#my fuchsia scarf couple

[lumenflowered]

[A video is attached. Janine—a young woman with spiky purple hair and a long scarf on over what sure looks like ninja attire—appears to have just shut the door behind Maria into some sort of break room.

"So! Good to finally meet you, champ," Janine says cheerfully, practically bouncing on her feet as she makes for a comfy-looking couch and launches herself backwards into it, the camera following her there. "You beat Dad, so. I knew I probably wasn't winning, but damn if it wasn't fun to try!"

"I can see the resemblance," Maria comments, looking around the break room and eventually choosing to just remain standing, very awkwardly, near the door.

"Aw, really? That's really sweet, thank you. But anyway!" Janine beams at her. "What brings you here? Are you just the sort of overachiever who wants to get all sixteen of the viable badges, or... something else? My guess is something else. Though you do have overachiever energy."

Maria blinks, clearly confused. "Thank you? I... think?"

"Eh, it can be a compliment, could be not, I mean it as a compliment so you're welcome. Seriously, though, what are you doing here?" Janine pauses. The smile drops from her face. "It's Rocket, isn't it."

"As in the team? I... had intended to ask you that."

"Wait what."

"How much has Lance told you?"

"Pretty much just that he did get defeated but for personal reasons you're not taking over for him at the Indigo League quite yet. Also a quick physical description of you so we'd actually know when you turned up. Which... understated a few things, but never mind that." Janine sits up, arms crossed over her chest. "What's going on?"

"After being driven out of Johto, Team Rocket seems to have plans of some variety here in Kanto instead," Maria clarifies. "They seem far more afraid of me than they are of Lance—"

"Wait, were you the one who crashed Ho-oh into the Johto Radio Tower???"

"—and as such the plan is for the rest of the League to monitor Johto while I search them out and deal with them here in Kanto." Maria pauses, brow furrowing. "Also, no. Ho-oh crashed themself into the Johto Radio Tower; I was merely taking advantage of their offer of a way into the building."

"What the fuck, you're way too cool to be the new champ," Janine mutters. "Anyway. Uh. Got it! Fully understood. Honestly it wouldn't be the first time that Rocket has managed to listen in on League communications, so I get why Lance didn't want to say much, but also what do you want from me here?"

"I'd like to know," Maria says, "if you have seen anything particularly suspicious in or near Fuchsia City recently. Anything directly related to Rocket would be ideal, but anything... out of the ordinary would work."

"Hmm. Hmmmmm." Janine steeples her hands thoughtfully, shifting to an even more ridiculous sitting position on the couch if she does. "See, I can't think of anything off the top of my head, but I've seen Rocket's work before, and I've got a hunch about where they will be if they're anywhere near here. Give me a couple days, I'll let you know. Or I'll have one of the girls let you know."

"...One of your gym trainers is a boy?"

"Oh, Barry? Yeah, he's bigender. He delights in being one of the boys and one of the girls. Not the point though, I'll get on that after the gym closes tonight. In the meantime... stay close, give me a call if you find something first, and I hope you enjoy Fuchsia City!"

"Thank you," Maria says. "There is one other thing, more of a... personal matter."

"Oooooooh? Do tell?"

"I... believe there may have been a challenger here... close to a month ago?"

"Okay...? I'm gonna need something slightly more specific, I get a lot of challengers. It's mostly people who are here for the Safari Zone and figured they might as well try for a badge while they're in the area, but hey."

"Dee. The name she would be going by is likely Dee."

Janine's brow furrows. "About a month ago... yeah, I think I remember her. Actually, I thought she was you at first—Lance's original description of you wasn't as specific as it should've been, he didn't even mention that you're an edgelord."

"...A what."

"Uh, you like dark clothes and... don't worry about it, actually. What about her?"

"I..." Maria hesitates. "She... did Lance mention that I was a Faller?"

"Like Surge, yeah. But also it's pretty... you're not subtle. I like you a lot but you're not. What about it?"

"I believe that she may be too," Maria says. "That she may be from the same place I am, and... may even be someone I knew once."

"Oh shit? That's a good thing, right?"

"...I don't know."

"What, is she your ex or... yeesh. For real? That's rough." Janine pauses. "Also, you can totally sit down if you want. Like. There are plenty of seats."

There are, indeed, plenty of seats. Maria equally awkwardly takes one.

