#its good fun of course but the perfectionist in me becomes obsessed with getting every detail just right

[parab0mb]

Fuck it we Moll(y)

Decided to break out my old DS and replay Drawn to Life, a game I haven't touched in literally over a decade (mostly just to see how it holds up). And since I used my OC Molly Majacqueline for the role of the hero when I last played it, I decided to keep her as the star for this go-around.

Of course, I pretty much completely overhauled Molly's character since then, so it's somewhat funny to imagine this bratty and self-absorbed little witch reluctantly fighting for the greater good just so she can go home faster (I'm sure she'd warm up to villagers eventually tho 😉).

Also it turns out I still have my old completed save file on the cartridge, so here's the old, not-rude Molly just for comparison's sake:

[catsitta]

Your writing, especially in BotU, is just amazing! It's so poetic and flows so well! Do you have any tips for learning to write fiction? Also I've noticed in your fae focused and underworld fiction you mention so much in regards to legends and myths that reflect real ones, what kind of research do you do for this or do you already know of this/made it up?

You’re making me blush. Heh. 

Alright, this going to be a long one, I got wordy.

My writing style mostly reflects how I learned to self-edit, since most of my fics are unbeta’ed. How do I do my own editing? If I find a tricky passage, I will write it how it would be spoken. While not ‘proper’ in many ways, a language when spoken aloud can tell you whether or not a phrase will sound right to the mind’s internal ear. In fact, my main advice for anyone writing anything, essay to novel, is to read it out loud whenever possible. (It also helps find and reduce typos, but if you’re a speed reader like me, you may still skip over stuff because your brain is sometimes super helpful (not) and fixes/fills in words!) Doing this will also force you look at your writing and realize that, even if it is grammatically correct, sometimes phrases will sound/look off and need to be redone.

Another tip that works for me (and is one I learned while writing essays in highschool and really embraced in my college writing courses), is to put words to a page, perfect them later. Your best solution to finishing a fic is to literally write it, then go back later and revise. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be structure. If you like knowing what will happen in every chapter before you start and write purposefully, that is great! But I would never get anything done if I made sure it was perfect while writing it or constantly backtracked to fix stuff before a chapter is done.

I will use my drabble fic, Handle with Care, as an example. I have 100 words dedicated to a chapter. A chapter should always inform the reader, bring up a question, answer a question or otherwise move the story and its characters forward, whether you are writing 100 words or 10,000.

.

[CHAPTER ONE:

“I, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE EDGE, DEMAND TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE!”

Red rolled his eyelights as he dropped the last of the moving boxes onto the living room floor. Even trashed from the move in, this place looked better than the last. The walls had paint on them and the carpet was from this decade. Best go see what poor sap his little bro was yapping at before they got kicked out. Moving into the hallway outside the apartment, he spotted Edge and his victim. Red swallowed. It was a skeleton monster. Who looked up and winked at Red.]

(HwC had a basic framework written. As in, major keystones/plot points that needed reaching/bridging between.)

My process:

Q: What happened/needs to happen?

A: Red has just moved into a new apartment with his little brother, and while he is moving in, he meets his romantic interest for the fic. This romantic interest is his neighbor.

Q: Is the plot forwarded?

A: Yes. 

Q: Is new information introduced? Is it important? 

A: Red is moving in. Sans is his neighbor. Edge and Red are brothers and didn’t come from the best neighborhood previously. Edge is very outspoken. 

Q: Are there questions a reader may have? Or questions being answered?

A: Why/how did Red move? Why is his little brother living with him? Who is the neighbor? What is the neighbor’s purpose relating to the MC? How old is Edge? How old is Red?

Q: Does it make the Reader think or feel? What do I want my Reader to feel?

A: While not a very emotion impacting chapter in itself, it is supposed to be a cute bit of family fluff that hints at both a future romance as well as possible conflict arising from the reasons why Red and Edge moved.

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I highly encourage people to try writing a 100 word drabble fic. Whether you are an experienced writer that writes long, detailed chapters on the regular, or someone who is just starting out and is finding it hard to find the time to commit to a long fic. 100 words is challenging in that you have to use every word effectively, but I’ve personally found it relaxing and even beneficial to me as a writer. After all, if I am having a bad day and nothing is going write and words don’t make sense? Well, I only need to write 100 and then try again tomorrow. It’s good for breaking an obsessive, perfectionistic cycle where you may be impeeding your own progress by simply never finishing. 

My last tip is to simply read.

Read anything and everything. You like romance and want to write romance? Read a bunch of it. Professional novels, fanfiction, poems, otome games, comics, manga...All of it. But also don’t be afraid to branch out. Every genera has different strengths. I LOVE fantasy. Traditional high fantasy with dragons and elves and knights and mages and great, cliche plots about good toppling the forces of evil. LOVE IT. And what is fantasy’s strength? World building. What is romance’s? Relationships and dialogue. The more you read, the more you subconciously pick up on diction and the tropes/feel of a genera. The most common comment I have recieved while pursuing a degree, was that I write like I read a lot. That I like to read. And it really stuck with me. Because it is rather true. You can usually tell the difference in the writing of someone who only reads because they must (or only the classics you are assigned in classes) and someone who reads for the love of reading. So be someone who writes like they love to read. Like they love language. 

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Now that I have rambled!

To answer your second question, my more myth based fics are always a hybrid of real mythology and stuff I’ve made up that is more cohesive with the world I’m writing about. If I am writing Undertale fanfiction, I want it to feel like Undertale fanfiction. I want to maintain certain themes and ideas, even if they don’t align with mythology. 

Greek Mythology is also a lot more fixed in places than faerie lore, and thus it needs more research to stay true. While in turn, you can be wildly inventive with faerie lore. Thus with my fae fics, I draw from a wide variety of sources, mostly from memory, be it from books I have read, games I have played, or stories I have been told. (It is often easier to ‘write what you know’ after all. If you read Norse Mythology for fun, then writing a fic retelling a norse myth may be more fun for you as a writer than writing a scifi drama you have to pour tons of hours of research into.)

As a quick example:

Bride of the Underworld’s basic premise is the Abduction of Persephone myth. It is very popular in media and it has endless interpretations. Turning the Underground into the Underworld was a natural step. But I never feel the need to 100% follow the mythology to the tee. This is an Undertale fanfiction after all! So, the math lays out like this. If Frisk is Persephone and Persephone’s mother is Demeter, then Frisk’s mother should be Toriel. Toriel’s husband is Asgore, the King of Monsters, who would be a natural choice for King of Gods, and is thus, a placeholder for Zeus. But Demeter isn’t married to Zeus, one could say. No, but he is married to Hera and Toriel can also fill that roll. In the game, they are estranged, which works perfectly, in that Toriel could have/raise Frisk in private, and become the sheltered maiden that Persephone/Kore was in mythos. (Now play apples-to-apples with a wonderful AU co-creator for 50k+ words and you have a fic.)

[everydayanth]

I don’t think I ever thought directly that the best stuff would make me happier, but I  do use physical things as checkpoints and rewards. 

When we buy bookshelves someday, I know we’re not moving for a while and can start focusing on more confident root-building. 

When we buy a bed I know we’re planning on staying in the area at least (we did that ^-^).

