the day you see her bolt out of there and you furrow your eyebrows as she usually takes her time or wants to talk to you. You happen to see Barb in the parking lot and you walk up to her.

“Hey Barb.” You tell her and she looks at you.

“Hey dear.” She tells you.

“Is something going on with Melissa? She seemed off today and then she bolted out of here.” You ask her.

“It’s not really my place to tell why she’s off but for the bolting out of here, she has a meeting with her divorce lawyer right now.” She tells you and you nod.

“I see.” You say. “So does that mean that she has her court date?”

“She does but it’s up to her whether to tell you the date or not.” She tells you before Gerald shows up and she opens the door before turning to you. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, you have no idea how much you’re helping her.” She says before she gets in the car and it drives off. 

Melissa gets home after her meeting and goes straight to her room. She flops down on the bed and cuddles with her body pillow before she falls asleep. She’s exhausted as her thoughts of everything and the stress was keeping her up until 2am and she got 4 hours of restless sleep. She woke up a couple hours later and she goes downstairs to get something to eat. 

“Your plate is in the microwave.” Barb tells her as she hears her coming downstairs.

“Thanks, I have a major headache right now, probably from not eating.” She says and then goes to reheats her food. 

“Oh by the way, you should probably know that Y/n is worried about you.” Barb says as she enters the kitchen.

“Why?” 

“She noticed you seemed off today, and I don’t think it’s because of how tired you were.” Barb tells her.

“That girl can read me so well.” She mutters and puts her head in her hands. 

“The only thing I told her was you have a meeting with your lawyer. She knows you have a court date coming up and she might ask you about it.” She tells Melissa and she groans. “Also maybe have a bath after, might relax your muscles.” She adds before she goes back into the living room. The microwave goes off and she opens it and gets the plate before she sighs. 

“I don’t need to relax, I just want some fun.” She mutters to herself and she gets her phone out before going into one of the apps. 

One guy told her they don’t need to go out if she’s just looking for sex and she’s going to take him up on his offer. She messages the guy and asks if he’s free on Sunday night. She then goes to eat and gets a notification a few minutes later. She opens up the app and sees that the guy said he’s free if she wants to come over. She messaged him back saying she’ll be there and she smiles.

“I still got it.” She says to herself and eats her food. “Barb, just to let you know that I’m meeting a guy on Sunday night.” Melissa tells her after she’s done eating.

“I thought you were only going on dates with women right now.” Barb says.

“Well, it’s not really a date, more like stress relief.” Melissa tells her and Barb’s eyes widen slightly.

“Girl, no need to tell me more.” Barb says and Melissa chuckles before she goes back upstairs.

Melissa does end up having a bath. She lets the tub fill up as she gets undressed and she already feels some of the weight of the week just fall off of her. She turns off the water when there’s enough and she steps in and just melts into the tub, letting the stress leave her body. 

Thursday seems to fly by for Melissa as she feels more relaxed but she can’t help but feel a bit distanced from you and she doesn’t like it. She happens to glance over at your classroom when she’s at her desk and it seemed like you felt her looking as you looked at her from your desk. You smile at her and mouth a ‘hi’ and she does the same. The end of the day comes and she’s locking her classroom up when you come up to her.

“So Melissa.” You say and she turns around and starts walking to the parking lot with you. “I was thinking, you, me and roller skating on Sunday. What do you think?” You ask her and she quirks an eyebrow.

“Hon, I’m 48, I don’t think roller skating is the best idea.” She tells you.

“Oh come on, they have pads and everything and it’s so fun.” You tell her with a smile. 

“Hon, 5 seconds there and I’d fall flat on my face.” She tells you.

“You don’t know how to roller skate, do you?” You ask her and she shakes her head. “Well if you want you can hold my hand the entire time.” You offer and she blushes at the thought. 

“I guess that sounds nice.” She says and your smile gets bigger. 

“Ok, perfect, so I gotta go on a date but I’ll see you tomorrow.” You say and she nods before you run to your car. It takes her a few seconds before the words process in her brain.

“Wait a minute, a date?” She asks but you’re already out of earshot. “Fuck sake.” She mutters before getting in her car. “You know what, it’s fine. I mean I’m having a threesome with her on Saturday and sex with a guy on Sunday.” She says to herself before she takes a breath and then pulls out of the parking lot. 

The next morning you’re all sitting on the couches as Janine goes through the options of escape room themes.

“And then they have like this haunted house one, and it says you’re trapped in the killer's house and you have to escape before he gets back.” Janine says. “It has a very low escape rate.” She adds as she looks. 

You look over to your left and see that Melissa is sitting right beside you with her body turned towards you and laying her head on her head while looking at Janine.

“I say we go with the haunted house one.” She says and you all look at her. 

“The one with a low success rate?” You ask her and she nods.

“It’ll be more satisfying when we escape.” She tells you with a smile, the smile you can never say no to.

“Alright sure, I vote for the haunted house one too.” You say and Janine books it for 6pm.

You notice throughout the morning that Melissa seems to be rubbing her temples and figures she must have a migraine.

“So, is your head bothering you?” You ask her as you both head to the break room and she nods.

“I’ve had this terrible migraine since yesterday and it won’t go away.” She tells you.

“Well did you get more sleep last night?” You ask and she nods. 

“Must be all the stress.” She says and you hum. 

“Well this weekend you have an escape room, a threesome and roller skating. I think all the stress will be gone by Sunday night.” You say and she lets out an airy chuckle.

“Ya, hopefully.” She says as you reach the break room. 

After school ends she sees you talking with Janine as all the kids are getting picked up. You look to be a bit defensive and she’s wondering what you two are talking about. 

“What exactly are you asking, Janine?” You ask her.

“I just want to know if you and Melissa are together.” She says and you shake your head.

“We’re not together. And in case you forgot, she’s currently going through a divorce and Barb and I are just there to support her.” You tell her.

“What about this morning? Her body was facing you even though she didn’t have to do that. They say you can tell based on a person’s body language.” 

“We’re not together, and that’s the end of the discussion.” You say and then walk away to say goodbye to your students. 

You all arrive at the escape room just before 6 and you sign in and pay before you wait. You and Melissa sit beside each other while Janine and Jacob sit together. Janine gives you a look as she looks between you and Melissa and you roll your eyes and cross your arms.

“You ok?” Melissa asks you and you nod.

“Perfectly fine.” You tell her and then a worker comes up.

“Hello, for the haunted house?” He asks and you all nod. “Ok, if you’ll come with me.” He says and you all get up and follow him into the room. He explains all the rules before he leaves and then the countdown starts. 

You all seem to be locked in a jail cell and have to find a key. There seems to be a shelf with a few things on it and you’re able to grab some of them. You lift one and see a number underneath, as well as a couple other ones. Jacob puts the number in a lock and it opens to reveal a magnet wand. You then see the key on the skeleton beside the shelf and you’re able to grab it with the magnet and open the jail door. 

Melissa was able to watch in amusement as you all figure it out and see how much you’re all into this. You all go into what looks like a bedroom and start looking around for clues. Melissa seems to start getting into it when she finds a clue and then she starts helping you all more. She figures out the lock to go into the next room and she lets out a little excited scream that you found cute. 

“So you seem to be into this.” You tell her when the other two are on the other side of the room.

“Ya, it’s quite fun.” She says with a smile.

You’re all trying to figure out the last combination and you go to see that you have 1 minute left. 

“Ok, try 5-3-1-6.” Melissa says with a paper in her hand and Jacob quickly puts it in and it unlocks and you all escape at the last second. You all jump in excitement as you’re happy to beat a difficult one and you high five Melissa for figuring out the last clue. “Well I admit that I enjoyed that more than I thought.” She says as she holds your hand and you smile.

“Ya, escape rooms are so fun.” You say and you don’t miss Janine glancing down at you holding hands with Melissa.

“It looks like you’re together!” Janine blurts out and you roll your eyes as Melissa and Jacob look at her.

“Like I said after school, Melissa and I aren’t together.” You say after letting her hand go.

“But it would make sense.” Janine says and you all go to exit. “I mean you two are always close, always talking, the fact that those meals you bring are made by Melissa, always looking at each other with basically heart eyes and now you were holding hands.” Janine explains and Jacob looks at you and Melissa. 

“It does seem that way.” Jacob says.

“Well youse can stop all the inspecting Sherlock, Y/n and I aren’t together. In fact Y/n just went on a date yesterday and I’m busy filing for divorce.” Melissa tells them. “Barb and Y/n are supporting me through it as it’s been difficult.” She admits and you nod your head in agreement. 

You all walk to your cars and it just so happens you and Melissa parked next to each other. You two are talking and you both don’t notice Janine watching you guys from across the parking lot.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” You ask her and she nods. 

“I’ll pick you up at 6:50. The girl’s house isn’t far from your place.” She tells you and you nod before you have your arms open.

“Can I have a hug?” You ask her and she giggles before she brings you in and kisses you on the lips. You also both don’t notice the huge gasp that Janine does as she sees you both kissing.

“Much better than a hug.” She says before she winks at you and then gets in her car. You do a little goofy smile before you get in your car and drive off. The next day she gets to your house at 6:45 and texts you that she’s here. You come out and get in her car.

“So, are you nervous about tonight?” You ask her and she nods.

“Ya, excited but also incredibly nervous.” She admits.

“It’s ok to be nervous, it’s different and new for you. But I’ll be there with you, which is why you asked me right? To help you feel more comfortable?” You ask her and she nods. “Just relax and go with the flow.” You say as she pulls up at the address the girl gave her.

Melissa ends up getting home at 11pm and she falls on her face on the bed and lets out a groan into the pillow. She turns onto her back and realises how stupid she was tonight. Her jealousy got the best of her and she kept trying to keep your attention on her. At one point you were fingering Avery while Melissa was sitting on her face and she reached behind to grab your free hand. At another point she was teasing your entrance while you and Avery were kissing and she ended up inserting a finger in your entrance and started pumping right away. You immediately pulled away from the kiss and looked at Melissa. 

Melissa was quite proud of that one as it got your attention away from Avery and onto her quite quickly. She enjoyed the threesome, I mean she got off a few times, but she enjoyed it more when your attention was on her. She knows the point of the threesome is for it to be equal amongst the three people, she’s also aware she didn’t spend that much time focusing on the other girl. To be honest it probably wasn’t the best idea to not cancel after she realised her strong feelings towards you. Melissa also wasn’t aware that she had a bit of a jealous streak, she was never jealous when other girls were flirting with Joe. She then thinks of how attracted to Joe she was, or should she say the lack of attraction she felt towards him.

She wants to keep having fun like she’s been doing but doesn’t know if she can enjoy it now that she knows how she feels towards you. She’ll have to wait and see tomorrow night if she enjoys having sex with that guy. She then gets a notification on her phone and she looks at it. One of the girls she matched with is asking her out on a date for next Friday to the bar. She thinks about it for a couple minutes before replying yes. She then puts her phone down and smiles before she goes to get ready for bed.

You get home after Melissa drops you off and you go upstairs to your room. You’re getting undressed when you think about what happened. You noticed Melissa seemed a little possessive of you as you didn’t focus a lot of attention on the other girl as Melissa kept getting your attention back on her. You don’t know if Melissa was like that because you know each other or because she might actually have more feelings for you then she’s letting on. It might also be possible that she just prefers just one on one sex and went with the person she’s most comfortable with. 

You’re a bit biased as you hope it’s because she has more feelings for you than you think due to you being in love with her. You know you accidentally let it slip out last weekend when you were with her but you have no idea if she heard it or if she thought you said something else. Your thoughts are swirling and they’re all centred on Melissa and you start to wonder if she really is safe to fully let into your life. 

You enjoyed the threesome but you enjoy having sex with just Melissa more. You also know that Melissa is more than likely going to start having sex with other people soon and when that happens, there goes all your time with Melissa. You also start to wonder if those other people will treat her right. You know Melissa is strong and can take care of herself but she’s also fragile right now due to her soon to be ex husband.

With all those thoughts you decide to just sleep on it as you have a roller skating date with Melissa tomorrow at 1pm. You finish getting in your pjs and get comfortable in bed.

Taglist: @esposadejoyhuerta 

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@alwaysgoodnight

@yoyo-w

@fragile-angell

Let me know if you want to be added!

[juanabaloo]

it's 2024 and Eliza's Faith Lehane is STILL the MVP!

so yeah, yet another Eliza Dushku appreciation post!

(I'm remaking this in 2024 to keep it positive. Felt like my last version of this got overly negative about a certain character and ship.)

Yes I am still not over the fact that Faith didn't have a last name until 2 years AFTER BTVS went off the air. She literally DID NOT HAVE A LAST NAME the whole time she was on the show. (Neither did Kendra BTW.)

In the literal dictionary sense: Faith is technically a minor character in terms of screen time. (Whaaaa???) She was in 20 episodes of BTVS and 6 of ATS. She was never listed in the main cast for either. She was not in the BTVS (or ATS) 20 year cast reunion.

We know Eliza played Faith as having a crush on Buffy. In cons Eliza consistently supported the idea of Fuffy (Faith x Buffy). If your view cuts off the right gif caption, it's Eliza saying "me and Buffy should've made out."