"Perhaps I am wrong," Maria says. "I hope that I am wrong. But any information on her that you are willing to share may help."

"Okay. Well. Um..." Janine's brow furrows. "Let me think on that one too, actually, it's been a long month."

The video ends.]

[sweetestlamb]

Clarity

Summary: Master Lee makes his intentions clear to a certain maidservant.

Author's note: This couple is so pure and unexpected but I'm fully on board and hopeful that they will be endgame. Maidservant Kim is so selfless and amazing she literally raised the child that she believes is the son of the man she loved and another woman. And she raised him so well and for that she deserves the world and not whatever BS Park Jin is serving. Enter the green flag himself: Master Chaste Tea ain't working Lee.

Also mini rant but I'll probably be taking a mental break from Tumblr because of the amount of shady posts on here. I feel like every other post is someone writing a think piece of why someone's else's opinion is wrong and why their opinion is the only valid one. It's so exhausting when I come here to chill and look at pretty gifs.

More flowers arrive although she has barely any space left to store them. Simple white buds wrapped with a single blush ribbon and instinctively she knows who they are from. They were hand picked and clearly hand wrapped as well not professionally sent like the rest.

Eventually the flowers from Park Jin wither away despite her frequent changing of the water, it's the flow of nature but the next day another modest bundle of flowers arrive and she can't control the thump in her chest and the smile on her lips.

She doesn't anticipate more because she's never been courted and it would be ridiculous for her to be this late in her life, she has Uk and those that she considers dear friends and that is enough.

Or so she convinced herself a long time ago when the man she loved gave his heart happily to another. There is no resentment or true jealousy because without that painful relation, her precious boy would have never been brought into this world. But she gave up on finding someone to love like that a long time ago, Uk was so young and she was all he had in this cold world.

"Ma'am, you have a guest."

She shakes her head, clearing her mind of unnecessary thoughts. Master Lee is being kind that was all, it was foolish to attach deeper meanings to his innocent actions.

"Let them in."

"Yes, ma'am."

She stands up smoothing her dress although there isn't a wrinkle in sight, a nervous habit that she isn't quite sure why it's presenting itself now.

She swallows the gasp she almost releases as the guest enters the room.

Speak of the devil.

Master Lee enters with all the grace and poise of a man of his standing, the bright fuchsia of the scarf she gifted him peeking from beneath his robes. She never expected him to take such a liking to it as to wear it habitually but it does warm her heart each time she sees him.

She bows modestly greeting him.

His smooth voice fills her ears immediately.

"Maidservant Kim, you look lovely. I apologize for not bringing any flowers today but your beauty would have far surpassed them so it was for the best it seems."'

She keeps her head lowered mostly due to her embarrassment, no one besides her Uk has ever commented on her looks in a complimentary fashion. She's more used to jokes about her looks and feigning indifference to the offhand comments that are made in pure jest but still scar her deeply.

"You're too kind.There's no need to flatter me."

There is pressure on her chin and then her head is lifted up and they are eye to eye.

She can almost feel the sincerity pouring off him as easily as the power he emits.

"I am not one for flattery. I wish I did not think such things in your presence it goes against my teaching and everything I know but I find myself powerless when you are near me."

She is without words. These words are for her and her alone, it doesn't feel real that a man would be brought to such emotion because of her.

"You shouldn't say such things, I might misunderstand your intentions." She offers him a final opportunity to undo what has been done.

"What is there to misunderstand? My actions have been clear, have they not? Is this not how men court women they are interested in still?"

Courting.

The very word she was avoiding because she did not want to misinterpret and make a spectacle of herself but now he has spoken it aloud and removed any stigma or obscurity.

"Courting?" She whispers in shock, blinking slowly before stepping back with a quick turn, hiding her face once more.

"Yes, if you would allow me I would be honored to court you."

Why? Why did he want to do such a thing? She was a mere maidservant and plain to look at, nothing in comparison to the awe inspiring beauty of the woman who had stolen her first's love heart and still had a hold on Park Jin's even deep from her grave.

"Here. This is for you."

The fragrance fills the room before she even turns around, jasmine and lavender swirling in harmonious waves.

"I gathered these for you as I was procuring the ingredients for my tea. I thought you might like to use them to make tea of your own."

Her heart aches from his thoughtful act, she has never requested anything from him but yet he continues to give her more than she deserves.

"I---thank you."

