#i keep meaning to experiment more with my style after i have less Life Prep to worry about so artfight is gonna be a great time for that..

[stoatsaturday]

appears like a mediorce ghost to vex u with the passage of time. next artfight is in 3 months

EXTREMELY VEXING TBH. BLOOM/WITHER FELT LIKE YESTERDAY. THIS PAST YEAR HAS GONE BY TOO QUICKLY ID LIKE A REFUND. ON THE OTHER HAND IM GOING TO HAVE A GREAT YEAR OF ARTFIGHT (I HOPE) ONCE I NO LONGER HAVE MY STUDIES TO WORRY ABOUT AND CAN JUST KINDA GO APESHIT OVER SUMMER

[thirteens-earring]

Jane Schoenbrun, from Episode 174 of the Gender Reveal podcast (episode) (episode transcript)

[ Tuck: Yeah. And somehow that brings me to Limp Bizkit. Because I think it’s so funny that you created this incredible soundtrack with like every iconic girlie, and then in the movie itself you know Sloppy Jane’s in the movie, King Woman’s in the movie, Lindsey from Snail Mail is acting in the movie, and then…Fred Durst is there. [Jane laughs.] Can you talk about why you wanted to work with him specifically, and what that experience was like of bringing him into the movie?

Jane: Yeah. So the first thing to say is that when I was 12, I loved Limp Bizkit, because it was 1999, and I was vaguely pissed off at a thing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, right? And I think that nu metal thing was very appealing to me, in that — Limp Bizkit less, but a band like Korn or Slipknot — Slipknot is donning masks, and actively appropriating just the sort of iconography of the horror movie and grotesquerie to describe their internal feelings. And Korn is talking about how they’re a “Freak on a Leash.” And it’s this pre-Columbine, right before Columbine moment where I don’t think culturally we had like zeroed in on that necessarily (or at least I hadn’t at 12 years old) as a symptom of this growing nascent white male anger. It felt more like they were carrying the torch of the weirdo; I think that was sort of the appeal of a lot of that nu metal music when it first came out, was like I’m a “Freak on a Leash.” I think Limp Bizkit was a little different, because they certainly cast themselves as the underdog, but they didn’t necessarily cast themselves as “a freak,” you know? It was more of a pissed off, like Kid Rock style — I’m young, I’m white, I’m angry, have sex with me. [Tuck and Jane laugh] But I didn’t understand all of that, and I was 12 in the suburbs, and that was what a lot of money was being spent to convince me to buy, and I bought it, and I loved it, and I had that Family Values ’99 tour tape cassette, and I listened to it. And when I got bar mitzvahed, my bar mitzvah gift was a CD case — remember those little things you would keep in your car to keep CDs in?

Tuck: Yeah, definitely.

Jane: We got custom “Jane’s Bar Mitzvah” CD booklets [Tuck laughs], and it had Limp Bizkit drawings on the cover. So if you have one of those, that’s a collectors item now. [Tuck and Jane laugh]

Tuck: That rules.

Jane: After I wrote TV Glow, and just spending a lot of time unpacking my childhood and my adolescence in the suburbs and just feelings of alienation, I had written this character — hardly a character, more like this spectre of the anger of a dad who looks at you in the way that I have experienced, where it’s like…are you looking at me as your child, or are you looking at me as a person who has robbed you of your child? And this is very much a trans horror. I got notes early on like “let’s flesh out this dad, where does that come from?” And I was like “no actually, I don’t really care about that.” This is a movie about that gaze and that disapproval, and the way something as innocuous as saying, like, “isn’t that TV show you love and are finding refuge in for girls?” can steal decades of your life from you, because of the shame and fear that it ingrains in you. And so the question then became: who is glaring at us? And it wasn’t just like “oh Fred, get on a casting call and do your best glare.” It was that it means something to see Fred Durst glare at you. Fred is a fascinating and wonderful and generous person. I took Dave McCary (my executive producer) to see Limp Bizkit with me at Madison Square Garden as we were prepping, and as I was basically like “please let me cast Fred Durst as Owen’s dad.” And we walk onto the floor of Madison Square Garden, and it’s like…white militia is the audience, I’d say. [Tuck laughs]

Tuck: Totally.

Jane: It’s a lot of, like, ex-Marine energy in the house, and a lot of the energy that was being cultivated at that show was, let’s say, riling up the audience in the way that you would at a wrestling match. There was such anger and aggression being let out — just people who were riled up getting their rocks off, or whatever. But it was also so homoerotic, and not even subtly homoerotic. Like people…the guy in front of me just kept screaming at Fred Durst on stage “I want to suck your dick!” [Tuck laughs] Yeah, I mean…good admission; [Tuck and Jane laugh] follow that impulse wherever it leads you…

Tuck: Totally.

Jane: …and get whatever you need to get out of your system — there’s a way. At one point early in the show, Dave turns to me and goes “do you ever feel, like, unsafe in public?” [Tuck and Jane laugh] And I was like…oh — this is how you teach cis people what it means to be trans, you take them to the Limp Bizkit show, and you have them stand next to the trans person. And I’m like “yes Dave, actually…and a lot more recently since my transition.” [Tuck and Jane laugh]

Tuck: OK — and what about this was like…I gotta get this man in my movie?

Jane: So then what happens…Dave is like, “you can stay if you want, but I’m actually gonna go before they play ‘Break Stuff.’” And we ran out of Madison Square Garden, and on the street Dave is like “do you still want to cast Fred Durst?” And I was like “yeah, more than ever!”

Tuck: Incredible.

Jane: And then I got on the phone with him a couple days later, and we were talking about French films within three or four minutes. He’s a gentle soul behind the scenes, with a great understanding of film and art. He’s a showman, and it happens to be that the audience that will come to his things at this point tend to be the kind of people who wanna scream that they want to suck his dick, in an arena that feels like it’s about to turn into a riot. I’m interested in the film being this intertextual thing of: what does it mean to see Fred Durst in this particular movie about this particular thing, and how does that spectre bloom both in our collective memories but still in the present tense? Which isn’t to say that it’s about Fred himself; it’s more about this white male rage that I found something in when I was 12 years old, but that has also been brewing and metastasizing since then in ways that I am very disturbed by. ]

[lovinga3characters]

My, I do be loving all these fictional characters and the things you write for them :3c (the ABO hc clotheslined me but I've never felt better) I hope it's not too weird to ask but would you mind to write something about what would the Autumn troupe be like if they ever bottomed for their partner? Thanks in advance if you decide to do

Fuck YESSSSSS! 🙏👏🙌 I just want you to know that I was so hype when I saw this is my inbox!! Thank you for your support on my A/B/O Headcanons, here’s that Bottom Autumn shit you’ve been waiting for! 😝

Warnings: EXTREMELY FILTHY NSFW, penetration/pegging, kinks, hot boys

(I’ll be making these as in what they think about it, what goes down, and what follows after 😏)

Bottom Autumn 🍁 Headcanons

Banri 🍂

Just a warning: he’s going to immediately refuse your suggestion, no way ANYONE or ANYTHING is going near his ass 😤

Then he thinks about it... and he thinks about it... until the idea just doesn’t leave his mind

The two of you have fooled around early on in your relationship (or maybe even before), so Banri’s experimented with quite a few kinks

Each time sparked a new curiosity in himself and this time was no different, and he also saw it as a challenge, he could totally take it!

And so Banri secretly prepares a big surprise for you, his butt himself 😙

Step 1: he has to practice the game, which shouldn’t be too hard since he’s pretty much perfect at everything

The first time he tried to finger/put a toy in himself, Banri’s face was extremely red and his body was flaring with heat, it was sorta uncomfortable

“This is... hng... not that bad but I don’t see how- ohhh... shit- shit!”

Obviously, he gets into a good rhythm quickly and, as he gets closer to cumming, he finds it harder and harder to stop himself from sinking into his bedsheets

Step 2: master the game, which basically means he continued to masturbate like that for a while, somewhat enjoying struggle to keep his voice down every time

Because he’s just so fucking perfect, he can take a lot with some practice, eventually learning how to ride on a toy just fine

Though the original goal was to get used to it so that way when you did it, the feeling wouldn’t affect him, Banri hates to admit that the restlessness of wanting you doesn’t leave

Step 3: play the game, it’s show time 🤩

He’s grinning really wide when he makes you lay on top of the bed, that’s immediately suspicious

“Relax, sugar, and you can watch me feel good, just like you wanted... ahahh!”

Your jaw dropped as you watched him take off his underwear and hop onto your lap, reaching behind his back to grab a bottle of lube (where did that even come from-?!)

His smug expression at your aroused shock faltered as he sunk down onto the member, a bright flush returning to his face and chest

It felt different to Banri... maybe it was the fact that you were there, he tried not to think about it as he started moving

Okay, a big miscalculation on his part was your movement, any time you bucked your hips up he had to grit his teeth in order to not make a loud noise

You noticed and tried to lift yourself higher, harder, Banri visible shivered, glaring at you with hazy eyes, those eyes that either said “Don’t you dare” or “I dare you” 👀

So, you pushed him over, grunting with effort, and managed to move forward inside of him even more

Banri protested, of course, despite the long whine that was brought out when you ground against that same hot spot he liked

What truly gets him is when if you grab his hair while fucking him, Banri loves feeling the tugs in time with your trusts

“Ughn- yeah! Fuck... harder, do me harder... shut up! I’m ah- hah... saying this for your benefit-!”

He demands that you be rougher with him, saying that he could handle anything you did to him, no matter what

Banri’s moans are quieter than expected but it’s still fairly loud, he gets really riled up the faster you go

By the time he cums, he’s gasping and he actually moans when he releases, you’ve only ever heard him growl out an orgasm

If you want to piss him off (if you can), cum inside him, it turns him on and he hates it 🙂

Banri recovers quickly so even after you’ve banged him into the mattress, he’ll be fine, much to your frustration (note to self: go harder next time)

“Hahh... ‘m fine, just don’t think I’ll always let you top me, babe! F-Fuck... wanna go again?”

Fav positions: reverse cowgirl (he likes to ride you/be in control and getting his hair pulled so it’s a win-win), doggy style (similar reasons, he also gets a little insecure when you look at his face too much), and pinball wizard (Banri likes to do this position to you a lot so why not reverse it, also you can tie his hands behind him 😇)

Juza 🍰

He stares blankly at you for a couple of seconds, looks down, looks back up at you, then he wrinkles his eyebrows in confusion, as if asking “how?” 😶

But for real, Juza doesn’t understand how you’re going to manage that, he’s just really... big

You quickly reassure him that you can manage, and you begin explaining the process, and what you want to do, he goes really red with shock and embarrassment

He doesn’t disagree though, just shifts awkwardly in place before replying

“Would that... really feel good? Cause if you wanna, I don’t mind but... I dunno how- I’ve never uh-“

The actual idea doesn’t put him off surprisingly, he just cannot grasp the concept

Luckily you’re more than happy to demonstrate 🤗

Even though the two of you have been dating for quite a long time, although it was balanced who started the sexy times, it was always you who initiated anything kinky

After taking a bath, you instructed him to lay down on his stomach and he gulped as he slid off his undergarments

Smirking slightly, you reassured him that you would be gentle as you patted his butt, Juza only snorted in amusement

He flinched at how cold the lube was as you rubbed your finger over his entrance, he was as tight as you expected

You couldn’t see his face but by the time you worked two fingers, the back of his neck and ears were flushed and his breathing was staggered

Juza gasps when you decide to push a little harder, adding another to make him stretch, the action makes him jump

It’s pretty sexy to watch him squirm and his back muscles flex with effort to hold still, though he doesn’t make much noise

“Hmm... enough, ya don’t hafta mhg- be so careful. Just go already.”

As you pull out your fingers out, his body bucks backwards, then freezes, obviously not intending to do that

You go in slowly (after adding more lube, of course), and you heard him grunt as he grit his teeth together

Despite his insistence that it doesn’t hurt him, you still go gently, which he secretly appreciates upon feeling how burning it is 😅

Juza’s a pretty strong guy, so even having something up his ass doesn’t fold him completely

... Except for one thing, when you steady yourself by grabbing the back of his neck

It makes him feel breathless, especially when you start fucking him harder, squeezing the sensitive spot, his shoulders visibly shuddering

Once you get into a rhythm, Juza’s practically panting into his arm/pillow, eyes squeezing shut in flusteredness when a quiet moan escapes

“... Ghnn- hah! Hhhmn- fuck- my head’s feelin’ all... fuzzyyy...”

He’s starting to think that doing this kind of thing was harder then fighting people because the longer it goes on, the less he can handle the heat-

If you dirty talk or praise him, it doesn’t help 😉

You’re not really in the position to touch his cock, so he’s settled for rubbing it against his bedsheets, an action that gets increasingly desperate as he reaches closer to the edge

Juza’s moan just tumbles out of him when he cums, it’s deep and quick, he covered it at the last second by biting his hand 👌

He’s sweaty and a strange, warm sense of relief fills his chest as you pull out of him and kiss were you left small bruises

You’ll probably have to wipe him down because Juza can’t even look at you without getting frazzled... and just a little bit turned on again

“Th-Thanks... mmmm... it felt- well, it’s really good. I liked it, so... if you wanna, I’m tough so I can handle more...”

Fav positions: doggy style (particularly when he’s fully lying on his stomach, with either you grabbing his neck or putting his hands behind his back), scoop me up (you’re basically spooning him while being inside him, bonus access to your body heat and to biting his neck), and the chairmen (it’s less stressful than riding and you can touch Juza’s boobs pecs, much to his grumpy annoyance)

Taichi 🐶

You better not catch him while he’s drinking something because Taichi will have the most genuine spit-take you’ll ever see in your life

His jaw drops and he’ll whip around from what he’s doing to look at you like you’ve just stripped naked in public 😳

You want to what?! With his what?! That’s way too kinky for him and he’s never even done that- don’t you need to prepare a lot for stuff l-like that?!

“I mean, I wanna make you happy in that way too but- but- but that’s really a lot!”

He calms down after a while when you tell him that he really doesn’t have to if he’s so opposed to it, it’s just something you’ve thought about

Taichi doesn’t want to disappoint you, so if you explain exactly what you want to do, he’ll warm up to the idea (literally and figuratively)

The two of you have been dating for a long time now and though he does have some fetishes, Taichi is more of a giver by nature and gets embarrassed when you do things to him

Later, you ask him to lay back on the bed and spread his legs, he obeys after some hesitation, almost immediately covering his face with a pillow despite your coaxing

No matter, you’ll make him show his face soon enough anyway 😉

You slowly pulled down his undergarments, rubbing his stomach and thighs in reassurance when Taichi flinches

By the time you actually got to the prepping part, Taichi’s already pretty hard because you decided to stroke him at the same time so he doesn’t feel that much pain

To no ones’ surprise, he’s sensitive, his hips jumping up unintentionally as you move your fingers inside him with lube

His hole squeezes around your digits and you have to roughly wiggle to get anywhere, much to Taichi’s protests, who was already struggling to maintain composure as it is

When you finally get three in, his body was chasing yours, already close to cumming despite the painful sensation

It honestly looked like his face was going to explode based on how red and sweaty it was, breathing like he was running a marathon

“Ah- HAH! Don’t pull it out so suddenly... I-I can take more! Ngh... please?”

His face looked so cute, his eyes pleading, but the way his toned body arched against yours was undeniably sexy 😍

You tell him as much as you enter inside, slowly of course, and Taichi let’s out a high-pitched squeak in shock

His arms wrap around your shoulders/back, as if to ground him against the foreign sensation while the rest of him wanted to fly away

Giving him praise along with sweet nothings and dirty promises is really important, it arouses him but it also distracts him from the uncomfortable moments

Taichi whines and squeezes you tightly when you thrust more, pulling in and out of his ass carefully as he tried (and failed) to hold in his cries

By the time he’s close to finishing, Taichi is so loud and he is jumping up to meet your member in time while it hits that sweet spot inside

“Yes- yes- YES! More... oh g-goddd babe, please more- AH! IT’S SO GOOD...!”

This man wails and begs you to keep going, he’s really feeling hot now and encourages you with desperate pleas and breathless praise

Taichi’s nails might dig into your shoulders or create marks on your back (not that you really mind), a new kind of bright red on your skin that he’s never given you

Your hand could’ve stroked his wet cock, just a little, and he would’ve been a goner, cumming with a deafening yelp

Panting, Taichi is boneless against the bed, looking like he’s having an out-of-body experience, only reacting when you started to wipe the drool that leaked onto his chin from his lips

Please give kisses and aftercare thank you, he’s a good boy 🐶

He’s voice his hoarse but giggly as he keeps his body wrapped close to yours, dazed from his intense orgasm

“Heh-heheheh... ah- that was awesome! Felt really hot, I can’t wait to have more~! I-I can, right?”

Fav positions: missionary (the classic, this works because you can see his face and he can cling to you easily), the om (it’s extremely intimate which Taichi likes, it’s also easier to ride), and show and tell (basically means touching yourself while really close to your partner, he does this as a top but it’s fascinating to watch him do it with his butt, gets puppy embarrassed)

Omi 🐺

He’s surprised, that’s for sure, but not as surprised as you are when you find out that he’s... actually tried it before 😱?!

Omi blushes and says that when he was a part of his motorcycle gang, sometimes his buddies would offer some... different kinds of riding as a form of stress relief

He’s quick to say that it’s all in the past and he didn’t even do it that often anyways...

You’d have to stay firm in your convictions in order for him to agree, as it’s just slightly humiliating for him-

“Well, uh, if my baby is sure of what they want, I wouldn’t mind trying something new tonight.”

But, of course, Omi eventually agrees 😈

After preparing the proper supplies (with him double checking out of caution), you laid back onto the bed per his request as he straddled himself on top of you

He was already fully undressed, and the daring position allowed you to gawk at his sexy, muscled body in all of its glory, your hand instinctively reaching up to brush against his face in reassurance

Omi leaned into your touch, only pulling away to grab the bottle of lube to lace it onto his own fingers

You watched in awe as he leaned back with one hand, and fingered himself slowly with the other

He grunted with effort, clearly uncomfortable and not quite used to the stretch but continuing none the less, for your own benefit, he assured himself

Determined to not let you down, Omi pushed another inside, his strong fingers having no trouble doing so, though his eyes closed shut at the pain

You took some pity on the poor man and made a move for his cock, which was barely half-hard, making your lover take a sharp breath as you stroked it

With your combined determination, Omi eventually relaxed considerably, moving three fingers and groaning your name as you teased his arousal

“Are... you having fun down there? I- mmgh- I feel like I’m not quite reaching something. Let’s get to it...!”

He sat up completely and sighed as he slipped his digits out, Omi bit his lip as you lifted your member up to his hole

Swiftly but careful, your boyfriend sunk his body down, legs spread open, hands resting on your chest momentarily (nearly crushing you in the process)

After a few minutes, you pat his butt as if he was a horse that needed to ‘giddyup’, making him laugh as his eyes glittered seductively 😋

Omi then proceeded to fuck himself rather ungentlemanly, his own dick slapping harshly against his abs at every bounce

At first for Omi, it didn’t feel that different from his hand, just the thickness made him slightly more sensitive

He leaned back a little bit to adjust, and suddenly his nerves were electrocuted with pleasure, you were reaching deeper than he could on his own and-

“Ohhhh- hah... ugh, right there. I found it just- god this is a lot to- HHn- process...!”

Omi’s body was dripping with sweat as his face and neck flushed red, gruff moans and pants stumbling out of his open mouth

It’s probably best to use your hands to help out his now very hard cock, it looked as ready to burst as the rest of his body did

His thick, scratched thighs shook heavily as he slammed his ass on top of you over and over again upon nearing his climax

Omi is praising your own dazed expression as he grits his teeth to contain the sounds of his orgasm, only throaty growls escaping

While he pants and returns to his senses, you can only stare and gulp at the dripping cum on his pecs and his honeyed expression

He speaks as he leans down for a kiss, finally arising from your lap-

“You made me feel so hot, like a wildfire... mmm- spreading. Hrmph... thanks. For next time, did you want to touch me more~?”

Fav positions: cowgirl (is used to this pace the most and it’s a bonus for you cause it’s nice to watch 😉), CAT position (aka. the Coital Alignment Technique, its close and intimate, which he likes), and the stickman (basically you bend him over a sofa or table with his hands on his thighs, perfect for the kitchen, also easy to get rough with)

Sakyo 💴

You honestly thought you were going to fucking die on the spot from the sheer iciness of the glare Sakyo gave you

Like, you wish to top him, but are willing to fight him to the death for it? Because that’s the only way he’s budging 😠

The thought honestly makes him so embarrassed he wants to die

The embarrassment only increases if you threaten suggest to complain to Sakoda about it

That guy’s already way too involved in his love life, he doesn’t need to be involved in THAT kind of thing too-

“... I’ll consider it. That is all you’re getting from me... don’t you dare tell anyone. And stop looking so happy!”

Later in the week, Sakyo is searching online for... certain products and tells himself that if they have a discount, he’ll let you do it

... Of course, the oNE TIME- guess he has no choice now 😑

More time had past and just when you thought that it was a pointless endeavor, one night on his day off, Sakyo dragged you into the bedroom

He stared at you intensely from on top of the bed as he shook off his jacket and belt before tossing you a small box

You choked on your own spit as your jaw dropped... what the box contained was... a vibrating dildo 😩

Sakyo rolled his eyes and told you pointedly that you were going to use that on him, and if he didn’t like it, there would be no continuation, understood?