26 years after her debut, and people are still talking about Faith Lehane! There's gorgeous gifsets and insightful meta essays and brilliant shit posts and cute text posts and amazing webweaving poetry posts and even polls about Faith. And all the same for Fuffy! (I'm not even talking about the fanfic, even though new Faith and Fuffy fanfic is still getting posted.)

(also pretend there's a gif here from that 2022 movie Crush where Chantal says "I post to tumblr all the time. That's mostly just like Buffy, Faith...")

Faith and Fuffy are still inspiring people, even though the show has been off the air for 20+ years now!

So... also proud to be a part of FUFFY Nation. Sometimes I get a little choked up (like Buffy here) and sometimes I get impressed and thoughtful (like Faith here).

Happy Faith Lehane Day y'all!

Faith debuted 26 years ago on October 13th. The show would not have been the same without her. And neither would we!

-----

I make no gifs! GIF credits:

top (sweet on her) is from BTVS 7x20 by raggeddypondond (Kelly's growth) from lactose-intolerant-nihilism (drink and porch) both from BTVS 7x19 by shelly-johnson (left con quote) is from thisyearsgirls (right con quote) is from goaskmalices (damn) and (right in the feels) both from BTVS 7x18 by cwladiesdaily

[mooshlovely]

Nein Again Episode 16

Do we ever learn exactly what secret Caleb told Siff? (28) I saw someone else say it was about killing his parents but do we ever get confirmation?

Jester: "I'm going to cast Sanctuary on -- who's the lowest?" Nott: "You" shes trying to be a good cleric but it's not working. made me laugh (42)

What is this, like the 3rd time the m9 have been forced to attack one another? Someone should start a tracker. Truly remarkable how many times it happens to them, speed running trauma (57)

I love that Matt said that Nott fits into the hole, yet Sam still precedes to make Nott strip and get slathered in oil. Iconic. (1:06)

Nott, out of nowhere: "I'm poisoned!" with the funniest tone of voice. Amazing. Sam continues to be a master of comedic timing (1:18)

The ring distribution was hilarious (1:25)

Beau reading over Caleb's shoulder is great. Empire kids bonding over being nerds (1:26)

Nott: "You can have Fjord's ring." Caleb: "Give her a ring" well if that isn't foreshadowing both the ring of fire and their marriage. Also damn with the way Sam is smirking, you would think he already knows where this is going (1:29)

I would love to know what Matt thought/wanted Fjord to do when he said "Consume." In the Talks Machina episode Matt says it surprised him but what else could he do?? (2:02)

Jesus they are so insensitive lol, just absolutely interrogating Fjord about his tusks (Also Caleb with the brutal insight check). Also carefully sidestepping the orphan backstory. (2:23) I can't believe Molly is the only one who tried to insight check is 'bit my lip' excuse and then he fucked it

Caleb: "Our early days are always with us" oof (2:27)

The Nein's solution to hiding things is just to ramble on about random shit until the other person forgets what they asked. It doesn't quite work here but they did give it their best shot. It is mildly impressive that they got away with keeping the sword and the spellbook (2:47)

Pocket bacon!! (2:51)

Every time they go to this physician's office they get the crownsguard called on them lol (3:06)

Nott wanting to eat lunch as a halfling reads much different now. It's not that she hates herself, but rather that she hates the nightmare she is forced to live (3:23) Also the first hint that Nott has some connection to Felderwin O.O

The parallels between Nott sending money to Yeza and her giving all of the rest of her money to Caleb. She really is trying to be a good mother to 'both' of her children (3:29)

in hindsight, its interesting that Dairon has the same prejudices as everyone else. Like it makes sense but I guess I thought the Cobalt Soul was above it (3:40)

Caleb: "Do you know if it's achievable?" oh fuck sometimes I forget how much there is exactly one thing on Caleb's mind at all times. (3:37) Also Sam's face when Liam says "Father and Mother" hilarious

Sudden bdsm counselor Nott/Sam xD (3:56)

The comment about Avengers: Infinity War at the end was a wild reminder of the passage of time. I still remember watching it in theaters during college

[colorfulwastelandvoid]

2 things: I want the fandom to stop saying words they heard online. Ambessa isn’t a butch, like by definition she isn’t, cause she’s not a lesbian, she’s bisexual. She is also very much fem presenting. Yall are equating her being dark skin, tall and having muscles with masculinity. Which by itself is a very binary way of thinking from a supposed “woke”fandom also it’s kind of racist or at the very least colorist.

Caitlyn isn’t a fascist. That’s not what happened, go to your local library and pick up a history book or dictionary and circle that word so you don’t forget it. Also the Kkkiraman “jokes” aren’t funny, especially cause a lot of yall are white. And I ask what is funny to you as a white person about the klan that has killed, raped and terrorized black folks for a better part of a century ? Also didn’t think I needed to say this but the kkk also lynched and terrorized anyone who wasn’t a WASP (white Anglo-Saxon protestant), that includes Asian people. Asian people have been lynched by the kkk, there are records. Also how the kkk operates and do their stuff isn’t how Caitlyn did hers so I’m confused as to why this even came up other than the fact that her last name starts with a K, which such surface level thinking tracks for this fandom. I can’t for the life of me understand how other black people are letting this slide. You don’t like Cait, cause ACAB, fine it’s kind of juvenile giving that Cait’s whole story revolves around unlearning the indoctrination of the enforcing system but whatevs. Like as a black woman, I’m begging other black folks to stop letting white people play in your face. I’m not telling you to glaze Cait or even like her but I am asking yall to A : stop lying on her and B: to fight the bigotry that is being spewed towards her.

Second thing, it’s weird that this fandom disengage with a character like Ambessa. It’s also super telling that this fandom has no problem WRONGFULLY portraying Mel as this heartless manipulator or harden classist when that’s not who she is. Also does no one find it strange that very few people acknowledge that Ambessa was manipulating Cait? It almost feels like the fandom is scared to label Ambessa an antagonist. Which is really weird when you again take into account how these same people treat Mel and Cait.

Mel the soft spined idealist who was casted out for her compassion is somehow this heartless Jezebel harpy, but Ambessa isn’t even labeled as manipulative. Like this also feels racist. Ambessa like Mel is just over sexualized by their haters and fandom. Ambessa is a veteran warlord Noxian, why is it so hard to believe that this woman can manipulate Cait, a 20 something small time enforcer, who is still wet behind the ears? She is literally called the Matriarch of War. She upholds and personifies Noxian ideals to a toxic degree.I mean we all know why yall don’t come down as nearly as hard on Ambessa like yall do Mel and Cait. It’s not cause she’s portrayed as a villain, so don’t even try it. This moral puritanical fandom would still rip her apart if that was the case. Not joking, this feels racist too. It feels like yall are saying Ambessa is too dumb to manipulate Cait even though Ambessa is one of the smartest people in the show. She’s emotionally intelligent and has a situational awareness that rivals no one in the show thus far.

The Arcane fandom is weird and yall get on my nerves.

Ps what I’ve said about Ambessa also applies to Sevika. This fandom just do thirst traps for these women and no actual insight on them as characters. Before anyone says it, I love a good thirst trap and believe both type of content can exist at the same time. It’s just weird, giving the lack of critical thinking in this fandom.

Pss before yall try it, don’t even try to come in here acting aggressive towards Ambessa. She is literally my shayla, one scroll on my page will show as such.

PSss this is a show about magic. It’s crazy that these type of convos need to be had. I’m 26, so this ain’t my first rodeo, but it’s so infuriating to fight such a performative activist fandom like arcane fandom.

[madockisser]

Hi there! I was wondering what are your hopes for Jurdan in the next book since it’s rumored to be around them. Individually and together what do you hope to see in terms of growth and what not!

Love ur blog!

Hii! Thank you so much 😭 u guys are so sweet!

My hopes for the book (any book-jurdan focused or not/nicasia focused or WHATEVER it may be) are pretty simple (also this isn’t in order lol) ALSO this is messy and random and OPINIONATED. just what i would personally enjoy seeing!!:

1.Nicasia redemption arc/delving into why nicasia was such a pos lol. Also nicasia and her mom hopefully having a sweet and healthy relationship (not sure if it’ll be explored or not but if the book is centered around her)

2.a scary political problem. I want my emotions stirred and holly black does that REALLY well.

3. Madoc not being an asshat for once/ proving that he finally cares more about his family than power and violence. I want to see some growth from him! PLEASE

4.JURDAN. specifically: cardan being scary in public but nurturing to jude AND the same with Jude

5. Mayybbeee dual pov? specifically jude and cardan and perchance nicasia? Maybe even oak and surens pov from elfhame?

6.MADOC AND ORIANA. PLEASEHEHEJEJEJ

7. Nicasia finding LOVE. Actual love. w someone that’s scary to Jude and cardan but sweet to her. I want her to be happy despite it all.

8. TARYN BEINNG HAPPY FOR ONCE LOL. after all she’s done to ensure her own happiness (even thru selfishness) i still want her to be happy. jude would want the same. not sure how’d she would find it w/ out garret, but nonetheless.

8.grima mog scenes PLEASE. she’s actually so underrated lol i love her. madoc wishes he were her fr

9. Oriana lore LOL

10. Greenbriar family lore ofc SPECIFICALLY cardans sisters!!! They get no page time 😭

11. absolutely no jealousy from jurdan (i will gouge my eyes out)

12. more oak and suren? can’t remember much of them but i want to see how their relationship is now. i feel like there was very little of that. also suren character growth for sure.

13. More court of shadows ! Perhaps a new member?

14. More info on the ghost. is he gonna be a tree forver 💀 it would make sense but i want him back tbh

15.perchance jurdan steamy scenes 😏 perchance after Jude gets frustrated w cardan for whatever reason (idk i like the tension)

16. If i see any cardan w other women (not likely) i will execute myself

17. Some more lore on other characters (honestly i wanna know where the heck valerian came from)

18. LORD ROIBEN AND KAYE. PLEADEHUEHEJE

19. ANY characters from the modern faerie talesPLEASE Or the darkest part of the forest

20. no jurdan babies pls (don’t hate me for this i just think it’s too soon)

21. nicasia being badass but not in a way that will harm jude or cardan 😭

22. Cardan being a good high king/Cardan being scary!! prove those “Cardan is a babygirl” ppl wrong! I want scary Cardan back, and i want the folk to fear him like they did in the earlier books!

23. Jude being badass ALSO her high queen powers??!!! I want closure on if she can do what cardan can as a high monarch so i can SHUT UP everyone that says she’s weak or could get bodied by some other character 😔

24. Vivi and heather being cutie patooties (possible marriage?)

25. Taryn being a good mother/ Leander being a cutie!

26. Some insight on if jurdan wants to be parents or not

27. Madoc giving fatherly advice / him and vivi getting along/ him and cardan getting along

28. Eva Duarte lore PLEKAKDJEJE (will not happen but shhh)

29. i want some undersea lore!! orlagh and nicasia and their kingdom. i want to see descriptions of the undersea high court. I want to see beautiful descriptions of the mermaids, scary and hauntingly gorgeous.

30. Nicasias father(?) lore

31. perchance some more human lore ( i mean like how humans interact w the undersea)

32. Cardan. I want to see him being sweet to jude and ONLY jude and honestly an asshole to everyone else (lol idk)

33. I also want to see the sweet side of jude again. I miss reading in her pov 😭 i want to see her fretting over oakey pokey again. Over cardan.

edit:

34: faerie court lore, i want to see some more fae courts, ESPECIALLY far away ones yk w different cultures and stuff!

35: some insight on how mermaids can live in the sea w all the salt and have their magics remain unaffected, so like- how they are genetically different from the fae

36: how faerie bodies work+ just general faerie knowledge, scientific or no.

anyway this is all i could think of feel free to add your own ideas in the comments or whatever! I wanted to post a vivi analysis today but i have fallen extremely unwell 😐 ruining my festivities fr!

BUT i promise to post something decent soon 😭

[magicshopaholic]

Moving On (Namjoon x OC)

Summary: BTS performs in Amsterdam and Namjoon invites you to the afterparty.

Pairing: Namjoon x OC

Genre: Angst, smut

Word count: 8.2K

Rating: 18+

Warnings: language, angst, sex, nudity, making out, fingering, cumming, arguing,

A/N: Takes place a little over a month after Final Destination.

Tagging: @bbl32, @quarter-life-crisis2,  @margopinkerton, @faearchives,  @whoisbts, @purpleseoul7, @sumzysworld, @kflixnet (if you want to be added to the taglist, lmk)

Listen to: "where does the good go" by tegan and sara

namjoon masterlist | main masterlist

Joon [13:45] Did you get the email from Big Hit?

Kaya [13:50] Yes

Joon [13:51] The number at the end is their London office. They’ve been briefed already and have additional security available for all European locations.

Kaya [13:54] Okay

There’s a break in the chat here. Kaya stares at the time stamp, trying to picture him scrambling to find something else to say.

Joon [14:15] The company managed to track down the account that uploaded the video. Account has been taken down and they’ve sued for invasion of privacy.

Kaya [14:20] Okay 

Joon [14:22] They’ve also offered to add damages to the suit, in case we want that. Do you?

Kaya [14:25] Not really

Joon [14:26] Okay then

Another break. Kaya scans the time stamps again, even though she’s memorised it by now. She remembers the three dots indicating him typing, seeing them appear and disappear over and over again. 

Joon [14:40] How are you?

Kaya [14:45] Fine

Joon [14:46] How‘s work?