She responds with her back still turned to him despite knowing that she's being rude. She's too overwhelmed to face him, afraid that she'll become emotional in his presence.

"Maidservant Kim, I apologize if I've offended you. But I could not keep these feelings to myself, I've never yearned for another in my years of training not once, until I met you. If there is even a fraction of you that could come to accept me that would be enough for me."

She gulps at his words that sound so much like a confession, yet another thing she did not have to beg or demand from him it was freely given.

She wishes she were not conflicted and that her heart did not imagine another saying these very words. She had taken solace in her bond with Park Jin and when it grew into something worth she had desperately wished that he would court her, as he had Lady Dow-ha all those years ago but that had never came. He had made it abundantly clear that his role as leader of Songrim would always supercede any affection he held towards her. She had grown to believe that this was all she needed, it was better than nothing and more than she had been offered before.

But was it possible for her to have more? Or was she merely fooling herself?

"I am sorry. I cannot give you an answer now. I need time to think..... would that be acceptable?"

She hears a sigh of relief behind her and then a warm chuckle.

"I thought I would be outright rejected so this is far better than I had hoped."

"You believed I would reject you? Yet you still confessed and brought me gifts?"

There's a small pause before she gets a reply.

"Preservation seemed insignificant beside possibility."

Her heart flutters like a bird that has only just learned to take flight, careful and fragile indeed.

"I shall take my leave. I will await your response, if I do not hear from you within a week your silence shall speak for itself."

A week. To inspect her own feelings and make a great decision.

"Thank you."

"There is no need to thank me. I will take my leave."

She hears shuffling behind her and then the snap of the door closing.

Only then does she turn around and see the bundle of herbs he brought her, but something else catches her eye. She steps closer, reaching out one hand to pick it up.

A hairpin.

She had only mentioned to him in passing that she had seen a hairpin in the market that she had considered purchasing but decided against it, finding it unnecessary for a woman of her age who was far past courtship.

It's just as beautiful as it was that day with intricate weaving and a single jade stone offsetting the shimmering gold leaves.

With shaky hands she brings it to the hair and gently pushes in desperate to find a mirror and see her appearance.

"Ah. Now, I can leave."

She jolts at the voice stepping back at the sudden intrusion, she did not hear the door sliding open or his footsteps.

It was the plight of living with and around mages.

She has to stifle the urge to reprimand him for sneaking up on her.

It's only the look on his face that stops her, eyes filled with wonder and fascination as if he's looking at priceless treasures. She blushes under his watchful eye, butterflies running amok in her stomach.

Then as suddenly as he reappeared he leaves once more.

She lifts the bundle of fragrant herbs and brings them close to her chest, sniffing them to clear her racing mind and jumbled emotions.

She does not visit Park Jin that night feigning fatigue nervous that he will uncover her secret, she sips her jasmine tea alone in the still of the night.

She falls asleep with thoughts of another on her mind.

[syrma-sensei]

Moon's Scarab → Ch. 1: Welcome to Egypt, again.

Marc Spector x Layla El-Faouly.

pre-canon fic; based on the Marvel comics and Disney's series Moon Knight.

warning: violence, cursing, angst, smut maybe in the future (?), the majority of spoken Arabic in this story is in Egyptian dialect.

word count: 1.9k

beta-read by the awesome: @kesskirata

series masterlist | next chapter

° Author's note:

okay, it's been a very very very long time since the last time I fangirl-ed over a canon and straight couple. Fuck, Marc and Layla are my favourite OTP now; despite the shit they've been through, their couple dynamics are just freaking awesome, they got me screaming in the last episode, and had me in bi panic. Just fucking amazing, I just adore power couples. And now we have the Scarlet Scarab in throughout the process... Chef kiss to Marvel. So, I figured that, especially with the criminal lack of fics for this amazing ship, I decided to do something and write a long fic about them; how they've met and got married. Yep, as it's said up there, this is gonna be a pre-canon fic.

And remember, feedbacks, likes, and reblogs are always appreciated!

Enjoy~

Marc Spector

The image of a fuchsia scarf with scarab details spurts into Marc's head as a female flight hostess instructs the passengers to tighten their belts, for they're about to land in Cairo International Airport. It hasn't actually left his mind, really; it hunts him almost every night ever since that night in the Egyptian desert close to the borders with Sudan, depriving him from sleep.