With a “yes, sir” and a heavy blush, you agreed, tackle kissing him against the sheets

By the time you poured the amount of lube he considered ‘safe’ and shoved the toy inside him, Sakyo was already halfway to being breathless, not expecting the sensation to be so painful (or so pleasurable)

He covered his face with his arms but even you could see he was flushed, biting his lip to not let you hear him make a sound

Unfortunately, you get into a steady rhythm, practically forcing his mouth to open even before you turn the vibe on all the way

Sakyo’s legs shake as his ass feels like it’s getting violated, unable to control the heat the spreads quickly up his spine and dick

“Urgh- enough! J-Just move mmn-! Move on alre-adyyy...!”

He snaps at you, refusing to make eye contact, even as you put his leg upwards to get a better angle

Your lover is trying so hard not to lose it, hiding and masking his mouth with his hands, eyes squeezing shut because jesus- nothing’s ever felt like this before-

It makes him feel all vulnerable, like you’re prodding at something more than just sexually, so feel free to lean down and kiss-mark his neck, it grounds Sakyo a little

Obviously, you want to see him melt completely, so you flip him onto his back, much to his shock

This encourages you to thrust even harder, his gasps and pulsing cock edging you on further 🤫

Sakyo isn’t loud per say, but he isn’t quiet either, only able to pant and convulse in a desperate attempt to pull himself together

“God damnit- hah! Don’t think I’ll just lay here and take it... Mmhmm... ohh fuuuuh... pleassse- argh-!”

He’ll play a bit coy, giving you a look that, especially without his glasses, makes him look like a smirking, devilish angel

... Sakyo almost regrets it, as he immediately goes back to being a sweaty mess when you smirk back on return

He’ll never admit it but the whole back and forth was sort of fun/sexy in way he thought an ‘old man’ like him shouldn’t be able to experience

With one final push that lifts his hips off the bed, he orgasms, silently screaming as he feels the sweet release wash over his aching body

Bruises on his hips, hickeys on his neck, drooling and sweaty, you know as soon as his senses come back down from the afterglow, Sakyo will tiredly lecture you

“Geez... that wasted a lot of energy, you shouldn’t have- hhn! ... Th-Thank you for making me feel good, dear. Don’t go crazy without my permission next time though.”

Fav positions: the sidewind (it gives you the best control, which he secretly enjoys but it embarrasses him), eagle position (it’s simple and makes him flustered and feel good, again, can be used softly), and the chair (a position that’s meant to tease you once Sakyo gets used to it, literally sits on your lap)

[nomanwalksalone]

TAKE MY IVY, PLEASE

by Réginald-Jérôme de Mans

A few years before my excellent state graduate school destroyed the promise of accessible public education and raised tuition to the same levels as the privates, my housemate, complaining that he wanted an experience that I had already had, transferred to Yale. Said experience, one I had never put a name to, was “the Ivy League experience.” I never thought that my undergraduate years at Dirnelli U (known to non-iGents as Brown) amounted to any sort of emblematic experience of the eight universities that compose the Ivies, nor that the sort of experience that expression connotes exists today outside of the imaginations of a few who have closed their eyes to the sartorial realities of college, whether on the campus of an Ivy League or elsewhere.

Certainly by the time I wandered my college town’s streets the idea of an Ivy look that was not the national college outfit of jeans, sweats or even pajamas was ludicrous, even if those wanderings frequently took me past Brown’s last two, soon-to-be-extinct, soon-to-be-unmourned, Ivy outfitters. Despite one of them adding a large wood carving of the Polo logo to its sign, they remained unrelatable enclaves surrounded by the diners with insane hours (midnight to four AM) and smoke shops with Sobranie Black Russians which I remember more sentimentally.

They weren’t welcoming, either, if I ever braved to venture past the window displays with Royall Lyme and defiantly middle-aged Barry Bricken and Tricots Saint-Raphael mufti. Undergraduates were not buying, and that shop, Hillhouse Ltd, closed my senior year. Times had changed to the point that I remember the opening of a Gap on Thayer Street drawing some criticism in the press for that shop’s expected priciness.

Richard Press evokes Hillhouse Ltd.’s predecessor, Langrock, and the other classic outfitters of the Ivy League in his sparkling memoir Threading the Needle, a collection of reminiscences from his posts on the website of J. Press, the ur-classic clothier founded by his grandfather. Even if J. Press is now owned by its Far Eastern licensee Onward Kashiyama, Richard Press remains the face of the firm, and, for all intents and purposes, its breezy, never windy, voice.

Press is ebullient to the point of becoming almost ethereal, a far cry from my memories of the weary heaviness of my local Ivy shops’ atmospheres, their prosaic furnishings and quite mundane merchandise… But then again, my first recollection of Ivy style, recognized in retrospect like a recovered memory, was of my high school English teacher’s tweed jacket, which he opened to lend me a pen that smelt as memorably bad as almost anything I’ve smelt since then, including tanneries and certain institutional wards, suffused as it was not with the Hebridean peat fires that Richard Press insists you could smell in the old Harris Tweeds his father sold, but with decades of spilt coffee and sweat-drenched wool that must have never seen a dry clean, so that his shapeless, indiscriminately patterned tweed jacket bore the pedigree of its soiling. My first experience, then, was of miasma, not Press’s ether.

No wonder Richard Press makes a virtue out of the emptiness of the actual Ivy stores, filling them with ethos and intangible evocations: a sense not just of community but of belonging. Belonging to the New Haven restaurants that only sat university students and staff, not townsfolk; belonging to the boisterous undergraduates who knew that Press’s frequently invoked “Boola boola” is a Yale fight song; belonging to a time when immigrant tailor Jacobi Press and his staff travelled the trails of the carriage trade and visited boarding schools to sell rich adolescents custom suits, the better to lock them in for college and life. Belonging to dangerous road trips between Dartmouth and its sister college in the days before co-education (or good highways) to flirt, or at least hope to loan out a J. Press Shetland wool sweater; belonging to Frank Sinatra’s party one whirlwind evening when the Chairman of the Board sat most of the J. Press New York staff at his table in all the chic watering holes; belonging to the small group of people who have seen Dean Acheson in his underwear… Always, however, the thrill of this inclusion is in its exclusion of others: through codes of language, through the financial means required to pay for custom tailoring (for children who would grow out of it!); through social class. It is a privilege to read Richard Press’ writing, but it would be unwise to forget the privilege his rosy reminiscences required.

Comfort and ease in tailored clothing, then as now, only came at great expense. It does not surprise me that those physical Ivy shops of Providence, untouched by J. Press’s halo, withered and died. Threading the Needle includes Richard Press’s jabs at casualization. He bemoans it as a great swindle on us, depriving us of knowing what to wear, and requiring us to buy cheaper, junkier clothes at much higher margins than what honest traditional merchants like J. Press were and are selling us. But the reason Ivy is dead is because the class that wore this syncretistic American clothing, a dowdy bastardization of Britishness with Puritan formlessness thrown in, reflexively because it was what was done, and what was sold where one shopped, was quite happy to wear lighter, easier, less confining clothing as soon as they could shed the weight of Ivy, the dress code expectations that changed so radically from the 1960s onward, and quite happy to spend less on cheaper casual clothing than on expensive tailored jackets and ties whose silk had to be madder-dyed in England. You may see a few young people wearing a Harris Tweed jacket or seersucker sportcoat on a northeastern college campus, but they are all doing so with intentionality, the intention to recreate something that no longer naturally exists, populating an invented ecosystem with overthought clothing to which they associate a politics that was not at all certain to be associated with it in the days when so-called Ivy clothing was the norm on Ivy campuses.

Press’s essays even give us, in pieces, the narrative of what actually happened to Ivy Style. Once upon a time it was the norm on rarefied campuses of young gentlemen who might continue using the same tailor who had bench-made their clothes in high school and college once they graduated to Wall Street, like a Fitzgerald protagonist. The aftermath of World War II democratized (to a point) college enrollment through the GI Bill, leading many, many more people, of theretofore-unrepresented social classes, to attend college and adopt a similar wardrobe. (Another prep school teacher once informed us that Columbia University had simply called up his father after the war and asked him to attend, allowing him to climb the social ladder.) Innovations in production allowed factory manufacture of Ivy-style ready-to-wear garments as well, so that the increased number of people who wanted to wear Ivy could also afford to wear the Ivy look without having to pay the prices of artisanal one-off work. Ivy became widespread: Press uses the word “heyday” in the titles of several of his essays from this golden age when Ivy was the look. And every fashionable look has its end. Not only did fashions change, but social changes in the 1960s meant that homogenous dressing on campuses was at an end, particularly dressing like one supposed a white-collar grownup would in coat and tie. The 1970s’ upheaval in prep school dress codes broke the back of coat and tie for kids, dealing another blow to Ivy. The Ivy partisans Press evokes who wore it during those decades, doughty men, men of intelligence like Dick Cavett, of integrity like John Chancellor, were middle-aged men who had started wearing the same style of clothes decades earlier as students. (Even Frank Sinatra, who scooped Richard up to his bosom, only lasted nine months as a customer in the late 1960s before sending an emissary to tell Richard Frank no longer wanted to experiment with the Ivy look.) Ivy as a style worn by current Ivy Leaguers, or by American college students pretty much anywhere, no longer existed.

Decades later I, too, wear tweed jackets, but keep them clean (unlike the original Ivy population), and am not a parafascist reactionary (unlike some of the most visible latter-day Ivy practitioners). Savile Row tailors had to sacralize the concept of tweed for me, washing away all its associations of brown, smelly, shapeless and hegemonic, so that my garments in it, strange alpaca Shetland weaves or unthinkable lavenders, are as far from Ivy as possible.  Despite the awful Brown Daily Herald (for which I coined the motto “all the print that fits is news”) carrying a weekly News of the Ivies section, none of us felt any ineffable Ivy-ness. The closest I came to such a feeling may have been reading a cheesy story by Providence’s own H.P. Lovecraft, whose action suddenly shifted to the very room I was sitting in… or perhaps hearing a townie couple at a Spring Weekend concert by the very non-Ivy Violent Femmes mutter about how all the kids in the audience had good teeth.

I do not mourn Ivy, as I do not mourn the shops that died trying to sell it to the college populations that have moved on. I hope my housemate found what he was looking for in New Haven (I did successfully, and evilly, bullshit him into buying two Brigg umbrellas for his move there). Had I been him, no doubt I would have succumbed to some aspect of Richard Press’s winning fantasies, replaying the opening paragraphs of Franny and Zooey in my mind, wool-lined Burberry and all, in search of a possessions-linked romance that reality has no place for in this day and age, if it ever had.

[jebazzled]

Level Up! Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced RP and You

Hello there! Coming to you again with tips & tricks for a top-notch roleplay experience! Today we're going to talk about writing levels and what they mean for your roleplay experience. We'll cover what these levels mean, how to gauge where you're at, and how you can improve your roleplay writing specifically!

WRITING LEVELS

"Writing levels" are often a descriptor sites will use in their advertising and site buzzes. They might be "semi-literate," "intermediate," "literate," "advanced," or any other sort of buzzword. The key here is that these descriptors are used by site staff both to advertise what type of writing is most common on their site and what type of writing they want to see on their site.

What writing levels are not is a value indicator. There's nothing wrong with being an intermediate writer or a beginner writer; advanced sites are not inherently better than intermediate ones, beginner sites are nothing to be ashamed of! Think of writing levels as an umbrella within the rp community. The same way a forum rp-er might narrow their search to jcink sites, a writer might narrow their search to sites which cater to their style of writing.

That said, it is good to define what each of these levels look like so you can figure out where your writing might fit.

BEGINNER Beginner writing is often very short and direct, without much in the way of literary flourish. Characters might be fairly undeveloped (or developed around one trait, for example, "goth" or "prep") and there's usually more discussion of their appearance than you see in advanced writing.

Examples:

Susie was short and very skinny, with big eyes and long mermaid-wavy hair dyed blue at the ends. She was sitting outside Firefly High in blue skinny jeans, silver Converse, and a black t-shirt. "I hope someone can give me a ride home," she said.

Raven sneered at Susie. She didn't like blue because she liked black, because she was a goth. "Are you listening to popular music? What a phony."

Bramblepaw sat down in the clearing. "Hello" he meowed.

Some guides will also give an example like 

patty threw a pom pom at susie! "take that u nerd!"

But I am choosing to believe that you're past that if you're deep enough in this hobby to be seeking out resources - I certainly never had that self-awareness until I was more in intermediate territory!

Beginner-level writing gets the job done, and can certainly move a story along. But if you've been writing a while, you might be ready to build more multifaceted characters, and to invest more effort in your writing.

INTERMEDIATE/SEMI-LITERATE WRITING Intermediate writing tends to be longer than beginner writing, with more variety in sentence structure and with more advanced word choices. There are likely more "beats" per post, by which I mean that instead of just answering a question or getting on the bus or etc, a character will likely do more actions in each turn writing. Characters are less likely to be a stereotype (see: Raven the goth who only wears black, Patty the popular cheerleader who is blonde and brainless, etc) but applications likely reveal one-dimensional characters. Common application styles I see from intermediate writers are "interviews" and "journals," as well as listicles (10 Things Raven Likes, 9 People Raven Hates, etc); this likely means a character is told rather than shown.

(Wondering what's so intermediate about interviews and journals? See my guides to interviews and journals!)

Examples:

Susie was born on March 20, 2003 in Farmville, Iowa. She didn't like how similar her classmates all were - they all listened to the same music, read the same books (none!) and had the most fun when drinking on a tractor. Susie was more deep, and liked to write poetry and sketch the animals that lived on her family's farm. Today she was sitting outside Firefly High, twirling the ends of her blue-dyed hair and waiting for a ride home. 

Raven wasn't like most girls. She didn't like horses or rabbits, but only liked goats, because they represented the devil. Raven also wasn't like most girls, at least in Farmville, because she worshipped the devil. She wore a lot of black to represent this, and when she saw Susie, she sneered. Blue! Susie must be a normie. "Are you listening to popular music?" She asked. "What a phony."

Bramblepaw had spent all morning hunting and was feeling lonely. All he wanted was to share a squirrel with a friend, and maybe have someone groom the tricky spot behind his ears. He padded from the apprentice den to the warriors', to the elders and no one was home. He sat forlorn in the middle of the clearing. "Hello?" He meowed.

Another common trait of both beginner and intermediate writing is that posts might not leave much for a partner to reply to. The whole point of this weird hobby is to collaborate with a partner - if you're finding that it is hard to keep writing partners, you might take a look at my guide for writing posts that beg a response.

Intermediate writing is stronger than beginner writing, but still sometimes falls flat when it comes to collaboration with a partner, and is almost never beautiful to read. Intermediate writing is when advanced writing is just over the next hill - and that hill comes with a fair amount of work.

ADVANCED/LITERATE WRITING Advanced writing can be long or short, but the writing in either case packs a punch. Advanced writers use a variety of sentence structures, words, and literary devices. They might have specific imagery they use for specific characters, specific literary constructions for different characters, and there is a strong character voice in each post. Advanced writers write multifaceted characters with genuine flaws and fears, and advanced writers produce writing that is enjoyable to read, elegant and emotive. Applications will usually be anecdotal - will demonstrate key moments in a character's life, allowing the writer to show them in action rather than tell the reader what they are like. (A guide to anecdotal freestyle applications is available here.

Examples:

Everything felt the same in Farmville: identical rows of corn stretching endlessly over the horizon, pockmarked by the occasional farmhouse, white clapboard and falling shutters. Every person felt the same - Susie and Mary and Sarah and Joseph, strong peasant names living strong peasant lives, and never straying more than twenty miles from the town in which they were born.

Even Susie knew she had her place in the sameness: the once-every-generation girl who fancies herself to be more, as though her sketches of the sheep and pigs are any better than her grandmother's before her. As though dying her hair blue were enough to make her different when she knew she belonged here as sure as the hogs in the barn.

The only difference between Susie and her classmates was that she didn't have a car to get her to her evening job at the Road Ranger gas station, and her bike had disassembled itself after she'd pedaled it into a gopher hole, so here she was, sitting pathetically outside Firefly High, waiting for a ride. She'd almost rather be fired than beg for one. 

It’s the principle of the thing, Raven had told her mother that morning. Yes, it was 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity; yes, there was not a cloud in the sky and the fields absorbed heat like a winter sweater; yes, she was aware that her white makeup and Wet n' Wild eyeliner was falling off her face like The Scream. But it was the principle of the thing, wearing the long-sleeved black shirt with the hand-cut thumbholes, a long dark skirt; her only concession to the heat, a pair of thin gray flip-flops instead of her beloved Docs. She listens to Death Wish; she doesn't have one.

But nothing makes a Satantic rebel feel more a phony than feeling it drip off of them in the rural Iowa heat, and Raven wanted to take it out on someone. Fair? No, but life isn't fair; she's got that on a sticker on the electric guitar she saved up her Hy-Vee salary for and never learned to play. Maybe pretending to be an asshole has turned Raven into one.

She has no real problem with Susie - Susie Q., from math, or Susie C., from human geo; who knows, they're all the same - but she scoffs at her anyway, loud enough to catch Susie's attention. "What top-40 garbage are you listening to?"

Hunting is something they do together, or they're supposed to. But in the whole time he'd been out in the woods, Bramblepaw hadn't seen a single other cat - not playing at the stream, not waiting in a tree for the finches to return, not sitting along the RiverClan border to taunt their neighbors. If he'd been a Loner, just passing through, he would have thought the entire territory abandoned.

It was unsettling, and when he returned to the Camp, it was more of the same: everyone gone, without a trace; had he imagined them being here at all? Was it all in his head?

His mew sounded small and pitiful to even him, the mewl of a lost kitten. "Hello?"

Advanced writing makes more time for descriptions, scene-setting, and other narration. It doesn't feel "cringey," by which I mean if you read it 10 years from now you're probably not going to want to drown yourself. Please do not ask me about the 2005 Proboards forum I adminned and referenced for this tutorial.

So now that we can recognize what writing our level might be at - how do we shop for a site?

FINDING YOUR FIT

Now that you have a sense of where your writing sits, it's time to use that data point in searching for a new site to call home. Some sites make it easy for you by self-identifying as beginner, intermediate, or advanced; some sites may use "semi-literate" and "literate," but I know I stray from those labels because it feels like a value judgment, and as I said before:

there is nothing wrong with being part of a beginner or intermediate community, if that is what makes the most sense for your writing and for what you aim to get out of your roleplay experience!

Before applying to a new site, you should do a little bit of digging around to see if it's a good fit for you: 

Look at accepted character applications. How do these compare to your own writing?

Skim some threads from top posters. How does this community write and structure their threads? Could you see yourself regularly keeping up with their speed, length, literary quality?

To the above point - does it seem like the community has a tendency towards your personal writing pet peeves? (For example, I personally cannot stand purple prose, and if the site community is prone to it, I am OUT.)

This is in addition to all standard due-diligence site-hunting routines, e.g. not diving into the world of Southern Gothic supernatural if you're looking for, say, urban fantasy.

It's also worth thinking about how the community behaves on the server, if you join it:

Is there a thread shoutout/compliments/etc channel? What passages are members calling out in there as exceptional writing?

Do the members strike you as open-minded and friendly or as more of a closed group? If you choose to shoot for a level above your standard writing as a growth exercise, this will be easier to achieve with an open-minded and friendly group than with a group of snobs.

Do you enjoy the vibe? Something frequently overlooked, I think. If you don't like the energy of the community, just don't join the site - that is going to be much more productive for everyone than you joining and then trying to get the staff to fully re-engineer their community.

Be honest with yourself! Regardless of how much you like a site's plot, lore, and community, joining a site that sits above your writing proficiency is challenging. You might find your characters routinely pended for lacking the development of other characters onsite. Other members may not be enthusiastic to write with you - not necessarily out of snobbishness or elitism, but because it's not fun to feel like you're not getting equal effort or quality from a writing partner. And you might find yourself feeling insecure about how your writing stacks up to others (I've been writing on advanced sites for 10 years and I feel insecure about my own writing sometimes!) which might sap your muse.

If you are looking for a minimal-effort, minimal-stress rp experience, stick to sites that are at or below your writing level. Writing with people of similar skillset will help take the edge off any insecurity, and because writing will be lower-pressure and lower-effort, you will be better positioned to juggle multiple characters and more big plots. "Lower effort" doesn't mean "lazy" - it just means that you free up headspace that otherwise you might spend on the mechanics of writing versus the excitement of plotting.

If you are an intermediate writer seeking to write on an advanced site, you need to take a much more deliberate approach.

One thing I see often is intermediate writers applying multiple characters to an advanced site at once. This is a losing proposition. While staff might be willing to pend an app and work with you on revisions, if they see you submitting multiple applications that require major revisions and overhauls, they see a pattern. While staff might be willing to help you develop one character to their site's standard, if they anticipate you needing that level of coaching on every character, they will question your ability to keep up with their members in threads. Staff cannot be expected to assist members on writing each thread post - at that point, it becomes easier to decline all of the intermediate writer's applications.

If you are an intermediate writer seeking to write on an advanced site, you need to treat this as a "quality, not quantity" project.

When I was 13 I was writing very much at a beginner and intermediate level, just little Neopets rps with my friends. Then I joined a horse rp - an advanced rp - with a 1000 word minimum per post. While I am beyond thankful ridiculous word count minimums aren't common anymore, I can credit this rp with much of my growth as a writer.