Kaya [14:48] Fine

Joon [14:50] Kaya I’m trying

Kaya [14:51] Class starting, got to go

He hadn’t responded and she hadn’t expected him to. Four days post break-up hadn’t been nearly long enough for her to let go of her anger but now, four weeks in, it’s only been replaced with an equal amount of sadness and longing.

Every conversation has been exactly this terse and abrupt, the last one being a week ago. It had appeared when she’d been teaching an elective class and it had taken every ounce of her will to not check it until the class ended. As it turned out, she couldn’t even think of a decent response to it.

“How can he possibly think of asking me this?” Kaya mutters, earphones in as she walks home. It’s dusk, a gorgeous time of the day, but she holds no appreciation for it right now.

“Wouldn’t it be worse if he didn’t ask?” Dilara asks reasonably. She’s in her car by the sound of it, a low hum audible of whichever fancy car of hers she’s decided to take out today.

Kaya swallows, pondering this. It might be, but it doesn’t address the problem she’s too embarrassed to voice out loud: it should be harder for him to ask. The thought that he might not be taking this break-up as hard as she is kills something inside of her, as if she’d misunderstood everything in the last three years. 

Her strategy to save herself from hearing the truth had been to distance herself from everyone, including Yoongi, who had texted her out of the blue one day to ask her if she was okay (she hadn’t responded); Seokjin, who seemed to skirt the topic altogether and sounded as though he was speaking to someone very sick; and especially Dilara, who Kaya knew would be the only one with the capacity to ask insightful questions that she herself was too afraid to.

“It’s just… strange,” is all she can manage. “He hopped on a flight, shot a few emails, came over and broke up with me and then went right back to his schedule, all in one day. And now he's inviting me to a party?"

“After-party, so it won’t be, like… crazy,” Dilara clarifies. “And the concert before it.” 

“I’m definitely not going to his concert.”

“Of course not,” she agrees breezily. “I wouldn’t expect you to. But the party… I mean, it’s a good thing, isn’t it? He doesn’t want you to be strangers.”

Kaya slows down as she approaches the river. She’s taken the long route home today - anything to prolong the commute before another night in her tainted apartment with memories on every surface.

“I don’t know if I want to see him.” I don’t know if I can. “He wants to see me, though, apparently,” she states after a moment.

Dilara doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “I mean -“ She begins before pausing, then trying again. “I’m sure it’s going to be torture for him to see you. But even that’s better than not seeing you.”

Kaya doesn’t even realise she’d been holding her breath; she exhales as slowly as possible so as to not make a sound, both at Dilara’s words as well as her answering the unasked question.

She doesn’t respond immediately, though. Now that they’re down this route of addressing concerns she’s been harbouring in her heart for weeks, Kaya feels the rest of them on the verge of tumbling out of her mouth.

"You've seen him a bit these last couple of months,” she ventures, lowering her voice and leaning backwards against the railing overlooking the river. “Does it seem like he misses me at all?"

Dilara hums, a little too knowingly for Kaya’s liking. “Of course, he does. He’s not the most expressive when it comes to his feelings but aside from Tae last year, I don't think I've met a more miserable person."

Kaya waits for the swell of happiness or relief at this news, but all it brings with it is a new wave of anger and frustration.

“Thanks.”

"Look, speaking from experience, it's not easy seeing your ex after a difficult break-up,” says Dilara, sighing. “But sometimes you don't realise just how much you needed to see them until you see them, even if it's just to gain some closure."

Closure. It sounds… final. Kaya can’t picture it, being virtual strangers eventually, just bits of each other’s past. Ex-boyfriend, girl of his dreams, the one that got away. She hates all those words because they just don’t apply, not really. They can’t.

She closes her eyes and presses the heel of her palms into them to intercept the wetness forming, not caring that Dilara is still on the other end of the line. She and Namjoon had stood right here, years ago, living in the bliss of a new couple in fresh love. He’d brought her a bunch of tiny yellow flowers from the park, part-cheesy and part-genuine, eyes twinkling and dimples soft.

Kaya squeezes her eyes shut at the memory, terrified at how the edges of it are already blurring. 

“I don’t think I’ll go,” she murmurs, opening her eyes to stare at the ground. “I can’t.” 

“Are you sure?” Dilara sounds slightly surprised.

“Yeah. Two days from now is… it’s too soon. I’ll either cry or yell or… I don’t know. It’s too hard.”

“Oh.” She’s quiet for a few seconds. “Okay. If you’re sure. Let me know if you want to get together on Sunday,” she adds. “Brunch or something.”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

—

The next day, Kaya is in the library again, grading papers and wishing she could go back to being a grad student who’s biggest problem was a pop quiz. She’s deliberately chosen a table at the back, away from where the students generally sit, which is why she looks up in surprise when someone comes to her table.

“H-hi, Kaya.” The student waves rests one hand on the back of an empty hair and waves hesitantly with the other.

“Um… hi.” Kaya tries not to frown too conspicuously, for she’s sure she knows this girl. 

Svetlana. Savannah. 

“Elena, right?”

“Yeah,” she answers with a nervous smile. “Um… are you busy?”

Kaya glances at the stacks of papers, books and laptop on the table. “Kind of, yeah.”

“Okay. Well… I just wanted to say hi.”

Kaya nods awkwardly and forces a small smile on her face. “Hi.”

Elena nods, tucking her hair behind her ears. She looks like she’s about to leave but at the last moment, sits down at the table. Kaya feels her smile fade for she really, really wants to be alone right now.

“How - how are things going?” She sounds nervous - extremely so. She seems to be fidgeting slightly and constantly touching her hair. 

“Great,” says Kaya shortly, going back to her paper and hoping she’ll take the hint. “You?”

“Not bad, overall. I guess. Classes are hard and mid-terms are coming up as well…” Elena trails off. “Any plans for the weekend?”

Trying not to sigh, Kaya shakes her head. “Not really. You?”

“Well… I’m going to a concert tomorrow,” she answers hurriedly, and it’s clear that she’s been waiting to divulge this information, oblivious to how Kaya’s heart stops. “It should be fun. Do - do you listen to BTS?”

An unexpected notification from this morning floats into her kind. BTS continues their Europe leg by arriving in Amsterdam, ready to kick off the summer in style!

“No,” she answers truthfully.

“Oh.” Elena is quiet for a moment. “They’re really… good.” 

There’s some awkward silence during which Kaya deliberately writes comments on the paper she’s grading, scratching the pen on the paper and wishing Elena would leave.

“It’ll be good to get out of campus. The people here are kind of intimidating. The parties are pretty wild, too,” she murmurs after a moment, sounding uncomfortable.

Kaya nods absently, uncharacteristically satisfied with the knowledge that she might be intimidating this unwanted guest. “Maybe you’re going to the wrong parties,” she offers.

Elena lets out a nervous laugh again. “Maybe. I never see you at them, though. There’s one, tonight, in the common room. Maybe you could come,” she suggests lightly. “Bring a friend or - or your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she answers flatly, not looking up.

“You - oh.” There’s a note of surprise in her voice. “Oh,” she repeats, this time seemingly to herself. “Are you sure?” she blurts out.

Kaya’s eyes snap up to glare at her. “Pretty sure.”

Elena’s eyes widen. “Oh, of - of course,” she stutters. “Sorry, that - that was a stupid question. Sorry.” She swallows and looks at her lap.

Kaya closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, immediately feeling guilty for snapping at an innocent bystander in this situation. “Elena, I… I really need to get these papers done,” she tells her, her voice one of forced calm. “So…”

The blonde finally seems to understand and awkwardly stands up. “Okay. Um, see you around,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear again. 

Kaya nods as she leaves, Namjoon’s invitation swimming in her mind tantalisingly. She can’t ignore it anymore, the fact that they’re in the same city, her city. If she’s not wrong, he’ll do the concert tomorrow night, the group will probably stay the night and depart by Sunday afternoon or evening and she will probably never see him again.

She attempts to continue grading the paper she was working on when Elena interrupted, but when she finds herself reading the same stupid sentence for the fourth time without retaining anything, she begins packing up, ready to head home.

—

Joon [18:42] Hope to see you there tonight

Kaya, with a loss as to how to respond to this, simply did not. She can’t imagine he would be texting her during his concert, but she also knows he has before, if the situation was urgent enough to demand it. 

She straightens the black dress against her hips and tilts her head at her reflection. It’s a simple dress, plain black, form-fitting and reaching below her knees, but it’s quite possibly the most gorgeous, sexiest dress she owns. 

If she and Namjoon were together, she would have worn it tonight with no hesitation because it would have driven him insane. After weeks of being apart, seeing her in this dress would have rendered him incapable of staying in work mode without dirty texts, flirty touches and eyes from across the room undressing her. Even now, with a bare face, her hair tied into a loose bun and no footwear, the dress is a game-changer.

She gives herself a few moments to imagine this paradise, one that might have come true tonight had she never told him about the break-in. Then, she silently unzips the dress and climbs out of the black fabric pooled around her feet. Tucking it back into her closet, she looks for something else.

Dilara [18:50] In case you change your mind, sharing the location here [Location]

Dilara’s text had come minutes after Namjoon’s, and Kaya has to imagine it was a genuine coincidence. Although she’d replied to neither, it was the second text that caused her to change her mind - that, and the lingering fear that if she didn’t go today, she didn’t know how either of them would be able to maneuver a situation to see each other again.

The concert should end in a little over an hour. Her phone pings again and she groans, for she doesn’t think she can take any more of their unsubtle attempts at convincing her to go tonight. It’s not Namjoon or Dilara, though, but Adam Fischer, her thirty-something thesis advisor, asking if she wants to discuss the coming week’s class schedule tonight.

Kaya shakes her head as she types out a reply (Sorry, I can’t tonight. Will set up a meeting for first thing Monday if that’s okay?), a little rueful. Namjoon heavily disliked Adam, despite having no concrete reason for doing so. He’d always suspected Adam of having feelings for her, even though Adam hadn’t said or done anything to make her think he might. Part of her wonders if she could somehow ditch the party for this meeting and still make sure that the news travelled to Namjoon through the grapevine (Dilara), and if that would still piss him off even now.

She immediately cringes at the pettiness of it, however, sending her reply to Adam and heading into the shower.

The party is at the rooftop restaurant of the hotel next to the concert venue, and presumably where BTS is staying while in Amsterdam. It isn’t as crowded as she was anticipating, although the music is fairly loud. It looks more like a fancy houseparty, and even a few seconds in, Kaya can spot a handful of vaguely famous people in attendance. She looks around for a familiar face, preferably Dilara or Yoongi or one of the younger boys, wishing she’d called ahead and trying not to think about the fact that in spite of not RSVP-ing, her name was on the guest list.

She takes another hesitant step in and audibly sighs when she spots Taehyung, who, for reasons best known to himself, has accessorised his outfit with an ascot. He seems to be in an animated conversation with Jungkook, while standing in between them and facing ahead, with loose curls tumbling down her shoulders and looking slightly bored, is…

“Kaya!”

Dilara’s mouth forms her name over the music as she brushes past her boyfriend and his friend and hurries towards Kaya, looking both happy and relieved to see her. “You look hot!” she exclaims when she reaches her.

“Oh -” Kaya looks down self-consciously; she’d settled for a straight strapless top and jeans, unable to justify dressing sexier without seeming like she was trying too hard for her ex-boyfriend. “Thanks. And you look…” She frowns slightly at Dilara’s mini-dress and go-go boots, with a slightly out-of-place gold ring hanging around her neck. “... like Daphne Blake.”

Dilara’s face visibly falls. “I look like a cartoon character?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.

“Well, a very pretty cartoon character,” she adds quickly. “Especially with the headband. But… why?”

She rolls her eyes. “Taehyung picked it - but I’m sure it’s not because of Daphne Blake.” Spotting Kaya’s confused expression, she shrugs sheepishly. “We got into an argument yesterday about who has better taste, so we decided to go shopping at The Nine Streets and pick each other’s outfits for tonight.”

Kaya raises her eyebrows, something seemingly clicking into place. “So the ascot is your doing?”

“M-hm.” She nods in satisfaction before her eyes widen. “Oh, hey! An ascot - like Fred!” She lets out a low whistle at this realisation and laughs, while Kaya nods knowingly, feeling the urge to smile for the first time in what feels like weeks. “Not planned but zero regrets. I wonder if Tae knows that - oh.”

Kaya cuts her off mid-sentence with a hug, suddenly immensely grateful for Dilara. She can’t remember the last time she’d let anyone into her life this much with the exception of Namjoon; but just maybe, when she’d been happy with him and her guard had been lowered, Dilara had slipped in without warning as well.

She tightens her arms around Kaya and rubs her back. “It’s good to see you, too,” she says, sounding part-surprised and part-delighted. “It’s been a while but I promise that we will still - oh, hey.” The change in tone is abrupt. “Incoming.”

By the way her voice immediately lowers, Kaya is sure she knows what Dilara is referring to. Her heart beating a mile a minute, she pulls away from the hug and turns as casually as she can.

Her first thought is that he looks thinner - visibly so. Well, he’s on tour, says a voice in her head but Kaya suspects that’s not the only reason, for he’d been on tour when he’d broken up with her as well.

His hair is a silvery blond, looking almost metallic; dressed simply in a black T-shirt and  jeans, he runs a hand through his hair so it falls gracefully around his face as he approaches her, his face unreadable.