Marc feels nauseous, the urge to vomit is becoming stronger and stronger, lurching and tugging at his stomach as the plane descends within the air. It's very much unlike him, he never had this before. He notices his grips tightening on the armrests of the chair; his jaws tick.

Fuck, he almost hisses, but the vile word reverberates only through his head. He can't allow past memories to freak him out, and lose control now. He can't afford to. Khonshu's current mission, which has led him right back to Egypt, is critical; the country isn't at its best times.

After the military upheaval of Abdelfattah Elsisi, the previous defence minister, against Muhammad Morsi and overthrowing him, a great majority of people weren't pleased with the result. So, multiple protests have emerged, again. The people are enraged and pissed, for Morsi is the first elected president of Egypt since the royal family has been dethroned. However, Elsisi is a military man, and solving problems with peaceful negotiation isn't on the table.

And now, almost two years after the coup, Elsisi is the country's president despite the people's grouse; riots are rising, and the situation is unhinged, or Ala kaff ifreet [On a Jinny's palm] as the locals say. On one hand, Marc thinks, it may be in favour, he can easily carry on his god's wishes without much trouble, since the country is already in chaos, he can deal with and use it to his advantage, all he needs to do is to keep himself in check, and bury his emotions inside his consciousness, he's pretty good at that after all. He can do it — he must.

Marc flinches a bit as the plane sinks harder, and he sneers. Yep, definitely gonna hold it. He snickers.

“Heya awwal marrah as'ab marrah,” [The first time is the hardest one.]

Marc's head turns around, his adjacent traveller looking at him with concern. A kid girl, an elementary school student, fifth grade maybe. She has a dark and curly hair, her tan skin is revealed by the sleeveless top she wears.

She extends her hand to him, smiling so innocently, a window between her teeth is apparent, ready to cradle the permanent ones. “Feek temsek edy law awez,” [You can hold my hand if you want.]

Marc nods and swallows, surprising even himself when finds his hand reach out to hers. His large hand engulfs her tiny one, and oddly enough, he finds something sedating about the whole act.

“Sh-shukran,” [Thanks.] He tries to smile, but his lips curl into a grimace instead, the girl giggles.

“Enta mush masri?” [You're not Egyptian?]

Marc shakes his head, “No.”

The girl's smile widens, “No?”

“Ana amriki.” [I'm American]

“Oh! Amriki wo betetkallam arabi? Helow awy!” [American and you speak Arabic? So cool!]

The girl laughs in zealousness, “My name's Shahd, and you're...?”

“Marc,”

“Ammo Marc,” Shahd says, “Enta jay ala Masr leh?” [Why did you come to Egypt?]

Ammo? Marc raises an eyebrow, does he look that old to have a young kid calling him uncle? He's only freaking twenty nine; he scowls a bit.

“Uhhh...” Marc regards the young girl's face, discombobulated.

Of course, he'd not tell an eleven years-old why he's really here, and most certainly, he can't tell anyone, obviously. But looking at her grinning face unsettles him more than he already is. Wait, maybe she's one of those young spies who are trained to ensnare people who are like he's used to be. He's encountered many of them before, when he was still a soldier then a CIA agent, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and many other places, child recruits who work for certain groups and systems. Fuck, he even told her his real name.

Way to go, Spector, way to go...

“To see the pyramids?” She asks him, still giving him that toothless grin.

Damn, why is he so tense and suspicious? She's just a kid, a fucking kid, he can deal with her, he can deal with much worse.

Marc nods, flexing his brows, “Oh, yeah, to see the pyramids,”

“Ya'ni enta tourist?” [Means you're a tourist?]

“Exactly,” He hisses unintentionally when the plane dips down and the landing gear meets the ground. Shahd squeezes his hand for assurance, still smiling at him.

Marc gazes at their clasped hands, hers is so small compared to his, so soft and delicate compared to his calloused and rough one. He closes his eyes for a moment, seeing a blurry image of Randall's hand clutching into his desperately as he tries to push himself up to save himself from drowning, he sees his little brother crying and begging for help, panicked and scared to death, his only hope in his big brother to save them both, which he terribly failed at.

Marc yanks his hand from Shahd's. They look at eachother awkwardly for a moment, Shahd's blinking and Marc's swallowing hard. He throws a quick scan around before asking, “Howa feen babaki wo mamtek?” [Where are your parents?] He clears his throat and adds, “Akeed mush betsafri lewahdek, mush kida?” [Surely you don't travel alone, right?] He tries to grin playfully at her.

