#might add more stickers one day but. again. lazy

[miiiwu]

while im sharing my terrible diy deco, here’s my hacked New 2nd xl (i used paint markers on it bc i was bored one day, would not recommend. chipping and horrible plus im p sure it’ll come off w water. but i did it in like 2021/22 so its lasted a while lol,

only reason i used paint markers is bc custom vinyls for this thing were expensive at the time, especially since the 3ds family in general is basically dead)

bc i couldn’t afford a custom vinyl backing i also literally just printed out a peach tone on paper and cut it to fit (u can tell cause it’s uneven as fuck at the edges)

i liked the stickers too much to commit so they’re just placed on top of the paper and kept in place by the clear plastic case so i can move or reuse them lol

*actually now that i think of it, i took a photo of the lamb sticker, flipped it in procreate and printed it bc the sticker pack i bought only came w one lamb sticker, so the lambs r actually just paper too!!!

lost my original stylus on vacation so i ordered some 3d printed ones off ebay and bought a shit ton of phone charm strings to put keychains on (the bunny keychain is from clare’s. i have a purple bunny theme bc my fursona is a purple and green jackalope)

i should probably open the case and reposition the stickers but im lazy :p

would also like to print out a different backing that’s more pinkish but ehh. if repositioning the stickers is too much work, so is printing and cutting something

[shinigamiringo]

Oh shit here we go again..?

what, did you think I forgot about this lol bet you did. it's ok, I did fail a bit! Which is why I only put 3 goals for Q1. Buuuut! I didn't fail fully so I still consider this a mostly win lol Here's what I learned!

Q1 supposed to be goals (a refresher lol)

1. Learn and understand all 2000 jouyou kanji.

Doing just kanji is hella boring so I get distracted. I need something to keep my interest. I, like a smart bean, tried just using "The guide to remembering kanji" book, and was like lol nope.

2. Work out at least 2x a week

I actually accomplished this near the end! WOOHOO GO ME \o/ However, the last week I had to take a break because my feet were killing me. So I didn't work out but I was still doing really well with it so yaaay.

3. Floss, brush, and mouthwash everyday

This is kinda a half accomplishment, I think. I did manage to brush most days, but there were some days where flossing and mouthwash wasn't done because lazy/tired or I didn't have time.

SO! 3 goals, 2 done 1 partial; I'd say that's a great win! The best part, ofc, is when I was being consistent, I started doing other things. I was meditating for at least 3 minutes, doing my morning and night face routine, and keeping my room cleaner (no, not completely clean. I have cats and those furry gremlins like to cause chaos ok) IDK if adding those things unintentionally was what caused me to slip or if it was the taking a break, but either way I would say I'm doing pretty well. What is next with Q2? Let's talk about it!

Q2:

Continue to work out, but go to at least 3x a week

Since I did kiiiinda do the workout thing, I'm going to keep this in the list of goals. I got to a good area with running but the problem came when my feet started dying. I had to stop and recover, plus get some actual running shoes. Right now, I'm doing the zombies, run! 5k to increase my running speed, then I plan to work through the zombies, run! seasons. I did pretty good with working out everyday, so I will try to keep that in my goals.

Ofc, I can't just run so I plan to add some exercise routines from Darebee. I was doing the yoga one, but I might switch that to an anaerobic type. Ah wait.... ok! I will keep the yoga one, since it's only 30 days and once that's finished, move on toooooo

Ringfit! I have a few other games I could use, but ringfit has a lot of different types of exercise that seems like it could help. Plus, that "guy who did ringfit for 300 days became super fit!" news article is stuck in my head. I was debating on adding more in the gym, but tbh I don't like staying there too long since I always get a bit creeped out. I'm paranoid ok don't judge me.

2. Brush and mouthwash everyday

since this one was a half, I'm going to pull it from 3 things to just brush and mouthwash. I would prefer to keep floss, but I think keeping a bit of the stress away might help. We'll see.

3. Japanese, everyday

ok, I won't lie- not reaching the Japanese goal hurt a bit. It was kinda upsetting considering I broke it down but! hope springs eternal! New goal is Japanese at least 5 minutes a day. I'm sure I'll want to do more but if I put a low bar I should be able to jump over it not dig under it lol I do have some plans on how to tackle it and test myself but I'm going to just put on this master list that I'll give myself a sticker everytime I reach this goal. I like stickers, sue me.

4. Meditate 1 minute everday

I wasn't going to add a 4th, but since I reached the gym goal (even though I'm adding to it) I figured I needed to add something new. Meditation is good for attention spans, anxiety, etc, etc, so this is a nice little goal to facilitate the others, I think.

And that's it! I might add my mini Japanese plan, but tbh it's kinda more a fun thing at this point. I'm really excited about this next quarter! If I was able to make it this time, I know I'll definitely do better this next time. I also might be taking the JLPT, depending on my speed. Wish me luck in this second quarter.

onwards, to greatness~!

[finaledenialist]

okay eveyone please stop yelling at me in the tags that you want to sue me for therapy money, here, quick, grab a happy ending (also yes, i am shamelessly tagging you @lobotomycastiel because this is all your fault:

When the Empty spits him out he doesn't know where he is or what year it is. He looks around and well, this is certainly Earth and it's still existing

There is nothing for you back there.

But he has no clue how much time has passed. He looks around. It seems to be a field in the middle of nowhere. In the distance he sees a bunch of trees. They look like they are slowly changing colours, they are not bright red yet but the browns and yellows are already showing; the sun is warm and birght but the temperature is not what could be described as hot. It's early autumn.

There is nothing for you back there.

He shakes the words echoing in his mind and starts walking towards the slowly setting sun in search of a road. After a couple of miles he finds it but there are no cars, there is nothing but the silence of a lazy evening, and he is worried. No cars on the road doesn't immediately mean that it has been years, he thinks, maybe it's just one of those long forgotten roads that lead to nowhere, one of those he ended up on when he had to leave the bunker. It's been hours until he hitched a ride back then, maybe this was a similar case.

He walked until the night fell, and then he just kept on walking, because what else was he suposed to do, finding comfort in the fact that at least the world still somehow existed. But how many years it has been? He put one foot in front of the other in total darkness and suddenly he noticed a shadow. It was definitely his shadow, and the night was starless, moon hidden safely behind the clouds; but if there was a shadow then there also had to be... A light?

He turned around and he let out the deepest sight of relief when he saw two front lights of a car driving in his direction. He stood there, wonderstruck. That's how Noah must heave felt like when he saw the returning dove, carrying an olive branch after days with no sight of land, he thought as he waved at the driver.

This time he catches a ride much sooner than the last time, but he doesn't want to think about it. The car looks old, but normal-old, he saw these kind of cars before, the radio plays a song he vaguely remembers, but he's too afraid to ask the driver what year is it; it would make things weird and he needs this ride more than anything. He navigates his way through the small talk, yeah, I just got lost in the woods, yes just take me to the nearest town and I got it from there, please and thank you so much for your kindness, he adds. The driver is an older man who looks tired and they spend the rest of the ride in silence.

He doesn't know the town’s name but he notices a phone booth, hidden in the alley; it's dark but the booth's light shines like a beacon and he feels like he found an oasis on a desert. He has no money, but there is a sticker that has the town's name written on it, along with some emergency numbers. It also says that if you press the correct combination of zeroes and hashes you might get a chance to call someone and that person would be charged for the call. So at least that problem is solved.

But what if

there is nothing for you back there?

He wants to call Dean. He wants to more than anything, but he ends up staring at the numbers and not daring to make the call. What if no one answers, what if they are all long dead and gone? What if the only thing he hears is silence? There is a little screen next to the keyboard that tells the hour, it's almost 2 a.m., and despite claiming that he is already saved to the Empty's face just hours ago, he feels completely lost.

It's 3:24 a.m., when he finally taps Dean's number on the old, worn out keyboard, desperately clutches onto the phone, closes his eyes and fucking prays.

There is signal.

And after the third one, there is also an answer.

After he manages to tell Dean where he is and that yes, I am fine, I am somehow, again, back, he hangs up and he just breaks. He steps out of the booth, breathes in the cold autumn air that smells like rain and dirt, and starts to cry. He didn't mean to, he wasn't supposed to feel anything that deeply, he wasn't supposed to feel anything at all, really, but he feels, he feels like the crushing weight on his back was just lifted, disappeared, and now all he has to do is just wait and then, then everything will be okay. He looks at the starless sky and the tears just run down his cheeks freely, because he was given yet another chance, undeserved and probably one-too-many, but that didn't matter, because he was alive, and Dean and Sam were alive and that's all that mattered.

He heard the approaching car before he saw the shadows casted by the impala's lights on the pavement. He would recognize the sound anywhere; after all he spent a lot of hours in that car, in the passenger seat, in the backseat...

He took another breath and quickly wiped his face with his sleeves. When he heard the car's door opening, he slowly turned around and saw them. Dean and Sam. Dean looking at him like he was witnessing a revelation and the shock on Sam's face. They looked just like he remembered them. Maybe that much time didn't pass after all.

'How long was I gone?', he manages to ask.

'Too damn long', Dean answers immediately and Sam's jaw drops.

'I don't know what to say', Sam says, and the little smile starts to make it's way on his face.

'I do', Dean says and takes a step, and then the second one, towards Cas, and suddenly Dean holds him, embraces him, like that one time in Purgatory years ago. 'I missed you so damn much, Cas', Dean's whisper is meant only for the two of them.

Suddenly there is a cry. A child's cry. Dean makes a step back and looks at Cas. He looks exhausted, Cas judges by the bags under Dean's eyes, but Dean smiles, the widest smile Cas has ever seen and says:

'We have a child to raise, Cas.'

It's Thursday and everything is alright again.

[struwwelzeter]

Because i miss your design themed rants (it is good word here) i would like you to rank Rammstein album covers from designers point of view.

Ah, I love you. This got VERY ranty.

This is kinda hard because I tend to judge the entire packagaing/notes, and when I count that into it the ranking would be ever so slightly different. I’ll mention it for each I have Opinions (TM) on, but yeah, this is solely going on cover. I’ll only do the studio albums, not made in germany or the DVDs, or this will get too big.

7th: Rosenrot.

I know lots of you are gonna hate me for this. It’s not that I don’t like it, I do, it’s beautiful. Unfortunately it’s ... slightly lazy. It’s I think their most obvious cover and obvious feels like it’s good design but never truly is. It’s got that first idea feel, if that makes any sense. There is always that project where you go “uh can’t think of anything, but this works.” It’s not a bad thing, they clearly still knew what they were doing. It’s just ... that typical photoshop post apocalyptic composit that lost of metal/alternative bands did at some point. They all did it because it’s cool. No argument there. It’s just that I expect a bit ... more.

6th: Herzeleid

I know it’s iconic, but. The execution?! Terrible. The colours of their skin and that flower?! Too different to feel monochromatic, to same same to contrast nicely. Too much texture. What is that?! The positive bit is the placement of the typography because, neat! Most people fail at that. I like the blue-grey there aswell, how about you’d added that to their skin a little? No? Ok.

Also, this (Richard speaking):

“The bloody sleeve! What a crazy situation that was. We approved the photos in a car park without thinking what we were letting ourselves in for. When we saw what the designer had done, we freaked! We looked so… gay! All of us stripped to the waist. It was like an ad for a gay porno film. So we had to say, sort it out. Make us look straight again. Change the sleeve.”

Who in the fuck works like this?! Nevermind, I know it was a considerably younger Dirk Rudolph, but fucking hell, have some self respect, all of you. I know they didn’t know what they were doing, they probably had the management/record company comission it, and that was still the time graphic designers were seen as just pixel pushers from that time it took 3 days to layout a poster. Still. What was that brief?! Could you have sat down for 20 minutes and talk, perhaps?! Also, I hope this is how Richie learned to be the nightmare client I know he is. Don’t approve layouts in a car park, what the fuck is wrong with you.

It’s a pity because the concept? Nice. Sculpted men infront of flowers, what else do you want from life. Why crysanthemes, tho? Too textured in that macro shot. What is that photo angle?! Might try and redo that if I ever feel like it.

5th: Reise, Reise

This breaks my heart a little, because it’s my lonely island album. And it isn’t bad by any stretch. Actually, their album cover game is ridiculous, can I have that established as a general benchmark? It would make for a lot less mental break downs. The thing is ... I like the idea. Make it look like the black box, cool. The problem is the type. It makes it look like “Flugrekorder Nicht Öffnen” is the album title. To be fair, Typesetting is my main thing, and album artists get it wrong (imo) 99 out of 100 times. I wish they would have comitted more and just left the titel off and solved it with a slide in, or a sticker or something like that. It’s just a bit ... weird. What works brilliantly is that it’s very memorable, stands out on the shelf, is unusual, all of that. It’s iconic. I do like it very much but I had to place something here.

4th: Liebe ist für alle da

Now the thing with that album is that it has two covers. If I’d gone by the original one, I’d have to place it behind Reise, Reise. Everything RR has in impact, this is missing. It’s too dark, has too many pieces, it won’t stand out on a shelf. Especially not in the CD age when it was on 12x12 cm. Even on a Vinyl, it’s ... just not that impactful. Sure, the photograph is beautiful but meh. Luckily there is a second option. And that - is almost like a logo. It works as a symbol, and that makes it so strong. Less is more. Brilliant. You can draw it from memory. It’s so iconic, the kind of stuff that starts showing up in subways, drawn on the back of a seat and sprayed on walls. Tell me you never wanted to paint that on a flag and take it to a pride parade. I am sure some of us have.

I do want to mention the booklet in this, because it does bump it up a little too, because where the panorama image fails as a cover, the inside is done so beautifully with the fold out, the type setting, everything. It’s special, and done with love and it shows.

3rd: Mutter

There is just something about this that is so, so, so memorable. Everyone recognises this. If you ask anyone over the age of 20 to describe Rammstein with an album cover only to someone less familiar, is anyone gonna say anything but “they’re the band with the embryo in close up”?! Maybe this is subjective because that’s how I first got exposed to them, but I don’t think so. It’s such a powerful image. It’s both beautiful and uncomfortable, the way Rammstein as a whole and that album in particular is beautiful and uncomfortable. It’s stunning. That’s it. Unfortunately, this one falls apart inside. The went too far with the whole Matrix inspired cyber elements. It’s trendy and trendy never stands the test of time, in that it has the same problem Rosenrot has, but much worse because it’s not even done that well. They could have just used the photos and kept it raw. The type setting on the cover is as good as it gets with albums tho, so I am happy.

2nd: Sehnsucht

Ah, Sehnsucht. The most perfect band shoot they ever had. Helnwein just ... did it. I don’t know, it both defined and summed up who they are aesthetically for the longest time. It’s the visual statement that says “this is Rammstein”. It ... just looks like a band that sings about heartbreak and necrophilia is supposed to look like. Don’t you agree? How else would it look like? Even that omniously coloured beach. It’s as if the predicted the mood of True Detective, only less Hollywood. That darkness we don’t want to see, that can happen anywhere. And where they fell short with Mutter, where they added too much on to these powerful images, they just added the type. Granted, it was the 90s so it’s slightly experimental type. But unlike most type in the 90s it stood the test of time. Add the whole variable cover versions and chefs kiss! Beautiful work. Makes me happy and emotional and ugh.

1st: The White Album

I’m just calling it that now. The Matchstick. You know, good design is made up from three components only: Concept. Commitment. Execution. The concept of this is so streamlined and clean. It’s the entire Rammstein story narrowed down to a single little thing. It’s small and ordinary looking but it can become dangerous and big. It’s underestimated. A little piece of wood with a head of phosphor and calium chlorit and yet you can commit the most legendary arson. It’s the personification of the thing that has become synonymous with them: Fire. It says so much with so little. And then they comitted to that. No useless typography, a simple but oh so well done photoshoot, the simple text on white. They didn’t ad too much additional ideas on to it, they trusted that one to carry and it does. They could have done without the black and white match stick arrangements inside, although I’m not even sure if that’s not just a limited edition thing, it’s a bit too much almost. They got scared a little there. The execution is also well done, I have very little to critique, only that I feel it lacks a tiny bit of love. The thing is, the more minimalist you go, the more love you have to put into each element. I feel like the spacing of the type should have been fixed in a few places but honestly that is being very very picky. Or not. Because if it wasn’t for that, and the teeeeny tiny commitment issue, this should have been a candidate for the packaging grammy. I mean it should be even the way it is, but we all know how those fuckers ignore our boys.

I’m done. Can I use this as application? Do you think if I send them a run down of basically tearing them apart they will hire me?

[ashintheairlikesnow]

BTHB: Forced to Watch

That’s right, it’s that time again! @muffinworry​ requested: @badthingshappenbingo​:  forced to watch with my girl ashley

As always: puppy stickers equals fulfilled, blood stains are requested

Tagging: @bleeding-demon-teeth, @spiffythespook, @finder-of-rings, @whumpywhumper​ @special-spicy-chicken​

CW: Stabbing, blood, referenced/implied noncon and abuse

“Ora, if you don’t start paying attention, this story is going to take a really long time to tell.” 

When Ora didn’t look up - a flash of the green hair on their head, dirty and clumped together by now, all they gave Ashley to look at -  Ashley sighed heavily, wondering why she put up with this. Sure, she didn’t know how to drive and Ora Collins at least appeared to have the car mostly under control (totally under control at the moment, as they were not even in the car, they were tied to a chair), but they were three days in and they should feel bonded by now.

Right? Shouldn’t they?

How long did it take Bram to start getting his boys to bond with him? Oh, but Bram had the eyes, and Ashley was never going to have the eyes. Not unless they met another like themselves and Bram helped her cut that one’s eyes out. 

“Ora. Come on, this place is a shithole and I do not have all day to walk you through this.” Ora sniffed, and Ashley paused while licking a bit of red off one fingernail. “What? What’s that noise for?”

Sometimes - if she was truly honest with herself - Ashley envied the other vampires. It would have been nice to live on blood, copper-salt-sweet and sparking with life in it. She could have been a great vampire like that. Instead, here she was, buzzing off the conflicting miseries of relief and hate and - strongest of all - fear that came from the poor little thing she carried along with her.

Well, and nice and full already from the meal currently slumped hard to one side and tied to a chair across the table from Ora.

“Ora, I am talking to you, and you remember the rules-”

“I’m sorry!” Ora jerked their head back up this time, meeting Ashley’s gaze with wide, frightened hazel eyes. Honestly, Ora’s eyes were their best feature, and Ashley never got tired of how they looked ringed in white from fear. “I’m s-sorry, Ashley, it’s just-... it’s just, it’s really h-h-hard to watch, to watch you...”

“What? To watch me cut him up?” Ashley blinked, looked at the man tied to the chair next to where she stood, then back to Ora. She gestured with the large chef’s knife she held in one hand, already smeared with the man’s blood. “He died like two hours ago, Ora, what’s the problem?”

“H-he… I kn, I know he’s d-dead, Ashley, but you k-keep cutting h-h-him…” Ora’s voice hiccupped, finally, into sobs and their head dropped once more as they began to cry, tears wetting little droplets onto the fabric of their jeans. They were still wearing the ones she had met them in, although Ashley had been nice enough to steal a bunch of different shirts and underwear somewhere in Iowa.

She was pretty sure they were in Nebraska now? It was flat and pointless, in any case, and Ashley had vague memories of the center of this stupid baby country being flat and pointless. Harder people lived out here, but fewer of them. 

No one like her could live long without a nice big population center to feed on, and Nebraska… Nebraska wasn’t it.

Ashley sighed and raked a hand back through her hair, frowning as she remembered she had a lot of blood on that hand. Oh, well. She’d have to shower before they left anyway. Brammie would take Ora into the shower with him, if he were here, start that whole mess back up, but Ashley valued her private time more than her Brammie ever had.

She missed her baby brother.

Baby by a few minutes, anyway.

But they’d find him soon enough in that prison in California, and then Ashley would set him free. It wasn’t fair to lock up something so beautifully wild as her brother. Do you blame a wolf for eating deer? Do you lock up a raccoon for digging through trash cans?

“Ora. I’m going to get rid of this whole…” She waved the knife around in a lazy circle, gesturing to the man who’d had the bad luck to piss Ashley off. “... mess. But I’m not going to do it until you have finished listening to me, and you have to look or the whole visual aid part of this just isn’t going to work.”

“B-But I don’t want to see the visual aid!” Ora wailed, and the sound of their sweet sad voice echoed off the walls. Ashley shivered, pleasantly, felt electricity light up her nerve endings and flood her veins. Moments like this were why Brammie kept Nate around, weren’t they? That little buzz in your fingertips, behind your eyes, the way Ashley felt like any moment now her hair might stand on end from the pure perfection of Ora Collins and their precious little fear.

“Ora. Darling. Light of my life, love of my heart. My absolute goddamn treasure.” Ashley leaned over, pointing the blade right at Ora’s little face. 

She watched their head slowly rise, eyes nearly crossing as they focused with new panic on the point of the knife so close to them. Ashley licked her lips, slowly, and tilted her head to take in more fully the sudden quick rise and fall of Ora’s chest under their baggy shirt. 

“Watch. The visual. Aid. Or I will cut your eyelids off so you can’t blink any longer. Am I understood?”

Ora’s throat moved in a sudden a swallow and they nodded quickly, hair falling into their face, and Ashley used the chef’s knife to gently - ever so gently - push it back to the side. She loved watching the wide hazel eyes following every movement.

“So. As I was saying. Brammie’s little boyfriend and I - he’d been living with us for three years by then, give or take - were alone in the house. Brammie still had to hunt, because he wasn’t doing enough to Nate to just, to just really eat him by then. It’s that whole nonsense thing about love, you know? We’ve been around for so, so long, and Brammie’s boys are a dime a dozen for forever and then we run into this pretty little prince of his and bam!” Ashley slammed her free hand down on the table and Ora jumped, letting out a scared little cry.

Ashley felt the reverberation of that cry right down her spine, like the lick of a lover’s tongue.

“Bam,” She repeated but gently this time. “He’s in love. He’s in love, Ora Collins, and you know what my Brammie and I don’t do?” Ora swallowed again - they swallow so much when they’re talking to Ashley, don’t they? - and ventured, in a trembling voice, “You, you don’t… fall in love?”

“Right. Absolutely right, Ora-who-I-adore-ah. We don’t fall in love. Why would we? Everyone dies in the end but us. What’s the goddamn point?” She sighed and rested her free hand on Ora’s shoulder, giving it a little reassuring squeeze, leaning over to look right at them. Ora stared back, their eyes shifting back and forth, as though trying to find some softness or give on Ashley’s.

There was none to find. 

Ashley knew her eyes were empty, reflection of light off the ice of a vast, lifeless lake. Bram had all the life in his. Ashley was nothing but walking death.

“So, anyway. Nate came to live with us - and at first we had to lock him in, and my Brammie… oh, the things my Brammie did to him.” Ashley breathed out, the happy memories flooding her system, and moved slowly away, circling the chair Ora was tied to, turning to look at the dead man on the other side of this small, sad little Formica table in some stupid shit town in stupid fucking Nebraska in this absolutely pointless fucking country.

“Wh-what things?” Ora asked, voice still shaky, but a little steadier now. “I r-read a little about the trial…”

“Hmmm, I doubt much of that came into play. Nate liked the things my Brammie did. You don’t talk about the parts you like in court, in my experience.” 

“Have you… eh-ever been to court?”

Ashley paused, tapping her chin with the blunt side of the knife. “I guess I haven’t. Well, unimportant to my story so shut your fucking face for five seconds while I set up the visual aid.”

Ora nodded, biting down on their lower lip. Ashley watched them stretch their wrists against the strength of the rope and find just enough give to add a little comfort, not enough to escape. Ashley was being nice to Ora, but she wasn’t going to be that nice… or that stupid.

Brammie had been stupid, once. 

Ashley would never be dumb enough to give another body the chance.

“So. In any case, after three years, you know, we were pretty used to each other.” Ashley started walking again, looking down to watch her own toes spread out against the dingy tile floor, yellowed with time. She stopped behind the man’s body, grabbing it by the short black hair on its head and yanking back, lifting the empty horrified green eyes to stare right at Ora. “We had our routine. Nate did all the cooking and cleaning like the good little housewife Brammie kept him to be, they fucked a lot-”

Ora winced.