I wrote one (1) character. And I only plotted her with a couple of others. I was very active in the OOC community, and was eventually made a mod - but when it came to IC activity, I focused all my energy on one character and just a couple of plots, because I spent hours on each post, making sure that I was matching my writing partners as best I could. It was much more work than the beginner & intermediate forums I was on with my friends, and much more work for much less action. But stretching like that is what made advanced writing get easier and easier - until I could balance two characters on an advanced site, then four, until now, when I write 12 characters on multiple advanced sites with relative ease. The real challenge is in keeping up with threads - not in matching quality anymore.

If you are an intermediate writer seeking to improve your writing, joining an advanced site is a great option for growth, but you need to adjust your expectations.

Here are my best tips for intermediate writers looking to make the jump to advanced - or, for that matter, for beginners to make the jump to intermediate: 

Focus, focus, focus. Choose one (1) character to write - no matter how tempted you are by want ads, no matter how many other ideas you get, no matter what your muse is throwing at you. Use all those on sites at your current level. For your reach site, pick one character.

Be receptive. Your one (1) character might take a revision or two to get out of a pend. Remember that staff don't pend apps to be assholes - they do it because they believe in you and think you have it in you to do the necessary revisions! If they thought you were a lost cause they wouldn't have wasted their own time with a pend. Be open to the idea that they know what works and is expected in their community. After all, if your character and your writing aren't appealing to the site community... you're not going to have anyone to write with!

Focus, focus, focus, part 2. You should not choose this character based on the volume of plots they can attract. Choose a character who has one or two very close plots for you to focus on. You might consider identifying a particularly kind member of the community and filling one of their want ads, so that this close plot is ready-made for you, and so this person can be a friendly face on your writing journey.

Be realistic. You might think: well, if I focus on one character for a few weeks, then I'll be ready to take on another, right? You might be or you might not. Don't rush it. This entire journey is about deliberation and intentionality. Don't take on a second character on an advanced site until writing the first to the same standard is noticeably easier.

Be kind to yourself. This is a lot of work! If you have the time for it, you might consider also staying active on a site that is at your writing level, so you have a place for easy writing, indulging your plot bunnies, etc.

I hope this tutorial has been a helpful resource to you, both in identifying how to find the right rp for you and in figuring out how to improve your writing, if you so choose. Happy writing!

[courtneystriker]

My Thoughts on the HG Prequel

I just finished reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and I got to say, my feelings are mixed. Below I have an entire review  for the story which included how I felt, the expectations, the biases I had going into the new book, and how I felt after reading. Please note there will be spoilers. Also this review isn’t meant to hurt anyone and if you absolutely love the book so far...good! Enjoy it fully! As an aspiring writer myself and someone who studied in college/loves creative writing I’m well aware that people just have different takes on writing. Glad you are enjoying it :)

Anyways, here it goes…

The Expectations

As the Hunger Games series is one of my favorites of all time, I had a strong bias to like this book. Since it was first announced, without knowing any details, I was extremely excited and optimistic. I re-read the entire Hunger Games series twice beforehand in preparation; once with my fiancé and once on my own. The only thing I really wanted, knowing that it took place during the tenth hunger games, was that the arena reflected how new the hunger games were. Then, when we learned what the series was about, people started voicing some concerns or were disappointed by the plot, instead wanting it to be something like Finnick’s arena, Haymitch’s, Mags’, etc. etc. I was not among this group. However, I understand where they were coming from, because I always thought the idea of the first Quarter Quell (the one where the districts voted for the tributes) was an extremely interesting concept. 

Yet I think these things are best left explored in fanfiction as they add nothing to the series and Suzanne Collins did an excellent job just giving us enough information to get the idea. At that point it’d just be a book on details, which could fall short or be a gimmicky, cheap way to keep people reading the series and keep her name relevant. And wasn’t that part of the message in her series, the thing Katniss so heavily criticized that gave a great irony to the books? Who would watch children killing each other for entertainment? Meanwhile, we as the reader are reading these books as a form of entertainment. Plus, Suzanne Collins so skillfully painted the illusion of knowing but not fully knowing their stories that it’s haunting, and I think that is one of the many reasons (along with the battle royale trope being naturally compelling, liking the characters, etc.) that a lot of us are more drawn towards these stories rather than (at least for me)  a book on Snow. 

That being said, I was not against the idea of a book on Snow because I find villain characters, especially grey ones, to be very interesting to read about, and I was pretty certain Suzanne was going to handle this beautifully, especially since you could already feel this atmosphere coming off of Snow in the Hunger Games series. I know some were really concerned about a Snow redemption arc, but to me it felt very obvious that it couldn’t be and it would be more of him sliding into evil.

I did have other concerns when I read the description for the first time. I could not believe they went with the whole tribute from District Twelve thing again. I loved Katniss and District Twelve, but I did not want Katniss 2.0. I said right from the beginning to my fiancé that she’d have to make the tribute from District Twelve extremely different for me to get on board (though I was holding on faith that Collins would). It just felt cheap and gimmicky to rehash the District Twelve thing, it sort of made me feel the same way I would have if she had written about one of the games I mentioned above. Sure, it’d sell, but it wouldn’t add anything to the series. I was thinking she better not hunt, sing, or have any qualities resembling Katniss really.  

Another thing I worried about was the love story they hinted at in the description. It just didn’t make sense to me. Because how was Snow going to ever support the games if from an earlier age he fell in love with a tribute and vowed to protect her? Then later he’s all like pro-hunger games? Just this itself could weaken the entire series if done poorly, because it would weaken the main antagonist’s motives for not only the prequel but also the Hunger Games series as well. I kept thinking either the girl has to die in the arena betraying Snow somehow (which is what I was hoping for), Snow will have to betray her, or perhaps he would have been faking love for her for some sort of personal gain I couldn’t imagine. Either way, I thought it weakened the story's appeal to me. Yet overall I was still excited, desperately waiting for the book’s release. 

And now that I have read it, I have to say it felt forced at a lot of parts and lackluster overall…

*Spoilers start here*

My Review:

Suszanne Collins’ writing style is one I’ve always loved and has consistently appealed to me. Even though this book is written in 3rd person (which some may like less if you don’t particularly like third person) it holds up well against the original series. So I really had no complaints in this regard besides the excessive use of songs (felt like fanfiction a bit). I think if you liked the original series and don’t mind third person you’ll feel right at home with her style.

The concerns others had about Snow’s redemption are completely dismissed in this book. Like I had predicted, she writes about his fall into evil, and although it’s not black and white evil (as I don’t like anyways) you can very much tell he’s a bad guy and that the hardships he faced in life only further pushed him towards obtaining status and power. Overall, he feels true to the character when we end up seeing him in the Hunger Games series, and his journey to power fits the images Finnick painted in Mockingjay. He is very well characterized in the book and perfectly unlikable while maintaining an intriguing internal dialogue (although it does occasionally feel tedious, but not enough to bother me; others may feel differently).

 The way he is written is very much in line with Collin’s great characterization, one of the reasons I always loved The Hunger Games. All the characters felt like real people. They all had an extreme depth to them and I felt they all resembled people I had actually met in real life. There were little to no characters that relied solely on gimmicky personalities to get by. Even very minor characters that seemed depthless and swallow at first--like Katniss’s prep team--had more to them. So I thought going into this book I had nothing to worry about in that regard. I didn’t even really spare it a thought, but boy was I wrong. 

I think Snow and Lucy Grey were the only characters that had (at least partly) the depth that the original Hunger Games cast had. I’ll discuss Lucy Grey later but first let me talk about some side characters. Where to even begin really? There’s a LOT of characters in this book. Frankly, way too many, which I think contributes heavily to the lack of depth in the characters. Honestly there’s so many that the names of characters were hard to keep track of while listening to the audiobook (my hard copy of the book was still in the mail and I didn’t want to wait). Things got a bit clustered in my mind quickly. There were twenty-four tributes, twenty-four mentors,  Snow’s family, The Dean and Drs at the university, Snow’s Peacekeeper crew, and the Covey, and those are just the groups that I can cluster together. At least, the ones I remember having names and getting introduced, but I think that’s everyone really important. There was no real time to develop or get to know them really, which made the tributes’ deaths more meaningless as I could barely recall their names. It caused impactful scenes to weaken significantly overall and it made characters serve only to characterize and amplify Snow’s fall into evil. 

Here’s what I mean by that. The head Gamemaker, Dr. Gaul, really was the character I hated the most while reading this. She was just evil without reason (one of the weakest villain types with little to no personality besides being evil). She even made creepy rhymes as if she was in some sort of horror movie, and the entire point of her character was to contribute a lot to some of the forced plot points driving Snow’s moral decline. For example, there were all her tests, which seemed contrived and all directly connected to getting Snow to think the Hunger Games was a good idea. She was seemingly supposed to be a Dr. Mengele type character, as this book has a lot of Holocaust-esqe imagery. I’m fine with irredeemably evil villains, but instead of getting the depth that a Dr. Mengele character could offer (as some may know, many children that were part of his experiments actually said he was kind and gave them candy, and I find that deeply haunting to this day.) She is a flat, one-dimensional character whose entire personality could be described with one word: sociopath. Evil people are master manipulators, which is how they get away with evil things. I think at one of the funerals she puts on a good public face, and she seems to have power, money and influence. Yet the book doesn’t show this seemingly present quality nearly enough to make her a haunting character. Instead we get nursery rhythms and clearly driven lessons towards evil at are contrived. Like “Write about what you most liked about the war” or the assignment to improve the hunger games? Like what class is this? Why are they taking it? And why are the young kids of the influential deciding this instead of the influential people themselves?

Another character I feel was just there for Snow’s development and to represent an opposite viewpoint but lacked Collin’s usual depth is Sejanus Plinth. As a District 2 citizen whose family got rich off the war and moved to the Capitol, he is the main opposing viewpoint of the book, presenting Snow with a chance to do the right thing. I’ve seen people say he’s a Peeta-like character, but I completely reject that idea. He lacks in the charm Peeta has, relishes in self-pity (although he’s completely justified in his sadness and has a right to be upset), and while he has a heart like Peeta, he ultimately doesn’t know how to use it. Instead of working within his position to get influence like Peeta so masterfully does, he’s hot-headed and continuously makes poor decisions that ultimately don’t help anyone. It’s like he wants to help but doesn’t know how as he’s driven completely by emotion without reason. He too contributes to some forced scenes, particularly my least favorite in the book; when they sneak into the arena. Overall, he just falls flat for me. Again, I feel I don’t know anything about him beyond what he contributes to Snow’s story line and he doesn’t come across as realistic. It’s like Collins just wrote how someone would normally react to the hunger games, slapped a district number on him and went on her merry way. 

I just wasn’t prepared for these sort of characters when the Hunger Games series made even the smallest of characters stand out dramatically. I feel neutral to annoyed by most characters in this novel. I could expand this portion, and maybe if people inquire I’ll elaborate on some of the other characters as I have strong opinions on them, but this post is already getting long, so I’ll move on to Lucy Grey.

Lucy Grey is by far my favorite character even though she is bordering towards being a character from a fanfiction. Not quite a Mary Sue in my opinion but there is a certain connection to fanfiction I made with her. You may have guessed some issues I had with her by reading my expectations earlier in the post, but that has not displaced my love for her. Her personality is very different from Katniss’s, or even Peeta’s or Haymitch’s. She had a different type of charm than all of them, is a natural performer, and seemed more extroverted. Also, the whole idea of the Covey and her “not really” being district was intriguing. It really highlighted the displacement that war can cause and how people can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Although I was confused on how much mobility between the districts there were….and did District Twelve have a fence or no?) It really emphasizes one of the main themes of the book, extreme prejudice against both Capitol and District. Her spot sort of in between really drives home the point that there's literally no difference except extreme poverty, and even then there was poverty in the Capitol, only better hidden. Her bright mood (and clothes), her poised attitude, and her optimism made her endearing. She was confident in her skin yet still held the fear of a sixteen year old going into the hunger games.

There were only two main things that bothered me about her, which was of course the direct connections made to Katniss (which I’ll elaborate on) and the forced “love” story between her and Snow. I suppose that has less to do with her and rather more to do with my dislike of that subplot. And I'm a sucker for some good romantic subplots, but yikes!

I think having one strong connection to Katniss was all that was really needed in this book. I really liked the idea of that connection being the Hanging Tree Song, as I can only imagine how it made Snow feel watching “The Mockingjay” sing it in the propo. Despite me not liking that fact that Lucy Grey is also an enchanting singer as that felt like directly stepping in Katniss’s territory, I did enjoy the little twist of Lucy Grey writing the song. Yet the connections between the two when the plot took us to District Twelve went too far. It felt like it took away all of Katniss’s special places and things. The lake, her katniss roots, her gift towards music, her fondness for the meadow, sneaking into the woods, etc. I think one solid connection would have solidified their bond beautifully. Having so many seemed like it was really trying to force the reader to make the connection when it was already painfully clear I guess? Plus, having Lucy stand out at her reaping ( the whole song part read like a bad, contrived fanfiction bit to me) and having people care about her in the Capitol while moral questions of the hunger games were still surfacing made me start to think...isn’t this how the rebellion for Katniss got started? At least partly. I get it’s a different time. Too close to the war. It just felt way too similar. I guess Collins was going for the idea of a lost rebellion that in a way Lucy Grey started that Katniss later revives. Yet it feels like that invalidates the specialness of what Katniss does in the original series as it’s already happened; it just got erased. I guess history repeats itself, but I really just didn’t like it. I could see the appeal to some extent, and it could be a beautiful connection, but it just wasn’t for me.

Now on to the plot, which is the last thing I’ll talk about as this post is getting ridiculously long. A lot of the plot felt very forced or contrived, which was another shocker coming from Collins because her pacing and plot was done really well in the original series. Of course, a lot of this was driven by Dr. Gaul and Sejanus Plinth as the entire plot hinged on the moral debate of the hunger games these two represent. Other plot points just hinged on what happened to establish the games. I mean the rebel bomb explosion seemingly only happened to change the terrain so Dr. Gaul can then bring up the idea of the different arena and how that made the tributes act differently, thus creating the crazy arenas we see later in the series. I do have some praise for how Collins established the disparities between the earlier hunger games and the ones we see in Katniss day. From the way they lock the tributes up, don’t feed them, the spotty coverage of the arena, etc. All of that was exceptionally well done. The only complaint I have was that so many tributes died before they even got to the arena (though not because I wanted to see them fight). I had been expecting one to escape or something to further establish that this was new territory and was waiting to see how they handled it in earlier times, but I wasn’t expecting that many to die before the arena got started. It just seemed like a huge Capitol failure that they advertised loudly. I really wasn’t expecting that level of incompetence, just an escaped tribute that threatened to embarrass or harm the fragile beginnings of post-war Panem. Instead, most of the pre-arena stuff felt disastrous. A lot of the mentors' deaths felt forced, and it was weird that the academy never really came under fire at all from all the rich and powerful parents whose children were getting killed because of the mentor experiment. Like it seemed there should have been some interaction there, but there wasn’t. Maybe some was passively mentioned but still, it could have been a whole subplot that further established the debate of the hunger games.

While the pre-arena up to the break-in to the arena felt like the most forced part of the book and certainly I felt it needed more workshopping plot wise, it also harbored some great and powerful scenes, like Arachne pulling the sandwich away from the tribute while she was starving and laughing about it. Basically, all those interactions of poverty and captivity meeting the citizens of the Capitol were done well, but nothing spectacular (unlike the scene of Katniss screaming at Buttercup at the end of Mockingjay which is heart wrenching.)

The last plot point I’ll talk about is the “love” story. I wasn’t a fan, but it was sort of what a lot of the plot hinged on and led to the great scene at the lake between Snow and Lucy Grey. How easy it was for him to betray his “love” for status. This led to some of the most interesting and evil internal monologue Snow had in the entire book. I honestly feel the ending scene, the interaction Snow had with the jabberjays and Mockingjays in District Twelve, and the lynching scenes were among the strongest and most memorable.

The love story again felt forced (sorry I’m using that word so much it’s just so accurate) into the story. This hindered the book from having a strong plot in the same way the weaker characters caused forced interactions and plot points to move things along. Yet at the same time the kind of abusive and lackluster nature of their relationship throughout the book fit perfectly with the ending. Unfortunately, it didn’t really make it very compelling for the reader. Luckily Lucy’s  personality kept my interested during these parts. I wouldn’t say their relationship was poorly written at all; in fact the way it was written makes perfect sense. I just think the plot relied too heavily on their “love”, which was gross because of the way Snow is, and the reader knew it had to inevitably end in some kind of betrayal or reveal that there was no love at all. This creates tension for the reader, but I kept wondering: if the love plot had been ditched could we have gotten a stronger plot altogether?

So overall, like I’ve said I’m really conflicted. I know I focused heavily on things I didn’t like, but honestly the book was well written in some regards, plot bouncing between really compelling and a little contrived, the two main characters being written well enough but other characters not so much. Some connections between Lucy Grey and Katniss made at the end were powerful, I loved the Covey, Collins still excelled at writing a lot of the social issues/scenes in the book, and honestly the idea of Lucy Grey being completely forgotten in the Districts that hurts my soul a little. Nothing compared to the feelings I got in any of the Hunger Games books but there’s still something there.

I really hope someone made it through this long ass post. The book was entertaining. I mean I listened to all 16 hours of the audiobook in like a day. I can’t wait until my hardcover comes so I can look through it. Maybe once I know what I’m getting into I can enjoy the book a little more than I did, because right now it’s sitting at very average for me. Maybe I went in with my expectations too high? I certainly like the Hunger Games a lot more and probably always will. Honestly, I love new content, but I’m also the type that likes firm, planned endings to stories (even though it hurts to let things end and the fandoms can suffer from lack of content). I think fans can oftentimes get caught up in what they want and pressure the writer into writing more, which ends up a disappointment since it wasn’t originally planned in the series from the beginning. While I don’t think this is by any means the case with Suzanna Collins or that Lionsgate even pressured her to write this book (I don’t like conspiracies of that sort of thing as a writer myself that plans to have a series in which a book comes out many years after the original part of the series is released), I do wonder if this is the end of the Hunger Games for good. I sure hope so, especially if she would be writing about the other victors. I love them too much and really don’t want to feel similarly about their books, and like I said at the beginning, it wouldn’t add to the series just to my guilty pleasure lol.

Hope you all have enjoyed your reading of the book more than I did :) Again sorry if I wrote anything to upset you! Please if you loved this book ENJOY IT! I’m actually kind of jealous if you did. Feels like missing out on something special.

[ka-za-ri]

Demon Brothers and Mid-Autumn Festival

Happy early 中秋節 !This spawned from me crying over pretty mooncake packaging. And then I fell into a hole of matching the boys to boxes and this Mildy AU stuff happened. Uh... so I know this isn’t the only way to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, but it’s mostly based on my experiences and nostalgia. So excuse the super self-indulgence and have fun~ I tried to include links to things that might need some more explaining.

It’s my first time writing headcanons so pls be gentle on me .･ﾟﾟ･(／ω＼)･ﾟﾟ･.

Lucifer

“Mid-autumn festival? I may have heard of this before in passing.” 

“What is this? A Jewelry box?” 

Don’t tell him how long you went looking for the perfect packaging and flavor. 

Doesn’t celebrate the whole week, but will at least sit down with you for a night to share mooncakes

Prefers them without the yolk, but he’s not going to complain if they’re there.

Neatly cuts the mooncake into quarters and has to have it with tea 

Likes the wintermelon filled kind the best. The chewy texture goes better with tea. 

He’ll make an exception for black sesame lotus paste though

Unfortunately too busy to do any sort of moon viewing with you since he’s swamped with paperwork. 

At least he’ll share mooncake and tea with you while he does it 

Keeps the box and actually uses it as a lamp from time to time

You find out he’s using the tins to store wax seals and stamps too

He doesn’t have time for it, but appreciates the small bottle of osmanthus wine you leave at his door at the end of the festival. 

Finds you a month later on the next full moon to sit down and drink it with you. Offer him a Laopo Bing or leftover mooncake to go with it as a snack. (Of course there’s leftover mooncake) 

You share tea and cakes while sitting on a pavilion overlooking a lake. The moon’s reflected on the surface. Lotus flowers are blooming and the sounds of cicadas are in the distance. Wispy clouds float past the full moon but don’t really hinder its brightness. 

He brushes a stray strand of hair out of the way before maybe sneaking in a kiss or two. He’s much more entranced by how you look lit by the moon and not the moon itself.

Mammon

Got gifted a box of them from a designer as a gift after a photoshoot

You may or may not ogle at how pretty the packaging is. He teases you and taunts you with it. Of course they would only gift something so majestic to The Great Mammon. 

Doesn’t bother cutting into them, just eats them like a cookie 

Until he gets to the yolk 

“The heck is this? Who puts salted egg yolks into a sweet thing?” 

Looks up how much the mooncake box from a designer might sell for. 

So many gifted mooncakes

But he doesn’t eat any, unless you show interest in them. 

You find chocolate flavored ones among all the boxes 

Still doesn’t cut the mooncake up, but at least there’s enough to share. He’s less traumatized now that he’s had one that doesn’t have yolks in it. 

Spends the rest of the night sampling all of the weird ‘haute couture’ flavors of the year. 

The strangest one is the truffle and ham flavored one. 

He nearly spits that one in your face

Both of you are rushing to the kitchen to find something to wash away that taste. 

Thankfully there’s the bottle of Osmanthus wine you’ve saved for this occasion

He takes a giant gulp and nearly gags at how strong it is. 