When I complete task x, I can purchase this book or reward-thing. 

I think it’s not that we value extreme quality or whatever the news wants us to believe, more that we value time and products that offer efficiency, to free up our time to reflect more on ourselves and our world rather than be consistently overwhelmed by it, are supposed to make us happier. 

And there’s a truth to that, I think. All of these companies know what we want: time. And they do their best to sell it to us with products that provide that. 

Consuming them all at once, I think, would be overwhelming to anyone, and by doing so, doesn’t actually experience the efficiency they’re supposed to be offering. If you’re not wasting time looking for a mattress or spending three hours shopping for new wines, if you’re not stressed by making dinners every night or getting angry at your stupid carry-on, then these products aren’t actually catered to you, imo. These businesses have the Millennial pulse, they know we’re overwhelmed and over-worked and looking for any ethical shortcut that can free up time to actually make friends and develop personal ideologies and skills worth all the work we’re doing in the first place. 

They’re selling time and we’re buying it, because how the heck do we combat our shortage of it in the first place?

I wonder how many of these products are actually largely consumed by Millennials and how many are simply marketed as such and criticized as such and therefore consumed as such? I’ve never heard of most of these, but maybe I’m just a bad Millennial? 

Marketing to Millennials is not a difficult concept. We want time, to explore the world and ourselves, to try new things and experience life. We’re tired of making so many choices in a day, we want limited options and synthetic solutions that solve many problems at once. And lastly, we want to be individuals, still retaining some semblance of our self while being mostly-exhausted and serving agendas that are not our own, we want to abide by our own ethical codes, to trade fairly, to consume responsibly, to create environmentally, to have a positive impact on the world. Mostly we want time to make those other things happen. Also, we’re poor as shit, so we want things to be efficient for a long time, quality that lasts is worth the extra dollars... until it isn’t. Those wealthy among us are few and far between. We just want time and to be ethical consumers. 

So here’s how I think a few of these brands are smashing through Millennial poverty and job-insecurity to rack up sales that AREN’T BASED ON OUR OBSESSION WITH AESTHETIC as some outlets are determined to focus on. These are a look at the tone, voice, and branding of the company’s marketing and how it might apply to Millennial psychology, not sponsorships or ads or whatever. The links are so you can confirm for yourself, just fyi. 

Casper promises a good night’s sleep so that you can spend your days rested and ready, utilizing the most out of your 6-hour nights, you perfectionist workaholic, you. On top of that, they focus on the direct-to-consumer model and quality long-lasting material that feeds on the idea of using up less time finding and receiving a mattress as well as keeping or worrying about replacing one.

The Away Carry On is about the idea of using that extra time to travel and explore the world and yourself. Their About page doesn’t even feature a full photo of their product, it’s an ideology. They’re also selling you the time you would spend looking for another option, comparing style and design, they’ve done it for you, created a one-size-fits-all solution, of course it will solve your problem. 

We value access over aspiration, and exploration over escape. For us, all time away is time well spent.

Glossier Makeup promises to be your go-to, you won’t have to stand in those stores of exhaustingly similar shades unless you want to because you’ll already have efficient makeup that doesn’t require reapplication (because that takes time and costs money).

We’re not out to make you into someone else or complicate your routine. We just want to bring you the best makeup products - the ones you’ll reach for every day.

With Parachute we find the same story of long-lasting quality materials, environmental for those who can afford it, that will make your home comfortable, so that the time you spend relaxing is the most relaxing as soon as possible. Efficient comforts that remind you of the life you’re working toward and all the free time you’ll have once you get there. 

With Outdoor Voices, again, we have a focus on experience, the apparel is sold with the encouragement to exercise every day without the pressure of being the best or first, so you can efficiently utilize your time working out AND having fun! The products are quality that won’t have to be replaced as often, and they are fashionable and cute, so you won’t have to waste time on deciding what to wear for your fun social workout. Combined with the focus on community, experience, and activism through social media and events, their campaigns are often focused around the ideological message, their products become a simple representation of it.

#DoingThings is about being active on a daily basis and having fun with friends, without the pressure of being the first or the best. 

Allbirds pursued a similar method of quality-focus, but included much more of their environmental platform, essential for Millennials and our ethical attempts at consumption through the climate crisis. Allbirds makes note of its non-flashy design, making the shoe efficient and adaptable for many scenarios (we minimalists love adaptability and efficiency), and their comfort means you won’t have to waste time picking shoes out either, just stick with the same pair every day, more time to explore the world, less time making decisions or feeling guilty about your shoes. 

An entirely new category of shoes inspired by natural materials, and an ongoing mantra to create better things in a better way.

MeUndies touts the small-wins, having a quality pair of underoos that will last you a long time to start your long day with a positive swing. They’ve accepted that you have little time, and that your life is full of negative outcomes and work that is often unrewarding, so here is a special something to indulge in.

Sometimes it’s the little things that give your morning that well-needed win.

Everlane is feeding that ethical-environmental Millennial with the efficiency of a brand you can trust, shop without spending time looking at labels or investigating, don’t waste time on expensive clothes that aren’t quality or fair.

At Everlane, we want the right choice to be as easy as putting on a great T-shirt. That’s why we partner with the best, ethical factories around the world. Source only the finest materials. And share those stories with you—down to the true cost of every product we make. It’s a new way of doing things. We call it Radical Transparency.

HelloFresh is all about simplifying your meal-making routine by sending recipes and ingredients right to your door. Sure, you pick them out for a minute, but shopping? Debating between organic butter lettuce and the other one that says organic but doesn’t have the sticker? Who needs that, you can trust their ingredients, you can customize your plan. Efficiency, adaptability, ethical trade, and experience, they were made for Millennial culture. No marketing necessary, the concept itself fits all the bullets. And they do an outreach program, which is becoming consistently more important for us ethical consumers to gain our pseudo-experience through. I might not have time to volunteer or money to donate because I can’t even afford a barely-livable apartment, but I can purchase and support my own necessities through companies that provide what I cannot (hence the effective longevity of companies like TOMS or Bombas or Yoobi, and other companies found here, many do social media campaigns, so they donate to charities or their own products as a reward for marketing through social media or sharing, including Everlane and Parachute listed above).

And last for this little thought experiment/analysis thing, we have Leuchtterm 1917 notebooks. I see these all the time, I pick them up with a hefty this might be nice and then see the price and scoff as I set it carefully back on the shelf and return to the spiral bound notebooks, where I belong. Quality is the supreme marketing strategy here, and I would argue it’s not as “Millennial” as the Moleskines as far as “luxury” notebooks go. Moleskines are marketed alongside stationary and journals in bookstores, as the affordable extra, individually minimalistic with hundreds of custom options and colors, they are the features of the Pinterest art and journaling craze and trends (Inktober anyone?). 

The Leuchtturm1917 notebooks offer more of a corporate vibe, imo, but maybe that’s the point, they are the Millennial whose start-up has sold or is prospering, they are the symbol of old-world success, an unnecessary luxury meant to motivate more than adapt. Which banks on the Millennial desire for experience and aesthetic encouragement, in that way, I can understand how this company would fit here. 