“Oh, what, you’ve never fucked someone? What about Penny? I mean, it seemed like you did-”

“N-no, it’s just… it’s not that, Ashley, I swear, it’s just-” Ora’s gaze went to the fridge - wide open with only a jug of expired milk and a half-empty box of baking soda inside - and then it danced everywhere but at Ashley. “Can you not make me look at his, um, his eyes?”

“Oh, this is the problem? Yeah, sure.” Ashley dropped the head and it flopped hard back down, chin on its chest. “Sorry about that.”

“Th-thank you, Ashley,” Ora whispered. Oh, they learned the rules fast, and they learned them well. Ashley might actually regret killing Ora once they made it to her destination.

“Anyway. My story. So we had a good thing going, the three of us. Nate was a dartboard, he was a footstool for me one time, I cut the shit out of him, he and Brammie had some weird fucked up sex thing going… it was just a really good life, trust me. Then… then Brammie goes out hunting one day because he couldn’t hurt Nate anymore, he was in love the absolute dumbass, and while he was out…”

Ashley sighed, resting one arm on the shoulder of the corpse, looking down at it a little fondly. “While Brammie was out hunting, Nate picked up a knife. I didn’t expect it anymore. I thought… I was an idiot. He fooled us both, that son of a bitch. He shouldn’t have been able to but he did. He was cooking for me, and I came in to check on the progress, and…” Ashley’s grip tightened on the handle of the chef’s knife.

“And… and what?” Ora looked up slowly, nervously.

Ashley smiled, and there was blood smeared on her teeth. “Then he fucking stabbed me to death, Ora.” 

Her arm moved with inhuman speed to jam the blade right through the corpse’s chest, and Ora let out a startled breathy scream, jerking at their restraints. “Like this. And this. And fucking this. Get your fucking eyes back on me!” Ora started to cry, again, tears racing down their face on either side like gorgeous little raindrops, and Ashley laughed, a high-pitched half-shattered sound, at the sight. 

Ashley kept stabbing, making new wounds in a dead body over and over and over again, checking to see if Ora was looking, and they were, they were. The horror and disgust, the way Ora’s face went white and then green, it all fed Ashley, settled deep inside her bones and she felt the most ancient parts of her shift in happiness, in every single second being exactly what she was made to be.

She counted up the wounds - she thought maybe 37, it was hard to remember when you were being fucking stabbed to death by your brother’s boyfriend - and when she was done the knife clattered back to the ground, and Ashley stood, breathing hard, a snarl pulling lips back from her pinkish-stained teeth. “He killed me, Ora. Brammie’s little boyfriend killed me. Then he got up, and he left while I was still choking on my own fucking blood, and when I woke up it was five years later and you and your little asshole girlfriend were in my fucking house and my brother’s in fucking prison!”

Ora cringed back into their seat, into the restraints, trying to choke back their sobs and failing, failing miserably, failing beautifully. The sound of their tears bounced off the walls in this dirty little kitchen and everything seemed, in that moment, just a little bit brighter.

Pl-please,” Ora half-whispered, trembling and beautiful. “Please don’t, don’t do th-th-this anymore, please…”

Ashley sighed, nudging the corpse with her foot. Blood leaked from wounds as an afterthought, the motherfucker was too dead to be worth much of a show. Ashley looked down at her own hands, ran them over her chest and torso, reminding herself that her wounds were gone. They had healed, while she waited to come back. 

They had healed.

She was healed.

And she had a fucking job to do.

“That was the end of the visual aid, Ora. But my point is, Nate Vandrum is a piece of shit who didn’t know how good he had it, he murdered me, and I would very much like to find his dumb ass and murder him right back. But I have a feeling my brother won’t let me. So you - and I - are going to do the next best thing.”

“We… w-we are?” Ora raised their head one more, and Ashley moved to them swiftly, leaning over to take that softly rounded little chin in her hand. They did not flinch or pull away from her touch - they knew so many rules now, they were such a good little friend. “What’s the next best th-thing, Ashley?”

“Please,” Ashley said gently, lovingly, petting at Ora’s face, leaving little red stripes there that would dry and turn brown and flake away. “Please call me Ash, Ora, we’re friends now, aren’t we?”

“R-Right. F-F-Friends, Ash.” Ora nodded quickly, swallowing hard again. “We’re friends, right. Wh, whatever you say, is, is right.”

“That’s my… well. That’s my little Ora. See, this is why you got to be the one that lived. Lucky, lucky little thing.” Ashley kissed them once on each cheek, then petted one hand gently through Ora’s hair. After holding themselves stiffly still, Ashley felt Ora slowly force themselves to relax, and smiled with delight when Ora pushed their head a little harder into the touch of Ashley’s hand.

“Oh, you’re so good,” Ashley murmured, nearly purred the words, and Ora let out a shaking, audible breath of relief. “You’re such a good Oracle. We’re going to find my brother, we’ll let him out, and he will lead us to Nate Vandrum and that redheaded mop he tried to kill him for.”

“And, and then we’ll k-k-kill them?” Ora asked, keeping their voice low, whispering right back to her. “Then they’ll d-d-die?”

“Hm.” Ashley cradled Ora’s head in her hands for a moment longer, then let go and stood, stretching her arms high over her head, until the knobs of her spine cracked, until she felt the stretch of every single muscle in her body.

You should never take those living muscles for granted, after all. They could die any day, and not everyone would die with the coins to pay their debt.

“I d-d-don’t want to help you kill anyone,” Ora said, low and pleading. “I don’t want to be a murderer, Ash.”

“Don’t worry, darling, you won’t.” Ashley smiled. 

“B-but… you’re going to kill them?”

Ashley kicked the bloody knife until it banged hard into a wall across the little room. “Probably not.” Ora looked up, hope in their pretty hazel eyes, and Ashley licked her lips against how it was about to feel when she drained all that hope away. “They tried to kill my brother, after all. Killing them is going to be his job. But you and I… well. Have you ever heard about how the people who lived here before the colonists fucked it all up used to trap buffalo?”

Ora blinked, and slowly shook their head. Hair fell back over their eyes, but this time Ashley left it there. “N-No, Ash, I haven’t.”

“They would find the buffalo, and set up a trap. And a few would wave blankets and shout and maybe shoot an arrow or two, but the buffalo would stampede away from what they saw at the threat and run right into the trap. They’d get caught there, milling around, and then they just waited to die. So we’re going to set my brother free. We’re going to find his pretty little buffalo roaming the open range.” Ashley slid her hands into the back pockets of her own jeans, licking a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth. “Then you and I are going to wave some blankets and yell.”

“And… and y-y-your brother does the, um, the killing?” Ora’s voice was low, but after a second they nodded, thoughtfully. “I can… I can do that. If I don’t d-d-do the killing, Ash, I can, I can do that.”

“Wonderful. I knew I liked you for a reason. Now stay here and watch over our little buddy while I go take a shower. Once I’m clean, you can have yours and we’ll see if we can’t find you some fucking sweatpants or something in this house.” Ashley paused, then clapped her hands together in sudden delight. “I’m pretty sure I saw a KFC when we came in through town, let’s have fried chicken for dinner!”

Ora stared at the dead man who had once owned this house, and who had made the mistake of catcalling Ashley and calling Ora some kind of slur while they were getting gas. He was a dick to Ashley, and now he was dead.

To Ashley, it all made absolutely perfect sense.

Finally, Ora said softly, “Fried, um, fried chicken sounds pretty g-g-good…”

“And what do we say when someone offers to give us a gift, Oracle Collins?”

Ora smiled up at her - it was watery, and frightened, but it was a smile. “We s-s-say thank you, Ash. Thank you for offering to get me fried chicken for dinner.”

“You’re so welcome, love.” Ashley ruffled Ora’s pretty green hair and then turned to walk away. As she stomped up the stairs, she called out, “I’ll buy you some new hair dye, too, let’s get you all bright and fun again before we head west tomorrow!”

Oracle Collins, wearing week-old dirty jeans and tied down to a chair three feet from a corpse still leaking blood from too many stab wounds to count, let their eyes go slowly unfocused so they wouldn’t have to see anything at all any longer.

Somewhere nearby a police siren started up, but Ora didn’t raise their head. 

They knew those sirens weren’t coming to help.

[gerbiloftriumph]

So you wanna be a king (pt5)

Or perhaps just cosplay one?

Oh hey we’re in the home stretch now! If you’ve followed along, you should just need some accessories!

not the cat. the cat is not an accessory. except maybe to crime.

Part 5: Accessories

As always, that disclaimer that I’m a novice cosplayer making all this up as I go along, so feel free to listen to me or just steal my ideas and run. Is fine. 

Buckle (pt 1):

Via my method, I’m afraid your outfit will never be 100% accurate--I don’t have the extra belt flap in the front. Tragic. But with my Basic Skill (tm), I wanted an easy way to make the buckle, and Actual Metalworking isn’t in my future. 

As I’ve said before, it doesn’t matter what brown belt you have or how it clasps, because you’re going to wear it backward. Spin it around so that the real buckle is at your back and thus hidden by your cloak. 

Time to break out the Sculpey! Yeaaah boi, like playing with Play-Doh again.

Figure out the size you want your buckle to be. Total personal preference, scaled to the rest of the costume. I cut some paper rectangles as size choices, and went with 3″ by 2.5″. Get your silver Sculpey and make your rectangle as smooth and fingerprint-less as possible. Because metal, theoretically. Add the raised bits, too. 

As it’s a buckle made out of Sculpey instead of metal, you should give it a slight curve so it isn’t board flat against your stomach. Less breaking opportunities. I made it an aluminum foil nest for the oven. Bake as per the packet directions. 

(the sides don’t look great; no one’s supposed to see them. curse this semi-tutorial, revealing my lazy secrets)

Now for the fun part. Get some acrylic paint, whatever you have lying around, in black, maybe some white or metallic silver, whatever, and go ham on it. Blacken it where dirt and tarnish would collect, add highlights where the light might reflect, add some wear on the raised bits where Graham brushes against things while scraping through adventuring caves.

For the gem, get a packet of plastic gems--not a real ruby, you aren’t actually royalty. You might not find red in the size you want, but your packet might have silver in it. Turns out if the gem is silver, white, or yellow, you can scrape the metallic back off and dab red nail polish on the back. Bam, color change. It doesn’t look quite as shiny as the packaged reds, but out of comparison context it looks great. The method won’t work with any base gem darker than yellow since the plastic itself is dyed. Red paint won’t change the color of, say, a blue gem. 

Super glue your gem to your painted buckle, and set the whole thing aside for now. We’ll come back to it later.

Brooch (pt 1):

Okay, deep breath. 

I don’t think you want to be me. I made...a choice. A choice you will partially have to replicate to get the shine on the accessories, but you might not want to make my particular exact choice. 

I bought a resin casting kit.

Why? Because I didn’t want any fingerprints to show whatsoever, and I wanted to learn something new while making this outfit, and I’m a fool. I followed the directions painstakingly and terrifyingly, added a little silver paint to the mix, and poured it into one of those loose tea tin lids (about palm-sized). I put it under a cup to prevent any dust in it, and let it set overnight in my garage. 

Yes it’s horrifying.

You can just make your brooch out of Sculpey, let’s be real.

Just make your brooch out of Sculpey. 

For the gems, I did the scrape and recolor method as needed (the green one didn’t work out for instance), or purchased teardrop gem stickers, or whatever I needed to get what I wanted. Feel free to paint on it at this point to give the brooch more texture (I’m not thrilled with how mine turned out, actually--you should go more ham on yours).

Anyway. Glue your gems to your brooch and put it aside, with your buckle.

Do you see how the brooch is matte and boring looking in the middle picture, but shiny in the third? You remember how I said a minute ago you were going to have to partially follow my method no matter what?

If you didn’t buy that box of resin before, now is the time.

I’m so sorry.

Brooch and Buckle (pt2): 

Mix up the resin according to the box instructions, put your brooch and your buckle on top of paper cups in the middle of paper plates (separate plates--don’t make them share). Pour your resin over the top of the two pieces, slowly. It’ll probably pool a bit in the grooves of the buckle, but no one will notice unless you painstakingly point it out to them as I’m doing now and the end result is totally worth it, promise. 

Put a bucket or something over the two pieces to stop any dust getting on them, and let them set as per instructions. Yes, it’s nerve wracking waiting for them to dry. Go take a walk to clear your nervous energy. You just gotta deal. No, stop, don’t touch them, I see you going to peek. Leave it alone. It’s fine.

Buckle and Brooch (pt3):

Okay, now they’ve set. You can look at them.

Oh and they turned out nice! Good. Deep breath, you did it. Now, to attach them. 

Buckle first, because it’s more complicated. My method is a bit...unlikely to work out for anyone else. Sorry. My belt just happened to be the exact width of these painting hanging brackets I had lying around, so I baked four little chunks of Sculpey, superglued everything together, and now it slides on and off the belt. 

They might make hanging brackets in various sizes? The guy at Home Depot might not stare too hard at you if you stand there comparing your belt to painting hardware.

Might not.

(yes, two seem cracked, no, it doesn’t matter. Let me tell you The Joys of Super Glue.)

Actually, speaking of super glue, attach some jewelry-pin backs to your brooch.

By the way don’t try on your buckle or brooch while the glue is drying even though you’re excited until at least the next day even if they look like they’re dry. Otherwise you’ll get glue on your shirt and have to throw said shirt away even though you really liked said shirt and I’m still not a little bitter all these years later or anything. 

I did two pins for extra stability, as it’s a large piece. (ignore my sharpie test.)

When I attach the brooch to the cowl, I clump extra fabric into the pin to attempt to reference some of the bulk around his shoulders. To be fair, Graham’s cowl kinda looks like it’s one long fabric piece he wraps around his neck like a scarf that he pins into place, but that’s not practical for me, so I just reference it as I can.

And with that the only thing we need now to make our king complete........is a hat. An adventuring hat, to be precise. With a big feather in it. Aww yiss.

[air-bison-yip-yip]

crisana, theyre hanging out with the girl squad and the girls tease them about how romantic they are. zoenne, senne moving into zoë's flat

I hope you enjoy! Somehow this got a little more romantic and sappy than fun teasing, but I hope it works for you! I’ll add your zoenne prompt to my list!

Summary: (3) times the girl squad noticed Cris and Joana being in love & (1) time Cris notices that the girl squad loves Joana  (also on ao3)

(i) Viri

The summer heat was bearing down on the girls. Eva, Nora, and Amira were lounging in the shaded pool chairs listening to music and drying off after the swim. Viri was refusing to get out of the pool even though soon she would need to reapply sunscreen. Her pink polka dot bikini covered little, but luckily, her giant pink sun hat kept the rays off of her face. She was currently floating on an inner tube watching Cris and Joana at the other end of the pool.

They seemed, as often happened, to be in their own little world. Joana had her back to the side of the pool and her arms across the top while Cris swam up to her. Viri was too far away to hear them and the music from Eva, Nora, and Amira drowned out any other sounds, but suddenly Cris and Joana traded positions.

Joana cradled Cris’s face and had a furrowed brow as she looked into Cris’ eyes. Cris, for her part, blinked rapidly while Joana seemed to say soothing words gently running her fingers down Cris’ face. Cris moved Joana’s hands out of the way and gently rubbed her eyes. Cris looked up and smiled and rolled her eyes at Joana. Gently, and slowly, Joana kissed each of Cris’ eyes and then her lips. It was chaste. But it felt too intimate for Viri to continue to watch. The smile that Cris radiated, the loving look in her eyes, the deep concern in Joana’s face. It was pure and loving, and a small part of Viri felt a tinge of sadness that this type of love seemed out of reach for her. But only a tiny part. A much more significant part could feel her heart burst in happiness for both Cris and Joana. They found each other.

Viri looked away and got off of her floaty, swimming to the steps and walking over to the shade with Eva, Nora, and Amira. She felt as though she needed to give Cris and Joana space, but once she had wrapped her towel around her body and pulled her sunglasses off, she couldn’t help but glance over at the two again.

Now, Joana was floating flat on her back, and Viri could see Cris’ arms gently supporting her body, just in case.

It was a simple moment. Nothing special, but for perhaps the first time, Viri felt so lucky to see these happy moments between two people she loved dearly. To see love so freely expressed, even in the mundane moments. Viri smiled down at her lap before looking over at Eva, Nora, and Amira and joining the conversation. But the rest of the day, Viri continued to think about Cris and Joana illuminating happiness in the pool.

More than the sun had warmed Viri that afternoon.

(ii) Eva

Eva was excited for tonight. The party, if PCris was correct, should be big and fun and Eva was ready! She pulled out her phone to text Cris.

Message to Cris -Ready to party, GIRL?

Message to Eva -You know it!

Message to Cris -Is Joana coming? She didn’t respond to the group text.

Message to Eva-We’ll see. We are playing it by ear to see how she feels later.

Message to Cris -Gotcha. Tell her we hope she comes because we are going to have F U N.

Message to Eva -Of course. See you later, dancing fool.

Message to Cris -*Eva Dancing Sticker*----Eva was happily tipsy. She had arrived at the party and was currently dancing between Viri and Nora. Cris was challenging a friend of her brother to a chugging contest, and Amira was standing close by, making jokes with Dani about the chances Cris had as winning. Eva grabbed Nora's hands and swayed her hips near her. She lost herself in the dance moves and could hear Viri’s laugh over the bass of the music. Eva closed her eyes and relished the feeling of being in the moment, of letting loose. She opened her eyes when she heard Amira and Cris’ laughter get closer. She saw a smug looking Cris high five Amira and join their dancing circle.

Eva shouted a quick “Ayyyye” when the song changed to one that Cris and her loved. They began dancing when Cris’ face broke out into a massive grin, her eyes darting behind Eva. Eva turned around to see Joana slowly making her way to them through the crowd.

Viri, Amira, and Nora shouted iterations of “you came!” and enveloped her in their circle.

Joana laughed at the antics and Eva gave her a wink as she kept dancing. Joana moved to Cris and gave her a kiss on the lips and Eva could hear a small “hey beautiful” addressed to Cris.“Are you feeling okay?” Cris asked, her hands circling Joana’s waist and pulling her towards her dancing body.

“Better now, yeah,” Joana replied a lazy smile spreading over her lips. Joana carefully pushed back some of Cris’ hair behind her ears.

Eva, although still dancing, had turned entirely to the two of them. Their natural smiles and passionate eyes were contagious, and Eva could remember a time that she and Jorge felt the same, that they could face anything together.

It was nice to see Cris, beautiful, passionate, and funny Cris, feel settled and peaceful, even amid all the partying chaos around them. Eva moved closer to the two of them.

“Room for one more?” She asked Cris and Joana cheekily.

“Of course, girl, get in here,” Cris exclaimed pulling Eva next to them and throwing her head back laughing. Cris’ hand was still tightly holding Joana’s even as her attention drifted to Eva and the girls.

Eva noted that Cris’ smile and dancing kicked up a notch as if Joana’s mere presence was enough to sustain Cris’ happiness forever.

(iii) Nora

Nora had said goodbye to Amira, Eva, and Viri as they left to head for class. She sat in the courtyard at school, knowing she should get out her homework to start during her free period. Instead, she people watched. A few students were running late to class. A few were just talking or looking at their phones. Nora fumbled with her headphones before putting them in and playing some music as she continued to look out into the courtyard.

She was surprised to see Joana standing off to the side, biting her nails, and shifting her weight from side to side. She looked...nervous, and Nora contemplated going over to her and seeing if she was okay before she caught a flash of blonde hair bounding towards Joana. The change in  Joana’s demeanor was immediate. Her hands felt to her side, she stood straighter, and instead of looking nervous, her face lit up. Nora still had her headphones in. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see plenty.

The soft caress of skin.

The shy smiles.

The longing in their eyes.

Their bodies shifting towards each other.

Nora continued to watch them for a few more minutes. Cris and Joana’s movements were unhurried, and Nora couldn’t help but form her own small smile in response to them. She watched them grasp hands and walk out of the courtyard together, Joana watching Cris talk animatedly.

As they walked out of sight, something caught Nora’s eye, and she turned to see Alejandro walking towards the school’s entrance. Her heart beat faster for a few seconds before she looked away. Nora resolutely refused to believe her elevated heart rate had to do anything other than the fact that Nora was happy for her friends in love.

(i) Amira

For someone who hated people making decisions for her, Amira was always surprised when Joana did that exact thing to Cris. It wasn’t that Amira didn’t understand. In general, she loved Joana and knew how great her and Cris were together. But sometimes, like now with Cris’ head in Amira’s lap and a frown etched onto her face, Amria couldn’t help but be annoyed. Her person, Cris, was suffering and Amira hated that she couldn’t do anything more than be the supportive best friend to fix it. It wasn’t her place to text Joana. It wasn’t her place to lock them in a room together. It wasn’t her place to trick people into talking. But, oh, Amira wanted to alright.

Currently, Joana was going through a hard time with her mental illness, and she didn’t want Cris to see her right now. Amira knew that Joana was entitled to her space, and she knew what she needed. But Amira also thought that this was a defense mechanism. That Joana was afraid of looking vulnerable in front of Cris. The problem was that Cris had the biggest heart of anyone she had ever met, and she loved to give her heart away to her loved ones. This meant Joana was suffering alone and so was Cris. Amira ran her fingers through Cris’ hair in what she hoped was a comforting gesture.

“Why did she want to be alone again?” Amira asked having a hard time hearing Cris the first time due to the muffling effect of the pillow Cris had face planted on.

“She didn’t want to burden me. She knows I have exams this week,” Cris muttered.

“And what did you tell her in reply?”

“That school doesn’t matter as much as her,” Cris said, and Amira rolled her eyes fondly down at her.

“You don’t see how that might have made her feel worse about asking for you?” Amira gently questioned.

Cris sat up and narrowed her eyes at Amira. A blush stained her cheeks. “Maybe.” She replied grumpily.

“Can I text her?” Amira asked. Cris looked curiously at Amira.

“About what?”

“Asking if she needs anything. You have a test that you need to study for, she’s right. But I don’t. Nor does Viri, or Nora, or Eva. We can support her.” Amira stated simply.

Cris lunged herself at Amira wrapping her arms around her neck and giving her a massive bear hug. Amira chuckled at Cris and heard a small whispered, “I can’t believe y’all would do that.” into her ear.

“You are so ridiculous, girl. She’s one of us. We love Joana too.” Amira laughed out.

Cris’ cheeks were even redder as she pulled back. The shine in her eyes alerted Amira to the tears forming. Amira kissed Cris’ forehead. “We’ll ask Nora to take the first shift. She’s good at making jokes and silent support, and I’ll help you study. Text Joana and make sure it’s okay.” Amira told Cris while Amira texted Nora at the same time. Of course, Nora replied immediately telling her she was bringing three movies for Joana to choose from.

Cris did what she was told, pulling out her phone and sending a text to Joana telling her that Nora was hoping to come watch a movie with her and asked if it was okay. Cris showed Amira Joana’s response.

“She said, yes!” Amira noted. “See! A solution. Nora already said she was on her way over with movies. And knowing Nora, a selection of truly terrible sugary snacks.”

Cris relayed the information to Joana, making sure she knew it was the girls' idea, not hers.

The final text Cris typed out to Joana she didn’t show to Amira, but when Cris was getting her books, Amira saw the message.

Message to Guapa Joana:

They love you too, you know.

Amira ducked her head in fondness before grabbing her textbooks and her study materials to help Cris study.  

The night had definitely improved.

[artificialqueens]

Love Shack, 1-5 (Trixya) - mallstars

Trixya college AU I’m currently writing after eleven years of not writing fanfiction at all. It’s a lesbian AU that is mostly fluffy, but definitely involves a lot of angst, pining, and smut!

Chapter 1: In Which Trixie Likes Cowboy Boots

“Sorry, I’m sorry!”, Trixie apologizes for what feels like the hundredth time today, struggling to roll her suitcase off the woman’s foot it’s currently crushing. She feels less sorry than she seems, however. After all it’s not her fault that woman has her legs sprawled out in front of her when Trixie with her two big suitcases obviously needs all the floor space she can get. She hopes that woman’s foot hurts and she learned not to be in everybody’s way. Trixie is exhausted. Exhausted from waking up in the middle of the night to get to Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee to catch a too-early flight to Boston. Exhausted from dragging around her suitcases. Exhausted from life. As excited as she is to start her new life (and she is beyond excited), it sucks that she has to start it feeling tired, annoyed, and stressed out because her family couldn’t even be bothered to see her off (and help her carry her luggage, thank you very much).