Now you have a partially tipsy Mammon on your hands. 

Take him out on a long moonlit walk to get him sober. 

The air is crisp, the moon is bright, the leaves are just starting to turn color. There’s just a hint of dampness in the air but it’s refreshing. He takes your hand as you’re walking to make sure you don’t wander off. 

Ends the night kissing your forehead and thanking you for sharing so many memories with him this year. 

Doesn’t try to keep any of the boxes and tries to sell them all off if he can unless you find one that catches your fancy, then he’ll just give that one to you.

Leviathan

“Oh my gosh, it’s the Super Rare Limited Edition Ruri-Chan as Chang’e mooncake box?!?!?!?!?!?!” 

He doesn’t care what the flavor is. It’s Ruri-chan

Takes more care of the box than he does the actual mooncake. 

Prefers the small custard filled/lava ones 

They’re easier for snacking while he’s prepping for a raid. 

Raids don’t stop for holidays. Gaming must continue

Invites you to join him one night and gifts you the limited equipment from the current Mid-Autumn festival event in game. 

“It’ll look cuter on your character than mine.” Don’t question him on how long it took him to farm that gear. 

You end up playing games with him all night long and forget to watch the moon. 

Instead, the two of you decide to just watch the sun rise while snacking on the last of the cakes. 

Tea is in order, those things got really sweet really fast. 

The two of you are so loopy from staying up all night, you giggle at the dumbest things as you’re trying to sneak into the kitchen to get something to drink. 

“How long did you wait in line for that box?” 

Don’t tell him you just pre-ordered it like a normal person would. “Oh, maybe a few hours.” 

“Well, I guess I owe you a few hours of time as a thank you.” 

You nearly forget that tea’s done and almost wake up the house from the whistling kettle. Worth it for all the kisses you got in between that time though. 

Satan

“Oh yes, of course I’m familiar with the festival. I’ve read all about it.” 

He’s rather fascinated with how ornate the packaging can get for some sweets. “What’s so special about them?” 

Red bean paste with the yolk 

Cuts the mooncake into six 

Lets you eat on the bed as long as you make sure you don’t get crumbs anywhere. 

His room literally has the best view of the moon. It’s mandatory that you watch it from there.

Lets you gaze at the moon from his bed while he reads. 

Until you interrupt him and start reciting  Li Bai’s Quiet Night Thought. Mostly it’s to yourself out of homesickness

Moonlight before my bed/ Perhaps frost on the ground/ Lift my head and see the moon/ Lower my head and I miss my home. 

And then you start reciting “Drinking Alone Under The Moon” 

You really start drinking and living the drunken poet life. 

“You know, you’re not alone though.” 

He finally puts the book aside and joins you to watch the moon and listen to you recite poetry for hours on end. 

Asks you about Chang’e and listens as you drunkenly ramble off her story all the while nibbling on pieces of mooncake. He offers you the occasional piece so you’re not drinking so much on an empty stomach. 

Keeps the box and the tins but has no idea what to put in them so they end up gathering dust in the room until one day he needs something to put spell components in and he remembers it exists. 

Spends the week watching the moon and listening to you recite poetry or tell fairy stories. 

Often falls asleep in your lap, a half eaten piece of mooncake in hand.

Invites you over for moonviewings even after the festival.

Asmodeus

He can't tell if he should be more impressed by the packaging or by the cake designs. 

Snowskin mooncakes become his favorite

Rose and lychee flavors are preferred

He adores how pretty crystal mooncakes are as well

Absolutely no yolks please 

Refuses to watch the moon with you. Staying up late will ruin his skin care routine 

He will day drink the osmanthus wine you’ve save to go with the mooncakes while you watch operas

It sounds weird to him at first, but the makeup and the costumes draw him in. 

Cries at the end of Farewell My Concubine 

You end up spending hours telling him about the Four Beauties and China’s Four Most Handsome Men 

He’s upset that all of the stories end in tragedy

You try to cheer him up by going to a local festival and watch the lanterns and other festivities 

Gets super invested in lantern making and spends hours learning how to make one to hang up in his room.

While he’s gone, go buy him some Tanghulu Not only can he appreciate the bright red hawthorns, but they’re a delicious snack on the go while you let him explore the whole festival.

The two of you spend hours looking at cute packaging for mooncakes and buying them back for the others. He’s happiest with the one you gifted him though. 

Okay, maybe he can stay up late to look at the moon just this once. 

Take a small picnic to a grassy hill somewhere so you can admire the moon in its full glory. Most of the snacks are rice cakes and fruit and of course more moonakes. (Seriously, there’s so much mooncake)

He knows he’s supposed to be watching the moon, but he finds it easier and better to watch you instead. You’re just as ethereal as Chang’e in the silvery light of the night. 

Definitely keeps the mooncake box and uses it to hold parts of his makeup collection. It fits right into his room decor.

Beelzebub

You get him the biggest box with the most variety that you can find so he can try as many flavors as possible. 

He ends up liking the kind that tastes like Gai Zhai Beng (Sorry, I don’t know what this is in English?) with all the nuts the most since they’re the heartiest. 

Actually, he likes all of the more savory ones

If it’s sweet, it should have yolks. Four of them if they have those, if not, he’ll settle with the Cantonese style with two yolks.  

You take him to the festivals so he can try even more flavors

The best part is that you get to try them as well. He offers you at least a bite before downing the rest of the mooncake. 

Do the two of you go around eating everything until you feel like you’re about to burst? Absolutely. 

If you can’t see anything that’s going on during the performances at the festival, he’ll lift you onto his shoulder to get a better view. 

With how much time you spend at the festival and how much you’ve eaten, you don’t know if you can stay up late to watch the moon like you want to. 

He lets you piggyback on the walk home 

The sound of a pipa song from the festival echoes in your brain and you hum the song while half asleep on the way home. He gets it stuck in his head for the next month and a half. 

Worth it though, it means he’s reminded of the great time he had with you and all the food he got to try. 

Now he’s constantly asking you if you can make him mooncakes. 

Literally forgets the box and tins exist until he’s cleaning out his room for hidden snacks months later. 

Almost forgot about the osmanthus wine you gifted him as well. He hits you up on the next full moon to drink it while eating snacks and you get to tell him about all the legends behind the foods he’s eaten. 

“Next time, I’ll make you Crossing the Bridge Noodles.” 

“What’s the story behind that?” 

“I’ll tell you when I make them.” 

“Is that a promise?” 

“Of course.” 

Belphegor

Thinks a fairy must have visited him in his dreams when he rolls over and finds the box of mooncakes next to his pillow

Sleeps all day so he can watch the moon all night with you. 

Expect tons of cuddles while doing that

Find out when he’s halfway through eating the box that he prefers tang yuan over mooncakes

He covets the box you gave him regardless

Maybe you make the tang yuan with a little extra ginger to spite him

Too bad for you, he prefers it that way. 

Convinces you that the gardens is the best place for moon viewing 

He’s right since there’s an osmanthus tree there and it smells absolutely amazing this time of the year. 

His favorite dessert is pretty much impossible to transport, so he’ll have to deal with what you brought. 

Ends up quite liking sachima but not jin dui 

Beel drank the last of your celebratory osmanthus wine, it’s time to break out the baijiu

It takes only a few sip of this to have you both tipsy and slurring superlatives at the moon. 

“She’s just so beautiful. Look at her. So radiant and glowing and just the most magnificent isn’t she?” 

“I can’t tell if you’re describing the moon or if you’re describing yourself.” 

“The moon. Of course. She’s so beautiful that poems are written about her for thousands of years.” 

“I could do that for you too you know…” 

The two of you end up falling asleep in the garden under the tree. By the time you two wake up, you’re both covered in the tiny fragrant blossoms 

Take some back with you to make cakes and maybe some more wine to remind you of the lovely night you had. 

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 55

~*~Sebastian~*~

I stared at her. Stunned. I'm not sure if it's how the conversation went or she wants me and whatever comes with me. Emma is so intentional. Her words carry meaning. She wants to be clear and asks for clarity. This is heaven for my overthinking brain. I’m not stuck wondering what she means nor am I afraid to ask. Because I know she'll answer. Really answer.

"I've got eight years on you, how are you the more mature one?"

"Stabilizing influence and frighteningly direct communication of my second dad."

The expression on her face and deadpanned delivery had me laughing. "I can see that. I'll be the emotionally reactive one and you can be the calming one." Then I remembered. "Although, Eli did tell a story about you laying into some guy in Hawaii at a volleyball game. Ed dumped you in the ocean. I wish there was video."

"There is. You'll have to get dad to send it to you."

Tuesday was a good day. Workout was hard and my abs were already sore, but we'd laughed a lot. Good phone call with mom. The house had come together, she was enjoying some time in the pool, and she'd picked up some piano students. My afternoon was spent in my manager, Emily's, office. Mostly she and I, but a few conference calls. I was about to be busy. The next six weeks I was more gone than home. I was excited about the work. Excited to see friends.

Admittedly, the timing wasn't the greatest, new relationship and all, but I was confident we'd figure it out. This is different. I'd like to say it was because my previous experience is whining and bitching about me being gone so long, knowing I was going to pay for the distance, and trying to front-load my leaving to make it more palatable. While all of those all true, the actual difference is I care. The emotionally unavailable hot and cold thing comes into play here. I put up a wall to block the whining and bitching, not really listening, because it's my job. Bitching at me isn’t going to change anything and I’m not going to feel guilty for doing my job. Well, I do, but it just pisses me off because I shouldn’t.  The expectation of gifts, dinners, or a vacation to make up for being gone made those a lot less fun. And I was never successful at cramming a bunch of stuff in before I left, because my work didn't start when I left. It starts weeks before. I don’t leave for filming for a month, but I’m already prepping: gym reading, watching things, research, and studying the script. I get pretty singularly focused. I don't know any other way. And when pushed I shut down. I don't respond. I brood. And I appear cold. None of this is right. Some just is. Some is my fault. Getting to where I didn't care about her (any of the previous hers) feelings and concerns with me gone was a side effect of shutting down and I regret doing that. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about her feelings. It was feeling ineffectual to do anything about it and my self-protection kicking in. Looking back, saying effectively “deal with it” was incredibly insensitive. Not proud of it.

But now, sitting here looking at my schedule I’m finding places I can find some time for us. We’ll figure it out. I can tell you what won’t happen. Emma won't whine where I block her out. She's not going to emotionally blackmail me for things, which will make me want to give. And she’ll leave me alone to prep, let me bounce things off her, or cook something to remind me to eat. I need all of those. I care how Emma's going to feel about me being gone. I care about what we’ve begun and how we'll keep in touch. I also know that while I'm away she will carry on living the life she had before she had me and be just fine.

Emma had practice tonight and a game tomorrow. It was after eight when she called. She was in a tank top and her hair was wet from her shower. I caught up on her day before leading into mine. "I have good news and bad news."

"OK." Emma drug out the word, wary of my response.

"When I get back from Canada, I've got some time to spend with you. Then I’m gone for the month of July. Fashion show, audition and meetings, comic con, then filming in Rome." Playing off last night’s conversation, I added. "I'm not expecting a bad reaction."

"Well, that's good." Her hand moved toward the screen and I chose to believe she was touching my face. "I'II miss you, but I’m excited for you. And me getting to hear about what you're doing. Living vicariously."

I'd had some time to think. I had a lot of thoughts on plans. This was the soonest.  "You get back Tuesday, doubleheader Wednesday, and I get back late Thursday. What's your weekend look like?"

"Empty. I'll come to you. You'll barely be home if you come here. I can come anytime Friday. I'll be done with work except maybe packing up my room. I can do that whenever."

"Early Friday. Thursday night." I wanted to maximize our time. "I have to do some work."

"I can amuse myself."

"Maybe the shop you liked so much will be having a sale?" I laughed at the way her eyes lit up. "July fourth weekend I'm at a fashion show. Wanna go to Paris?"

"What?" Her face moved closer to the screen. I’d surprised her.

"Not necessarily Paris, but near. The third is the show. Have you been to Paris?"

"Family spent the summer in Europe when we were thirteen. Then Pearl Jam tours. Love Paris."

"Not much more than a long weekend, but museums and I'm sure we can find some romantic Paris shit to do."

"I would love to go to Paris with you."

That was good because I'd already made reservations. "California for about two weeks then straight to Italy for at least that. Depends on how long shooting takes. Hopefully back in time to join you in Chicago. Then nothing until the end of August. Will and I had been talking about a group of us going away. We were waiting for my schedule. What do you think about a group trip and we stay a little longer or go off alone? It would be a beach somewhere."

"You going to rub sunscreen on me?"

"Um yay, part of my volleyball job. Beer bitch and sunscreen applier."

“I’m in."

"End of August is a Disney thing. Labor Day weekend is the Toronto Film Fest. Little stuff in there, nothing big. No idea past then."

She laughed, eyes wide, and moving her head in all directions "It's crazy like a tour schedule. I'm jealous. I love touring."

"I thought about Rome, but the schedule's tight. You wouldn't see me."

"I wasn't trying for an invite. I'll get some of my summer PD hours done so I won't have to worry about them. Make sure I've got time for us."

I leaned back on the couch, "That was easy."

She glared at me. "I thought you weren't expecting a bad reaction?"

I shook my head, "No, no, I wasn't. Just an observation. Thought I might have to talk you into the beach." I held it a second before smiling, "Not really. I do know it’s a lot."

"I will always go to a beach."

"You’re not allowed to play volleyball."

"Did you get the video from dad?"

"About an hour ago." I'd enjoyed it several times. "You're a feisty little thing."

Wednesday was a day of pictures and texts. After the gym, I settled in my extra room to prep. I had my laptop on the table, a stack of books on top of my script, and a huge bottle of water. I took a picture and posted it to Instagram along with one of me with a pencil between my teeth and pulling my hair.

Emma ~ How'd you get a picture of your expression during your last blow job?

Sebastian ~ Hidden camera in bedroom. You should see the other things I have. Coupling Season 1. "The Cupboard of Patrick's Love."

Emma ~ “You really don't have enough blood for both ends of your body, do you?"

Sebastian ~ Very good, Sally.

 Love that she can quote one of my favorite shows.

After lunch, Emma posted a picture of her in the middle of a group hug with her students. "I'll miss my munchkins.”  I sent a sad face emoji.

Then I fell into a hole. I got pulled into my research and reading and the next time I picked up my phone it was one a.m. I need time like this and put my phone on do not disturb. The only thing that comes through is two calls from the same number within a few minutes. Anyone important knows how to reach me. Emma knew, but she didn't. Not even when the Demonic Crickets won their game. She posted several pictures, but I got a much better one in a text. Emma with her back to the camera in her team tank, arm up flexing her bicep, and her looking over her shoulder smiling at me. The gold flecks in her eyes were sparkling and the darker ring made the green more intense.

Emma ~ Hope you're getting a lot done. Internally anyway.  XOXO

Sebastian ~ * 12 hours later * Yeah, I did. I'm hungry. Congrats on the win. Picture is beautiful.

Sebastian ~ You're beautiful

 Her thank you came while I was working out. After a shower, I fell back into my hole until it was time for therapy.

I'd been seeing Celie for a long time. Frequency varied. She had a dark brown bob, glasses, and a round face. At this point, I could read her as well as she could me. If she was looking at me over her glasses, she thought I was full of shit. No words needed. She was about ten years older than me and her style worked for me. It was a great one-sided friendship.

I took my regular spot on the blue couch, "How are you today, Celie?"

Celie smiled. She had the unconditional positive regard thing down. I say that, but she does genuinely like me. Most of the time. I can be a pain in the ass. "I've had a good day and after you I get to go home. You seem to be in a good mood. Tell what's going on with you, Seb."

I was always her last client of the day. Sometimes I needed more than an hour. "I am in a good mood. I met somebody. Last time I saw you I was going to help my parents move. I met Emma there. In a grocery store, if you can believe that."

"Sounds like you can't."

"I asked her to dinner in under fifteen minutes."

She widened her eyes in disbelief. Exactly my point. "Did you? Good for you, Seb. A complete stranger. What led you to ask her out?"

"I was all covered up and she tells me I looked like a rehab patient checking into the clinic up the road. But she was kind to me. A sketchy stranger. She didn’t know who I was until we were outside and I introduced myself. She helped me find the things on my list and we chatted." I put my hands in front of my chest, fingers splayed. "She felt good. I didn't know why, just enough that I knew I wanted to know more.”

“And what do you know now?”

I spent the next several minutes telling Celie the salient points. We’ve been doing this long enough that explaining isn’t necessary. She’ll recognize why things are important. My face hurt from smiling after I was finished talking about Emma. I stopped short of the whole conversation on Sunday.

“Besides the obvious early relationship high, how are you feeling about all this?”

“Good. Happy. Hopeful. The only concerning thing was Saturday I woke up from a night terror, panic attack. I got myself calmed down pretty quick, wrote for a while, and once Emma got up I went for a run.”

“Even with being happy, there’s been quite a bit of emotional activity. I’m pleased that you’ve only woken up once. Much better. What do you suspect triggered you?”

I took a deep breath, “Emma and I wound up in this conversation Sunday afternoon. A couple of my friends at the party had told her I wasn’t acting like I normally do with women, but more like I am with friends. This led to a conversation about my relationship issues. I’m not the same with her. She really doesn’t know that version of me. I think that’s why I had the anxiety. It was the night after the party but before the conversation. First time we’d been around my friends. I think it was not because I’m scared, but because I’m not. Like you said, there’s been a lot of emotional shit going on and I’m good. Remarkably good.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Emma is different. She’s incredibly kind and is . . . gentle. Not weak though. She’s strong.”

Celie shook her head, “When I think of gentle people it’s a combination. They can be painfully truthful, but their manner makes others able to listen. They have a compassion for others.”

“Exactly! I noticed she knew everyone. She talked to everyone and used their name. I asked and she said she looked at their nametags and you never know what someone’s day has been. That might be the first nice thing that’s happened all day. I know it’s a little thing, but it’s her. She’s like that with me. She doesn’t try to talk me out of being anxious or overthinking. She doesn’t think my insecurities are stupid. They’re all just part of me.”

“She accepts you.”

“Right. The more we got to know each other, the more we talked, I felt safe. She doesn’t do those things I usually shut down over. I don’t feel the need to protect myself. She’s very different.”  Celie was looking at me over her glasses. Uh oh. “You’re giving me the look.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Why?  I thought I was doing good. I asked out a stranger and got this amazing woman.”

“Sebastian, as quick as you are to fault yourself, you’re slow to take credit.”

“Take credit?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.

She leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “You think this relationship is different because of Emma. You lucked out and met an accepting, kind, gentle person.”

“Yes. No. Both. Emma is different and she makes me different.”

Celie made a loud, jarring beeping noise. This was new.

“Ok, I guess I’m wrong.”

“You are. Not completely. You’re not giving yourself enough credit. Any credit. You’ve worked very hard. You’ve read. You’ve journaled. You’ve talked. You’ve done things I’ve asked you to even if you didn’t understand or want to. I’ve seen you grow. To give responsibility for this relationship being different all to Emma is dangerous. What’s going to happen when she falls off this pedestal you’ve put her on? Is that going to be an excuse to shut down and protect yourself? Fall back on old habits.”

I could feel my eyebrows pulled down and the scowl on my face. “So you’re saying this isn’t as good as I think it is.”

“Not at all. I’m saying it’s got as much to do with you as it does her. Previously you would have never asked out a woman you met in a grocery. But that seems to be the furthest you’re going with how you’re different. I do not believe for one second that no other woman you’ve gone out with has been kind and accepting. Or would have been if you would have been able to show them you.  You used to do things to test them. You’d say or do things to see how they’d react. As we’ve talked, you weren’t being real, so you don’t know that their reactions were.”

I nodded then looked down, “I know. Pretty manipulative.”  I felt Celie’s hand on my arm and looked back up. Her face was very soft with a smile.

“Stop, Seb. You need to be proud of yourself. You are doing things differently. You have learned from your past, grown, and come a long way in accepting yourself. Warts and all. You have shown Emma who you are, even the parts you don’t like so much. She can have credit for how she’s responded to you, but you deserve the credit for being brave enough to show her in an honest and authentic way. That allowed her to respond in an equally honest and authentic way.”

I grabbed a tissue from the ever-present box on the table and wiped the wet from my face. Neither the first nor the last time I’d cry in this room.

"If you had met her even a year ago, with her exactly as she is now, this relationship would be very different."

"The wedding."

"Excuse me?"

Yeah, non sequitur. "I was supposed to go to a friend’s wedding last summer but didn't because there was a change in my shooting schedule. Emma was at the wedding. You're right. Had I met her then," I shook my head. “I wouldn't have been ready for her and now could have never happened."

Celie shrugged, "Probably not."

I sniffed and wiped my eyes, "How do I get her off this pedestal I’ve put her on?"

"You seem pretty smitten. Maybe not take her off, just lower it a little." I laughed and she went on. "What you do is own your part. You have been making choices to improve yourself. You have been making choices to go out of your comfort zone. And you have been making choices to let her know you. Emma's been making similar choices to be with you. I'm sure you know what she's come through to be where she is. It seems like you complement each other. Recognize this is both of you waking up and choosing to be with each other. Talk and negotiate what that means. Tell her what you want. And when you're not talking you listen. Listen to what she needs from you. The most important for you is to keep processing the feelings with her. She's the only one who can help those make a picture. And you need to give her the same gift. She has things she’s not so proud of and afraid for you to know about her. We all do. You will need to accept her and treat her with gentle kindness she gives you.”

