#i have to keep reminding myself that i live in a very liberal city in germany and thats this is unlikely to have any effect on me

[lunatic-fandom-space]

merry us-election to those who celebrate, lets hope that third assassination attempt is actually sucessful eh

[elegyforiphigenia]

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DAMNED: SCENE ONE - HADES & CLYTEMNESTRA.

a series i occasionally hope to embark upon, in which i have a list of the burnt city characters in a generator, i generate randomly two names, and script a scene between the two. a little dialogue writing exercise. first two names generated...hades and clytemnestra, a pairing which i admit excited me. spoilers for the burnt city & their loops within!

SCENE ONE: CLYTEMNESTRA & HADES.

Mycenae. Clytemnestra's palace.

CLYTEMNESTRA: You’re not a very good dancer.

HADES: It was never my party to celebrate; all I needed to do was enjoy the rhythm.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Tell me, was it even her party?

HADES: She enjoyed it whilst it lasted. So did you.

CLYTEMNESTRA: I didn’t enjoy letting her go, but I had to. She was so brave, walking away in red and white, to what should have been a new world – and I let her go, I let her leave me.

HADES: Mothers have to let their daughters grow up eventually. Marriage can be a liberating prospect.

CLYTEMNESTRA:  My daughter grew right into the grave, you cunt.

HADES: My wife also had to find her way underground.

CLYTEMNESTRA: You’re not a very good dancer, but then, do you believe yourself to be a good husband?

HADES: I do all I might.

CLYTEMNESTRA: It might never be enough. I thought myself to be a good wife. But he took my dear girl from me.

HADES: No matter the path she took, she would have had to speak farewell to you eventually.

CLYTEMNESTRA: A mother can cope with her daughter married; daughter weds the greatest soldier and mother keeps her daughter just as her husband keeps daughters husband in his ranks. A mother can cope with her daughter becoming a handmaiden; she will be proud to see her live and blessed. But a mother cannot cope with death – not of her daughter, not of her little lamb, not slaughtered for the sake of gods and men, futile men, sacrificing dearest life for the sake of sacrificing and screwing a few more women across the winds. Don’t console me with pathetic farewells when you know nothing of the grief of mine.

HADES: You are quick to anger with your words; you have a wicked tongue. It is rather amusing, though unpleasant to receive. Especially when I do not mean to console you, but to converse with you. Though I do know a great deal on farewells.

CLYTEMNESTRA: You are immortal, if I know you for who you are. Six months is a pittance, barely a breath to wait, till you see your wife again. I’ll never see my daughter again, so your – conversing – is unwanted.

HADES: How little you know. But then again, you would not. It seems so….ah, yes, it is curious, how real this all must feel. The unending toil of it. No end to your grief.

CLYTEMNESTRA: How many times have we all prayed to your kin? Too many times, and look at all the good it has done us: you speak in riddles, you all do.

HADES: How it must seem that way. Our musings fall only on mortal ears.

CLYTEMNESTRA: It’s insipid, how you remind me of our bodily finality.

HADES: You would be surprised at the perseverance of your form. Life pushes onwards. Cyclical.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Why? Because I push out life? I squeezed out her, and look where that got us. The cycle is torn. It won’t go on, not when maiden never steps into the role of mother.

HADES: I don’t speak of that cycle. You’re a presumptive woman, Clytemnestra.

CLYTEMNESTRA: And I don’t mean that there’s only a cycle when a woman screams out a babe. Look where that role got me, after all. But I must presume, with you, for the gods do like to presume our fates. It’s only fair we get a turn in the seat of judgement.

HADES: It’s an unpleasant seat to rule from, sometimes. Oh, it can be the most fun, but certain situations are more difficult than others.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Poor man. Poor god.

HADES: I’m glad you agree. It isn’t merely a ball, stopping in to dance at a bridal party, tapping my toes a little. I know you think my six months are a piece of cake. But…even when the six months end, and she is with me once more, there is a different sort of aching at play. Whenever your husband returns from war, does he remember you? Remember himself?

CLYTEMNESTRA: It depends on your definition of those questions.

HADES: And I am interested in why you need such preciseness.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Agamemnon…Agamemnon…his family have been at war since before he breathed his first breath. Even his parentage was a disputed war of its own. The man himself, my grandiose husband, started to fight when he was still a pup, before he kicked those down with his own boot. He would always, officially, come back as the man I married, and yes, he’d remember me, dutiful wife keeping the home fires burning. But on the inside, it was not always so. He could be distant, a ghost to his own self. Not a weakened shade, thinned of his normal self; he could be strong with his fury, I saw all that. It would be as if he forgot who he was at home, and only knew the man who went to war. I never liked seeing that man. If he wasn’t angry, he was bruised, his soul hurting. It was Iphigenia who brought him solace then, our little girl. She was the one to wake him from the war…I know then that he will never awaken from this one.

HADES: I see. I do, really. Your words are like little opera glasses, clarifying the image.

CLYTEMNESTRA: You, then, why do you ask me all this? Your wife. Does she behave like that? When she returns to you.

HADES: She forgets me altogether. Steps into the darkness afraid of this world, not knowing she is the light that means she must hold no fear. It is not only I who conducts this world: she takes her veins and makes it electric. She, however, does not realise that when she returns…that is why I ask. There are certain wounds even the gods must experience, and certain wounds even the gods cannot heal. You pray to us; who shall we pray to? King…judge…master…I am all those things, but even I must take a backseat. Till she remembers. Not merely me but her own most potent art. Ah, I should not be telling you this, but it is nice to converse with others than shades. You’ll forget soon enough.

CLYTEMNESTRA: I’m sorry she forgets you.

HADES: How wonderful – I’ve elicited sympathy, even from you! A treat to possess.

CLYTEMNESTRA: You possess nothing of me, for I have nothing left but anger to give.

HADES: How you and yours heave with dislike for me.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Have you spoken to Agamemnon?

HADES: Perhaps. It did not bring him joy, you know.

CLYTEMNESTRA: It is the action that matters, that is all. And he murdered our darling girl.

HADES: Only action? Purely that?

CLYTEMNESTRA: All the regret in the world cannot bring her back to my arms.

HADES: Is that why you find comfort in the arms of another?

CLYTEMNESTRA: Have you been observing my private business?

HADES: Not personally, but I like to believe I hold a clear enough record of all that occurs in these palatial grounds.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Do you appreciate it? The love affair I am undergoing. Does it appease the man in wait for his wife? For I love him.

HADES: Upon this stage of war, I see lovers. Most of them are adrift.

CLYTEMNESTRA: But we are joined together.

HADES: Your husband’s lineage has never taken kindly to the theft of a wife by another man; his father lost his wife to his brother, and culinary horror was devised from that…and in return, the brother who stole the wife…to gain vengeance for the consequence of that adultery, bore a son with his daughter – the very product of which you dally with now. And, of course, this whole war…your brother-in-law, and his wife stolen, and your husband did not take kindly to that theft. We gods, of course, frown on the actions of Atreus, but there is also rather a disagreeable pattern being set in these actions. It is a displeasing song to hear. A teachable story.

CLYTEMNESTRA: The gods cannot speak of what is good and proper in love. We all know their actions.

HADES: You dined with him on a banquet of meat, as if you were devouring a sacrifice. In that, you both established yourself as gods; I need not, then, take the opinion of those who discard the true ones.

CLYTEMNESTRA: If I prayed to you, would you aid me?

HADES: I make the horse run…

CLYTEMNESTRA: Right into Troy.

HADES: …I paint this whole show till you all tumble like oil streaks…

CLYTEMNESTRA: So paint my vengeance. Show him the value of sacrifice.

HADES: ...But I will not paint your prayers.

CLYTEMNESTRA: So be it.

HADES: You might regret this.

CLYTEMNESTRA: As he did. I give you another soul for your collection.

HADES: The gods do not so easily forgive.

CLYTEMNESTRA: My daughter is only ash. But ash is forged from fire and hers still burns in my heart, so much that every beat rages across my body. Perhaps I will regret my decision. But for now, I am only rage: do you not see it in my blazing eyes? To his kingdom, he will come; and I will burn till he drowns.

HADES: I must go now. I have business; my wife, you see. But we might see one another again, when you taste again ashes on your lips.

CLYTEMNESTRA: I hope she remembers. I do. But I hope in remembrance, there is also heart. A lacking feature amongst Olympus.

HADES: Oh, you do speak boldly to our kind. It is most refreshing.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Your kind stole my weakness. How now might they wound me further?

HADES: How I pity you, Clytemnestra. Really, I do...the way you act is such a dear sight. But I told you, I've my glasses, and this is such an exquisite opera. When the curtain falls, will you be so strong? Or will you weep once more?

CLYTEMNESTRA: We are not an opera.

HADES: And yet I always watch you crumble. Again, and again, and again. Your hands always reach out, in the end. You cannot bear ash. The curtain falls and crushes you under it.

CLYTEMNESTRA: The riddles of the gods.

HADES: It is not yet time for you to interpret them. But give it time. You'll see. And then you shall not.

CLYTEMNESTRA: Strange fellow. Strange god...go, now, to your wife. This dismal scene I must need now act.

Hades exists. Clytemnestra readies.

[r0-boat]

so i sent in the team flare ask, and i realized that i meant to say they’re lack luster as an evil team which SUCKS because lysandre has a dope battle theme but messed up my sentence structure oops

but yeah lysandre is definitely the most memorable part of team flare — even if the first instance you meet him in the games he might as well just yell “HEY I’M THE BAD GUY”

team flare is def a bad rip off of team rocket but lysandre himself just reminds me of a bad rip off of cyrus

cyrus at least had some back story to explain his outlook on life — you can speak to his grandfather on route 228 in platinum. when he sees that you have the badge from sunyshore city’s gym. he’ll tell you that despite being a successful student, cyrus could never meet his parents’ harsh expectations of him.

an excerpt (you can find the rest online):

“my grandson grew up in that city by the sea. worn down by trying to live up to his parents’ expectations, he found refuge in tinkering with machines. i wonder even now if i should have taken him and raised him myself”

it’s implied that this childhood trauma is what led him down the path he takes in the games. it doesn’t excuse his actions at all but it makes him more understandable and human.

i won’t speak for others but lysandre just kinda annoyed me — he had similar-ish goals to cyrus but no real understanding behind his reasoning?

in my opinion, some of the best villains are those who aren’t aware of how they’re actually the bad guy. cyrus actually thinks his cause is just and we see in his backstory how enduring trauma and hurt during the key developmental years of his life (aka childhood and adolescence) caused him to go down that path.

i also think the best villains are also the ones that are relatable — cyrus growing up feeling rejected and like he wasn’t ever enough as a result of his parents is something a lot of people can relate to. having gone through something similar with one of my parents, i really understood that pain and i’m sure others do too.

lysandre just feels like a villain who is bad for the sake of it with his “keep the world beautiful” reasoning being so hard to grasp or make sense of?

anyways i’ll shut up now

cyrus is just my fav villain in the series and i think he’s cooler than people give him credit for

And I absolutely agree with you about Cyrus in Team Galactic but let me tell you in my opinion Team Plasma is Team Rocket done right!

I absolutely hate Ghetsis but I can't deny he is one of my favorite Pokemon villains.

God I fucking love Team Plasma, especially in Pokemon Black and White 2

In my opinion not only Team Plasma's (b/w2) costumes our overall 1 billion times better than what we had before and after Gen 5.

All their battles are so memorable how can you forget that jamming song that plays every time you battle a grunt.

You literally go from cultists to Sky Pirates What?!

And their motives... their motives weren't bad at first " liberate Pokemon from their poke balls" okay like somebody could totally see that as a good thing. Like Pokemon are stuck in small little orbs and they're supposed to be wild animals you know they need space to run around and some trainers are absolutely abusive.

But then later it wasn't about a liberating pokeballs it was about using Pokemon as tools to rule over the world.

In Pokemon b/w2 they mentioned that after an basically turned over to your side the group who chose to serve N and the ones who wanted power light gets us pretty much split and you actually see the conflict and in some cases fight alongside them which is *kiss* Noice!

Team flare was just very obviously a bootleg version of Team Rocket and

team yell which is even more obviously a bootleg version of Team skull but they washed and wrung out all of the things that made team skull funny and Charming.

Other than Team Galactic, Team Plasma always felt so professional if that's a word I could describe it. As if evil organizations was a business

Tldr: Team Plasma is my all-time favorite team. The fucking cool they have their own little Side Story. Cool ass music, cool ass boss fights. Gen 5 may have been a blur but Team Plasma will always be Unforgettable

[taggedmemes]

SENTENCE MEME ⟶ BALDURS GATE II / PART ONE   always feel free to tweak the sentence to fit your muse.

'keep your greaves on, i’ll move when i’m ready.’

‘i’m sorry, could you give us the long version of our history?’

‘i’ll drag you out of here if i have to, just so long as we get out!’

‘butts will be liberally kicked in good measure!’

‘they killed her as i watched, you see?’

‘i won’t cry for the dead! i won’t! okay, maybe a little, but i will staunch the flow of tears with righteous fury!’

‘lullaby and goodnight, evil!’

‘there are friends to avenge and villains to smack about the face and neck.’

‘i suffer a terrible curiosity.’

‘no action can be performed without consequences.’

‘you sure have some kind of courage to sleep in this place.’

‘i would have run screaming a dozen times over if you weren’t here.’

‘what happened to you, man?’

‘nature does not intend her creations to live past their allotted time.’

‘death is not always to be feared, i guess.’

‘i just want to go home again. it doesn’t matter where it is, just so long as i can call it home.’

‘i’m going to have a couple of scars from this... looks like you will too.’

‘as if i need another reminder.’

‘it’s for a lost love, kept in perfect condition.’

‘he cannot hurt you now. you are among friends.’

‘his sick fingers are still in my head, doing whatever it was he started.’

‘it is actually quite, uh, embarrassing.’

‘what do you and your rodent know?!’

‘you saw this? you watched as this was done?’

‘he... he showed me. he cut and... showed me. he forced my eyes open and made me look as he...’

‘he’s fascinated with death.’

‘i see i am to be provided fresh blood, for once.’

‘i am not here to torment you, old man.’

‘he flees from butt-kicking vengeance!’‘

‘the wizard may be leering over her evilly even now!’

‘she is right, my large friend.’

‘well, that was certainly morbid.’

‘don’t let the bastards look down their crooked noses at you!’

‘how can such a monster as you have such a sweet voice?’

‘i doubted that you would survive to meet me.’

‘there are strange things taking from the coffers of your lives.’

‘if somebody dares to cheat me, they are in for a boot-stomping adjustment to their moral value systems!’

‘it’s for soup. yes, that’s it. salamander soup. for my, er, children and things.’

‘i am not here in an official capacity, suspicious one.’

‘there’s a customer born every minute, and a rube soon after.’

‘you sound like you were dropped as a child.’

‘where did you get the idiotic accent from? reading too many romance novels?’

‘is your heart filled with courage or be it steeped in cowardice?’

‘i’ll not associate with one who smells as if he slipped into a vat of spirits.’

‘she can lurk over here if she likes.’

‘she hardly talks more than she eats, and she doesn’t eat anything.’

‘i was distracted by the posterior of a most lovely woman over yonder.’

‘i have more than enough company, and no need for your... your... filth!’

‘you will come home with me this very instant!’

‘are you supposed to be tough or something?’

‘i’m not here to impress you. hurl your insults elsewhere.’

‘i cannot help but speak of the dead lately.’

‘the dead are gone. the names of those i barely remember cause me no pain.’

‘you are not of his blood, but there is much of him in you.’

‘i am outraged by the evil that leaps about this city like a hot-footed weasel!’

‘must you always be so melodramatic? it makes me ill.’

‘i am suddenly homesick, as silly as it seems.’

‘you look like you keep undertakers in a brisk trade.’

‘it’s not abandoned, but rumours and half-truths only scare the young and infirm.’

‘listen, you greasy warthog...’

‘keep on addressing me in that tone and i’ll have your tongue.’

‘i ain’t got no time for tree-huggin’ pansies wettin’ their pants over a legitimate enterprise.’

‘this was my home for so long, but it is too late to go back. they wouldn’t have you now. they wouldn’t have me.’

‘do you cling to the past, or can you see through the pain?’

‘i came. i saw. i had second thoughts. i left.’

‘are you sure that’s a good idea? because between the evil spirit assault out there and the blinding stygian darkness in here, i’m dead certain it isn’t. and now that i think of it, i wish i had used a different phrase to describe how certain i am.’

‘the last thing i need is to learn an important truth about myself.’

‘sorry, i’ve got a strict ‘one tomb break-in a day’ policy.’

‘“go into the dark and spooky tomb, but make sure to be careful.” kind of sending mixed messages there.’

‘whoever designs these things must be mad, drunk, or possibly both. also urbane, witty, handsome, charming... a real prize.’

‘forget the orders a moment and tell me this: do you want to fight me?’

‘look at me? do i look real to you?’

‘see, here we were having a pleasant conversation and then you have to go and be rude.’

[queernuck]

The Cleveland Browns made the playoffs. The Islanders made the Eastern Conference Finals.

And that’s enough for me.

So long, so long I have been living like this, pretending that I want to keep on living, that life feels worthwhile, that I don’t want to kill myself. Suicide is for cowards but ive been chickening out for a whole decade, to the point where getting on the subway was itself something that involved convincing myself not to jump in front of it. I remember once while working in the city, I watched and waited as two trains came in and left, trying to get the energy to jump in front of them. I had decided, if I couldn’t do it by the time a second train came and went, I would go to work and save it for another day. I came very close, my legs tense like a linebacker on 4th & Goal, but I didn’t do it. Maybe it would be better if I had, I would have saved not only myself but a lot of other people a lot of pain and suffering. I’ve been dealing with feeling suicidal for a decade, an entire ten years, and made it through. And for what? I lost a retail job at minimum wage, I’ve seen the Giants go from two-time Super Bowl kingslayers to a team that relied on the Eagles for a playoff berth, I got to see Evangelion only for the final Rebuild film to be infinitely delayed, I have a useless non-degree that allows me to eloquently describe how the Democrats and Republicans alike are driving this stolen land to Fascism while sycophants tell me Vote Blue No Matter Who. I’m so tired, I’m not even the person people think me to be, since if I were, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

My paychecks, as hard-earned as they were, never seemed to be mine in any real sense, and it made me so frustrated that something in me broke at the beginning of this year. I made some mistakes, some very stupid ones, and got myself fired. I took money from and distorted the inventory of my store to get what amounted to pocket money, less than two paychecks. I was tempted because I feel so powerless, so much like nothing I could ever say or do matters, and so I decided to lash out against a place that mattered to me, against people I cared about deeply. Chain stores, corporations, all of those things are not really high on my list of things to care about. Barnes & Noble pushed out local booksellers years ago, an irony not lost on me whenever our own competition with Amazon was made apparent. We were reaping what we had sown. But what always interested on top of this irony was how symbolic these things could be to people, how much we figured into so may memories for so many. The Manga Aisle at Barnes & Noble is a staple of 2006 scene culture, a way that kids without the pocket money to afford the newest volume of Bleach it Naruto could keep up before scams became widely available. How the store was a place where people studying for standardized tests could use the test prep guides to try and get ready for the eugenic ritual of the standardized test. And just how much a chain bookstore became a substitute, socially, for the now-absent local bookstore. We bear the guilt for that, but at the same time we were still selling books, giving people a place to get coffee and sit and read and talk, in ways that libraries may not be able to. We certainly can never replace a library, given just what a library does for people. But we did do a lot of good all the same. Before it closed, some of my fondest memories came when I was the exact sort of annoying teenage customer I grew to hate, hanging out at the Columbus Circle Borders. Working at Barnes & Noble was tiring, dehumanizing, difficult, made me feel like I would never measure up to the authors we sold, the people books were written about, that I was a failure. And I am, as my death shows. But it also made me a part of something I was proud of. And that Above & Beyond pin I earned is in my jacket still, a reminder of something.

That something was shown in so many of the coworkers I had, who were incredible in so many ways. I feel awful for what I did, I genuinely do, because of how it may have hurt people who thought so kindly of me, people who deserve so much good. I wish I had the ability to address each of them individually but this decision was hastily made, and i have a feeling it will show in the things I miss in this note. Audra, your help in finding me a way to use the company policies to my advantage as a worker was something that gave me faith even after having seen the despicable firings and cuts the company went through. Linda, I can’t quite square the circle here given my actions, but I want to say your disappointment broke my heart and that while I will not be the one who shows it, your reassurance that everyone makes mistakes was welcome.

To my (former) fellow booksellers at Store 2216, all of my love and my sincerest apologies. You all have so much good in you, your willingness to listen to my ADHD-fueled rants and to discuss so many things with an incredible frankness was always impressive, in addition to part of what I loved about all of you. I want you all to be happy, and the kinship I felt with you was a vital part of what kept me going. It was tough, as you all know. But at times, it almost felt worth it.

The same is true of my CTY friends: it was a weird, magical place that frankly, a lot of us idealized for far too long and which sk many of us eventually outgrew without being able to let go of. And that was tough, that was something we had a great deal of difficulty understanding, that what helped us once was not always going to be helping us, was not always what we needed. But in eventually finding that, we found solace, we realized how life as a whole functions and just what it is that we can take from places like it.

To my other family, my Cleo family, I know I haven’t been terribly active lately, but I can never, ever thank you enough for the belonging you gave me. I have never felt anywhere as welcoming as Cleo. As warm as Cleo (even as we struggled to pay for the oil bill) was. As kind and understanding. As tolerant. As questioning and inquisitive into what that tolerance meant to us. I am thankful, eternally, for what you all did for me. The incredible experiences I had as a Cleo make me proud of what the organization can represent, and one of my dying wishes is that the organization continues to reach out to marginalized communities on Trinity’s campus. There is much work to be done in making sure abusers cannot hide in our family, but I trust you all to do that work. Tucker Carlson is a Trinity grad and we must embody the opposite of what he stands for, no matter how difficult it may be. I could go on about how this means opposing liberals and Liberalism/Neo—Liberalism due to the truth of tolerance resulting in a Popper-esque Paradox of Tolerance that implies Popper is a worthwhile philosopher, but that’s another issue.