Two hours, a lot of queuing, and two overpriced smoothies later, Trixie is finally on her plane and watches Wisconsin get smaller and smaller in the distance. She sighs loudly and settles into her seat, pulling her blanket tightly around her shoulders. She finally did it. She’s finally leaving. She’s finally starting college. At the age of 23.

Five years ago, when she just finished high school, Trixie didn’t know what she wanted to do. It wasn’t that nothing excited her. It was that too many things excited her. She wanted to be a singer. She wanted to be a conductor. She wanted to work with small children and teach them how to read and write and make music, she wanted to be a hair dresser, a fashion designer, a makeup artist, an interior designer, any kind of designer, a journalist, a chef, and even, briefly, a botanist. She felt overwhelmed. She spent countless hours mulling over the possibilities while working her job as a receptionist at a hotel near her school, a job she had gotten as a junior in high school. The weeks had turned into months and she had found herself still working her receptionist’s job, thinking less and less about her future and getting more and more used to the idea of staying here. Helping customers, preparing the breakfast room, taking phone calls, reading magazines at her desk. It wasn’t that life in Wisconsin was bad. Well, it was, for a while when she was still a kid, but her mom had separated from her stepfather years ago and things had gradually gotten better. Towards the end of high school, things had been exciting, actually. She had been in love for the first time, and if she was honest with herself maybe that had a little to do with her hesitance to move away for college. But things hadn’t worked out with her and Shea, of course not, how could they when Trixie had struggled so much with her sexuality wanted to keep things between them secret long enough for Shea to run out of patience and eventually disappear out of Trixie’s life and Wisconsin.

But things are different now. Trixie is no longer a scared 17 – year – old, she loves girls and she loves that she loves girls, and everybody in Boston would just have to deal. She knows things will be different in a big city anyway, she will no longer be the only one that doesn’t fit into the cookie cutter standards her family have set for her, she will meet people like her, and she will meet people nothing like her, or her family, or anyone she knows.

There are so many things Trixie wants to do differently in her new life in Boston. This scares her, a little. For years the thought of moving away and flipping her whole life upside down had been a calming and reassuring (if at times unrealistic) thought. It didn’t matter that what Trixie was doing with her life wasn’t fulfilling when she knew she would really get things started soon enough. Dreaming about the future has always been a way to tolerate and justify the present. Now that she’s actually making the next step, she’s scared things are going to be just more of the same and her fantasies of a better future are going to be exposed as a lie. Trixie takes another deep breath and forces that thought out of her mind. No use in stressing out about this before she even landed. To calm herself, she puts her pink headphones on and listens to some music. She takes out her notebook and tries to come up with song lyrics, since that often helps to calm her down, but she can’t think of anything and instead just scribbles some flowers into the corner of a page. Writing music. Yet another thing Trixie wants to do with her life but almost never does.

Out of the many things Trixie wants to go to college for, she finally settled on early childhood education a couple of months ago. She got into Boston University, found a room in student housing, made all the decisions she hadn’t been making the last five years, and is about to start University in only three days. More things had moved in her life in the past three months than in the five years before that. The feeling of accomplishment she gets from this almost makes up for the awful morning she’s had. She scribbles a little sun on the middle of the mostly empty page in front of her and spends the rest of the flight in a state of nervous excitement. She is ready, bring it on.

♥♥♥

After what feels like an eternity, Trixie is finally standing in front of her apartment that she’ll be sharing with another girl. This is probably going to be awful, Trixie thinks, but there was no way she could afford a place on her own. She nervously pulls out her little mirror out of her bag to check her reflection one last time before meeting her new roommate. It’s an important moment, after all, and Trixie is nothing if not a little vain. Her pink lipstick has long since faded, and she didn’t really have the time to put on more than some mascara this morning. Her hair is flat and looks exactly like she spent her day on an airplane, and her blue dress is looking more like i-picked-this-because-I-wanted-to-be-as-comfy-as-possible-on-the-plane than pretty. Oh well. It is either this or changing and fixing her makeup in the dimly – lit hallway, and she is not that desperate. For all she knows her roommate spent all day in bed eating chips and wearing pyjamas.

She cautiously knocks on the door and only seconds later, a tall girl with pastel purple hair opens. She is dressed for whatever the opposite of a lazy day in bed is. “You look exhausted. I made soup if you want some? I’m Kim. Hi.”, she says, sounding nervous, and with a small lisp. She’s a sight to be seen. She’s wearing more makeup than Trixie has ever seen on anyone. Trixie loves makeup, loves it, but never wears a lot of it because she’s seen the way people at her home and at her old job look at her whenever she wears a little more, knows people think she’s being too much, and she can’t really handle that, as much as she’d like to. Kim, however, doesn’t seem to have any of these concerns. She’s wearing bright purple lipstick that matches her hair, a big white line under her eyes, at least three colours of sparkly eye shadow and a lot of fake eye lashes. Trixie stares at her for a second. She definitely was not in Wisconsin anymore.

♥♥♥

Half an hour later, Trixie and Kim sit in their room, eating Kim’s soup. It’s warm and tastes great. A roommate who can cook. That can only be helpful. This is what Trixie has learned in the last half hour: 1) Kim is great. 2) Trixie likes their room (which looks a lot like Kim, with pastel green walls, a lot of photos of high fashion makeup dos (and also cats. A lot of photos of cats. Maybe a little too many if Trixie is being honest), and very neat and organized. 3) To Trixie’s disbelief, Kim studies business administration.

“So what do you study? I never asked you, sorry.”, Kim says when Trixie is finishing her soup. Kim is sitting on her bed, facing Trixie, and applying silver nail polish to her toe nails. “I’m gonna do Early Childhood Education.” Trixie answers, smiling. She likes the sound of that. She’s finally going to do something she’s passionate about, how about that? “Oh, cool, I have a friend who does that. Shangela?”, Kim adds as a question, as if she is expecting Trixie to know this person. “She has a pretty cool job at a day care, she might be able to hook you up. Uh, if you need a job?”

Trixie smiles brightly. “Oh wow, that would be great! I’m definitely gonna need a job. I thought about waitressing or something, but that would be so much cooler.” Trixie thinks about the times she’s helped out at the hotel’s restaurant, about impatient customers and a lot of running back and forth. Yeah, she’d definitely appreciate not having to do that again, ever.

Kim stretches to reach her nightstand to get a little box, then pulls out some sticker nail art and starts applying sparkly silver stars on top of her silver nail polish. It’s a lot. Trixie loves it. “We’re gonna hang out tonight. Shangela and I. I’m at her place a lot, it’s the best.” Kim sounds genuinely excited and as much as Trixie already likes Kim, she’s a little relieved she’s going to have the place for herself for tonight, to breathe and settle in.

“How so?”

“So she lives in this house that’s big and awesome but also kind of a dump. And she lives with a bunch of people and they’re all so great. Mostly art students. Well no, only two art students. Hang on.” She narrows her eyes and thinks for a second. “Three art students. There’s Katya and Sasha, and no, that’s only two. Then there’s Adore, she’s a singer. I think she’s hypothetically taking classes here? But god knows what, I’ve never even seen her on campus.” Kim laughs, and then continues, going a hundred miles per hour: “Then there’s Jinkx, she just finished Uni and is looking for the next thing to do, she’s the best. Juju, she’s doing Philosophy but she’s really –

“Okay, wow, lots of people!”, Trixie interrupts her, pulling her knees to her chest where she sits on her new bed. Her head is hurting a little. It’s been a long day. She’ll have to put sheets on her bed and she doesn’t want to. “What’s with the names, do people in Boston just…not have normal names?”

Kim raises an eyebrow at her. “What’s a normal name?” she asks with a huff and a half smile.

“Uhh…Brenda, I guess? That’s a normal name. Wisconsin is full of Brendas.” It’s not actually that true, Trixie knows one, maybe two Brendas, but it’s a point she made so she’s gonna stand by it.

“Alright, Trixie.”, Kim snorts. “You’re literally called like my aunt’s dog, but sure, come for the names of my friends.” Kim is smiling, so Trixie knows she didn’t actually offend her. “Most of them picked a name they liked a while ago and made it stick.” She offers as an explanation. She tries to bend forward enough to blow her toe nails dry, but doesn’t quite succeed. She’s not the most flexible. Looks pretty awkward. “So if you’re fed up with your name, now is the time you wanna change it. New beginnings and all.”

Trixie laughs. “I actually like my name. I mean, not Beatrice, but Trixie. I like that a lot.” She admits and Kim raises an incredulous eyebrow at her. “What?” Trixie says, faking a pout. “It sounds like a doll’s name. I’m into that.”

♥♥♥

Trixie doesn’t know how, but somehow Kim has talked her into joining her when she leaves to go meet Shangela. She’s tired and in need of a shower, but also exhilarated and giddy, and genuinely curious about Kim’s friends. They sound intriguing. They sound like the kind of people Trixie has always wanted to know but who didn’t enter into her life much when she was living with her mum in a small town, working the desk at a hotel mostly frequented by people above the age of fifty. Half an hour ago, when they were getting ready, she pulled some clothes off the top of one of her suitcases and changed into them but changed her mind again after seeing what Kim had settled on wearing for the night:a purple dress with a big frilly skirt that matched her hair and makeup perfectly. That made Trixie empty out her suitcase in order to find her favourite pink dress. She barely ever wears this dress, because it’s just a little too much (or at least that’s what her mother had told her), but she loves the bright colour and how she could make the skirt twirl, and if Kim was going walk out in what she was wearing right now, Trixie could wear that pink dress. She made Kim wait for her while she put on some makeup – a little heavier than usual, because why not, and when she looked in the mirror, she felt prettier than she had in a long time. She hadn’t made an effort to look her best in a while, because she hadn’t seen a reason to, but tonight was special. Tonight was the first night of her new life – and also, if she was honest, she could already feel Kim’s over the top style helping her to be more daring. Next to Kim, it didn’t seem to matter what she wore.

Kim, waiting for her propped up on her desk chair and scrolling through her – pastel blue – phone, looked at Trixie’s final look and gave her thumbs up. “Do you need shoes for that? I have some really cool heels that would go great with that dress.”, she offered. Trixie thought about that for a second and decided that high heels might be a little much to go hang out with somebody at their house. She grins. “Nope. I got just the right shoes for that.”

Shangela’s house is a fifteen-minute walk from their apartment and the campus. Kim chatters away the whole time, lisp and all, tells Trixie about her Instagram account (“People love me on Instagram! It’s crazy!), and gives her more information on Shangela and her friends, that Trixie can’t really follow. She spends most of the walk feeling happy to have met Kim, and some of the walk anxious about meeting new people. Maybe she should have stopped at Kim today. Maybe that would have been enough. But she’s here, in her dress and her soft pink cowboy boots (that Kim made fun of for a solid two minutes earlier), and they’re walking up to the house, and Trixie can tell immediately why Kim likes spending so much time here. The house is big and old, with a small garden in front of it. In the garden there’s a big table with some candles, a fat white cat, and clutter on it, and a big tree that holds both fairy lights and two swings.

Before they’re even through the garden, the door swings open and a girl with big dark hair grins at them. She comes to hug Kim, seemingly unaware of the wet grass under her fuzzy, previously white socks. “Hi, you must be the new roomie? I’m Shangela.”, she says, and Trixie still thinks that’s the funniest name she’s ever heard. Shangela is tiny, barely reaches Trixie’s shoulders and looks about half the size of Kim. Before Trixie can answer her, Shangela points to her boots and laughs. “Oh my god, did Kim tell you to wear those? Kim, you bitch.”

“Actually, they were her idea. You can’t blame that on me.”

Usually, Trixie would regret her choice by now, but something about Kim’s frilly dress gives her confidence. “I’m country. Deal with it.” She says, deadpan, and at Shangela’s grin wavers and adds: “Oh, uhm, I’m Trixie, by the way. I hope it’s okay I tagged along? I don’t really know anybody here yet besides Kim and she said I could come?”

“Sure! Don’t worry about it, there’s always loads of people here at the Love Shack. After all, this is the best house in Boston!”

♥♥♥

And it is, probably. The house is big but so full of stuff that you barely notice. They are currently sitting in the kitchen with a checkers floor, three (!) big sofas and no table, and drinking tea.

“So, uh, the Love Shack?” Trixie asks after a while, remembering what Shangela said outside.

“Yes!”, Shangela grins, gesturing to the house around her.

“Nobody calls it that” Kim informs her. “I mean, Shangela does, but she’s tried to make it catch on for like two years now and no.”

At this, Shangela starts to sing pretty loudly: “The Love Shack is a pretty old place where we can get together – her – her”

“This isn’t even the lyrics” Kim says and rolls her eyes.

Shangela’s singing is pretty awful so Trixie interrupts her by asking how many people live here. She gets a vague answer. Something between six and nine, apparently, depending on she doesn’t know what exactly. Shangela changes the topic to her about her job at the day care and how her co-worker named Ginger (again with the names!) had just moved away and they were looking for somebody. Things seem to work out perfectly pretty much ever since Trixie landed in Boston and a part of her keeps waiting for something bad to happen. A cool job? Cool people? This is enough like Trixie’s secret fantasy life that she feels like it can’t be true. But Shangela is telling her about what she does with the kids – which involves a lot of dancing – and Kim has gotten up and started making pancakes as if she lives here, and her tea is warm, and the sofa is soft, and Trixie feels at peace.

Trixie’s peace lasts another eleven minutes. Then, somebody comes in the front door with a lot of noise, enters the kitchen in a rush and throws herself on the yellow sofa opposite of where Trixie and Shangela are sitting. “Hope you’re making enough pancakes, I’m the most hungry person in the world!” she exclaims in Kim’s direction before noticing the stranger in the room and flashing her a grin. “Hey, I’m Katya. I like your dress.”

Chapter 2: In Which Bob’s Hardwood Floors are Always Scratched

In the non-existent who-is-the-most-extraordinary-person-trixie-has-met-today contest, Katya gives Kim a run for her money. She is wearing a bright red lace bodysuit that covers every inch of her body except for her head, hands and feet, and a chunky necklace with a big black eye on it. Her blonde slightly curly hair is pulled back with a scrunchie, her lipstick is just as bright as her bodysuit and her heavy black eye makeup looks like she applied it in the dark.

“Did you wear that outside?”, Trixie blurts out before she can stop herself. Katya looks at her with her mouth open comically wide. Oh god. Trixie can already feel a blush creeping down her cheeks. Why couldn’t she just have said thanks for the compliment about her dress and left it at that. Always with the talking.

Shangela and Trixie laugh out loud. “New girl’s not a fan of you bullshit, Katya, how about that”, Shangela says, still giggling and reaches over to pat Trixie’s arm. “Get her, Jade. She needs that.” Trixie doesn’t know how to respond. The thing is, she is a fan of “Katya’s bullshit.” Very much so. Trixie wishes she had the guts to wear shit like that. Well, maybe not that colour. And maybe not the necklace. And also not the earrings with the tiny hands on it that she just noticed. What the fuck. But still.

“Katya’s an interpretive dancer.” Shangela says, as if that explains it all.

“Butoh.” Katya corrects her. Apparently, it’s obvious that Trixie doesn’t know what that means. “Butoh!” Katya says again, only louder, and lets herself glide off the couch until she’s lying on the floor with one leg still on the couch, dangling above her head. She rolls onto her back and starts laughing, heavily and without a sound, flailing her hands in the air above her. Trixie doesn’t know what’s so funny, but she laughs anyway. Katya doesn’t remind her of anybody she has ever met.

“That was her ‘dancing’” Kim comments helpfully. “That was one of her better moves, actually.” Kim walks over to them, settles a plate with pancakes on top of Katya’s stomach, and hands Shangela and Trixie full plates as well. “Anyone else home?” Kim asks Shangela. “Uh, Jinkx is home, and Adore too I think, but they just ate and you know they’re probably sleeping anyway.”

“More pancakes for me.”, comments Katya, who apparently decided she could eat without getting up, ripping off huge bits and letting them fall into her mouth from her extended arm.

They eat in silence for a minute, Trixie’s heart still beating a little faster from her thoughtless comment about Katya’s appearance before. Katya, thankfully, doesn’t seem offended by her comment. She’s fine. When Katya has finished her first pancake she turns to lie on her side, facing the others. “So”, she says with a grin (and if Trixie had teeth like that, she’d grin all day long, holy shit, they’re perfect)

“Who are you, besides uneducated in the art of dance?” When Trixie doesn’t answer because she doesn’t know how, Kim comes to her aid: “That’s my new roommate. Trixie. She likes that name. And those boots, she likes those also.” Katya looks at Trixie’s boots for a long while, chewing her second pancake thoughtfully. “I like them too” she finally says and – did she just wink at Trixie? Trixie must have imagined that.

“A woman not afraid to look stupid! A woman after my own heart.” Trixie’s heart beats faster at that, and she almost forgets to feel offended about being called uneducated. Almost.

The rest of the night is pretty great. They are chatting about anything and everything, with Shangela doing most of the talking and Trixie being happy to listen. Katya isn’t saying much either, she stays on the floor for most of the night but gets into weird stretch positions every once in a while – that girl can move her body. Katya seems to find their conversation endlessly amusing, breaking out into breathless giggling fits every couple of minutes. Most of the times, Trixie doesn’t even know what’s so funny, but Katya’s laugh makes her laugh anyway. Trixie feels drowsy, she’s been up and about for close to thirty hours now, and she settles deep into the couch and lets the conversation wash over her. Inadvertently, her eyes keep focusing on the girl on the floor in the tight red lace and matching lipstick. Trixie catches herself waiting for Shangela and Kim to say the next funny thing, so she can watch Katya laugh again. A couple of times she can feel a light fluttering in her stomach whenever she looks at Katya for too long. But she is tired and a little overwhelmed with everything and her stomach is probably all messed up from the plane ride and this means nothing, she decides. She is not going to crush on a person she met her first night here. Especially not one that wears an eye around her neck. They go home after Trixie has fallen asleep on the couch for the fourth time and back in her dorm room she goes straight to bed, without bothering to try and find her pyjamas or put on sheets. The last thing she thinks of before falling asleep is Katya’s laugh.

♥♥♥

The next morning, Trixie wakes up to pastel green walls, the faint smell of fruity perfume, and the thought of surprise that she was able to sleep that well in a new place. She must have slept a little too well, actually, because the sun coming though the half open blinders is bright and when she peeks at her phone she sees it’s past noon already. Kim is nowhere to be seen but even from her place in bed Trixie can see a post it note on the door: I’m at Shangela’s. Come over if you want to. Feel free to take my cereal if you don’t want to go buy something. – K. On the bottom of the page is a phone number that probably belongs to Kim.

Trixie stretches and remains in bed for a little while, feeling more at peace then she has in a long time. Her new roommate is better than she could have imagined, she has a job in sight, and she is still genuinely excited about starting classes on Monday. She looks around the room for a long while, deciding which of Kim’s cat pictures had to go to make room for Trixie’s stuff. She had packed a bunch of things to decorate her room, things that she loves and that are very personal, and she hadn’t been sure she would ever actually take them out. After all, she knew she was going to be sharing that room with somebody. But with Kim she knows she can fully be herself. And for now, being herself means getting out of bed to hang up pictures of her and her grandfather who had passed years ago, of her with her musical theatre group she had been in for most of high school, some pretty flowers, and some song lyrics she liked so much she had taken the time to write them down in her best attempt at calligraphy. She quietly sings to herself while putting on her favourite bedding (yellow with little daisies on it), arranges the few books she had taken with her on the empty shelf in her part of the room, and decides to go shopping for plants later. Currently the only plant in the room is an orchid on Kim’s night stand and it looks to be dead. Kim had painted the orchid’s brown leaves golden with what looks a lot like nail polish. A tragic plant.

It takes Trixie another hour to empty both of her suitcases. They have a big closet, but she shares it with Kim and while Kim has made her some space, it’s not quite enough (and not nearly half the closet). But Trixie doesn’t mind. Most of her clothing she doesn’t like anyway, it’s boring and she got it because she always had to look “nice” for her receptionist’s job. It’s all very uninspired, a lot of white, a lot of black. Then there’s a couple of things she really loves but never wears enough, some frilly dresses and skin-tight skirts, and she feels like she’ll actually get to wear these things around here. She spends a lot of time admiring Kim’s clothes and wonders if she’d mind sharing. Kim is taller than her and not exactly slim, but Trixie has some weight as well, big thighs and hips mostly, so Kim’s things might just fit her.

When her suitcase is empty, her side of the room looks like her and she’s happy. It’s only then that she begins to think about Kim’s offer to spend the day at Shangela’s. She wonders if Katya would be there. Katya. By the light of day, she is sure the fluttering in her stomach last night really didn’t have anything to do with her. Sure, Katya is beautiful and is obviously crazy in a great way, but Trixie doesn’t know her and it’s not like Katya would be interested in Trixie. As far as Trixie knows, she has met an underwhelming amount of three gay women and one bisexual woman in her life. One of the girls in her musical theatre group was gay, out proud and beautiful, but also never that interesting to Trixie. Then there was Shea, who Trixie very much didn’t want to think about. The third one was a woman who frequented the hotel Trixie worked at, and who always complained about the AC being too loud and generally got on Trixie’s nerves quite a bit. The bisexual woman was a girl named Courtney who Trixie met at a night club two years ago. They hooked up regularly over the course of nearly half a year but ultimately didn’t care enough about one another to make things work. So chances that Katya was going to be the fifth in this unimpressive line of women were slim. Then she remembers the way Katya winked at her last night it takes a second for her to catch her breath after that.

♥♥♥

After a long shower and some of Kim’s cereal, she decides she’s going to take Kim up on her offer and go to Shangela’s place. She thinks she can remember how to get there and puts Kim’s number into her phone in case.

Trixie finds her way to the house eventually, getting a little lost a few times on the way, but appreciating the chance to get to know the neighbourhood. On the way from her place to Shangela’s, there are a couple bars (including a 50s themed milk shake bar that Trixie will definitely be spending some time in), a supermarket, a nail studio, and even a little cinema that looks like it can’t have more than one room. It’s somewhere between summer and autumn, and the sun is still warm, so Trixie is wearing a soft yellow dress and her cowboy boots again – Katya said she liked them, didn’t she? And it’s not like Trixie needs a lot of encouragement to pull these boots out. When she reaches the house, there’s a group of people sitting at the table in the garden and Trixie makes out Kim by her purple hair immediately. Katya’s also there. She’s on one of the swings, swinging so high it looks like she might fall off any second. She waves at Trixie without letting go of the swing’s string. “Hi Trixie”, Kim says from where she sits at the table and then, “That’s my roommate I told you about. Trixie, this is, uh, a lot of people. This is Adore, Jinkx, Juju, Sasha, Chi Chi, and Bob. And you know Shangela and Katya. Kim points at each person individually and Trixie does her best to remember who everyone is.

The group at the table looks extraordinary for sure. Very much not like the friends Trixie had in high school and who slowly dropped out of her life one after one in the years after school. There’s at least three people at the table whose gender Trixie can’t make out. There’s Adore, with hair such a bright blue that she stands out even next to Kim. Adore is slouching in their chair, smoking something, wearing only an oversized shirt and hugging their hairy legs to their body. There’s Jinkx, short red hair and about zero features that indicated their gender. There’s Sasha, in men’s clothing and bald, but with an impressive amount of make up on. Juju is a small Asian girl who’s currently busy building a house out of playing cards; Chi Chi, who has a Nintendo in his hands, seems too involved in his game to look up, and Bob, tall and bald, a little older than the others, is the only one who stands up and shakes her hand.

“Hi everyone”, Trixie says, and awkwardly sits down in the empty spot next to Juju who looks up from her cards to tell her: “You’re joining us at exactly the right time, Bob is giving us an important lecture on how to treat his precious hardwood floors.” She rolls her eyes non-discreetly. Trixie must have looked a little lost because Sasha chimes in:

“It’s Bob’s house. He lets us stay here for next to no rent and certain people” – Sasha pointedly looks at Juju – “could be a little more grateful.” Juju doesn’t dignify this with an answer and instead adds a sixth floor to her card house, which promptly falls apart.

“So, uh, it’s your house?”, Trixie asks Bob, because she doesn’t know what else to say. In the corner of her eye she can see Katya has stopped swinging and is sitting still watching her. Watching them. Not her, of course.