Shahd giggles, “Akeed la ya ammo Marc!” [Of course no, uncle Marc!] Then she points at the chair two lines in front of them to the left. Marc traces her finger to see a man watching them both, a proud smile on his face.

“Da babaya!” [That's Daddy!] She exclaims, “Baba bus! Ammo Marc amriki wo beyetkallam arabi zayina!” [Look, daddy! Uncle Marc's American and speaks Arabic like us!]

Marc tries to smile cordially, his qualms rising again in his chest, “She's lovely,”

“Thank you, sir,” The man smiles back, something truly genuine haloes his presence. Marc feels a bit more relieved.

The plane's movement hauls to a stop, then another stewardess' voice echoes through, in Arabic then English, politely informing the passengers of the safe landing they just had, then she courteously instructs them to keep calm and to not jostle among eachother, then wishes them a happy trip.

Marc loosens his belt then waits for several minutes before he moves and grabs his bags from the cabin baggage. He then puts his cap on his head, and takes a gum into his mouth and starts chewing on it. And before he walks down the aisles, a small hand tugs on his shirt.

“Nice to meet you, Ammo Marc,” Shahd extends her hand with confidence.

Marc smiles, “Nice to meet ya, kid,” He shakes her hand. She giggles and Marc's smile softens more. He offers her a gum which she delightfully accepts.

When he sees her father he nods at him in acknowledgement. Shahd's dad smiles back as he says in Arabian-accented English “Enjoy your stay in Masr, sir!”

Marc is already past him, he scoffs at himself, “Yeah, sure I will.”

•••

“Yeah, I'm in, Frenchie,” Marc's head rests against his right shoulder, while holding the phone in between, and unpacking his stuff. He sighs, grabbing the phone with his hand now, “Told ya I need a man to watch from afar, and can't trust anyone but you, Frenchie,”

It's a conversation he and his friend have had before. His co-worker and right hand, Jean-Paul Duchamp, has insisted to come along and help Marc in Egypt by being at the latter's side.

“Oui, oui, you did make it clear, Marc,” Duchamp's French accent answers from the other side of the line, “But let me remind you, shall I sense anything off, I'd certainly come for the rescue,”

Marc chuckles, “Yeah, counting on that actually,”

Duchamp guffaws, “You rascal,” Marc can see a very clear picture of his friend twirling his mustache playfully. “Anyway, sent you the info you might need on this case, if you want anything else, just gimme a call, d'accord?”

“Yeah, sure,” Marc scratches his eyebrow with his thumbnail, “Anything else?”

Duchamp clears his throat before he adds, “Well, actually yes, Marc,” He stops for a moment, “You're surely aware that, after the huge amount of investigation we've had, this is most likely has a link to what happened that day, aren't you?”

Marc tries to sound unaffected, unfazed, “Your point?”

“Are you ready to face it again, Marc?” Duchamp's usual sarcastic tone disappears as he asks, “Are you ready to—”

Marc cuts him off, “What happened that day remains in the past, Frenchie,”

“We have yet to locate him as you know,”

Marc cards a hand through his hand indignantly, “Doesn't matter,”

“You sure? Last time you underestimated him, he made a hole in your stomach and left you to die in the desert.”

“Yes,” Marc snaps, exasperated, “But I came back alive, didn't I?”

“Oui, somehow,”

“Then there's no need to worry, Frenchie,”

After they bid eachother goodbyes, Marc starts to set up his computer supplies, wires and devices have soon covered the entire room. From a year onwards, Marc has been careful when it comes to use Khonshu's armour, he doesn't summon it until the situation grows critical and too serious, he can handle many situations depending only on his skills and talents, obtained from years of experience, as a warrior against evildoers and sinners. He couldn't risk drawing the attention of the intelligence and the chance of being arrested; an international fugitive, uses superpowers and act as a vigilante. He either would be dragged to acquiesce to the bullshit they name "Sokovia Accords" or they're going to throw his ass in prison if he refuses to submit to it, which he certainly will do, like they did to many Avengers members.

Moon Knight doesn't work like that, he doesn't submit to anyone's wishes but his god, which in this case is Khonshu. The world is indeed going into deeper shit, with the Avengers split, and two of them are off of the world, crime has been increasing around the globe. That's when Moon Knight must act, maybe that what motivates him to keep doing this even though he hates it. It's his way to atone for his misdeeds.