To my friends on that Blue Hellsite, tumblr, you made a continual presence worth it, even with all of the bullshit this place brings. It’s the reason I read so much Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Guattari, read Žižek against himself, and so on and so on, and the value of that to me can never be overstated. I learned so much from the ways in which I learned to analyze the world, and that in turn became a huge inspiration for why I should try to do what I could to make the world closer to a place of revolution, one where we could perhaps eke out a living for one another. I loved how much I could be an unrepentant nerd and still love hockey on there, and while the

NHL fans on tumblr are incredibly annoying,

I can deal with that compared to the racism of most hockey fans.

Mom, Dad? I just couldn’t live with you any longer. I’m so sorry.

Grandma, I love you.

And the things I leave behind? Donate what can be donated. Hats, please auction, or at least offer to other HatHeads at a reasonable price. I had some nice ones. As for assorted albums, clothing, and other things, sell them and donate to a Harm Reduction organization, or organizations that advocate for PWUD in a radical fashion. WE DESERVE AUTONOMY!

I am a victim of the War on Drugs. Sobriety was always hellish to me, and I could never take it. I want people to be able to live how they want, to see sobriety and being on drugs as equally valuable states, to see the two as no different from one another.

Abolish all gun laws

End the War on Terror

Decriminalize and legalize all drugs, sobriety is what killed me.

I love all of you.

LET’S GO ISLANDERS!

[spectrumed]

5. sleep

It hardly gets dark in the Swedish summers. Between dusk to dawn, you’ve got about an hour to fall asleep before the sun rises again. If you struggle to fall asleep that fast, you can invest in some good window blinds. Or you can do as I do and place one big pillow over your face. Then the birds start singing around three o’clock in the morning. You can practically hear the sounds of Edvard Grieg’s Morning Mood playing at around four o’clock in the morning. Around five o’clock in the morning, it is as bright as midday. Did you have a good time sleeping? Or did you pace around in a circle having one hell of a panic attack? I thought you took some of those sleeping pills you got prescribed, they should have helped you fall asleep… wait, you did take them? They didn’t work? Oh, they did work, you just felt your body falling asleep while your mind stayed awake? That sounds terrible, real terrible. Very well. It’s morning now. Want some coffee?

You could form a religion out of sleeping. Let’s have sermons where we fill a whole auditorium full of beds and have our congregates take a big collective nap. Sleep for the sleep god! Pillows for the pillow throne! Sleep is a billion-dollar industry, there’s a plethora of handy products you can buy that promise to send you on a luxury liner to dreamland. Pills, mattresses, dreamcatchers, whatever your snoozy heart desires. You can go to a proper doctor and they might help you, or you can settle for the placebo effect and go to some fraudulent quack, instead. He might make you swallow some pills that contain arsenic, but hey, arsenic is a naturally occurring element. It can’t be all that bad for you if it is natural. And you do want to sleep, don’t you? If you take this pill in your mouth and swallow it with a glass of water, I promise you, you will sleep for a very long time.

The esteemed former president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, claims that he only needs four to five hours of sleep every night. While Mr. Trump is well-known to be a paragon of honesty, I do doubt he’s telling the truth. No, I actually do believe him when says that he only gets about four or five hours of sleep each night, I just don’t believe him when he says that is all he needs. He doesn’t look very well-rested, does he? And Margaret Thatcher, the similarly adored former prime minister of the United Kingdom, claimed that she also only needed about four hours of sleep every night. Yes, while researching the sleeping habits of famous monsters, I’ve come to the conclusion that amongst powerful individuals, not getting enough sleep has become a proper badge of honour. The belief is that if you don’t get enough sleep, that must be because you are living such a vibrantly successful life, and are so career-driven, that you simply haven’t got enough time to sleep for the full eight hours. People who sleep for more than four hours are lazy liberals. Go-getters like Trump has got to be out there, working, making decisions, raping women, and showing daddy what a good boy he is. Sleep is for the weak. But maybe I am weak. I sure like sleeping.

It’s the cultural hangover our society has had since the 80’s. Back when the yuppies wearing jackets with obscenely padded shoulders would happily chuck down eight to ten espressos in one go while A Flock of Seagulls was playing on the radio encouraging everyone to go running. And to be fair to them, with the constant fear of the doomsday clock hitting midnight, they really had no reason to think that they’d survive the decade. The new millennia, it seemed, would have no cities, no nature, no humans, only radiated mutants scouring the rubble that remains of civilization for cans of preserved something edible. Self-destructive behaviour was in. It was fashionable. Doubt people got enough sleep back then, between snorting coke and wondering if the next pandemic that hits the night clubs would start killing as many straight folks as gay folks. Well, here we are in the new 20’s, and we’ve got a pandemic that does appear to kill people regardless of sexual orientation. Sure, the looming threat of nuclear obliteration has been lessened dramatically, but we’ve largely come to exchange that anxiety for the fear of total environmental collapse, instead. No wonder 80’s nostalgia is a big thing right now. History doesn't repeat itself, but It often rhymes, said Mark Twain (supposedly.) I wonder how much coke Mark Twain would snort if he lived in the 80’s.

I notice a palpable difference in my mood and mental state when I’ve been getting good amounts of sleep. Lack of sleep results in lack of clear thinking. Caffeine, though it is something I am chronically addicted to, does not help fix a sleep-deprived mind. There are no tricks of revolutionary “life hacks” one can employ to get out of sleeping. To recover from depression, one has to sleep. Sleep often and sleep well. I cannot understate the importance of being well-rested. You cannot process information if you are tired. I am reminded of my teenage years seeing friends of mine who’d stay up all night, then come into school shuffling like agonised zombies. They got so frustrated when the teachers reprimanded them for snoozing in class. Well, dummies, it is your fault for drinking several dozen cans of Red Bull every day! I know that sleep does not always come easy. I know the terror of insomnia. But, c’mon! At some point, you’ve got to realise that sleep is essential. Maybe most of your problems stem from the fact that you refuse to get enough of it? Here’s where the tough love comes in. If you wanna get better, kiddo, then listen to me. It’s bedtime. Yes, I know you’d rather stay up late playing monopoly with your friends, but I’m confiscating your dice and I’ll only give it back to you when you’ve gotten some good sleep. Okay? You hear me, missy? You listen to your daddy now, and go to bed. No ifs or buts about it, princess, I’ve made myself clear. I know what is best for you, and you know that I am right. I’m your daddy.

But what if I can’t seem to fall asleep? Normally, it takes a long time for me to fall asleep. It is not uncommon for me to stay awake for two hours, maybe more, before I finally begin to sleep. Fearing that I won’t fall asleep gives me anxiety. That anxiety keeps me awake. I turn my body. I try lying on my side. First my left side, then my right side. I then try to lie on my back. I’ve got a song stuck playing in my head. Not even the whole song, just a ten-second segment of it. It’s playing over and over. I’m worried about the future, will I ever find security, will I ever find a wife, will I get to grow old? I worry about death. I keep hearing the music playing, it’s grating. I rearrange the pillows, in hopes that will make me feel more comfortable. But no, I keep tossing and turning like a fish caught on land. I’m getting frustrated. If only I could shut off my brain. I’m constantly thinking. I turn to my side again, but now I notice I’ve moved arounds so much that now the bed has shifted away from its position next to the wall. There’s now a gap between the bed and the wall. I almost fall down that gap. I get up and I push the bed back against the wall. I lay down in bed. The song is still playing.

How am I ever going to become a successful businessman if I am wasting so many hours just trying to get to sleep? This is the time I should be spending on the phone, yelling at people and making inappropriate sexual comments to my female employees. That is what good executives do. I need to get my life in order. I need to exercise more. I should practice mindfulness. I should get a life coach, a personal trainer, a stylist, an accountant, an assistant, a trophy wife, and a mistress. I need people in my life to take care of me. It’s funny how rich people create the sort of environment around them where people will take care of all their needs, effectively infantilising them. These people don’t even get to decide how to dress themselves. They’ve got fancy apartments, but they don’t choose any of the furniture. They’ve got art on the walls that they don’t like, but the art looks expensive, and that is all that matters. They’ve got kids, but they don’t raise them. Their spouses are cheating on them, but in fairness, they are cheating on their spouses. They don’t really even know what their jobs entails, as they’ve gotten promoted so many times that they’ve ended up in a position that is totally outside their realm of expertise. But they’re so powerful that no-one is able to fire them over their pretty blatant incompetence. They’re successful. They’ve made it. But they still can’t sleep at night. They only manage to successfully fall asleep at night after swallowing a fistful of pills along with a swig of vodka.

It must be easy being a self-help guru. Well, what I mean to say is that all you really need is charisma, which is something you need to be born with. But you don’t need to do any actual studying, any real research, or any kind of soul-searching or deliberation. All you need is to state what is obvious. You go on stage in front of an anxious audience, mostly composed of middle-class salesmen and miscellaneous white collar ghosts. You smile, show off your eerily bright teeth, and they clap. You tell them to go take care of themselves, to eat more healthily, to take walks, or go swimming, and love their partners. You tell them to drink less, or maybe, if they feel like it, they could drink more. I am sure you could spin alcohol as a positive or a negative, depending on what crowd you’re talking to. Tell them to appreciate family. Tell them to appreciate others. Live, laugh, but most of all, love. Tell them to go clean their rooms. Tell them to remember that if they’re on an airplane that is about to crash land, they need to put their own oxygen mask on before they can help others put theirs on. If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? Now, go to bed!

You know all this stuff. Me telling you that you should sleep more doesn’t really help you. You know that you should sleep more. It’s not like as if you’re too dumb to realise that. And it’s not like as if you’re too dumb to realise that it is better to drink in moderation, and that you should smoke less weed. There are many small little things you can do to improve your life, to stop being a terminally unemployed slacker. It’s like your grandpa who tells you stories about life after the war when you could walk into the biggest building in town, slam your fist against the table and demand to be given a job and a house and a wife and a couple of kids, and that was all you needed to do. He can’t comprehend the fact that society doesn’t work like that, any more. Most people my generation have given up hope of ever owning a home, at least if they happen to live in the vicinity of a larger city. It seems that, no matter where you live, the cost of homes has risen to an impenetrable degree. It seems just as likely that you will be able to afford your very own genetically-engineered pet dragon before you will get to be a house-owner. It’s the fault of those damn boomers, why bother changing your ways, when the boomers are still in charge? Others may accuse you of wallowing in your own depression, but you are perfectly aware that this is exactly what you are doing. You are self-aware. But self-awareness on its own is not enough to motivate anyone. You still can’t see the point in doing anything constructive with your life. Life just feels so aimless. It’s easier to sit, smoke weed, and watch cartoons.

Pop psychology is problematic. To say the least. Take all those self-help gurus suffering from their messiah complexes and put them through the shredder. Don’t buy books thinking that they’ll offer you the kind of treatment you would get from an actual psychiatrist. I know that, depending on where you are in the world, treatment can get very expensive, but you’re not going to get better reading the book of some self-aggrandising narcissist’s collection of wishy-washy platitudes. Dr. Phil has done great evil pretending to be a therapist on the TV, and Jordan Peterson (despite having once been an esteemed scholar) has turned a generation of young internet-savvy zoomers into proto-fascists obsessed with the monogamy of lobsters. Pop psychology has become a guise for cult leaders to reap new followers. Getting treatment should not feel like joining a new religious movement. Maybe I’m just one of those annoying atheists, but I dare say, psychiatry works at its best when it's secular. You should not look at your psychiatrist as a prophet speaking to God. They’re just a doctor, and you need treatment.

I do not aspire to create a self-help blog. I do not promise that reading this blog will help you in any way. I would be overjoyed if someone came up to me and told me that I had inspired them to seek help. You may tell me that reading my words have made you feel less alone, knowing that others have gone through all these things that you are going through. When I felt at my worst, I remember reading the memoirs of people I admired who had similarly struggled in their lives, and I felt less alone. But none of those books pretended to exist principally to help others. Those books did help me, through the candid descriptions of struggles that I thought I was alone in experiencing. Knowing that some people had pulled through, managed to find a light at the end of the tunnel, it made me think I could one day be like them. The books didn’t seek to fix me, but they offered me a perspective that came to be very valuable later on, when I started going to therapy, and when I later started taking medication. Sometimes that is all you need. Not someone standing over you and telling you to go to bed, or to clean your room, or to stop drinking. You know all that, already. What you really need is the reassurance that things can indeed get better. Sleep will come.

[songtoyou]

Mr. Evans and the Congresswoman - Part 2

Paring: Chris Evans x Politician Reader

Rating: PG

Word Count: 1,858

Warnings: Political topics such as Biden, Harris, our current White House occupant and the current administration. 

Description:  It is the week of the DNC and Chris is once again interviewing you for A Starting Point. 

A/N: The DNC inspired me to write a second part for this story.  This is pure fiction as I do not know what Chris believes when it comes to politics and policy issues. This is a complete work of fiction.

I do not permit my work to be to be posted on any other site without my permission.

Note: Updated for grammar and punctuation edits.

"Hi, Congresswoman Y/L/N?" Chris Evans asked with a smile.

He was once again interviewing you for ASP. This time it was during the week of the Democratic National Convention. Chris and Mark had already talked to other politicians such as Senator Cory Booker and Representatives Ro Khanna and Alma Adams. You were the last elected official he was slated to interview to wrap up the DNC week.

Truthfully, Chris was happy to get the chance to talk with you again. Your previous interview for ASP was such a hit that it garnered a lot of attention from fans and the media. However, it was not because you helped bring more legitimacy and attention for ASP, but instead, Chris found himself genuinely admiring you.

"Hi," you said to Chris, giving a small wave through the Zoom screen. "I told you to call me by my first name."

"I know, but I still want to show respect," Chris responded with a teasing smile. Was he mildly flirting with the congresswoman? Yes, but he had no shame in doing so. "How are you? You are looking well."

"I am doing well. Thank you. How about you?"

"Same. Just trying to stay sane through everything. I'm actually currently in London. Working on a project." Chris admitted.

"Uh oh. You better be staying safe and following the right procedures and protocols," you lightly reprimanded him.

"My fans ratted me out. They found where I was just by the hotel door. Can you believe that? That is some FBI-level investigating, right there. I'd be impressed if I weren't also terrified of the lengths some of these fans will go to scout my location," Chris ranted. He did not understand why he was sharing this with you, but a part of him felt comfortable doing so.

"That…is quite impressive, I must say. Creepy. Scary. But impressive. You need to learn how to put in a Zoom background. It would solve all of your problems," you suggested to him.

"I would, but I'm technology deficient. Maybe I should look up some Zoom tutorials on how to do it. Give it a try."

"There is no try…only do," you advised cheekily.

"Now you're quoting Yoda. A woman after my own heart," Chris replied. He knew he needed to refocus. "So, as you can tell, Mark won't be joining us for this interview. I'm going to hit record if that is okay?"

"Okay. I'm ready when you are," you said.

When the record notification appeared on screen, Chris introduced you and immediately went into the first question.

"How do you think the DNC is going so far, particularly how this year is more of a virtual setting rather than in-person due to COVID-19?"

"Despite not having the big in-person celebration/gathering, I think the virtual setting is working very well. Better than I expected, actually. It gives off a more inclusive and intimate vibe to the DNC that we haven't felt before. I like the whole documentary approach and feel to it," you replied honestly.

"Were you excited that Joe Biden chose Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate?" asked Chris.

"Oh my God! I was so happy that Vice President Biden chose Senator Harris as his running mate. Like, my staff and I were beyond ecstatic. There is no one better to be Biden's running mate than Harris. She is amazing. Such an inspiration. I'm not going to lie, but I'm really excited for the debate between her and Pence."

That made Chris laugh. "Yeah, me too. Senator Harris really knows how to pull all the punches. Her nomination as VP has been met with overall positive response. The Trump Administration and Republican pundits appear to have a hard time painting a negative image of Harris. Why do you think Trump and Fox News are struggling to provide a negative image for her?"

"That is an excellent question. The public's overwhelming response to Harris' nomination is because 1.) she is the first black and south Asian woman to be on a major presidential ticket, and 2.) she is likable and charming. She has this exuberant energy that attracts people to her. You know, black and brown women and girls finally have someone that looks like them running for the second-highest office in the land. That is huge!

"I also have to wonder if people have smartened up in the last four years and won't tolerate the…hypocrisy, sexism, and misogyny…in this case misogynoir that is thrown towards Senator Harris from the media, political pundits, social media bots, etc. So, what we are seeing with Trump and Fox News struggling to attack her is because…well…they just aren't smart. All we have seen from Trump in his attacks against her is that she was mean to Kavanaugh when questioning him during his nomination process. But none of what Trump says holds up because we all know that smart, confident women intimidate him," you finished off your point.

"There is also the left…or more of the progressive left who are unhappy with Biden choosing Harris," Chris spoke up and continued, "They say she is a cop and put people away for weed. That she took kids away from parents when the kid didn't show up for school. That Harris is too conservative. What do you say to that?"

"All of that is…you know…. Senator Harris one of the most policy progressive senators we have. Her voting record is more progressive than Bernie Sanders. All people have to do is research her time as a district attorney and Attorney General for California to find out what she actually did concerning policy. But as we both know, people nowadays don't know how to critically think, which scares me. Progressives need to look at the overall big picture. This election in November is crucial. We are in the fight for our democracy, for our country, and for our lives…literally."

"I talk with my brother, Scott, all the time about certain political issues," mentioned Chris. "He is a tad more progressive than I am. I can admit that I tend to be more centrist. The district you represent is a mix of blue and red areas; how do you balance opposing views from your constituents?" 

You took in a deep breath before you answered. That was a loaded question. Representing a district that was not solely red, or blue could be difficult from time to time. You wanted to be respectful of the different viewpoints from constituents, but maintaining a neutral balance was hard and frustrating at times. 

"The majority of Americans are centrist/moderates. You need a balance of both liberal and conservative policies. Bipartisanship is crucially important when developing and passing laws. We are currently seeing an overt of one-sidedness while sabotaging the other side, which is detrimental to our country's growth. It is important to reach across the aisle to talk with those who may have opposing views than you. At the end of the day, people just want to feel that their concerns are heard and valued. We all want to feel that way. So, as an elected official, I make sure to take the time to talk with those in rural areas, along with urban areas, about their issues and concerns," you shared.

"Do you ever get any pushback from Trump supporters in the red areas?" Chris inquired.

"Well, it is important to note that not all residents in rural areas are Trump supporters. They just tend to keep that to themselves. I have actually talked to Trump supporters in blue areas. We can never and should never assume that one area has this type of person and vice versa. I learned that the hard way when I was campaigning for city council early in my career," you revealed to Chris with a small chuckle. "But overall, my constituents will talk with me and have been respectful. Some of the concerns that have been shared with me do fall under the QAnon conspiracy theories, which do disturb me, I'll be honest. Um…when being confronted with someone who has that extreme of ideals, it is important to remain calm and not to come off combative. Meaning that I have to remind myself that I am not quite dealing with a rational person. The only thing that I can do is calmly talk to the person and respond back with facts. Either they listen or brush me off and call me a radical lefty."

"The majority of people are good, like you said," Chris reminded you.

"That's right. It's a good mantra to live by. I think the American people are tired and have been tired for the past four years with this Administration. We need a sense of normalcy and decency. Compassion and empathy, which were two of the big themes during the DNC. This week was a nice reminder that we, as a country, can have that again."

"I agree. Very well said. You always end on a positive. I appreciate that. Thank you, Congresswoman Y/L/N, for taking the time to talk with me. You always provide great insight into the world of politics and your experience as an elected official," said Chris and ended the recording. "That was really great, Y/N. I know Mark, and I really appreciate you taken the time to do these interviews for ASP," Chris added.

"Oh, it is no problem. Like I said before, I like what you both are doing with the site. Are you happy with how everything turned out?" you asked him.

"Yeah… it's…it took a while to just get the website up and running. I know there is still work that needs to be done. Some areas need to be fixed, but with a project like this, we can adjust. There is more room for improvement and growth," Chris communicated to you.

You nodded in agreement. "Politics is a whole different ballgame. Not many people are willing to venture into the field. It can cause a lot of annoyances and headaches. So, hats off to you, my friend," you said, giving Chris a salute.

"Thank you. Well, I better let you go. I know you must have a million things on your plate."

"Ah yes, I have to go and save the United States Postal Service from corruption. Talk to you later, Chris. Take care," you waved goodbye and signed off.

Chris had to admit, he was in awe of you. There was something about you that fascinated him. None of the elected officials he and Mark talked to for ASP had the liveliness you had. You were not jaded or defeated by the system, at least not yet, since you were still considered a junior member of congress. Chris hoped that the energy and enthusiasm you had for politics and helping people would not diminish. When his Uncle Mike was still a congressman, he shared with Chris that D.C. can cause a lot of strain on a person's values and beliefs. "I have seen too many of my colleagues succumb to the pressures of dirty politics," Uncle Mike once said.

Chris just hoped that you would not succumb to those pressures.