“Yup.” Bob replies with a grin. Trixie likes him immediately. His septum reminds her of her unrealistic plans of getting one as well. “Used to be my dad’s house, is my house now, and I rent it out to these guys.”

“We’re his charity.”, says Chi Chi in a heavy southern drawl without looking up from his Nintendo. There’s no bitterness in his voice, Trixie notes.

“I’m not anyone’s charity”, Juju says, sticking her tongue out at Chi Chi, “Maybe your ass, but not mine.”

“Bob is a social worker and does a lot for LGBT youth”, Sasha says, apparently being the most helpful person at the table. “This house is basically open for those of us who need it.”

“Oh. So you’re all…” Trixie doesn’t finish that sentence, and regrets having started it.

“Fucking queer”, says Adore from next to Juju and almost all of them start laughing. Trixie feels a little lighter at that.

“Fucking queer”, echoes Katya, who has suddenly come up behind Jinkx and squeezes herself into the space between Trixie and Juju. She’s wearing a skin tight black dress covered in pictures of abstract faces, combat boots, and the little hands are dangling from her ears again. Her thighs press against Trixies and she smells like cigarettes and flowers. Maybe daisies, Trixie catches herself thinking, before frowning at herself. It’s not like she even knows what daisies smell like.

Katya is very close. And Katya is fucking queer, whatever that means. This close up and in the light of the sun, her dark makeup looks even messier. Her mascara is clumping a bunch of her lashes together in the corner of her right eye and her foundation doesn’t match her neck. Trixie wants to reach out and pick a stray lash off Katya’s cheek. The thought makes her blush. To her relief, nobody seems to pay her too much attention and after a while Trixie manages to get her mind off the girl next to her and focus on the rest of the group. Bob has resumed his lecture on how to treat the floor – apparently they were scratching it rearranging furniture all the time. Sasha and Jinkx listen earnestly, while the rest of them don’t seem too bothered. After a minute, Katya snatches away Chi Chi’s Nintendo mid-game and starts playing his Pokémon game while he quietly curses at her but makes no effort to get up and get it back. They spend another half hour half bickering with Bob, half doing their own thing (Juju is now busy gluing little crystals onto a mirror for god knows what purpose and Shangela is knitting what looks like a tent in the ugliest green Trixie has ever seen) when Kim turns the conversation to Trixie: “So Trixie, have you settled in already? Anything you need?”

Trixie remembers the plants she wants to get. “Uh, yeah, everything’s pretty great. But I want to get some plants. Can you tell me where to get them?”

“Plants! I need plants.”, Katya chimes in from next to her. “I’ll take you.” Trixie’s heart flutters at that. Again with the fluttering. Can she still get away with blaming that on the air plane? Probably. The thought of going plants shopping with Katya seems nerve wracking to her. She hopes somebody else will come too, maybe Kim, Kim could probably anchor her. “Anyone else wanna come? No? Good.” Katya says without really waiting for an answer, gets up, pretends to give Chi Chi back the Nintendo but then puts it on the ground out of his reach last second.

♥♥♥

The first thing Katya does when they’ve left the garden is take a cigarette and a lighter out of her bra. The second thing is ask Trixie this question: “So, who are you, and, more importantly, who do you want to be?” Trixie looks at her in disbelief for a second. What the fuck kind of question was that. Did she hear that in some kind of self – help group for people with awful fashion sense? Katya seems to expect an answer, so Trixie wrecks her brain for a second and comes up with:

“I’m the gal who’s not here for a long time, but is here for a good time. Trixie!” Katya almost drops her cigarette out of her mouth at that and laughs for way too long. That was pretty funny. Trixie mentally pats her own back.

“So Kim says you study art?” Trixie asks eventually, because she suddenly remembers that.

“Yes! Visual arts.” Katya says in a voice that leaves no doubt she lives for that. “With Sasha. The bald one? Sasha’s my favourite person!” Katya skips a little like that, grinning at Trixie. She seems just as overflowing with happy energy as last night and Trixie wonders if she’s always like that. Trixie isn’t, that’s for sure. She is right now though. Something about Katya makes her heart feel light. “So how do you like it here so far?” is Katya’s next question. With it, she spreads her arms and spins around in a circle twice, indicating the area around her. “I’ve never lived anywhere else, honestly, but I think it’s pretty cool, yeah?” she adds.

“Yes, oh wow, I mean it’s definitely better than Wisconsin. It just has to be.” She proceeds to tell Katya about her home town, about growing up in the middle of nowhere, about how much she had liked Wisconsin at times, and how much she had resented it at different times. She tells her about her neighbours’ farm and how she used to ride horses there until they moved away. She misses the horses.

Katya seems to listen intensely, looking way more at Trixie than at the street in front of her, and lighting another cigarette as soon as she’s finished the first one. Trixie likes being looked at, but feels weirdly self – conscious under Katya’s eyes. They reach a little flower shop after a couple of minutes. It’s painted in a faded yellow and Trixie likes that it matches her dress. It makes her feel beautiful.

♥♥♥

When they leave the shop a little later, Trixie is carrying a big carton box with an orchid (that is always going to look better than Kim’s and that is never going to get too close to nail polish), some succulents and a couple of plants whose name she doesn’t know but that she thinks are going to look very pretty in their room. The only thing Katya had gotten was a chunky (and ugly) metal sculpture of a crow that was meant to be a decoration for flower pots. “This will make a great necklace” she said when she first saw it, making Trixie snort.

“It’s way too heavy!”

“Pretty hurts.”

“I hate to tell you but this is like the opposite of pretty.”

Naturally, Katya bought the thing anyway, claiming she’ll be wearing it everytime they see each other.

“What about plants then?” “What?”

“Plants. You wanted to get plants? That’s why you came with me?”

“Oh yeah, no. I’m fine. Sasha has a cactus and that’s already a lot of responsibility, you see, I mean we share custody, but still.”

Whatever.

Her arms hurt from carrying the box, the wind is a little too chilly for her to be wearing just her dress, and she’s pretty hungry, but Trixie feels happy. Katya is great, she decides on their way back to Shangela’s – Bob’s? – as if she didn’t already decide that last night. Katya didn’t say much last night or in the garden today, but now that they are alone, she is talking pretty much constantly, skipping from one topic to another and back in a way that makes it hard for Trixie to follow but that’s also entertaining. Katya talks about her efforts to learn Russian and how she’s making sure her pronunciation is perfect, even if she doesn’t know that many words yet (“ворона, ворона“ she yells out, fiddling with her metal crow, as if Trixie knows what that means). She talks about the cat Trixie saw in the garden earlier and how she calls him Milk but everybody in the house has a different name for him, which doesn’t matter because it’s not like he listens anyway (“he’s not technically ours, and not technically allowed in the house, but I swear he spends most of his time in Juju’s and Shangela’s room, Juju lets him sleep in her bed). She talks about her dancing class and about a girl named Laganja that talked her into trying it out (“You have to meet her, she’s my favourite person!”) By the time they reach the house, Trixie is sure she wants to stay here and listen to Katya talk all day.

The garden is empty except for Kim, who’s petting Milk the cat, Shangela, who’s still knitting her tent-thing, and Jinkx, who seems to have fallen asleep in her chair. Trixie heaves the box with her plants onto the table and slumps down next to Kim. Katya, apparently filled with too much energy to sit down, stands behind Shangela and messes up her hair. “Stop that”, Shangela complains and then adds: “Go and call Violet. She sent Sasha like 10 texts today saying you should stop ignoring her.”

Katya sighs deeply and messes with Shangela’s hair even more rigorously, trying to knot it into a pretzel on top of her head. “Seriously Kat. What’s going on with you two?” Shangela asks, her voice suddenly soft. Katya opens her mouth as if to answer, but then doesn’t, and shrugs. Her giddy energy seems to slowly leave her body.

“Ugh” is the only thing Katya says before she turns and goes towards the house, presumably to call Violet.

“Who’s Violet?” asks Trixie, curious about the sudden shift in Katya’s mood.

“Oh, Violet. She lives here, technically, but she’s currently travelling around with a bunch of people making shows. She’s mostly doing aerial.” Kim explains. “You should see her, she’s amazing. She’s Katya’s girlfriend.”

Chapter 3: In Which Chi Chi Goes Hard And Goes Home

Katya’s girlfriend. Kim’s words are stuck in Trixie’s head even half an hour later when she’s back in her room, distracting herself with Netflix and a vegetarian Burrito she got on her way over here. Katya’s girlfriend. Of course Katya has a girlfriend. Katya is amazing. Trixie sniffs a little and hides her face in one of her pillows. When she comes up for air she catches sight in herself in Kim’s big mirror and suddenly has to giggle in slight exasperation with herself. The drama! So unnecessary. It’s not like she knows Katya, not really. Katya could be a serial killer for all she knows. With that jewellery of hers, she probably is. And at least Trixie found out about her girlfriend now, before she had time to indulge whatever feeling she gets when she looks at Katya for too long. It isn’t a crush yet anyway, not really. Everything is still pretty amazing, she decides, things are going just fine. And if she spends the rest of the day thinking about Katya’s laugh and the way her combat boots are just a little too chunky on her skinny legs, well, that’s okay. She’ll be distracted soon enough. She has things to do, people to meet, a life to live. Her life is going to be exciting.

As if to undermine that point, she spends the rest of the day in her room watching Netflix and mentally preparing for starting classes tomorrow. There’s not much to do. She already did most of her preparation reading weeks ago when she had still counted days until she would leave. So now her preparation consists mainly of pulling half of the clothes she just put into the closet this morning out of it to put them on and decide if they are the right clothes to wear on her first day. Trixie likes when her clothes mirror who she is. Or, maybe, who she wants to be. Either way, she wants people to have an idea of who she is before she even starts talking. But today none of her clothes say what she wants them to say about her, so she leaves everything lying around, deciding she’ll just have to wing it tomorrow morning. In order to do at least one productive thing today she brushes up on her resumé to give to Shangela when she next sees her.

In the early evening, Kim comes home from Shangela’s. She raises an eyebrow at Trixie’s clothes on the floor – and shit, Trixie realizes, Kim is so neat and she fucked up the room on only her second day here – but doesn’t comment. Instead, she throws herself on her bed and puts on Project Runway on her laptop while eating pickles straight out of a jar. Classy. Trixie, having gone back to her what-will-i-wear-tomorrow dilemma, is hardly paying attention to the show, but Kim keeps commenting on it, trying to involve her: “Can you believe Heidi talks trash about his look when she wears this? This?! She has some nerve.” Kim even turns her laptop so that Trixie can see Heidi’s outfit. At that, Trixie decides to give in and join Kim on her bed, and they watch the show together. It’s dumb and funny and gets Kim agitated in a way Trixie hasn’t seen her before, and this is nice, Trixie thinks, this is really nice.

♥♥♥

The next morning Trixie wakes up buzzing with excitement about starting her classes. She puts on an amount of makeup she never would have worn back in Wisconsin, slips into a light pink dress she settled on in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling and not being able to sleep, and carefully curls her long blonde hair. Trixie’s hair is her whole pride, and she spends an embarrassing amount of time making sure it looks perfect at all times. And it does – as long as she doesn’t have to spend a day in an air plane. Kim blasts some Asian music Trixie has never heard before while changing outfits at least seven times and eating cereal at the same time. She lets Trixie leech off her cereal once more (Trixie is going to buy her own shit tonight, for sure) and then leaves for her classes in the opposite direction of where Trixie is going.

Like a true first semester student, Trixie is early to class. Twenty-eight minutes early to be exact. She wanted to make absolutely sure she’d have enough time to find her building and then found it much faster than expected, mostly due to a little plan Kim drew up for her. On her way here, the campus was mostly deserted,and in the small brick building she is right now she can’t see a single person. She double checks if she is at the right place. She triple checks. She goes into the bathroom to check her reflection in the mirror. She walks up and down the corridor reading the signs on every door. She goes into the bathroom again and washes her hands. Still twenty minutes. She wants to take a walk over campus because she hasn’t actually looked at anything yet, but is suddenly anxious she won’t find her classroom again, so she stays put. God, she’s nervous. What if in twenty minutes her professor will say something that tells Trixie that she shouldn’t be here, not in this room, maybe not even at this university, that maybe she can’t do this, and she should have stayed at the hotel.

This is stupid, Trixie decides, she needs to distract herself. In the last few minutes one other student has arrived, but he is lost in his phone and seems to be not at all interested in a conversation, so Trixie pulls out her phone as well. She hardly had time to look through her notifications this morning but now she sees she has a following request on Instagram from Kim and Shangela. She accepts and scrolls through Kim’s profile for a little while. That girl really is an artist, Trixie will definitely have to learn from her. It takes only a little scrolling before she finds Katya in one of Kim’s pictures and with it a link to Katya’s profile. She wonders for a moment if checking Katya’s profile is a good idea, but it seems a better option than freaking out about her studies before they even began, so she clicks on the profile. For whatever reason it’s called ‘momsgoldteeth’. Katya’s profile picture is of her with photoshopped demonic eyes in front of a background of fire. Her bio only says: Can you even fuck a pokeman? What the fuck. Katya’s profile is private, and Trixie hesitates before sending her a friend request, goes to check her own profile for potentially embarrassing pictures before she does. Trixie’s profile picture is her favourite picture of her that a classmate took on a field trip a couple of years ago. She’s standing on a meadow, wearing a flower crown she had just made, her arms raised in the air and the sun behind her making her hair look like it glows. Her bio says: Love your hair, hope you win with a bunch of heart emojis added in and oh, well, why not. She sends the friend request and while she’s at it, also sends one to everybody else she met yesterday. Making friends! It’s important.

She barely has time to look at their profiles before her professor arrives and opens their room. It’s still fifteen minutes early but apparently this professor is used to first semester students being anxious and early and she gives Trixie a smile that immediately makes her feel a little easier.

Trixie’s first lecture is probably boring – filled with: this is what we are going to do this semester, this is how to register for your classes, this is how everything works, and you need to pay attention, your exams aren’t going to be easy – but Trixie listens intensely and feeling much more relaxed than just half an hour before. She’s finally here and damn if she’s not going enjoy her time here. The two guys sitting next to her start playing hangman ten minutes in and a girl in front of her is eating dry cornflakes, but Trixie carefully writes down everything her professor says. She’s going to be good in this class. If these two idiots next to her – one just failed at guessing the word ‘compass’ – could be at university, then so could she.

♥♥♥

When Trixie comes home after her second and last lecture of the day, she’s still feeling good, but she’s also exhausted. Who knew sitting around for four hours could be so tiring? Kim seems to feel the same way because she’s lying in her bed, full face of makeup but changed into pyjamas, and plays on her phone. “Hey, how was it?” Kim asks with a smile. “Pretty cool!” Trixie answers. “I mean, we didn’t actually do much today, but the classes sound nice and apparently we’re allowed to eat during lectures so what more could you want?” She decides to do as Kim and changes into one of her night gowns before lying down in her bed and pulling out her phone. Katya and Adore have already accepted her request and she clicks on Katya’s profile. Her stomach is fluttering in excitement.

Katya’s profile is a lot. She barely has any pictures up, instead, there are a bunch of short videos. Trixie clicks on the latest one. In it, Katya is wearing the same red bodysuit she wore when they met and is doing a hand stand in a dance studio. A second video shows her zooming in and out of Bob while he is reading a paper, singing “You’re my favourite person” to him off key while he does his best to ignore her. Another video shows her smearing her red lipstick off with her hands before laughing hysterically and going out of the frame.

“Katya?” Kim asks, without looking up from her phone.

“Yeah. I’m uh, I’m just looking at her Instagram.”

“It’s a mess. Wanna see a good Instagram? Go to mine. Or Sasha’s, that’s amazing. But Katya? Hot mess.”

“Yeah.” Trixie agrees distractedly. Here’s a picture of Sasha kissing Katya’s cheek while she grins into the camera widely. “So, umm, Kim? Katya and Violet. They are…” she trails of, suddenly not knowing where she wants that sentence to go.

Kim frowns at her for a couple of seconds before saying: “They’re a couple. They are gay. A gay couple. Well, Katya’s bisexual and I’m actually not sure what Violet identifies as currently, but they’re a couple. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” Kim sounds a little concerned at that.

Okay, okay. They’re a couple. Trixie knows this already and it’s bad enough without Kim repeating it a billion times over. Kim still looks at her with a scrutinizing look on her face and it takes Trixie a second to understand her behaviour. Oh. Kim thinks she’s a homophobe. “Oh no! God no. I’m gay. I’m pretty gay.” Kim looks relieved. “Pretty and gay. Gay and pretty” she adds to lighten the mood.

“Oh” Kim grins. “Oh, good. I’m not. Gay, I mean. Pretty, sometimes.”

“Yeah, umm” Trixie thinks for a second. Should she bring this conversation back to Katya? She really wants to. “So Violet is travelling a lot?”

Here’s what Trixie finds out: Katya had been interested in Violet since Violet first moved into Bob’s house a little over two years ago, but they had only started dating a year ago. Apparently, there had been quite a lot of pining on Katya’s side before that, and only when Sasha had played matchmaker had they finally started dating – damn Sasha, Trixie thinks. A couple months later, Violet had left to travel with her group. They are still together, talking on the phone all the time, and apparently arguing a lot lately.

Kim says she doesn’t know what these arguments are about, but it’s obvious she’s keeping something from Trixie. It’s also obvious that Kim cares a lot about both Katya and Violet. When Kim gets bored with the conversation a couple of minutes later, Trixie wraps her blanket around herself and tries to resist the temptation of checking out Violet’s Instagram.

Nothing good can come of this, she knows. She resists for all of four minutes, then takes her phone to find Violet’s profile. Thankfully, it’s not private. Trixie wouldn’t have brought it over herself to send her a follower’s request. As Trixie expected, Violet’s Instagram doesn’t help her feel better about the situation. Violet is hot. Of course she is. She is also tall, slim, has perfect dark 50s styled hair and makeup and looks nothing like Trixie. To make things worse, her body is barely covered in any of her pictures. Violet seems to have a preference for wearing a couple rhine stones and feathers, and nothing else.

Trixie has to scroll down quite a bit – trying hard not to admire the poses Violet gets into when doing aerial – before finding a picture of Violet and Katya together. It was taken in what looks like a night club. Violet is dressed in some glittery thing (she was probably performing that night, that can’t seriously be something she wears on a night out, Trixie thinks and feels more inadequate than ever) and Katya has her arms and one leg wrapped around her and laughs happily. She can clearly see the admiration in Katya’s eyes. The sight makes Trixie sad. She wants somebody to look at her the way Katya looks at Violet in the picture. (She wants Katya to look at her the way she looks at Violet in the picture, is a thought Trixie has, but refuses to indulge).

♥♥♥

It’s the first week of Uni, so there are a lot of parties happening on and off campus. Trixie loves parties but barely ever gets to go and it takes her a whole four days before she manages to talk Kim into going with her. Kim doesn’t seem to be too thrilled at the thought of spending the night at a club, but finally gives in at the prospect of getting to really dress up. She spends over an hour on her nails that end up so over the top she can’t use her phone. This is why she has Trixie text back and forth with Shangela, who wants to join them and bring some of the others along. Trixie wants to ask if Katya is coming, but doesn’t want Kim to tease her about it – and, also, she has managed to not talk (or think too much) about Katya for the last three days and she is not going to break that streak now.

When they’re finally in front of the club a couple of hours later, everybody from Bob’s house, except for Bob himself is there. (“Bob has a husband and a kid, he doesn’t wanna hang out with our asses too much” Juju explains when Trixie asks about him).

They are quite a sight to behold, Trixie thinks. Sasha is wearing a blue velvet jump suit and graphic blue makeup under the eyes, Shangela is in something that looks suspiciously like a cheerleader uniform, and Adore has replaced their blue hair with blond hair so big they are now taller than even Trixie. And then there’s Katya, in a bright purple dress covered in black hand prints and her hair in two messy buns on top of her head. The hands on her ears have long glittery fingernails today that Trixie is sure weren’t there last time. (Did she glue them on? Does she have more than one pair of creepy hand earrings? If yes, why?) Trixie hugs everybody hello and when she gets to Katya, Katya smells like daisies again. Well, daisies and cigarettes. Trixie tries to focus on the cigarettes. She wouldn’t want to date a smoker. But Katya is a lot shorter and skinnier than Trixie, and she feels so nice in her arms, and Trixie lets go of her with reluctance.

“Great dress.” Sasha tells Trixie, and Trixie looks down at herself, feeling a little self-conscious. She had borrowed one of Kim’s dresses, a tight black lacey one that shows her curves in a way that makes her more than a little nervous, but Kim had complimented her for a full twenty minutes, giving Trixie enough confidence to work this dress. (Also, if Kim gets away with that floor length golden dress covered in fans, cats, and fancy cutlery, Trixie should get away with this). She spins around twice to show herself off to the group, hoping for Katya to jump in on Sasha’s compliment, but Katya is busy looking for her lighter in her purse and doesn’t look up at her.

♥♥♥

The club they have picked is a queer club (because why step outside your bubble when you don’t have to) and Trixie is delighted with the energy there. It’s pretty small and a little bit dirty, the walls are plastered with posters of upcoming events and events long passed, either smoking is allowed inside or at least nobody cares, and some people are dressed weird enough that Trixie and her group don’t raise too much attention. It’s also the club where Adore has most of their gigs and where they – and apparently everyone they know – get to drink for free. Trixie orders a Gin and Tonic and leans against the bar, taking in the club around her. Being in a club and not being drunk has an unreal quality to it, and something about the heat and the loud music always makes Trixie feel a little drunk before she even starts drinking. Katya gets up on the bar stool right next to Trixie, back to the bar, and crosses her legs so that her shoe lightly touches Trixie’s thigh. She is wearing green jellies and Trixie wants to comment on them, but Katya is busy taking a video of Sasha, probably for her Instagram. The spotlights on the ceiling rapidly change from green to purple and back, reflecting prettily in the ice cubes in Trixie’s drink and Trixie can already feel a bit of sweat forming on the small of her back although she has yet to start dancing.

So far, there’s no dancing except for a group of guys awkwardly shuffling around in one of the corners. Trixie feels ready to dance, but not ready to be the only one dancing and having all eyes on her, especially not in the dress she is wearing. Chi Chi, however, doesn’t seem to have such qualms. He has barely taken a sip of his vodka tonic before he abandons the drink on the counter, walks to the middle of the dance floor and starts going hard. The song they are currently playing doesn’t have any lyrics, but that doesn’t stop Chi Chi from singing along loud enough for Trixie to hear him over the music. Chi Chi’s moves are enough to inspire a couple of people to start dancing as well, although nobody comes even close to his energy. After drowning not only her own drink but also Chi Chi’s, Juju drags Shangela on the dance floor, and Trixie trails behind them. She starts dancing rather carefully, her drink still half full in her hand, and her mind aware of Katya watching them with her phone in hand, texting someone. It’s probably Violet, Trixie thinks, and feels her stomach knot, and she probably should stop being hyper aware of Katya when Katya obviously isn’t paying her any attention. It takes her another minute to truly shift her attention and instead focus on Chi Chi and the others, on their silly dance moves and their laughs, and the light reflecting in their hair.

After an intense half hour of some of the most ambitious dancing Trixie has ever seen in a club, Chi Chi kisses Shangela goodbye, messes up Juju’s hair and gives a wave to Trixie and the rest of the group at the bar, before saying: “That’s it, I’m out” and leaving the club. Trixie is slightly puzzled. The night was only just getting started. “He always does that”, Katya, coming up behind her, says loudly into Trixie’s ear. She places both of her hands on Trixie’s shoulder and gets on her toes to talk to her. “He goes hard for thirty minutes tops and then just goes home to sleep. And then he makes fun of everyone else for being hungover in the morning” Katya is so close Trixie can see where her red lipstick is slightly overdrawn. A strand of her hair is sticking to the side of her neck. She let’s go of Trixie before Trixie can reply and starts dancing, suggestively grinding against Juju until Shangela squeezes in between them and all but sushes Katya away.