I was crying again. "She told me. I told her she was different than the others. She asked if maybe I was different."

Celie snickered, "I like her."

"You would. She speaks therapy."

"I want to be very clear, Seb. She sounds wonderful and she may make you better. You sound wonderful and I bet you make her better too. That’s how it should work in a relationship. You help each other along. It takes two people with self-awareness making choices to do what it takes. You both have to choose growth, honestly, humility, vulnerability, and sacrifice. I hear you holding up your end. I’ve not heard you do this before. And while she may be the right woman, you've become the right man. Please, please, do not underestimate how much work you've put in to become the right man for another person.”

"I want to go home and cry for an hour or so."

"I wish Emma was here for you."

I shook my head with a grimace, "It's going to be ugly until I get it out."

"Yes. I think Emma would want to be there to hold you and you'd find more acceptance and comfort in that than you can imagine."

At home, I grabbed a beer, sank down in my favorite chair, and cried. I felt everything all at once but fought to untangle the threads. Sad was remnants of the past and dissipated quickly. Its friends regret and shame fought a little harder to stick around, but they were toxic and needed to go. Pride and relief were together too. Celie was right. I had worked hard. An infinite number of hours had gone into figuring myself out. There have been so many times I thought I'd be stuck forever. Sometime in the last two years that I've been without a girlfriend, all the work must have come together. In the last two years I've been filming almost nonstop. Five movies have come out. Two of which were Marvel circuses. It's like all the therapy (and the work that goes with it) knitted me back together while I was busy filming and living my life. Celie had told me to trust the process. I couldn't rush it or make changes happen before it was time. Patience. I am inherently impatient. Pride was for the work. Relief was for seeing results. Finally.

Next was happy. I’m in a good place. I'm excited about the movie I’m making. I have supportive, fun friends, and a loving family. I don't need a girlfriend to be happy, but one does bring everything together. I like having a person who is mine. Mine in the sense of us experiencing life together. The good and bad. I like that. I want that. And now I have it. The beginnings of it, anyway.

After I pulled my shit together, I wanted to talk to Emma. I wanted support. Maybe not support, but I felt raw. I wanted someone to soothe the raw nerves, to sit with me while all this new stuff integrated. I wish she was here. What I needed was a hug.

Sebastian ~ Can you talk?

I don't like that I asked. It feels insecure and I have zero reasons to feel insecure. I quickly decided to cut myself some slack.

My phone rang and I connected to FaceTime. "Hey." Her bright smile and obvious happiness to see me did wonders to soothe those raw nerves.

Emma's face went from a smile to wide-eyed concern. "Sebastian, what’s wrong? You look like you've been crying. What happened?" Before I could answer, she jumped to a correct conclusion. "You had therapy. Good, bad, or cathartic tears?"

"Mostly the last one."

Her hand went to her chest, "Ok." She picked up what I assumed was her iPad and crossed to the chair in her bedroom. I could see her pull her knees up when she put her feet on the ottoman. She rested the iPad on her knees.

"Mostly a repeat of what we talked about Sunday. Celie said I wasn't giving myself enough credit for the work I've done. My growth."

As Emma had alluded to the same thing, I expected a smile or some acknowledgment of her asking if I was different. Instead, I got, "What do you think?"

"I think I still need to work on not being so hard on myself." I smiled because that statement was me still being hard on myself. "When Celie pointed out how I've changed I could see it and was proud of myself. I can’t see it on my own yet, but I'll get there. I never thought anyone would get past my walls. It wasn't someone getting in, it was me getting out." More goddamned tears.

Emma reached out and touched the screen. "I‘m so happy for you. Proud of you too."

Her words felt like a hug. Close enough for now. "Thank you."

"I know you're a grown man, but I wish I was there. Crying alone sucks."

"Oh," I laughed a little, "the chances of us having a messy reunion are high."

"Why?"

"A lot of you and I talk today. I know me, it's gonna hit me when I see you."

"I should warn you. I have a strict policy that nobody cries alone in my presence."

I smiled at her exaggerated southern accent with the "Steel Magnolias" quote. "See ... gonna be messy."

[losangelesvalorant]

final thoughts on games today:

Tl;dr: london is going to have Issues with a capital I, paris is fine and will be better w hanbin, boston were okay and them losing just solidifies how fucking scary and well-oiled nyxl is rather than boston being terrible. Titans, like usual, have no respect for their opponents and could be even scarier /if/ they wanted to be, valiant pops off sometimes but cant do it consistently, shock looks rusty and dallas needs to pocket decay even harder than they already are to win games.

london: i see a lot of potential in them, but until they gain confidence they’re c tier for me. They seem overcoached and lost when they aren’t unable to go through with their set plays, of which they way too many for each map. When they were able to play their game, they cycled their ults well, but were easily forced out of their comfort zone. Bernar tried his best to carry, but jmac looked lost and wasn’t able to bait nicodgh’s walls at all, that might be a problem w coordination w sanguinar for speedboost tho. babel wasn’t quick enough to get his walls out in time, though they were great when he did. Glister and highly tried their best, sanguinar seems to play very individualistically which gave london chances, but fdgod just outplayed him mostly. Once teams figure out how to play vs them they’re fucked unless the coaches move away from set plays and unless the team builds more confidence. This team is going to suffer with hero pools if they don’t fix something quick. London honestly and truly has a TON of potential, but not the coordination or confidence or coaching to utilize it.

paris: they’re gonna be scary as they get more coordinated! Can’t wait til they can run at full strength w better tanks. They made good adaptations and looked good doing it. Nicodgh’s walls were sick, nosmite looked great, fdgod is a fragger, xzi clicked heads and greyy and hyp did good too. Benbest i didnt watch. I really like what i see with this team, but we haven’t seen them at full strength so i dont feel like i have much to say about them. Definitely a dark horse for me. They should thrive with hero pools. 

nyxl: nyxl looks as dominant as ever. They’re coordinated, smart, aware, turn impossible situations around, and quickly shut down every win condition boston had before they could even execute it. Though whoru’s mei is def the weak link for me (his walls kinda suck. I think theyre just giving him stage experience here tbh. His genji slaps tho), him and sbb/nenne are a scary duo, everything that can be said abt jjonak and anamo has been said already (They are the best. They are the best. They are the best.), and mano and hotba are both doing excellently. I dont feel that this is their optimal meta, but nyxl has showed a lot of willingness to adapt to their opponents and make swaps, which i like. I’m not worried for them in hero pools, though they might stumble a bit. They’re solidly in S tier for me now

boston: This is gonna be controversial (and take this w a grain of salt cuz im plat.) but boston played better than i expected cuz im a pessimist and was expecting them to get completely rolled, and they at least showed some signs of life. They’ve clearly scrimmed a lot of different comps and looked at least vaguely competent in them, which is more than dallas valiant and london can say. They tried to go for a lot of clutches which never rly worked. they tried to adapt, but nyxl outmatched them and kinda drove them away. Axxiom and fusions were coordinated and i liked their dive, their double shield not so much. boston dps were holding their own, swimmer and myunbong were too, there’s not rly a carry on this team. axxiom i think is being slept on tho. They could definitely kite better and coordinate more, and make faster/smarter swaps, but they at least looked pretty synergized. They were clearly outmatched but they def looked better throughout the whole series than london did vs nyxl after the first 2 maps. Boston seems like a B- tier team to me, but they could be better and i do want to see them play more before im certain abt this. I’d call this a quality loss despite the scoreline

vancouver: Titans clearly didn’t prep much for this match and didn’t respect valiant as much as they should have. There’s no weak points on this team, just that all of them went for clutches they shouldn’t have and got punished for it bc they assumed valiant would be weaker than they were. Titans hate being methodical but are great when they are. When they subbed stitch in, they went for more dumb plays it seemed like, so i bet sms is the one keeping them chill. Fissure’s playing bumper style (taking space and dying for it) but quieter, which I like, bc it means they can pocket haksal harder and let twilight go for more plays. Good adaptations, great plays, great synergy, once titans got their feet under them and downloaded valiant it was over. Their dive was soooo clean. Nothing to be said about this roster that hasnt been said already (theyre the best). This is classic titans and im glad to see losing bumper hasnt completely stopped them from doing dumb shit, cuz even if it hurts me to watch its fun. They should be absolutely fine with hero pools, S tier.

valiant: Valiant only have one comp and theyre Very good at it, especially in the mirror, but theyre having trouble adapting to titans. They have very high highs and very low lows, they also try to clutch sometimes and fuck up. When the team pops off theyre sick, when they dont they… dont. Gig is a madlad. I do like that they prepped for the titan’s bap strat on lijiang and shut it down entirely, that was very good coaching, but they weren’t able to adapt to non-mirror matches after that. They might get fucked by hero pools bc they didn’t show anything successfully other than rein/dva variations, but we’ll see. I'm finding them fun to watch and I'm interested to see if they can consistently maintain their peak play. B tier, i think their weaknesses are more exploitable than boston’s but that boston would lose to them. Id compare them to hunters last year but if hunters played meta

shock: I didnt watch this match super close tbh. Shock looks strong as usual, but they stumbled far too much for my liking when they let doha and decay get value but otherwise incredibly dominant. Architect’s ana got sooooo much value as the series went on, beautiful sleeps beautiful nades beautiful nanos etc *chefs kiss.* i dont think shock prepped super hard for them, and they rly couldve adapted better on horizon and won that map, but it was overall dominant. They seemed pretty rusty honestly but theyre still good, but they should be pissed they got fullheld on horizon. I’m not going to draw any conclusions from this game when it comes to shock bc its one game and its their first game back. S tier, they’ll be fine with hero pools.

Dallas: Dallas looked way better than yesterday, when decay and doha were unleashed and it was less about taking space they were monsters. Tank play was better but not great, glad theyre not making note play rein anymore. Decay is a god and doha played around him really well and his walls were sick. When decay couldn’t play mccree and couldnt get support, there was nothing dallas could do. Gamsu… seemed a bit tilted and used ults he shouldnt have. There were also communication issues, it didnt seem like trill called some of his shatters which meant the team couldnt follow up. They weren’t able to adapt that well without set strats, and other teams will use that to their advantage. Once a team figures out how to shut down doha and decay the game is over. C tier, will struggle in hero pools

right now rankings for me go titans, nyxl shock in S tier, glads in A tier, toronto, paris, valiant, boston in B tier, dallas, london in C tier

[realityhelixcreates]

Beta, Theta, and Me Chapter 8: Civil Disobedience

Chapters: 8/?

Fandom: Thor (Movies), Avengers (Movies) Marvel Cinematic Universe

Rating: PG

Warnings: Relationships: Loki x Reader (But not right now),

Characters: Loki(Marvel) Additional Tags:  A/B/O, Sorta, More Of An Exploration Of Life And Self Expression Within An A/B/O Framework, Loki Does What He Wants, But Loki Does Not Actually Do What He Wants, Antagonistic Bosses, Loki Has A Throne Now, But It’s Not What He Wanted

Summary:  In direct defiance of Loki’s orders, you make life easier for him.

“Like he got mad that you were asking questions?” Stark asked over the phone. “If he starts getting like that, you don't have to keep asking.”

“No, not like that at all!” You exclaimed, back to the door, trying to speak over the sound of cursing and thumping from the penthouse outside. “He wanted to tell me! He was trying to, but it was like something clamped his mouth shut, and he couldn't get it out. Looked like it really hurt.”

“Damn. That's way worse than just withholding the information. What the hell is even with this guy? If it's not one weird thing, it's some other weird thing. Okay, well don't put yourself in danger if you don't have to.”

“Yeah. I'm just...hanging out now.” You said nervously. The crashing was still going on. “Gonna be fine though.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah! It's fine! Talk to ya later, boss!” You hung up the phone. You didn't want Stark to hear the disturbance. You definitely didn't want him sending anyone up here to 'calm things down'; that would only end badly for everyone involved, but probably Loki most of all.

He was still injured. And this tantrum couldn't be helping, with all the expended magic, and undue stress on his neck.

And you didn't actually want to leave yet. You knew this wouldn't last forever. Logically, you knew. Loki would heal, and you would move on. It was inevitable. Nothing stayed.

But you didn't want it to be over yet. You didn't want him to be carted off to the hospital or jail just yet. You didn't want to be relocated or let go yet. There were other factors at play now. The territorial desire for a place to call your home. The pride that wouldn't allow you to admit failure, even if you hadn't actually failed anything. The burning curiosity. Now, more than ever, you wanted to know what had happened to him! But obviously you couldn't just come out and ask him about it.

The shouting and crashing had died down outside your door, replaced by coughing. You cracked your door and peeked out.

You could just barely see Loki, red-faced and clutching his armrests tightly. His teeth were bared in a gritted snarl, but the coughing was a rhythmic sound repeating itself as though he was laughing. After a moment you realized that wasn't it. He was sobbing.  

He had told you-ordered you-not to come back today.

But you were out in the hall anyway, grabbing up a box of tissues on your way to him.

“Insubordinate fool.” He gasped. “How dare you defy me?”

“Mhm.” You began carefully blotting up his tears.

“I could kill you. Instantly.”

“Any second.”

“And still you disobey! I should punish you most severely for this.”

“Yeah. You should really bring out your worst.”

You found yourself in his lap somehow; it was really the only position you could be in, in order to reach his face and stroke his hair, offer him the comfort he had obviously been craving for so long.

“You cannot imagine the frustration!” He raged, and you clucked, and cooed, and agreed. You probably didn't really understand. Something had obviously been done to him that was far and away from the trauma you had experienced. So you continued to caress his cheeks and let him get his ranting out.

“I deeply wish you had not seen that.” He admitted, once he had a better grip on himself.

“I'm a servant, right?” You said. “I don't really have any impact on your reputation. Besides, I'm your omni-servant, aren't I? She who does all? Didn't you have, like, councilors on Asgard?”

“Of course. But it was...unseemly...for someone of my station...and then it was too late.”

Sheer force of will kept you from rolling your eyes. Of course there was a stigma against him getting the help he needed. Because he was a prince, or an Alpha, or a man. It was just one more stupid flaw of Alpha-run societies. It was just the same here on Earth.

“How is your neck?” You asked. “Do you need any painkillers or anything?”

“Uncomfortable, and no.” He answered, letting you stand once again. “Your drugs are useless to me. And we do not profane our bodies with such anyway. It's an insult to our physical purity.”

“Oh my god, Loki. Are you an anti-vaxxer?”

“A what? No, it's just that Asgardians are impervious to viruses, and so am I. And there is no pain so great that I cannot endure it. Think me weak, simply because of this?” He gestured to his neck brace. “My pain is pure. I do not need to do anything about it, save endure.”

“Not weak, just that there's nothing wrong with-”

“I do not require that kind of sympathy.” He interrupted. “Your comfort was a gift, but you need not press it further.”

“All right, all right!” You said. Was this some kind of Asgardian thing? “No painkillers, I get it. How is it though? Is it still broken, or is that even what happened in the first place?”

He stared at you with the wariness of a wild animal. “It was...” He paused. Nothing happened. “It was broken.”

“How?” Who could do that to a god?

He hissed in pain.

“I mean, how did you survive?” You amended swiftly. Whatever had done it must be tied to whatever was enforcing his silence.

“I...I...was in space. In a sort of torpor. It has happened before. So too, was my brother. A ship came, ostensibly in response to our distress call, but more realistically to salvage any valuables from the wreck. They found Thor, and something possessed them to bring him aboard. He woke there, and for once-for once-he refused to leave me behind.

Their captain came out to find me. He is human, and a sentimental fool, like all your kind. When he saw that my neck was wrong...I do not know what it is about your people that drives them to do such things without even thinking about it...like some kind of strange instinct...he straightened my head. Damn fool has phenomenal luck. He got it just right. I woke up right out there in space with him, mostly unable to move. He went back immediately to get me an old style of space helmet; it was so thick and bulky that it acted as a makeshift brace just long enough for them to put together a real one.

The whole crew of that ship is irrevocably insane, lunatics, all of them. But I owe my life to human sentimentality.”

“So we aren't all bad, huh?” That was a heck of a story, if you'd ever heard one. He was right though; that was incredibly lucky. How easily he could have died.

“You are exhausting. Well. You specifically are not. But that crew was. Whoever heard of an Omega captaining such a ship? He was such an odd one. Already claimed, of course, not that he was my type.”

“How long do you think it will take to heal? Did a doctor look at you when you got here?”

“Yes, a human doctor saw to me. Tried to pierce my skin with a needle. Tried to give me a dose of something called 'morphine'! I informed him of his impertinence when the needle broke. Idiot. His tools could do nothing. To injure me took the power of an inf-fi-fff-AHG!”

He broke off, gagging.

“Loki! Loki, Loki, shhh, shhhh, I get it, he couldn't help you. Okay.”

A few moments passed while Loki caught his breath.

“The nature...of my injury...slows its healing. As does my use of magic, as does my distance from Asgard, as does the constant strain of just living my life.” He wheezed.

The nightmares. The curse, or whatever it was that hurt him when he tried to talk about it. All of those stresses must be constantly re-injuring him, keeping him from healing properly.

“What can I do?” You asked. In the back of your head, you were yelling at yourself not to get any further involved, not to offer any more of yourself, but you didn't take it back.

“You? You can do nothing, what do you think you could possibly do?” Loki scoffed. “You already take some pressure off. I do not have to use as much magic with you around.”

“Is there anything else I can do? So you can use less magic? Is there anything left of Asgard that can be brought here? Do you think, I dunno, lullabies or warm milk before bed would help with the nightmares? I can learn to sing better!”

He stared at you, expression severe and hard to read. Maybe you had overstepped again.

“I'll think about it.” He said. “For now, I am tired...warm milk? Really? Am I an infant?”

“No milk? Not even with cinnamon?”

Loki's lip curled. “Disgusting.”

“Man, you really are a picky eater.”

He had you leave him by the fireplace with is books, and prepare dinner. You went with pot roast this time, dumping all the ingredients into a slow cooker, and washing the prep dishes, while thinking to yourself.

You were so done with suffering. It had been all around you for so long, inescapable, the greater portion of your lived experience. There had to be something else. You'd caught tantalizing glimpses of another way of life, like peeking through the slats of a fence. But every time you thought you had found a way to slip through, somebody boarded it up. Even now, when the sun was out, and things were looking up, you couldn't help but look at this man, and see the rich, velvety layers of misery he was swaddled in.

Perhaps it was just another symptom of the human sentimentality he so scorned. To see someone in pain, and instinctively want to alleviate it. It was so integral to the core of humanity that your people had to be bombarded with a constant blitz of propaganda designed specifically to erode your compassion and empathy, just so you would stop. But it didn't stop you, not all of you. There were still protests, and strikes, and mutual aid, and community action. The urge was still there; it could not be stripped from all of you.

You returned to his side while waiting for dinner to cook. It would be a few hours yet, in which you didn't have much to do, so you sank down on the cushion he had taken to leaving near the fireside for you. Loki was staring into the sparks, as if trying to glean meaning from their dance.

“Would it offend your sensibilities overmuch to help me dress?” He asked. “It would reduce my magic use by a small amount.”

“Yeah, I could probably do that.” You said. That wouldn't be so bad, especially since he was mostly wearing robes during his convalescence. The underthings would be a challenge, simply because of the basic embarrassment that nudity always brought on. But if you could get past the awkwardness, it shouldn't be difficult.

“Are you certain? You will be exposed to certain things that could dishonor you.” He said.

“Dishonor?” You snorted. “What's there to dishonor? You already said you weren't gonna do anything to me.”

“Ah, but I do not wish to make you suffer the temptation.”

“Not gonna be a problem, trust me.” You said. Embarrassment, maybe. Temptation? Never. It was an advantage, you told yourself. Over and over again, you told yourself. At the back of every man who walked out your door, you told yourself. It was an advantage. The pheromones didn't effect you. It made you free.

But Loki frowned slightly. “Very well.” He said, slightly miffed. “You can bathe me as well, if it means so little to you.”

And there it was again. The pride always bruised like an overripe pear.

“I probably can, yeah.” You said, holding on to feigned nonchalance. That was somewhat more difficult, because it meant you would have to be physically touching more of him than you would by just dressing him. But cleaning himself probably took a lot more magic that getting dressed did. And the touch would just be kind of inconvenient, and then there was the brace...

“What do I do about the brace?” How would you wash his hair and face without getting it wet? How would you wash his neck?

“Unfortunately, I will have to use a little bit of magic to keep it dry.” Loki admitted. “Still, it will be less than before. Are you truly sure about this?”

“Never know if I don't try.” You said.

“Strange little thing. To be so cavalier. Well, we shall see how brave you are when the time comes.”

                                                                          ******

The time had come, and now you knew why Loki's tub was so damn big. It was built to accommodate his incredibly long legs, as well as any helpers he might require.

And probably a bit of debauchery as well. You couldn't discount that possibility, unlikely as it was that he would have partners over any time soon.

You stood in hot water just up to your thighs, wielding a soapy scrubbing pad, while Loki lounged submerged nearly to his shoulders. Things were going well so far.

Stripping him down hadn't actually been so bad; the man was built like a Geefs sculpture, like a statue of the Devil so beautiful it had to be removed from the church. He had done almost nothing to hide his privates from your view, almost challenging you, but it didn't matter. That wasn't what drew your eyes.