“Hi,” he says, and it sounds like all the breath has been let out of him with just one word. He swallows and straightens his shoulders, a small smile appearing on his face, the dimple faintly visible. “It’s good to see you, Kaya.”

Kaya nods, unable to speak and overcome with a sudden urge to cry. “You, too,” she murmurs, glancing at the floor and blinking rapidly before looking back up at him, a bit defiantly.

“I’m glad you decided to come.”

She nods again, her chest twisting at how normal he sounds. He’s standing far away from her as well, as though to make it clear in every way possible that they’re not together. 

“Hope you had a good concert,” she ventures, recalling the grad student who’d accosted her yesterday, practically beside herself at attending a BTS concert. “Backstage must have been hectic.”

A flicker of something appears in his eyes for a moment, possibly with memories of backstage. Wishes of luck, last minute hugs, sweaty and passionate kisses fueled by adrenaline. But it disappears instantly and Kaya wonders if she imagined it.

“It was,” he answers, nodding. He slides his hands into his pockets smoothly, leaning back on his heels and his smile widening a little. “But worth it as always. The crew did well.”

Kaya doesn’t even bother nodding this time; all of a sudden, she regrets coming here tonight. Dilara has left, she just realises, and Namjoon is acting like they’re acquaintances at best, making her feel stupid and yet immensely grateful that she didn’t wear the sexy black dress.

At that moment, his eyes flicker to something behind her. “I’m sorry, I just need to go and say hi to a couple of people. But enjoy your night. It’s an open bar,” he adds, smiling and nodding politely before brushing past her and walking away.

Kaya doesn’t move; she doesn’t think she can. Something heavy feels like it’s settled on her chest, the weight of confusion, disbelief and crushing disappointment threatening to suffocate her. She has no idea what she’d been expecting; maybe arguing, fighting, crying together again - but not him not caring. Not this.

Namjoon continues walking in the opposite direction for as long as he can keep Kaya in his peripheral vision, both guilty and relieved when she doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t think he can look her in the eye if she does, witness the pain and hurt in her face that close.

He catches Seokjin’s eye and hurries over to him. Seokjin raises his eyebrows and seems to guess what might have transpired, ushering him over to the other end of the circular bar and out of Kaya’s line of sight.

“How did it go?”

Namjoon rests his palms on the bar and shakes his head, no words coming to him at the moment and feeling like he could throw up. He can’t fathom how he did it, how he stood there before her and didn’t immediately pull her to him, or break down and ask her to forgive him for doing the only thing he knew to do.

“Drink this.” Seokjin slides a glass to him and Namjoon takes it without hesitation, taking a huge gulp and waiting for it to sting his sinuses. 

“This is water,” he states hoarsely, frowning at the glass.

“Cold water,” corrects Seokjin. “It’ll help clear your head.”

Namjoon takes another sip and places the glass down, dropping his head into his hands. “I can’t do this. How do I tell her I can’t do this? How do I ask her to -“ But he breaks off here, his mind swimming with the sight of her bare shoulders and exposed collarbones, imagining how they would feel if he held her.

“Okay.” Seokjin exhales through his nose and pauses. “Look, I have to ask. You’ve seen the state she is in. And you’re…” He struggles for a moment “...like this. Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to ask her to get back -“

“No.” The answer is instant, although it’s partly a habit by now. As he does every time his mind tries to convince him otherwise, Namjoon forces the memory of her phone call to the forefront of his mind, the fear in her voice and  devastation on her face when he’d entered her apartment.

“But maybe this is -“

“No.” 

Seokjin is silent and Namjoon can tell that he doesn’t approve. Please don’t ask me again, hyung. He doesn’t know if he did the right thing by inviting her but he couldn’t imagine not doing it either, not being right here in her city, knowing she was so close that he could almost smell the coconut and vanilla in the air and still not see her in the flesh.

“If you’re sure,” says Seokjin at last. “If you are, then I guess you did well. Just… just be normal around her. Keep a normal distance, talk about normal things and…” He half-shrugs, sounding uncertain. “She’s smart. She’ll understand. If you’re sure you want to do this, then… she’ll get it.”

Normal. Namjoon knows what he means, but he wants to tell him that none of this is normal. Not touching her, not being honest with her, not being with her - none of it is normal. 

“She’s talking to Yoongi right now,” he adds, and Namjoon turns to see them near the stairs to the top floor. Kaya’s back is to him, her head lowered slightly and her thumbs hooked onto the back pockets of her jeans, the material hugging her hips and curving down her backside… He swallows and looks away.

“This is your chance,” says Seokjin. “Go and mingle. Let her see you moving on - even if you actually aren’t,” he clarifies quickly. “It won’t be pleasant but it might encourage her to do the same.”

Namjoon isn’t sure of the wisdom of this strategy but ever since the cause of his break-up had been revealed to the older members (and surely to Taehyung at least, by Dilara), he’d almost been relieved that he wouldn’t have to make every decision on his own.

He tries his best to navigate the party after that, making empty conversation with guests, using every bit of remaining energy and willpower to plaster a smile on his face. All the while, part of his attention is constantly on Kaya, registering her familiar figure alone at the bar as she nurses a beer, sometimes with Dilara. 

Be normal. Seokjin’s words start holding less and less meaning with every passing minute, especially when he spots Kaya having finished her drink and he’s struck with the sudden fear that she will leave the party. In an effort to be as normal as he can, Namjoon heads over to the bar where she’s scanning the life-size menu half-heartedly, arms folded across her chest.

“Like anything?” he asks humbly. Long Island Iced Tea or a Mai Tai - depends on the flavours. His heart jolts when she shoots him a doubtful look and doesn’t answer, almost as if she’s wary of talking to him. She leans over the bar and gives the bartender a smile that makes his heart drop, especially when he grins back.

“Komt de mai tai in mango?” she asks, half-pouting when he shakes his head. “Een biertje, alsjeblieft,” she says finally, taking her second beer and turning away from the bar.

Namjoon doesn’t remember ever feeling this distant from her. “I’m glad you came tonight,” he tries again, choosing to look at her even though she’s facing away.

Kaya nods, pursing her lips and looking ahead. “Yeah, you said that already.” But her voice trembles ever so slightly, or maybe he just knows her so well that he’s sure it’s not a case of her not wanting to look at him - she can’t look at him.

It’s all on him now. He started this; if there is any hope of them still staying in each other’s lives, it’s down to him to make it happen. 

“How’s your dissertation going?” he asks, hoping her work is a topic she might open up on.

She shrugs after a moment. “Off schedule,” she answers shortly. “A lot of variables hanging in the air.”

“Did you get into the research project you’d applied for?”

It’s momentary but it appears: the corner of her mouth tilts upwards. “Yeah,” she admits, finally looking at him, albeit hesitantly. “Guess I’ll have a lot more time to focus on it now,” she murmurs, the hint of a smile fading.

Namjoon’s heart sinks. She’s so angry with him; it’s palpable and not something he has ever been on the receiving end of. Her hand hangs by her side; his own itches to link his fingers with his, maybe tug her to him or lead her out of this stupid party where he can plead for her to just look at him.

“Well,” he says, then pauses. “I’m glad you could get the time off tonight. Must have been hard.”

“M-hm, not really.” She shakes her head. “Adam wanted to meet but I’ll probably catch up with him later,” she adds nonchalantly.

Namjoon nods, his hand tightening around his glass. He can’t tell if she’s trying to provoke him, for they do work closely; close enough that Adam’s intentions have always been a point of disagreement for them. He’d never been able to explain to her just how much he hated the way her advisor looked at her when she didn’t notice, how his hugs always lingered a moment too long or how he insisted on calling her late in the evenings to discuss work.

He’s distracted momentarily by Jungkook, who approaches them while bopping effortlessly to the music and stops in between them, turning to face in the same direction as Namjoon and Kaya. He’s definitely tipsy; the smile on his face is too big and he doesn’t seem to be reading the room at all.

“Dilara is a really good dancer, isn’t she?” he says loudly in English to no one in particular. Namjoon frowns and follows his gaze to see Dilara, Taehyung and Hoseok dancing, before turning back to look at Jungkook. On his other side, Kaya is also frowning at him, tilting her head curiously. Their eyes meet and she raises her eyebrows slightly.

Namjoon fights a smile as Kaya half-chuckles and looks away, his heart twisting with longing at how much he misses her. She looks so incredibly beautiful; his eyes sting when he realises that there’s absolutely nothing he can do about it.

“I’m gonna -“ He gestures vaguely and walks away in the opposite direction, desperate to be anywhere but around her before his resolve breaks.

The next half hour is a flurry of faces; Namjoon distracts himself with every single individual at the party, making small talk and exchanging unfunny jokes and hyper aware of Kaya occasionally glancing at him.

He knows, because he’s watching her, too, doing his best to make sure she doesn’t see him looking. He can’t even help it; it’s almost muscle memory at this point.

“Who are you looking at?” The woman he’s talking to asks him point-blank.

Namjoon flushes, realising he’d been staring at Kaya over her shoulder while she’d been speaking.

“No one,” he answers quickly. “Sorry.”

The twenty-something woman frowns curiously. “Are you sure? I’m not offended.”

“It’s… nothing.” He shakes his head and looks at the floor. 

“Ex-girlfriend?”

Ex. Not trusting himself to speak, Namjoon nods. 

“Hm.” She hums, somewhat sympathetically. “Bad break-up?”

“Pretty bad.”

“I’m sorry,” she says after a moment. “It’s never easy to be around an ex if it hasn’t ended well.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, desperate to change the topic. “All part of the process, right?”

“Right,” she says encouragingly. “Plus, once you’re past this phase, the one where you constantly want to die, you can begin the drink and eat and hook up as much as you want stage with no judgement.”

He chuckles politely, the prospect sounding horrendous. “Thanks. Feels good to laugh for real.”

She smiles wider and, before he knows it, leans forward and presses a kiss against his lips.

It takes Namjoon a couple of seconds of pure shock before he jumps backwards. “Whoa. What -“ His heart races uncomfortably. “What was that?”

“Sorry,” she says slowly, looking a little confused. “I thought… you wanted to make your ex jealous. Isn’t that where you were going with this?”

“No,” he clarifies immediately. “No. Absolutely not. I don’t want to - no.” In the midst of his minor crisis, he notes how the woman looks almost mortified.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to -”

“It’s fine,” he cuts her off, suddenly feeling horribly guilty. He looks up out of habit and sees, unmistakably, Kaya leaving the restaurant, her long dark hair and the shimmery dark blue of her top disappearing out the door.

—

The night has gotten chillier in the last couple of hours and the cool wind hits her bare shoulders the moment she steps out, but Kaya barely feels it. She’s not thinking right now; thinking is what’s got them here, thinking about everything and overthinking to the point of fleeing a restaurant.

“Kaya!” 

Her feet increase their pace automatically the same time her stomach flips, but he’s taller and faster and he reaches her before she can even reach the elevator.

“Kaya,” he repeats hurriedly, reaching and grabbing her elbow. “Wait, please. I’m sorry -”

“Why did you even invite me here?” she asks, cutting him off and turning around to face him. She’s so tired; she didn’t think break-ups could be this exhausting. “You’ve barely said anything to me. Was it to show me in person how you’re moving on? Because if that’s the case, then… message received.”

Namjoon shakes his head immediately; he looks exhausted as well, and Kaya is once again struck by how much thinner he is, overcome with a mixture of empathy and frustration at him. 

“That was not - I didn’t plan that,” he says, sighing. “I don’t even know who she is. She kissed me and it wasn’t… come on, does it look like I’m moving on?” he asks, raising his arms helplessly.

Kaya stares at him and then sighs, shaking her head. “Why did you invite me here?” she asks again, less defensive this time.

“Because I wanted to see you,” he says at once.

She stares at him. “Well, you’ve seen me,” she says, sniffing. “Can I go now?”

“Kaya…”

“What?”

Namjoon runs a hand through his hair, looking lost for words. “Please don’t -“ He breaks off abruptly before taking a step closer to her, his height both large and comforting. “I don’t want you to be sad. I’m sorry.”

Too late. “You’re not supposed to care how I feel. Not anymore.”

He lets out a humourless chuckle. “What?”

“We’re over.” She can hear the tremble in her voice as she crosses her arms across her chest again. “You said it yourself. You’re not supposed to care how I feel.”

“Really?” He narrows his eyes at her. “You think this break-up had anything to do with how I feel about you? You know as I do that it didn’t.” When she doesn’t answer, he sighs. “I did this because I care.”

“If you say so.”

He pokes his tongue into his cheek. “Are you deliberately trying to provoke me or something?”

“Provoke you into what?” she blurts out. “What - what is that you want, exactly? What do you want us to do? Just circle around in each other’s orbits for the rest of our lives, while still being - while still feeling the way we do?” she asks, avoiding her almost-slip of tongue. “We’re just supposed to stay not be together and still stay in each other’s lives? What - what do you want?”

Namjoon opens his mouth but falls silent; it’s clear he hasn’t thought that far ahead - or he can’t say it out loud. “I want…” He begins, before pausing and starting again. “I want… you to be happy,” he says eventually. “And safe.” 

She scoffs and he bristles. 