[tonya-the-chicken]

I promised to tell my new Todoroki Enji backstory yesterday to some people so um hello

CW for abuse and alcoholism. Nothing inteense - it’s a recap

His grandparents were supporters of Destro and Meta Liberation army. Though they might have went a little bit too much into extremes, believing in inherent privilege of those who is strong aka has a strong quirk. They were very centered on that but also wanted their family to be prestigious. They believed that some familiies are better than the others. They also dreamed of having a proper heir who will continue to represent their strong family

Enji’s father was not on good terms with his parents. He was convinced that their parenting style and ideas only damaged him (obviously, they did; I am convinced those people saw nothing wrong with quirk training from young years and physical punishment). When he was younger he ran away, tried to live on his own, even got married but eventually he failed to survive in the world on his own and returned to his parents’ house

They desired to have a proper heir to the throne. So fisrt thing first they either arranged marriage for him or let him find a woman who had a fire quirk as the rest of his family (yeah they all kind of had quirk marriages but weren’t really open about it). Then they had a kid

Enji’s mother wasn’t from very prestiogious family so his grandparents kind of disrespected her but overall she believed she is in the very best place in her life. She lived a rich comfortable life and all because she had a child - it seemed like a dream and so she didn’t question anything her parents-in-law were doing... Endeavor’s father was the only one to dislike the state of affairs in this family

But his opinion didn’t really mattered - he had already failed in life and knew he could do shit without his parents’ money and influence. Nevertheless, he really tried to somehow keep Enji away from his parents’ ideas... His methods didn’t work - all he could was say “Don’t listen to them”, scream or even hit him but none of that made Enji care less about his grandparents - despite being strict, they loved him and convinced him he got to be ambitious and work hard to be the greatest

What didn’t make his father more credible was that he wasn’t really succeful himself and so everyone looked down on him (which made Enji look down on him too). He felt like a failure in his own house so he tried to spent as little time there as he could, probably even cheating on his wife

In short, Enji’s grandparents were corrupted with absolutely disgusting ideas, his father was a loser cheating on his wife and having no say in his house and his mother was going along with everything, wanting her son to be great and somehow fulfill herself through that. I would say Endeavor’s grandfather was kind of a role model for him - strong, confident and a strict head of the family - everything his father could never be. His grandfather promised him a perfect life as an heir to their prestigious household, saying that eventually they will arrange a marriage for him too and so as long as he trains hard evverything would be made for him

but

BUT

They also kind of planned to overthrow the government or something like that with the rest of Destro’s crew... Enji’s parents never knew about that, only grandparents... But their plans were revealed and they were executed on a spot or were killed while resisting their arrest. No one told Enji what exactly happened

His parents were spared and allowed to live as normal family as long as they never follow their footsteps. But that’s were difference between his Mom and Dad became obvious - she hoped that Enji will be succesful regardless of everything that happened when his father wished for... he didn’t know I guess. He had no plan for life and when his parentts died it was clear he had no idea what to do with his own child. All he knew was that his grandparents, whom Enji loved dearly, were awful people

Nor Enji, nor his mother had trust or confidence in his father and so, the man really let his self-esteem issues get into his head. He was unable to be “proper head of the family” and so he ended up lashing out on his wife and son to make them listen to him. It seemed like he hated both of them and sincerely regretted being married. Over time he spent less and less time home and when he was home he would only yell and beat them. Enji’s mother beared with all of that because she sincerely believed her role of a woman is to keep this family together. His father wasn’t that much on “keeping family together” part. Before Enji turned 10, they divorced and Enji too ack his mother’s name - Todoroki

Enji’s mother had no college degree and because of [insert reasons here] couldn’t go back to her parents. So she found a job as a waitress and rented a very small appartment in very poor neighbourhood. It was tough for her to suddenly lose everything. Enji, who previously was a “good kid”, began to act up, skipped school and was pretty shitty in general. That only added to her struggles, she picked up drinking and *drum rolls* lashed out on Enji too, though more often she would just physically punish him or verbally berate him, blaming him for her problems, saying he is “no good” and will grow up to be like his failure of a father

Most of the time she was either at work, drunk or with some man, so Enji tried to avoid being home as much as possible. He didn’t really fit in with the rest of the kid, he felt very awkward outside of “prestigious families” group, not knowing how to behave around more simple-minded people. He also might have despised them or himself. Overall, he lived the same fate any kid from that neighborhoud was living - eventually, many of them became villains, addicts or workers of low-prestige jobs. Such perspectives made Enji only more depressed

Being very prideful and very on his limit, one day he couldn’t stand his mother belitteling him and so he ran away... Actually I like making him bordeline suicidal at this point. Since his Mom was drunk all the time and used to him not being home, she took her time before starting to worry about his disappearance. When she did began to worry she didn’t knew what to do and so, she probably just was full on binge drinking

Meanwhile Enji wondered around cities, probably going to his father’s house and starring blankly into the door. Then he got wasted and was found by some dude whose job is searching for lost kids. He refused to say his name or anything about himself and since his Mom did not file a report no one knew he was missing. Maybe his school was worried though?...

All that stuff happened in April, by the way, the same month the UA Sport Festival was held. And the man who found him took him there (he had two spare tickets from his work or something). I think Enji thought about being a hero before because he was taught to admire strength but seeing them out there in living flesh really inspired him. I also think it would be hilarious if he met young All Might there

The man tried to convince Enji that he can do great stuff and running away from home is no good. He also tried to find out i he was abused at home but Enji was quiet as a fish - admitting to being hurt weak was worse than death to him

So ummm

Enji’s father came to pick him up. It turns out he saw him near the house so he got all worked up and contected da police

While they were driving to his mother’s place, Enji told his Dad about wanting to become a hero and study in UA. As true garbage parent, the latter laughed...

He also told about that idea to his mother and she was furious. Enji went away saying he will take a walk so they can have no worries. When he was back in the evening his parents were mmmhmmm [”oops, sweetheart, you usually go back from your “walks” in the morning, son”] so he decided to return in the morning lol

His Mom went to work, so he roasted his Dad... Figuratively. He reminded how he cheated with their maid and was awful in general. Hid Dad tried to have a talk with him, complimenting how mature he was for his age (never a good thing). Enji said “Well, someone has to be a head of this family” while looking down at him

His Dad also asked him why he want to be a hero

“Well... I have always admired strong people and wanted to be strong myself... And heroes, they are strong, right? They are strong and they save other people. That is noble. Wasn’t that what grandpa meant saying how we should freely use our quirks to do more good in this world?”

“Yeah, that exactly what he meant. You should... Defnitely use your quirk to do good”

Enji - shocked that his father is being supportive; Enji’s father - relieved that his son didn’t understand his grandfather’s ideas

And like that Enji began his road to being a Number One Hero of Japan... That was bumpy. He moved away from his mother, working as much as he could

His father die in some suicide car accident and so Enji inherited his house... His mother either refused to live with him there or had died already

Anyway, it was pretty lonely in such a huge house... He would wonder around aimlessly on his days off... which usually were the days he couldn’t work because he was recovering from injuries.

On one of such days he went to his granfather’s cabinet... Looking through the books, he found the one called “The genetis of quirks”. It seemed interesting

There were a lot of case studies for some reason. One described how individuals might inherit both their parents’ quirk if they had the “opposite” ones

Most intriguing

Looking around the cabinet more, he also found some weird photoalbum with lots of different people Enji had never met. One of photos was signed “Himura - family of ice quirks”

“Well, that must be fate”

/

/

/

/

I know that was a lot but believe me it could have been longer. I have maladaptive daydreaming problems

[whatwouldmindykdo]

I wrote a little something about coming to terms with my sexuality and thought I’d share it here...

For as long as I can remember I’ve dreamt of my wedding day. As soon as I was able to comprehend the concept of wedding and marriage it became my only goal, my ultimate achievement: I wanted, I needed to get married. This would make me successful and prove my worthiness. I would be happy forever. And so, for years, I’d spend hours imagining the magical day: the dress, of course, and its designer, the venue, the guests, the music, the menu, the bridal party, the decor. And of course, the groom. Because it was always a groom. However, I would find it extremely difficult to imagine him. I could think of qualities I would look for in a partner, but that was it. Looking back now, I think that, more than any of these things, what I dreamt of was being loved and being in love. I was just hoping to find the kind of unconditional love I grew up surrounded by. Not a person but a feeling. An ideal. 

I grew up in what you would probably call a liberal family. My parents are very open-minded, left-wing voters and I grew up having political debates at the dinner table. But it was always about tolerance. Every love is love, they would say. Everyone deserves to be happy, they would say.

This, however, was not true for them growing up. Both my parents grew up in working class families and worked their way into the middle class. As liberal as my parents are, their own parents were rather conservative in thought. 

My father’s parents had grown up on farms. Their own parents, my great-grandparents, lived a life I cannot even begin to comprehend. After the Second World War, as life was changing everywhere, and especially in the countryside, my grandparents left for the city (well, a city, not THE city) to work in factories. They were deeply religious and my father was raised a Catholic. However, he also enjoyed great freedom. He was free to come and go, almost as he wished, to play with his brother and friends. He was free not to work in school, drop out after middle school and go on to work with his father. Which he did, for a while, until he realized he didn’t want to do that his entire life. In other words, he was free to fail, and try again. Would it had been the same thing had he been a girl? We will never know, as he was one of two boys. 

My mother, on the other hand, was not. Her grandparents had been mining workers, as almost everyone in the area. Her own parents had been saved from this life, and pushed to look for work in other industries. They had married young and my mother was the eldest of two. Her parents were heavily involved in political and union movements, pushing for workers’ rights. This gave her an awareness of the political situation and an ideal of what is achievable when you work for it. My mother, however, is also a woman. And as such, her parents expected her to behave a certain way. 

She was expected to be the perfect little girl. Calm, pretty, smiling. Not to take too much space. Do well in school. Be polite. And so my mother tried her best to be this ideal girl. She excelled in school, practiced many sports, and took it upon herself to keep the family together and happy. She eventually went on to work and had to move out to another city, but always close to family as she was sharing an apartment with her aunt. When she found another job closer to her parents, she moved back home. Eventually, she met my father. They dated for a couple of years, but moving in together was unfathomable. Not before marriage. And that’s how my parents ended up married without having ever lived together, something I honestly find quite hard to imagine. Her brother, on the other hand, lived a life closer to my dad’s. He could not roam the streets or drop out of school but he did leave high school without graduating, moving out to work away and never looked back. He introduced many girlfriends to his parents before eventually having a child and getting married, in that order. 

My parents would probably tell you that they raised me and my brother the same way. That not more was expected of me. That I could do the exact same thing he did. And to some extent that is true. We were both expected to excel in school. To be polite and respectful. We were both told we could dream of being whoever we wanted to be. But what had been instilled to my mother was also, somehow, perhaps more sneakily, taught to me. I also had to be the perfect little girl, no excuses. The one that doesn’t move. The one that doesn’t scream or make a scene. The one that helps at home. As Michelle Cliff says in Notes on Speechlessness, ‘I am reminded that a great compliment of my childhood was: ‘she’s such a quiet girl’’.

Instead of rebelling against this system I made it mine: it was my way of taking up space. My way of being remarkable. I was expected to excel at school: I was top of the class. I was expected to be calm and discreet: I would literally never speak. Even today it takes a lot for me to be able to do things I know my parents disapprove. Because I have built myself through others’ approval, and then who am I once they don’t approve? 

What does that have to do with being a lesbian, you may wonder. See, I knew about lesbians. I knew about gays. It was not entirely unknown to me. I saw them on the news, we talked about them at home. But no one in my family was gay, lesbian or part of the LGBTQI+ community, at least not openly. That was not what we did. As much as my family rebelled against capitalistic society, we were expected to conform in certain areas, and this was one. We, as a family, are heterosexuals. And so I unconsciously associated being a good girl to being heterosexual. 

I don’t remember the first time I heard of the LGBTQI+ community, nor do I remember the first time I had a crush on a girl. I am quite sure she was my primary school best friend. I very clearly remember wondering whether I was in love with her or whether that was just how you felt for your best friend (hint: I kinda knew the answer). And so, little me moved on with life. Eventually the feeling wore out, and there was a very intense and dramatic fall out. But that was it, no more questions about my sexuality. Not until I was well into my teenage years, at least. When I made it to university I had began what I would call my transformative journey, learning extensively about feminism, inclusivity and human rights. I was passionate about these subjects and wanted to learn more, and more. I surrounded myself with people who were open-minded, teaching me about these very topics, and, for some of them, part of the LGBTQI+ community. At about this time I began identifying as pansexual or bisexual. I have never been really sure about this. There was no major coming out though. I just stated here and there that I thought love was about a person and their soul, not their gender. Even though I was identifying as pansexual / bisexual, the doubt never really left. I felt ill-at-ease with the identification. Maybe I’m not into labels, I’d think. Maybe. 

Deep down, I knew. I think I’d always known. I would get major crushes on women in films and TV shows. Maybe that’s just identification. I could hardly imagine being in a relationship with a man. Maybe I just haven’t met THE one. I would feel uncomfortable whenever a man flirted with me. Maybe I’m just not into him. 

I just couldn’t imagine being a lesbian. And that’s not to say that I could fathom the very existence of lesbians. I knew they existed, I had a friend as they say. I truly believed that all love is love. What I couldn’t accept was that I was a lesbian. How could I not like men? Good girls like men. Good girls are straight. Good girls get married TO A MAN, and have children WITH A MAN. No way. I must be pansexual. Or bisexual. Not lesbian. 

Funnily enough, the pandemic was a big transitional time for me. I was able to truly connect with myself. Away from the world and the mundanities of everyday life, focusing on what really matters for the first time, I came to a realization. I do not like men. I do not find pleasure in imagining a relationship with a man. This realization was validated by experience. I signed up on a dating app (what??? I know, don’t judge). My immediate reaction was to set up my preferences to women  only (that should have been another hint right?!). However, almost immediately I changed those preferences to everyone (men and women). Why? Because, I thought, by excluding men I might miss out on the one (he’s always somewhere). What if I miss on the opportunity of happily ever after because I renounce to dating half of humanity? And oh boy did I regret that. I was instantly contacted by half the male population of my surroundings (the joys of being on a dating app) and it really felt like it was not for me. I was feeling miserable rather than happy, anxious rather than excited. I switched back to women only and I have felt safer and more myself ever since. 

I guess you could say that I have been feeling rather at peace with who I am. I have come out to a few (selected) friends, in the least dramatic way possible (well, they also are the least dramatic women I know). There remains the question, however, of coming out to family. Because although I have come to term with being a lesbian, I am still scared AF when it comes to coming out to my family and the main reason is: what if I am not lesbian after all (eye roll emoji)? The real reason, though, is that I know that as open-minded as my parents are, a coming out also means a period of adaptation, of understanding what it means exactly. And for someone like me who hates both confrontation and disappointing this feels like a big deal. Selfishly, I wish someone had been there before in my family. That I would not be the first. The trailblazer. The odd one out. The lesbian aunt. But then, I think of my little cousins. And how I could be that person for them. If I allow myself past the fear. 

Thing is, I also truly believe that I will not be able to be fully happy until I come out. I will not be truly happy until I can be who I am fully, knowing that the people who accept it are the ones who love me, for real. But what if that means losing my grandfather? What if it means that people will literally never stop talking about it? 

As much as I have talked about the hardships of coming out and coming to terms with my sexuality, I will also mention that coming to terms with this reality has been a huge relief. It has opened me to a world where love and inclusion are legion. A world where you are accepted for who you truly are. It has given me role models, values and a political awareness that I probably would not have had otherwise. In other words, being lesbian is a blessing because it is who I am, fully. And when I get to be this person, I can finally start to breathe. I can finally start to live. 

My problem lies with mainstream culture and the way it portrays lesbian relationships. I have grown up with the ability of seeing gay couples loving each other, hating each other, flirting, breaking up. Mainstream media and popular culture have very much romanticized gay relationships. What of lesbian relationships then? The reality is completely different. And how could it not be when Instagram still censored the ‘lesbians’ hashtag two weeks ago? When we only have The L Word as a reference? Where on TV and in films have lesbians been given the space and time to actually develop a relationship except in that show? And I’m not even talking about the perfect, happy relationship. Just any relationship. More than 3 minutes of screen time. You’ll have to agree that this is rather recent. 

How different would my life have been if I had seen lesbian couples on TV? How different would my life have been if people had not shied away from lesbian relationships? It is time for pop culture to be inclusive of our people. Little girls need this representation. They need to know that this kind of love exists, is normal, and brings fulfillment. I wish this had been my reality so that I wouldn’t have been mad when Casey from Atypical dumps her boyfriend to explore her relationship with Izzie. Because then perhaps I wouldn’t have been mad at her for doing that. I wouldn’t have been mad at Izzie for being honest. Because that is how deeply rooted my fear of being a lesbian was: I was mad at these two women for having the courage to explore their feelings and be true to themselves, when Casey could have had the perfect ending with Evan. And that is not ok. I need to let go of the idea that the perfect life means being in a heterosexual relationship. Because I know that this is not for me. This will not bring me fulfillment. 

[fullregalia]

quar on the floor.

I wrote this last year for my friend’s website--reposting here because I am so excited for season three. 

A few years ago, I was using someone else’s HBO password, streaming on borrowed time. I had exhausted my appetite for the platform’s comedic offerings of Veep, Curb, and Silicon Valley—stories of narcissists and egomaniacs in DC, LA, and SF—when I started to hear about a show called Succession. Created by Jesse Armstrong (a former writer in Veep creator Armando Iannucci’s room for The Thick of It), the show is ostensibly about the machinations of the Murdoch-inspired Roy family to retain their conglomerate’s dominance in media’s evolving landscape, and the infighting that arises from the children jockeying for patriarch Logan’s love, approval, and, most importantly, title. Think Arrested Development meets a Shakespearean tragedy. It is a story of narcissists and egomaniacs in NYC. The Roys and their courtiers are mean, extravagant, brash, and delusional—stereotypically obnoxious 0.01%-ers, that is—characters who do nothing to earn neither your affection nor trust, yet somehow that hasn’t stopped me from loving this show and the messy family at the center of it. 

Succession is a rich text. One could write numerous essays on what makes this show something to appreciate: its liberal use of “fuck off” while having practically zero on-screen sex, its clever signaling through nouveau riche clothing, its wry sendup of the Bancroft family (former family owners of the Wall Street Journal) as WASP-y hypocrites, its glee at lampooning the media industry, its theme song that is, canonically, the most important song of all time, its penchant for scenes at a formal dining table, its shrewd depiction of the ways capital exploits labor, its ability to make you fully dissociate when a grown man cringe raps about his dad.

Eventually, my erstwhile HBO password was changed, and finally I caved: I couldn’t live without on-demand access to this family’s particular brand of garbage-language trauma bonding. Revisiting it during quarantine became an escape and a balm. Look at these horrible people, gallivanting across the globe, carefree thanks to deep pockets and complete disregard for anyone but themselves! Am I talking about lockdown rule-breakers, our last administration, or the Roys? Who can tell! While our lives have become myopic in scope—a routine of bed, desk, kitchen, desk, bed for most—we can still live vicariously through this “viper’s nest” of a family that find themselves not only being out and about in the world, but also shaping it. A family whose primary concerns include fretting over cold butter at gala dinners (“The butter’s all fucked! You fuckwads, there’s dinner rolls out there ripping as we speak!”) and complaining about syphilitic rivals at thought leadership convenings (“You don’t hear much about syphilis these days… very much the MySpace of STDs”).

Instead of, I don’t know, traveling to see my family in England this past summer, I got to watch Roman and Shiv have an excruciating dinner of pigeon—watch out for the shot!—with their horrible mother in London. Instead of finding a new apartment after grad school, I moved back home, but I watched cousin Greg jump for joy in his new Soho loft, a gift from Kendall because “developers overestimated demand, so I bought all five units.” Instead of dinner parties with friends, I got to watch the world’s most sentient puffer vest Tom Wambsgans get humiliated by his wife and brother-in-law for wearing suits that make him “look like a divorce attorney from the Twin Cities,” a trait exacerbated by his “agricultural walk.”

In the second season the audience, ensconced in the warm embrace of Loro Piana knits and lulled by crass familial scheming, is reminded that cruelty has consequences. Logan’s paranoia leads to a humiliating round of “boar on the floor” during an executive retreat, and a plotline regarding a coverup of corporate malfeasance in the cruise division comes to a crescendo. (Cruises, the canary in the coal mine of this pandemic, seem to be good vehicles for Problematic Moments in general.) It is revealed that internally, Waystar Royco executives would refer to the victims of one executive’s lascivious (and, in fact, criminal) behavior as “NRPI”—no real person involved. Despite living in the rarified air where the hoi polloi are disposable, the rot is exposed. A piece of shit covered in cashmere is still essentially a piece of shit.

Season two ended four months before the pandemic began, and returning to it felt timely. Throughout this fuzzy, uncertain year, I’ve indulged in bad habits to numb existential dread: I can have two cookies for breakfast, as a treat. The Roys can have a little megayacht R&R, as a treat. To really grapple with the collateral damage of COVID and derelict leadership is devastating. Feeling powerless, locked down, and waiting for stimulus checks, one gets the revolutionary urge. In lieu of liberté and égalité, I eat cake and revel in the Roy’s twisted fraternité.

In those uncanny ways that life imitates art, I found myself working on contract for an international media conglomerate, one that is not unlike Waystar Royco, during the pandemic. There are indeed cheerful brand videos that tout inclusivity, boldly progressive values that encourage treating women as equals, and all-staff emails congratulating everybody on their hard work for “delivering highest quarterly EBITDA” and “record-breaking revenue year-over-year” (productivity in a pandemic, boy, I don’t know….). All these people, myself included, get paid ok-to-decent wages to put a human face on a corporation with the sole purpose of churning out content on market data and celebrity gossip. 99% of the company completely divorced from the handful of executives that get to make Important Decisions. Complicity creeps up on you that way, stuck on your couch finding yourself in a land where the border between disdain and aspiration is blurred. Not having an office to commute to or colleagues to complain with, I must be getting some sort of vicarious thrill from watching the Roy clan et. al. infight behind the glass walls of corner offices and bicker over the dull roar of a cocktail party. If this is the price of admission, maybe it’s fine I can’t afford it.

Perhaps that’s why I keep returning to this wretched family, enjoying its chaos and laughing at its bond so acerbic it can only charitably be called affection. Perhaps, in bingeing Succession intermittently, I am absolving myself of the frustration I feel for my inability to hold power to account, or my lack of tangible accomplishment. For what these sociopaths have in money and influence, they lack in emotional intelligence and a moral compass. After all, who really gets hurt when I delight in the tragedy and farce that is the Roy family’s saga? When it comes to the fate of the Waystar Royco empire, there are no real people involved.

[asianartsblog]

LEK BORJA RENEWS FILIPINO HISTORY THROUGH ART

BY PRECIOUS RINGOR

Asian Pasifika Arts Collective New Outlooks Blog

April 2, 2021

http://ow.ly/fEby50FlQWZ

Editor’s Note: Precious Ringor brings us a second artist profile, this time of Filipino American interdisciplinary artist and poet Lek Borja, whose work is an attempt to track the continuous colonization across time, first within the Philippines from Spain and the United States, through present day America and trying to give voice to Filipino life against a white hegemony. Precious displays how Lek crosses borders of cultural stereotypes, seeking to expand the visions placed on Filipinos by other oppressive powers, and inserting her culture in art spaces where they are new and unfamiliar, but for the community, reminders of home.

Header Image: “Heritage at the Threshold” by Timothy Singratsomboune | Digital photography collage, 5400 x 4050 px, 2021.

Getting to know someone virtually is one of the sad realities we’ve had to face because of COVID-19 regulations. It’s both a blessing and a curse—we’ve become a global village, but at the same time we’ve all had more eye and back problems from sitting around and zooming this past year. 