♥♥♥

Two hours later, Trixie is a little drunk and a lot happy. Everyone but Kim has joined them on the dance floor and they take turns taking breaks and sitting with Kim – which mostly involves making fun of the rest of them dancing. Trixie tries again and again to get Kim on the dance floor, but every time Kim points to her nine-inch heels and tells her there is just no way. After another two gin and tonics, Trixie feels free enough to bust out her favourite dance moves, which resemble tap dancing and which she learned taking a class four years ago. She’s a little rusty and she can barely remember how to properly do the steps, but she’s making everybody laugh in the best way, and that’s all she can hope for. Shangela and Juju are making out heavily against the wall behind her, without a care in the world for their surroundings. Sasha is talking animatedly to a stranger in a bowler hat, Jinkx has her arms around Kim’s shoulders from behind and seems to be taking a nap on her, and Adore is dancing with Katya and Trixie, every now and then mirroring one of Trixie’s moves in a half-mocking way. The music at the club is mostly 80s pop in questionable remixes and they shout along with the lyrics (and pretend to shout along where they don’t know the lyrics), and when What a Feeling comes on, Katya starts cartwheeling in the too small space and manages to kick pretty much all of them at least once.

It’s 5 am when they make their way back home, Trixie and Kim to Campus, the others to the house. Trixie’s hearing feels muffled, her feet and her back hurt, her voice is hoarse from screaming to the music, and the cold air bites into her skin where it’s sweaty from the club, and she decides they are going to this club at least once a week from now on. Kim, however, swears she’s not going to go out again for at least half a year.

When they stumble into their hallway, Trixie impulsively wraps her arms around Kim’s shoulders and hugs her as they continue walking. “Thank you” she says. “No, thank you.” Kim replies dryly. With you in the group, I’m not the worst dancer anymore.”

Trixie’s already half asleep in her bed when her phone buzzes with a message from Katya.

Katya

You looked like a goth Barbie doll tonight and I love it.

♥♥♥

Trixie spends the rest of her first weekend in Boston in their apartment, where Kim teaches her how to glue on fake lashes and overdraw her lips. Trixie is pretty much in awe of Kim’s skills, especially since she found out that Kim makes most of her clothes herself. Trixie itches with the desire to go out and buy some more clothes she likes, but she has to save her money for rent. At least one good thing came out of her hesitating to go to college: she has some savings and can make rent without too much of a problem, but still, better not splurge before she has a new job. Kim says she can just wear whatever she wants from her part of the closet, so it’s fine. Trixie spends quite a bit of time trying on Kim’s clothes, finding out which dresses fit her, and which don’t, and which lip stick looks best with which dress.

She doesn’t see Katya this weekend, and in fact hasn’t even replied to her 5 am text yet, a text that had kept her up for another half hour. Katya likes her. Or, at least likes her style, and her style reflects on her, doesn’t it? Honestly, the main reason why Trixie hasn’t replied is because in her happy buzzed state she had felt like replying with several heart emojis, but knew this wasn’t an appropriate answer.

At some point during their lazy Sunday Trixie realizes that Katya doesn’t even know Trixie is gay. But it doesn’t matter, she decides. It’s not like Katya’s available anyway.

Chapter 4: In Which the Rain is Metaphorical

The second week of Uni is a lot more stressful for Trixie than the first one. She has a hard time focusing in her lectures and seminars, not because they are boring – ok, some of them are, but not all of them – but because she doesn’t like sitting and listening without talking herself for too long. The lights in the lecture hall are always a little too bright, her professor’s voices always a little too dull, and the other students always a little too loud. She finds herself drifting off a lot, and spends more time with anxious thoughts about upcoming exams than actually listening. She can’t fail at this, she thinks, she just can’t.

On Thursday in her second week, she has an interview at the day care Shangela works at. It’s called Miles of Smiles Childcare, it’s painted a bright blue and the windows are full of children’s art. There’s a jungle scene painted all over the big front window, with barely distinguishable animals obviously drawn by enthusiastic toddlers. Trixie likes it there right away.

Her interview is with a large woman with a deep booming voice. She’s called Latrice and is in charge of the day care, but looks like she might as well be in charge of the country. Trixie follows her through the hallway into her office, bumping into kids who cross her path in unexpected way not only once, but several times. There is a stray tomato lying next to a single shoe right in front of Latrice’s door, which Latrice picks up with a sigh and places on the desk in her office. Once they are sitting on opposite sides of Latrice’s desk, Latrice offers her tea and cherry gummy bears that are already set up on the table. Trixie takes two of the cherries and notices with relief that she feels rather relaxed. There’s something about the ugly yellow of Latrice’s office walls and Latrice’s calm smile that has a soothing effect on her.

The interview goes over rather well. Latrice is unimpressed with Trixie’s work experience in the field (which basically comes down to her baby sitting her neighbour’s kids every time their dad had to take out their mom to make up for the stunts he kept pulling), but Shangela must have talked Trixie up quite a bit, because Latrice wants her back the next day to see what she can do. Trixie is nervous about that, nervous about an opportunity to fuck up yet another thing, but when she walks through the corridors of the day care, all bright and colourful and loud, she knows she really wants this.

She’s on her way back home when her phone buzzes.

Katya

Heard you have your interview today. You’ll be fine! I mean, they took Shangie, and she’s Shangie, so their standards aren’t too high. This time, Trixie texts back immediately.

Trixie

You’re late, interview’s over. Went well!

Katya

Good! Sasha ditched me for a date with weird-hat-guy, so I’m lonely do you maybe want to get drinks? I should get a hat like that, don’t you think

Drinks? With Katya? Trixie’s heart starts beating way too fast and she sits down on a nearby bench for a second, weighing her options. She’s not sure going out with Katya is the best idea for her. After all, she is still only semi-successful in not developing a crush on that girl. At the same time though there is no way she could say no to that offer. She hasn’t had time to talk to Katya alone since they went to get plants and maybe, just maybe, hanging out with her would help her in demystifying Katya and moving on. So maybe hanging out with Katya is the best thing she can do.

Trixie

I hope it’s milkshakes

Katya

At that milkshake bar? Yeah, sure I’ll be there in twenty?

Trixie is at the 50s milkshake bar fifteen minutes later, her stomach fluttering a little. So far, she’s barely spent time with Katya, and she’s not even sure she can hold a conversation with her. The last thing she wants Katya to think is that she’s boring. Trixie isn’t boring, she knows that, but she also knows that she’s too good at hiding that fact sometimes.

When Katya arrives it’s on a bike with a deflated wheel that seems to take her all her strength to ride. She probably would have been faster on foot. “It’s Juju’s” she says, as if that was an explanation, and then “Hi”. She hugs Trixie and she’s a little sweaty from her ride here and Trixie can smell her shampoo in her hair for a second. She doesn’t know what it smells like, it reminds her faintly of…yellow? Trixie isn’t good with scents. Today’s outfit includes a dress with a pattern of coffee beans and a necklace of the crow they had gotten together. Katya had already broken her promise to wear that thing every time they see each other, but apparently, she hasn’t thrown it out yet either. She’s also wearing big brown glasses. Trixie didn’t know Katya had glasses. She catches herself thinking that the glasses make Katya look even more beautiful, and internally rolls her eyes at herself. That’s just too much.

Half an hour later, while sipping the rest of her strawberry milkshake, Trixie is assured she doesn’t bore Katya. Quite the contrary, she’s rather successful at making Katya laugh; a laugh that makes her flail her arms in front of her almost every time. She tells Katya a little about the guests at the hotel, and brings out every funny exchange she can remember, sometimes shamelessly exaggerating, just so she can get that laugh out of Katya. It works every time. Trixie is pleased with herself.

After Trixie admits she doesn’t know what Butoh dance is (she had wanted to look it up but her refusal to indulge in her Katya madness had stopped her), Katya pulls out her phone and shows her a video on her friend Laganja’s Instagram. Katya and three other people, all of them in bodysuits, are…moving around to synthetic music in a dance studio. There’s a lot of dramatically exaggerated facial expressions, falling to the floor, and twisting your body in ways Trixie could never do. It’s mesmerizing, artistic, impressive, and also hilarious. At one point, when Katya lies on her stomach, grabbing her feet with her hands and letting a silent scream into the camera, Trixie chokes on her drink. She goes into a little laughing fit, can’t help herself, and Katya, turning off the video grabs her shoulder and says: “This is art, bitch. Get with it.”

“The art of what exactly” Trixie retorts, still laughing and a little relieved that Katya doesn’t look to be too insulted. “The art of moving your body in a way nobody ever wants to see?”

“Exactly. Yes!” Katya yells out, hitting the table twice as punctuation, making a man a few tables over shoot them a curious look. “That’s exactly it! I mean, it isn’t of course, but that’s exactly it!”

“Look at me, getting art.”

“Get it or it gets you!” Katya puts away her phone and flips through the short menu again. “You should come to one of our shows sometime. You’d fit right in with Shangie and Juju, last time they almost got kicked out of the theatre because they couldn’t pull themselves together.” Katya grins at that memory.

“Is there a show this weekend? I have, like, nothing on.”

Katya shakes her head no. “I’m actually not here this weekend and maybe all of next week. We’ll see, I’m visiting someone.” There’s beat of silence before that last word and Trixie wonders whether she should maybe not ask further questions, but her curiosity wins over.

“Who?”

“Violet.”

“Oh. Your girlfriend, right?” Trixie says as casually as possible, not looking at Katya and instead focussing on the ice cubes in her glass. There’s one that’s shaped like a foot. Trixie crushes it into pieces with her pink straw.

“Yeah.” Is Katya’s only answer. She closes the menu and leans back in her seat, looking at Trixie expectantly.

“So are you guys, like, long distance? Kim says she’s travelling?” Trixie asks after a few long seconds of silence in which she contemplated changing the subject back to the hotel, to Laganja, to her classes, anything else.

“Yeah. Uh, she’s travelling with a show as an Aerial performer, she’s pretty incredible.” Katya’s eyes light up at that. “We met at the house, she lives here too.”

Trixie knows all this.

“Do you manage to see her a lot?”

“Nope.” Katya says, playing with a crumb on the table. She pushes it back and forth with her straw, leaving a small trail of bubbly milkshake foam on the plastic table. “But it’s fine, you know, or it will be. I’m done with Uni next summer and who knows, maybe I can travel with her. I have some talents as well, as you know!” At that, she grins before she immediately gets serious again. “She’s in New York sometimes and that’s when I get to see her most.” Katya takes off her glasses and rubs them on the bottom of her dress. The dress, which is a little too short anyway, rides up, but Katya is mostly covered by the table. Trixie forces her eyes away and looks out of the window they’re seated next to. It’s getting dark outside and her reflection stares back at her out of the window. She’s pale in the light of the bar and a strand of hair has gotten out of the bow at the back of her neck. She hopes her hair wasn’t messed up like this at her interview earlier. It’s drizzling outside, a big puddle is forming right in front of her on the sidewalk and the thought of Katya maybe being gone all week makes her feel forlorn somehow.

“So you’re going to be in New York all week?”

“Oh, I’m going tomorrow and then we’ll see. It’s not easy to plan this stuff and her schedule changes around all the time and I also never know how long I’ll want to stay. Sometimes she has time off and we get to do stuff, but then other times no. But this time should be fine, I’ pretty sure we have a room just the two of us this time. There’s this girl travelling with her who’s a little, uh. Valentina. She’s cool, I like her, but she’s also awful, and, ugh, I’m not even sure what bothers me so much about her, but it’s something. It’s something!”

“Maybe you just want some alone time?” Trixie tries to sound casual, fixing her hair distractedly.

“Yes. Yes, alone time would help.” Katya says and sighs quietly. Then her mood suddenly changes and she’s grinning again. “Alone time would help” she repeats, and winks at Trixie obnoxiously. Trixie forces herself to grin and then focusses back on the puddle on the sidewalk. It’s growing and growing, and the rain is leaking in a trickle out of its corners down the empty street.

♥♥♥

Working at Smiles for Miles is a challenge, that’s for sure. Trixie arrives after her morning lecture and barely has any time to settle in before she has to comfort a little boy who’s crying because his mom is coming to pick him up half an hour later than usual. She awkwardly sits on the floor with him trying to come up with things to distract him, and when she gets up ten minutes later her legs have fallen asleep and she almost stumbles into a little bookshelf. Just when the boy stops crying, Trixie has to break off a fight between two girls. She’s not sure she gets what the fight is about. Apparently one girl uses the purple pen too much so that another one can’t use it, but when Trixie points to at least seven other purple pens right in front of them on the table it doesn’t seem to solve anything.

She barely gets to her actual task: to change the decorations on the window from paper bunnies to paper leaves the kids made this morning. Shangela is in the room with her, keeping an eye on her per Latrice’s orders. She’s sitting in a corner of the room with a couple of kids and builds a space station out of Legos. She looks to be a lot more relaxed than Trixie is and doesn’t come to Trixie’s aid once.

The kids are curious about Trixie and, not being able to distinguish between things that are important (changing the decorations) and things that are not (everything else), keep coming up to Trixie with things like this

“I’m sleeping over at Tom’s tonight. His mum is making chicken fingers.”

“Do you know where I live?”

“You have pretty hair.”

“My uncle is a fire fighter and his car is bigger than your car.”

“Can you count to 100?”

“Will you come to my birthday party?”

“Can I touch your hair?”

“Maisie is sleeping at my place tonight. We are making chicken fingers.”

“Annie says she’s a fairy princess but she’s not. She doesn’t even have the wings. But I have the wings. But they are at home. But I can get them, can I go?”

“I can count to six billion trillion. One, two, three, four, five…”

Trixie is stressed out at first, but slowly settles into the ridiculousness of it all, deciding that putting up the decorations can’t really be what Latrice wants to see from her. Instead, she engages with the kids. Turns out, a lot of them want to touch her hair. Turns out, Trixie likes having her hair touched (Well, except by Sebastian, whose fingers are stickier than is acceptable). When Latrice comes to check on her two hours later, Trixie is sitting in a rocking chair with two kids on her lap and a couple more at her feet, reading the Rainbow Fish. It’s a good thing she knows that book pretty much by heart, because the kids on the floor insist on looking at the pictures the whole time, making it almost impossible for Trixie to get a look at the words. She has to read quite loudly to be heard over the space battle fight Shangela and her kids have going on in the corner. Trixie feels her voice getting hoarse already. The space battle ends as soon as Latrice walks in and looks over the room. Latrice gives Trixie a nod and a satisfied smile.

♥♥♥

The next day is a Saturday. It’s sunny outside and Trixie almost takes a walk before breakfast to enjoy the sun after the last days of constant rain. Almost. Kim is away visiting her mum, and Trixie, who had been looking forward to having the room for herself for a while, feels a little lost without her. With Kim and Katya gone, she doesn’t really know what to do with her weekend and spends most of her Saturday on her homework. It’s a good thing she has time to catch up, honestly. She tends to underestimate the work she needs to do for her classes, always counting on her smarts to get her through, but she had to learn pretty fast that she is one of the least experienced people in her seminars and that catching up with the others is not going to be easy. Trixie lies on the floor in between her and Kim’s bed and reads pages after pages of highly theoretical texts. The way they read, their primary intention seems to be to never be understood by anyone, ever. Trixie spends a lot of time marking key phrases in different colours and developing an organization scheme for her course work, and little time getting her reading done. She is taking a break changing her nail colour from plum to light blue – to match her highlighter – when her phone buzzes with a text from Shangela.

Shangela

Talked to Latrice. You’re in & the kids won’t shut up about your Barbie hair. :) Text me the times you’re free and we’ll work out our schedule :) halleloo!! :) :)

“Yessssssss!” Trixie shouts out, jumping up from the floor doing a silly dance in front of Kim’s mirror. She has a job! She’s going to be paid! When she picks her phone off the floor to text back Shangela, she sees she has an Instagram notification – which, given the fact that she barely ever posts anything on there is pretty rare. She clicks it and sees Katya has liked one of her pictures. Her stomach twists a little at the sight of Katya’s name. The picture she liked is one of Trixie’s notebook with some song lyrics she had been proud of at the time – the time being five years ago. The notebook lies next to her guitar on her bed, pink sheets, a pink pillow. She remembers having taken quite a lot of time to arrange things for this photo only to gather a whopping amount of two likes on it. Now there’s a third one. She’s instantly mortified and reads over her lyrics again, trying to pin point just out how embarrassing this was. Well. Pretty embarrassing.

She had written the lyrics after her break up with Shea and they basically screamed: I’m heartbroken and I don’t know how to express myself but I really need to do it anyway, please metaphorically hold my hand by giving me likes on this picture, thank you.

Hang on.

How had Katya even found that picture? Granted, it doesn’t take that long to scroll though Trixie’s Instagram, but this is one of her earliest posts and there’s about two hundred pictures between this one and her latest one. Had Katya really scrolled through all of them? And if yes, why? Trixie sits back down on the floor where she spent most of today and scrolls through her own profile, looking for any more embarrassing shit Katya could have seen. There’s some pictures of her in a lot of ugly makeup doing the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Given Katya’s own ventures with makeup, Trixie thinks these aren’t so bad. There’s a lot of pictures of Trixie with her guitar, some taken by friends from school, some awkwardly taken by herself. Those are fine, except for the occasional bad hair style. Most of the pictures show landscapes and farm animals and more or less dumb and or thoughtful captions Trixie had come up with. There was one picture of Trixie’s favourite cow that she had captioned with: You’re not fucked up. It’s your behaviour. There was another one of that cow and Trixie in matching flower crowns. Then there were a bunch of pictures showing her and Shea, that didn’t give any indication that they were anything other than friends and that made Trixie’s heart ache a little. But all in all, not much to see. It is then that she gets a text.

Katya

How you doing, Beatrice?

Trixie snorts at the sight of her own name. How does Katya even know this? Is Katya short for something? She doesn’t know.

Trixie

Got the job at the Smilemile. Am thinking all I’ll have to do is sit still and be a Barbie doll and then collect my check.

Katya

That’s the dream. Well, a dream Not my dream. Sounds pretty bad. badddd Liking the check part

Trixie

Also finished all my coursework Workin it!

Katya

But it’s Saturday Don’t you know homework is for Monday morning When u already felt bad abt it all weekend and u have a couple of minutes before classes and you’re freaking out That’s the sweet spot, mamma

It’s 6pm on a Saturday, Katya is with her girlfriend in New York, and she is texting Trixie. She wonders where they are right now, what they are doing. Maybe they aren’t together yet? Maybe Katya is still on her way, bored at some train station. Maybe she has already gone through the news, and twitter, and everybody else’s Instagram and Trixie’s the last bit of entertainment she has. Or, maybe, she’s at Violet’s show, waiting for it to start. Unlikely. She doesn’t know exactly what kind of show they’re doing but it definitely looks like a night time thing. Like, late at night. Maybe she should look at Violet’s Instagram some more. Violet is so pretty, and skinny, and perfect.

Unknown Number

Hi, Katya says you’re alone and standing in the rain outside being sad. If you want you can always come over. There’s not much going on, but we are playing video games and Jinkx is showing Adore how to fry an egg. Sasha.

Trixie

Katya! It’s not even raining!

Katya

The rain is a metaphor Metaphorical rain! Get with it

Trixie

What’s your damage

Katya

You don’t know what to do with yourself because I’m gone And Kim But me also The rain is the absence of meaning And me Can’t spell meaning without me HAA Did u know that, I didn’t MEaning I love that

Trixie

I hate that.

Trixie

Hey Sasha, thanks for inviting me, I’ll be there in 20

Trixie spends another two minutes lying on the floor but neither Katya nor Sasha respond to her again, so she finally gets up, relieved that she has something to do now, somewhere to go. She gets dressed quickly, in one of Kim’s earlier dresses, that didn’t come out too well but that’s very warm and comfortable. When she checks herself in the mirror, she notices that she doesn’t care much about what she looks like today, because Katya isn’t going to be there to see her. That realization makes her huff. This is stupid. Since when does she dress for Katya? Dressing for Katya is pointless for at least two reasons: 1) Dressing for anyone is stupid. 2) Katya, specifically, dresses like if a scarecrow had a baby with some kind of alien life form.

This is why Trixie takes off the comfy dress and exchanges it for an uncomfortably tight pink pencil skirt and a fluffy pink sweater. Then she puts on a full face of makeup, just for herself, and likes it so much she even takes a selfie (or twenty-five) to upload to instagram later. Well, maybe this isn’t just for herself. Who cares. This is complicated. Trixie spends her first Saturday night without Kim in the Love Shack’s living room playing Mario Kart with Chi Chi and Adore. She curses herself a little for wearing a tight skirt just to sit on a couch and envies Adore who isn’t even wearing pants, but she is having a great night - even though she keeps checking her phone for more messages from Katya. But Katya is with Violet, and it’s not like Trixie’s last message invited a response anyway. Her phone stays silent.

♥♥♥

Trixie’s first week of balancing Uni and her new job is a struggle to say the least. It takes most of her Sunday to try and rearrange her schedule, so she can work at the day care three times a week. She even drops a class because of that, but that’s okay, she had taken on more classes that she needed, expecting for something like this to happen.

On her first real day of work Trixie finds out fast that working here is not going to involve a lot of sitting around like a Barbie, and instead involves a lot of quick tough decisions. At lunch time Aaron spits his tea into Evan’s face, which sends Evan into a fit of rage. Trixie knows what to do, sort of, but not really, and keeps her arms locked tight around Evan, who struggles to get free and screams at Aaron. Trixie is doing her best to calm him down, keeping her voice as soothing as possible and making sure not to hurt him with her grip. It’s scary to see how angry a child can get, he’s shaking with rage and she’s not sure she knows what he’d do if she let him go. Thankfully, Shangela and another co-worker, Betty, are in the room as well and look calm, so she must be doing an okay job. Ten minutes later, when Aaron is peacefully playing with a train on the carpet, Trixie is still a little shaken. Her neighbours’ kids never got this angry.

Katya remains gone all week and doesn’t text Trixie once. She updates her Instagram daily, however. Most of her videos are random things she filmed in the streets in New York, things that caught Katya’s attention for some reason. Some of her videos contain Violet, leaning over a bridge, eating a waffle, and doing nothing much but making Trixie feel bad. Katya’s latest video is of a plate of ravioli that Katya keeps zooming in and out of, laughing hysterically.

When Trixie gets home from Uni and work every day, she’s exhausted, but always looking forward to evenings of Netflix, makeup and watching Kim make clothes. This is how her first month of her new life passes. Not every second is exciting, not even every day is, but every day something small has Trixie feel grateful that she came here.

Chapter 5: In Which Katya Doesn’t See The Sunrise

“I don’t know. This is too much. Is this too much? It might be too much” Trixie says, frowning at herself in their mirror.

“No, it is perfect” Kim reassures her.

“But – “

“Perfect”

It’s a Friday night and they are invited to Juju’s birthday party later. It’s 80s themed. Kim went all out with their 80s looks, claiming that motto- and costume parties are the only parties that matter. This is why Trixie is currently in a pink velvet body suit, complete with a fanny pack, yellow cuffs, and pink headphones on. Roller girl fantasy Kim calls this creation. It is too much. But she is also not changing out of it, not now that she has spent almost an hour on the perfect hair and make up for it. She can’t stop looking at herself in the mirror.

Trixie has been looking forward to this party ever since she got the invite two weeks ago. Her social life hasn’t exactly been thrilling lately, between homework and her job, she’s barely hung out with anyone but Kim. She also hasn’t seen Katya in a while. The few times she went over to Katya’s, Katya usually wasn’t home. One night, Trixie was playing video games with Chi Chi and Adore when Katya walked in, sat down on the couch next to Adore, and watched them play, falling asleep on a bag of chips after a while. One other time Trixie was baking cookies with Kim and Shangela at the house and Katya joined them, making a mess of the kitchen. Other than that, they barely saw each other. The good news is, Trixie has used this time to ban Katya out of her thoughts. She has been mostly successful at that; she’s not thinking about Katya before going to sleep, she not looking at Katya’s Instagram, and she’s definitely not looking at Violet’s. The bad news is, she can’t wait to see Katya tonight and she hopes to get another compliment for her outfit from her. The ‘goth Barbie doll’ is still echoing through her mind. But that’s okay. Baby steps.

They get to Juju’s late, because getting ready always takes longer than you think. Also, if Trixie is honest, she got ready extra slow on purpose, because there’s nothing more awkward than arriving at a party early, when everybody just sits around and waits for the party feeling to kick in. No thank you.

Luckily, when they get there, the party is in full swing, with people spilling out of the house into the garden and music so loud Trixie feels like this can only end in a neighbour’s complaint. Somebody has set up a wading pool in the garden, full of ice cubes and beers. Classy.