“I’m serious. I -” He breaks off when someone exits the restaurant, his gaze following them until they’re out of sight before he turns back to her. “This is hard for me, too, you know? Why is it so hard for you to believe I might want you to be happy?”

Kaya exhales but doesn’t answer, because it isn’t hard to believe, not even a little bit. It’s unfortunately the most believable thing he’s ever said to her which means she can’t even fight it.

“How?” she asks finally. “By moving on, like you were pretending to do?”

Namjoon bites his lip and his eyes glaze over, and she knows he’s picturing it. His eyes fall to the floor but he nods slowly anyway. “Yeah, I guess. As long as I don’t have to watch it,” he adds in a mutter.

It’s really over. Kaya feels her eyes well up. “Fine,” she answers quietly. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find someone to move on with tonight.” She turns to leave but feels him stop her again. “What?” she snarls.

“Kaya, I -” The lift opens and a handful of people tumble out, holding merchandise and talking loudly. Namjoon’s eyes widen and he immediately grabs her arms and walks her back into a corner, just as the group turns into their corridor and towards the restaurant.

“What are you -”

But the second lift opens just then and they hear the sound of a second group of voices. Namjoon swears under his breath and pushes open a door behind her, walking her back further into the tiny dark room and letting the door swing shut behind him.

“What is wrong with -“

“It’s press,” he hisses, and she falls silent.

He peers out into the corridor through the small window in the door; there’s no light except for the bit through the window and from a skylight in the ceiling. Kaya can smell something vaguely citric that she decides is floor cleaner; they are in a janitor’s closet.

She and Namjoon are frozen in place, his hands still on her arms and hers on his torso to keep from losing her balance. It’s been a long time since they’ve been this close; it takes Kaya a few seconds to realise that the voices outside have disappeared, but he still hasn’t moved away.

Almost as if he’s subconsciously heard her, his thumbs stroke her arm once. The simple touch makes all the anger crumble away for a moment, especially now that it’s just them with the rest of the world shut outside. Kaya hesitates for a moment, then gently rests her forehead on his shoulder. Namjoon stiffens but a moment later, she feels his fingers tighten above her elbows, followed by him loosely enveloping her in his arms.

It seems cruel, almost, that the target of her anger and source of her comfort lie in the same person. It isn’t even a hug; it’s a moment of weakness at best, borne from his almost subconscious need to protect her. For the first time, Kaya wonders if she’s being unfair to him.

Resisting the temptation to wrap her arms around his waist, she steps away from him with difficulty, her back touching the wall. His arms fall from around her reluctantly, his expression resigned. It’s dark but she can see him more clearly than she has all night.

“This is a terrible idea,” she murmurs, echoing her words from a month ago. “The worst you’ve ever had.”

Namjoon exhales shakily but doesn’t argue. “I meant everything I said in that note,” he says, not even trying to hide the tremble in his voice anymore. “And I really do want you to be happy.”

The note. The one he’d kept on her bedside table when he’d left her apartment while she slept, the only thing of his that was left when she’d awoken, naked and alone. She’d only had the strength to read it once before she’d broken down and tucked it deep into her drawer, knowing the words would be etched in her memory.

“You know what will make me happy,” she whispers, looking at the ground. She feels him come closer to her, one hand hovering by her side as though unable to decide if she’d want her to touch him. 

He finally rests it lightly on her waist, moving it slightly upward as she looks up at him, her heart twisting at how he’s unable to meet her eyes. She places her hands on his face, thinking vaguely how much she misses seeing his dimple.

“Joon,” she whispers, waiting for him to nod once. “Look at me.”

Namjoon visibly swallows, gaze still fallen. “Kaya, I…”

“No,” she interrupts him. “Look at me.”

With what seems like an enormous effort, he meets her eyes. This is hard for me too, you know? 

She knows. Kaya strokes his cheekbones with her thumbs, her touch feather-light. “Kiss me,” she whispers. She touches her forehead to his and closes her eyes, hoping he’ll give in, for she can’t go further than this. 

His hand tightens around her waist, pressing her into the wall. Their lips brush momentarily and he shivers.

“Do it,” she urges, her voice barely audible now. “Kiss me.”

She feels his lips before she even registers him moving against her and she leans into it, feeling like she can breathe for the first time in weeks. Come back to me, she thinks desperately. Come back to where you belong.

It’s like he can hear her. Namjoon pulls away, one hand on the wall beside her face for support, the other holding her.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and it sends a jolt of anticipation through her heart. “I love you, Kaya,” he adds, voice full of emotion. Kaya nods, unable to speak, wishing he would meet her eyes. He moves his hands to her face and touches his forehead to hers again, swallowing.

Look at me.

But he doesn’t. “But you have no idea,” he continues, every word sounding like it's costing him effort, “how I felt when you called me that night. The things that went through my mind…” He sniffs, and Kaya’s heart sinks. “I can’t let that happen again baby. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

She can feel her face start to contort and she drops her hands from his shoulders, for she knows this part by heart. “Goodbye, Namjoon,” she mutters thickly, sliding out from between him and the wall. She pushes open the door and hurries out, leaving him behind.

—

When she hears the knock on her front door the next morning, Kaya is just about to step into the shower. She freezes and sighs, for she really, really needs this shower. She considers ignoring it but the knock sounds again and she groans, abandoning the activity of tying up her hair and letting it fall loose instead. 

Grabbing the old, threadbare robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, she pulls it around herself and shuffles to the front door. She peers through the peephole and her heart stops for a moment, but she steels herself and opens the door.

Namjoon stands before her, hands in his pockets and shoulders slightly hunched. “Hey. I just wanted to - oh, God,” he switches abruptly, his expression changing from vaguely apologetic to shocked, and he slips inside the apartment.

“What?” Kaya asks, taken off guard and stumbling backwards.

“You really opened the door wearing that?” he hisses, shutting the door behind him. “I could’ve been anyone!”

“I knew it was you,” she argues, tightening the belt around her waist and realising, for the first time, how short the robe is. But she isn’t about to admit that to him, especially not when he’s turned up unannounced and decided to begin his visit by berating her. She folds her arms across her chest. “What do you want, Namjoon?”

He hesitates, almost as though he’s just noticing how displeased she is. “Sorry,” he mutters, looking a bit ashamed. “I didn’t mean to… anyway,” he says quickly, wringing his hands and slipping them back in his pockets. “How are you?”

Kaya shrugs suspiciously. He looks remarkably different from where she’d left him last night, almost breaking down and apologising to her. Right now, he seems almost… calm. She can almost imagine that last night had been a slip-up of emotion, possibly due to tiredness and an open bar, whereas in the light of day, he’s back to being the responsible ex who’s fulfilling his obligations by checking up on her each day.

“I’m great.”

He nods after a moment, clearly not believing her. “Well, I came here because…” He sighs and a glimmer of last night’s emotion appears on his face. “I thought about what you said last night. And you were right.”

The jolt in her stomach is almost painful, but Kaya hangs on. If he was talking about what she thinks he is, he would be delivering it far more differently.

“We can’t keep doing this. I can’t expect you to keep doing this,” he adds. “Staying in this limbo, not knowing…” He bites his lip and lowers his gaze, removing his hands from his pockets. “You have every right to move on. I want you to - to be happy.”

Kaya licks her lips slowly. “This,” she says coldly, “could’ve been a text.”

“I didn’t want to leave things the way they were last night,” he tells her, his voice softer. “You’re, uh…” His voice breaks off for a moment. “You’re the love of my life. And we were together for a long time and I… I loved every moment of it. I just want to say goodbye the right way.”

Her throat hurts holding back the rush of emotion that threatens to overwhelm her. 

“Are you sure?” She can’t resist asking, in a whisper. When he nods and lowers his eyes, she feels the heavy, heavy anchor of acceptance settle in her stomach. 

Namjoon hesitantly reaches out with one hand but when she gives him a look, he nods and steps forward, and they meet in their last hug, three and a half years after their first last hug in her apartment.

Kaya hugs him tight, no longer caring about hiding how she feels. There isn’t enough time to try and memorise everything so she doesn’t even try; she just goes higher on her toes and presses her nose into his shoulder, revelling in his scent one last time.

Namjoon doesn’t seem to be doing much better. He’s holding her tight, so tight that it doesn’t seem like he’s ever intending on letting her go. His face is in her hair and his arms stroke her back in small movements, his go-to movement to comfort her since they met.

Just a few more seconds. The sensations increase now; the feel of his shoulders, his chest touching hers - and she’s suddenly conscious of the thin robe being the only thing separating her naked body from him.

At the same time, his hands move to her waist - out of habit, she knows, but she can’t help but be extremely aware of it. His hand stops just above the curve of her hips, quickly and abruptly. 

Her mouth feels dry, but her legs press together. Then, as though he can read her mind and the direction her thoughts are invariably leading in, against her hip, she can feel his body react.

She lets out a soft gasp and feels his body stiffen around her. This is goodbye, a voice reminds her, urging her brain to focus on the matter at hand. But it’s slipping - fading, almost, as a physical urge struggles for dominance. 

Her lips brush his neck as she pulls away - she has to pull away - but it doesn’t matter in the end because somewhere along the way his lips find hers and all thought disappears, replaced by touch, feel and hunger.

Namjoon sighs into her mouth like he’s breathing for the first time, pulling her close. Her robe starts to loosen and he tugs at the belt, groaning when his hands touch her bare skin.

“Fuck, are you really not wearing anything under this?” he murmurs, his voice so low and reverberating so deep inside her that she shivers.

The robe is off; it’s cool and sudden air, a moment where his hands fall from her waist and then their back but this time, it’s skin against skin. It’s lips and sighs and tight grips, the feel of denim, her fingers moving out of habit as they unbutton and unzip - and then there’s pride and relief when she feels his desire for her, still the same as ever, no matter his words.

There’s something solid against her back; somewhere, dimly, her mind registers that her dining table is rickety and has her laptop on it, and then she’s leaning forward and he’s behind her and his chest is against her back and he wants her just as much as he wants him.

“Are you -“

“I’m still on birth control,” she confirms tightly, the next moment feeling his fingers on her hips and then he’s inside her again, after so long. She could almost sob at how good it feels, how right, the lips on her shoulder and his scent and touch.

But it’s over too soon. She gasps and falls forward, her ears ringing and heart hurting at the same time as her heart races. He’s getting close, too; she tries to memorise it now, the exact moment, but then he pulls out. It’s sudden, the emptiness, but the next moment, she feels wetness on her back.

It takes around ten seconds, ten seconds when she’s frozen before she finally hears him sigh and take a step away. A moment later, she reaches across the table and pulls the tissue box towards her, reaching behind and wiping her back.

Kaya turns slightly to see him pulling on his T-shirt, jeans buttoned already. She picks up her robe and pulls it on hurriedly, suddenly not wanting to be naked for even another microsecond in front of him.

Something feels wrong. It’s not the first time he’s finished on her; he’s done it before, on explicit request and without, none of which ever made her feel… like this. Self-conscious. Bare.

Namjoon clears his throat. “I -“ He meets her eyes, still panting slightly. “I still want to… do this right,” he says, sounding almost formal. “Goodbye, Kaya.” 

He starts to take a step forward but pauses. “Maybe we shouldn’t hug,” he murmurs, offering her a small smile. Kaya watches as he hesitantly offers her a hand.

This is goodbye. Kaya can’t remember ever feeling this uncomfortable around him. The momentary loss of her sense of reason feels like it’s returned in full form, and she tightens the robe around her. She starts to reach for his hand but then stops.

“This is what you meant?” she asks quietly. “When you said you wanted to do it the right way? You wanted to see if you could squeeze in one last fuck before you closed this out like a business meeting?”

“What?” Namjoon’s eyes widen. “No! I didn’t - I didn’t want that to happen! I mean - you know that’s not what I meant,” he adds quickly. “I didn’t plan this. You and I both -“

“You planned our break-up and I had no idea,” she cuts him off, the shame and embarrassment creeping up her throat. “I really don’t know anymore.”

He scoffs, but his eyes flicker like he’s been stung. “Is that what you think of me? We were both here, Kaya. It wasn’t just me - you wanted this just as much as I -“

“I slept with Adam.” 

Namjoon freezes. He swallows and his eyes flicker again, rapidly this time. “You’re lying,” he whispers.

Kaya shrugs, holding his gaze with every last bit of willpower in her. “You were the one who told me to move on last night,” she reminds him, watching his expression crumble and doing nothing to stop it.

After what feels like several minutes, or maybe even hours, Namjoon nods slowly. Then, without another word, he turns around and opens the door, walking out of her life and shutting the door behind him.

—

Thanks for reading. Don't forget to drop a review :)

[strawberry-daiquiris]

AO3 Wrapped!

nobody tagged me in this hahahah i just wanted to keep a record like i did last year so this is a mash up of a couple of different versions (not figg as i first posted lol)

Works Published: 26 (including 1 anon fic)

Comment Threads: 791

Word Count: 222,139 (took jump right in out of the total because most of it was written/half was published in 2023 but ao3 includes it in the latest updated year for stats)

Top 3 Kudosed Fics:

(again... ignoring jump right in... sort of)

🏆 hard on the brakes

🥈 lay your open hand

🥉 something dumb to do

Top Word Count:

🏆 lay your open hand (51k)

🥈 still reserved for me (35k)

🥉 girls just wanna f1 tumblr fics (15k)

Top Ships:

🏆 landoscar

🥈 🥉 a tie between piastrell and piastrella, as it should be <3

and then some additional questions, cutting this for dash length purposes...