A zoom call and an hour was all I had to get to know Lek Vercauteren Borja, a Filipino American interdisciplinary artist and poet widely known for her thought-provoking work into the Asian diaspora. Chatting with Lek didn’t feel like a job though; time flies fast when you’re having fun.

One of the things I noted was Lek’s warm and friendly nature. Most of the time, it’s uncommon for an interviewee to ask questions about the interviewer. Lek unabashedly admitted that she did a bit of ‘stalking’ before we hopped on Zoom, “I like to know about the person I’m talking with, even before the interview starts.” 

Lek started in poetry. Armed with a love for Shakespeare, she pursued a dual concentration in Art and Creative Writing at Antioch University. It was there that she first fell in love with art history and sculpture. During that time, her first chapbook, Android, was published by Plan B Press. She took this as a sign to continue pursuing a career in arts. 

As an artist, she admits that’s where she gets inspiration from, “I want to talk about the history of Filipinos, the invisible stories. Growing up in the Philippines and studying there, I realized there was a lot missing in our history books. It seemed as if it were written from a western perspective.” She reminded me so much of the Philippines, of home. Because of our similar upbringing, I immediately understood her search for truth.

The themes of home and longing, of memory and the present, and of giving Filipino lives new voices, carry across her work, and no more palpably than her piece Evolution of the Aswang Myth, what she calls “seed and the origin” to all her current works. Lek says “Without it, I wouldn’t be thinking about art, the way I’m making now.” This 8 x 8 feet painting explores the origins of the aswang or manananggal, a Filipino mythical creature typically depicted as a woman feared for its penchant for eating infants and unborn fetuses during the night. Interestingly, the aswang was also a word ascribed to the Filipina women who went against the forced religious conversion by Spanish friars during their colonization of the Philippines. 

March 2021 marked 500 years since Spanish ships first arrived on the shores of the Philippines. 

Since then, our country fought hard for liberation, first from Spain and then from the United States of America. In retrospect, it hasn’t been long since the Philippines became an independent nation. Today, we are striving to find our voice amidst the imperialistic erasure we’ve endured.

As Lek puts it, “What propelled me to tell these stories is the feeling that I had no voice. For one, I didn’t speak English well so I couldn’t really talk about what I was going through or how I felt. That’s why a lot of my work now focuses on bringing my experiences of living in the Philippines at the forefront and seeing how that’s connected to bigger conversations and narratives around us.” 

Currently, Lek’s work called Anak (My Child) is being featured in the gallery at Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center. 

View Anak (My Child) Exhibit: https://towson.edu/anak

Besides online exhibitions and virtual galleries, Lek is also conducting several workshops in Baltimore’s upcoming Asia North Festival. These workshops are a good model for Lek’s philosophy in making art out of personal histories. Whether it’s experiences of displacement or change, she points out that everyone’s story matters and there will always be a community of people who can empathize with that.   

“I think it’s really important for our stories to be brought to light in the larger narrative. They think by calling us model minority, our problems can easily be brushed aside” I lamented the steady rise of xenophobic crimes these past few months.  

“I agree, it’s a really complex issue” Lek adds, “Why are we so silent? Why do we stand in the shadows? I’ll probably look for an answer my entire life. It’s hard to talk about our struggles and it’s not easy to have conversations about the past. There’s a culture of silence that’s been normalized and it’s perpetuated even in our own homes. But that’s part of the work I do, bringing everything from the past into the forefront so we can have deeper conversations about it.” 

Speaking of the past, Lek’s introduction to the arts started in Tarlac, a city located north of the Philippines. Besides being known as the most multicultural province, the city is home to numerous sugar and rice plantations. “The population of our barrio was probably less than 1,000. Our family had a farm as well as a sugar-cane and rice field plantation. My inang [grandmother] also worked in the market as a butcher. It was a pretty simple country lifestyle but my childhood was amazing.” 

Life in the country has been instrumental to Lek’s artistry. “The memory of the landscape and of the community is an extension of my art,” Lek explains. As a young girl, her biggest inspiration comes from her grandfather who, like herself, was also an artist. Lek would copy his drawings and eventually create drawings of her own. Recently, Lek has started to incorporate banana leaves into her work. Banana leaves are incredibly important to Filipino culture as it is used for cooking and traditional homebuilding. 

“Sounds like you had to find your own path, coming here at such a young age and experiencing culture shock. America is very different from the Philippines!” I quipped.

“It was snowing where I first came here!” she exclaimed, thinking back to her initial introduction of America. “It was November when we landed in New York, it was freezing. I remember our families bundling us in huge warm winter coats before wecould even say hello. It was definitely a huge shock.”

I laugh, thinking back to when I first arrived in California ten years ago. Silly to think I was already freezing in sunny temperatures when she had to endure piles of snow. “Do you think you’ve had to change yourself in order to adjust to that culture shock?” 

“For a long time I really didn’t know who I was,” Lek admits. “When I was younger, the school I went to was predominantly white. What I thought about how I should present myself came from that image. I dyed my hair blond and put on blue colored contacts to fit in. It was a lot of assimilation and cultural erasure. I started talking less Tagalog and less Ilocano. But art has really helped me find myself. It made me think more deeply about who I really was and what was important to me on an authentic level.” 

Halfway through our conversation, we slowly realized just how similar we were. From migrating at the age of ten to living twenty miles apart in the same city. It was also in chatting that Lek found out I spoke Tagalog fluently, one thing she regrets losing unexpectedly. As it is my first language, Lek asked me to speak it instead. Once again, her warm nature bled through the Zoom interview; I found it refreshing since hardly anyone thinks about the interviewer’s comfort. 

Unsurprisingly, community building is important to Lek. Before working, she likes to ask herself the following questions, ‘How is what I’m doing connected to my family and everyone in the Filipino community? How can I better serve my community?’ One of the main reasons she moved to L.A. is to network with other Filipino artists. 

“A few years ago, I showed my art alongside a group of all Filipino artists at Avenue 50 Studio gallery for an exhibition that Nica Aquino and Anna Calubayan organized (also both Filipinas). It’s crazy because I’ve lived in and out [of L.A.] for over 10 years now and it was only in 2019 that I started to be part of that community. It’s probably the most fun I've had at an art show, I really felt at home.” 

“I’d love to visit the studio’s galleries once it’s safer to go outside” 

“Definitely! I’ll keep you updated on any gatherings” Lek pitched excitedly.

“And I'll bring you guys homemade ube cakes and puto pao!” I teasingly replied back.

As our call came to a close I couldn’t help but ask Lek if she had any advice to give to budding AAPI artists. 

“I’ll echo what people who have supported me have said in the past: trust yourself and trust that you can make a difference. It’s hard to figure out who you want to be when [the world] has expectations and demands from you. We’re lucky to live in a time where there’s so many possibilities. Figure out what you want to do authentically and genuinely, and go for it.” 

Lek continues on, “Personally, it took me a long time to find my voice. When I was in grad school, I had a lot of doubt in myself because most visiting artists and curators couldn’t understand my work. What made it all worth it were the moments that people got [my voice] right away.”  

Getting to know Lek and learning about her commitment to showcasing invisible stories has been awe-inspiring; it made me proud to be a Filipino American artist. And in the wake of our hurting AAPI community, I believe it’s incredibly important, now more than ever, to highlight and support works of people like Lek. People who have had to fight for their voice in this world, who our youth could look up to and be inspired to become. 

About the Author:

Precious Ringor is a Filipino-American singer/actress/writer residing in Los Angeles, CA. Ringor graduated from Cal State University, Fullerton with a degree in Human Communication Studies where her research is geared towards Asian American socio-cultural communication norms. Besides performing in various theatre shows and indie film sets, Ringor also works as a content contributor to Film Fest Magazine and Outspoken

[queerchoicesblog]

Living The Dream

So, folks: as announced, here the first chapter of a new story for the wlw writing project I embarked on. This one is set in the Sixties, the golden age of travel, and our main character is a Pan Am stewardess, one of the era’s most stylish job. I had fun writing this and I can only hope you will have too reading this!

Hope you enjoy it: if you do, please consider spreading the word! 

__________________________

I like this time of the day. The in-between hours separating one day from another, the slow yet inexorable metamorphosis of night into dawn. Life seems to flow differently during these hours as if our bodies, used to be heavenly asleep when night comes, were forced to adapt to a new rhythm: sometimes it works, sometimes it's simply a poor mimicry of ourselves. The craziest scene happen during night shifts, after all, and I'm sure it's no coincidence. I'm not always lucky to be present to myself in moments like these. Most of the times I'm too busy to pay attention to the wonders of these dreamlike hours. I blow out the smoke of my cigarette: for once, I can. Sitting at a table on the cafe terrace, I look down to the stream of passengers moving beneath me. They wander like in a haze trying to make out the right direction to go. They're tired, jet-lagged: a kid is crying his heart out in the arms of his mother, causing a businessman nearby to sneer and speed up his pace to avoid such nuisance. A man is anxious, out of the blue he starts running probably cursing the little delay that slowed him: will he catch his flight? A group of foreigners is checking and double checking a map, someone is sleeping on a bench and a little girl is looking out into the night sky hypnotised by the tail lights of a plane flying away.

I like airports, their peculiar poetry. It's quite lucky since you could say they're my home. I still struggle to fully convince myself that yes, my dream did come true. Some nights I fear I'd wake up one day and find out it was all just that, a wild feverish dream, not my reality. Luckily, that day never comes. Mom and Dad fry eggs and bacon in a diner not far from Kansas City; my brother and I will always remember how tired they looked when they crawled back home but also how big their smile was when they produced a box of fries or a couple of milkshakes just for us. We both helped during the summer, wearing aprons and serving tables. They let us keep the tips and we spent them all in ice-creams and movies. Now I'm sure no costumer leaves without being told - maybe more than once and with great pride - that their daughter is now a stewardess of the Pan American World Airways. I still remember the day I received the good news: Mom cried tears of joy and even Noah dropped his tough act and pulled me into a tight hug, whispering how happy he was for me. My sweet little brother. Now at my parents' diner a picture is hung at the wall side by side with a framed stellar review by a local newspaper: Noah and I hugging each other and smiling to the camera in our favorite booth by the window. I'm wearing my dashing Pan Am uniform, he's in a brand new US marine attire. He was drafted one week after John F. Kennedy was shot, the picture was taken on our last family reunion around Christmas. Noah wasn't happy to go to war, he was scared. "I wish I could join you to New York and find a job in advertising maybe" he frowned when my parents were sleeping and we sneaked away to the back porch as we used to do as kids. Noah was good at drawing, the creative type. God knows how I would have loved to have him around, to keep me grounded and remind me of the reassuring warmth of sibling affection. To keep him safe. I moved to New York right after I got the job; Noah was still in high school back then, I had to go alone. They all promised to visit as soon as they could when we parted at the airport. And that's when my new life started. I was on my own in the big city, breathing in the wind of change. I wonder if that's how every girl feels when they leave their boring provincial town behind and make it big. I moved into a small flat downtown: not much, but big enough to contain all my hopes and dreams. The training supervisors were particularly strict and took so very seriously their duty to asses whether we were stewardess material or a lost cause. First, a medical evaluation then a grumpy lady would weigh us and fix our girdles: I wondered if I would have been able to breathe normally on a plane and I was not the only one by the look on the other girls' faces. The interminable daily classes on how to strip our face clean of makeup and start from scratch still haunts me just like the day I was told my hair weren't okay, an in-between length that didn't impress the ladies in charge: I had to choose between wearing a chignon or a wig. No way I would have gone for the latter! Our appearance had to conform to a certain code and I soon learned there are so many requirements to meet to be eye candy. But it wasn't all about our exterior, even if we were often reminded that our aim was to look runaway ready. The Pan Am stewardesses must have that savour faire that makes them unique, legendary. So aside from the standard training (what to say on board, what to do in case of emergency, first aid classes) I had to learn how to pour wine with that special twist of the wrist and pop champagne open without it exploding as well as how to cook and elegantly garnish certain menu dishes in no space. And I assure you, the standard for scrambled eggs in first class were so different from everything I had learnt at my parents' diner, even if the time I spent there gave me a head start. Once I completed my training, my career finally began. I was assigned to Us bi-coastal routes for the time being but I felt different already. People looked at me differently, especially when I walked through the Pan Am terminal in white gloves and my uniform designed by Italian stylists. The gleam of admiration and wonder in their eyes set my heart on fire: aside from my parents and Noah, nobody had ever looked at me that way before, not even my best friend. I take a sip of coffee and smile thinking back at my beginnings. Despite the hard work, I was constantly in a dreamy state of mind. A Pan Am stewardess made it to the cover of LIFE that year, I still have a copy of it. The journalist enthusiastically claimed that girls like me were not only icons of beauty and grace but also the peak of the femininity to come. "See these ladies? They're not just stewardesses, they're a whole new breed of women". I must admit that to some extent we are: we're so different from our mothers and the Angels of the hearth of the lady magazines. We wear heels and fine makeup, we speak several languages and see the world. We're emancipated and sophisticated: we are women of the world. My face didn't make it to LIFE but little girls and teens stop me and ask me tips, how can they be as elegant, as put together, what they have to do to land this job. They want to live the same dream. A little girl of five once asked if she could take a picture with me. I had some time left so I squatted down and placed my bowler hat on her head making her flash the brightest smile to the camera her father was holding. Before parting she handed me my hat and looked me right in the eye, whispering in awe "I wanna be like you when I grow up". And then she wrapped her arms around my neck in a grateful hug. I told the cute scene to my mother over the phone: she sounded touched and joked that she didn't know her daughter ended up being a starlet of the silver screen. "Remember us when you're famous, love" Dad added from another room. I missed them, I still do at times. But I would never go back: for the first time in my life I found a place where I truly belong here in New York. I met friends that could understand my hunger for more, to discover the world. I love the parks and lights at night, the buzz of the city that never sleeps. Most importantly, I love my job, even when I'm so busy all I do is hopping on and off planes, going back home, sleeping eating my breakfast and doing it all over again. No matter how hard I need to push myself to meet the Pan Am standards, I've always felt liberated, free here. As if this was what was meant to be, where I was meant to be all along. The day a gorgeous neighbor knocked at my door with a plate of freshly baked cookies and a charming, flirtatious smile on her lips, I had no more doubt. Here is where I was meant to be.

[noona-la-la-la]

Conditioned (Part 7)

Tae knows that if things are ever going to move forward between the two of you, he is going to have to take some initiative.  But he promises, he’s not trying to be your boyfriend.

Warnings: 14500 words.  Sex stuff - but you’ll have to read to find out what kind.  Nothing that sensitive folks need to worry too much about.  Also, snobby people being snobby. 

It’s long - so if you can’t get it to load on the app, please try reading it using a web browser.  

Chapter 1  2  3  4  5  6  7

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“Where is Jimin tonight, anyways?”  Jin grabbed a fistfull of peanuts from the bowl sitting on the bar.  “Wasn’t it his idea to meet for afterwork drinks?  How come he isn’t here?”

Tae shrugged.  “He said he had a date with one of his ‘friends-with-benefits’ that came up unexpectedly.”

“That’s just so wrong.  Since when does Jimin ditch his boys to chase some tail?”  Jin rolled his eyes.

“Go easy on him.  He’s going through a mid-life crisis or something right now.  He’s on some kick about sexual liberation or whatever.  I think he got dumped one too many times and now he’s trying to build a sex harem or something like that.”

“Jimin?  Mr. Love-At-First-Sight, Park Jimin?  Hmmm… we’ll see how long this lasts, I guess.”   Jin motioned to the bartender to bring him another beer before continuing, “At least Jimin is trying to do something with his love life, unlike some people I know.”

“Is that supposed to be directed at me?  What’s wrong with my love life?”

“When was the last time you had a girlfriend?”

“So?  I know it’s been a while, but I’m just holding out for the right girl.  Besides, it’s not like I never go out.  I’ve got… you know… people of interest… or whatever.”  Tae took a big swig of his beer, unsure of what he was even saying.  

“Ah!  Right!  That date who sent you home early and alone the other week!  How’s that going?” Jin teased.

Tae didn’t appreciate the sarcastic tone.  “If you must know, we had a second date a few days ago.  At her place, no less.”

“Did you have sex?”

“Excuse me?  What does that matter?”  Tae feigned insult, but instantly started remembering the taste of you on his tongue, your mouth pressed against his most private areas, your fingers exploring parts of him he’d never even considered letting anyone explore before.  

“Dude!  Are your ears turning red?  What exactly went on during this date?!”  Jin swiveled on his bar stool to fully face Tae.

“It’s nothing.  We fooled around a bit after dinner. That’s all.”

“Bullshit.  You’ve ‘fooled around’ with plenty of women and I’ve never once seen you blush when talking about it.  Holy shit!  You like this woman, don’t you?!”

“Of course I like her.  I wouldn’t be spending time with her if I didn’t enjoy her company, you know.”  Tae went to take another swig of his beer only to find the bottle empty.

“You know what I meant.  You LIKE like her.  Maybe you even loooooove her,” Jin teased Tae, punctuating the word love with a sing-song voice and exaggerated kissing noises.  “So who is she?  Didn’t you say she was someone you used to know from the past or something?  How do you know her?  What’s her name?”

Tae immediately regretted his decision to mention you at all.  “Where is the bartender?  I need another beer.”  Tae turned away from Jin, looking down the length of the bar for the missing bartender.  “They always do this when happy hour prices are about to expire.  I bet you anything that guy will reappear one minute after the half price beer special is over.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not.”   Except, he was trying to change the subject.  Any mention to Jin that Tae was seeing you would immediately get relayed back to Jin’s girlfriend, Youngsook.  And once Youngsook knew, there was no telling what she would say or do next, but it most certainly wouldn’t work out in Tae’s favor.  “Look, everything is still very much in the early stages.  I don’t even know if this girl likes me that much yet, so I don’t want to jinx things by talking about it right now.  Okay?”

“Since when were you superstitious?  Jinxing?  C’mon!”  Jin was dismissive.

Tae turned back to Jin, lips tight and brow furrowed.  “I’m serious.”

Shrugging his shoulders, Jin gave up and changed the subject.  “Speaking of superstitious people, Youngsookie went to see a fortune teller who told her that the reason she isn’t married yet is because her name is unlucky and she needs to change it to something more youthful and attractive to marrying age men. Can you believe that bullshit?”

“Well, Youngsook is kinda an old fashioned name…”

“Don’t encourage this behavior.  This fortune teller is full of shit and Youngsook knows it.  She is doing this to try to pressure me into proposing.”

“And you don’t want to marry Youngsook?”

“Of course I want to marry her. Why wouldn’t I want to marry her.  We’re in love and I plan on spending the rest of my life with her.  I just don’t like being pressured into things.  She’s playing games with this fortune teller thing.”

“It sounds like you are both playing games,” Tae advised.

“Psssh.  I’m not taking love advice from a guy with a secret girlfriend.”

=============================================================

When happy hour was over, Jin abandoned Tae to go visit Youngsook, leaving Tae to take a taxi home by himself.  The driver hummed along to the songs playing on the radio while Tae settled back in his seat and watched the city go by.  While stopped at a light, he focused on a young couple holding hands as they crossed the street.  It had been a while since he had felt that type of casual intimacy with someone.

The back seat of the taxi was warm and comfortable; for some reason it reminded him of the sofa in your apartment.  Tae closed his eyes and remembered sitting in your living room a few nights ago, the apartment dark except for the flickering lights from your television, his arm outstretched across the back of the sofa, your head lying heavily against his chest, the sound of your breathing soft and steady.  He could vividly remember every detail of that moment.  

He could also remember the crushing disappointment when you finally awoke and apologized for falling asleep and escorted him to your door with a promise that the two of you would meet again soon.  But when would soon be?

“This is ridiculous,” Tae muttered to himself.  “If you want to see her, then you’ve got to be the one to make this happen.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed…

“Hi Tae.  What’s up?”  Your voice was breathy and you sounded tired.

“Hi.  I was just on my way home and was thinking about you.  Wondered what you’re up to and how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine.  It was a long day today and I’m feeling exhausted.  Thinking about turning in early to sleep.  I signed up for this fitness boot camp and today was the first session at 5:30 a.m.  It’s only 4 weeks long, but I’m not sure I’ll survive it.  I’m just looking forward to crawling into bed.”

“Ah.  Well, I won’t keep you then.  I was just wondering if you might be interested in getting together and doing something Friday night.  You’re not working the late shift that night are you?”  

“I actually have plans Friday night.”

“Oh.”  Tae had drunk just enough beers at the bar to give him the confidence to call you and ask you out, but not quite enough to know what to do with rejection.  After an awkward silence, he continued, “What are you going to be doing?”  

“Um… I’m going to a party.”

“Oh?  That’s nice.  Who’s throwing the party?  Is it like a birthday or something?”

“Maybe party isn’t exactly the right thing to call it.  It’s more like I have been invited to a gathering of like minded people.”

“Like minded?”

“Yeah.  I met a guy who belongs to a… um… social group that he thought I might enjoy belonging to.  We have similar interests.”

“What kind of interests?”

You ignored the question.  “What was it that you wanted us to do on Friday?  Maybe we can do it on another day.”

Tae took the hint.   “Honestly, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.  Friday just seemed like a good day to do… something.  I was just looking forward to seeing you sometime soon.  No expectations or anything… you know… just… I enjoy spending time with you.”  God - he sounded like a kid when he said things like that.

“Unfortunately, I work to store closing on Saturday and opening on Sunday, so the rest of my weekend is kinda shot.  However, there is this thing happening next Friday night that I was thinking about calling you for.”

“Oh?”  Tae sat upright. 

You cleared your throat and sighed.  “This is a bit embarrassing, so please don’t laugh at me.  I can’t believe I got myself into this predicament and it’s totally not like me.”

“Now I’m really curious.  What’s going on?”

“I’ve been taking painting classes at this art center.  It’s actually not that far from where you live.  They have guest artists come in and show different techniques and it’s run by this guy who is a professor of art at Seoul University and I’ve always been kinda weak with water colors, so I thought it would be a good way to get back into art, build up my skills, maybe meet other people interested in painting, and stuff like that.”

“I think it’s great that you are getting more into your painting.  You’ve got real talent.”