Trixie and Kim go inside, looking for Juju or anybody else they know. The kitchen is stuffed with people, most of them wearing clothes that might have been fashionable some time between the 60s and the 90s – nobody seems to take the 80s motto too seriously - , there’s ABBA blasting from the stereo and a lot of smoking inside. Bob definitely wouldn’t approve. The first familiar person they find is Jinkx. They are sitting on the kitchen counter, sipping tea, looking calmly around the room, not interacting with anyone. Their 80s outfit isn’t really 80s at all. Like the dress Trixie wore to the club the other night it is out of black lace, but this one is a lot less tight and goes past Jinkx’ feet. Jinkx must just have stepped out of the shower, because their hair is still wet. They look like a witch, Trixie thinks.

“You look like a swamp witch”, Kim greets Jinkx and hugs them were they are propped up on the counter.

“Thank you”

They stay with Jinkx for a while, Trixie hopping up on the kitchen counter next to them. It’s a nice view from here and for now she’s comfortable socializing with just Kim and Jinkx. Jinkx, as turns out, studied four semesters of Early Childhood Education before switching majors and goes out of their way to let Trixie know all there is to know about her professors and courses and even offers Trixie their old materials, including text books. The evening has already paid off just for this. Trixie is in the middle of complaining about one professor’s messy presentations in his lectures when Katya comes up behind Kim and yells “hi!” into Kim’s ear so loud that Trixie flinches. The stereo is loud, but not that loud. That was unnecessary. Katya is wearing a simple colour blocked dress that’s much too big on her, and her open hair is teased into more volume than she normally has. Trixie awkwardly leans forward to hug her without getting up from her prime spot on the counter – she’s decided that’s her party spot for tonight. From her position, Katya feels even smaller than usual. As always between them, Katya lets go of the hug first, takes a step back and beams at her, making a motion that indicates Trixie from top to bottom: “This. Is. Amazing” she says, validating all of Kim’s and Trixie’s efforts in three simple words. Trixie feels herself blush a little but hopes it’s not visible in the dim light of the kitchen. Only when Kim elbows her slightly does Katya make sure to compliment Kim as well.

“What are we drinking?” Katya asks, taking Kim’s cup and smelling the drink. “Tea? Really Jinkx?”

As if on cue, Shangela pops up behind Katya, a bottle of wine and some plastic cups in hand. “Kim, Trixie! Finally, we thought we would have to do this without you” she shouts as a way of greeting, handing all of them cups and pouring in a generous amount of wine before leaving as quickly as she came. Trixie notes she didn’t offer Katya a cup. Does Katya not drink? She opens her mouth to ask Katya just that when Katya seems to spot somebody at the other side of the room. “Hang on” she says, sounding excited. “Be back in a second, I want you to meet someone, Trix” When she comes back, she is accompanied by a very tall, very intimidating looking girl, in a purple dress that’s a little too tight to be convincingly 80s but that looks amazing nonetheless. Violet. Of course. Of course Violet would be here for Juju’s birthday. Trixie doesn’t know why that thought hadn’t occurred to her before. She could have used some time to prepare for this. She takes a big sip of wine and sits up straight, crossing her legs and draping her hair over her shoulder.

Violet kisses Kim on the cheek and gives Trixie a small smile.

“Trixie, this is Violet. Violet, Trixie. Kim’s new roommate.”

“Hi” Violet says, giving Trixie a once over. She looks a little bored. There’s nothing boring about Trixie, so that look pisses her off a little. She tries to mirror the look and holds Violet’s eyes for a couple of seconds.

“Violet managed to get the weekend off just to come to Juju’s birthday!” Katya says, her smile big and her eyes glistening.

Violet snorts slightly at that. “Well, mostly for you, babe. You know Juju can’t stand me.”

“Even better” Katya says, grinning, and takes Violet’s hand.

This is bad. This is pretty bad. Of course Trixie knew that Katya is in a relationship, but knowing about it in an abstract way, and seeing it play out right in front of her are two very different things. Trixie withdraws from the conversation completely, trying to listen and not focus on where Violet and Katya stand so close their sides are touching. The group are talking about Violet’s show and her experiences on the road, with Violet, Jinkx and Kim doing most of the talking. There’s an aura of arrogance and disinterest surrounding Violet. She speaks in a mostly monotonous voice, sounding bored about experiences that to Trixie seem to be the opposite of boring. Apparently, she has spent the last couple of months on a tour bus with fire-eaters and acrobats, touring most of the US. She seems over it. With a stab of pain, however, Trixie notices that Violet’s eyes turn soft whenever she looks at Katya. At one point during the conversation, she puts her arm around the much smaller girl, hugs her closer to her side, and kisses the top of her head. This is when Trixie decides she needs to leave the kitchen. Her party spot be damned.

Once she is out of the kitchen, she leans against the wall in the hallway for a second. Deep breaths. None of this is news. None of this matters. She waits until her heart has stopped racing, grabs a bottle of wine that’s just sitting there on the ground waiting for her, and decides to see who else is there. She is going to have a good time tonight. Wearing what she’s wearing she just has to.

♥♥♥

Trixie finds Juju, Shangela, and a bunch of people she doesn’t know sitting in folding chairs around the wading pool. Juju has her naked feet in the pool, in the ice cubes, in the middle of October. “Trixieeeeeeee!” she shouts when she sees her, “come here, tell me happy birthday!”

“Happy birthday” Trixie grins, sitting down in one of the folding chairs next to her. It’s covered in one of the ugliest floral prints Trixie has ever seen.

“I’m drunk, are you drunk?”, Juju asks her, waving a bottle of vodka around and almost hitting Shangela’s head.

“Working on it.” Trixie indicates her bottle of wine.

Juju looks at her expectantly.

“What?” Trixie asks.

“So we’ve been talking” Juju waggles her eyebrows at Trixie, trying to prompt her to ask her to go on.

Shangela puts her hand on Juju’s thigh and shakes her head lightly. “Come on, Jujubee, just don’t.”

“What?” Trixie asks again. She puts up her feet at the edge of the wading pool, trying to not put too much weight on it so the water doesn’t spill out. Some spills out anyway, immediately seeping into her shoes and making her toes freeze.

“Do you like the ladies?” Juju asks gleefully, swatting Shangela’s hand away.

“Huh?”

“The Ladies. You know, I like them. Or I like Shangie, but that’s the same thing. It’s the same thing!” She stops and blows Shangela an overdramatic kiss, who rolls her eyes at her with a little smile. This apparently prompts Juju to get up and sit in Shangela’s lap, who is trying her best to remain her balance in the cheap chair. “Ladies are lovely. If you like them, there’s somebody you should meet. Somebody likes you! Ahh!”

“Oh. Umm. Yes, I, uh ‘like the ladies’” Trixie doesn’t quite know what to make of this conversation. If Juju keeps bouncing up and down like that, the chair will break and maybe they’ll land in the pool. That would be funny. She hopes the chair will break.

Juju screeches at Trixie’s answer and slaps Shangela’s shoulder excitedly. “See! I told you”

“You told me, darling” Shangela nods patiently.

Juju seems to suddenly realize something. “But do you have a girlfriend? Please don’t have a girlfriend.” Her voice is whiny. She is too involved in this, Trixie thinks.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.” Trixie says, trying not to sound too bitter. She takes another big sip of wine. Was this bottle full when she got it? She isn’t sure. She tries to get excited about somebody asking about her but can’t quite manage to do that.

“Do you want one? I can introduce you” Juju wiggles her eyebrows at her so vigorously that one of her fake lashes detaches from her lid and dangles left of her eye.

Trixie thinks about it. She should do this, she should. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Even if she doesn’t care about this person, getting to kiss somebody is always nice. She sips on her wine some more, leans back in her chair, and unwittingly her mind drifts off to kissing Katya. Leaning in, slightly down, and putting her pink lips on Katya’s red ones, feeling their softness, smudging their lipsticks. She thinks about putting one hand on Katya’s neck, pulling her closer to her, and one hand on Katya’s back, travelling down, slowly down.

An ice cube hitting her shoulder puts her out of her fantasies. “Trixie! You wanna meet her or what” Juju whines impatiently, already fishing for more ice cubes to throw, but they keep slipping through her clumsy fingers.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

♥♥♥

The party goes on for hours and everybody seems to have a good time. Trixie does her best to have a good time as well, but it’s hard when she runs into Violet and Katya at least another ten times. Violet and Katya dancing on the patio. Violet and Katya talking to people in the hallway, their arms wrapped around each other. Violet and Katya cheering for Chi Chi in his beer pong game. After a little while, Trixie ends up lying on the sofa in the living room, doing nothing but watching Adore blow smoke circles out of the open window, and half listening to the conversations they’re having with people outside. The music is loud, the people are loud, and she feels heavy with alcohol, but she is peaceful just lying here. Part of her is angry for not having a better time and using her chance to dance to some of her favourite songs, but she’s learned in her life that a good time can’t be forced.

She must have fallen asleep after a while because when she wakes up, the sky is starting to turn pink with the sunrise, and the room around her is empty save for some people passed out on the floor and quiet hushed conversations. She thinks about just sleeping here, but her outfit is uncomfortable, and she needs to get all this makeup off, so she gets up to leave through the garden. She feels slightly buzzed, but she stopped drinking a couple of hours ago, so she should be fine.

There is a small group of people still at the wading pool and they are stumbling up to make their way home just as Trixie passes them. One of them can’t find his shoe, which Trixie spots floating in the pool. She doesn’t say anything.

Trixie is about to leave the garden when she hears a soft familiar voice behind her. “Hey, Trixie”

Katya is sitting leaned against the big tree, her knees pulled to her face, smoking. She’s alone.

“Hi” Trixie says, wondering for a second if she should continue walking or not. She takes another two steps, then decides to turn around and walks up to Katya. She looks lost.

“What are you doing here?” Trixie asks.

“Me? Oh, err, watching the sunrise. I like watching the sunrise.”

Trixie frowns at that. The sun is rising, is slowly turning the part of the sky behind the house a soft pink colour; and Katya, with her back to the house, can’t see this at all. Trixie does not point that out.

“Where’s Violet?”

“She’s sleeping” Katya puts out her cigarette against the cold ground and lights another one. She looks at Trixie for a long second, chewing her lip, then asks “Do you maybe want to stay for a couple of minutes? I can’t go to sleep yet.”

Trixie has never seen Katya like this. She looks sad and drained of energy, very unlike her usual self. Trixie pulls of one of the ugly lawn chair cushions and sits down on it opposite of Katya. The ground is cold beneath her even through the cushion. She doesn’t quite know what to do and starts digging little holes into the ground with her fake pink nails that she spent too much time decorating. There’s little hearts on every second finger, or there used to be. Most of them must have come off at some point during the night, and they took the underlying nail polish with them. Now there are heart-shaped holes in Trixie’s nails. Trixie wants to say something, fill the silence, but one look at Katya tells her Katya is trying to get up the nerve to say something herself, so Trixie waits.

This is what comes out of Katya after what feels like an hour, but was probably only a minute:

“I’m screwing this up”

Trixie tries to catch Katya’s eyes at that, but Katya puts her head against the tree and faces the sky, her eyes closed.

“Screwing what up?”

“With her. With this! My life? Everything. Take a pick.

“Did anything happen between Violet and you?” Trixie asks, hating herself for the small glimmer of hope she feels inside her stomach at that. This is not a nice thing to feel. Her right index finger hits a stone under the dirt in the garden and the nail comes off almost entirely. Trixie pulls it off and buries it in the dirt next to a patch of dandelions.

“No. I don’t know. I don’t know. Did you know it took me months to convince her to even go out with me? Months. She just wasn’t interested. She rejected me again and again and I can still remember that. And we’re together now, but I can still remember that. I didn’t change, you know? I’m still the person she rejected” Katya shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you this, you were on your way home. Sorry.”

“But, I don’t know, she kept getting to know you better and finding out new things about you, so that’s probably why she changed her mind. People change their minds, you know.” Trixie says softly, trying to be as helpful as she can. God, she’s not used to conversations like this. The only person she ever talked to about relationships was Shea, and she had failed at most of these conversations, obviously. At school, she always had friends, of course, but she was never anyone’s best friend, and people just didn’t come to her with their problems. Now she is Kim’s best friend, or at least Kim is hers, but Kim never seems to want to talk about romantic relationships. So Trixie is pretty new to this.

“But if people change their mind, they can change their mind again.”

“Yes, I guess. But – “

“Do you know the kind of people Violet is on the road with? They are all artists, they are all interesting, they are all creative. I’m not better than them. I’m not. This is a truth!”

“Are you scared Violet is going to cheat on you?”

Katya sighs at that and opens her eyes, finally looks at Trixie. She takes the time to light another cigarette before answering. How many cigarettes does she go through in one day? This can’t be healthy. “It’s not like that, Violet and I. We’re open, you know. She can fuck all of them, that’s fine.”

Oh. This is news. An open relationship. It had taken Trixie quite a while to wrap her mind around that concept when Courtney had first suggested it to her, ages before. She likes the thought, she thinks, but only in an abstract this-is-for-other-people kind of way. The thought of being in an open relationship herself makes her uncomfortable and a little sad. It just doesn’t line up with her idea of romance, outlandish as that idea may be. Suddenly something occurs to her and her heart beats twice as fast as before. If Katya is in an open relationship, then –

“So you can, uh, do whatever you want then?”

Katya huffs out a breath of smoke. A small smile forms on her lips but it’s gone as fast as it came. “Of course not. But if you’re talking about hooking up with people, yeah. Yeah, it’s just… I don’t know. I hook up with people sometimes, sure, but do you want to know what I think about when I’m with them?”

Trixie doesn’t.

“Violet?” she asks, her sudden rush of excitement over the news of Katya being allowed to be with other people already mostly gone.

“Violet. All the time. It all comes down to her, every time. I hook up with a guy with an ugly tattoo, I end up trying to memorize it, so I can tell Violet about it. I hook up with a girl who has the nicest hand writing I’ve ever seen and I want to take a picture of it and send to Violet. And it’s not like Violet cares. Not that much. Or maybe she does. I can’t tell anymore. God, this sounds so bad. She’s amazing, she really is, please know that I know that”

Trixie doesn’t know what to say to this. She looks at Katya’s face for a long time. Katya has her eyes closed again and the sun behind her lights up her curls. Trixie wants to lean in closer and hug her, do something to get the sad look off her face, but she feels frozen in place. She’s cold, sitting there without a jacket in the early morning, and if she’s cold in her velvet jumpsuit, Katya must be freezing. She wants to suggest going inside, but feels like she can’t interrupt this moment, so she tries to clean the dirt of her hands on the seat cushion and thinks of something to say. There’s a worm making its way over one of her shoes. She gets him off her with a folded leaf and watches as it buries into the cold ground again.

“It was different when she was still here.” Katya goes on after a while. “We were open then too, but it was more fun. I could go out, hook up with a guy, and come home and hook up with her. That was brilliant. Brilliant! And it should work now too, but it just doesn’t. I miss her so much. I don’t wanna fuck anybody just because I can’t fuck her. Do you want to be fucked by someone just because the person this someone really wants is unavailable? Do you?”

This is an awful thought, Trixie thinks, but damn if she doesn’t love the way Katya says fuck. There’s so much force behind it. “No, I don’t.”

“See? This is why it doesn’t work. So I stopped sleeping with other people and I don’t think Violet even understands why. And she hasn’t stopped. And she shouldn’t have to. She’s not doing anything wrong at all. I mean, those were my terms, my fucking terms. I wanted to be open. And now I can’t handle it. And I just miss her too much.”

This is Katya’s breaking point, apparently, because she puts her hands on her face and begins to sob. Shit. Trixie still doesn’t know what to do, but has to do something, so she gets up and sits down next to Katya, without her cushion, on the dirty ground. Kim will be so pissed about the dirt on her butt. Trixie snakes an arm around the smaller girl, who immediately leans into her side.

Katya is cold against her side and the smell of the cigarette she is holding where her hands are wrapped around her knees bites into Trixie’s nose. She cries for what feels like a small eternity, and Trixie’s head is spinning. Where is a bottle of wine when you need one? She wrecks her brain for helpful things to say, comes up empty, but after a while at least remembers she has tissues with her. She pulls one out of her fanny pack and hands it to Katya, who blows her nose loudly.

Katya’s sobs slowly subside after that and she rubs her face dry with the back of her hand. When her breathing has calmed down, a small grin forms on her face.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing a fanny pack, by the way. Like, you did that.”

“I did that.”

[youtiaoshutiao]

translation: a love so beautiful || 致我们单纯的小美好 (the novel) → chapter 2

Here you can see how the drama deviated quite a bit from the book narrative :) Hope you enjoy!

edit: realised that dolly at https://teaquilashot.wordpress.com is also translating, so now we will be collaborating to translate the novel together at her blog :)

original text by: 赵乾乾 (zhao gan gan)

translated by: yt st / youtiaoshutiao @ tumblr

disclaimer: translation here is purely for non-commercial purposes, and I don’t own the original work. please credit this tumblr if borrowing any translation from here. :)

notes: translator’s notes are bolded and bracketed, terms translated literally are italicised. sometimes i take liberties with punctuation and certain phrasing when translating too. :P

After summer, we stepped into the busy year of Junior 3. I have always prioritised important matters above everything else, hence things like immersing myself in romantic love were promptly kicked to a side. Plus, Meteor Garden was airing fervently back then, so I changed to being crazy about Dao Ming Si instead.

The event that caused me to confirm my resolution to have being infatuated/fangirling over Jiang Chen as my life goal happened half a year later. The night before the mock exams, amidst my mum’s beatings and scoldings of “How did I raise up such a forgetful pig-headed daughter like you?!”, I hurriedly rushed to the Xue You (NOTE: direct translation of Xue You – study friend) Bookshop to buy the 2B pencils I needed to shade the OAS for my mock exams the next day.

Even though Xue You Bookstore claims to be a bookstore, but it sells a variety of things – from books and stationery to stickers and toys, basically, whatever was trending among students, it would sell. Later on after muddling through life in the outside world, I discovered that the two words “Xue You” was a name that all non-franchise stationery shops and book shops in the country liked to use. I didn’t know if this was because this name would cause numerous students to feel a sense of familiarity akin to seeing a friend, or if it was because everyone was lazy to come up with names. But if there was a day where I decide to give back to society, I would also want to open a Xue You shop, on the surface it would sell books and stationery, but it would actually be a centre of students to pay a fee and make friends, especially female students, though if there were special requests, we could also sell male students at a high price.

I entered Xue You and grabbed a bunch of 2B pencils. At that point in time, using computers to mark papers had just come into vogue. I thought that the 2B pencil would appreciate in price in the near future, and I had to stock up. But the truth proved otherwise. While the price of pencils did rise by ten cents, there were many pencils specially made for shading the OAS that were produced. While everyone else was using mechanical pencils to shade their OAS, I still had to pitifully use a knife to shave my pencils. Prophets are all lonely people.

As I clutched a bunch of pencils, about to pay, Jiang Chen entered through the door. Perhaps out of a strange adolescent voyeuristic mentality, I subconsciously grabbed a book off the shelf, using it to block my face as I secretly watched him.

Jiang Chen upon entering made an immediate beeline for the counter. The lady boss saw him, and smilingly carried up a pile of books from under the counter. “The embroidered collector’s edition of the Four Classic Novels of Chinese Literature (NOTE: namely Romance of Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin and Dream of Red Mansions) you wanted, I specially went into the city to obtain its stock.”

Jiang Chen smiled and said, “Thank you Lady Boss, how much is it?”

“853 RMB, I’ll take 850 from you.” The lady boss took his money. “I’m not even counting in the transport fees.”

Jiang Chen smilingly nodded his head. “Thank you Lady Boss.”

At that point in time our school fees were 200 RMB per semester, Jiang Chen was using money worth two school years/four semesters to buy a few rotten books, if he had so much spare money, he might as well… Actually I also didn’t know what he might as well have done, I’ve never had so much money, so I was really didn’t understand. Previously, someone told me this joke – a news reporter asked an old woman who lived deep in the mountains, “What would you do if I gave you 100000 RMB?” She replied, “Eat vegetable steamed buns everyday.” He asked again, “What if I gave you 200000 RMB?” She replied, “Eat meat steamed buns everyday.” Lastly he asked, “What if I gave you 1000000 RMB?” She replied, “I would have a vegetable steamed bun in one hand and a meat steamed bun in the other everyday.” I actually really empathised with the old woman’s plight.

“Ge ge (NOTE: meaning older brother), ge ge.” A child who had come out of nowhere was calling as he tugged on Jiang Chen’s trousers.

Jiang Chen squatted down and caressed his head. Blinking, he asked him, “Little friend, are you a boy or a girl?”

The little child sucked on his tiny thumb, and very seriously replied, “Boy.”

Jiang Chen was dissatisfied. “I don’t like boys.”

He was preparing to get up as he said that, the little child hurriedly tugged on his clothes. “I’m a girl.”

Jiang Chen laughed. “So you’re actually a girl. Okay then, what did you call me for?”

The little child fished out a box of colour pencils and two crumpled ten-cent notes from the large pocket of his overalls, lifting them high up to demonstrate how he couldn’t reach the counter. “I’m buying this.”

Jiang Chen took the box and stood up to pass it to the lady boss. “Boss, how much is this?”

“Ten RMB.”

Jiang Chen fished out ten RMB. After paying the money, he then squatted back down to pass the box to the little child. He patted his head and said, “Here, your colour pencils.”

The little child chortled as he took the box. “Thank you Ge ge.”

After saying “you’re welcome”, Jiang Chen prepared to stand up straight. The little child once again pulled at his trouser bottoms, so he could only squat back down again. The little child clumsily opened the box of colour pencils, and picking out a pink coloured one, said, “Drawing is very pretty.”

“I don’t know how to draw.” Jiang Chen said as he smiled. “You keep it for yourself to draw.”

The little child shook his head, and pointing at the books in his hand, said, “No, I draw.”

Jiang Chen stared blankly for a moment, then his face broke into a smile. He took out “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” and handed it over to the little child.

The little child held up the book and sat on the floor, lowering his head to draw something on it very seriously, while muttering something to himself. At last he clapped his hands and said, “Done.”

I tiptoed and stuck out my head to peep at it, that design looked like a rabbit at first glance, then looked like a dog when you looked more closely, yet its poise and charm also somewhat resembled a tiger.

Jiang Chen, taking back the book, looked at it very seriously, then said seriously, “The dog you drew is very beautiful, thank you.”

The little child, fluttering his round eyes, said, “It’s a cat.”

Jiang Chen did a double take, then laughed. “So it’s actually a cat.”

I stared at his dimple, it seemed to have deepened somewhat, I really wanted to go up to him and poke it.

What is known as “being stunned by beauty”, what is known as “being killed in a second”. Li Bi Hua (NOTE: a famous Chinese author/scriptwriter – she wrote Farewell My Concubine) once said – being stunned by beauty back at that time, was wholly because one had seen little of the world. But this wasn’t the case for me, in the times to come, I would repeatedly embellish these two scenes in my mind, just like the post-production editing for movies and television. I would adjust the angle of the scene, add light and shadow variation, layer on sound effects……

“How long are you going to squat at the hospital entrance for?”

“Ah?” With my great post-production editing project being interrupted, I was momentarily a little lost. Gazing into Jiang Chen’s somewhat impatient-looking face, I again sounded, “Ah?”

“Get up.” He stretched out his hand and with one grab pulled me up from the floor, dragging me towards the ambulance. In fact, I really wanted to ask him if he had forgotten to let go of my hand, and also if he was in poor health lately, his hand was so sweaty…

When we got onto the ambulance, the driver and my mum simultaneously showed facial expressions looking like they had just caught us in bed together. I helplessly rolled my eyes, and peeped at Jiang Chen a little apprehensively. He on the other hand seemed to be totally unaffected and sat by my side. “Small Li, start driving.”

After that, he turned his head around to tell my mum, “Auntie, I’ve already spoken to my colleague in orthopaedics, when we reach the hospital, we’ll take another X-ray, if there is no issue, we’ll do the operation this afternoon. Please do not worry, my colleague is one of the very best orthopaedic surgeons in the industry.”

My mum hurriedly nodded her head incessantly, and gave a really motherly smile. “We’re really troubling you.”

“It’s no trouble, it’s what I should do.” Jiang Chen was also really smiling like a filial son.