“You know I will protect you with everything I have; you are worth protecting.”

Marc closes his eyes, trying not to startle, whipping his head to face his master. He nods silently, craning his head up to gaze at the deity, the one who saved his life two years ago. He still remembers every bit of it, every moment of it. Marc still feels the cold steel of his gun pressing against his chin ready to end his misery underneath the god's statue, still feels his blood life gushing out of his stomach, streaming and smearing the white sand he crawled upon, still hears his choked apologies for the people who'd met their demise because of his actions.

“You shall face your fears, Marc Spector,” He remarks, “And by my name you shall crush them underneath your feet and by that, you're going to protect the travellers of the night.”

[dust2dust34]

76, 80, 83

“Hi.”

Oliver Queen didn’t get the chance to look up before someone slammed into the seat next to him. They - she - hit it was so much force her chair slid into his as she nearly knocked the table over. Oliver slapped his hands on the essays he was grading, eyebrows hitting his hairline as he turned to her with a hard, “What the hell are you doing-”

He froze.

She was a burst of color - bright red jacket, long gold hair up in a high ponytail, glasses, deep fuchsia lipstick, and the glimpse of a grey and yellow dress underneath a purple scarf.

There was something so familiar about her.

“I need you to pretend we’re dating.”

Her voice, he thought, just as a wave of flowery perfume and coconut hit his nose. A memory surfaced in the far recesses of his mind, but when he went to grasp it, it flitted away.

And then the words hit him.

“Excuse me?”

“Please play along,” she said in a rush, scooting even closer until their hips were glued. “I know this is insane, but I have my high school reunion tonight and someone just walked in who I sort of lied to. It would’ve been fine, except my friend Curtis bailed on me, so I don’t have anyone pretending to be my real boyfriend, which makes my lie a real lie. There’s nothing wrong with being single, damn it, but when Laurel freaking Lance asks if you’re alone in that way she asks people things, you lie. But now I’m literally alone. Except for you. A random man who happened to be sitting in this coffee shop, and oh god, why did she have to come into this coffee shop, why…”

She finally looked up at him.

Her mouth dropped as his heart slammed into the floor.

“Felicity,” he breathed. 

Gone was the pitch-black hair streaked with purple, the rings in her eyebrows and nose, the dark eyeliner and black lipstick, and in their place was actual sunshine. The flowery thought made him pause, but not because it didn’t fit. It did. Perfectly. She was light incarnate. But then she always had been, ever since she’d tutored him. A sophomore guiding a senior through nearly every subject - him to graduate, her to graduate early and go off to do amazing things at MIT. 

He shook his head in amazement. “You’re here.”

“And you’re huge,” she blurted. “I mean, not huge-huge, but huge. As in muscles. You have… so many muscles, and I can’t… stop, I’m… You’re… Oliver.”

He smiled. “Hi.”

The moment stretched out until movement behind her caught his periphery. 

He knew without having to look who it was.

“You need a boyfriend, right?” he whispered.

She started, a flush coloring her skin. “I- Yeah.”

“How can you think I’m anything but hopelessly in love with you?” he asked, raising his voice. The words startled him more than her, he was pretty sure, even as her eyes popped wide. Those beautiful blue eyes with green bursts and gold specks. Oliver cupped her cheek and tried to ignore his thundering heart and shaking fingers as her breath caught. “It’s always been you.”

He leaned in. Not all the way, not like this. But the illusion was enough for the woman standing a couple feet behind them.

Felicity closed the gap and pressed her lips to his.

Oliver gasped, electricity zapping through him. The world around them faded. Hints of blackberries and coffee and something was uniquely her lingered on her lips. Heaven. He barely tempered a groan as he slid his hand under her ponytail and kissed her back.

When they pulled apart, she looked as dazed as he felt, her glasses fogged.

“Oh,” she said softly, and he stared into her, thinking the same exact thing.

It took a long time to realize Laurel had moved to the table and now stood over them, staring incredulously, eyes darting between them.

Without a word, she left the coffee shop.

“I hope the two of you aren’t still dating,” Felicity whispered.

Oliver huffed. “No. Definitely not.”

“Oh. Good. Well, that would’ve made me asking if you’re going to the reunion tonight a little awkward then. Especially because she now thinks that you and I are… that you’re my… mine. That you’re mine. My boyfriend. Even though you’re not.”