“That’s sweet of you to say that -- but there’s more to this story.  So, all the other people in this class… I can’t stand them.  The class is fine.  The professor is very skilled.  But the other students?  My god!  It’s all wealthy wives and daughters of the Seoul elite.  I don’t think a single one of them actually cares about art.  Not really.  They are just there to figure out how to paint something in colors that will match their sofa cushions.  And you should hear the conversations between them, it’s all so vapid and dull.  It’s all about where their husbands are taking the family on vacation or what their boyfriends bought for them.  Or worse!  They gossip about all the women they know whose marriages aren’t successful or they tut about some poor girl who can’t keep a boyfriend.  Their self righteous pitying of others really gets to me.”  You were getting breathless recalling them.

“That sounds really annoying.  I can’t imagine women like that knew what to do with someone like you.  So what does this all have to do with next Friday?”

You took a deep breath before rushing through your explanation.  “The classes are over, but the art center does this pseudo art gallery opening type thing where they hang all the students artwork, and their family or whoever can come and see, and it’s like a reception and there are apparently prizes for the best pieces or something, and I think they serve food and drink, and I was thinking about not going because I don’t have any family, but it seems a shame to not see this thing through to the end, and I thought maybe you would be willing to come so I didn’t look entirely friendless.”  

“Of course I’ll come.  It sounds fun.”  Tae was certain he could feel his heart starting to swell at the thought that you wanted him to come to something so personal to you.

“You really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to or you are busy.  It’s just a student show.  Most of the stuff there is going to be crap.”

“No, really.  I want to.  I’m interested to see what you’ve created.”

“You might want to withhold your agreement to come until you’ve heard the rest.”

“There’s more?”

“Yeah.  I didn’t even get to the embarrassing part yet.”

“What’s the embarrassing part?”  Tae couldn’t even imagine what someone like you might find embarrassing.  You seemed impervious to the opinions of others.

“I just didn’t want drama or pity or really to even deal with those women in my class, so I may not have been completely honest with them.  I might have told them a little lie.”

“What kind of lie?”

“That I had a boyfriend.”

“Oh.”  

“And that my boyfriend’s name is Tae.”

“Oh?”  For a brief moment Tae wondered if he heard you wrong.

“I know.  I know!  What was I thinking?  I almost never give a fuck what anyone thinks of me, but something about these women just really got to me.  They remind me of my mother and sister, to tell you the truth.  I think I just automatically went into survival mode and… ugh.  I’m not this kind of person.  Really.  It’s just that if you show up, they are going to assume you are my boyfriend and I don’t want to put you on the spot like that.”

Stunned into silence, Tae’s mind started to spin.  It was hard enough to imagine someone like you, who was so fiercely independent and indifferent to the opinions of others, had somehow been cowed into pretending to be someone you weren’t just to impress people you barely knew.  But the fact that you had chosen his name for your make-believe boyfriend must mean something?  Didn’t it?  At least he hoped it meant something.

The lingering silence on the phone prompted you to continue talking.  “You know what?  Forget it.  I’m sorry I even mentioned it.  I’m not going to this stupid thing.  I was being silly and…”

“But I want to go!”  Tae interjected.

“No.  It’s not right to do this to you.  We’re friends and asking you to pretend to be my boyfriend just to keep up some stupid lie I told is too much.  I’m embarrassed I even asked you.”

“I said I want to go!  I was looking forward to spending some time with you anyways, I’m very interested in seeing your artwork, I’m kinda curious to see these women who got you flustered enough to lie like this, and I… um… you know… stuff like that.”  He swallowed  back the urge to also say he would like nothing more than to have you as his girlfriend for an evening, even if it was only pretend.

=============================================================

Friday finally came.

Tae had spent the previous week getting a haircut, a manicure, and buying a fancy designer suit.  He had spent more money on this suit than he had on any piece of clothing in his life, but he recalled how you said that your classmates were all members of Seoul’s elite class and he wanted to look like he fit in.  Even if he was only going to be a fake boyfriend, he wanted to make sure you weren’t embarrassed to be seen with him.

The art center was only a couple subway stops away from his apartment, in a nondescript office building.  Tae had walked past this building many times before, giving no thought to what might be housed behind the beige concrete walls.

Taking the elevator to the top floor, Tae tried to calm his nerves.  He was always a little nervous to see you, never knowing what the night would have in store.  He had texted you a couple times earlier in the week to make sure you didn’t want him escorting you to the venue - but you had refused, saying that the students were all meant to arrive early and make sure their works were displayed properly.   

The blandness of the building’s exterior did not prepare him for the luxuriousness of the top floor gallery space.  Stepping off the elevator he was greeted by white marble floors and gold leafed ceilings.  Blue velvet sofas flanked the lobby with an art nouveau style wooden bar and an intricately etched mirror sitting along the eastern wall of the lobby area. The bartender poured bottles of Dom Perignon into flutes which tuxedoed servers passed around on trays.  Drinking the champagne were patrons dressed conspicuously in high end designer fashion, making sure their Chanel or Balmain logos were easily visible to anyone passing by.  Elderly women with perfectly manicured nails spoke with their hands, fingers laden with diamond rings large enough to be seen across the room.

The display of wealth was disconcertingly ostentatious.  

Large glass doors marked the entrance to the actual gallery space, with it’s traditionally plain white walls to best display the art.  The room was divided up by the different classes, students with yellow ribbons bearing their names pinned to their chests.  Tae passed through a display of pottery meant to mimic the celadon bowls of ancient Korea.  Following was a myriad of large black and white photos, each one looking much like the next.  Busy city streets at night, a parade of ducks floating on ponds, and photo after photo of trees. Oil paintings came next, each one more mediocre than the one before.  Slightly wonky portraits of family pets hung next to mountain landscapes that seemed unnaturally lit.  He paused for a moment to look around and wonder at how much everything seemed to be the same, completely predictable and monotonous -- until his eyes came to rest on a single small painting of an apple, worm riddled and rotting.  The painter appeared to be a young woman, who could not have been much older than 20, dressed head to toe in black, standing tight-lipped and eyes rolling her parents entertained a bevy of old ladies dripping in pearls.

He finally found the water color section along the back wall, the space seemed excessively crowded as artists showed off their works to an endless stream of family and friends.  For a moment, Tae wondered if he would be able to find you in this crowd - until he saw your neon yellow dress, which was so bright there was no way everyone in that hall had not seen you. Long sleeved and long hemmed, it clung tightly to your hips and the high neckline draped to one side, leaving the slightest bit of shoulder exposed, reminding Tae that no matter what you wore, your sex appeal was always apparent.

You stood all alone, one hand holding a glass of champagne to your lips, the other hand resting defiantly on your hip.  Your face was drawn and sullen, until you noticed Tae walking towards you and he swore he could see your face relax and a hint of a smile cross your lips.

“I’m so glad you made it!”  You seemed genuinely pleased.

Tae couldn’t help but wonder at how lonely you must feel so far away from home, with no family and few friends to invite to the events in your life.  “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.”

“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t come.  I kind of wish I wasn’t here right now.”

“Why?  This isn’t so bad.  You are surrounded by art and they are serving very fancy champagne.”

“The champagne is great but the art… did you get a chance to look around at all?”

“Yeah, I took a look as I wandered through.”

“And what did you think?”

“I’m not an art critic or anything.  It’s not fair for me to judge.”

“You are being too nice, as usual.  You stretched your hand out and gestured vaguely to the other artists’ works.  “Did you really see anything that made you think - ‘ah, that’s interesting’?”

“There was one painting of an apple…”  he recalled.

You held up one finger as if suddenly realizing something.  “Her!  Yes!  I saw that rotting apple and did feel a little relieved that there was someone here that had something of substance to say.  Although, I introduced myself to her earlier in the evening and I think her artistic vision is I’m-a-teenager-and-my-parents-made-me-come-here-against-my-will-so-I’m-only-going-to-paint-dead-things kind of thing.  Not really profound, but I still appreciate the rebellious spirit in a place like this.”

“Was it really so bad here?”

You paused to think before speaking.  “Honestly, the guy who taught the class was very good.  I picked this studio for classes specifically because it has a reputation of having well known artists and renowned art professors come to teach courses or seminars.  But I should have known when I saw how insanely expensive the class was that this was the kind of place not intended for artistry but instead was exclusively for the amusement of the rich and snooty.  They can attract big names because of big money.  I’ve been in these kinds of environments way too many times in my life and it’s one thing that I absolutely do not miss about life back in the US.”

Tae nodded and sipped his champagne.  He often forgot that you came from a wealthy family who were still paying your way and wondered what your life back home with your parents was really like.  You made it sound like you had lived in a gilded cage.

“So, are you going to show me your paintings or what?  Show me what a true artist is capable of.”

“Oh god.”  You wrinkled your nose.  “I’ve been acting like an art snob and now I’m going to embarrass myself with my completely average abilities.  Please remember, I’m a student for a reason and calling me an artist seems like an overreach.”

You stepped to the side so Tae could get closer to where your paintings hung along the wall.  There were a small handful of sketches and three fully completed paintings hanging neatly in simple black metal frames.

“There were three assignments in the class.  Do a still life, a landscape and a self portrait,” you informed him.

A smile spread across Tae’s face at the sight of your still life.  An artistic rendering of a bowl of popcorn, a crumpled and half eaten bag of potato chips and an almost empty glass of wine with lipstick marks at the rim.  “Aren’t most still life’s supposed to be bowls of fruit or something like that?”

“Everybody does fruit.  Besides, I eat out so often, I rarely have fresh fruit at home and I thought this was a more accurate depiction of what I actually keep in my kitchen.  My only regret is that I didn’t pick something with more color.  Although trying to make all that yellow, white and brown look interesting was its own challenge.”

“I like it.”  Tae was instantly reminded of the few evenings spent at your place, watching movies, snacking on chips, drinking wine… and everything else that came with it.  “It reminds me of you.”

The second painting was the landscape.  A wide green lawn, a forest of trees in the background, and a serene looking pond, surrounded by tall grasses and pussy willows.  

“That’s very pretty,” Tae commented.  Your skill was evident compared to the other students.  The precision with which you painted, the naturalness of the image, the way the light hit the surface of the pond was impressive, even if the subject itself wasn’t much different from what the other students painted.  “Is this a real place?”

“It’s the backyard at my parents.”

Tae looked again at the wide lawn.  “That’s a big backyard!  And you guys have a whole pond?”

“It’s a man made pond.  Smaller in real life than it looks here.  But yeah -- it’s a pretty big yard for the neighborhood.  My parents always had to have the biggest of everything.  Biggest house, biggest yard, fanciest cars, et cetera.  They are into showing off.”

You watched Tae’s face intently as he looked at the painting.  “Do you see it?” you asked.  “There’s something else in the painting. It’s a bit more muddled than I would have liked, but that’s my challenge working in this medium.”

Tae leaned in more closely.  “Where am I supposed to be looking?”

“The pond.”

He studied the painting closely.  There were no animals in the painting, nothing indicated wind blowing or rain falling, but to one side, there was a small ripple on the surface of the water.  Looking more closely, what he originally thought was just a shadow, he realized was actually something floating under the surface.  Tae squinted to make it out more clearly -- what looked like a head, hair floating freely, obscuring the figure, and what looked like a hand stretching upwards, reaching for the surface but not quite making it.  “Good lord.  Is she drowning?”

“Yeah.  Something like that.”

“That’s… morbid,”  was all Tae could muster.

“That’s life at my parent’s house.”

The final painting was the self portrait.  Tae held in a gasp when he saw it.  

It was more stylized than the first two paintings, your image rendered mostly in shades of red against a dark background - looking as though the red light emanated from your body and lit the darkness behind you.  The features of your face were blurry and indistinct, but the image became crystal clear as it moved lower to your body.  You were draped in a large shirt, like the dress shirt of a man much larger than yourself, unbuttoned and falling off your shoulders and exposing your perfectly illustrated breasts.  The attention to detail you put into the presentation of your body was remarkable.  Your legs were spread wide, your knees looking dark and bruised, and your most intimate place just barely covered by the shirt tails pooling between your legs.

He didn’t know what to say and could only stand there staring.

“It would have been better if I did it in oils.  Getting the balance of dark and light using watercolors was a lot more effort than I anticipated.  I almost gave up and did it on a light background, but I’m glad I stuck with my original vision.”

“It’s… amazing.”

“But?” you asked. “I feel like there is a hesitation there.”

“No.  It’s really good. I like it a lot.  Although I’m surprised you chose to do a nude given what you said about the environment here.  What did your classmates think?  What did the professor think?”

“My classmates were shocked and appalled until the professor praised me in front of everyone for being so bold.  Now they are pretending to be okay with it, but I know they hate it.  And that kind of makes me love it even more.”

“Still, I’m surprised you went there.  By the way, why did you choose to blur your face?”

“The face?  I don’t know.”  You chewed on your bottom lip while you contemplated.  “My first thought when doing a self portrait was to just do a giant painting of my vulva.”

Tae stared at you wide eyed.

“I’m serious,” you retorted against his unspoken question.  “I’ve got a dozen sketches of my pussy back at the apartment.  But I thought that might be a bit much for this environment.  I’m not looking to make trouble for trouble’s sake.  Still, I thought a self portrait, for me, would make more sense to display my sex or sexuality more than my face.  The face isn’t what matters - it’s a distraction.”

“Is this the boyfriend?!”  A shrill voice cut across the room.  Tae turned to see a middle aged woman barreling towards him.  

You leaned over and whispered in Tae’s ear, “If you run away now, I won’t hold it against you.”

“It’s so nice to finally meet you.”  The woman stood in directly in front of Tae, her face a testament to Korea’s plastic surgery industry, skin pulled so tight it was a wonder she was even able to speak.  “To tell you the truth, we were starting to wonder if you were actually real.  This one,” she said motioning in your direction, “doesn’t even have a photo of you on her phone.  What kind of girlfriend doesn’t keep photos of her boyfriend on her phone?  I told the other girls that maybe you were deformed or something.  But here you are, looking completely fit and healthy.  It makes me wonder why she kept you hidden.”

Tae struggled to read the woman’s name tag, pinned to her ample bosom.  “Mrs… um… Choi, is it?  It’s nice to meet you.”  The woman was standing so close to him that Tae had to take a couple steps backwards in order to properly bow in greeting.  “I guess we just aren’t sentimental types.  I don’t have a photo on my phone either.”

“That makes no sense.”  A voice from behind Tae spoke, he turned again to see three more women standing behind him.  

“Excuse me?”  Tae was starting to feel surrounded.

“I’m Mrs. Kim Mi Kyung.  That is Mrs. Park Young Ja and her daughter Miss Yi Hyo Joo.”  Mrs. Kim was another one who stood a little to close, the heavy scent of her generously applied perfume made Tae’s eyes almost start to water.  “I was saying it makes no sense for a man to not keep photos of his girlfriend on his phone.  She’s pretty and she comes from such a distinguished family.  Some other man who is more attentive is likely to come by and snatch her away from you if you aren’t careful.  If she ever gets those cheekbones shaved down, like I’ve been telling her to do, she could get just about any man she wants.”

“I’m perfectly happy with my cheekbones the way they are, Mrs. Kim,” you sighed in exasperation.

“Of course you are dear.  Those foreigners in America are very forgiving of facial flaws.  But your father is a plastic surgeon and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t take advantage of that fact and just get a little tune up.  You could be so much prettier.”

 “I actually think her face is beautiful right now.  I wouldn’t want her to change a thing,” Tae declared.

“And just how exactly was it that the two of you met?”  Mrs. Park asked from behind Mrs. Kim.

Tae hesitated and looked at you, wondering if you had made up some story and told them previously.  You just shrugged and told him to “Go ahead and tell them how we met… sweetie.”

“It was a blind date.  She is the friend of a friend.”  Tae couldn’t help but think back to the day he saw you sitting across from him at the bar.  He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

“She said you guys were childhood friends,” Hyo Joo stepped forward and looked down her nose at Tae’s shoes and he suddenly became acutely aware of the fact that although he had spent considerable money on a new suit, he was wearing the same pair of dress shoes that he had owned for the last several years.

“We were schoolmates when we were kids and lost track of each other when she moved back to America.  We met again later on a blind date, by coincidence.”

“But she made it sound like it wasn’t so much an organized blind date, but rather a friend dragged her to a bar and you were there trying to pick her up,” Hyo Joo pushed back.

Mrs. Park elbowed her daughter in the ribs.  “Will you please just behave, Hyo Joo.  He’s obviously trying to be polite and make their meeting sound less tacky.”  Mrs. Park plastered on her best fake smile and turned back towards Tae, “I apologize for my daughter.  She has a tendency to be excessively honest.  She hasn’t quite grasped the concept of being discrete as you have.”

“What exactly is it that you do for a living?” Mrs. Choi suddenly asked.  “She said you were in business, but wouldn’t say where exactly.”  

Tae informed her of the name of the company.

“I’m familiar with the family that owns the business,” Mrs. Park commented.   “The grandmother is one of the founding members of this art center.  The youngest son is classmates with your son, isn’t that right Mrs. Choi?”

“That’s right.”  Mrs. Choi cocked her head to the right as if she was trying to figure something out.  “I believe the business is 100% family owned.  What exactly is it that you do there?”

Tae could feel the back of his neck getting hot as he grew frustrated with the direction of this conversation.  “I work in project management.”

“So your title is Project Manager?” asked Hyo Joo.

“Assistant Project Manager.”  Tae had never been ashamed of his job.  He worked hard and felt the company treated him fairly.  He was even up for a promotion next month and his boss made it sound like he was a shoo in.  But it was a family owned firm and Tae’s ability to advance would always be limited by the fact that he wasn’t part of the family.  Tae didn’t mind that - he had only ever really aspired to make a nice stable middle class lifestyle for himself, but that would never be acceptable for women like these.

Hyo Joo stifled a laugh.  “Assistant Project Manager?”  She took another look at Tae’s shoes and simply stated, “Well, that seems about right.”

Mrs. Park pinched her daughters arm in warning to be more polite.  “I’m sure you are a very diligent worker,” she said with a smile but the condescension was barely contained.

Mrs. Choi ignored Tae entirely and turned to you, “Are your parents aware that you two are dating?”

Mrs. Kim could barely hold back the grin from her smug face.  She turned away from Tae to address you directly, taking hold of your hand and patting it as if concerned. “You aren’t getting any younger, my dear.  Painting dirty pictures and dating whomever you please is all fun and games when you are young, but you should start thinking about your future.  Consider your parents; I’m sure they would want you to make sensible choices.”

Tae watched you as your face went pale and your eyes hardened.  You slowly extracted your hand from Mrs. Kim’s grip and you addressed her coldly, “I appreciate your well intentioned advice, Mrs. Kim.  I’m sure you feel quite a kinship with my parents, seeing as how you seem to be such a wonderful customer of their products.  However, I assure you that my parents are fully capable of expressing their thoughts on my lifestyle and who I choose to spend my time with on their own, without your intervention.  Now, I hope you will excuse me as I take my friend to get a drink, as I am feeling rather parched.”

You grabbed Tae’s hand, gripping him so tightly that he couldn’t have pulled free if he tried.  You marched through the crowd, dragging him along side you.  You gave no mind to the people in front of you, most of whom had to jump out of your way to avoid being mowed over.  You nicked one fur clad woman in the shoulder, knocking her glass of champagne from her hand, but you never paused or looked back.  

Finally, you stopped in front of the coat check in the lobby to gather your bag and coat. 

“So, are we not getting a drink from the bar?” Tae asked naively.

“We’re leaving.  I should never have asked you to come here.  I can’t believe how rude those women were to you.  And it’s all my fault for putting you through it.  I should have known that they would act that way.”

“So…” Tae demurred, “Where exactly are we going, then?”

=============================================================

Tae watched you combing through the aisles of the convenience store when he asked you again,  “Are you sure you don’t want to go someplace decent to eat?  We’re all dressed up and it seems a shame to waste it on… this.”

“Nope. This is perfect.”  The small handbasket you carried was filled with instant ramyeon, kimbap, corn chips, dried squid, and beer.  “I think we should pick out something for dessert.”  

Leaning over to get a closer look at the array of cookies and snack cakes, your dress slipped a little, making the tag at your neckline visible.  Tae stared at the name on the label, “Versace”, and couldn’t help but wonder.  How rich is your family?  Those women at the art show seemed very aware of who your parents are.  Would your family really look down on him and his very average lifestyle?  You didn’t seem to be the kind of person to care much about those kinds of things, but then again, you were here in the 7-11 wearing a dress that must have cost at least 1 million won.  It had been your idea to eat convenience store food in the first place.  Was it because you worried that he couldn’t afford a real meal?

Lost in thought, Tae almost didn’t see you standing at the counter getting ready to pay for your basket full of food.  He rushed forward, pulling his wallet out of his pocket and getting to the counter just in time to hand his credit card to the cashier while you were still digging in your purse.

“Tae, I’m the one who insisted on getting all this food.  You don’t have to pay.”

“Yes, I do,” Tae insisted.  “I really, really do.”  He prepared his argument for when you objected like you always did, but instead you just nodded your head and zipped your purse closed.  He wasn’t sure if this was some small victory or an act of pity.

“The machines to make the ramyeon are over there,” Tae pointed towards the wall.

“Doesn’t it seem too crowded to eat here?”

Tae followed your eyes towards a group of giggling teenage girls lined up against the window counter.  “There are a couple tables out in front, it’s a nice evening and we could sit…”

“You don’t live far from here, right?” you interrupted.

“My place?” 

“Yeah, these shoes are too tight and I just want to be someplace comfortable.”

“And my apartment is comfortable?”

“If you don’t want me there, Tae, that’s fine.  You just have to say so.  We can sit out in front of the store instead.”

Tae didn’t hesitate.  “I’ll hail a taxi, we should be there in less than 10 minutes.”

=============================================================

Holding the door open for you, Tae let you enter his studio apartment first.  It was small, but it had a low counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living area, making it feel like two rooms.  He had been proud of his home when he moved in and taken great pleasure in his trips to Ikea to furnish it.  For the first time, though, he started to compare his living arrangements to yours.

You lived alone, but you still had a large two bedroom place, although he wasn’t quite sure what you used the second bedroom for.  You had separate living and dining areas and a bathroom tiled floor to ceiling in marble. Your furnishings seemed to be very high quality and the balcony across the front looked out onto a large park.

He knew your parents were paying the rent on the place… but if that was the kind of apartment they set up for the daughter they sent away as punishment, he couldn’t imagine how luxurious your home was growing up.

“Where do you keep your pots?”  You were already in the kitchen, opening up cabinets in search of what you needed.