Also, the author mentions specifically using this notebook for bullet journaling (which I tried and failed once), so I understand the Millennial application. Bullet Journaling as a concept is meant to free up time and organize your goals so they are accomplishable, offering experience, creativity, and time to reflect and follow those organized colorful dreams. Why not organize those dreams in fine leather and quality paper that encourages you to work harder?

Experience and consistency are important requirements for quality. quality gives ideas a solid foundation on which they can develop. We are convinced that small details can make a big difference.

These companies are advertising on Instagram and sponsoring popular podcasts or Youtube creators. They know who and where their audience is and are often genuinely trying to make life more efficient, among the superfluous world’s most comfortable X titles. But whether or not they work, or if they just add extra work to our lives (extra billing, extra passwords, extra clutter), is based on our choices and routines. A few years ago Netflix streaming might have been included as a Millennial extra, and Amazon shopping before that. But those have proven useful, efficient, time-saving, essentials whose winning of the test of time has auctioned them off into mainstream consumerism, rather than this bubble of marketing we Millennials get defined by. 

I want time and efficiency, I am exhausted of making choices, I would like products to last a while, to reduce the risk of purchase, and to reassure me that I have agency and power in my life, products that encourage me to live it. Who the heck doesn’t want that? But none of these specific products, so far, has been useful enough to my weekly worries and time-obligations to warrant their cost. Is this really the Millennial dream life, or is the marketing-campaign of these companies similar enough to group them together and make us form a disjointed idea of what Millennials want. Social shopping is fun, obligatory money-spending is stressful, we fear for our time in our commutes and celebration of workaholism, and getting this much in the mail seems exhausting if not occasionally unproductive. 

I don’t think Millennials just want aesthetic, I think that’s what we are, but we want to be more. We want the time to make ethical choices, we want the money to sponsor products that utilize ethical choices. We want to matter, to make a difference, we want to be seen. We want friends and experiences together, we want laughter and fun and meaning beyond agendas that aren’t ares. These companies let us wear those desires while maintaining our survival as we shuffle off to our unpaid internships and our hopeful start-up salaries, they sell us hope. 

Anyway, I really liked this article, but the more I sat on it, the more I got annoyed with the disjunct of purpose vs. use. Maybe that’s a marketing ploy, and maybe I fell for it, but I wouldn’t expect any of these products to make me happier, because none of them would take me less time, make me less anxious, or offer less stress than my normal routine. That means that this illusion of Millennials that’s getting propagated is based on the false understanding that we value elaborate quality and are frivolous spenders, rather than the reality that Avocado toast is a great source of good fats (Jake’s not home, I can’t ask him for the 500th time to explain it again, sorry), and good grains and good proteins and good spices that will keep you full for a good amount of time and is therefore healthy and efficient when it comes to meal choices (and delicious lol). 

So yeah, I don’t think we Millennials are as image-obsessed as we seem, I think it’s all part of a desperation for time. We are told that we deserve time after we are successful, we may travel after we retire, we may find ourselves after we raise kids, and the only way I think we see around it is money. If we can support ourselves independently, then we don’t need to fill anyone else’s agendas, we are free to use our time as we please, on things we are passionate about, on ourselves, on thought, on politics, on friendships, etc. 

So there’s my thing, I’d love to hear thoughts about Millennial stereotypes through technology and consumer habits that might be deeper rooted in an attempt to gain time and freedom and identity and happiness. (It’s been a theme lately). I really hope someone skims this ‘cus man, the number of repeat ads I’m going to get from going to these websites is going to be exhausting. 

[fydk-translations]

The EXO’rDIUM photobook: Kyungsoo interview + mentions

INTERVIEW

What kind of space is a concert stage to you, D.O.?

I think of a concert stage as a space where EXO and EXO-L can meet eyes and communicate. When we’re on broadcast, we look into the camera while EXO-L look at the monitor, right? But at concerts, we can look at each other without camera or monitor, and I think that’s really special. Eyes are how we connect with each other. The EXO’rDIUM had many stages where we were accessible to the audience, so I think they made that connection even more special. I had the most fun on the moving platforms where I could meet fans up close. It was really nice making eye contact with each EXO-L. To be honest, sometimes I can’t see the far audience because of my bad eyesight, but I can see the details in the expressions of everyone near. They seem so happy to be at our concert with us that it gives me energy. So I’m happy.

When did you have the most fun while preparing for The EXO’rDIUM?

Honestly, I have more memories of having a hard time than a fun one. Haha. The time leading up to a concert is always physically draining. 

Not just during practice - being on stage for a concert consumes an incredible amount of energy as well. How do you maintain your energy when there are concerts ahead?

I try to control my energy according to concert rounds. Like giving 100% if it’s one stop, or 30%, 30%, 30% if there are three. Though it’s not really easy to divide it up like that for actual concerts. I end up giving my all at every stop and becoming exhausted. So I don’t really have any secret for maintaining energy except food as therapy. Haha. I eat a lot, with food that tastes good foremost. I take vitamins too.

What kind of food do you eat most?

I eat tons and tons of high-calorie food, like meat or other prepared foods. Untasty things like chicken breast or salads, I barely touch. A lot of sodium is a must. Haha. I really enjoy greasy food like Chinese, pizza, chicken. 

You film VCRs for every concert. Which one this time did you like the most?

My favorite one is always the last one that was filmed. So for The EXO’rDIUM, that would be the five year anniversary video ‘They Never Know.’ We were all running and playing around during filming, so I had a lot of fun. I think EXO-L like seeing us like that, too.

For the second concert, there was the VCR ‘POV: Dating with EXO’ where you reenacted EXO’s dorm life. How different was it from your actual dorm life?

100% different! Our dorms are like any private home. It’s our place to wash up, sleep, and eat.

In that video, the EXO members dance funny on their time off. Do you also goof off by dancing at the dorms in real life?

There’s hardly reason to break out into dance at the dorms. Although we do that a lot in the practice room. 

Do you ever break out into dance?

I don’t. I can’t remember ever doing that. 

There are testimonials about your good cooking. Do you cook for the other members often?

We all have our own schedules so I don’t have much chance to make food for the others at the dorms. But more importantly, the stove in our kitchen is an induction range, not a gas range, so the food I make doesn’t taste the same. Food tastes the best when it was cooked in a wok over a fire, but an induction range can’t give you that. I usually cook for my parents when I’m home.

What was a moment during The EXO’rDIUM where you thought ‘this member, he’s so cool’ and your heart raced?

My heart always races during Kai’s stages. He looks incredibly cool in all his dance solos. To be honest, it should lose its appeal from how often I see him dance at practice and at rehearsals, but I’m always taken by surprise when he has a dance solo on stage. Not because it’s new but because he’s so good at it.

I was able to feel the members becoming more tight-knit over the course of The EXO’rDIUM. Was there a special reason for that?

We had more time for the members to gather together to talk openly. And we promised to each other that we would do things properly from now on. That brought us closer together.

The EXO’rDIUM and The War were great successes. You must be in a great mood.

Yes. It’s good. The members worked really hard, and I’m even gladder because that was rewarded. I think you reap what you sow.

With the safe conclusion of The EXO’rDIUM, please leave a message for the other members.