No, your gaze was held by the roadmap of scars that meandered across his torso, around his back, over his shoulders. A hundred human lifetimes of cuts and stabs, of burns and gashes. A cicatrix as long as your hand just to the side of his sternum caught and trapped your attention. What could do that? What could do that to him? It had a brother, a twin less than an inch from his spine. It must have been a blade. It must have severed ribs.

“It was an abomination, since you are wondering.” Loki had said, catching your horrified stare. “Like legends of old, we became each other's demise.”

“But...”

“Does it disgust you? Am I so ugly to you now that you have seen all of me?”

“No! You're just...” Like an exaltation of form that had inspired artists for millennia. An expression of beauty that could be appreciated so much farther than just the carnal. Even the marks that scrawled across his body like a cuneiform tablet only added to the story of him. The tantalizing story of a being ages old and aeons away.

He'd sunk slowly into the water with an appreciative moan, shameless, ruling the moment like the prince he was.

He'd given you a different uniform for this activity. It was basically a one-piece bathing suit, but it retained the aesthetic of your Asgardian uniform. How did he just have these things? It wasn't an immodest garment by any means, but you felt almost as revealed as he was while wearing it.

The soap was definitely something special; luxurious and sudsy, it was actually moisturizing, and smelled like a forest in Autumn. You kept your little exfoliating pad frothy with it, and used it to limit the amount of physical contact with him. He wasn't making it easy; he kept stretching out and posing, leaning into your touch, moaning at your gentle ministrations. You were being gentle, even though you just wanted to scrub him off and get this over with, but he was clearly in a roguish mood.

He flicked water at you in playful little splashes.

“Why are you trying so hard to stay dry, you prim little thing? There is plenty of room. You can relax too, just as long as you do your job.”

You shied away from the water droplets. “It's bad luck to mix work and play. Always comes back to bite me.”

“I don't bite that hard, do I?” He asked.

“Don't want to find out. You already threatened to drink my blood once, remember?”

He gave a fake frown. “That was before I realized how sour you were. No respectable bloodsucker would be able to stand two drops of you.”

“Then I'll keep my precious blood to myself. Now show me your back.”

“With pleasure.” He stood up to turn around, deliberately giving you a view of his marble ass. You were tempted to give it a hard pinch. After all, if he was going to act like an exasperating child, you might as well treat him like one. However, you also felt it was more likely that you would break your fingers squeezing before he even felt the slightest sting.

He paused a moment before sitting back down, just making sure you got a good eye full. What a brat. Was he like this as a kid? You couldn't imagine what kind of royal terror he must have been, with his tempers and his tricks. He didn't seem terribly hard to please though.

You set about scrubbing his back, taking note of the many scars there. Many of them seemed similar to each other, as if they had all been inflicted by the same awful weapon. Long, thin, and criss-crossed. You didn't know what could have caused them, but he flinched the first time you touched them, quickly regaining control.

“Does that hurt?” You asked. They didn't look fresh, but that didn't mean anything. “What made these?”

“Lash.” He said, but cut you off with a sharp hand gesture when you started to ask more questions.

Was it related to the things he couldn't say, or just another bad memory? A whip? There were so many of those marks.

You carefully washed his hair, probably the least stressful part of the whole affair, though you did watch his face carefully for any signs of discomfort regarding his neck.

You were just about to declare him clean and step out of the tub, when his hand shot out and caught you by the wrist.

“Aren't you forgetting something?” He asked. You noticed the suppressed mirth in his voice and didn't know if you liked it.

“Don't think I am, no.” You said. He gestured to the water. Specifically, he gestured to the water that was currently covering his crotch.

Oh, it was going to be like that? A challenge? Bratty to the last.

“How could I have possibly forgotten?” You drawled sarcastically. You reached down into the water and grabbed him without any ceremony or gentleness. He went instantly hard in your hand.

Perhaps this had been a bad idea.

But as you held up the rough scrubbing pad and saw the merriment drain from his expression at the realization of what was coming, vengeful satisfaction settled in your soul. He barely had time to protest before you plunged the pad underwater and gave the whole area the cleaning he'd demanded.

When you were done, and his muffled yelps had subsided, you tossed the pad aside, and climbed out of the water.

“All done!” You announced with fake cheer.

Loki glared at you, his lips pressed so tight, they almost disappeared. There wasn't any anger in his gaze, but you slipped out of the bathing room quickly, lest the heat of it bore into your back.  

[eldritchsurveys]

1056.

5k Survey LXXVIII

4001. How would you rate your sex drive? >> I wouldn’t “rate” it? I don’t keep tabs on it or anything, it comes and goes at will. 4002. You are sitting alone with a stack of videos and a vcr. Of the following which are you most likely to puut on (1 is most, 10 is least) The good the bad and the ugly, - 5 dracula, - 2 slc punk, - 6 twin peaks fire walk with me, - 1 jerry springer too hot for tv, - definitely not in the running singing in the rain, - 7 flash gordon, - not in the running the matrix, - 4 blade runner, - 3 the muppet movie - not in the running 4003. Are you more likely to get or send random instant messages? >> Neither? 4004. If you were writing an ad telling people to come to your town what would you say about it? >> You lost me at “if you were writing an ad”. 4005. What part of your body can you not stand to get an itch on? >> Any part I can’t easily scratch, of course.

4006. How many people do you suppose have stolen that System of a Down album called 'steal this album'? >> I don’t know. 4007. Name a band you like: What are/were this band's roots and influences? >> I don’t know the roots and influences of bands. 4008. would you rather have a poster of john lennon or a cute fuzzy black cat? >> I’m not interested in either of these posters. I’d rather have a bare wall. 4009. make a public service announcement: >> No. 4010. What makes you feel the need to escape? >> My own brain. 4011. You and your signifigant other, crush, interest etc...who is the ernie and who is the bert? >> --- 4012. When was the last time you did something and later asked yourself 'did I do the right thing?'? >> I don’t remember. 4013. What do you find it hard to say goodbye to? >> Er... 4014. What is your fantasy valentine's day like? >> I don’t have a fantasy for Valentine’s Day. 4015. If you had to have a color for a name, what color would it be? >> --- 4016. Should preference be given to minority students during the college admission process? >> You know, I’ve read a lot of arguments for and against affirmative action over the years, and while I see where multiple sides are coming from, I think that the most important thing to me would be people of all backgrounds being given opportunity. And since this country has proven time and time again that when left to its own devices, it will let systems of privilege and oppression stand without contest, there needs to be a check-and-balance system in place. Which, in this case, would be affirmative action. It’s awkward and has its own ramifications, but it provides opportunity where there was none (or hardly any) before, and I think it opens the door for further discussions and adaptations.

4017. Sweet wine, fresh crisp appples, bagles with creme cheese and lox...what is the most incredibly luxurious food? >> I’m not sure. 4018. Is there really anything to fear in communism? >> ???? 4019. Best sesame street character: most annoying sesame street character: >> --- 4020. feast or famine? >> Wh... I mean, which one do you think I’d choose??? 4021. Write a poem right here in five minutes or less: >> No. 4022. Do you stay and help clean up after a party? >> At someone else’s place? No. 4023. Why was the teddy bear named after teddy roosevelt? >> As far as I’m aware, it’s because some guy saw the bears at a World’s Fair or something and bought a bunch of them to use as promotions for Roosevelt’s campaign. If I’m wrong, there’s always your friendly neighbourhood search engine to clear it up for you. 4024. What are you the prince or princess of? >> I am the Red Prince, inheritor of the Tower and doom of the White! Thank you for asking. 4025. Some people think that Christmas should be taken off of public school calanders because it is politically incorrect. What aould you say to this? >> I don’t know what that means, so I would have to ask for clarification about Christmas’ political incorrectness. Personally, I think more holidays should be added, for students of different cultures and religions, and some of the “American civic religion” type holidays like Presidents’ Day and shit should probably be removed. That’d balance it out. 4026. Would you rather go to an exorcism or a step aerobics class? >> First of all, those are completely different events, so it’d depend on what kind of experience I was looking to have. And whether I felt like exercising. Which I usually do not. 4027. Do you believe in spells and curses? >> Do I think that spells and curses work? Sure, somehow. I mean, people do them for a reason... 4028. What tv show does your family watch together? >> --- 4029. What's on your calander this year? >> Dates? 4030. Is anything ruining your life? What? >> No. 4031. How was life meant to be lived? >> --- 4032. What is your usual breakfast? >> A Morningstar veggie burger and chips. 4033. If you had kids, would you worry about what they did online? >> Of course I’d worry. 4034. Will you be maxin and relaxin this weekend? If not, what are your weekend plans? >> It’s Monday, man, I have no idea what’s going to happen next weekend aside from the usual. 4035. Who has the most interesting story to tell: someone who used to fly to asia as a drug trader the ceo of Nike a nyc homeless person a preacher's wife >> I was a homeless person in NYC and I think my stories are plenty interesting. Regardless, I think most (if not all) people have interesting stories to tell, if one is willing to listen. 4036. What do you have a bad feeling about? >> I am not having a bad feeling at this very moment so I would like to keep it that way. 4037. Do you have a lot to say? >> I don’t know. Do I? 4038. If a smallpox vaccine was offered to you, would you take it? >> ??? Don’t we get those as children? I’m confused. 4039. Would you ever work at a kissing booth? how about a dunking booth? >> No. 4040. There is a woman who paints by stripping naked, rolling around in paint and then pressing her body against the canvas. What do you think of her art? >> That’s pretty neat. 4041. Have you ever bought something you saw on tv? >> Like, on an infomercial? No. 4042. Name a relative: that relative dies unexpectedly. On the same day 9/11 happens. You can either bring back your relative or bring back 1/2 the people who dies on 9/11. What do you do? >> --- 4043. Have you gone mental? >> Frequently. 4044. What do you think of jews for jesus? >> I’m not sure what to think, since according to some reports they’re not even Jews, but Christians masquerading as such in order to convert Jews (or undermine the “official” Jewish stance on Christ being a cool dude but not the Messiah). Which is pretty messed up, in my opinion. But if a Jewish person interprets their holy texts in such a way that they wish to adopt Christ as the Messiah, then I’d imagine that’s their business. 4045. Has anyone ever tried to 'save' you? >> Evangelical Christian style? Yeah, plenty of times. Fortunately, I seem to be immune to that particular sort of manipulation. 4046. Quick! picture santa clause in your head... Was he black or white when you pictured him? >> White. All Santa is good Santa and of course as a Black person I’m definitely interested in Black Santa, but almost all of my visual references up until now have been white. 4047. Would you ever buy a black santa clause? >> I mean, duh??? Also, we have a Black angel for our Christmas tree; they’d go together perfectly. 4048. or take your kids to vist a black santa clause? why or why not? >> --- 4049. What do you smell like? >> Right now, I smell like jojoba and lavender and opium oil (and tea tree oil, on my head) because I just showered and moisturised. It’s very nice. 4050. What kind of soup do you eat? >> I don’t usually go for soup. But last night I had chicken and wild rice soup because Sparrow made it for her meal prep this week, and it was pretty damn good.

[jgroffdaily]

[This article appears in the September 16, 2019, issue of New York Magazine.]

Within minutes of my meeting Jonathan Groff, he asks if I would like a slice of cherry pie, and then, only a short time later, if I would like to be eaten by a giant plant. The first I readily accept because Groff and the rest of the cast of Little Shop of Horrors have thoroughly analyzed the desserts they picked up for a bus ride down from New York to the suburban Philadelphia puppet studio where they’re rehearsing for the day, and they’ve all concluded it’s the best option. The idea of being eaten by a plant seems a little less palatable, considering the contortions involved in entering the hippopotamus-esque maw of the man-eating Audrey II, which is operated by several puppeteers, and because I’m not sure if Groff is making a serious offer. I learn quickly that he is always offering you things, and those offers are always serious.

The puppet in question represents the largest form of Audrey II, a sassy carnivorous horticultural oddity that convinces Seymour, an awkward flower-shop assistant, to commit murder in the pursuit of fame, fortune, and a suburban life with the original Audrey, a human who works with him. The day I visit, Groff, playing the misfit Seymour (despite good looks that actor Christian Borle, who plays the maniacal dentist, Orin, describes as “scrumptious”), and his castmates are climbing inside Audrey II one by one, figuring out how each of them will die. Wearing a hat from Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s “On the Run II” tour, Groff jumps inside wielding a floppy machete, which is so un-aerodynamic it keeps getting stuck in Audrey II’s lips. Groff suggests a real machete prop would be sturdier, and they try substituting an umbrella, which flies out more cleanly. Michael Mayer, the director, says with satisfaction, “It’s a belch!”

Staging this revival of Little Shop is “illegal fun,” as Groff puts it. The original ran from 1982 to 1987 but never transferred to Broadway, at the insistence of writer-lyricist Howard Ashman, who wanted to preserve the show’s off-kilter spirit in a smaller space. Ashman and composer Alan Menken would go on to fill the Disney Renaissance — which consisted of films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast — with the Marie’s Crisis–ready melodies and queer subversions you can already hear in Little Shop (Ashman died of aids-related complications in 1991). Despite a Broadway staging that kicked off in 2003, this version is staying put at the Westside Theatre Off Broadway in hopes of preserving the quirky spirit of the original. There’s a lot of laughter in rehearsal as well as dress codes like a “kimono Wednesday,” which Mayer enforces by handing me a spare kimono when I drop in that day.

I can’t imagine anyone who is consistently involved in or adjacent to homicide having a better time. In addition to playing a murderously nice guy in Little Shop, Groff stars in Netflix’s David Fincher–produced drama Mindhunter, playing an FBI agent who interviews serial killers; the show is based on the real work of John Douglas, who was one of the first criminal profilers. Considering he’s no big fan of true crime, Groff is somewhat confused about how he became a poster boy for gore and mutilation, though he’s enjoying the texts from friends who point out that even when he does musical comedy, there’s a dark edge involved. A few days after we meet in Philadelphia, we’re talking over breakfast at the cozy Grey Dog in Chelsea, where he insists on paying for everything, picking up all the water and utensils, and getting up from the table to refill my coffee cup when it’s empty.

Groff signed up to star in Little Shop this spring after careful consideration, by which I mean he got the offer and then listened to the original cast recording on repeat for a whole weekend. He’d never played Seymour before, unlike the majority of white male theater actors, but he had positive memories of seeing the first performance of the 2003 Broadway version just after high school, when he was rehearsing the role of Rolf in a non-Equity tour of The Sound of Music. “I wanted to make sure that I’m bleeding for it eight times a week,” he says, which is his measure for doing musicals; he wants to make sure he won’t get bored with the material. Even now, when I assume he might want a break from it during rehearsals, Groff still has the album on repeat. “I never went to college, and I’m not educated, really, so I couldn’t say, like, intellectually why that is,” he says. “When I listened to it, it shot through my heart.”

There’s a clue, however, in the way he remembers obsessing over the film version of the show as a seventh-grader, standing in his kitchen with the song “Skid Row” on repeat — specifically when Seymour sings, “Someone show me a way to get outta here.” It was an appealing message to a closeted kid whom Groff describes as just “a sweaty, uncomfortable person with a secret that was so deep-rooted I wasn’t even flirting with the idea of being myself.” With a little distance from that version of himself (the child of a phys-ed teacher and a horse trainer, growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and occasionally having to clean stables on the weekends), Groff recalls the kinds of tells that seem obvious in retrospect, like, say, listening to “Skid Row” on repeat. Or developing an obsession with I Love Lucy, which he still watches before going to bed. Or dancing along to the Donna Reed’s Dinner Party album when his parents weren’t home. There’s a similar longing in Little Shop, which has the queerest kind of perspective on its central couple, as Audrey and Seymour imagine an unreachable, heteronormative life away from skid row and where she looks “like Donna Reed.”

If there’s a murderous kinship between Little Shop and Mindhunter, it extends to the shows’ shared skepticism about that white-picket-fence-style normalcy. Holden, Groff’s profiler character, is a cardboard cutout of a man with a girlfriend who introduces him to 1970s-style sexual liberation, but he is ultimately more fascinated with the deviancy of the killers he’s interviewing. To play him, Groff shuts down his charisma, amassing such emptiness between his angular jaw and his eyebrows that you wonder if he’ll slip into deviancy himself. It’s a performance of square, even sinister straightness that feels close to the best-little-boy performances of closeted queer men, though what seems to thrill Holden most in the show are his interviews with killers. “Sexuality is so complicated, and the people I’ve ended up working with who have cast me in straight parts are interested in looking at things in a complicated way,” Groff says, noting that he feels the argument about whether gay actors can play straight, or vice versa, has gotten “sillier” as time goes on. “Being out and gay and being myself, it allowed me to find people that weren’t closed-minded.”

Groff came out when he was 23, without directly consulting his agent, after he’d become an idol to the nation’s theater teens of Facebook by starring as the sexy, rebellious, tousle-haired Melchior in Spring Awakening. “I was so compartmentalized,” he says, “singing about sex but then not talking about it.” He remains thankful for the way Mayer, who also directed that show, choreographed the explicit sex between himself and Lea Michele’s Wendla clinically, without asking them about their own experiences. He hadn’t spent too much time worrying about the aftereffects of coming out on his career, which were more limiting in 2009 than they are now. “I did think I might not be seen as a romantic lead, but ultimately I was okay with that,” he says, explaining that he was in love at the time and didn’t want to hide it. “At 23, I’d rather just have a real romantic relationship than pretend to have one with a girl.”

Several years after coming out, Groff booked a leading role in HBO’s Looking, a comedy-drama about gay men in San Francisco, which he calls one of the most fulfilling roles he’s had. The series ran for two seasons and got a wrap-up movie but never quite found a viewership, even among queer audiences, instead receiving, as he puts it, “a total mixed bag of very extreme reactions.” Some of that was because people just didn’t like the show — which was often slower, more interior, and whiter and fitter than people may have wanted — and some of it was because it was “carrying a lot of weight; there wasn’t a lot of specifically gay content on a major cable network.” To Groff, making the show opened him up to the possibility of using material from his own experience in his work. Among the cast and crew, “we would talk about stories about PrEP and uncut dicks and monogamy,” he recalls, among “so many stories about anal douching,” and those anecdotes would make their way into the scripts. He was used to a sort of “closeted training of the mind” to abstract himself from his own experience. Looking taught him he could use it.

Recently, Groff has developed an ability to end up near the center of cultural sensations. He stepped in for Brian d’Arcy James as Hamilton’s fey Britpop version of King George III midway through the show’s Off Broadway run. It was a somewhat ideal gig, given that he was onstage for only about nine minutes a night, performed crowd-pleasing kiss-off songs, met Beyoncé, earned a Tony nomination, and got a lot of reading done backstage. This fall, he’s in Disney’s sequel to Frozen, where he returns to play Princess Anna’s rugged (at a Disney-appropriate level) love interest, Kristoff. In the first movie, while Idina Menzel’s Elsa got the vocal-cord shattering “Let It Go,” Groff sang only a few lines of melody between Kristoff and his reindeer, Sven. This time around, he’s putting his Broadway training to use with a full-length solo. It’s the second one he recorded for the movie, since the writers had one idea for a Kristoff piece (“a jam”) but then canned that song while promising Groff they’d write something different, which he didn’t quite believe. “Then they fucking wrote that other song,” he says, characteristically effusive. “I was like, Wow, and the animation of the song is so brilliant.”

As personable as Groff is and as successful as he has become — and as beloved, especially among theater fans and people like my mother — there’s a point at which he maintains a certain distance, in what feels like a way to stem his own impulses. He doesn’t use any social media, though he did consider it when Looking was struggling, before he realized “I’d have to be good at it and want to do it, and I don’t.” He has never thrown himself a birthday party, because the impulse to make sure everyone’s having a good time would stress him out too much. In behavior that reminds me of both a secret agent and Kim Kardashian, he regularly goes through and deletes all his texts after responding to each of them. “I want to make sure I get back to everyone,” he says, holding his iPhone up in front of me to reveal the remarkably few surviving messages.

Before Groff gets up to leave breakfast and travel to rehearsal by way of the single-speed bicycle he rides around Manhattan, we end up talking about the larger trajectory of his career. Considering that he’s scaling down for a revival run of a musical Off Broadway, was he ever the kind of actor who thought of his work as building up to something? A big film? A franchise? “I think I gave that up when I came out of the closet,” he says. “I gave up the idea that there was an end goal or ideal or some kind of dream to work toward.” An image appears in my mind of the life Audrey sings about in Little Shop, a place that’s comfortable, traditional, and expected, somewhere that’s green. “When I moved to New York, what I wanted was to be on Broadway. That happened and then I came out, and it’s sort of been anybody’s guess since then,” Groff says. “I like when something makes me cry or I can’t stop listening to it. Okay, I want to do that.”

Little Shop of Horrors is in previews and opens October 17 at Westside Theatre Upstairs. Buy tickets here.

[theteaisaddictive]

okay but you can't just tease us with a wedding meme mentioning ejts in the tags. spill :D

ask and ye shall receive my dear :D

1) Who proposes? 2) How do they propose? 3) Reaction of the one being proposed to

in the middle of the chaos post-transformation, belle probably whispers to eve that she never wants to leave her side again. 

‘i know, i know,’ eve whispers. ‘i remember. i’ll never leave you again.’

‘no, i-’ belle says. ‘i mean, i want to stay with you forever’, and she drops to one knee right there on the newly-constructed balcony, still strewn with rose petals and the rosy-fingered dawn. she holds out her left hand palm-up. ‘do you?’

eve joins her kneeling on the ground, her legs still shaking from the transformation. she takes her hand, her eyes almost shockingly large now that they’re in a human face. ‘yes. yes. yes, belle, dearest, of course.’ she leans over and they kiss.

they kiss for quite a while. 