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?  this one is so hard... last year i had a stand out because jump right in was (and still is) such a huge accomplishment. i guess i'm proud of still reserved for me because it's a continuation of a world i feel so happy in, and even though the readers have dropped off a lot i feel like i'm writing for a group of people who really Get and Love the two of them. it makes me proud to have managed to build something like that!!!

i'm also just proud of the sheer word count... insane... stupid... get a grip.

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? oh 100% the piastrells... really didn't think anyone else apart from about 4 certified fellow freaks were going to be into them as a pairing, but i've had some lovely, insightful feedback about them and their relationship that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!!!!

What work was the quickest to write? just like last year i've got a few fics that were one session wonders. sun down and i'm feeling lifted aka help i think i fancy some driver's sisters, this (maybe not so now) anon when i was hit by the Future of F1, the tarkov nortrell and all of the andrea/oscar fics that were basically me working through my sport emotions, lol.

What work took you the longest to write?  i started the gdoc of what became lay your open hand in april and posted it december, but i was only properly working on it from some point in september. still reserved for me took the best part of two months as well. next year i have 3 wips i'd lke to actually finish that could steal the title tbh.

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? rule 63 babyyyyyy!!!! closely followed by age difference and magical realism, which tracks.

Your favourite character to write this year? toss up between oscar and max fewtrell, which explains nicely why the brittle fics are my highlights of 2024.

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? lando still stressing me out to this day... i think i am nearly there with the voice (although frightened of over using in case i fall into it sounding forced) but the rapidly changing state of mind on that man... i think i love him so much it's hard to feel like i ever capture him properly, the wriggly little wormy thing.

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? i think there's a jendo in me bubbling below the surface.

Favourite work you wrote this year? oh i think i have already answered this by going on and on about it, but brittle it shakes, closely followed by something to sink your teeth into and a podium finish for float away like vapour.

ok sorry if you read this because it was LONG... i'm also going to make a few new years resolutions...

i'm going to get better at replying to comments and not feel shame if i go back and respond to ones from a while ago

stop being hard on yourself, stop deciding a fic is rubbish and then hate it/want to delete it, stop holding yourself to DEADLINES... it's not that deep, it's not a job, it's supposed to be FUN

i'm going to read more - i will stop saving fics for 'the best time for them' and start reading them when they come out so that i don't miss my chance.

[msallurea]

🌸 Astrology Fun 🌸

Who is my husband?

This is just something small and I'd love opinions on it and let me know how well I did. I'll also be doing a mini astrology series for myself to build my aesthetic as part of a new series I'm doing for me on my other account @allureasdiary. Any who let's get this show on the road (p.s I am still on hiatus but I couldn't quit thinking about doing this for me)

Jupiter

This is a planet that nit only shows expansion but also can symbolize the husband. So first we're gonna look at my natal chart.

1. I have jupiter Scorpio in 14°(taurus degree) 1st house since I'm a Scorpio ascendant. My husband may have Scorpio, taurus and/or Aries placements.

2. My jupiter persona chart I have jupiter 26° (taurus degree) 2nd house. Once again my husband may have Scorpio and/or taurus placements. I have a heavy 2nd house stellium in my jupiter persona chart as well with the sun, Mars, venus, mercury and jupiter all there.

3. In my jupiter persona chart I have groom asteroid in leo 23° (aquarius degree) in 11th house. My husband may also have leo and aquarius/Uranus placements.

4. Ironically my groom asteroid squares jupiter in my jupiter pc, trines my pluto in jupiter pc and conjunct my saturn in jupiter pc. My groom asteroid also sextile my libra ascendant in jupiter pc. (If anyone knows, I'd love interpretation on this part).

Groom asteroid

The groom asteroid is exactly as its name, it gives insight on who your groom/husband may be.

1. My groom in my natal is in cancer 29° (leo degree) 9th house. My husband may have cancer, leo or Sagittarius placements. Also I may potentially meet my husband somewhere of higher education like college or somewhere out of my homeland. He also may be foreign since 9th house is travel (hence Sagittarius and jupiter).

2. In my groom asteroid persona chart, the rising is Scorpio 18° (virgo degree). My husband may have Scorpio and/or virgo placements. I also have moon scorpio 5° in 1st house in groom persona chart so he may also have cancer placements, Aries placements and/or once again leo placements.

3. The sun in my groom pc is cancer 29° 9th house just like how it is in my natal chart. So he will probably have cancer, leo and/or Sagittarius placements.

3. The groom asteroid in my groom gc is in virgo 25° (Aries degree) 11th house. My husband may have placements of virgo, Aries and/or aquarius/Uranus.

4. The venus in my groom pc is in virgo 2° (taurus degree) 11th house. My husband may be a romantic lover since taurus is a venus sign,he may be someone who uses words of affirmations as showing love since virgo is a mercurial sign. He may also carry slightly more feminine energy or may attract feminine/female friends. We could also potentially meet through friends and/or online. I think 2° is a wealth degree so he may also get rich and/or be wealthy through networking since 11th house = socials, networks, connections, etc.

5. My MC in groom pc is in leo 24° (pisces degree) he may possibly be a very artistic husband. He can have a job such as painter, model, entertainer, singer, etc. But he may also work with children or be around children alot so maybe a teacher of some sort.

6. My 7th house in groom pc has taurus with Mars in taurus 19° (libra degree) over it. Mars rules sex appeal so he may be a very sensually appealing person. Taurus also rules over neck so he may have a very sensual voice of some sort, the pluto in my groom pc also falls in 2nd house so this adds to my theory. Jupiter also falls in 2nd house so he may have a foreign sound to his voice maybe an accent or certain dialect. Ironically in my natal chart I have taurus 7th house but I have no planets there LMAO. Also the mercury in groom pc is in cancer 9° so his voice may be soft and/or gentle since mercury can rule over voice.

7. My groom pc has a few fame degrees with the cancer sun being in 29° which is ruled by leo and means long term fame but it is also a karmic degree. The groom pc has Leo MC. The moon is in Scorpio 5° which also indicates fame tho short term and since it falls in 1st house his beauty could be what makes him famous. The Juno in groom pc is in libra 17° which is also ruled by leo like the other 2 degrees and it falls in 12th house, the 17° also equates long term fame. The cancer vertex in groom pc is in 11° which rules over Socialite/influencer kind of fame so he may be a influencer of some sort in cancerian things (all theory).

Vertex persona chart

Finally for the vertex, some people say this are things that may be fated to happen.

1. My groom asteroid in vertex pc is in virgo 17° 2nd house. He may have Virgo, taurus and/or leo placements. Also may be famous.

I'm well aware aspects matter for all of these but I'm not 100% comfortable showing my birth charts to everyone. If you are good at interpretations I will send them to u to gain some insight. Other than that, that's all darlings 🌸🌸🌸

[gravemations]

Don't know alot about Dreams of an Archivist yet, purely for a spoiler free experience with TMA but i have some questions:

If y'all are going with Alex being once worked as an assistant under Gertrude, does Jon often try to interrogate them about what Gertrude was like or what was their relationship with her(and get more information of her). In general what did Alex think of Gertrude? How did her death affect them? How did they react when it was found out she was shot dead?

Also when in the timeline did Alex began working under Jon's team, were they still working in the Institute up until Jon arrived, How did Alex adjust to being in a new team(?) What was their relationship with Jon before S2, Did they partake in the S1 Finale infestation, What did they do, Were they away from the building for who knows what, Did their human form slip up being bombarded by worms or did the worms/Jane printess didn't go after them because of reasons i have yet to go far into soon(still at ep56)

I have so many questions especially on what the heck is going on with Lankmann and the veldiguns in this au, i have no clue about any further insight of what avatars are yet but they aren't fears??? (No spoiler regarding TMA but answer all the questions above if you wanna)

Alright I will try my best to explain these plot points without going into spoilers so these will be basic answer that probability will not too in depth with.

qestion 1. I definitely imagine that Jon would go try to interrogate Alex about Gertrude post finding her body in the tunnels. (I doubt he care to really ask many questions about her before hand)

Alex dosnt really like talking about themself or their past for understandable reasons so most likely during season 2 they are kinda avoidant of Jon and when They do have to say something it is usually vague or not the whole picture. (this put Alex into Jon sus list on could be murders)

Alex wasn't really attach to Gertrude, they did not speak a lot with her and never really intend to outside of work talk. Gertrude did tell them about the basics of what she was doing but keep alot of things from them.

Honestly surprised that a gunshot of all things took her out, thought she go out in a different way but not unexpected.

2. Yes they have been working at the institute for a long time even into Jons original hiring and moving to role of The Head-achivist, They are very curious about the sudden premonition and knows Gertrude is not the type to retire so they do know somethings up.

They like the compere of the new team, it had been a while since they have had to work with people but is genuinely kind to the team.

They get on with Sasha and Martin well, They tend to have good chats with Martin on break Sasha is usually busy but the few times they chat have been positive even thought after the events of Mag: 26 she had been interacting with them more till well you know.

Alex gets along with Tim till Season two is in mid swing, things are never the same after that. They uses to work together alot but not so much any more.

Jon and Alex relation ship is complected from the start season one They are both purely Professional they didnt really know how to think about Jon he was just his new boss, that was and till season 2 where Alex starts to empathizes with Jon more because they remember how scared they where back in Eastridge and can tell Jon is taking it hard but dosnt want to get close.

Alex was unaffected physically by the worms because anytime the worms make contact with them they just die due to them being a partly veldavercated human so they didn't go after Alex but instead went after everyone else. (they went to go grab the extinguishers Martin hide)

(and that's it omg that's a big ass wall of text)

Note I am not the main authority on DOAA its a group this this is just my interpretation of events.

[fibula-rasa]

Watch More Movies Notebook: Spring ‘25

In this installment of WMM Notebook, you’ll find a pretty wide variety of French films from 3 different decades, a Charles Burnett film finally released after 25 years, a fantastical techno-musical, 2 documentaries about Black history, 1 Brazilian experimental narrative film, 1 weird Italian horror film, and Cynthia Rothrock doing a lot of awesome kicks. And a partridge in a pear tree. Whew! There’s also a bit at the end about what I’ve been writing, researching, and posting with hints of what’s to come this summer!

Pictured: Neptune Frost (‘21), Sans toit ni loi (‘85), Ménilmontant (‘26), Kean (‘24), The Annihilation of Fish (‘99), There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace (‘81), Estranho Caminho (‘23), The Sect (‘91), La fête espagnole (‘20), The End of St. Petersburg (‘27), Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse (‘25), La maternelle (‘33), Claudia Jones: A Woman Of Our Times (‘89), Lady Reporter (‘89)

Favorite New-to-me Films of the Season

(listed in the order in which I saw them)

As always, if any of these films catch your eye, but you need specific content/trigger warnings, feel free to ask and I’ll try to oblige!

READ on BELOW the JUMP!

Pictured: Neptune Frost (‘21)

March ‘25 Favorites:

Claudia Jones: A Woman Of Our Times (1989)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Claudia Jones was a Trinidad-born, New York-reared journalist, activist, and communist who was deported from the US under the Smith Act and resettled in London. There, Jones’ work brought together the West Indian and Caribbean communities through founding The West Indian Gazette and organizing Carnival events. This UK-produced short documentary was a great accompaniment to some of the reading I did over the winter! Having read a biography of Jones and some of her writing, it was rewarding to see faces and places she affected through her life and work after settling in London. If you’re not familiar with Jones already, this doc probably isn’t the best place to start, so I’d instead recommend checking out her writing! It’s as accessible as it is insightful. Marxists.org has some of her work available here as well as two texts about Jones.

——— ——— ———

Manizales City (1925) 

[letterboxd | imdb | youtube]

Manizales City is a haunting (and haunted feeling) silent actuality film produced to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the city of Manizales, Colombia. Director Félix R. Restrepo captured the various festivities for posterity but, later that year, Manizales experienced a terribly destructive fire. The filmmakers returned to document the aftermath—businesses, homes, community and government buildings in ruin and the citizens trying to keep the city going. This footage was appended to the original documentary creating a tragic-but-hopeful coda to the initially celebratory film. I subtitled the film in English over on youtube and also made a few gif sets.

——— ——— ———

Neptune Frost (2021) 

[letterboxd | imdb | kanopy]

This spring, I had a massive amount of luck with new-to-me films. So many gems! The first was Neptune Frost, which had been on my watchlist since it was released in 2021. Kanopy adding it to their library gave me all the motivation I needed to cross it off said watchlist.

A collaboration between director Anisia Uzeyman and musician Saul Williams. Neptune Frost feels like The Wiz (1978), Quilombo (1984), and the writing of Pat Cadigan artfully stitched together into a techno-opera of digital marronage. (And, if you understood that sentence, we need to be besties.) Okay, so since I actually want more people to watch this film, I should try to be less esoteric: it’s a stylish, poetic, punky, scifi musical about a group of runaways fighting back against their exploitation, erasure, and oppression. I implore you to check this one out! Even if it’s not your typical viewing, you’ll certainly get something out of it.

Note: Kanopy is a service that you may have free access to through your local library or school/university. They have an amazing and varied collection of films, really worth checking out!