Xiumin hyung, thank you for always staying true as the oldest of our group. Suho hyung, thank you for putting up with us whenever we act like babies. EXO’s moodmaker, Baekhyun. Thank you for keeping our morale high and making us smile. Chen, who I really love, thank you so much for always being bright and sharing your good energy. Chanyeol. Thank you for always being by me, playing your guitar. The practice room’s leader, Kai. Thank you for keeping our laziness in line. Even though he’s usually the laziest of us all, he works the hardest during practice. And finally, our man of loyalty, Sehun. Thank you for keeping us tight-knit, as if you’re the oldest one out of us.

Q&A

Please give your thoughts on wrapping up The EXO’rDIUM unhurt.

Every year, the tour opens and closes on really different moods. When The EXO’rDIUM started, I was a bit anxious because of all the new stages. My heart was fluttering too, because it had been a while since we’d met with fans in such a way. But over the tour, I became more confident than nervous. I couldn’t help but gain confidence as we had dozens of shows and my body became familiar with all the stages. I wanted the performances to seem better, more seasoned.

The EXO’rDIUM tour started at the Seoul Olympics Stadium. As a singer, a huge stage like that seems like it would have been an honor.

That’s right. The Seoul Olympics Stadium has a lot of meaning for singers as a venue. It’s on an enormous scale, so it’s not easy to fill it with an audience that supports you. To say that it was ours! It was a truly precious time to me.

Did you ever worry about the complex not filling to capacity?

No. Rather than obsessing over audience numbers, I was more concerned with enjoying the time with people who were actually there.

Because of the Seoul Olympics Stadium’s sheer scale, the size of your own stage was larger than usual. You had to cover a lot of ground when you were moving on your own - did it put pressure on you?

Hardly, because as always the other members were on stage too. Even if I might have more ground to cover, I’m not even a little bit nervous if I think about the others there, at my back. We poured out our energy as we always do. If I had a solo stage or concert here though, then I would have felt incredibly burdened.

There was a new acoustic stage for The EXO’rDIUM. I feel that you would have been very happy about that as a vocalist. How was it?

I liked it, the acoustic stage. But acoustic stage or not, all stages are equally important to me. As long as I get to sing, that’s all that matters.

Have you always liked acoustic music?

Yes, I have. I like it when a single instrument, like a guitar or piano, weaves through the music. The singer’s voice can stand out more without as much instrumentation going on.

It must have been fun to sing along with Chanyeol playing guitar. Did you have to keep anything particular in mind for the acoustic stage?

I do the same for other stages too, but because the only parts of the acoustic stage were Chanyeol’s guitar and our vocals, I did my complete best to stay on pitch. 

How do you feel your vocal ability grew over The EXO’rDIUM?

I honestly can’t say how much I personally grew, but I can say that I gradually am. Listening to a diverse amount of music, outside the genres I already like, has been important for my vocals. I attempt many different styles by singing and humming along. I often hum songs I like, and even that’s been surprisingly helpful for my singing ability.

Does your singing style tend to be influenced by what you’re listening to? When the music you listen to changes, does your style change too?

Yes, it changes. I seem to pick up the colors of musicians I like while listening and humming to them. I copy parts I find attractive without even realizing it. So when the music I’m listening to changes, the way I vocalize and sing changes a bit too.

What songs did you listen to in the preparation leading up to The EXO’rDIUM?

I listened to a lot of Ed Sheeran. I think because the songs were nice and so popular.

Which member do you have the most vocal chemistry with?

I think when singing with Chen and Baekhyun. Chen has a high tone and I have a low tone, so there’s a large gap between us. When we’re not having a duet and Baekhyun is there to bridge the gap, our chemistry comes very alive.

The EXO members and fans alike call you cute. How does being called ‘cute’ make you feel?

I don’t feel particularly happy or unhappy hearing things like I’m ‘cute’ or ‘handsome’ or ‘cool.’ I’m grateful the fans would see me in these different lights. But in my opinion, I’m just a guy far from cute. A plain one.

Then what would you like to hear? If there were something you could be told besides ‘you’re cute’?

I think I have a greed for praise like ‘you’re doing well’ more than comments on appearance. ‘You did well’ is the compliment that makes me feel the best.

So you’d also like hearing ‘you have an attractive voice.’ 

Mm, I’d like to hear ‘you’re doing well’ more than that. Haha. No matter how attractive a voice is, it would lose appeal quickly if I couldn’t sing well. I think ‘you’re doing well’ is something you can’t hear without an innate sense for something and a huge amount of effort to back it up. Maybe that’s why it isn’t easy to earn. I haven’t really been told it much, so I’d like to keep trying hard [until then].

That’s impossible. You’re known for being good at singing and acting.

Maybe because I’m not convinced yet.

Are you often told that you’re a perfectionist?

Yes, I used to hear that a lot.

Have you ever thought of yourself as sexy? You looked very sexy dancing with a cane for Artifical Love’s performance.

No way? I’m very far from a sexy man! I don’t know about me being sexy, but the Artificial Love stage is one I personally enjoy because I like dancing to a groove more than precise choreography. Like for White Noise, Thunder, Playboy, Artificial Love - the songs in the second set.

The EXO members fool around with each other a lot on stage, but you’re the only one that doesn’t put up with those antics. Why is that?

Because there’s no reason to. Do I always have to put up with it? It’s the same off stage. Constantly. Haha.

Which member is the one to make you laugh most?

Baekhyun. But Baekhyun makes everyone laugh, not just me. He’s our team’s moodmaker. 

Is there any reason why you always speak formally to the fans?

I think because EXO and EXO-L have a long history, we should be that much more considerate of each other.

Of all the stages in The EXO’rDIUM, which one were you most satisfied by?

This will be different for every member, but in my case I tend to think of concerts in rounds rather than by stages. I was really satisfied by the time The EXO’rDIUM’s ended. It always feels like more could be done for the first show, but that feeling helps boost the second show, and I feel a little more content each time. I’m very happy with The EXO’rDIUM because we could be accessible and have a good time with the audience. And above all, I’m even gladder to see that it ended without anyone getting hurt.

THANKS TO

To everyone who attended The EXO’rDIUM, I want to tell you I’m always grateful. I’ve said as much many times, but today I’d like to talk a bit more about what ‘thank you’ means to me. ‘Thank you’ holds my sincerity and love for EXO-Ls. Just like how you send us an endless amount of love, I too feel a deep affection for EXO-L. I still struggle with expressing emotions and am too shy to say ‘I love you,’ but when I say ‘thank you’ as I always do, it holds that affection. That’s what I wanted to tell you today. To me, EXO-L are the core of EXO’s concerts. Without you, there would be no reason for EXO to have any; our concerts 100% exist because of you. I’ll always regard these stages you’ve created for us dearly and work hard for them. And I’d also like to say that this isn’t the end yet. The EXO’rDIUM may be over, but there will be more concerts in the future. Please keep watching over us. EXO-Ls are always in my thoughts.

MENTIONS

Shim Jaewon: Please tell us what you think are the stages that sell the EXO members’ personal strong points from The EXO’rDIUM.  D.O. has incredible expressive ability. He has vocals I don’t get tired of and want to listen again to no matter how much I listen to him. His voice is nice enough to feel like luxury for the ears. It honestly wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the EXO’rDIUM’s acoustic section was inspired by him. The idea came to me while planning, as a stage where D.O.’s voice would start the music and where his charm would stand out.