“So noisy!” My dad suddenly spoke up loudly.

Ever since my dad was informed that we were going to transfer hospitals with the help of Jiang Chen, he had been throwing a tantrum. Later on, the moment my mum walked away, he gave me a tongue-lashing, its contents being nothing else but one word – backbone! He felt that after how Jiang Chen’s mother treated me back in the day, I should stay far, far away from him. It was best that I spit him in the face with saliva when I saw him to express my disdain, but now I had gone as far as to accept his favour!

Three years ago, I graduated from X University’s art design faculty. Jiang Chen was studying both his bachelor’s and master’s degree consecutively in medical school and had to study for seven years, but due to his excellent performance, he had already begun to intern at the various major departments at X University’s subsidiary hospital by his fourth year.

Back then, Jiang Chen was really good to me, the moment he saw me receive my graduation certificate, he said that he wanted to marry me. Of course, this was mainly because I was always making baseless fabrications about a bunch of the so-called elite in society to scare him. For example, the manager who helped me open the door every day (whose original form was the security guard of our company, for I always forgot to bring my entrance card to tap in and out); the director who was always giving me flowers (whose original form was the person who sold flowers downstairs – when I was working overtime late into the night, I would always run into him throwing away the spoilt flowers that couldn’t be sold while on my way home, with my fervent hints, he would give the flowers to me); the client who treated me to watch a movie (whose original form was indeed a client, and I did indeed watch a movie, it was just that I had to write a publicity proposal report for them after watching it)…… An artistic creation requires an original form.

Once Jiang Chen heard that I was so popular, he became anxious, he said that the four years’ worth of breakfasts he delivered in university must not be delivered in vain, we had better get married.

I agreed with no sense of shame whatsoever. My thoughts were very simple, the faculty of medicine in X University was ranked no. 1 in the entire country, and Jiang Chen was getting the top-tier scholarship every year, there was basically no suspense that he was a stock with great potential. I had to capture him as soon as possible, such that when he became a blue chip stock (NOTE: aka stocks of financially stable and well-known companies that have good returns), I would be the grain-husk wife (NOTE: meaning a wife who has suffered hardship together with you) who had suffered trials and tribulations together with him, if he dared to divorce me, I would dare to ask for a half of his assets……

Of course, actually the simplest thought was that I loved him very much, and I was afraid he would be snatched away by someone else. One time, I went to the hospital he was interning at to look for him, and within one hour I saw three patients giving him their business cards, with one of even being a guy. This society was too terrifying, and Jiang Chen’s charisma seemed to slay both men and women.

It was just that back in the day, I was almost completely poisoned by television dramas and novels, and I thought that my love was invincible. But Jiang Chen’s mother made me realise, once my love experienced disturbances, it changed as it pleased.

One fine afternoon, Jiang Chen’s mother paid a visit to my mum. My mum’s status in my household, being a professional housewife, was akin to that of Wu Ze Tian (NOTE: the only female emperor in the history of China), but for the first time, I saw that plucky mother of mine being at such a complete loss of what to do, becoming meek without herself even noticing. To be fair, Jiang Chen’s mother didn’t say any undue remark, and she hadn’t fished out a cheque and said, “Leave my son, tell me how much money you want.” She was calmly discussing with my mum some wedding customs, but it was just the condescending attitude, like she was lowering herself to talk to my mum, that she exuded that caused my mum to be filled with trepidation. Watching my mum from the side as she rubbed her hands, saying, “We’ll cooperate, we’ll cooperate”, my heart was tart and painful, like it had been soaked in old vinegar.

Jiang Chen’s mother then sought me out one-to-one for a chat. She gave me a few pieces of paper and told me to take a good look, and if I agreed, to give my signature. It was a pre-marital contract, with its contents roughly being something along the lines of how I was not marrying Jiang Chen for his family’s money, and if we divorced, I wouldn’t be able to get any assets, etcetera.

At that point in time, I was really bewildered. His dad was just the mayor of a small town, how much money could he possibly have? Was there really a need to act like we were in a television drama?

I’ve already forgotten what I was thinking at that time, perhaps it was some noble matters like love and self-respect, but later I simply could not make up my mind, so I went to ask my dad. All I can say is that, that was a historic mistake.

Jiang Chen’s dad was my dad’s indirect supervisor. My dad felt that he was already such a wimp, being bullied and pushed around by these supervisors on a day-to-day basis, but for the family of his supervisor to bully his own family members, this was a matter that he simply couldn’t stand. Therefore he told me that if I dared sign, he would disown me as his daughter.

Thus, I again did yet another stupid thing, which was to give Jiang Chen the pre-marital contract for him to return it to his mother. Jiang Chen was really agitated and furious, and went home to quarrel with his mother. Later on, his mother gave me a phone call, with the main idea being, if I dared get married to Jiang Chen, she would dare to die at our wedding. Back then, I had little experience in society, so I was immediately psyched out by her. I totally didn’t think of any other ways to resolve the issue, for example to not hold a wedding ceremony, so that she wouldn’t have a place to die……

The matter of marriage was hence left unsettled just like that, after that, I didn’t know why, but perhaps work started to get busy, I was busy getting scolded by my manager, while Jiang Chen was busy attending classes and interning. Plus, most likely I started bearing grudges in my heart, I would incessantly nit-pick and needle him, and would provoke him over the most trivial and inconsequential matters. I tested our love by testing his tolerance.

When I said, “Jiangchen, let’s break up.”

He was silent for a long time before saying, “Don’t you regret it.” Then he slammed the door with a bang and left.

I thought that for two people who loved each other to break up, there should at least be some large-scale major event, for example, a third party; for example, suddenly discovering that I was his father’s illegitimate daughter; for example, either him or I contracting a terminal illness…… But in fact, there was no need for that. Uneasiness, busyness and weariness were enough.

We split up just like that. It was quite amazing, two people who had originally agreed to be together for a whole lifetime, now had absolutely nothing to do with each other in just a flash. For a long period of time, I even suspected that perhaps someone had pressed the fast-forward button for us, causing me to omit some plot circumstances that made the break-up an inevitability.

My dad was the happiest about my breakup with Jiang Chen. He most likely felt that this was one victory he had in his confrontation with those of a supervisor social class. But towards a later stage, my constant inability to find a boyfriend caused him to feel that the fruits of victory were sometimes bitter as well.

So I guess my dad’s feelings towards Jiang Chen were complicated. On one hand, he hoped that there would be someone who would take over the slow-moving product (NOTE: meaning a product that sells poorly) that I was, yet on the other hand, he also felt that he would much rather I be a slow-moving product than to sell me to Jiang Chen. He was probably experiencing internal turmoil akin to that of the capitalists existing during the Great Depression mentioned in our high school politics textbook who would rather pour milk into the river than give it to the poor.

What I didn’t tell my dad was that actually, that person wasn’t even intending to buy from you.

[bubblegumochi]

First Love was a Lie || pt. 1

credits to @jimiyoong

pairing: Jimin | Yoongi genre: fluff, future smut and slight angst warning: none!! words: 1.4k

a/n: aaa im finally posting again yay!! sorry it’s been long since i last posted my writing, school’s been busy and im packed with assignments to do… this won’t be a long series and hopefully i’ll be updating regularly! exam’s coming up in 3 weeks so i might take a break from the series halfway through, so sorry in advance! but i hope you guys enjoyed this first part (〃▽〃)

“Gah. I’m not doing this anymore. It doesn’t make any sense! It’s practically pointless.” Jimin complained as he threw his pen across the table, before plonking his head down on the table. Mathematics was the subject that he hated the most. That being said, he took no interest in any other subjects in school, apart from dance and music production.

“Come on. You’ve been stuck on question one since forever…It’s been half an hour since class started.” Taehyung glanced over at Jimin, who was now drooling over his crumpled worksheet. Taehyung shook his head in silent disapproval, giving Jimin a hard slap on the back.

“Get up, idiot.”

Much to Taehyung’s irritation, Jimin merely responded with a slight groan, scrunching his brows together.

“Tsk. This kid…”

-

The busy chattering and laughter filled the first floor of the crowded school during lunch time, and Jimin sat at the far corner of the canteen, staring blankly into the void with his half-lidded eyes. He heaved a heavy sigh, propping his chin on his palms as his lips fell into a pout.

He’d never felt so lonely ever since his best friend, Hoseok, graduated and moved to a dance academy far away in Seoul. From then on, it was difficult to go to dance class - after he had been hit with the realisation that he would probably never be able to dance with Hoseok anymore. The occasional text that Hoseok sends comforts him once in awhile, sure, but that temporary relief never lasted more than a short moment.

“Snap out of it, and get your lonely ass off my chair.” Taehyung shooed as he slammed his food tray on the table with a loud clank. Jimin grunted, pulling a chair over with his leg and moved over sluggishly.

“What’s up with you?”

“Ugh!” Jimin exclaimed, ruffling a small hand through his fluffed up hair. “Bored, bored and bored.”

“Look, I get it. Hobi-hyung’s graduated and you miss him. But it’s been half a goddamn year! I can’t say that I don’t miss him, but get over it will ya? It’s not like you can’t visit him in Seoul during school holidays…” Taehyung poked at his food with a hesitant fork, glancing over at the boy slumped over the table.

“It’s not the same without him…And it’s not just about the dance class. Everything else! I basically did everything with him. He’s my best friend, Tae. Our best friend. It’s just. So weird without him.”

There was a moment of silence before Taehyung sighed loudly, dragging the back of his hand across his lips to wipe off bits of food remnants sitting at the corner of his mouth. It was clear he wanted to change the topic, unwilling to continue indulging in Jimin’s bout of self-isolation. “Oh, that’s right.” He said, tone suddenly brighter, “Have you heard about the new kid joining us tomorrow?”

“A transfer in the middle of the year?”

Taehyung shrugged his shoulders and nodded lazily, “I guess so.”

Taking a quick glance at the clock hanging by the entrance into the cafeteria, Taehyung picked up his empty tray and clicked his tongue in annoyance. “Come on, we’ve got to get to class.”

The thought of sitting through another two hours of class bored him to death. Jimin pressed his lips into a thin line, running his stubby fingers through his unkempt hair once again, adjusting his the thick, black frame of his glasses before pulling himself up from the chair.

“Yeah.” He muttered.

Giggles and mutters filled the hallways as Jimin and Taehyung strolled passed the lockers, girls (and boys) taking quick but shy glances at the both of them before turning away quickly and squealing among themselves. Hands buried deep in his pockets, Jimin’s lips morphed into a slight smirk, almost as if he was enjoying the attention that he was getting. Well, he was. It was always an ego boost to see others appreciating his, in Tae’s exact words, poppin’ good looks.

“Wipe that smirk off your face Jimin.” Tae remarked, his mouth quirking up at the corners, “It’s not like you care to date anyone of them anymore.”

“Well, I’m not the only one they’re looking at.”

Once they had reached class, the duo settled down at their usual corner at the back of the room. Reclining in his chair, Jimin reached under his table and pulled out a stack of beautifully folded letters. Some were covered with the scent of perfume, some were topped with laced stickers, others were just plainly decorated with the word “Saranghaeyo, oppa~!” on it. Love letters. They were always mildly embarrassing, but so flattering.

“Shall add these to the pile I collected after break two hours ago, and maybe stack them in my growing collection back at home?” Jimin said half-jokingly.

“Why don’t you just throw them away if you aren’t gonna read them?”

“I read them, and it’s amusing. It’s my only source of entertainment nowadays, Tae.”

“As if. Don’t tell me you’re weren’t entertained when Namjoon broke the fridge the other day.”

The memory of Jin-hyung’s horrified expression coupled with Namjoon’s mortified apologies flashed through his mind suddenly, and Jimin couldn’t help but let out a snort of amusement. “Okay, yeah. That too.”

-

There was no reason to explain the restlessness Jimin felt that night after school. Instead of taking time to arrange his scores and working on choreographs like he usually did, he stared blankly at his computer screen. Fidgeting and tugging at the corner of his blanket, Jimin chewed on the insides of his cheeks.

“A transfer, huh.” He caught himself muttering. His heart pumped excitedly at the fact that he’d finally be able to see someone new in school. Ever since Hoseok-hyung left, he never had the chance to find anyone else that was as fun and interesting to hang out with, besides Taehyung.

Tossing his laptop to the side of the bed, Jimin leaned backwards to sink deep into his soft bed. Clutching tightly to his pillows, he took a deep breath as the scent of strawberry cream candles filled his dimly lit room. Jimin closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the wall clock ticking incessantly in the quiet room, lulling him to sleep.

-

Taehyung was surprised to see how exceptionally well-dressed Jimin was the next day. Instead of his usual I’m-an-overworked-college-kid look, Jimin strolled into class with his suede oversized sweater, the one that hung gorgeously off his delicate collarbones - one hand holding on to the loose straps of his bag while the other buried deep within the pockets of his ripped black jeans.

His silver gelled-hair was styled perfectly, and he wearing hazelnut-brown contacts instead of his usual glasses, something he usually saved for special occasions.

“Whoa.” Taehyung remarked, glancing at Jimin from head to toe.

“Why are you looking at me as if you’re seeing me for the first time?” Jimin asked, pulling the chair out from under the table roughly before settling down beside Taehyung.

“It’s just…Wow.”

Taehyung shifted his gaze back to his phone as a tall, skinny woman walked into class. Tapping of her thick heels impatiently, she waited for everyone in class to give her their attention. It was their lecturers, and one of the most boring ones, at that.

Lagging behind her was someone Jimin assumed was the new transfer student. It took a grand total of one look at him and suddenly, Jimin was so thankful he’d chosen to spend an extra thirty minutes on his appearance in the morning.

The boy who had just stepped into the classroom was just a tad taller than he was, yet inexplicably he was seemed to be so much narrower. His messy, ruffled mint-green hair framed his face perfectly - who could even pull off that cotton candy colour? Flashing a quick grin at the students in class, Jimin caught sight of the light glint of a lip ring nestled very attractively in the corner of his bottom lip. Oh, good God.

Jimin gripped onto the sides of his chair, unable to take his eyes off the new transfer. He was totally oblivious to the things that were happening around him, and for some reason, he found himself holding onto his breath. Taehyung seemed oblivious to his suffering.

The transfer introduced himself in a slow, lazy drawl that had just the slightest bits of Daegu satoori present in the ends of his words. Through the sound of his very loud heartbeat, Jimin heard nothing but his name.

“Min Yoongi.”

[sweetscenteddream]

Things I hope to achieve:

1,Even if I can’t get rid of my depression 100% I’d be happiest with 80% but this will take quite a while to get past first.

2.I’m going to try and find a really nice counselor who won’t judge me because of my past mistakes,Hopefully she will help me out and start to bring out my fears for me so that I know that I can get past them.

3.Hopefully get a job,I’ve only ever had one.... and I stayed for about 8 months couldn’t stick it,The boss was awful,The manager thought she was in charge yet she wasn’t and tried to pick on me specifically,I just felt so bullied and had to leave but thankfully after I heard customers had said nice things about me ^-^.

4.So it’s been about 9 years of trying to find a job,1.I don’t live near any places within walking distance that I could get to. 2. Not being able to drive,It’s just a big mess I was told that I’d be given 2 learner permits but it turns out you don’t....when I went to get my second learner’s permit they told me no but I’d have to do the test to get the full drivers licence, So can’t do that because no learner’s permit and can’t practice because of no learner’s permit,I think I might have to take the theory test again to try and start all over again,It would be nice to able to learn to drive again then fully drive.

5.Draw more, I used to draw a lot more when I was younger which was great but my art style hasn’t improved at all.... I need to push myself more and even if it’s just a quick scribble to do it,In the new year I’m going to try and draw a new drawing every single day of the year,That will hopefully help me to improve and hopefully someday others will want to commission me ^-^.

6.Play video games,I used to play so many video games when I was younger and I loved them to bits! Now I know that it’s the depression and some laziness that stops me from playing which makes me sad.... video games can be amazing! I might try and slowly get back into them.

7.Try to find my ideal partner this has been proven to be difficult my entire life and I really don’t want to meet a guy at a pub,I’d rather meet a nice guy at maybe a tattoo convention or at some sort of cool art exhibit,I need to try fun places to meet others my age who wouldn’t be jerks.

8.Tell myself that my past mistakes are my past my mistakes more often,Most of the people who I’ve had the fights with have most likely moved on and completely forgotten all about me.I need to keep telling myself this again and again.

9.Try not to panic so much about my family dying or being alone without my mum forever,It is a possibility but hopefully it won’t happen for a very long time and hopefully I’ll be more stable mentally and stable with a home,Here’s hoping to a good future.

10. Possibly try college one more time,One college I went to I lasted less than a month because everyone seemed incredibly stuck up,No-one wanted to be my friend so I just stayed alone to myself for the time that I was there,The second college I went to I did make a friend but she ended up quitting in the middle and of course I had no-one then so I quit too,I know it should be about doing the work and graduating but I’d like to maybe have some new friends if I do decide to try for a 3rd time.

11.Save up a lot of money to commission a lot of art off a lot of amazing artists on Twitter,I will be commissioning them with a lot of tattoo ideas in my head,Unfortunately until I get a job it’s not so possible so I’m pretty sad about that.... so hopefully I get some sort of job soon.

12. Go outside more and sometimes sit on a towel and just watch the clouds go by or sit on a towel and read some books and relax and enjoy,Possibly just close my eyes and forget about everything for a while.Play fetch with Oscar much more,Keep the weeds away with the weed killer spray,Keep the lawn nice,cut and short,sweep the ground every so often,Maybe find some cheap but good/fun/cute things to add to the garden.

13.Check charity shops around every 2 weeks to see if they have any new great things in like more dresses,ornaments and more books,Even odd little bits and bobs,Try to stop going in every week.

14.Try to hang out with Nadine at least 3 times a month if possible,Maybe some days go to Dún na Rí to have a nice walk and a little picnic maybe even a mini photo shoot,Try find cute cafes to go to to just talk and people watch,Go to random places that are only about 30-45 minutes away by car.

15.Start being more creative such as doing... scrap booking,Needle felting.Writing stories,Drawing more,Possibly get some of the mini dolls rooms that you set up yourself.

16.Try different styles of fashions,Different like short dresses,long ones,unusual designs etc,Maybe every time I go into Pennys I could try and buy a full new outfit for cheap.

17.Try spending time completing video games,You will feel awesome when you do,Also try to buy some more Gamecube games and Dreamcast games,Sometimes save up for a slightly expensive video game and treat yourself.

18. Take way better care of your skin,by doing a morning routine every morning and the same with night time routine,Also drink plenty of water.

19. Try and exercise a lot more so you can lose a little bit of weight but also tone up,Not too much toned up though I don’t want that.

20.Try to save for one nights breaks away with Nadine so we could get a proper meal together some drinks and just have a great chat and great laughs.

21.Maybe get a memo board so I can stick things onto it such as cute stickers,Polaroid photos when I get the camera and the rolls of film,Some art I will be ordering online and maybe some cute pins,Also little quotes to help.

22. Try and save up for either an amazing gaming laptop or an amazing gaming PC and get my family to help me putting it either together or get it running correctly.

23.Try watch a lot more Youtube videos to help cheer you up and also so that they can earn some money,especially the smaller Youtubers,Also subscribe to more channels like smaller gaming ones,crafting ones,cute makeup ones,surprise ones etc.

24.Get back into watching movies with nothing else on to distract you,Try to buy as many DVDS as you can for as cheap as you can.

25.Listen to loads of different types of music then pick your favourites and when you buy an awesome Apple Ipod buy all of your favourite songs for it and go outside and dance or maybe even go on some walks down the road listening to music.

26.When my hair grows out to the length that I want it again I am going to try and learn to curl my hair properly and learn to do some lovely hairstyles.

27.Try and eat less meat if you can,I know it’s hard but you can give it your best shot!.

28.Try different make up looks,try to be braver with some and sometimes use colour more,Wear the makeup you love and makes you feel good and cute.

29.Try and donate any little bits of spare money that I have to different charities every so often.

30.Try to think before you act! You’ve lost some really nice people because of not thinking before typing/talking but you’re slowly learning.

31.Get back into making youtube videos,It gave you something to do and distracted you,You also had fun interacting with subscribers ^-^.

32.Continue going to Mass,Even if God and Jesus don’t exist it’s still okay,It helps to get me out for about 40 minutes,I get to dress up nicely and we also have a lovely priest to listen to ^-^.

[cosmosogler]

today i cleaned the bathroom! and made an appointment with a gi place! i don’t know what they want to do. the scheduling lady told me what it was but i didn’t understand, but i didn’t want to ask her to repeat it because i’d already misunderstood a few things she had asked for. so i just said ok and wrote down the address.

then i picked up asher and we hung out for like 8 hours. it was great. i couldn’t shake the feeling i was forgetting to do something all day though. besides, you know, the grad school email thing. i don’t know what it was. i couldn’t think of anything i’d left undone when i got home from dropping him back off at home.

we took the dogs to the park and talked about jojo and sat around and looked at photos of his room’s new paint job and played wwe for the ps4 and screamed at john cena and a bunch of other wrestlers i didn’t recognize. oh but kane was on the roster! i didn’t know he still wrestled. i used to play as him sometimes on, like, the n64 wwe. or maybe the gamecube one. i just looked it up and he’s almost 50. i figured out how to climb the poles in the corners and jump off them to body slam asher’s character.

“how did you do that?” he asked.

“i pressed every button at the same time,” i answered.

then we caught up on steven universe. then i drove us to michaels and we looked at washi tape and stickers for an hour. i kept finding odd things around the store and bringing them to him to identify. like scratch and sniff cat-shaped light bulbs called “num noms.” i think he was worried about boring me, but i had a good time. then we went across the street to an indian restaurant and the curry was godly. i felt bad that i could only eat like a third of my meal though. 

my brother apparently hit another driver on the road today. but he refused to talk to me about it. he only brought it up because i asked if i could take the car. i asked if he was ok a few times and he said yeah. the car didn’t look too bad when asher and i went out later with mom’s car. it’s hard to get a read on my brother, and i might have been projecting, but he seemed kind of rattled. his face was more flushed than usual. so far i’ve only gotten into vehicle tangles with inanimate objects. like the curb at the community college, or the curb at the corner by asher’s house, or the curb near rawhide, or a random piece of concrete at the gas station. i can’t imagine how stressful it must be to bump into another car, even gently. i mean, i dream about it a lot, enough that i’ve come across some individual police officers more than once, but i can always wake up and say “that didn’t really happen.” my brother and sister can’t do that.

i attribute it to luck. my sister is a much better driver than i am. more confident and on top of what’s happening around her, less prone to kind of terrifying bodily malfunctions. like my eyes drying out, which kind of blinds me! she also spends a lot more time on the road than i do. and she hit the other car at like the most common accident spot in the whole city, which she used to drive past every day. i mean, I’VE almost hit cars there, and i used to only drive that way like once a week during low traffic hours. it’s a tiny stretch of road under a bridge that has a little dip. the shadow cast by the bridge makes it very difficult to judge how fast the car in front of you is going, and it’s right before a lane merge, so people are usually slowing down. it’s a “once a day” kind of accident place. every time i go past that spot there’s broken glass on the road.

dad is screaming at his computer game again. he does it every night. the dogs spend more time in my room than with him now. even diogi, and dad is her favorite. i hear him throwing stuff around at his desk. i have trouble sleeping because he makes so much noise. and he turns up the volume on his games so i hear the same background music loop forever every night. 

i hate it.

anyway, i gotta figure out what i’m going to talk about at therapy tomorrow for my allotted 50-60 minutes. i guess i should bring a notebook and work out an exact note to add to my grad school applications. i already have all the email addresses written down in my application excel sheet. i guess i’m nervous because sending the note includes checking which schools have accepted or rejected me so i don’t send out emails to schools that no longer have my file. and... i gotta apply for the visa stuff for london. that requires acknowledging that i am in fact going to grad school in august. the game is getting harder, but i’m not any better at it. 

i WANT to go to grad school, i just worry... that i won’t be good enough, or creative enough to compensate for not being good enough. apparently i get violently physically ill for months at a time if i’m too stressed? which is stressful by itself, but like, it means i have no stamina. i am not a stress marathon runner. i physically cannot do work every single day. i can’t even take in new information every single day. like i’ve been too tired to watch or read anything i haven’t already seen before for like a whole week. sometimes i can’t work for weeks at a time because i get so depressed. how am i going to fulfill my academic and professional obligations if this happens? how can i put in the hard work required to learn (and actually be any good at) physics if i don’t have the energy for it? 

the solution, of course, is to try harder. every moment i spend doing nothing, every day i waste retreading old ground, every hour i spend doing something comfortable instead of doing something difficult, is time i spent being LAZY. every time i decide i have to get a full night’s sleep in order to make it through the next day, i am being weak. every time i stop to make sure i get enough to eat so i don’t get sick i am being thoughtless about the commitment i made. 

and the balancing act required to make use of every second of every day, to make sure everything gets done and i also take care of myself, takes energy and focus i just don’t have. but focus is a matter of trying harder. i know the energy and determination are there somewhere, i just have to keep scraping the bottom of the barrel for that last ounce that has to be there. it has to be. “you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” and if i can’t brute force it then i am not being resourceful or creative or clever enough. if i’m not succeeding i’m doing something wrong.

the solution is not obvious. unless it is and i’ve been missing the forest for the trees or something. i’ve been throwing myself against this problem for like nine years. even when i physically have to stop and take breaks or else i will literally die i haven’t been able to figure out a new angle. what am i missing? is it really just a matter of discipline? can you... even discipline away anxiety and depression and fatigue? 