——— ——— ———

There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace: Life in the Negro Baseball Leagues (1981) 

[letterboxd | imdb | kanopy]

Back in March, I was still working through The Black Film Archive’s BHM ‘25 list. This doc is an invaluable piece of visual and oral history of the Negro Leagues. There Was Always Sun Shining Someplace is a solid overview of the history of these athletes. Unlike the Claudia Jones documentary I discussed above, this film would make a great entry point into learning more about this (IMO) still underrepresented part of sports history. The storytelling from the former players especially livens up the film. I should note here that I’m not the biggest baseball fan, (tho it was part of my upbringing) so you don’t even have to be a fanatic to enjoy/learn from this film.

——— ——— ———

Children of Montmartre / La maternelle (1933) 

[letterboxd | imdb]

An affecting film about a jilted woman working in a Montmartre kindergarten who forms a strong connection with a sensitive little girl, abandoned by her mother. La maternelle has a kind-hearted social realism that never feels too sentimental or too clinical in its representation of class and social issues. The girl is played exceptionally well by Paulette Élambert. The directing of the children in general is strong—the directors found a good balance of letting them play and be themselves while still getting to the point in their scenes. Overall, it’s a sweet film with a definitive purpose. 

La maternelle came onto my radar when I was reading Sandy Flitterman-Lewis’ To Desire Differently. Part of that book highlights the work of Marie Epstein, co-director of this film. As I’m not the biggest French film enthusiast, I didn’t know much about French filmmaking in the interwar period. To summarize a point by Flitterman-Lewis, what persisted of the French film industry after the war faced increased hegemony of the American industry, despite the incoming of sound film. One of the strategies that French filmmakers at the time employed was the use of hyperspecific localization. To contrast American-financed French-language films that would employ the most generic dialogue, accents, and settings, these home-grown films would be set in specific milieus and eschewed generic French in favor of local dialects and vernaculars. La maternelle was part of this emergent tradition, and if it’s a representative sample, I’ll have to check out more!

——— ——— ———

Honorable Mention: The Witch / La strega in amore (1966) [letterboxd | imdb]

——— ——— ———

Pictured: Sans toit ni loi (’85)

April ‘25 Favorites:

The End of St. Petersburg / Конец Санкт-Петербурга (1927)

[letterboxd | imdb | kanopy (US)]

Commissioned to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution—like Eisenstein’s October (1927)—The End of St. Petersburg tells the story of a peasant who moves to the city for work only to get caught up in a dispute between striking workers and the capitalists trying to break them. As the First World War breaks out and the same capitalists further enrich themselves on the spilt blood of people like the peasant, the revolutions come to St. Petersburg. 

The film is beautifully shot by Anatoli Golovnya and edited with impressive precision of meaning and purpose. Pudovkin’s name might not be as vaunted in the Anglophone world as Eisenstein, but as peers their work is moving to watch in concert. (I’ll probably double feature October and St. Petersburg sometime soonish!) Honestly, I’m pretty embarrassed that it took me this long to see St. Petersburg, as a long-time appreciator of Pudovkin’s Mother (1926)and Storm over Asia (1928). This film is a masterpiece and, unfortunately, the story still has a lot of relevance today. It’s an emotional film, but there’s also so much to dig into formally and technically—in particular the way editing is used to generate meaning and interpretations, to provoke the viewer, or just to get a laugh.

——— ——— ———

Vagabond / Sans toit ni loi (1985)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Remember how I said I had great luck this spring with new-to-me films? Here’s another great that I’ve somehow overlooked until now. 

As with La maternelle, I sought this film out because it was discussed in Sandy Flitterman-Lewis’ To Desire Differently. I’d previously only seen Agnès Varda’s work from the 1950s-70s, but wow am I even more motivated to see her later work now. 

Sans toit ni loi constructs the final weeks of a young woman who pursued the life of a wanderer in the French countryside. The story is constructed through the reminiscences shared by the various people she came into contact with, some fleetingly, some more deeply. It’s an extremely powerful film, thoughtfully constructed. Every character feels full and real regardless of their screen time. The way the viewer’s sense of place and time emerges through the construction of the narrative is masterful. I don’t want to give too much away for first-time viewers, but there are two shots in the film that, in context, made my heart drop. So, while I highly recommend checking this one out, know that’s not easy viewing.

——— ——— ———

Spanish Fiesta / La fête espagnole (1920)

[letterboxd | imdb | HENRI]

A lot of this winter and spring for me was dedicated to Germaine Dulac. I watched/re-watched a bunch of her films, read two books about her as well as a collection of her own writings. (There are more posts on the way about her work BTW.) 

La fête espagnole is incomplete—26 minutes out of 67—but beautifully restored by the Cinémathèque française, the CNC, and the Hiventy lab in 2020. And, thankfully they have made it available to view for free on HENRI. Even in its fragmentary state, it’s possible to sense the mood and spirit of the film, and I was very impressed with their reconstruction work. 

The story roughly follows the dancer Soledad as she spurns two lovers for the sake of a third, younger lover during a big festival. Perhaps the strongest part of the reconstruction is the cross cutting between Soledad dancing seductively at a party in town while two men fight to the death over her outside her home. Ève Francis is really excellent as Soledad. I totally see why Dulac worked with her so often!

——— ——— ———

A Strange Path / Estranho Caminho (2023)

[letterboxd | imdb | kanopy (US)]

David, a young filmmaker, returns to his hometown in Brazil for a festival showing of his newest film. Shortly after he arrives however, the COVID pandemic shuts everything down. Circumstance leads him to reconnect with his estranged father, but the path to this reconnection is more complicated than David realizes. 

To be honest, I watched this film solely based on its synopsis in a fit of insomnia. I was unfamiliar with Guto Parente before this film, but I’m excited to see more from him. I thought the melding of experimental and avant-garde techniques with what began as a relatively conventional film was clever and well-executed. I found Lucas Limeira’s David easy to relate to and sympathize with and Carlos Francisco’s performance as his father was outstanding. 

I’m starting to think I need to delve into Brazilian film in a more focused way. Though I don’t know that much about their industry, every time I watch Brazilian films, they end up on my round ups! (Note: If I had been writing these consistently earlier, I would have written about Adirley Queirós’ White in, Black Out (2014) and Once There Was Brasilia (2017) too.) 

So, I guess, if you have any recs of your favorite Brazilian films, please hit me up!

——— ——— ———

Ménilmontant (1926)

[letterboxd | imdb]

A moving, expressive, sometimes shocking film about the lives of two sisters drawn apart after the murder of their parents.

If you, like me, are not the biggest French film fanatic, you might be shocked at how many French films are popping up in this season’s round up! But, between my digging back into my love of experimental and avant-garde film and my current Germaine Dulac kick, I ended up watching a bunch of French films! And most of them were really very good! So it can’t be helped. Anyway, Ménilmontant is an exquisitely constructed film that could reasonably find a place on any Film Theory 101 syllabus—I mean that in a wholly complimentary way.

——— ——— ———

Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse (1925)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Also in my avant-garde kick, Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse is a landmark experimental work depicting the play of movement and reflections and travelling through Paris. There were a few moments that genuinely evoked the feeling in me that I would have every time I travelled into New York City growing up—staring out the windows of the car/bus/train. Personal nostalgia aside, this film is quite the technical feat. Knowing what the technology was like in 1925, Chomette going out onto the train and boats to film with so little control of the environment, yet being able to shoot and construct something with such perfectly aligned visual rhythm almost makes my head spin to think about. I ended up watching it three times, appreciating every shot, cut, and superimposition more with each viewing and even noticing new things on the second and third watches. Considering its short runtime, I have no qualms recommending this broadly! If you need more convincing, I also made gif and still sets!

——— ——— ———

Honorable Mention: Change, Not Charity: The Americans with Disabilities Act (2025) [letterboxd | imdb | PBS (US)]

——— ——— ———

Pictured: Kean (’24)

May ‘25 Favorites:

The Annihilation of Fish (1999)

[letterboxd | imdb | kanopy]

It was extremely exciting news that Charles Burnett’s “lost” romantic comedy The Annihilation of Fish was finally getting restored and released! But then it wasn’t scheduled to play in any theatres near me… But then it popped up on Kanopy and I watched it as soon as possible! 

This is a charming, heartfelt story about a Jamaican-American man who literally wrestles his demons into submission (the titular Fish), a woman who flees San Francisco after her relationship with Giacomo Puccini (yes, the Italian composer who died in 1924) flames out, and their unlikely courtship under the roof of their particular and peculiar widowed landlady. The performances of all three leads, James Earl Jones, Lynn Redgrave, and Margot Kidder, are remarkable. Honestly, writing about it now makes me want to watch it again, which is always a high mark! 

If you’d like to know more before checking it out, I recommend Robert Daniels’ excellent review of the film for Roger Ebert.

——— ——— ———

Kean (1924)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Ivan Mosjoukine was one of one. Kean is a great biographical film of Shakespearean actor, Edmund Kean, based on an 1836 play by the great Alexandre Dumas. 

Mosjoukine’s charisma drives the film. He is truly doing THE MOST with every scene. Kean is also stylistically playful and creative, with a standout extended drunken dancing sequence, which perfectly illustrates “drunkenness of the eye” (to steal a Ralph Steiner phrase). Nathalie Lissenko isn’t given all that much to do, but this ends up adding to the effect of Kean’s imbalanced passions. Don’t be dissuaded by the long runtime, the film speeds by.

——— ——— ———

Lady Reporter / 師姐大晒 (1989)

[letterboxd | imdb]

Perhaps my new favorite Cynthia Rothrock film, Lady Reporter is chock full of imaginative fight scenes that are exceptionally choreographed, performed, shot, and edited. Rothrock plays Cindy, an FBI agent who arrives in Hong Kong under the guise of a reporter. She reconnects with her college roommate, Judy, played by Elizabeth Lee. When Judy’s father mounts a case against the kingpin of a counterfeiting ring, he is kidnapped and injected with a serum that makes him believe that He-Man is real and that his true enemy is Skeletor. Following an unexpected team up with a Hong Kong cop, masquerading as an insurance claims adjuster, and a real reporter out to save his dad’s failing newspaper, Cindy and Judy have to defeat the counterfeiters and try and save their dad. 

Lee and Rothrock have great chemistry together and I’m always happy to see Chin Siu-Ho. The editing in this movie is electric. There were multiple points while watching that we skipped back just to rewatch a cut! As it turns out, the film was edited by Peter Cheung, who is an absolute legend of Hong Kong cinema. There are lots of great reasons to check out this film, but it’s also just fun!

——— ——— ———

The Sect / La Setta (1991)

[letterboxd | imdb]

I have to admit that I don’t totally understand why Michele Soavi’s films are so divisive, but I’m firmly on Team Soavi myself. 

The Sect is a strange and dreamy horror film about a shadowy mystical cult. Miriam, a lonely school teacher in Frankfurt, takes in a sickly old man after nearly hitting him with her car. As strange occurrences start to pile up after the old man seemingly dies, Miriam starts to intuit something very dark, and very deliberate, is after her. 

You can’t possibly guess what will happen from scene to scene for much of the film, but in the way that a dream lacks the cohesiveness of reason. There’s lots of examples I could pick out, but the sequence where a giant tiled room with a well in the middle is found behind an armoire in the main character’s very run-of-the-mill basement stands out. Not everyone dreams the same way but that’s often how location works for me—familiar, commonplace locations are a turn of a corner or a doorway away from a strange and otherworldly space, but dreamlogic isn’t realworld logic, so dream-you rolls with it. 

There is also a scene where Miriam’s free-range pet rabbit channel surfs.

——— ——— ———

☕Appreciate my work? Buy me a coffee! ☕

——— ——— ———

Season’s Round-up

Well, you may have noticed that, as I worried in the last round up, the pace of the blog has slowed down a bit. There’s so much going on, so much stress, so many things to do! Evenso, there are lots of projects I’ve started working on, but simply haven’t had the time/energy to finish. With a bit of luck that will translate to more articles, essays, filmographies, etc. coming your way soon!

What I did finish was a small piece accompanying my gifs of the unique 1925 documentary Manizales City. As far as I could find, there’s not an official English release of the film, so I translated the intertitles myself and uploaded that translation to youtube.

Are there any silent films you all have come across that don’t have proper translations into English? I can work with Spanish, Italian, Polish, Czech, or Slovak, and could probably muddle through German, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Ukrainian. So, for real, HMU!

——— ——— ———

I also did a profile on Germaine Dulac’s short experimental film Disque 957, which went into some details on the film’s conception and execution.

In the Favorites section above, I mentioned that I was on a Dulac kick. I actually have two or three more pieces drafted that profile her circulating, but less seen/discussed films. (For context, the most often discussed Dulac films are The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) and The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923), but it does seem like La Cigarette (1919) has been gaining traction over the past few years.)

This kick has also led me to do a lot of reading. In the winter I read Tami Williams’ unskippable Germaine Dulac: A Cinema of Sensations—one of the best director biographies I’ve yet read. I followed that with Sandy Flitterman-Lewis’ To Desire Differently: Feminism and French Cinema because Williams’ cited it often in her book. I had more complicated feelings on that book, but it was definitely thought provoking.