Stylists: How did you go about personally styling each of the EXO members?   It’s not just D.O.’s looks that are neat and ordered, but also his dancing that is smooth and without frills. We styled him according to his tidy and firm image.

Make-up artists: Please tell us some how-to points for the EXO members’ makeup. We wanted to stick with a clean look for D.O. We didn’t have him wear colored lenses or put much makeup on him. His eyebrows lend to his soft masculine beauty by themselves, and we would apply brown shadow around his eyes. We’d like to hear about each EXO members’ skin care routine leading up The EXO’rDIUM. D.O. has smooth skin, but it sometimes gives him trouble. He has a lot of interest in skin care so he’ll often carry and apply moisture balancing products by himself. His lips tend to get dry, so he makes sure to carry lip balm for them.

Hair artists: Please tell us about the key concepts behind The EXO’rDIUM’s hairstyles. For a fresher black color, we dyed D.O.’s hair an ashy black. His styling and coloring was kept clean because he had to balance acting with concerts. We parted his front hair at a 2:9 ratio, with a little edge added.

EXO members: With the safe conclusion of The EXO’rDIUM, please leave a message for the other members.

Xiumin: It makes me glad to see D.O. smile more lately. He’s a friend who constantly worries and thinks about the other members. He’s simple and honest. Balancing EXO’s schedules along with acting so often has to be hard on him, though he’s yet to express it. But hey, D.O., it’s okay to say it’s tough when it’s tough. If you want to express that now, it’ll be fine. 

Suho: Hey D.O., I know you joke around with me because you like me. Haha. I’m rooting for you in your life, through your sweat and tears.

Chen: D.O. is a friend I can really rely on. In hard times, a single remark from him gives me strength. I’ve come to depend on him more than I’d realized.

Baekhyun: I’m glad to have a friend with D.O.’s principles. I hope he can keep going without forgetting himself, just as he is now. Hey D.O., I want you to believe in yourself. Whatever others say, what you believe in is probably what’s right.

Chanyeol: D.O. and I have common interests. We game together, and recently we’ve started to go golfing together. There’s nothing more I can ask from him. He’s always been a reliable friend. Hey D.O., I hope we can always stay close, like we are now. 

Kai: D.O. hyung, it can’t have been easy acting and preparing for the shows, but you always spend time with the members too. It’s awesome that you’re doing everything you can. Always love you, hyung. You know I love you the most, right?

Sehun: As for D.O. hyung. He’s very remote. But if someone takes the initiative to approach him, he’ll open up. I approached him first, and now he’ll return that. Now, he’ll even start to play around. 

source: @MoncherDO 1, 2, 3, hyuneepoint56, and as linked | translation: fydk

[asfeedin]

“Let the Hate Flow Through You”: Cooking Tasks That Fill Us With Dread

[Photographs: Vicky Wasik unless otherwise noted]

It should come as no surprise to any of our readers that everyone on the Serious Eats staff loves to cook. Many of us are even die-hard defenders of the proposition that anything homemade is preferable to store-bought, from English muffins and cake (bye, Betty Crocker!) to even condiments like mayonnaise and chili crisp, where the store-bought versions are totally fine to use.

That doesn’t mean we all love everything about cooking! Some kitchen tasks are incredibly annoying. Washing spinach? Picking thyme leaves? Touching corn starch? Yup, all of those are bad. Usually, we’d say about such tasks, “Life’s too short. No one has time for that.” And yet, now, for all of us, everywhere, cooking more of our meals at home, we all do, in fact, have time for even the most-time-consuming kitchen chores. But that doesn’t mean we have to like them any better than in the time before coronavirus.

We asked our staff to identify one thing they hate to do in the kitchen above all others, and their answers are included below, from peeling garlic and deveining shrimp to “baking” (nice one, Niki!). We found talking about the cooking activities we hate to be cathartic, so if you’d like to take a minute out of your day and gripe about anything kitchen-related—for fun, for your mental health, or just because making chicken cutlets really does blow chunks—say it loud and say it proud in the comments.

So Much Hand-Washing

Cooking and baking are inherently messy activities that require thoughtful cleaning and prepping to mitigate the risks of cross contamination and food-borne illnesses. Now that hand-washing is finally getting the attention it deserves inside and outside of the kitchen, I feel some shame in admitting that it is not my favorite task. Please don’t report me to the CDC! I still practice it carefully as needed! You can still come over for dinner when social distancing is over! I just have painful eczema on my hands, which is exacerbated by soap and hot water.

I try to obsessively plan out my kitchen tasks to reduce hand washing. That means prepping in order from the cleanest to dirtiest ingredient, dry to wet, water-based to oil-based. There is a special type of dread that comes when both of my hands are greasy, sticky, and unusable. My personal purgatory would involve dredging fried chicken while the oven timer goes off, my phone with the recipe on it goes to sleep, and the doorbell rings at the same time. —Maggie Lee, designer

Bones to Pick

The only two single-use tools I own are a cherry pitter and fish tweezers, for deboning fish. Pitting cherries is a tedious task, but at least you get to eat cherries as you work. Deboning fish is grunt work. When I can’t get my fishmonger to do it, I have to dig through my utensil drawer to find the oddly shaped tweezers. Though plucking each pin bone out of fish fillets offers some gratification, not unlike plucking an errant eyebrow hair, it’s an annoying layer of prep work that gets in the way of cooking. It’s not satisfying like chopping or dicing, it’s not a skill that I seem to get better or faster at, and it’s something that, if you forget to do it, markedly decreases the enjoyment of the meal. I hate it! —Daniela Galarza, features editor

Garlic Prep

This most mundane of tasks is the one I can’t stand the most. Not because it’s particularly difficult, but because it’s a daily nuisance. There’s hardly a recipe that doesn’t require fiddling with garlic’s papery skins, and of course garlic is wonderful so I’m never willing to skip it, which just…pisses me off! Look, I know every trick in the book, from smashing the garlic with a knife and rattling the cloves around in metal mixing bowls to giving each clove a gentle twist between my fingers to pry the skins loose, but none of them work well enough or consistently enough to ease my mind of the inevitable dread whenever it’s time to peel yet more garlic.