4) How they tell the others

chip, of course, asks as soon as the general excitement levels have gone down, ‘are they gonna get married?’

the senior staff all glance at each other wondering who’s going to have to finally teach this emblem of hope for the future about homophobia, but before the silence can get more than half a step beyond natural, eve chimes in with an ‘of course we are, chip. in fact, belle asked me not twenty minutes ago and i said yes.’

while mrs potts is relieved that eve is human again and that she’s no longer cold and cruel-hearted, she notices a certain fire in eve’s eyes that came straight from her father – the stubbornness which means she’s going to get her own way come hell or high water. it used to apply to hunting, and petty matters of daily life. mrs potts is proud to see it used to marry belle. 

(marie doesn’t find out that they’re married for … a while. how long an interval it’s going to be? haven’t decided yet.)

5) Who’d they choose as ring bearer

chip, of course! who else?

6) Who’s the one that spends the most time worrying about preps for the wedding?

surprisingly, there isn’t actually a lot of time to prep for the wedding. neither of them have much of a taste for fancy celebrations and would prefer a simple ceremony, so that’s what they choose. (but yes, eve does manage to get her bee in a bonnet regardless)

7) When they go looking for their outfits

it’s less ‘looking for outfits’ and more ‘repurposing old ones’. belle would be more than happy to just wear her best blue dress, but even though eve had a transformative experience shaped by queer love, she’s adamant that belle has a new, different dress she’s never worn before for the ceremony (so belle is in basically the celebration dress from the remake, and eve is in essentially ella’s wedding dress from the 2015 film but minus the train. yes i am trash. no i refuse to apologise.)

IMAGINE THESE BLUSHING BRIDES. ALSO YOU WILL HAVE TO IMAGINE THEM AGAIN FOR ROSES AND LAVENDER BUT PRETEND FOR A MOMENT THAT LILY JAMES IS PORTRAYING A GENDER-SWAPPED BEAST HERE AND NOT CINDERELLA

8) Fusses over the other before the wedding day

they’re both very concerned about each other and it’s very sweet. they both stay up the night before the wedding in the library, keeping close together as midnight approaches. belle rubs her fingers soothingly against eve’s head and intermittently finger-combs her hair, and eve absent-mindedly runs her hand in circles over belle’s back as they talk quietly about tomorrow. 

9) Reactions to their wedding attire

ok so how i picture it is that since neither of them have people to give them away (léon and cogsworth offered their services, but both women declined), they mirror the ballroom scene so their first glimpses of each other are as they go down the stairs to the landing before descending to the ballroom proper. both of them almost stop in their tracks because of how BEAUTIFUL and RADIANT and HAPPY the other looks to be marrying HER. eve cries two tiny tears before she even reaches the landing. 

10) Who whispers the other “you look great”

belle to eve. they’re holding hands as they walk towards the servants, lefou and stanley, wait why are those two there what plot points will they be relevant to and léon

11) How are they feeling during vows

nervous as all fuck. jittery. excited. overjoyed. eve actually does start to cry during her vows. belle doesn’t, but she gets very, very close. 

12) What do their rings look like?

simple, thin gold bands. they wear them on their right hands. 

13) The kiss

the vows are exchanged. the rings placed. cogsworth looks at eve, whom he’s known and loved for the best part of a decade. ‘and now, by the power invested in me by the princess of this realm, i declared you to be married. you may now kiss the bride.’

belle smiles so wide that it hurts her cheeks, and she and eve take a step forwards at the same time. eve sweeps her into the kiss, one hand resting on her waist while the other cups belle’s neck. belle rests her own hand on the plane of eve’s back, allowing her other hand to brush eve’s shoulder as she kisses her wife. and for a moment in that kiss, it’s like their first up on the balcony – uncertain and desperately tender. eve breaks to take a breath, and belle pulls her back in for another kiss, their lips moving gently as the gathered congregation cheers. because they kissed. because they’re married. because eve is her wife.

14) What do they whisper to each other after vows?

nothing. they just look at each other. they’ve already said everything. 

15) When cutting their cake, and afterwards

the wedding breakfast is basically a garden party in the grounds with the staff and aforementioned guests. there is enough food and cake and drinks for everyone, and as the afternoon fades into the evening the mood goes from bright and joyous to quietly happy, but in that way where the amount of emotion present is the same it’s just expressed differently if that makes any kind of sense. both brides make speeches, and both begin their speech with ‘on behalf of my wife and i …’ (they had to make lumiere flip a coin bc they both wanted to go first but didn’t want to take the chance away from the other and it was halfway to becoming one of those stupid fights that in a sitcom would be the episode one cliffhanger of the wedding two-parter, but luckily lumiere was in possession of the throuple’s two brain cells that morning so he managed to de-escalate the situation.) belle went first, but the line got the obligatory cheer from the guests both times. 

16) The two dancing together

chapeau (or a Chapeau-Adjacent Character bc atm i can’t remember if i wrote him in or not) starts playing the fiddle, and the wives take their place on the ballroom floor (the reception has moved back inside by now). think home (reprise), the high note then gently glissandos down to the beginning of beauty and the beast. (can you glissando on a violin? idk. maybe it’s just a piano thing but you know what i’m trying to get across here)

they dance the steps that they first performed while eve was still a bird, and then eventually devolve into a gentle waltz. 

after the first dance, it’s country dances for all!! poor chapeau has his work cut out for him, but léon can play and stanley brought his accordion so by the end of the night everybody who has to play gets to dance to at least three songs. 

17) Who takes a picture of the other

not applicable! HOWEVER plumette takes quick sketches throughout the day, and in later years belle and eve have official portraits taken in their wedding dresses on repeat wears, so between one and the other they have plenty of memories.

18) Who lifts the other up (bridal style)

eve sweeps belle off her feet (again) (it’s something of a recurring motif for them)

19) The reaction of the person being carried

belle laughs, shrieking a little because she was caught off-guard. she presses small kisses to eve’s cheek and neck until her arms give out and she has to put belle down again. 

20) Wedding night

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

no, no, no, i’ll be genuine (and mildly explicit). they leave (eventually). chip fell asleep about an hour ago. the night is (fairly) young. they go up to the west wing together. eve can’t stop grinning. she has a wife. 

once safely in the west wing, they help each other out of the fine materials of their dresses and remove their stays, but otherwise stay pretty much fully dressed. they pile up on eve’s bed, in a similar position to how they were in the library the night before; belle is lying directly on the pillows, while eve is resting with her head on belle’s shoulder and their legs intertwined. before long, of course, they start kissing. and they clutch at each other, pressing so close they can feel their heartbeats through the layers of muscle and bone and fabric. and eve takes a very long time to roll belle’s stockings down her legs, kissing each inch as it appears. and then she kisses several other areas of her wife’s body (and belle can barely look at her as she does it, but the sight of that blonde head between her legs causes her to dig her fingers into eve’s hair, and that was a rather interesting discovery for both of them). and then belle, after a moment to catch her breath, pushes eve over to her back and pulls off her chemise. and she is just as slow as eve was, tracing her hands over eve’s body, and when she does finally push eve’s chemise away to press her lips to naked skin, the look in eve’s eyes is one she never forgets.

and then, after a long while, eve says, ‘we’re married. you’re my wife.’

‘and you’re my wife,’ belle says just as quietly. she presses a kiss to the top of eve’s forehead. 

‘i never thought this would happen,’ she says. ‘not even before the curse. i thought i would be like my mother, and that the most i could hope for was either to have a husband who would be kinder or to live as an old maid.’

belle wraps her arm around eve’s shoulders a little tighter, as if she wants to protect the girl of eighteen whom she never even met. knowing belle, eve thinks, that’s probably the case. 

‘i’m so glad i met you, eve,’ she says. ‘i never thought this kind of love could be possible. i’m beyond overjoyed that it’s with you.’

she cards her fingers through eve’s hair, the glint of her ring catching in the moonlight. a few minutes later, eve rearranges their positions, so that they’re both covered by the warm blankets and she’s pressed into belle’s back, her arms draped around her. their hands find each other under the covers, and they fall asleep peacefully on their first day of married life.

[dyersupplier]

Dyeing Supplies

There are a lot of different tools you can use to dye yarn, and everyone has their own personal set of these tools that are molded to their specific preference, workflow, dyeing style, dye space, etc. I know I mentioned grabbing a stock pot in the first article I wrote here, and that’s exactly where I began back in 2012. Now, after years of trying different things and having to adapt to various dye spaces, I think I’ve tried a little bit of everything short of a full-blown professional studio setup like some of the ones I’ve seen online. So I’d like to share some different options with you that might be a good next step after the signature stock pot.

The one thing that may most dictate the tools you build with is the heat source you have available. If you’re working out of your kitchen and can use the stovetop, that’s a great place to start—that’s actually how I got started. If you’re wanting to keep the wet wool and vinegar smell out of the house and have opted to work in a garage, shed, carport, etc., then you’ll need some sturdy folding tables and a portable heat source. I’ve used both single burners and big ole turkey roasters successfully. The single burners held stock pots for small batches, and then the turkey roasters were reserved for larger batches like sweater quantities. I had a good flow, and I used that setup in a couple of the places I’ve lived—I dyed yarn in a detached garage and also on a covered porch!

With my current setup, I’ve started using hotel pans on the stovetop. It uses two of the stove's burners, so it heats up pretty quickly, and the shallow shape allows a bit more control over the dyes than I've been able to get in stock pots. That was the biggest reason I liked using the turkey roasters, but hotel pans are less expensive and a bit more adaptable. But depending on your setup, the roasters might be best for you. I would encourage you to look into all of these to get an idea of space needed, cost, usability, etc.

Another important factor is water source. In a kitchen, of course, you will probably be able to use the sink—unless it’s made of something that can be stained with dye. Or in a garage you can use a utility sink. I’ve also used a hose when dyeing outside! You can get a bit creative if needed.

The easiest way to work with the dyes is to mix the powders with water ahead of time. To do that, I use a funnel and plastic squeeze bottles from Dharma Trading Co. They’re awesome for reducing any ongoing contact with the dye powders themselves (which can be messy and hazardous if you inhale them), and they make mixing colors for your formulas consistently a breeze because you’re working with liquid colors that are very easy to measure. To keep things super simple, I decided to use 8oz bottles, and then I decided how concentrated I wanted the dye solution to be. I use the same powder-to-water ratio for all of my dyes. Each dyer has their own preference, of course, but setting a standard of consistency is key to creating reproducible results. 

Oh, and make sure you label the bottles with the powder color so you know what to grab when! That’s a lesson I learnt the hard way, as I only had a handful of colors at the time and thought I’d be able to tell what was what easily enough…but I was wrong. So now I label every bottle with the exact dye powder name from the manufacturer. Oh, and before I forget, if you don’t want the whole artist look with very colorfully-dyed hands, rubber gloves are a good idea—for mixing the dyes AND for when you’re measuring them out later!

Speaking of consistent results, make sure you have a notebook and waterproof pen nearby for writing down what you do. I’ll talk more about that stuff in more detail in another article, but in the mean time, start writing things down!

When I’m prepping the yarn for dyeing, I like to put a zip tie through each hank to keep the loop from getting tangled as I work with it. It makes life so much simpler when you’re trying to move the yarn! Before I dye, I always pre-soak my yarn in warm water with a little bit of vinegar in it, and that requires buckets or tubs of some sort. What I use depends on how much I’m dyeing, so I have an assortment of tubs and buckets I can use.

As far as the post-dyeing process, I’ve learned to have dedicated equipment for each phase. So I have a rack for yarn that’s cooling, and then I have a separate rack placed elsewhere for yarn that’s finished and drying. The reason I don’t just put it out to dry right out of the dye bath is because I like to post-soak my yarn once it’s cool. It helps get the vinegar smell out. I don’t like my customers to open their package and get hit in the face with that strong odor! But if I put it in the post-soak while it’s piping hot, the cool soak water will shock the wool and make it not-so-happy (another hard-learnt lesson). So I let it cool, then I soak it, then I squeeze it out and hang it to dry on a separate rack to help me remember what’s finished and what’s not. You’ll probably want a couple of racks handy, and you’ll want to have several bowls and buckets available to transport wet yarn and post-soak it if desired.

The rest of the main tools you'll need are common kitchen items, like hot pads, oven mitts, tongs, measuring spoons, things like that. I have a full set of tools that are only used for dyeing, just like my pots, as my professional acid dyes are not food-safe. If you’re working with food safe dyes like Kool Aid and food coloring, you can relax about this if you wish, but generally I would still recommend having a separate set for dyeing.

Now that I’ve run through everything in a rather long-winded manner (thank you for hanging in there if you’ve read all this!), I’ll include a simple shopping list for you that will zero in on the basics (other than the yarn, dye, and mordant) that will get you started. :)

Pots / pans

Measuring spoons

Tongs

Stir spoon

Paper towels

Zip ties

Oven mitts

Rubber gloves

Bowls / buckets / tubs

Racks

Plastic squeeze bottles

Note-taking supplies

From here, you can take this and tweak it to be what you need. Have fun experimenting and growing into your own personal style and workflow as a dyer! And always remember that your creativity is unique, and there will always be a place for your ideas to shine!

About Me

My name is Annie, and I’m a knitwear designer and yarn-dyer living south of Atlanta, GA. When I’m not doing yarn-related things, my other hobbies consist of reading, playing ultimate frisbee, photography, and video games.

[kaleid-tay-scope]

Taylor Swift - Elle

30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30

By Taylor Swift Mar 6, 2019

Photographed by Ben Hassett; Styled by Paul Cavaco

According to my birth certificate, I turn 30 this year. It's weird because part of me still feels 18 and part of me feels 283, but the actual age I currently am is 29. I've heard people say that your thirties are "the most fun!" So I'll definitely keep you posted on my findings on that when I know. But until then, I thought I'd share some lessons I've learned before reaching 30, because it's 2019 and sharing is caring.

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I learned to block some of the noise. Social media can be great, but it can also inundate your brain with images of what you aren’t, how you’re failing, or who is in a cooler locale than you at any given moment. One thing I do to lessen this weird insecurity laser beam is to turn off comments. Yes, I keep comments off on my posts. That way, I’m showing my friends and fans updates on my life, but I’m training my brain to not need the validation of someone telling me I look . I’m also blocking out anyone who might feel the need to tell me to “go die in a hole ho” while I’m having my coffee at nine in the morning. I think it’s healthy for your self-esteem to need less internet praise to appease it, especially when three comments down you could unwittingly see someone telling you that you look like a weasel that got hit by a truck and stitched back together by a drunk taxidermist. An actual comment I received once.

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Being sweet to everyone all the time can get you into a lot of trouble. While it may be born from having been raised to be a polite young lady, this can contribute to some of your life’s worst regrets if someone takes advantage of this trait in you. Grow a backbone, trust your gut, and know when to strike back. Be like a snake—only bite if someone steps on you.

Photographed by Ben Hassett; Styled by Paul Cavaco

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Trying and failing and trying again and failing again is normal. It may not feel normal to me because all of my trials and failures are blown out of proportion and turned into a spectator sport by tabloid takedown culture (you had to give me one moment of bitterness, come on). BUT THAT SAID, it’s good to mess up and learn from it and take risks. It’s especially good to do this in your twenties because we are searching. That’s GOOD. We’ll always be searching but never as intensely as when our brains are still developing at such a rapid pace. No, this is not an excuse to text your ex right now. That’s not what I said. Or do it, whatever, maybe you’ll learn from it. Then you’ll probably forget what you learned and do it again.... But it’s fine; do you, you’re searching.

I learned to stop hating every ounce of fat on my body. I worked hard to retrain my brain that a little extra weight means curves, shinier hair, and more energy. I think a lot of us push the boundaries of dieting, but taking it too far can be really dangerous. There is no quick fix. I work on accepting my body every day.

Banish the drama. You only have so much room in your life and so much energy to give to those in it. Be discerning. If someone in your life is hurting you, draining you, or causing you pain in a way that feels unresolvable, blocking their number isn’t cruel. It’s just a simple setting on your phone that will eliminate drama if you so choose to use it.

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I’ve learned that society is constantly sending very loud messages to women that exhibiting the physical signs of aging is the worst thing that can happen to us. These messages tell women that we aren’t allowed to age. It’s an impossible standard to meet, and I’ve been loving how outspoken Jameela Jamil has been on this subject. Reading her words feels like hearing a voice of reason amongst all these loud messages out there telling women we’re supposed to defy gravity, time, and everything natural in order to achieve this bizarre goal of everlasting youth that isn’t even remotely required of men.

Every day I try to remind myself of the good in the world, the love I’ve witnessed and the faith I have in humanity. We have to live bravely in order to truly feel alive, and that means not being ruled by our greatest fears.

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My biggest fear. After the Manchester Arena bombing and the Vegas concert shooting, I was completely terrified to go on tour this time because I didn’t know how we were going to keep 3 million fans safe over seven months. There was a tremendous amount of planning, expense, and effort put into keeping my fans safe. My fear of violence has continued into my personal life. I carry QuikClot army grade bandage dressing, which is for gunshot or stab wounds. Websites and tabloids have taken it upon themselves to post every home address I’ve ever had online. You get enough stalkers trying to break into your house and you kind of start prepping for bad things. Every day I try to remind myself of the good in the world, the love I’ve witnessed and the faith I have in humanity. We have to live bravely in order to truly feel alive, and that means not being ruled by our greatest fears.

I learned not to let outside opinions establish the value I place on my own life choices. For too long, the projected opinions of strangers affected how I viewed my relationships. Whether it was the general internet consensus of who would be right for me, or what they thought was “couples goals” based on a picture I posted on Instagram. That stuff isn’t real. For an approval seeker like me, it was an important lesson for me to learn to have my OWN value system of what I actually want.

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I learned how to make some easy cocktails like Pimm’s cups, Aperol spritzes, Old-Fashioneds, and Mojitos because…2016.

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I’ve always cooked a LOT, but I found three recipes I know I’ll be making at dinner parties for life:Ina Garten’s Real Meatballs and Spaghetti (I just use packaged bread crumbs and only ground beef for meat), Nigella Lawson’s Mughlai Chicken, and Jamie Oliver’s Chicken Fajitas with Molé Sauce. Getting a garlic crusher is a whole game changer. I also learned how to immediately calculate Celsius to Fahrenheit in my head. (Which is what I’m pretty sure the internet would call a “weird flex.”)

I believe victims because I know firsthand about the shame and stigma that comes with raising your hand and saying “This happened to me.”

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Recently I discovered Command tape, and I definitely would have fewer holes in my walls if I’d hung things that way all along. This is not an ad. I just really love Command tape.

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Apologizing when you have hurt someone who really matters to you takes nothing away from you. Even if it was unintentional, it’s so easy to just apologize and move on. Try not to say “I’m sorry, but...” and make excuses for yourself. Learn how to make a sincere apology, and you can avoid breaking down the trust in your friendships and relationships.

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It’s my opinion that in cases of sexual assault, I believe the victim. Coming forward is an agonizing thing to go through. I know because my sexual assault trial was a demoralizing, awful experience. I believe victims because I know firsthand about the shame and stigma that comes with raising your hand and saying “This happened to me.” It’s something no one would choose for themselves. We speak up because we have to, and out of fear that it could happen to someone else if we don’t.

Photographed by Ben Hassett; Styled by Paul Cavaco.

When tragedy strikes someone you know in a way you’ve never dealt with before, it’s okay to say that you don’t know what to say.Sometimes just saying you’re so sorry is all someone wants to hear. It’s okay to not have any helpful advice to give them; you don’t have all the answers. However, it’s not okay to disappear from their life in their darkest hour. Your support is all someone needs when they’re at their lowest point. Even if you can’t really help the situation, it’s nice for them to know that you would if you could.

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Vitamins make me feel so much better! I take L-theanine, which is a natural supplement to help with stress and anxiety. I also take magnesium for muscle health and energy.

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Before you jump in headfirst, maybe, I don’t know...get to know someone! All that glitters isn’t gold, and first impressions actually aren’t everything. It’s impressive when someone can charm people instantly and own the room, but what I know now to be more valuable about a person is not their charming routine upon meeting them (I call it a “solid first 15”), but the layers of a person you discover in time. Are they honest, self-aware, and slyly funny at the moments you least expect it? Do they show up for you when you need them? Do they still love you after they’ve seen you broken? Or after they’ve walked in on you having a full conversation with your cats as if they’re people? These are things a first impression could never convey.

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After my teen years and early twenties of sleeping in my makeup and occasionally using a Sharpie as eyeliner (DO NOT DO IT), I felt like I needed to start being nicer to my skin. I now moisturize my face every night and put on body lotion after I shower, not just in the winter, but all year round, because, why can’t I be soft during all the seasons?!

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Realizing childhood scars and working on rectifying them. For example, never being popular as a kid was always an insecurity for me. Even as an adult, I still have recurring flashbacks of sitting at lunch tables alone or hiding in a bathroom stall, or trying to make a new friend and being laughed at. In my twenties I found myself surrounded by girls who wanted to be my friend. So I shouted it from the rooftops, posted pictures, and celebrated my newfound acceptance into a sisterhood, without realizing that other people might still feel the way I did when I felt so alone. It’s important to address our long-standing issues before we turn into the living embodiment of them.

Photographed by Ben Hassett; Styled by Paul Cavaco

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Playing mind games is for the chase. In a real relationship or friendship, you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t tell the other person how you feel, and what could be done to fix it. No one is a mind reader. If someone really loves you, they want you to verbalize how you feel. This is real life, not chess.