“Behind you.”  Tae reached around you to open the door to the only cabinet you had not yet explored.  He could smell your perfume when he stood that close and, even after all your time together, his heart raced a little just from his proximity to you.

You filled the pot with water, placed it on the stove burner, and dumped in the contents of the ramyeon packets into the pot.  It was a simple, domestic scene but it felt a bit off with you standing barefoot in his shabby kitchen making pot ramyeon while wearing pricey Italian couture. 

“Can I ask you something?”  Tae inquired while he pulled a small container of kimchi from the refrigerator and set about preparing the other contents of your convenience store haul.

“Of course you can.  Anything you want to know, ask away.  I’ve got no secrets.”

Tae wanted to roll his eyes at the demonstrable lie.  You were clearly full of secrets.  “Why do you work at the store?  I mean, you don’t really need the money.”

“I wouldn’t say I don’t need the money.  If I’m not working, then I am completely dependent on what my mother is willing to give me.  And anything she is willing to give me always comes with a set of conditions.  If I want to have any freedom, then I need to have access to my own funds.”  You pulled the pot from the stovetop and set it on a folded up towel on the low counter. 

The rest of the food surrounded the ramyeon and you and Tae sat at the counter to enjoy your makeshift feast.

“But why the store?” Tae asked.  “Retail schedules are erratic, and you have to work weekends and holidays most of the time, plus you have to always been polite and smile to everyone, no matter how annoying the customers are…”

“Excuse me?” you feigned insult.  “Are you saying that I might be challenged by having to be fake polite to strangers all day, every day?”  The grin on your face assured Tae that you weren’t exactly bothered by the implication.  

“You just don’t seem like the kind of person who would find customer service to be… um… invigorating.”

Slurping your ramen and reaching across the counter to pick up a kimbap, you replied, “Actually, I’ve spent a lifetime being fake nice on my family’s behalf.  Pretending to be someone I’m not isn’t exactly something I enjoy, but it’s a talent I’ve developed over time.  That and getting naked in front of strangers are the only things I’m really good at.”

“Those aren’t the only talents you have.  What about your art?“

“What about it?  Art doesn’t exactly pay the bills.”

“But there are lots of professional artists.  And you are incredibly talented.  Seriously.”

You scoffed at him.  “For every artist who makes a living at their craft, there are probably 1000 who can’t earn enough to cover the cost of their materials.  It takes an enormous amount of effort to promote yourself and it still comes down to luck and connections.  My family is completely opposed to my artistic endeavors so I can’t use them for their many connections.  Which means I’m left to my own devices and frankly, the art world can be pretty cruel.”

Tae was confused.  “I’m sure your parents weren’t supportive of your stripping career and that has to be a cruel world too.  But you did it anyway.  Why were you willing to put in the effort for stripping but not for your art?”

Sternly, you turned to Tae.  “The reality is that the average man values my pussy more than my art.  It takes a lot less effort for me to pull down my panties and spread my legs for some random guy to shower me with money than to spend days or even weeks pouring my feelings onto a canvas only to be ignored.  Besides, so many of the men I’ve met in the art world who praise my work are only doing it so they can get in my pants.  Even that professor at the art thing tonight, he would praise me in front of the class and then proposition me afterwards.  It’s always like that.  So I managed to get the best of both worlds.  I paint for my own satisfaction and I fuck for my own satisfaction.  There is no need to mix the two.”

“Still… you really are a talented artist.  I was super impressed with your paintings.” It bothered Tae that you thought people valued you more for your sexuality than for your other capabilities.  “And I’m not just saying that because I want something from you.  I really mean it.”

“But you do want something more from me too, don’t you Tae?”  You swiveled on the stool, angling your body to show off your curves, your skirt riding above your knees and threatening to creep higher.  “Your motives aren’t exactly pure, are they?”

This felt like a trick question.  Of course he wanted more from you; this wasn’t a secret.  You had spent plenty of time taking advantage of his lust for you, teasing and torturing him.   But Tae was fairly certain you had no idea how much he admired you as a person, regardless of his sexual fantasies.  You were bold and unabashed when you spoke, a characteristic Tae wish he had but didn’t have the courage for it.  You were resilient in adversity; Tae wasn’t sure he’d be able to make a life for himself in a different country the way you had.  Your artistic abilities were remarkable; Tae wished he had some special talent or passion for anything -- but instead he possessed no special skills and didn’t really aspire to any.  You were amazing while he was utterly average; it made him wonder why you spent any time with him at all.

“Hey, Tae? Are you avoiding the question?”  You prodded for a response.  

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”  Tae fretted over the right words.  “You know I’m attracted to you.  You know that already.  But I don’t think you really understand how much I just like you as a person too. I just… I… I think you’re really cool.  I enjoy your company and I’d like to spend time with you more often”  

Tae could feel himself starting to blush like a school boy who just confessed to the girl he likes.  Acting nonchalant, he turned away from you to grab the bag of chips.  Maybe if he stuffed his mouth full he wouldn’t say anything more to embarrass himself.

“I think you’re cool too, Tae, and I also enjoy your company.  That’s why we are friends.”

“But?” Tae asked, almost under his breath, barely audible.

“But what?” you inquired.  “I like you.  The end.”

“Are you sure that is ‘the end’?” Tae focused on brushing the crumbs from his shirt to avoid looking at you directly.  “There always seems to be some sort of condition to our interactions.”

“Ok, fine.  But… you know I’m not a monogamous kind of girl.  I’m good at friendships and bad at dating.  I’m not the girlfriend type.”

“Did I ask you to be my girlfriend?” Tae huffed.  “You’re always saying things like that.  I’m not trying to tie you down.  I’m not asking you to change your ways.  You’re the one out there telling people I’m your boyfriend.” 

Tae stuffed another handful of chips into his mouth to prevent himself from speaking further.  He didn’t mean to mention the boyfriend comment.  He really didn’t.  It just slipped out.  He waited for you to speak, but there was nothing.  When he finally got the courage to look at you again, you were looking straight back at him.  

“I’m sorry for being so presumptuous,” you told him.  “I’m embarrassed about lying to those women and it was wrong for me to ask you to go along with my lie.  They were rude to you and you don’t deserve that.  I never should have put you in such an uncomfortable situation.”  

“It wasn’t that uncomfortable,” Tae replied sheepishly.  “Anytime you need a make-believe boyfriend, feel free to call me.  I’m happy to help.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I promise that won’t happen again.  I spent many years pretending to be someone I’m not in front of women just like the ones you met this evening.  I thought I had outgrown that stage of my life, but…” your thoughts trailed off incomplete.  “Anyways, I pride myself on being honest, so next time someone asks if I am dating anyone, I’ll simply tell them I avoid having a boyfriend because it interferes with my sex life.”  

Tae furrowed his brow and asked, “Does it really have to be that way?  Aren’t there people who do the whole ‘open relationship’ thing?”

“Sure, there are people like that.  I had sex with a married man last week while his wife sat there and watched.  They seemed happy, I guess.  But you never really know what goes on in other people’s relationships.”  You took another mouthful of ramyeon, slurping up the noodles, a drop of broth trickled down your chin before you dabbed it away.

Tae wondered at how casually you just mentioned that you had sex with a married couple several days ago.  He should be used to this by now, he thought, but it still managed to surprise him a little.  “So have you tried having an open relationship before?”

“I’ve already told you I’m bad at relationships.  My parents were terrible role models, my sister’s marriage is a joke… I’ve tried having boyfriends before when I was younger but it always just blows up and it seems so unnecessary.  What am I going to get from being in a relationship that I can’t get from my life the way it is now?”

Reliability, consistency, comfort, safety, Tae thought to himself.  His own relationships had all failed one way or the other, so who was he to challenge you on the value of being in one.  He looked at his parents’ relationship and wished he could feel a love like that, but maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.  Maybe your way wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Do you want to fuck me, Tae?”  You took a swig of beer and stared straight at him, waiting for a response.

The question seemed to come out of the blue, and Tae struggled to maintain his composure.  “Are you asking for general knowledge or are you are suggesting we have sex right now?”  Tae could feel his heart beating faster and his groin start to ache at the mere suggestion of sex with you, but he knew better than to assume that anything was going to happen.  “Because you know I want to.”

“I want to fuck you too, Tae.  I really do.  But it’s not going to happen right now.”  You set your beer on the counter and pushed your bowl of ramyeon to the side, indicating meal time was over.  “What I really want to know is, if I were to start fucking you, could you handle it?”

“What makes you think that I couldn’t.”  He tried to mask his bruised ego at the suggestion that he wouldn’t be man enough to handle being with someone like you, although deep down he had his own doubts.  “You’re acting like I’m an inexperienced child.  It’s not like I’ve never had sex before.”

“I know.  But could you handle fucking me if you knew that some other guy’s cock had been inside me the day before and a different guy would probably be inside me the day after.”  You watched his face intently, looking for any betrayal of his true feelings.

“I’d be fine.  I’m sure.”  But he wasn’t actually sure at all.  He knew you had sex with other people now, and it did bother him a little that these guys got to do what they wanted with you while he got whatever crumbs you were willing to toss his way.  But you always referred to them as disposable while you told Tae he was special.  That made things easier in his mind -- although there were moments when he wondered if you were toying with him.  

“Last Friday, the party I went to?  It was actually a private sex club that one of my previous dates told me about and he got me an invitation.  It was a full blown orgy.  One big room full of naked people getting busy with each other.  That couple that I mentioned, the one in the open relationship?  That’s where I had sex with the husband.”

“Oh?”  Tae tried his best to look unsurprised.  “Did you enjoy yourself?”  He grabbed his beer and started drinking to help conceal his face and keep his expression neutral.  Deep down he wasn’t actually that shocked to hear that was how you spent your time, but he was also sure that you were telling him now just to see how he would react.  

You paused before answering, watching his adam’s apple bob up and down in his throat as he swallowed his drink.  In his effort to look unphased, Tae was now guzzling back the beer, drinking much too fast for a man who was trying to look calm and collected.  Your smirk returned.  “I did enjoy myself.  I enjoyed myself very much indeed.”

“That’s… um… that’s nice.  So… uh… this guy who got you the invitation… was this like a thing where the two of you went together and then… um… like… you went and did things… stuff… like sex with other people or were you… like… together the whole time?”  Tae couldn’t even look at you, knowing what an idiot he sounded like right now, but he also couldn’t stop himself from asking the question.  The idea that this might be the person who you also referred to as your “friend” would nag at him.

You laughed aloud.  So much for trying to look cool, he thought.

“Tae, I went there alone.  I don’t even think that guy was there the night I went.  He was just kind enough to be an intermediary to get me an invitation, and I’m grateful for that.  But I don’t think I’ll ever have sex with him again.  He was a little too selfish and arrogant for my preference.”

Exhaling, Tae let his shoulders relax.  “Ah.  I see.  So were people there, uh, friendly.”

“Friendly?  I guess.  The mood there was more about total debauchery and sex with strangers than actually getting to know each other.  But it was my first time.  I’m sure I’ll get to know people better over time.”

“So you plan to go back?”

“They gave me an application for regular membership and I’m considering it.  They act a little snooty and talk a lot about being very selective of their members, which was a touch off-putting.  But I have to admit, they had a very attractive group there.  Plus, the whole thing about having everyone in one room together really appeals to my exhibitionist side.  I do really enjoy being watched.  Do you think you could ever do that, Tae?”

“Do what?  Let other people watch me have sex?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of whether you would want to watch me have sex with other people.” 

Tae stared at you for a moment, once again unsure of how to answer.  “Is that what you want from me?” He could feel his chest tighten a little at the idea of it.  It was one thing to know you had sex with other people, but to sit idly by and watch while some other man get to have his way with you seemed to be too much.  “I don’t know.  I mean… is that really what you want?”

“It’s okay.  I was just thinking if you had any interest, I could show you one of the pornos I did a few years back…”

“What?  You did porn?!”  Tae interrupted you with his astonished outburst.  “You mean there are movies out there of you having sex with people?!  Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“Are you really that surprised, Tae?  I only did a few films - like maybe five or six total.  I went out to Los Angeles with a stripper friend during the summer break after my second year at university.  She wanted to try out the porn scene and convinced me that it would be a great way to make money while having fun.  I was just kind of clueless about what I wanted from my life at that point, so I followed her.  In the end, I decided it just wasn’t for me so I bailed.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“Eh, it was a combination of things.  Sex on camera is still a job and it’s more work than it looks like.  And frankly, I prefer to have more control over my sex partners and the sex acts I choose to do, but a fresh piece of meat, like I was, doesn’t get to make those kinds of decisions.  But the biggest reason I quit was because I started thinking about how someone who knows my family could end up seeing one of these movies and tell them about it and it freaked me out.  So I stopped.”

“So did you ever get caught?”

“Not yet.  At least, not as far as I know.  It still makes me nervous, but I’ve already been caught doing worse, so maybe it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”  

“Worse?” Tae asked.  “Being caught stripping doesn’t seem like it would be worse than being caught doing porn.”

You ignored Tae’s musings.  “Do you want to see one of them or not?”

“Yes!” Tae responded without thinking.  “Wait.  Are we watching it together?”

“Of course.  I already told you I’m an exhibitionist.  Why would I want to miss out on all the fun of watching you watch me?”  You got up from your seat and walked across the room to pick up Tae’s laptop from the coffee table where it rested.  “What’s your password?”

Grabbing the laptop from your hands, Tae quickly typed in the password and handed the machine back to you.  He took his place next to you on the sofa and waited with anticipation.  “So you would have been how old?  20?”

“Correct.”  Your attention was focused on bringing up a foreign website while Tae looked over your shoulder, straining to read the English words written on the page.  “Although on the website it says I was 18 since the pervy bastards love the idea of defiling a teenager.  

Are you sure you are ready for this?” you asked, turning to face Tae.  “You are about to watch me getting absolutely drilled by another guy, with closeups of all the action.  Are you okay with this?”

“Of course,” he answered, unthinkingly.  The mixture of curiosity and lust drowned out any reservations he might have about watching you have sex with someone else.

“Before we get started, we should discuss the rules,” you advised him.

Tae audibly groaned.  “Aren’t we just watching a movie?  Why do we need rules for everything?”

“Agreeing to the rules ahead of time is how we make sure we both enjoy ourselves without there being any hurt feelings or misunderstood expectations.  Besides, I have some special requests.”

“Like what?”

You pointed to Tae’s crotch.  “First rule I’m recommending is that your cock be exposed and visible to me at all times during the viewing of this film. You can tuck yourself back in when it’s over.”

Your requests that he expose himself to you had happened so many times now that it didn’t even phase Tae anymore.  He quickly agreed to the first rule.

“The second rule is that you are not permitted to cum before sunrise tomorrow.”

It wasn’t uncommon for you to disallow Tae from touching himself when you were together at your house, but it seemed like you were starting to want to control when he touched himself even when the two of you were apart.  “So you want to get me all worked up watching you and then not allow me to get any relief, is that what this is?”

“Look, you and I both know that I won’t have any idea what you do once I go home.  But I’d like you to make the effort.  Think of it as prolonging the time you are aroused rather than denying yourself gratification.”

Tae nodded his head.  He knew that if he agreed to your rules he wouldn’t dare violate them out of fear that you would somehow figure out that he had been dishonest and end up disappointed in him.  Disappointing you was the last thing he wanted.

“And rule number 3… if you decide that this is too much or you don’t want to watch anymore, you can just say stop or close the laptop. Got it?”

Tae nodded in agreement.

You scrolled through the website until you found what you were looking for, tapped the play button and the opening credits started to roll until you suddenly paused the movie and pointed at Tae’s crotch.  “What was rule number one?”

Wordlessly, Tae undid his pants and pulled his penis out where you could see it.  He was still flaccid but knew that wouldn’t last for too long.  Just knowing that you wanted to see him exposed was starting to have an effect on him.

Restarting the movie, you settled next to Tae on the sofa, your shoulder brushing against his as you adjusted yourself on the seat. Although you had been sitting next to Tae all through dinner, he suddenly became hyper-aware of how close you were and he could feel his hands start to ache from the desire to touch you.  Instead, he just crossed his arms and tried to act as normal as one could when sitting on a sofa, genitals exposed, about to watch to watch a porno starring the object of his desire while she sat next to him.  Tae caught himself smiling at the absurdity of it all.

You appeared on screen, lounging by a swimming pool, wearing the tiniest red bikini he had ever seen, your face obscured by giant sunglasses.  The camera panned up your body in close up, your legs, your hips, your belly, your breasts with nipples barely contained by the tiny strips of red fabric and finally your face.  You took off your glasses and smiled.  Your makeup was unusually heavy in that American porn star fashion, but Tae almost gasped aloud to see your face.  This was only 4 years after he first met you and the younger version of you on the screen reminded him of what you looked like at 16 when he was still a horny teen obsessed by your every move.  Tae mused that his feelings had not changed much since then.

A man appeared from the pool, his arms and legs were muscular and tanned, but he was clearly much older than you as proven by his receding hairline and slight paunch.  Tae felt some slight relief that your costar was not the image of youthful sexuality but instead was a guy that Tae could easily compete with in the attractiveness department.  Not that this was a competition, he reminded himself, but still, it was comforting.

English words poured from the man and your mouths.  Tae strained to understand, but you spoke too quickly, and he could only understand the odd word here and there.  You must have asked him to put suntan lotion on you because now you were lying on your stomach while the man rubbed lotion across your back and then your legs and finally his hands slipped under your bikini, letting the fabric ride up and exposing your buttocks while the man kneaded them under the guise of applying lotion.  The camera zoomed in tightly, showing the expanse of skin on your backside, the man’s hands squeezing your ass and the crotch of your bikini bottoms starting to slip to the side, just barely exposing a sliver of skin and hinting at more to come.

This isn’t so bad.  I can handle watching this, Tae thought.

Then you, on the screen, turned over and sat up, pulling the man close to you and kissing him passionately.  Your faces filled the screen while your tongues tangled.  The sloppy wet kissing noises filled Tae’s ears and he could feel his brow furrow and his lips turn downward in disgust.  Never in his life had he been bothered by watching two people kiss before, but this bothered him.  Tae wanted nothing worse than to kiss you at will, but to see this ugly, paunchy, cheap porn guy sucking your face like it was no big deal was a bit much.

“He was a chain smoker.  His mouth tasted like an ashtray.”  

Tae turned to look at you and noticed you were fully facing him.  Had you just been watching him watching you on the screen this whole time?  You must have noticed the change in Tae’s expression during the kissing scene.  “He doesn’t look too appetizing,” was Tae’s reply.

The man on the computer was now undoing your bikini top, mauling your breasts with his hands while he kissed you.  Until eventually he let his mouth travel down your neck to your nipples, sucking and biting at them while you threw back your head and sighed.  The camera pulled in so closely that all that was left on the screen was a mouth - lips and tongue - sucking and licking the protruding bud.  

Tae had to admit, he kinda liked this better, seeing disembodied body parts on the screen - he could imagine it was him doing this to you and not this other guy.  

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see you looking at him and then glancing down to his exposed manhood.

“Would you mind if I touch you from time to time while you watch?” you asked.

Tae gulped.  He wasn’t expecting that question.  “Of course not.  I never mind when you want to touch me.”

You trailed a finger along the length of his penis, just one single stroke and immediately waking his dormant flesh - causing it to twitch ever so slightly.  It was only one stroke, but it lit a fire in Tae’s groin and he could feel the ache between his legs growing steadily.

Real-life-you turned back to watch the movie.  You on the screen were now laying on the ground, legs spread wide, while the man pulled your bikini bottoms to the side, exposing your bare pussy to the camera.  Tae bit his bottom lip and inhaled deeply while the man pulled your pussy lips apart and lowered his mouth to taste the wetness between your legs.  

Tae had been in that position before, and the taste and smell of you flooded his memory while he watched some total stranger now licking your slit and poking his fingers into you.  This was feeling more real now.  The camera panned up to your face, your eyes half closed, lids fluttering, while your moaned aloud.  You seemed to like what he was doing to you.

“Did you like being with him?” Tae inquired.

“Just watch the movie.  We can talk after if you want,” you replied.  Your hand reached out to grasp Tae’s rapidly growing bulge.  You held it in your hand as if checking him for girth and weight and then let him go.

It took all of Tae’s strength to not groan in frustration.  Was this how it was going to be?  You just checking to make sure he’s hard and then going on about your business?  Why would he have expected any different?  Of course this is what was happening.

The man on the screen stood up and undressed, pulling his swim trunks down to the ground and stepping out of them.  Tae’s eyes went wide with surprise.  Any questions he might have had regarding why this particular guy was chosen to do a porn shoot were answered the minute Tae saw the man’s dick standing proudly erect.  He was enormous.  The size of his member made Tae a little anxious.  Were you going to be able to fit all of that inside you?  Is that what you were used to?  How could a woman like you, who had so much experience with other men ever be satisfied by someone completely average.  Someone, Tae thought, like himself.

Tae started to wonder if maybe watching this wasn’t the best idea.  He could already feel pangs of jealousy starting, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the computer when you reached over and grabbed the man by his dick and brought swollen tip to your mouth and took him inside.  You were right there, on the screen, sucking off some random guy.  Some random guy with a monster sized cock -- you must have unhinged your jaw to fit him in.  

It was a sloppy, slobbering, messy blowjob.  Is this how you normally did it?  Is this how you liked it, he wondered.  Is this what it was like when you made him listen on the phone that time you had sex with the man from the restaurant?  Is this what it was like that one time you were with Jimin?  The only time Tae had been inside your mouth like that, he had cum immediately - so you couldn’t call it a blow job at all.  He wondered if you were disappointed that he didn’t last longer.  

Even though he couldn’t really understand what was being said, Tae could see the man was bossy and demanding.  The man picked you up and repositioned you so your head was hanging off the lounge chair and he straddled your face, thrusting his cock into your open mouth and down your throat until you gagged.  From there he continued to face fuck you slowly as your eyes watered and your lipstick smeared.  

No, Tae thought, this can’t be you.  He couldn’t imagine you allowing anyone to take control of you this way.

As if you read his mind, you leaned over and whispered in Tae’s ear, “For some reason, these porn directors love to hear a girl gagging on someone’s cock.  But I’ve gotten much better at my deep throat skills over the years and that would never happen these days.  I could be a sword swallower if I wanted.”