“i want you to get this thing solved,” mom has said repeatedly. “before grad school.” i don’t think you can solve depression... and every bit of energy i spend fighting it i could have spent learning something new instead. it’s like every day not-sick people wake up on the road, and all they have to do is walk down the road. but i start every day in quicksand. and i have to get out of the quicksand before i can start walking down the road. but sometimes all i can do in a day is get out of the quicksand, and then i wake up the next morning IN THE QUICKSAND AGAIN, RIGHT WHERE I STARTED YESTERDAY. it’s maddening!

you know what else is maddening? knowing, or at least believing, there is a way to make this work. and NOT BEING ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT. i’m too stupid. i’m stunted and retarded like mom said. i am emotionally unable to mature enough to look at the problem in a way that lets me objectively figure out what i should be doing instead of... whatever this is. i don’t have emotions like real people. that’s why i can’t get anyone to stay.

man, i hate everything. i hate feeling dumb. and i hate being just smart enough to know how dumb and helpless i am. 

i dunno. being physically hampered by my heart defect made me focus more on kind of, i guess, taking pride in my thinking and imagination. but i don’t even have that, not really, do i?

[corruptedsocks]

2:30pm. That is when Spring Break starts for not only my students but for me as well and I am only a little excited. This quarter has been filled with so much new by way of my teaching style I can not wait to share it with you.

As many of you know, this is my first year of teaching. I teach Class Piano three blocks every day out of the four our students attend (one planning block). I have an Instrumental Music Education degree and believed I would be teaching high school band full-time in my first job, and my goodness I was wrong.

I vowed to myself and everyone around me I would NOT teach beginning band as my first job because I did not have the patience to work with middle schoolers, let alone start kids on instruments I am passionate about (i.e. trumpet and percussion). Someone somewhere must have heard me say this arranged for me land a job at the high school level teaching BEGINNER PIANO.

I have learned more about myself as an educator doing this than I think I would have if I would have landed a full-time assistant band director gig elsewhere. The difference in this course from last semester to this semester is staggering. My students from last semester ask me frequently “why didn’t we have all this cool stuff last semester?” When I respond, I am honest and tell them, “because it was my first semester and I had not thought of many of these ideas yet.”

Last semester I was scared to allow everyone to move at their own pace, encouraging everyone to stay with the class, pushing some students a little too hard. This semester I have implemented a Version concept. This concept keeps all students at the same level by way of music theory (modifying, of course, for my exceptional students with IEPs), but divides all the students up into four different version groups.

These version groups are divided by four different names that may sound familiar to some of us educators: Emerging, Proficient, Accomplished, and Advanced. The students are placed in these groups based on their rank in the Pass-Off system I have implemented this semester as well.

Book Excerpts/Warm-Ups

Scales (RH vs LH)

The pass-off system works as follows. Students have a list of all the pass-offs in the book, and when they have mastered an excerpt, fulfilling all parts of the rubric to the best of their ability, they receive a sticker on our pass-off chart (see below). Many of you might think, “Stickers? Really? They’re high school kids, they don’t care about stickers.” You could not be farther from the truth, at least for my students. Due to the fact I only teach 31 students throughout my day, all of them fit on the pass-off chart, which allows the individual students to not only track their progress against their peers within their class, but also with all of their peers learning the piano at SouthSide right now!

Students I had trouble getting to focus and practice/learn/ask questions before I implemented this have kicked it in to high gear because they do not want to look like they are lazy to the rest of their peers.

Now, I did wait several weeks into the semester before I started this for a few different reasons:

The primary reason, because my students needed to learn and begin developing a solid technique and learn HOW TO practice correctly. I wanted to make sure they were solid enough on the fundamentals before we started developing the individual.

 I wanted to make sure my student rosters were settled so we did not have a slew of students that dropped my course at the last minute, on our chart taking up space.

I waited to start to ensure proper playing technique, to prevent any bad habits from forming.

Please do not panic, just because we have started Pass-Offs, that in no way means I have stopped paying attention to the students’ technique. The rubrics I use for these pass-offs has a very strict technique component, where if this is not utilized to the best of the student’s ability, they do not receive a “pass” and must continue working on the piece for at least another full day before they can attempt to pass off again.

The students are also required to not only play one of the excerpts from our book, but also a technical exercise, whether that be a scale, a warm-up from another book we use, or something else I specify that is designed to assist the students in further developing their technique.

Upon our return from Spring Break and after a review to get their hands back used to the keyboard after a week off, I intend to add sight-reading to the students lessons. As they have demonstrated mastery of the fundamental rhythms and note identification, they will begin expanding on this knowledge.

These are just a couple of things I have implemented this semester and have noticed a HUGE difference and BOOST in confidence within the students that find this course a little more difficult. My students that also find this to be very easy, they are not as bored as they are able to move at their own quick pace, asking individualized questions, or allowing me to go over more advanced concepts with them as opposed to losing the rest of class.

This has been an incredible semester so far. While I am excited about Spring Break and am ready for a little time to rest and recoup before our final push for the year, I know the 4th Quarter is going to continue these students’ incredible success with their capstone solos.

Stay tuned for more updates!

  Thanks for reading!

A. Fussell

The Start of the 4th Quarter 2:30pm. That is when Spring Break starts for not only my students but for me as well and I am only a little excited.

[immaterialgirls]

As if you didn't know, Glossier is the well-loved brainchild of the makeup-loving crew of Into the Gloss, the kind of beauty publication I'd love to love if they didn't make me outrageously uncomfortable.   Even though Into the Gloss is run by people who seem to have had the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth since the day they were born - at least, no one bats an eyelash at interviewing people who talk about the 50 dollar lipstick they fell in love with at age 16, surely not a universal experience - Glossier is an actually fairly affordable brand for a lot of people and their branding hits all the right notes.  I was seduced by their trademark powder pink, their vibrant, natural-makeup, multicolored models, the accessibility of their website, and finally, the quality of the products I put on my face.  But as time has gone on my opinion of the brand has shifted a little bit, and I want to evaluate it as honestly as I can, so I've been putting this off for a really long time because there are so many products I had yet to try. I'll start from the top with this one. Priming Moisturizer, $25 Of the initial range of products, back when Phase 1 consisted of this, the skin tint, the face mist and balm dot com, this was the only truly necessary one, and is certainly the product that earned them their landslide victory over the hearts and wallets of their consumer base.   Glossier's packaging is pink little bags! They send you stickers with every purchase!  All the same, it was this liquid-y, face soothing, super hydrating tube of joy that made everyone hype the brand.  Even in the dead of winter when this isn't quite doing it for me, all i need to do is add a few more steps to my face routine, which I'd surely be doing anyway, to get the hydration I need.  I just find this sits well on the skin, absorbs to a nice velvet finish, and does, probably, prime my skin nicely for makeup.  It certainly makes it go on smoothly and evenly, and doesn't leave my skin feeling like it needs more moisture. Skin Tint, $26 Is this a very thin liquid that offers essentially zero coverage? Yes. Do they claim it has diamond powder in it without acknowledging that while a real thing, diamond powder does not come from diamonds? Oh yes.  But somehow, Skin Tint really is slightly blurring, redness-reducing, color-evening in a way that imperceptibly makes your skin look better, and if your skin is relatively okay, this + concealer is actually very wearable.  I'm almost out of this bottle and I've been debating whether or not to repurchase it, because when they updated the shade range, it looks like they lightened the shade Medium to me (which is what I use). But the color is so sheer I can't see how it would actually make any difference.  On very lazy days I tend to use a few drops of this as a base and then apply RMS Un Cover-Up over the top of it because it blends out more easily and I don't have to apply it everywhere. Soothing Face Mist, $18 I never paid money for this one; I got it when they did a giveaway thing where if enough people used your recommendation link to sign up, you'd get free stuff, and 20 kind friends of mine used my recommendation link so I got this and the coconut balm.  Well!  This is the best rosewater spray on the market, and easily one of the least expensive.  (The Mario Badescu is cheaper, but uses dog rose, and my skin reacts badly to it. Everything else seems to be more expensive.)  I've tried other face mists since I ran out of this one, but absolutely nothing compares in terms of rose scent or hydration benefits.  I wore this constantly.  In the morning, in the evening, before makeup, after makeup - there's no way you can go wrong with it.  And then, of course, I emptied it.  It's taken me literally a year but I've repurchased it and guess what? I use it. All day. Every day.  A non-essential essential product that is, from my frustrated attempts to find it in another brand, best from Glossier. Balm dot Com, $12 Look, this is a thick balm that is mostly petroleum, though they advertise its castor oil and beeswax as being what makes it so grand.  But I admit this one is a little better than other thick petroleum-based balms I've tried, like the TokyoMilk one or the C.O. Bigelow and Smiths rose salves, which are thicker and much thinner, respectively.  I got the Coconut flavor in the aforementioned giveaway and it changed my opinion about coconut as a scent; it's buttery and rich, not fake in the slightest.  I use this after exfoliating my lips in the morning, and it's mostly sunk enough in by the time my makeup is done that I can put on lipstick over it and walk out the door, but I don't like it as a balm on un-exfoliated lips for the same reason I don't like any other petroleum-based lip balms.  When they updated this with more flavors, I got the Rose one as well (of course) and it's very pretty, but its pink tint is non-existent. Milky Jelly Cleanser, $18 This was... my first fumble with this brand.  At this point, Glossier's star was risen so high that I think they could have produced anything and gotten the same degree of praise, but I was out of my regular face cleanser and desperate to try this.  After all, everyone said it was absurdly hydrating and smelled of rosewater!  I would have trusted this brand with my life, but all they asked me to trust them with was skin.  I delivered myself into their hands. This cleanser is not very good. I am sure other people who love it are not lying, though some of them might smudging the truth a little.  The hype for Glossier is very real!  Milky Jelly is made with hyaluronic acid, which is meant to absorb moisture from the air into your skin, but often just absorbs it from your skin and brings it to the surface, leaving it momentarily very plump but drier after the hyaluronic acid is gone.  And i think that is the case with this one.  When it goes on (and the pump makes it very hard to control how much you use, so in spite of the low cost of this, I think if I used it regularly i'd go through it very quickly), it has a thick jelly texture and a natural rose scent that I loved, and it feels divine on the skin - but my skin felt dry when I rinsed it off!   That is a no-go for me in a face cleanser.  But I was desperate to make this work for me anyway.   Until I realized it was breaking me out.  Stopped using it, skin returned to normal.  Went back to it, happened again.  So it was clearly the cleanser. That's just my skin, however.  The real problem I have with this product is that it was advertised as a divine makeup-removal product, so you didn't have to remove your makeup and then wash your face.  In actuality, this wouldn't remove my makeup at all, even if I washed my face with it a second time.  I have a hard time believing that's just my skin somehow, so when I see people praising how this melts away every trace of your makeup and leaves your skin soft and moisturized, I have to admit, I'm a skeptic. Stretch Concealer, $18 First of all, I bought this in the shade Dark, which is... too dark.  Medium was out of stock, but I don't think I'm going to purchase Medium at any point in time so I can't compare them. I saw a lot of Glossier's go-to models and spokeswomen praising this for its sheerness and dewiness where a lot of concealers are bulletproof and cakey.   And... respectfully, I think most people don't want sheerness from their concealers, or they, at least, want buildability.  The finish of stretch isn't dewy; it's greasy.  It is wearable under powder, but it absolutely doesn't have a normal skin finish even on my skin which is normally oily-leaning.  I didn't hate Stretch Concealer when used as extra coverage foundation over my Skin Tint, but I found I still needed an additional concealer for the purpose of concealing blemishes. If you're a Glossier model you already don't have blemishes, do you now? But I am not a model of any kind and believe it or not, I require coverage from my concealers.  A personal preference, I know.  Stretch's oily base doesn't build when you try to add more, it just moves the product around.   To compare this to the RMS Un Cover Up that I strongly suspect it was inspired by, they aren't all that similar (although I do think Stretch would be a less frustrating product if it were, like Un Cover Up, marketed as a foundation and concealer; I wouldn't expect as high a coverage from it then). Stretch doesn't settle into the skin, but kind of sits on top of it a bit, has a dewy to greasy formula and finish, and isn't buildable.  Un Cover Up has a velvety to dewy formula, has to be worked into skin but then melds entirely with your skin and looks like your skin, and is buildable to a roughly medium finish (though I still need actual high coverage concealer on my spotty or my bad-feel days). Haloscope in Quartz, $22 This is one of my favorite and one of my least favorite products. Let me explain. At this point, I realized that Glossier was no longer what I had loved it for being.  They had released lipsticks and a brow product that, unlike the  moisturizer, were, in spite of their low prices, costlier price per ounce than other high-end brands - so though each tube cost less than other brands, you would get very little product.  I wanted to try these things and their formulas and promises sounded appealing, but I just couldn't justify spending the money.  I also was so unimpressed by the concealer and face wash not living up to both Glossier's promises and the army of yeswomen in its service who go on social media and talk up how they beat out everything else that when the same thing happened with Haloscope, I couldn't be excited.  How much respect could I have for a brand that sold its highlighter on the strength of its real crystal extract (it was in their ad copy and word for word praised by all the girls who reviewed it on youtube, so you can deduce they were told to mention that specifically) when it actually gets it glimmer from mica? That said, I did buy Quartz.  It's a solid shimmer stick in a plastic tube that adds a glimmery pigment that looks like light hitting your face but nicer.  I actually love the dewy core of this and wish they'd modify it into a lip balm because I'd use this as a lip balm if I could; I just hate frosty lips. At first Quartz did not impress me and I wished I had gotten Topaz, but it grew on me, and its neutral beiginess makes it wearable with every blush, eye and lip combo I own.  I still don't like its hugeness (I like to apply with a finger) or the packaging it comes in, which makes me cringe.  I still don't like how their ad copy and model army clearly suggest that the glow on your face is the result of crystals, when it's the result of mica.  I hate that Glossier literally calls this "the galaxy's first dew-effect highlighter", when RMS Beauty's living luminizer has literally been around longer, and other natural beauty brands have been making highlighters with the exact same ingredients, coconut and castor seed oils, for the exact same finish and formula for years.  Do I love this product? Yes. But what it reveals about Glossier's marketing is ugly. Vapour, RMS and Ilia all literally have comparable products, and they don't mislead their customers.  The one thing I will say about Glossier is that theirs costs less.   Moisturizing Moon Mask, $22 The masks actually came out in Glossier's second release, but it took me this long to get around to buying them.  When I got this, I was heavily unimpressed, contributing to an overall apathy towards the brand.  Its moisturizing powers are only so-so, and you have to apply a lot of product for it to look like it does in the cute pictures of models masking. (That's not a bad thing - you don't need that much product, after all - but it made me realize Glossier has been doing the misleading advertising thing for a very long time.)  I got the moisturizing mask because the "juice cleanse for your face" branding on the detoxifying mask is very ED-normalizing language (cleanses don't work, they are made up, your kidneys do all the cleansing you need) and makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I got this in the summer and it did absolutely nothing, but trying it now again in January it does a little, but not enough that I'd recommend it.  It also stings my face a little bit, which I'm pretty sure is just my skin. Limited Edition Haloscope in Moonstone, $22 I'm reviewing this separately because I was, like everyone else, swooning over the prospect of a bluish-opal highlighter in the same formula as Quartz and Topaz, and this is not the same formula as Quartz and Topaz. Those don't ever completely dry on the skin, but this is much oilier and has much less pigment, so while it is bluish and a tad opal-y, in order to build it up you also get a much tackier finish.  It feels like wearing a balm on your face, except not because I own Living Luminizer which is a balm and that's still more pigment in less product so it's never that sticky on the face.  I'm so relieved I didn't buy the Black Tie Set just to try this one.  I would have been so pissed. But it does remind me that I wish one of these brands I like would come out with a genuinely dewy blue-type color instead of lavender shades. I love RDF Ghost Light, but i'd love it even more if the blue duochrome showed up on me. Boy Brow, $16 Finally, ages later, I finally committed to this one, and I love it.  I'm so frustrated, because I have gone from loving Glossier to wishing I didn't love anything from them and didn't need to buy their stuff, but there's just no other brow product that has this texture, this hold, this longevity, this beauty on the brow.  One thing that surprises me is how genuinely black the shade Black is.  I love how it looks, but it's rather intense, and I suspect won't work as well on the days when i want to wear nothing on my eyelids, so I might need to get Brown at some point.  The only caveat I have to this is that, in spite of its low cost, you do genuinely get a small amount of product, and the tube is tiny.  You don't need much product to do your brows, of course, but I know I'll have to repurchase this often.  It's probably worth it, because I've never seen anything even approaching this product anywhere else. ---- So that's where I stand on this iconic brand: somewhere in the middle, easily swayed to either love it again or hate it depending on the product I'm using.  They are unquestionably dishonest, which is something I can't respect.  They're also one of the only brands out there with a serious commitment towards advertising to women of all skin colors, and demonstrating how every single product looks on every skin tone, which is rare enough that I feel some gratitude towards them regardless.  Their products lean towards people with dry skin, which I don't quite have, and almost a cult has grown up around them that makes it astonishingly difficult to find honest reviews.   There are still products I haven't tried.  While i know that Glossier can surprise me with quality products even after I've made up my mind, the Generation G lipsticks and Supers serums look to follow a pattern with which I am by now familiar.  The lipsticks claim to be the first ever lipstick to "look blotted without the blot", to be matte and sheer at the same time.  I'm already unimpressed.  It takes no time at all to apply a lipstick very lightly over a balm and blend it with your fingertips for a stained look, and I don't need a lipstick to do that without my fingertip, and from the swatch reviews on the website, it requires a lot of lipstick to get to that point, and there's not a lot of product in those little tubes.  (I still want a couple of the colors for the colors themselves, but I don't expect that I'll want to throw out all my other lip products after I get them.)   The Supers are even less impressive.  They are $28 for half an ounce when your usual serum is an ounce, making them $56 an ounce, very much the same as most high end serums. Glancing at Super Bounce, the top ingredients are water, glycerin, dimethicone - not unusual or particular.  By contrast, The Ordinary sells a comparable hyaluronic acid product at $6.80 an ounce.  In fact, doing my research, each Super has a primary product that you can get over at The Ordinary for like ten dollars an ounce.  Super Bounce is Hyaluronic Acid and B5, the same thing I just purchased from The Ordinary; Super Pure is Niacinamide and Zinc, which I also just purchased from The Ordinary. Super Glow, the most tempting serum, is Vitamin C and Magnesium, and The Ordinary has several options for you there. (The one I wanted was sold out, so I haven't gotten it yet. My own glowing skin potion is out of reach for now, but not forever.)  I'm not against spending 60 dollars an ounce on magic skin care, mind you.  I'm just doubtful that the Supers truly are more magical than anything else on the market, and much more tempted by The Ordinary, whose no-frills approach (sometimes so no-frills that my un-science-trained mind can't decipher everything they are saying) is a pleasant antidote to Glossier's model-testimony-backed hyperbole that covers up that it has only a very small number of products that are truly unique on the market. You should try: Priming Moisturizer is the only product I will die on a hill for.  Boy Brow is perfect for genuinely textured, pomaded brows, but if that's not your ideal brow, you can pass.  I do like the rose balm, but I'm sure other things are out there.  I do like the skin tint, which does somehow brighten my complexion and is unbeatably low-maintenance (something I truly rely on as i work at 5 am), but most people won't care for something that low in coverage.  I can't decide about Haloscope.  The shades look as advertised and I do love them, but they're not entirely incomparable to other brands I've tried.  That said, the Vapour and Ilia illuminators that look most similar cost over ten dollars more.  But those are truly all-natural brands, which Glossier is not.  I'm pretty sure that face mist owns my soul.  I missed it so badly when I didn't have it, and I am overjoyed to have it again.  If it isn't broken, don't fix it, etc. You should pass: unless what I would call its flaws sound like benefits to you, I can't think of anyone who actually needs the Stretch Concealer, and I had a very poor experience with Milky Jelly.  I can't truly say there is a product here you shouldn't buy, but I will say there's nothing here you should buy for the hype, because there are comparable products out there, you need only look. 

[eatprayjop]

since your korean and your also learning the language what's the easiest /fastest way to learn? something that works for you, also do you own any good easy to follow korean books for beginners?

idk if im the best person to ask this bc i haven’t formally learned korean much (like from books or classes) bc im a heritage learner and picked up most of my korean from my family (plus heritage language learners typically need to focus on different aspects than beginners w/ no background) but since i’ve been learning chinese as a foreigner i guess i can say i also think it depends on the kind of learner u are some ppl really thrive academically (like in class, hw assignments, textbooks, etc.) and some ppl do better when they actually go out and speak w/ people whether it’s ppl who are natives of the language or other ppl who are also just practicing - so kno what kind of learner u are and go from there first i think. idk what the best way is but i’ll list some things for you that could be usefull???- if u wanna start dipping ur toes into things I’d consume media (movies, shows, music, etc.) first bc that’s always easy and fun!!- for songs that i really like sometimes i’ll look up the korean lyrics and the english lyrics and look at it line by line to completely understand what it says sometimes i write it down just bc it helps to rmr it better- for korean since it’s phonetic i’d just practice reading anything even if u don’t understand it now it’s good to practice u can probably find easy online stories or read lyrics to songs out loud- u can change the language settings on ur phone or on some apps bc it really makes u think and practice even in small doses- i’d add korean to ur computer and cellphone keyboard (it’s easier to type in korean on ur cell tho esp bc autocorrect is an angel in some ways lol for the computer keyboard they have stickers w/ the korean and english letters u can buy or u can use online sites that show/help u type in korean if u google it)- try to hang out w/ ppl who either want to also practice speaking korean or some actual native korean speakers this will probably help u the most tbh but ik this step is hard i have like .5 actual chinese friends and i’ve been in china for a semester already rip but it helps maybe (if ur attending school) u can see if they have a club of some sort where ppl practice speaking????- idk any korean language apps besides duolingo (which i did use for a bit) but i kno there are a ton if u look it up- i do use the naver dictionary app tho it’s more accurate than using google translate and it works both ways (typing in korean and typing in english)- be persistent in studying (i suck at this bc im so lazy w/ studying sometimes rip we can work on this together lol), make things a habit (at one point i was writing random summaries in korean most days which helped my writing a lot i should do that again)- when u learn new words try to use them in conversations somehow it really helps them stick more in ur memory- when u watch tv shows or something watch w/ subtitles once and then w/out subtitles another time (when i’m watching chinese stuff and they say something i kno or something i just learned from watching i’ll repeat it out loud a few times even tho i look kinda dumb but its helped me rmr quite a few phrases)- i think korean variety shows might be good for u bc they’re fun and also they have lots of captions or stickers and stuff on screen u can practice reading while u watch- most ppl say the best way to learn a language is immersion tho (like studying abroad)I don’t have any specific textbook recommendations the only textbook i’ve ever used was one that my university professor wrote w/ some other people lol but im sure if you use google u can find a lot of sources to help beginners like how to read the phonetic alphabet, etc!! I’m sorry this is probably super unhelpful im not the best student rip i wish u luck tho

[japvnesedenim-blog]

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