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Learning the difference between lifelong friendships and situationships. Something about “we’re in our young twenties!” hurls people together into groups that can feel like your chosen family. And maybe they will be for the rest of your life. Or maybe they’ll just be your comrades for an important phase, but not forever. It’s sad but sometimes when you grow, you outgrow relationships. You may leave behind friendships along the way, but you’ll always keep the memories.

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Fashion is all about playful experimentation. If you don’t look back at pictures of some of your old looks and cringe, you’re doing it wrong. See: Bleachella.

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How to fight fair with the ones you love. Chances are you’re not trying to hurt the person you love and they aren’t trying to hurt you. If you can wind the tension of an argument down to a conversation about where the other person is coming from, there’s a greater chance you can remove the shame of losing a fight for one of you and the ego boost of the one who “won” the fight. I know a couple who, in the thick of a fight, say “Hey, same team.” Find a way to defuse the anger that can spiral out of control and make you lose sight of the good things you two have built. They don’t give out awards for winning the most fights in your relationship. They just give out divorce papers.

There’s a common misconception that artists have to be miserable in order to make good art, that art and suffering go hand in hand. I’m really grateful to have learned this isn’t true. Finding happiness and inspiration at the same time has been really cool.

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I learned that I have friends and fans in my life who don’t care if I’m #canceled. They were there in the worst times and they’re here now. The fans and their care for me, my well-being, and my music were the ones who pulled me through. The most emotional part of the Reputation Stadium Tour for me was knowing I was looking out at the faces of the people who helped me get back up. I’ll never forget the ones who stuck around.

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I’ve had to learn how to handle serious illness in my family. Both of my parents have had cancer, and my mom is now fighting her battle with it again. It’s taught me that there are real problems and then there’s everything else. My mom’s cancer is a real problem. I used to be so anxious about daily ups and downs. I give all of my worry, stress, and prayers to real problems now.

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I remember people asking me, “What are you gonna write about if you ever get happy?” There’s a common misconception that artists have to be miserable in order to make good art, that art and suffering go hand in hand. I’m really grateful to have learned this isn’t true. Finding happiness and inspiration at the same time has been really cool.

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I make countdowns for things I’m excited about. When I’ve gone through dark, low times, I’ve always found a tiny bit of relief and hope in getting a countdown app (they’re free) and adding things I’m looking forward to. Even if they’re not big holidays or anything, it’s good to look toward the future. Sometimes we can get overwhelmed in the now, and it’s good to get some perspective that life will always go on, to better things.

Photographed by Ben Hassett; Styled by Paul Cavaco

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I learned that disarming someone’s petty bullying can be as simple as learning to laugh. In my experience, I’ve come to see that bullies want to be feared and taken seriously. A few years ago, someone started an online hate campaign by calling me a snake on the internet. The fact that so many people jumped on board with it led me to feeling lower than I’ve ever felt in my life, but I can’t tell you how hard I had to keep from laughing every time my 63-foot inflatable cobra named Karyn appeared onstage in front of 60,000 screaming fans. It’s the Stadium Tour equivalent of responding to a troll’s hateful Instagram comment with “lol.” It would be nice if we could get an apology from people who bully us, but maybe all I’ll ever get is the satisfaction of knowing I could survive it, and thrive in spite of it.

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I’m finding my voice in terms of politics. I took a lot of time educating myself on the political system and the branches of government that are signing off on bills that affect our day-to-day life. I saw so many issues that put our most vulnerable citizens at risk, and felt like I had to speak up to try and help make a change. Only as someone approaching 30 did I feel informed enough to speak about it to my 114 million followers. Invoking racism and provoking fear through thinly veiled messaging is not what I want from our leaders, and I realized that it actually is my responsibility to use my influence against that disgusting rhetoric. I’m going to do more to help. We have a big race coming up next year.

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I learned that your hair can completely change texture. From birth, I had the curliest hair and now it is STRAIGHT. It’s the straight hair I wished for every day in junior high. But just as I was coming to terms with loving my curls, they’ve left me. Please pray for their safe return.

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My mom always tells me that when I was a little kid, she never had to punish me for misbehaving because I would punish myself even worse. I’d lock myself in my room and couldn’t forgive myself, as a five-year-old. I realized that I do the same thing now when I feel I’ve made a mistake, whether it’s self-imposed exile or silencing myself and isolating. I’ve come to a realization that I need to be able to forgive myself for making the wrong choice, trusting the wrong person, or figuratively falling on my face in front of everyone. Step into the daylight and let it go.

Hair by Serge Normant for Serge Normant Hair Care; makeup by Francelle for Lovecraft Beauty; manicure by Denise Bourne for Deborah Lippmann; produced by Kristen Terry at Rosco Production.

[cyb-by-lang]

Shell Game (21/?)

Kei has some important conversations while the Sports Festival goes on in the background.

Kayama-sensei ordered everyone who’d made it through the cavalry battle qualifier to gather in the middle of the stadium, forming a fair-sized crowd of UA gym uniforms in front of her podium. Forty-two kids all gathered together, all looking up at the big digital screen. Behind them, the imported American cheerleaders were trying their best to get the crowd hyped for the next event. All around, the students who hadn’t made it past the obstacle race were helping event staff roll out game equipment for the “recreational” events.

“Come closer and draw lots to see who you’re up against,” Kayama-sensei said brightly, holding a box braced against one hip. “Then enjoy the pleasure of the recreational games before we start. The sixteen finalists have the option of participating in these activities or sitting out to prepare for battle.”

Kei already knew what she was going to do. She needed time to meditate, not perform like a trained seal.

She shifted her weight slightly, making sure Monoma was within eyesight. It might’ve been a bit judgmental, but being caught unawares by his Quirk just once was enough. Giving Isobu an actual excuse for direct violence would be one of the last mistakes of somebody’s life.

“I’ll start with the first place team,” Kayama-sensei went on.

One by one, the kids picked up their numbers.

The brackets shook out like this:

First up, Midoriya and Shōda. Both of them went sickly pale when they realized they made up the first match, and Kei couldn’t blame them. She leaned toward rooting for Midoriya on the whole, if only because a kid whose fighting style drew so heavily from the Black Knight probably needed to get a pro’s attention and train himself up differently. She’d wave a foam finger for Shōda anyway, though. If she had one.

The second match: Todoroki versus Sero. While Kei thought the tape-using kid seemed nice enough, Todoroki could punch nearly in Kei’s weight class with his ridiculous ice Quirk. If it wasn’t a one-shot fight, she’d be surprised. Few people could overmatch Kei’s Water ninjutsu so easily, at least since she’d properly practiced and learned to work together with Isobu.

The third fight would be between Kaminari and Ojiro, and Kei already knew who she was rooting for there. And it wasn’t the human stun-gun, despite the power output he’d showed earlier. Hopefully, Ojiro would manage to close the distance before getting lit up like a Tesla coil. Outlasting Kaminari seemed easy, as long as the first attack wasn’t a total knockout.

Fourth: Iida and Hatsume, whom Kei had finally identified as a member of the Support Course. She’d been under the impression that the pink-haired Hatsume could be another strange Quirk user from General Studies, because after seeing engine exhaust pipes growing out of Iida’s legs anything seemed possible. Apparently she was just a less successful Tony Stark, but with binocular zoom built into her eyes.

Kei’s half of the brackets started with the fifth match: Shinsō versus Ashido. She seemed friendly enough, so Shinsō’s Quirk ought to be effective. If not, well, he’d get some use out of what self-defense tricks Kei’d managed to instill. While hopefully not getting melted horribly, because some people’s appearances and their Quirks were hardly on speaking terms.

After that, Tokoyami was up against Yaoyorozu. Having seen neither of their actual fighting styles but plenty of their Quirks, Kei didn’t really know what to think. She couldn’t stop looking at Dark Shadow and seeing a shape Isobu might like to take someday.

Kei’s own match would be second to last, facing off against 1-A’s Kirishima in what’d have to be either the longest brawl ever or a very straightforward use of her “Quirk.” Worse, she wouldn’t be able to throw the match convincingly to the kid whose deal was turning his body into a rock. Her friends back home would absolutely give her shit for losing to Kirishima even on purpose.

The very last match of the first round? Uraraka versus Bakugō. Once again, Kei knew fuck-all about one of the Quirks in that fight and plenty about the other. While she suspected explosions would turn out to be pretty hard for Uraraka to fight, Uraraka deserved to win as far as Kei was concerned.

Midoriya made a noise like a mouse being stepped on, his eyes darting back and forth between his and Uraraka’s matchups.

“This’ll be fun,” Shinsō said, rubbing the back of his neck as he scanned the crowd for Ashido.

Kei nodded distractedly. Isobu’s temper thrummed in her chest like a second heartbeat, keeping her on edge. By the time the recreational games began, Kei was forced to bid Shinsō a brief goodbye to “prepare for the tournament.”

He accepted that excuse, and probably went off to practice zingers suited for Ashido.

Retreating to the prep room instead of sticking around to watch the “fun” felt a little like she was trying to become a hermit, but Kei did it anyway. Even if she didn’t need a few minutes to calm Isobu, she definitely wanted a chance to recover some of the massive amounts of chakra she’d expended inside of an hour. Throwing around that many Water Dragon Bullets, one Water Wall, two Hidden Mists, and one Great Waterfall on top of her other general enhancements was the kind of drain that would’ve been incredibly wasteful from the perspective from any ordinary shinobi. Especially because not one of those ninjutsu had killed anyone. The pride of many a dead Kiri-nin howled for blood.

Kei only really cared about the turtle monster doing the same in her head.

This prep room’s only occupant was Midoriya, with Shōda nowhere in sight. Maybe it was for the best—she’d known Midoriya a little longer, and the kid had a tendency to get caught up in his thoughts worse than a fish in a net. She could keep to herself here and be left alone.

Midoriya raised his head when she entered, waving weakly, before going back to his muttering once she acknowledged his presence with a nod. Probably going over what he knew of the other boy’s Quirk and trying to think around it. By the time Kei pulled up a chair and slumped over the far table with her head pillowed on her arms, he was mumbling about needing his fingers.

She left him to it. Midoriya didn’t need her help. Isobu did. Therefore, Kei set an alarm on her phone and closed her eyes to drop into her and Isobu’s shared mindscape.

The formerly-tranquil cliffside beach was a wreck of disturbed coral, rock, and uprooted palm trees strewn all across white sand, and the cause of it all sat in the middle of a brand new inlet with his forelegs folded to the sides. When Kei’s mental avatar floated down to his face, he turned it as far away as he could and closed his good eye.

“I am not sorry,��� said Isobu, at once in her head and to her face. “I will never be sorry for defending us.”

“I wasn’t gonna ask you to be,” Kei told him, drifting closer until she sat on one of the spikes jutting forward from his head. His entire body shifted so he sat lower in the water before she could entirely settle, sending waves so high they nearly touched Kei’s toes. “You wanna help me clean this place up?”

“No demands to change my behavior?” Isobu asked, though he dragged himself farther onto the beach. His huge digits dug into the gray-white sand and started shifting debris.

“No demands, no,” Kei said, swinging down from his spikes one-handed. Her feet crunched onto the beach sand, strangely warm under her toes. It was all an illusion, but it was still comforting. “I remember what we agreed on, and I remember the thing with Inosuke. And Madara, and Kakashi, and with the butterflies, and like…I get it. Scolding you won’t change anything.”

“It will not.” Isobu shifted a bit, allowing Kei to stoop and pick up coral fragments from under the side of his shell. As she started gathering fish-shaped mental projections and hucking them back into the water underhand, he said, “Of all the ways we could be attacked…”

“I know,” Kei said, brushing her fingers against his shell. As he rumbled, she went on, “It’s awful. I don’t—if I didn’t know it was all just kids messing around during a school event, I’d…probably have reacted a lot like you.”

“How much experience do either of us have with such a situation?” Isobu wrenched a flattened palm tree out of the sand and hurled it out to sea. “Even the most childish of the ‘games’ you have recently lived through could end in dismemberment or death for all participants. And if it was the case, you could have died without knowing what killed you.”

Kei nodded, even as she flung another fish into the surf. “I know.”

“And?”

“And he’s a kid. Messing with powers because it’s what he does,” Kei told Isobu. She sighed and leaned back, staring up at the artificial sun far above their heads. “I am and was angry, and I get why I was angry even before I get to how you influence my mood, but that was dangerous. If me being unable to keep my head is going to mean you’re about to start killing people, we need to talk about this.”

Isobu’s rumble became less contented and more threatening, like an impending landslide. He clearly wasn’t in the mood for a heart-to-heart. Only one of them had a literal heart, but Kei would argue that Isobu’s emotions ran, if anything, more intensely in him than a lot of people.

“I know what Shinsō’s Quirk is like,” Kei said, “even if I don’t remember being under it. Next time, maybe instead of trying to pop into V2 cloak and losing our collective shit, you could try just like…” Kei paused, then held up an arm so Isobu could see. In here, Kei wore her jōnin uniform instead of either of the UA sets, and Isobu’s gold-on-red eye laser-focused on her. “Punch me in the face. Just grab my arm through our chakra coils and sock me right in the jaw.”

“…I could also just do that when I want to,” Isobu said, instead of acknowledging the practicality of Kei’s plan. For him, it must’ve been easier to just tease her.

“If it works to get us out of a genjutsu…” Kei trailed off. She hadn’t been truly caught by a genjutsu for a while now, and many of the stronger ones hardly allowed movement. Some couldn’t be broken by pain, either. Still, it was something approaching a plan. “Same principle.”

Isobu made a noise like “hmph,” but scaled up tenfold. He abandoned his attempts to clear the beach, but the false debris was already starting to fade into dream-stuff. Before he disappeared into the waves, he told her, I will think about it.

Kei waved to his retreating tails, and all three of them waved back.

Then her phone alarm beeped.

Kei checked whether she’d drooled onto the table before she sat up. Once she’d determined everything was still more or less as she’d left it, minus one Midoriya through a still-swinging door, Kei got to her feet and decided to head for the stands. She checked her phone, of course—Obito had a knack for spamming the hell out of a groupchat that was difficult to tear her eyes from.  

GreenThumb: now we have brackets

GreenThumb: i saw youre up against rock kid

GreenThumb: dont lose to him

GreenThumb: im sure youre thinking about it

GreenThumb: a whole afternoon of not doin anything

GreenThumb: but splodey kid is RIGHT THERE

GreenThumb: and purple kid versus pink kid too

GreenThumb: i dunno how thats gonna go but

GreenThumb: tell shinsō hed better not lose

GreenThumb: i spent too much time gettin used as a trainin dummy

GreenThumb: so

GreenThumb: COME ON AND WIN THIS ヾ（＾ヮ\\)ﾉ

Defib: Or throw the match and save yourself the further attention of a rabid media-focused world. You don’t need to be in the finals to accomplish your goals. Or on television.

Defib: Aren’t you supposed to be more subtle than this?

TMNT-TNT: Probably.

GreenThumb: excuse me

GreenThumb: but this is team awesomeness only

GreenThumb: no killjoys allowed

Defib: Better a killjoy than dead.

GreenThumb: +ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+凸(◕‿\\✿)+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+

TMNT-TNT: Aren’t you two literally right next to each other? Within punching distance?

Obito didn’t send any more messages after that. Neither did Kakashi.

Kei tucked her phone away and headed up toward the stands.

The student sections of the audience were divided by class, though as far as she could tell there was no actual ban on visiting the other groups. 1-A had one smattering of benches, while 1-B was next to them, and so on. It was pretty similar to their arrangement within UA’s halls, only there weren’t any massive sliding doors. Walls between the sections were high, though, and few people were already in their seats. Kei stuck her head in two of the doorways just to make sure the Hero course students were where she expected them to be, then wandered to 1-C’s spot.

“Gekkō-san, hello!” said Homura, her hair and eyebrows blazing away with excitement.

“Um.”

Kei stood there, a little stunned, as Homura took both her hands in hers and said, “Congratulations on getting as far as you have. I mean, I know you were always a strong student, but right now you’re representing our whole class. You and Shinsō-kun!”

“Thank you?” Kei managed, still blinking in surprise. Dang it, now she felt bad for thinking of throwing her match in the tournament. She still would, but it’d be less funny.

And she hadn’t even been particularly nice to any of these kids.

“It’s nice to know I have your support,” Kei said, not entirely sincere because she wasn’t fully certain of Homura’s motives. Some of the other 1-C students weren’t looking her in the eye, and that was certainly not a new development. “Make sure you tell Shinsō-san the same, okay?”

“As soon as I see him, you can count on that!” Homura promised. She let go of Kei’s hands and peered behind her, as though expecting to see Shinsō following her. “Nobody’s seen him for a while, though. I asked Shingetsu-kun already.”

Shingetsu’s head spun around at the sound of his name, though his torso kept pointing in the direction of the pointy-eared kid he was lecturing. “Sorry, did someone say something?”

Homura’s fiery eyebrows dimmed somewhat. “Have you seen Shinsō-kun?”

“Not since the last time you asked.” And then Shingetsu was back to telling the other students why throwing popcorn was bad manners. Or something like that.

“I haven’t seen him either.” Kei scratched the base of her scar. “Mind if I go look?”

“The matches will be starting soon, though,” Homura said, though she wasn’t actually telling Kei not to do what she would.

“Be right back, then,” Kei said, and darted back into the building. It was as much to find Shinsō as to get away from her classmates. As she left, she heard Shingetsu tell Homura something along the lines of “you scared her off,” but didn’t stop to ask.

Weird they were choosing now to put aside their fear of her and make nice.

With the first match so close to starting, Kei wasn’t surprised to find the hallways nearly empty of spectators, students, and everyone else. Not for the first time, she took a second to curse the total lack of chakra available to sense in the general area, which would have made finding people a snap. She ended up effectively circling the stadium twice through the halls and stairways, finding only Midoriya and Shōda up and about (and still quite nervous, despite each getting a quick pat on the back from her), before deciding to search outside the building. She could afford to miss the first match.

The stadium was set at the end of a long cement pathway, but there was a forested park jammed up against the back of it. While trotting along in search of Shinsō, she passed Todoroki leaning against the building and remembered just in time what a terrible mood looked like, so she gave him a wide berth. Tokoyami was up in a tree, his animate shadow keeping an eye out and waving down at her as she passed. It took a little longer, until she was almost on the far side of the trees, before she spotted Shinsō sitting on a root with his back against the tree trunk.

“There you are,” Kei said, relieved. She came to a stop next to him.

“What’s with that look on your face?” Shinsō asked, sitting up. One purple eyebrow went up. “You look spooked.”

What went unspoken was probably along the lines of, “And I’ve seen you literally being held hostage before, so what the fuck?”

“Our classmates were trying to be nice.” Kei shook her head slowly. “To me. Not in general. But also in general.”

Shinsō stared at her.

“Or at least Homura-san was,” Kei added, somewhat defensively. “It was weird.”

Shinsō sighed. He rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Took them long enough.”

“…What?”

“To get over themselves,” Shinsō said, a bitter look crossing his face. As she sat down in the grass across from him, he rested his chin in his hand. “You’re standoffish, like a cat, so everyone’s been tiptoeing around you trying to figure out what to do. Only now you’re doing well without them and it’s giving them ideas.”

Kei thought this was all rather cynical, but, as a cynic, waited patiently for the next part of the explanation. It was only polite.

“When people weren’t wondering when I’d turn into a villain or avoiding me, they’d act like my Quirk was super special. Like they were my friends.” Shinsō rolled his eyes. “But the second they found out I wasn’t going to use it to manipulate anyone because they were ‘so nice to me’ and asked me to, they went right back to spreading rumors.”

“I’m not,” Kei said, once he’d finished.

“Not what?”

“Not using you to get ahead,” Kei told him. She leaned back, bracing her hands against the grass to keep her balance. While a muscle in Shinsō’s jaw jumped and he fought not to interrupt, she went on, “I fully admit to not being a super nice person. I don’t know how people like Midoriya-san do it, to be honest. But…as awkward as that was, I think Homura-san was trying.”

Not particularly effectively, but there was effort behind it.

“I don’t tend to give people much of a chance.” She found herself scratching the lower end of her scar and stopped once she noticed. “I ignored almost everyone at the beginning of the year. But Homura-san seemed like she meant well. It’s not her fault if the rest of the class isn’t gonna follow her lead.”

Shinsō didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he pried at a scrap of loose bark and peeled it off, a pensive look on his face.

“So, what’re you doing this far from the stadium?” Kei asked.

“Meditating. About the only thing I can do now.” Shinsō started tying the strip of bark into a knot. “It’s not really working. I’m still nervous.”

“I think that’s normal,” Kei told him. “But like you said, you’ve made the top sixteen. The parts that wiped out basically everyone else are over.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.” Shinsō sighed again, tossing the bark into the manicured lawn. “How’d you keep calm? During that match your brother talked about?”

Kei paused. Visions of losing her temper as badly as she’d ever done before Isobu, and then having to frantically apologize for ruining Gai’s apology, flashed through her mind. Not her finest moment. “Um, you probably don’t want to know.”

Kei knew the instant Shinsō’s brain caught up with his mouth. He paled a little further, likely recalling the scraps of information Hayate had let slip. “…You know, I think you’re right.” He got to his feet. “Might as well stop putting it off.”

“And maybe our classmates will surprise you,” Kei added, as they headed back to the stadium.

“Maybe.” It wasn’t a no, at least.