You dragged your fingernails against the expanse of skin just above his penis.  Tae had shaved himself clean of any pubic hair this morning, remembering the last time the two of you were together and the request you made that he be hair free.  Not that he was exactly expecting anything to happen, but he wanted to make sure you weren’t disappointed in his appearance just in case.

The scratching of your nails was replaced by the gentle glide of your fingertips against his skin and sliding downward to his now mostly erect cock.  Your touch was soft and Tae looked down to make sure that it was really you touching him and not some figment of his imagination.

“Eyes on the screen, Tae.  I don’t want you to miss any of the good stuff.”

He snapped his head back up and fixed his eyes back to where your lips were swallowing the man’s monster sized dick just as the man started to pull out of you.  He grabbed you again and threw you back onto the lounger, grabbed onto your red bikini bottoms and pulled them off in one smooth motion.  Oh god, Tae thought to himself, this is it, isn’t it?

In real life, you now had your hand wrapped firmly around Tae’s member.  You stroked him; one...two...three...four...five… Five strokes with your hand and then stopped.  Tae couldn’t hold back and groaned out loud.  He was getting so hard now it was difficult to focus.

On the screen the man had pushed your knees up so high that they were nearly to your ears.  This had the effect of raising your hips and spreading your pussy open for the camera.  You went the extra step of pulling your pussy lips further apart and rolling your finger over your clit.  The camera zoomed in so closely that it was nothing but wet, slick folds of pussy flesh enveloping the entire screen.  You clit poked out from its hood.  Your vagina looked tight and small, like it would never accommodate the man’s enormous cock.  But he would see for sure in a moment.

The man on the screen held his dick in his hand, stroking himself a couple times and spitting on spread pussy to help lubricate it.  He took the head of his cock and slapped it against your clit several times and then lined himself up against your hole, flashed you a sinister smile and then… nothing.  The screen froze with the image of his dick just at the opening of your vagina.  “Fuck!”  Tae exclaimed in frustration.

It took Tae a moment to realize that it was you how had paused the movie at this exact moment.  Why would you do such a thing?  Wasn’t it your idea to have him watch you?  Isn’t that what you wanted?  Tae had been slightly skeptical of this whole thing, but now he had to admit, he was eager to see what happened next.  It made his brain hurt to think that he was about to watch you with your pussy stuffed full of another man’s cock -- but right now, in this moment, there was nothing more that he wanted to see.

“Why did you stop the movie?” he asked you.

“Are you still okay with our agreement?”

“Huh?  Yeah, of course.  Why would you think I wouldn’t be.”

“Tell me what we agreed to tonight,” you demanded.

“Uh… that I’m exposed to you.  And I don’t touch myself.”

“No.  Not that you don’t touch yourself, we agreed that you don’t get to cum until tomorrow sunrise.  The agreement is that you are exposed to me while the movie plays, that you don’t cum until sunrise tomorrow and we added another one that you are allowing me to touch you.  Also, that you have the right to say stop anytime you need to stop. Are you still okay with this agreement?”

“Yeah.  Of course.”  He was confused why you were bringing this up again.

“Is there any way you do not want me to touch you?”

What was this, he wondered. “Um, just don’t hurt me.”

“Got it.  So, as long as I don’t hurt you, I can touch you using any means I want and you agree not to cum.  Is that right?”

He was starting to get a little anxious.  You had something planned and he couldn’t quite fathom what it was, but history had taught him it was best just to agree and see where things lead.  “Yeah, that’s right.”

“One last rule,” you interjected, “eyes on the screen.”

You hit the space bar and immediately the movie started playing.  The man was very slowly entering you, pushing his gargantuan sex into yours and then pulling it back out again.  For a brief second, your hole gaped open and then quickly closed back up.  

Tae’s eyes glazed over a bit at the sight.  He shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he was, but by god he was really enjoying it.  

The man plunged himself back into you, gripping tightly onto your thighs, pounding against you and causing your whole body to shake with each thrust.  You were moaning loudly -- Tae was certain this was just acting.  You weren’t a moaner.  At least he didn’t think you were.  But it didn’t matter, because the sound of your voice reached some primal place deep inside him.  There was you, fucking some guy on this computer screen, and it felt like every cell in his body was on fire with lust.

Grabbing you by the waist, the man lifted you up and flipped you over on top of him.  He was the one laying down on the lounger now and you straddled him facing out towards the camera.  Your hand looked tiny wrapped around the man’s giant dick as you held him in place and slowly lowered yourself onto him. 

Tae watched you ride the man reverse cowgirl and could feel his heart beating out of his chest with excitement.  This was the perfect angle, Tae thought.  The man was mostly obscured, his face nearly invisible to the camera.  Instead, you were the one front and center; your chest jutting outward as you leaned back and tried to balance yourself, your tits bouncing as you raised and lowered yourself on this stranger’s cock, your legs spread wide, exposing your sex entirely and making you look incredibly available.  The best part was that you were looking directly into the camera as if inviting the viewer, inviting Tae, to participate in this wanton act of depravity.  God he wished that he was the one there with you.

Tae was so affixed to watching you on the screen, that he almost didn’t notice that you had switched positions on the sofa.  You were lying flat on your stomach, inching your head towards his lap.

He felt your hair first as it tickled a bit when it brushed against his exposed sex.  Instinctively he looked down, but you had carefully positioned yourself with your head blocking his view from seeing exactly what you were doing.  Your hair was spread out like a curtain to prevent any peeking.  But he could feel it clearly when your tongue, wet and warm, licked up and down the sides.  Was this what you meant when you said you could touch him using any means you wanted?

He watched your head shift slightly under than mess of hair splayed across his lap.  Your lips were at the tip of his cock, lightly sucking at the head, your tongue gently swirling around and around.  “Ffffffuuuuuck!” was all Tae could say.

He threw his head back and closed his eyes, desperately trying to concentrate on the feeling of our mouth against his manhood.  But then he recalled your command that he “keep his eyes on the screen.”  You wouldn’t know, he thought.  You were face down between his legs and couldn’t possibly see whether or not he was watching the screen.  But Tae’s desire to not disappoint you overtook his desire to just enjoy the unexpected feeling of you suckling his cock.    He returned to watching the computer, his brain now clearly divided between the two activities.

The man on the screen had changed positions and he was fucking you doggie style now.  Your tits hung freely, nipples distended, as they swung to and fro from the motion of the man crashing his body into yours.  The camera zoomed in again on the place where your sexes joined.  Every time the man pulled out a bit, Tae couldn’t help but notice how slick and shiny the man’s cock was with your pussy juices and he compared it to how his own cock was now slick with your saliva.

In real life, you switched from suckling at the tip of Tae’s cock to sucking him entirely down your throat.  Tae inhaled sharply at the new sensation and his eyes rolled back in his head while he gripped the sofa cushion tightly.  He swore he could feel you swallowing him while your lips closed tightly and your tongue snaked down nearly to his balls.  He wanted so badly to brush your hair aside so he could see you sucking his dick for himself.  You hadn’t specifically told him that he couldn’t do that… but then again, he was reminded, “eyes on the screen.”

He looked back up at the screen just in time to see the man flip you over again.  One of your legs was thrown over his shoulder, the other he pushed up with his hand.  The man was on top of you, fucking you in a variation of missionary style.  It was more difficult to see the more lurid details of your sexual encounter from this angle, although the camera made its best efforts to show as much of the fleshy mound between your legs as it could capture.  

At this point the man in the movie was clearly too far gone to pay attention to camera angles and good cinematography.  He was grunting and sweating, and then the man leaned over you, nipped at your breast before leaning even further in to kiss you on the mouth while pumping his cock into you as fast as humanly possible.

This image did something to Tae -- he was immediately transported back to his teenage bedroom, watching you through his window while the bar owner’s son laid on top of your naked body, writhing around in the dim light of your bedside lamp.  When Tae was younger, he was desperate to see more of you and your sexual encounters with the college boys you seduced.  But he was always too far away, the image too faint to see what he wanted.  Although that never stopped him from replaying what he had seen as a masturbatory fantasy for years following.

But here, now, on his computer screen was the high def version of those activities.  Every drop of sweat visible, ever slap of skin on skin audible… he could practically feel it himself.  Of course what he was actually feeling was your tongue, your mouth, your lips, and your throat standing in for your pussy.  

His brain couldn’t distinguish the difference between what he was seeing and what he was feeling anymore.  He could feel the heat inside his body growing, like an animal inside him was clawing away at his belly trying to escape.  This was the kind of lustful fervor he found himself in constantly as a teenage boy -- so aroused that he felt like he might just split in two at any moment.  He had long outgrown that state of uncontrolled teenage lust into a more sensible and mature enjoyment of erotic activities… except where you were concerned.  With you, Tae was always at the mercy of his hormones.

The man on the computer started to grunt more loudly as he approached his orgasm.  Tae could sympathize, he was getting dangerously close to cumming also.  

Tae clenched his buttocks and tightened his abdomen in an effort to hold back the desire to cum.  He wanted the feeling of your mouth sucking him, toying with him, to last a while longer.  He would have given anything to be allowed to just let go and enjoy this moment to the end, but he had made an agreement and, as always, he did not want to disappoint.

“I’m going to cum.  Ahhhhhh!  I’m going to cum if you keep doing that!”  Tae let out a long low moan; he was so close now but you would not let up.  If he let you keep going for even a few seconds longer, he knew he would explode.  “Stop. Stop!”

With Tae’s cries to stop, you immediately raised your head and leaned away from him, smoothing your hair back into place.  His cock was hard as steel, standing straight up from his body, swollen, red, and leaking profuse amounts of precum.  His whole body was vibrating.  If you so much as breathed on his cock right now, he was sure that he would erupt into an orgasm so intense it would blast through the ceiling.  

On the computer, the man had finally had as much as he could take and pulled out of you, demanding that you kneel before him with you mouth open while he palmed his bursting cock and directed his cum onto your waiting tongue.  Tae turned his head away from the computer; watching another man reach an orgasm right now was a bit more than he could take.

“You know, you taste much better than he did,” you advised Tae.

Tae closed his eyes and whimpered.  He could feel his dick jerk uncontrollably at the unexpected compliment.  Tomorrow he would smile at the memory of being compared favorably to a porn star, but right now, it was taking all of Tae’s strength to not just spontaneously combust, so he just sat in silence.

After a few moments, Tae could hear you rustling around in the kitchen.  He looked over his shoulder to see you gathering up the remnants of your junk food dinner and cleaning up the kitchen.  “You don’t have to do that.  I can clean-up in a little bit.  I just need a few minutes to, um, take care of my situation here.”

You laughed aloud at Tae’s politeness.  “Would you like me to make you an ice pack to help with your ‘situation’”, you replied.

“No, I’ll be okay in a few.”  Tae concentrated on his breathing.  This wasn’t the first case of blue balls he’d had in his life, but normally he had the option to run off to a private space and jerk off for relief.  

“Well, cleaning up is the least I can do before I go.”

“Are you really going?  Can’t you stay a little while longer?”  Tae sat up and tried to tuck his still uncomfortably erect penis into his pants.

“And what would we do if I stayed longer, Tae?” You walked over to the sofa and stood leaned over him.  

“I don’t know, we could just talk.”

Smiling, you shook your head.  “You still have your ‘situation’ to attend to.”  You wagged a finger in the general direction of Tae’s bulge.  “I don’t think keeping me around talking tonight is likely to help with that.  And to be honest, I’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn to go to my fitness boot camp thing.  I hate going, but it’s already doing wonders for my ass.”  You turned around and waggled your butt at Tae to emphasize your point - although he didn’t need any convincing that your ass was already excellent.

Tae couldn’t help but frown with disappointment.  “I understand.”  He fussed with his shirt buttons to avoid looking at you directly.  “It’s just that I don’t know when I’ll see you again.  So… when will I see you again?”

“Listen, Tae, I’ve told you that I’m not good with…”

Holding up one hand to silence you, Tae continued.  “I don’t want to hear anything about not being good with relationships.  You’ve said that you are good at being a friend, right?  And you’ve said that I’m your friend, right?  Or did you not mean any of that?”

You looked a little concerned and answered hesitatingly.  “Of course, I meant it.  We are friends.”

“Well, friends should be able to make plans and talk to each other more than once every couple of weeks.  I’m not asking for anything crazy here.”  He paused deliberately before repeating himself, “So when will I see you again?”  Tae was starting to feel more assured as he spoke, hopeful that would would agree with his logic.

You narrowed your eyes as if scrutinizing this new version of Tae who had enough courage to insist that you not leave before making future plans.  “I’m working the late shift at the store tomorrow.  I usually go out to eat at a restaurant near the mall around noon before my shift starts at 1:30.  If you are interested, you could join me.”

Tae tried to not look overly excited but couldn’t help but smile at the fact that you were agreeing to see him two days in a row.  “I would love to join you for lunch tomorrow.  Text me the name of the restaurant and I’ll meet you there.”

[efrmellifer]

Acta Diurna

“Deep breath for me,” the midwife cooed. “Now hold it.”

Etien held her breath, biting her lip to keep air stilled in her lungs.

“Good,” came the soothing voice. “Excellent. And let the breath out.”

Now Etien exhaled, settling back against her pillows again. “Did it sound good?”

“It did! I heard multiple heartbeats, but they were so closely synchronized that I couldn’t count how many exactly. However, if you were having triplets or more, I think you’d be more overtly carrying at this point.”

“So twins?” Aymeric asked, finding his voice and looking up at the midwife from where he was sitting.

“That would be my best guess, though be ready for a surprise when the delivery day comes.”

Etien cleared her throat softly. “And am I still free to travel for some time?”

“For now,” the midwife replied, the way she dragged it out signaling that there was a caveat coming. “Though anything risky should be probably be cut out now, rather than any later.”

“So no Diadem,” Aymeric murmured, coming to Etien’s side and taking her hand. “I’m sorry, dearest.”

Though her expression betrayed that she was put out, she just shrugged. “It was bound to happen eventually.”

“Speaking of eventualities…” The midwife looked between the two of them. “I’d say you have about a moon left before you’ll need to be on bed rest. Light bed rest, to begin with. Walking around the forums occasionally would be good for you, I think. But staying close to home and seated or lying down primarily is the goal. As you progress, we’ll see how things settle and if you’ll need to be under stricter rules, but you’re strong and you seem healthy. So I think you should be all right.”

Etien smiled, her nose crinkling a little bit with the gesture.

Aymeric watched tiredness starting to seep into Etien’s expression, and hurried to get things wrapped up. “Thank you very much, I’rixa,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound like he was trying to usher her out. “Is there anything else we need to keep in mind at the present moment?”

“You both need to get enough sleep. You look tired, ser. She may be undergoing the physical process, but you’re experiencing a lot of change, too. Moreover, you can’t take care of her if you’re exhausted.”

“True,” he conceded. “Wonderful, thank you again. I can show you out.”

“I’ll be back in another moon and a half,” she reminded them both, then followed Aymeric out the door and down the hall.

When he returned, he sighed, leaning against the door frame.

Etien was rubbing her temple.

“Have you a headache again?”

As she turned her head, she dropped her hand back to the covers on the bed. “No. I don’t, fortunately.” She shook her head. Then she sighed. “We need to tell the Scions.” It came out in the same tone as any other groan she’d offer up when she had to do something she didn’t want to.

“Ah. That we do. I must admit, I’m surprised they didn’t find out from the Alliance.”

Etien had gone back to rubbing her head in a vain attempt to self-soothe, but she stopped abruptly. “Gods, you don’t think they did, do you? It is odd that they haven’t asked after me—”

“I have never taken Merlwyb for a blabbermouth, nor Raubahn and the Sultana. Kan-E-Senna, I would imagine, has only told the leadership of the Adders, since you cannot do Serpent errands either.”

“I would never speak ill of the Alliance leaders, but that certainly is a lot of trust to place in them.”

Aymeric looked at Etien and remained silent for perhaps a beat too long as he thought. “Etien. The same as you wouldn’t speak against the Alliance, I won’t speak against the Scions. That being said, I do think that if they had caught even a whiff of what’s been going on, they would have marched right into the manor and been interrogating you as if you had returned from Garlemald.”

Etien coughed.

“Well. You know what I mean,” Aymeric corrected, looking away. “Fury help me, the midwife was right. I do need more sleep.”

With a silent grin, Etien patted the open side of the mattress next to her.

“I slept the day away last time I had a day off. And you were much more capable of taking care of yourself back then.”

“I’m still capable of taking care of myself!” She couldn’t help but sound just a touch indignant. Though if pressed, even she wouldn’t have been able to explain why. It wasn’t like she wanted to force herself into not relying on Aymeric, especially when he was offering himself to be relied upon.

“I—that was a poor choice of words, and not what I meant.” He admitted. “What I had been trying to say was, the last time I had a day off like this, where Lucia took over for me so I could be with you and do with the hours what I willed, I was entirely selfish and slept. But now, it would be better if I were to give you the attention you may require, and for that, I would need to stay awake.”

“All right, darling, but I am asking you to get into bed with me. You don’t need to do anything but lie down.”

“And how many times have I heard that?”

Etien clicked her tongue. “This, and I still invite you into bed.”

He settled under the covers when she lifted them for him, and curled himself around her immediately, head near her belly and arms around her hips.

“I find it strange how slow the change is, and yet one day, it will all be unmissable.”

“And it’s not even your body,” she replied. “It certainly is weird.” She blinked slowly, her drowsiness becoming apparent again. “What are we going to tell the Scions?”

“Perhaps the same words we gave Estinien.”

“Hardly seems fair to Estinien,” Etien mused, letting her arm settle around Aymeric’s shoulders. “We’ve taken him for a lover. He should have something so momentous to himself, don’t you think?”

“I do; you raise an excellent point.”Aymeric thought. “As of this moment, what do you want to say to them?”

“Well. Something to the tune of ‘While the road does go ever onward, and I know I cannot—and so I will not—refuse to walk it, I have taken a detour. I am to be a mother, and so I’ll need time, while the kits develop and after they’re born, to hang up the mantle of Warrior of Light. I can’t bear the weight of the star on my back and the weight of my children on my hips.’”

“Well said. How do you propose to tell them this, o will-worker of the star?”

She huffed. “Sounds too much like Minfilia. And I do not want to be compared to her. Though maybe that’s harsh.” She shook her head to clear it. “Regardless. A letter is all wrong. And using the linkpearl is laughable. Nothing for it. I’ll have to go to the Rising Stones and speak to them in person.”

“Dear-heart, please don’t go to Mor Dhona. Think of it—the gloom. The wildlife. Everyone and their brother seeking an adventurer. It’s too dangerous for you right now.”

“What else can I do?” she asked, sounding resigned but genuinely pleading for his guidance.

Aymeric sighed. “I’ll write a letter. In it, I will ask for one of them. They can choose whom to send.”

“Oh Aymeric, do you think that will go well?”

“How could it go poorly? They know and admire you.”

“If they send Alphinaud, he’ll lose his head, Alisaie might just get angry that I’m letting her win, Urianger will load me down with tomes about pregnancy and cross-bred infants, Y’shtola will laugh me all the way out to Falcon’s Nest, and Thancred will be Thancred.”

“What about Tataru?”

“Oh. She’d tut and pat my hand and start sending food over. Maybe shed a tear about how it was only yesterday she made my bridal gown and now she’ll need to make baby clothing.”

“Do you want me send for Tataru specifically?”

Etien was silent for a long time. “No, but I will write her a personal letter about all this.”

When they received word that one of the Scions was on their way, they’d held their breath waiting.

But when the Scion envoy arrived on the Borel doorstep, Etien realized they had forgotten one important variable.

G’raha Tia.

_

G’raha couldn’t deny that he was a little hesitant as he followed the servant down the hall to the sitting room. He’d seen Etien seated here once or twice when he’d peeked in on the Source before (and once, caught her in a nap), but it was odd to now be sitting there with her.

Fighting alongside his hero when she needed his help was one thing. Resting himself in a chair in her sitting room was a whole different matter. It was like he was seated on a live wire, not quite comfortable, even in a plush, well-built chair.

But the room wasn’t really the issue—it could have been part of any Ishgardian noble’s house. It was the still shockingly young woman seated within it opposite that was unsettling him slightly.

He had never noticed how young Etien still looked. But then, it made sense, didn’t it? She was only 25 now, her 26th nameday coming up in the next moon of Halone. Just after Starlight and Heavensturn.

He knew all this by rote, of course. The Tale of Etien: Left home at 19, adventured in the three city-states for nearly three years, ended the Dragonsong War in Ishgard, liberated Ala Mhigo and Doma, and then… well,  he knew all about what came after that. He’d lived through the last year with her.

He hadn’t gotten to properly celebrate her nameday when he would have had the chance, while she was on the First. Because she hadn’t been. She’d slipped home for Starlight, and then stayed. A little hiccup in the time running parallel had her only gone for a week on the First, though she’d spent three on the Source. But G’raha couldn’t then and couldn’t now find it in himself to be upset that she’d gone home to celebrate.

But all that was in the past now. Marked indelibly on time’s surface, and immutable. They’d all come home, and he was in hers, completely too quiet as she looked at him.

“Hello, G’raha?”

She looked well, and he commented as much.

“Thank you. I suppose I should be grateful I still have my appearance, when it’s been a rough last handful of years.” She laughed. “Anyroad. Do you know why you’re here?”

“The Lord Commander—er, Lord Speaker?—Ser Aymeric sent a letter saying that you and he required the attendance of one Scion of the Seventh Dawn to receive and bear a message back to the others at the Rising Stones. Etien, is everything all right with you?”

“I am healthy and happy. But whether the message you take back following that is good news, well, that is where our opinions may diverge about all things being well.”

G’raha tipped his head, ears bobbing with the motion. “How could any news be bad news, if you’re doing well? I don’t think any of us could blame you for wanting a break. Even the most devoted of the rest of us have had days we put our feet up and called for tea to be brought.”

As he said that, a pot of tea was indeed brought, placed next to Etien alongside a dish laden down with a croissant split down the middle, one half smeared with a nut paste and the other with fruit preserves.

“A bit late and light for a lunch, isn’t it?” he asked.

She laughed. “Oh, I had my lunch. This is so I can keep my energy up. And the tea—rooibos tea, if you were wondering—is for the soothing sensation of the warmth. Not to mention, it’s a habit I would be hard-pressed to kick, so we modify it that I may still indulge safely.”