There is a flip side to this, though, which is the deep appreciation I feel when a fresh crop of garlic rolls into the market and for a few months I get to enjoy those easy-to-peel skins before they dry out and become so damned annoying again. —Daniel Gritzer, managing culinary director

Minty Fresh Aggravation

[Photograph: Max Falkowitz]

Whenever I have the energy, I like to add tons of fresh herbs to almost anything I’m cooking, and I especially love the summery freshness of mint. But the prep is such a fussy nightmare! First you have to carefully wash, then dry the whole plants, and then painstakingly pick off leaves one at a time. With things like parsley and cilantro I tend to just chop everything up, but mint stalks are so woody and fibrous there’s really no getting around individually picking off the leaves.” —Daniel Dyssegaard Kallick, developer

A Tough Nut to Crack

No matter what I do or whatever method I use (toaster oven, small sauté pan), the nuts I am attempting to toast always burn. It drives me nuts and burns me up. Burnt nuts aren’t really usable for anything. I am awaiting the development of the single-use nut toaster that automatically turns off when the nuts are a nice toasty golden brown. Until then I’ll continue to suffer, though no longer in silence. —Ed Levine, overlord

Berry Annoyed

When it comes to washing produce, my laziness knows no bounds. This is especially true with washing berries. They’re delicate, so I don’t want to mush them up; they’re more absorbent than anything with peels or a skin; and they require a careful picking through to take out any unwanted debris. I’ve begrudgingly come around to washing most fruits and veggies that come through my kitchen (as one should), but berries still get to me. —Jina Stanfill, social media editor

I Like My Fingers, Thanks

It’s time to get hyper-specific: I was hired because of my abilities to cut footage, not produce, so my chopping skills leave a lot to be desired. My mandoline has helped hide that fact whenever I’m prepping a dish that requires razor-thin shavings of anything. I’ve had no issues with anything I’ve sliced except shallots. I’m not sure if it’s the tear-inducing onion fumes or their slick layers that makes shallots super-slippery, but thinly sliced shallots are my arch nemesis. The only silver lining is that if I ever need fried shallots to snack on while going on the lam without fingerprints, I’ve got the perfect solution. —Joel Russo, video producer

Grating Cheese Really Grates

I am a perfectionist in the kitchen and prefer to do everything myself, but if there’s one task I delegate it’s grating cheese, an awkward motion that seems designed to induce repetitive stress injury. My great-grandfather had no rotational function in his forearm owing to a war injury, and so, I’m told, he built his own cheese-grating system operated by foot pedal. I am looking into a similar solution. —John Mattia, video editor

Golden Fried No-Thank-You

Like most people, I appreciate a perfect piece of fried food—from donuts and chicken to deep-fried pickles. However, despite how much I enjoy fried food, I absolutely dislike deep frying anything at home. I basically avoid it at this point. From having to make sure I have oil on hand (I never do, and I never have the right oil, to boot), to checking that the oil is hot enough and maintaining its temperature (which is a guessing game for me, even with a thermometer), and then to cleaning up the mess and the oil itself (which, to be honest, I’ve sometimes left for my husband to deal with), is just a recipe for more work than I’m willing to put in. On top of that, the fry smell permeates everything in my apartment for at least a week. I’ll leave the business of fried food to places that have commercial deep fryers and will continue to frequent them whenever I’m craving fried food perfection. —Kristina Razon, operations manager

Sharpen My Knife? Yeah, Right

As I look at this list of the cooking tasks my work colleagues dread, I’m pretty surprised. A lot of these tasks I actually really enjoy. Peeling garlic, picking mint leaves…those are things I relish and even find relaxing. You can’t mess up peeling garlic or picking leaves. But you can absolutely mess up sharpening a knife. Despite the fact that we have a really useful guide to knife sharpening, I can’t get myself to do it. I’m terrified I’m going to cut myself or mess up my blades. What looks like a really cool, meditative process on video just fills me with fear. And I know that dull knives can also be very dangerous! So the lesser of two evils is to use an electric sharpener. Don’t tell my colleagues! I don’t want them to be disappointed. —Ariel Kanter, director of commerce and content marketing

Baking

Look, I’m not a complete monster—I love to eat baked goods (though I’d argue that cake is seriously overrated). But with rare exceptions, like these insanely easy ricotta-brown butter cookies, this damn fine cherry pie, and these truly phenomenal lemon bars, I’ll go to great lengths to avoid making them from scratch. I’d say my resistance is a 70-30 ratio of “fear of discovering at the very end that I’ve messed up the dessert/bread and all my hard, finicky work was for naught and everyone will be disappointed and I will be judged” and “unpleasant mess.” But really, it’s so, so many reasons. Allow me to elaborate:

Too many bowls: It’s just too many bowls, period. Do I even have that many bowls? What if they’re reactive? And then after I’ve made the damn dessert I also need to clean them all?? Hard pass.

Whisking dry ingredients together: This is a task I thought I had under control until I found out Stella recommends doing it for AT LEAST ONE MINUTE—which might as well be a year.

Sifting: Sometimes the recipe asks you to sift stuff. The sheer amount of powder that winds up on my work surfaces, clothing, and floor is unacceptable. Especially when it’s cocoa powder that gets damp and is suddenly chocolate.

Using a stand mixer: I love my stand mixer for making fresh pasta. But when I have to actually use the bowl, it’s infuriating. Scraping the sides of your mixing bowl is just an endless game of turning the machine on and off, sticking your arm in at weird angles only to almost always miss a spot.

Too many leftovers: When I take on a baking project, I’m faced with indivisible recipes that yield far greater than two servings. Yes, you can freeze pie or cookie dough, but my freezer is incredibly small. Because I have zero self-control, this almost always results in a severe stomachache. For this reason, I almost only bake for company, which leads me to perhaps my greatest pet peeve…

Not being able to taste as you go! The idea that my baked good could look amazing on the outside, but I won’t know if I messed up until I serve and slice into the thing, is profoundly disincentivizing. As the EIC of a prominent food site, I put a lot of pressure on myself when cooking for company, and while I never second guess the quality of a Stella recipe, that doesn’t mean I can’t introduce untold human errors into the process.

The only way to get better at baking is to keep…doing it. Enough said.

Finally, to anyone thinking, so your real issue is being tidy, organized, patient, and detail-oriented…I guess you’re right. Shame on me! Thankfully, those traits don’t present in every area of my life. —Niki Achitoff-Gray, editor-in-chief

Sticky Cilantro

I love cilantro (sorry if it tastes like soap to you), so I don’t actively shy away from this task, but I loathe the seemingly special ability it has to stick to anything and everything once chopped—the cutting board, the knife, my hands, whatever you use to try and scrap the knife clean. —Paul Cline, president

Cutlets!

I hate making breaded chicken cutlets. I hate everything about it. It is, for me, the manifestation of cooking hell on Earth. Why does something so delicious have to be such a pain in the neck to make? Because that’s really the rub; there’s a lot of cooking tasks I dislike—washing fresh spinach 10 million times only to discover there’s still grit in the washing water; crumbling up cold leftover rice with my hands; touching powdered plant starch of any kind—but there’s only one that I dislike and yet feel compelled to regularly repeat, since I don’t know if life is worth living if you can’t eat good chicken cutlets at least once every two weeks.

Part of it is the mess, sure. But a lot of cooking tasks are messy. Any and all baking projects make me make a mess of my kitchen. And even if making cutlets means I have to clean a cutting board, a meat mallet, at least two half sheet pans (one for the breaded cutlets to rest, another for cooling), a cooling rack, a quarter sheet pan (for breading), and two 1/8 sheet pans (for the flour and egg wash dredging), a skillet, the stovetop (of oil splatters), the counter (for spills), the floor (for random flour and bits of panko), and my hands 10 billion times to prevent immediate food poisoning and belated food poisoning via cross-contamination, that isn’t the whole picture of my hate for these stupidly delicious things.

Part of it is you can’t do anything else while cooking them. They’re quick to cook, sure, but you can only cook a few at a time in even a 12-inch skillet, and you need to watch them, tend the temperature of the oil as you would a baby’s first toddling steps, and you need to salt each one right out of the fryer otherwise they’re crap, and then you have to cook like six more because who, really, makes just two freaking cutlets at a time except for heathens and (some very diligent) line cooks? That’s a solid block of kitchen time spent just frying things; you can’t clean as you go, you can’t prep other food, you’re just cooking cutlets for however long it takes to cook them all.