From there I sought out a few shorter articles about Dulac, the highlight of which was Valérie Vignaux’s short essay “Les papiers intimes de Germaine Dulac ou le corps de l’archive,” which packed a lot of meaningful observations into a short space! Then I read the new-ish English translation of the collection of Dulac’s film writing, Writings on Cinema. I was happy to find Dulac’s writing so cogent and accessible. Some theorists and critics who have written about her work use exaggerated intellectual language that gets in the way of clear communication and understanding, so it’s invigorating to get to read her own words and find such clarity. Most of her writings are short, so they’re a great accompaniment to a self-education on the history and development of early cinema and the theory that developed alongside it. If you are a reader of my blog, I imagine you’d be in the market for something like that!

Since I ended up on a bent here talking about film-related books, I reckon I might as well tell you about another new film book I read this season! 

I very much enjoyed Cinema Her Way by Marya E. Gates. It’s a collection of interviews with women directors. Reading through the interviews, you really get the sense of how unique each filmmaker is in their approach to their craft, their philosophies, their histories, and how they perceive themselves as artists. There is so much variety among these filmmakers in fact that, apart from being women directors working/who have worked in America, they don’t have all that much in common. EXCEPT for the material conditions that they were/are faced with. The struggles of getting funding for their projects, or getting jobs from studios, or, once they get the job, of getting hired for more work pop up again and again. 

Personally, I found the Julie Dash, Sally Potter, and Susan Seidelman interviews to be the most thought provoking or enlightening. But, I also enjoyed the Karyn Kusama, Lizzie Borden, Josephine Decker, Isabel Sandoval, and Katt Shea interviews and found them interesting and/or entertaining—each for very different reasons! 

Regardless of your familiarity with the work of the profiled filmmakers, you’ll surely find something of interest! For me, I gained insights into the work of filmmakers I already knew and loved and, as for the filmmakers I was new to, it was cool to hear their opinions on their processes in and approach to filmmaking. And now I have a bunch more films to add to my watchlist!

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As for the themed gif and still sets that I made, edited and arranged this spring…

(titles are linked to all sets for that film)

Manizales City (1925)

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Crusher Joe / クラッシャージョウ (1983)

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The Italian (1915)

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The Witch / La strega in amore (1966)

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A Flame Burns in the Igloo / В яранге горит огонь (1956)

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Vagabond / Sans toit ni loi (1985)

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La fête espagnole (1920)

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Disque 957 (1928)

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Kean (1924)

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Romance of a Fruit Peddler / 劳工之爱情 (1922)

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Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse (1925)

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Until next time, try to stay cool and stay tuned. Happy viewing!

[summerlinenss]

out of curiosity, if Max doesn’t release its metrics, then what metrics are you actually using to make these statements about the show’s popularity? what does “it’s currently in the 99.7th percentile of the comedy genre, meaning it’s in higher demand than 99.7% of all comedy series in the u.s.” even mean? How are you measuring what’s “in demand” - by who? Where? It’s bold to claim that this show was wildly popular (despite the fact that I never hear about it outside of tumblr, tho that’s a personal anecdote) but cancelled just for being queer, so I would be really interested to know where you’re getting all these numbers from. Thanks!

hey anon! first of all i am so sorry for the delayed response. i started typing something up and then i got distracted with something else and totally forgot about this in my drafts.

sure, i have no problem citing sources. i probably should’ve linked some in my original post, that’s absolutely fair.

this ended up way longer than i planned so bear with me, but a quick overview of what i’ll be going over:

1) what are the stats/where did they come from?

2) how is the show so popular?

3) was it really cancelled for being queer?

(also just a disclaimer that this will contain spoilers for the show)

1) first, the numbers

you’re right that hbo doesn’t release metrics to the public. in fact, ceo casey bloys tried to justify the cancellation to the hollywood reporter by saying “the numbers weren’t there,” despite refusing to say what exactly those numbers were or where they came from.

however, there are websites dedicated to researching/analyzing the data of different media. one of those is parrot analytics, who focus on industry insights like audience demand, competitive analysis, and content valuations. they’re trusted as a reliable source by forbes, the new york times, reuters, the wall street journal, and more.

this is what we can learn from them about our flag means death from a basic google search (note that all of this data is relevant to the last 30 days as of january 26 2024):

audience demand for our flag means death is now 33.6x greater than the average tv series in the united states. as explained in the “about demand distribution” section, this means it’s one of only 0.2% of all u.s. shows to fall in the “exceptional” performance range compared to the “average” demand benchmark of 64.1%.

the change in demand for ofmd in the u.s. has increased by 7.5% compared to the average tv series.

ofmd now actually ranks at the 99.8th percentile in the comedy genre in the u.s. i’m not a math person, but in basic terms, this is like a scale of measuring and comparing performances to create an average score. essentially, ofmd is performing at the very top of all comedy series in the u.s.

ofmd has 100% home market travelability. as it says above, the market of origin is always 100%, so in fairness i included the graph of international markets for comparison. some of these aren't super high, however (as explained by parrot analytics themselves) one of the key issues with the international market is accessibility to content, which has been an ongoing struggle for international fans. many people (i guess fittingly) have resorted to pirating ofmd because they don’t have access to max or affiliate streaming services in their country.

there are more stats i could have and wanted to go more in-depth into but it would make this even longer than it already is, so i’ll just leave some links you can check out if you’re interested and move on:

• comparison of ofmd's success to shows like ted lasso, euphoria, and peacemaker

• ofmd's placement as #1 most in-demand breakout series in the u.s. for 8 weeks

• ofmd's impressive 94% critics score and 95% audience score on rotten tomatoes

• how ofmd evolved from sleeper hit to a flagship series at max

• a list of ofmd's past and present award nominations/wins

• praise and recognition from news/entertainment sites: the atlantic (2022); the new york times (2023); tv guide (2023); vulture (2023); forbes (2023); the los angeles times (2022); vanity fair (2023)

2) so why haven’t you (or others) really heard of the show outside of tumblr despite all this success? likely because max did a terrible job marketing it.

ofmd first aired on hbo max (pre-merger before it was “max”) in march 2022. the entire season aired over one month, every thursday at 12am pst. season 2 followed a similar release schedule in october 2023.

season 1’s marketing was almost non-existent, pretty much relying on taika waititi’s name being attached. there was one teaser and one full-length trailer, as well as a few clips on youtube of taika and rhys darby answering pirate-themed trivia, all painting the show as a “silly pirate workplace/buddy comedy.” but hbo max didn’t put any real effort in because they didn’t care. david zaslav and the other higher-ups had no faith in the show and expected it to fail.

most people weren’t aware it was actually a romance due to the poor marketing, and although there were many romantically charged scenes between them, many were still wary to believe it wasn’t queerbaiting until ed & stede confessed their feelings and kissed.

showrunner david jenkins has said in interviews that he had no idea how deeply queerbaiting had hurt audiences and impacted their ability to trust what’s on screen without feeling like they’re being ridiculed, despite the fact that he was calling it a love story the whole time. it wasn’t until people realized they weren’t being queerbaited and that it was a funny, sincere show with a compelling plot that word-of-mouth began to spread. by the time the season 1 finale aired, there was a decent-sized fandom that continued to grow as it received more praise.

it was a fight to even get the show renewed for season 2, and david jenkins and the cast have majorly credited that renewal to the unexpected and massive fan response to the show, which basically forced hbo’s hand.

max didn’t bother trying to properly promote the series until season 2, when they begrudgingly accepted that it was one of their most profitable and successful shows. ofmd had huge billboards in times square, downtown los angeles, and on the side of hbo headquarters. they started accurately marketing the show as not just a workplace comedy at sea, but a heartfelt romcom. max began selling long-demanded merch (which became best sellers) and spent money on an FYC campaign.

i will emphasize, whether they liked it or not, they knew ofmd was their new moneymaker (especially with the recent end of succession, which was obviously a cash cow for hbo).

photo credit: @/bookishtheo

3) now if it was that successful, was it really cancelled just for being queer?

i mean, i can’t say that definitively. no one can. there are several potential factors at play that we may never know, and there have been a lot of rumours and speculation (many of which i don’t feel comfortable discussing in case they aren’t true) since the cancellation.

but do i believe the fact that it’s a queer romcom was one of those factors, especially since max has a history of cancelling and scrapping its most diverse projects? absolutely.

first and foremost, i can’t stress enough that this isn’t just a show with a few characters thrown in for token representation. ofmd is built on a diverse, intersectional cast and narratives, including:

• lgbtq+ representation: 5 main couples are explicitly queer (including mlm, wlw, nblm, and nblw relationships). multiple characters are implied to be poly, and there’s a polycule forming in season 2 that was hinted to be developed more in season 3. beyond relationships, it’s confirmed that (similarly to the way wwdits depicts all vampires as being pansexual) all of the pirates are somewhere on the queer spectrum.

• bipoc representation: the majority of the main cast are people of colour. this includes david fane, joel fry, leslie jones, samson kayo, vico ortiz, anapela polataivao, madeleine sami, samba schutte, ruibo qian, and taika waititi, as well as many guest actors (like rachel house, simone kessell, and maaka pohatu) and extras.

• disability representation: multiple characters have physical disabilities, most notably amputated/prosthetic limbs and visual impairment. a lot (actually most) of the characters also deal with mental health issues, particularly coping with severe trauma and suicidal ideation/behaviour.

• the show has been praised for addressing difficult and serious themes like toxic masculinity, colonialism, and self-discovery, all while still managing to be a witty comedy and not come across as “preachy.”

• the diversity also extends off-screen, with a team of directors, writers, and additional crew comprised of numerous bipoc, women, queer people, and trans/non-binary people.

my point isn’t just the quantity of representation, but the quality. they take great care and respect into every marginalized group depicted on-screen. the actors would often be consulted about their characters’ costumes, hair, tattoos, and the kind of language they use. it’s not a world where discrimination magically doesn’t exist, they just have zero tolerance for it. if a character does something homophobic or racist, you can guarantee they’ll quickly (and often violently) be punished.

so okay, sure, it’s got great representation. what does that have to do max cancelling it?

because they’ve been interfering with production from the start.

i already mentioned the marketing issues so i won’t get into that. it was also revealed in interviews with david jenkins after season 2 that hbo cut their budget by 40%, which is why they had to do everything they could to save money. this included letting go of some of the original cast (and even still having episodes where some of them don’t appear at all) and moving the entire production to AoNZ. the budget cuts also meant two less episodes, so they had to rush to fit an entire season’s worth of plot into eight half-hour long episodes.

but one of the biggest frustrations is hbo’s (alleged) censorship of the show. samba schutte revealed that the entire plot of episode 2x06 was completely different in the original script. before it was rewritten as “calypso’s birthday,” the episode took place during lucius & pete’s wedding and focused on the crew getting sick of the sexual tension between ed & stede and trying to get them to hook up (this aligned with lucius & pete getting engaged and ed & stede deciding to take things slow in the previous episode).

vico ortiz and writer jes tom have also commented that many scenes between jim, oluwande, and archie establishing them as a polycule were cut, including one of the three of them emerging from a bedroom in their underwear. jes has mentioned other elements of season 2 that had to be cut out or rewritten, like the implication of other poly dynamics between the crew and more sexually explicit scenarios and jokes.

considering that ofmd is an extremely sex-positive show that isn’t afraid to be raunchy or taboo, it’s clear that either higher-ups at hbo forced them to cut these things out or they had no choice but to cut them out due to tight budget/time restraints.

in addition to this, a recent article citing an “anonymous insider” has alleged that hbo was uncomfortable with and was unsure how to market the “shock violence” in the show (the same network that aired game of thrones), which david jenkins outright called out as being bullshit. ofmd is rated TV-MA and the posters and trailers all show the audience that it contains violent content. there is literally nothing more graphic in ofmd than any other pirate show — it’s probably a lot tamer than most of them, actually.

violence on the show is most frequently used in a comedic context, in the sense that it’s not meant to be seen as scary or taken seriously. the few instances of serious graphic imagery on the show are meant to invoke a mood shift, like ed’s transformation into the kraken or ned low’s murder. it should also be noted that some of the most graphic deaths are reserved for bigots, like ed snapping the neck of a colonizer who was ridiculing stede’s love letter.

it’s also most often used in a sexual context — not sexual violence, but violence as a sexual metaphor. more specifically the act of stabbing as a metaphor for penetration, as seen with both ed & stede and anne & mary. bearing all this in mind, it seems like the real issue here isn’t executives struggling to market explicit violence to a mainstream audience, but rather explicit gay content.

as much as we joke and affectionately call it the “gay pirate show,” ofmd has always been nothing more than an opportunity for rainbow capitalism for hbo (e.g. the fact that they waited three months to announce season 2 just so they could do it on the first day of pride month). like other cancelled queer media, ofmd was a way for hbo executives to show how “inclusive” and “accepting” they are when it was convenient (aka profitable) for them, but they never actually respected the show or us as a community.

it’s impossible to be certain of what the exact reasoning for cancellation was, especially when they won’t give us a clear answer themselves. and maybe it had nothing to do with ofmd being a queer romcom at all. maybe that’s all a horrible coincidence. but for hbo/max to axe a critically acclaimed and beautifully inclusive show that’s successful by every metric, with an extremely devoted fanbase, especially after casey bloys just had the nerve to ask “gay twitter” to hype up the gilded age? it doesn’t exactly put them in the best light regardless.

in summary, i’ll leave you with this editorial, which details how the campaign to save ofmd isn’t just about one show, but a fight to save the future of all queer art.