G’raha laughed at the formality of her diction. “You sound like you’ve become quite the noblewoman in the, I’d say, close to four moons you’ve spent here again?”

She snorted. “In my defense, I was quoting Whitecape.”

“A capable chirurgeon.”

“Very much so.” Etien sighed, crossing her legs at the ankles in front of her. “But we didn’t call you here to talk about the head chirurgeon, or to pick apart my changing speech patterns.”

“I didn’t mean to--”

“Shh, put it out of your mind. I was only teasing. In any case, this break will be longer than just a day spent reading in bed. I’m about to be under medical supervision while I stay in Ishgard. I don’t need a vacation; I’m taking maternity leave.”

“But you’re the Warrior of Light!”

He watched something darken in her expression, looking much the way clouds passing in front of the sun did.

“G’raha, I ask this with all the love in my heart. Are you aware that I’m a real person?”

“I—what? Aye, I do. My referencing the stories was not because I thought they were in any way made up—”

“No, that’s the problem. You heard the stories, all that time ago, before we met and all that. You read Edmont’s memoirs, didn’t you?”

“I did!”

“So you knew, the day you met me outside the Sentinels, what was waiting for me. Knew already how I was going to bleed and spit and cry, and—I don’t think I wanted you to warn me, that’s not what I’m saying. You know that for all I’ve done on Hydaelyn’s pillar with the star on my shoulders that I’m just a scared little girl?”

“You never seemed that way to me. You’ve always been able to rise to the occasion, always been a hero. My hero.”

“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you you had me afraid that I was about to be very much alone, my companions frozen in a sleeping deathlessness, you dragged me away from my husband mere weeks after our wedding, and you almost got me killed by Zenos so you could have me help the First. Not to mention edging on a Lightwarden when I got there.”

“Oh,” G’raha murmured, seeing the way Etien clutched her handkerchief, the way her tail flicked on the seat, next to her leg.

“I can’t imagine how you managed to do that,” she said, quiet suddenly. “How you never—” her jaw clenched, then relaxed, “—never asked any questions. No, that makes sense now.”

He reached out, and she let him lay his hand on hers.

But she ignored it, and kept talking. “Mine has never been to question, unfortunately. Which you know, having heard the tales of me. You’ve always known me, always been one step ahead of me even as you threw yourself to the foreign country of the past. Knew everything about me before I got to discover it about myself. So you didn’t need to ask anything. Not even if I was willing to help you.” She looked up at him, blinking placidly. It was eerie, how she was usually so animated—had always been—but now she was quiet, movements and voice understated as she explicated. “It’s disappointing. That and painful, that your respect for me would go deeper than the average Eorzean’s, because you knew the whole story root to leaf, and yet you couldn’t help acting just like them. Making me your first and last idea to solve any problem, because I would never fail, not when it all hung in the balance. I had to transcend this body—its pain, its hunger, its exhaustion—because Hydaelyn entrusted me with this curse of a blessing.”

G’raha’s ears had long past gone flat, now utterly downturned. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t going to give me the ages of nineteen to twenty-five back.” She sighed. “That’s cruel, I apologize. Do the books—not Edmont’s, he was busy telling everyone of the Etien he knew and was living with—do they tell of my grief? That I had finally grasped freedom from my life in the Shroud, to be beholden to the needs of the city-states and the agenda of the Scions? That when I was coming into my own as a woman and a weapon, I was accused of crimes far beyond my most sinister thoughts? That I was shuffled from ushering in fragile peace to being the wedge of war for liberation so quickly I— no, they wouldn’t, would they? They tell of my actions, not my feelings.” She laughed. “Or there would be tomes solely dedicated to me and Aymeric.”

G’raha resolved to show her such tomes—they did exist—another time. But for now, she seemed to be running out of steam.

“I wish you’d asked, G’raha. Asked me what being me was like, when we gathered Aethersand. Asked me if I would join you on the First. I would have told you anything you wanted to know. I would have said yes. Instead, you commanded me because you’d made a giant of a terrified girl who hadn’t been living for herself for six years.”

“And I can only offer my deepest apologies,” he responded, trying to abandon the tone he’d always struck as the Exarch. He realized now that he would never fully divorce himself from that position, to her mind. The damage had been done, the bridge burned. They could only step across the charred remains together.

Etien sighed, closing her eyes, then gave him a smile as she opened them. “I can’t say ‘it’s all right,’ but I accept your apology. Someone needed to do the things I had to do, and I choose not to fault you for ensuring I did them.”

“You… choose not to?”

“If I resented everyone who had ever put pressure on me to be The Warrior of Light and not a living, feeling being, I would be holding a grudge against at least half of Eorzea.”

“Fair enough,” he mumbled, ears drooping again.

“Now, I digressed very far afield from my point. I asked you that not to question your belief in me or the stories you heard. The heart of it is that I’d like to have a family, and frankly, every chance I didn’t take before now was risking never being able to. Whether that was because I died or was rendered incapable of having children. Unfit to parent, I mean, above all.”

“Right.”

“So, do you think you and the others can make like the residents of the First and be Warriors of Light for a while, until I can come back? I’m not turning my back on Eorzea. I’m just doing what I haven’t in six years—living my life.”

“I can tell the Scions. You’re in a delicate state and can’t leave Ishgard.”

“Do you think they’ll deduce your meaning?”

“What kind of delicate state could someone like you be in, other than that?”

Etien laughed. “A fair point. Come, I can walk you out.”

_

The flood of letters from everyone came soon after that.

Tataru’s, full of the well wishes Etien had known were coming (had really hoped for, and kept returning to, between all the other letters that had much more flustered tones).

Alphinaud’s and Alisaie’s, jammed into one envelope, where Alphinaud started fretting from afar and Alisaie demanded to be an aunt.

Urianger’s, packed to the gills with advice—as Etien had expected—though a good amount of it was much more useful than anticipated. Y’shtola’s, Thancred’s, F’lhaminn’s, Mother Miounne’s, for the gods’ sake, all were just as she’d thought they would be, though there was one surprise, delivered by falcon, apparently.

“Congratulations and wishes of continued good health to mother, father, and baby (babies?). Hopefully the parcel of clothing arrives equally safely to this letter. We did not want to burden the falcon unnecessarily with both deliveries at once.  We hope to hear from you soon! With love from Doma, Rin and Hien.”

Etien smiled wide as she read that one. Though as she folded it back up, she was startled by a shout in the streets, a darkening of the sky, and the low thud and rumble of a landing dragon.

She glanced out the window just in time to see a red eye peering in.

Etien stepped outside, eager to greet her Dravanian visitor.

“Vidofnir!”

“Ah, my friend, how long it hath been since I have gotten to speak with thee. A Scion did come unto me bearing news of thy return, and thy subsequent confinement to the city?”

She nodded. “For my health, and the health of my children,” she gestured vaguely toward her abdomen, “I have to stay close to home. The Forelands might be a bit too risky for me, even.”

“A shame. I would have liked to celebrate with thee, had the chance arisen.”

Etien smiled, tilting her head back to meet Vidofnir’s eyes. “And we will! After the kits are born. Then, we can celebrate twice as many occasions.”

“Ah. ‘Tis good to see thee in such high spirits about the matter. I feared the worst when I received word.”

“I appreciate your concern.”

“I know not what succor I can offer thee in these times, but know that if thou hast need of me, thy call is all I require.”

Etien bowed without thinking. “I will certainly keep you in my mind and heart.”

“Then I wish thee well until we meet again, Warrior of Warriors.”

She waved as Vidofnir took to the skies again, the dragon miraculously lifting off the stones even with so little room between one building and another to flap.

And then she returned inside, neither dressed for the cold wind blowing down the street, nor prepared in any other way to remain outdoors.

It had been a long few days. She was going to nap, and get back to the letters later. If, Fury willing, Aymeric would help her sort through them and formulate appropriate responses, that was.

And while she had the time, early though it may have been, she wanted to think of names.

[thebluelemontree]

edeniz001 mentioned you in a photo

@thebluelemontree Whether these people are a minority or not doesn't matter. What matters is that these are the people the world sees, and the rest of the world inevitably judges you based on these people. Their existence makes us go: "Oh. So *that's* why the Amis keep electing politicians like that. Makes sense now."

Let me stop you right there because this is as much bullshit as an American judging an entire nation or group of people by its worst elements. This was a staged performance funded by and for the benefit of billionaires, not a true grassroots movement.  We need to look critically at what these images and demonstrations are meant to achieve and who they benefit.  We need to see who is being preyed upon and exploited in this case, not mock or dismiss them.  It’s only going to serve the right-wing and Trumpism in the end by making people targeted by this manipulation feel alienated from the Left and most of the rest of the world.       

*this is going to get a bit ranty and all over the place with my frustrations lately and it isn’t at all directed at you personally.  It’s just my feelings in general. I do not claim to be an expert on all these matters, but it’s simply my opinion* 

If this is “just the way Americans are” then why is voter suppression (in all its myriad of forms) so necessary for conservatives to win in the U.S.? Anytime anyone says “this is just the way they are,” it’s a way to dismiss anyone as people not worth caring about and say “well they are clearly hopeless and deserve what they get.”  IDC if that attitude comes from inside or outside the US. That attitude is why the LEFT is failing miserably with people they SHOULD care about if they want a true leftist movement in the US. 

And what about all the Americans that leftists claim to care about that will suffer if this media stunt succeeds?  The poor, the working-class, the people without access to healthcare.  Fuck them because they are American? They deserve what they get?  

Look, I get it.  I live in a very rural, generally conservative area of Florida. I see people all the time that really piss me off for their Trump bumper stickers, confederate flags, NRA memberships, and bigoted sentiments. It’s easy to just say “to hell with this trailer trash” and lump them all together. But I have to remind myself every single time that this is also a product of the left in the US failing them too. I’m not at all sympathetic to the beliefs of Trump supporters, but I do get how Trumpism can happen and take hold.  

Before anything gets misconstrued from what I am about to say, let me just state I do believe 100% that white privilege exists.  White supremacy is woven into the fabric of the US and needs to be dismantled at every turn. But the left can also be BLIND AF it's own deeply classist beliefs that are driving white working-class people into the eager arms of the right who will make damn sure to appear as though they are sympathetic to their very real problems. 

It happens every time someone says “these people are hopelessly ignorant and uneducated about what is in their best interest. We’re washing our hands of them.”  People can lack formal education, but they are smart enough to know when someone is looking down on them or lecturing at them, and they do know when the left is saying “fuck these people.”  

Right-wingers are more than happy to swoop with “these liberal elitists don’t understand or respect you, but we do.  You’re hard-working salt of the earth.” It’s fake-folksy manipulation leading to exploitation of their vulnerabilities and anxieties. But what alternative is the left offering them that also doesn’t come with a hefty side of condescension and derision for their very existence? This is not how you win people to your side.

Every time people on the left point a finger and laugh at white Americans (’Muricans) who are poor, rural, or struggling to meet a bare minimum standard of living, it does nothing to help and only does harm. These are not people with real political power. The people this campaign is targeting might be white and benefit from white privilege in some ways, but in lots of other meaningful ways, they are far from privileged. They might be living paycheck to paycheck and they are rightfully worried AF about how they will stay afloat.     

There are a lot of liberals in the US that do not respect white working-class people as real people because they aren’t one of their darlings. They aren’t “woke,” they aren’t cosmopolitan, they aren’t coastal city urban, they can be infuriatingly bigoted (as if bigotry doesn’t happen in liberal circles), and they aren’t pretty people living pretty lifestyles in many cases. Nevermind that lots of POC, LGTBQ+, and disabled people are also living in red states, living in trailer parks, living in poverty on dirt roads. You know, the people the left say they care about but it turns out they may also come in similar or the same packaging as the kind of poor people they don’t like.  Are we supposed to throw them all away because they live in a red state or county?  

In order to have things like universal health care and a higher living wage in the US we need a real working-class movement that isn’t divided by racial lines or geographical lines. I’m not saying this is a fix-all because there are a lot of other systemic problems, but the left could really benefit by not participating in alienating demographics it should be reaching out to in a non-condescending way.          

[mr-and-mr-diaz]

FIRST CHAPTER OF PART 2 OF THE RELUCTANT FIANCE

So excited to get started!!

M/M Romance, Arranged Marriage  - Also available on AO3

Chapter 1: A New Life

Excerpt: “Speak, you useless boy! Our future was secured! We were the most envied family in the city to have gotten Shawdun! What have you done?!”

I was awoken in the morning by the sound of two carriage drivers yelling at each other. Horses whinnied. It was far more noisy than I was used to but I would adjust soon enough. Our new house was closer to the street with no winding carriage drive or luxurious gardens to block the sounds of the city at our doorstep. We weren’t quite deep enough into town to hear the market stall owners hawk their wares--the “pitious boulevards of the hoi polloi” as Father called it--but certainly closer. I yawned, stretched, and smiled as Mary, one of our two new maids--Mother’s “Ladies of all tasks,” since they had to take care of everything now--poured tepid water into the washing stand and departed. 

Slowly, I slid my feet into worn slippers and observed myself in the small mirror. My hair was still messy from a night spent wandering the market in nothing but shirtsleeves and britches. I hoped to take Billy back there today on a walk, if Margaret would allow. 

I pulled a linen shirt from the worn clothes press and put it on, sliding back into yesterday’s britches. There was no one to notice or care about how I looked. Henry was now engaged to Oliver, soon to be Marquess of Metley, and myself and my parents had disengaged from polite society (that is, polite society threw my parents out on their self-important arses and me with them) and moved house to a place we could afford with what was left of the money the Shawduns paid for breaking off the engagement. It was smaller and darker, and closer to the dreaded common folk. We had only two maids now, no butlers or other staff. Outside, a small bit of cobblestone received carriages when necessary and behind the house a pitiful patch of back garden tangled with weeds when I didn’t attend to it myself, and I couldn’t often be bothered.

Dressed, I headed downstairs to breakfast. Father sat, resplendent in a fraying greatcoat and greying silk shirt. Mother sat beside him, her crushed velvet gown growing shiny at the elbows. They were already eating. I sat down as well and the maid brought me cold toast and eggs, served with some lukewarm tea.

“...what I wouldn’t do with a bit of cards right now, Felicity. I tell you, once we are restored to our former home, I shall never cease playing them.”

Mother sniffed. “And I shall wear five different silks all in one day, all with matching hats, and we shall once again be the very toast of town!”

Typical breakfast talk, as it had been for the three months since we’d moved here. I found myself quite tired of it this morning. “And exactly how do you plan to restore yourselves to society, Mother and Father? Surely no one will have me anymore now that I’m Henry’s leftovers,” I could not conceal my small grin of victory, “and you need extensive wealth or breeding to even be considered.”

Father cleared his throat. “Of course Felicity, I would buy you as many silks as you wish.”

Mother smiled at him. “And I shall never again complain when I see you seated at cards, Aloysious, dear.”

Ah, yes. This was another new feature that came with our new home. A precious few of our previous belongings, supplemented by second hand castoffs of other impoverished nobility. Carpets worn to the threads. No social calls for this house. 

And not a word to me. Not since Father had received Henry’s formal letter and sworn me off as useless had either of them spoken a word to me.

“...but of course, the trick is to only gamble with what you have in front of you…”

I scoffed, pushing my cold breakfast away from me. Eat something, you look hungry. “Goodbye then, Mother; Father.”

I collected my coat and departed. 

“‘To my dear friend Aloysius Mallory, I pray you are well. I also ask after the health of your wife and of course, your son, Philip. I find it difficult to write this letter to you, but find that I must.’ Whatever is Henry talking about in this letter, Philip? ...Ahem, ‘ I regret to inform you that…’ What the devil?!”

As I walked along the river towards the garment district I contemplated the last time Father spoke to me. 

“This useless son of ours… Henry Shawdun has officially broken off the engagement! It says here that he has fallen in love with another! WHAT DID YOU DO, PHILIP?!”

Our new accommodations meant that I lived closer to Margaret and Billy than I had previously. No more than a fifteen minute’s walk.

“Speak, you useless boy! Our future was secured! We were the most envied family in the city to have gotten Shawdun! What have you done?!”

Soon enough, I arrived at Mrs. Blethely’s Fine Gowns and Costumery. A felt a small smile ghost over my face as I spoke aloud the words that I had said to Father then, the words I had sworn not to say, but hadn’t been able to hold back in the heat of the moment. All my resentment, all my hope that maybe they cared for me a little, the illusion vanished as I said those five words and erased myself from my parent’s purview forever. 

“I found him another suitor.”

“So you did.” I startled and looked up at Mrs. Blethely’s age-worn face. Her mouth had permanent frown lines around it, making her a truly foreboding looking woman, but I knew that behind all the salt and pickles was a… well, a truly foreboding woman who smiled at you but only when you earned it. Our first impression had been quite shabby, with neither of us getting a terribly good impression of the other. Now, she regarded me evenly, but her eyes smiled just the tiniest bit. “Come in quickly, young man; you are late and Billy is all a-wonders at his shiny new Uncle Oliver and gasping to talk about it with someone who knows the man.”

So Henry had introduced them at last.

I hesitated on the step, then entered.  

No sooner was I in the back room then young Billy flew into my arms. “Uncle Philip, Uncle Philip!” He spoke loudly though he was mere inches from my face. “We met a new man last night! And he’s so nice, and so very smart and he knows all about plants and he knows you!” I carried him to Margaret’s quarters as he carried on. “And Henry said he’s going to marry him, but I told him no! He can’t, because Mr. Lord Philip is marrying him, and then Mama shushed me, so I’m still so confused, are you marrying Uncle Henry?” his big blue eyes, perfect copies of his Uncle Henry, stared into mine, filled with joy, curiosity and confusion.

I cleared my throat. “I… ah, no, Billy. We were going to but then… er.” How to explain to a five year old?

“They decided that they prefer to be just friends, Billy. And your Uncle Henry and Uncle Oliver get along so well and they want to get married, so now they’re going to get married instead.” Margaret came down the spiral staircase and interrupted my bumbling. She was Henry’s older sister, and even more years my senior. She had all but raised Henry while his own parents neglected him, and took a similar approach to me, though God knew I was fully grown and had done little to deserve her kindness. Now she swooped young Billy out of my arms, depositing the lad on the floor where he continued to vibrate with unasked questions. “Apologies, Philip, I should have explained it to him properly last night, but I got distracted…” She gestured around her workshop where half-completed dresses spilled over the surfaces, sprinkled liberally with thread spools and spare buttons. 

“No worries.” I gave her a tired smile. “Surely you have more important things to do than discuss three-month old news.” I gestured around the shop, which bustled with new orders. “The Harvest Ball keeping you and Blethely on your feet, I see.”

She smiled, hands on her hips as she observed her domain. “My kingdom for an assistant.”

I chuckled. “Well, there’s always me, useless though I am!”

She grinned at that. “I’ll bear it in mind, Philip--you never know when I might need a spare dress form.” She winked and sat down to work.

“Wait, but--Uncle Philip?” I turned back to Billy who looked up at me. “Does that mean that you won’t be my Uncle Philip anymore?” His large blue eyes began to fill with tears. “Does that mean that--that you won’t visit anymore??”

Ah yes, I reminded myself. The title. “I… I don’t know, Billy.” I turned helplessly back to Margaret who looked up from her sewing. “I--I don’t want to overstep, Margaret. I would happily visit as a friend, but “Uncle” belongs to Oliver now, and I don’t know if it would be proper…”

She smiled and gestured to Billy, who scampered to her side for a hug. “It’ll all be okay, Billy. Philip will continue to come visit you all the time just like before.” She put a finger under his chin and lifted it so Billy was looking into her eyes. “He still loves you, no matter what. Family comes in all shapes and sizes, even if we aren’t married to someone. Would you like to keep calling him your Uncle Philip?”

Billy nodded, chin wobbling.

Margaret glanced at me, and I nodded my ascent. If Henry wanted to say no to this child, that was very much his problem. I was not that strong. 

Margaret smiled and turned back to Billy. “Then he is still your Uncle Philip.”

“Really?” Billy turned to me, all dusty cheeks and frayed cuffs and hopeful face and my heart caved in. 

“Of course, Billy. I’ll be your Uncle Philip for as long as you would like me to be.” And God spare my heart when he eventually grew tired of me and realized I didn’t belong. When they both did.

Billy smiled and the sun came out. “Okay.” He wiped his eyes and nose on his shirtsleeves, before Margaret clicked her tongue and handed him a scrap of cloth from the table. “I’m… I’m really happy you aren’t leaving us, Uncle Philip. I like Uncle Oliver a lot, but…”

“We don’t compare people, Billy, it’s rude.” Margaret chided, eyes back to her sewing. “Now, wash up before Uncle Oliver and Uncle Henry arrive for lunch.” 

I startled. “Ahh… that would be my cue to leave, I suppose.”

“You don’t have to.”

I rose and straightened my coat. “No, no, I think it would be best. Allow Oliver and Billy time to bond,” Billy would soon become Oliver’s adopted son, allowing Billy to secure a title and a future outside of Mrs. Blethely’s workroom, and it would hardly do for an irrelevant interloper to get in the way of that. “I will be back to visit, though, rest assured.” I shook Margaret’s hand, and gave Billy a quick hug before hastening to the door.

“Philip.”

I turned back. Margaret had risen and followed me to the door, a soft scarf in her hand and a kind smile on her face. “As you will not be marrying Henry I know we will not become brother and sister, but I should like to think that we could still be friends.” I felt a lump in my throat thicken as she quoted my own words back to me. 

I looked down at my feet and swallowed. Abandoned at home I might be, and I would no doubt have to get used to a life without them soon enough, but I would bask in the glow of her and Billy’s friendship for as long as they could want me. “I… thank you, Margaret. Yes, I would be honored.”

“Then I will see you on Thursday morning at ten sharp for breakfast with Billy, myself and Mrs. Blethely. Now here’s a little something I made with scraps from Lady Aramintha Vogun’s Harvest Ball gown. It’ll keep you warm as the chill sets in.” With a warm smile, she pressed the scarf into my hands and then ushered me to the door.

As I hastened outside into the early autumn breeze, I felt eyes on me. I looked up and caught the stare of a man I had never met before. He regarded me intensely from across the street, not saying a word, hat pulled low and coat collar turned up. Coincidence it could be, but I didn’t like the feeling I got from him. Straightening my shoulders, I turned away from him and hurried down the street, praying he would not follow. When I chanced a glance over my shoulder a few blocks away, he was gone.