Another part of it is: No one likes a badly cooked cutlet, and cooking 10 cutlets, say, requires you pay careful attention to cooking the cutlets for a sustained period of time. It’s outrageous! And then, inevitably, when my attention flags, or I have to do literally anything else that might be necessary, like talking to my child, or paying attention to my wife, or thinking even for a moment, “man, I absolutely hate making chicken cutlets,” a cutlet will burn or get unevenly colored or overcooked because I haven’t been swirling the oil, or checking on its underside crust, or maybe I’m just at the end of the process and rather than “wasting” more cooking oil and topping off the fat in the pan, I try (for the 100 billionth time) to make do with less oil than is obviously necessary and all the burning bits of panko from the other 16 cutlets I’ve made start sticking to the crust of the final three, mottling their appearance and generally messing them up.

The only way I’ve found to deal with cutlet madness is to make them at least an hour before I have to eat them, because otherwise I find any flaw in any cutlet an indictment not just of my skills as a cook but of the entire cutlet-making operation.

But, of course, even the badly cooked cutlets taste really good, even when eaten as a cold leftover, provided you salted them properly and salt them again out of the fridge, and so the process will begin again solely on the strength of how good the things are to eat, any time of day, prepared in any stupid way.—Sho Spaeth, editor and writer and lover of cutlets

Cleaning Shrimp

There were a lot of time-consuming prep tasks that I used to dread when I cooked in restaurants. The combination of the sheer volume of prep required to get through service (picking a full pint of thyme leaves or thinly slicing a quart of chives to dole out to all the cooks on the line is a major pain in the ass when you also need to get purées cooked and blended, whole fish broken down, lobster meat picked, and so on), and the constant breakneck push and anxiety to get the endless list of tasks done by the time the first wave of guests are sat in a dining room can take the joy out of menial kitchen tasks. But these days, I don’t dread having to clean a big haul of produce that I picked up from the farmers market—in fact, I find the process very enjoyable and soothing.

That doesn’t mean that I suddenly enjoy every prep project under the sun, though. There’s one that I will always despise, and it’s peeling and deveining shrimp.

There is nothing enjoyable about the process—it’s tedious, time-consuming, not very appetizing, and over the years I’ve come to realize that the irritation I feel when handling raw shrimp is physical as well as mental (my hands get super-itchy when shelling shrimp without gloves). But when I want shrimp for dinner, like for a recent riff on aglio e olio pasta, I can’t bring myself to purchase already peeled and deveined ones. Shrimp shells are packed with so much flavor, it’d be a shame to miss out on that potential.

So, I begrudgingly set up a shrimp processing station instead, and get to work excising those giant digestive tracts, cursing myself the whole time for not just making shell-on salt and pepper shrimp instead. However, that would involve deep-frying, another cooking project that I don’t love tackling at home. —Sasha Marx, senior culinary editor

Dirty, Dirty Greens

It’s a running joke in the Serious Eats office that my refrigerator is usually a barren wasteland. I just don’t tend to keep a lot of food around; it inevitably goes bad because I’m so full from snacking all day at work in the test kitchen that I rarely feel like cooking when I get home. But once in a while you’ll find a pie plate in there with my favorite recipe on the site: spanakopita. The one thing I’ve learned from the dozen or so times I’ve made this recipe is that washing and drying leafy greens and herbs SUCKS. It is just the absolute worst, especially when you have a smaller salad spinner. —Vicky Wasik, visual director

Rice, Rice, Baby

I’m well aware that making rice is one of the simpler tasks to take on in the kitchen, and I’m slightly fearful of the backlash I might receive when my colleagues read this. It’s hard for me to pinpoint just what it is about making rice that I don’t like. Maybe it’s the pesky grains that try to escape when you wash them (I’ve only recently invested in a fine-mesh strainer, which has made me hate the process just a little less); or maybe it’s the water-to-rice ratio that, without fail, I always have to look up to make sure I’m getting just right. Whatever it is, I dread it. So whenever I’m cooking and I need to serve a dish with rice, I just nominate whoever is around me to do it instead. —Yasmine Maggio, social media intern

So now you know our dirty secrets. What tasks do you dread these days?

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Tags: cooking, Dread, Fill, Flow, hate, Tasks

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[mvsicbookfrxndom]

OKAY, LISTEN UP, EVERYONE, 'CAUSE I HAVE THE BEST MOTHERFLIPPING STORY EVER TO TELL YOU!!!

Here's a mental image to paint in your mind:

A socially impaired, lonely teenage girl is hiding in the bedroom she shares with her younger sister from her parents, reading fanfiction on a device she isn't supposed to be using because she's a rule-breaking savage. It's spring break, which should be really fun and awesome, but it isn't because her home life isn't really all that great. Which is why she's hiding in the bedroom she shares with her younger sister from her parents.

She isn't just reading any old fanfiction, either. She's reading Monsieur George deValier's Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfics. They transport her to a world of ubiquitously inclusive homonormativity and give her hope that true love always wins in the end, because its love. No matter what gender anyone happens to love.

Her parents would pass out if they knew what kind of scandalous stories her eyes gobble up while they converse suspiciously about whether or not their rogue daughter is slitting her wrists upstairs.

Which she isn't. She's doing something almost more painful - imagining what it would be like to come out of the closet. To openly admit to the whole world that she isn't monosexual - in fact, she's the furthest thing from it. To have more accepting parents, to have more accepting people around her in general. To not be judged, to be safe in her home instead of being cast out, abandoned. To find her one true love and be devoted forever, whatever gender they might identify as, because that couldn't matter less to her.

George deValier's works have brought to her life a new dimension she never imagined she'd discover. She wishes she could meet him - who knows if he's even a man at all? - and hug him. Tell him he's changed her life forever. Thank him for existing. If only anyone knew who he was so this could happen.

TL;DR: I love George deValier more than my own family.

There's my "setting the scene" portion of this post. Now here comes the crazy story portion!

So I'm reading Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart, the first deValier work my eyes have ever had the blessing of experiencing, and there are no words - in any of the multiple languages I am fluent in - for how much it's affected me (not even French, the most romantic language on earth).

I've probably read half of the works on fanfiction.net and AO3 combined, but nothing has come even close to this. At all. The writing is sublime, the plots intricate beyond belief, and the character development positively shocking in its detail. The dedication and talent spent on this is almost scary to think about, not to mention the research that must have taken years to complete, so the stories could be as historically accurate as humanly possible. What's the point in writing fanfiction if this is what you're up against? I'm close to giving up one of my favorite things to do in the whole world because of how shook I am, but if this is how I go down, I'll be going down happy.

Though I've been reading for hours, I've only reached chapter 5, since my eyes have been taking their time to lasciviously devour every letter and fully grasp the meaning of each delicious sentence before allowing further conquest. However, I am no less enamored by the magnificent, captivating story than when I just started it at what seems like a lifetime ago.

As I near the end of ch.5, I almost screech out loud when I read the conversation between Feli and Ludwig about the latter's fighter aircraft Greta. About a quarter of the reason why is because Ludwig just confessed that there is no special girl of his, and my angsty soul is ripping me apart because I need one of them to confess their love for the other RIGHT NOW OR ELSE I'LL DIE.

The rest of the reason is because of who appeared in my mind when I read this scene. The worst person on the planet to think about when you're reading a homoerotic fanfiction is your female ELA teacher, but that's what happened, but not for the reasons you're undoubtedly assuming.

You see, my ELA teacher's name is Mrs. Schmit.

I lose my utter shit. I'm going insane, absolutely bonkers, over the fact that my freakin' ELA teacher's name is in this book, discounting the extra T. Of all the places to find her name, of all the things to remind me of her...

So I come up with the most bloody brilliant idea in the history of the world. I screenshot this section of the book, taking way longer than needed so I can be positive there's no evidence of two men lying next to each other in a field of flowers and tall grass having a "no homo, I'm just wondering, I'm not interested in you at all" chat about their lack of girlfriends to each other by making the font super big and swiping the page up so the dropdowns can conceal Feli's obviously masculine name. By the time I'm done working my magic, the conversation is cutesy and innocent, and, most importantly, there's no mention of anything scandalous. All that's left of the passage is the Greta Schmitt joke, which I consider adorable, clever, and laugh-out-loud funny. At the very least, it's mildly amusing.

Then I send her a picture attachment with the screenshot, along with this exact message, through my school email:

"Hi, Mrs. Schmit!

"I really hope you are having a fantastic spring break so far!

"I'm just sending you this email because I was reading a story and a little part of it brought you to mind immediately (for reasons that will become obvious if you look at the file I attached). This scene was also funny, so I thought it would be something interesting to send you. Maybe it will be a source of amusement for you during this leisurely time off from school.

"Have a great rest of your break, and see you on Monday!"

And then, of course, I sign off the email with my name.

The file I attach to the email is the original screenshot I took. The picture I've attached to this post is a screenshot of that screenshot as it appeared to my teacher. It's pretty meta and rad since I screenshot-ed the screenshot at the same time of the original screenshot one day later.

They're also the same except in the picture in this post, which is the latter picture, the portrait orientation lock is on and in the bottom left hand corner the previous page arrow isn't glowing. I feel the need to point these discrepancies out because they wreak havoc on my perfectionist OCD and if they are destroying you inside as well, I want you to know that I'm aware of these mistakes and I'm incredibly sorry.

On a lighter, less soul-crushing note, what about proposing a fun drinking game? Throw back some liquid every time the word "screenshot" appears in the paragraph before the one above. You'll be sloshed by the third sentence.

Oh yeah - and if you were wondering why my phone says 1:17 WD instead of AM or PM, that's because my device's preferred language is Oromoo. WD is ante meridiem - AM.

At first I hesitate to send the email immediately, because of the indecent time of day it is - i.e. not daytime at all - and the fear that I'll really piss off Mrs. Schmit by sending her a completely unnecessary email at 2 in the morning in a week when she shouldn't bother dealing with anything having to do with her students. It's break, after all.

And if there's one thing I don't want, it's Mrs. Schmit to be annoyed by me. Even though she's very intimidating and I can't help but be extremely scared of her, she's an absolutely fantastic teacher (though I don't think she'd believe me if I told her so) and I like her a lot as a person. Thus, I don't want her deductions on me to be negative, especially since I'm pretty sure she finds me very book smart with good grades, but flighty and scatterbrained (which I am, but not in a cool way). If this rather risky email backfires, it won't improve her opinion of me at all.

Another possibility also occurs to me - what if she finds out what kind of story the picture is from? Or the story itself? It wouldn't be hard at all; it would take me two milliseconds to locate that story. I could be in deep shit, but... In that moment, it doesn't matter to me. I'd probably laugh my ass off. She'd die of shock. It would be hilarious.

To be completely honest, I don't even enjoy the story more because of the gayness, or the lust, or the sex. Meaning, it seems more taboo that a presumably straight girl is reading a mildly erotic gay fanfiction as opposed to a straight one, presumably to get a sexual high from all the possibilities and fantasies manufactured by manipulated attraction, but for me that isn't it at all. The sex isn't even a bonus. I don't mind it, but it isn't the reason I love the story so much. If anyone saw me reading it, that's what they'd automatically think, but I'm not drawn to that. I'm asexual anyway, so I'm not even planning to ever have sex. It just doesn't have that allure or even stigma for me. An example: I occasionally watch porn, but it doesn't turn me on in the least, contrary to what one might assume. I just find it fascinating and laughable, not to mention disgusting and more proof of the downfall of humanity.

When I read books like George's, I adore them because of the writing prowess and talent. The plot twists. The characters. The worldbuilding. That's the shit I'm obsessed with. Not the literary porn in the least! Although it does provide amusement and intrigue.

I feel like I should just clear that up. I wish the story was more... ahem... appropriate, or my motivations for consuming it more ubiquitous, so I wouldn't have to worry about sending an appropriate snippet of it to my teacher, but it's George motherflippin' deValier, so nothing else needs to be said. It's perfect. (Just like you, dear beloved darling reading this!) No further explanation needed.

Also, I'm fairly certain her curiosity wouldn't be piqued enough to actually track the story from my email down, which is a comforting thought. Then again, every time I'm left alone with my thoughts, they conjure up an image of Mrs. Schmit sitting at a computer in a dark room, the artificial blue light illuminating her face as if she's some deep web underground black market Anonymous hacker, Googling the transcript of the fated snapshot, her green eyes widening as she begins reading.

I fucking hate my brain. It hates me too.

So before I can change my mind, I hit send and continue through the glorious Auf Wiedersehen, Sweetheart, a devilish, Alfred F. Jones-type smile spreading across my face. There's no going back now. It is done.

Exceeding my highest expectations regarding a response, I don't even need to wait a full 24 hours before my unread emails total increases by one.

To anyone who's gotten the far, it's been an unjustly long post in the making. The moment you've all been waiting for with an anticipation that rivals that of a beat drop in a particularly lit dubstep track. Don't get too excited, though, because I have this frustrating habit of letting people down and I have a feeling this is no exception. You know, since you're all the way down here, you deserve a treat. What'll it be? Tea and biscuits? Nachos? Poutine? It's up to you. Ask and you shalt receive. I am your humble servant, friends.

Here is her response to my groundbreaking, world-changing email:

"Hi __{my_name}__,

"Yes, that was cute and made me smile!!! I hope your Spring Break is going well.

"Thank you,

" "Messerschmitt" "

DID YOU SEE THAT, GUYS???

SHE PUT THREE EXCLAMATION POINTS AND SIGNED OFF AS "MESSERSCHMITT".

I HAVE WON LIFE! I'VE SUCCEEDED! I AM A CHAMPION!!!

Mon Dieu, she liked the deValier excerpt. She made a fucking reference to it. She's got to be my favorite teacher now.

Don't know how to end this, so I guess...

...y'all, we need to start an international manhunt for our Lord and Savior George deValier. If we find him I can do all the things I said I would. If I get cancer, that's what I'll ask Make-A-Wish.

HIS STORIES NEED TO BE MOVIES I SWEAR TO HIMA-PAPA OR ELSE...

ok I'm done now