“I could be.” Off her look, he added, “If you want. The fake kind. Obviously. I’m not… suggesting-”

“I’m pretty sure I already have dibs on sentence fragments.”

He huffed. “Felicity, if you’ll have me, I would be honored to be your fake boyfriend tonight.”

“I’d love you. To. I’d love to have you. Take you. Wow. Yes. I would love that.”

“Good.” Oliver grinned. “It’s a date then.” 

[ambitiouslyambivalent]

Unfinished stories

So, I broke my laptop, which meant that I had to dig out my old one, right? Now, I haven’t been on this thing in YEARS. Probably a decade. And I’m going through and updating drivers and clearing out unwanted or obsolete files... and I discover a bunch of “stories” that I had started writing and never continued. Some of them are only a page long, including the one below. I share this purely for the amusement factor, in case any of you are bored, and also because I have NO IDEA WHAT THIS STORY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT. If I get a great enough suggestion, I may just have to write some more of it! ;)

HERE WE GO:

I’ve never been a particularly “pink” person. It wouldn’t be my first choice in nail polish or t-shirts. I can’t imagine growing up with a pink paint hue on my bedroom walls, nor can I remember a time I’ve ever asked for a pink jacket, scarf or cell phone case. All shades of magenta, rose, salmon, fuchsia and tickle me pink crayons are guaranteed to be the last ones touched, reserved only for “upon necessity” colorings. And aside from strawberry-flavored Skittles, I’m not even partial to choosing pink-colored candies. So why I chose pink to be the first color to dye my hair, is lost to me. But here I am, halfway through a jar of Hot Pink Manic Panic hair dye, purchased in haste at the local Spencer’s novelty store. 

Standing in front of the mirror at home, I had decided to “highlight” my hair, rather than cover my whole head. How hard could it be, right? I’ve seen it done in salons before, with the stylists brushing the color on strand after strand, folding foil after foil. 

As it turns out, I am not a stylist. I managed to stumble my way through the process to bleach the locks of my dark brown mane, only to find when I unrolled the foil, my carefully selected “highlights” were looking like much larger tresses than I had anticipated. I sighed, well, I wanted to make a statement and I’d say I succeeded. 

The dye actually turned out to be a deep crimson color. As I brushed it onto the first strand it was hard not to imagine this would be what I would look like if I had suffered a particularly gruesome head injury. Reminding myself that the final color would be much more chic, I continued. 

“Shit.” And here we are. Just as I’m folding my last foil and looking like I had won a starring role in a B-grade sci-fi movie, the dye jar tips over and rolls off the counter—the now-empty container no longer able to support the weight of the brush I had placed in it seconds before. As I rush down to pick it up, I use my left hand to steady myself on the sink cabinet. 

“Shit!” I had forgotten the dye-covered polyethylene glove, now making an almost perfect handprint on the woodgrain.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Ripping both gloves off and tossing them in the trash can, I grab the washcloth I had used that morning out of the shower and start scrubbing, deciding I’ll bleach the rag later or make it mysteriously disappear. 

Outside, I hear a car door shut and a couple seconds later, my mom calls “Addie?” as she kicks off her shoes and stumbles into the kitchen to set down the bags of groceries she had just picked up. “Addie, sweetie?”

I freeze. The panic is instant as I scrub a few more strokes and instantly toss the washcloth into the trash can besides the gloves, throwing the jar and brush in right after. I would’ve liked a few more seconds to compose the bathroom (and more honestly, compose myself), but we are not blessed with a large house. About 15 seconds after she gets home, she is knocking and opening the bathroom door. 

“Addie, I picked up some great—“ She stops the instant she sees me, standing directly in front of the cabinet where the now-damp wood has taken on a red mahogany tint. 

“Mom! Have you ever heard of privacy? What if I wasn’t dressed!” I cross my arms, trying not to seem guilty or as though I’m hiding anything. 

She just stares for a minute. “You dyed your hair.”

The thing is, I’m not sure my mother would have gotten angry if I had dyed my hair blue, of all things. She has always been a bit more interested in being friends than a stand-up parent icon. Besides, I’m almost an adult now, about to start my first year at the college of my choosing.

AND, SCENE! Well... at least until I remember what I was actually writing about... Thoughts????

[fantroll-purgatory]

@rice-22

So, we finished a review of this troll like a week ago, and you seem to have changed a lot of things, but save the sprite there are there very few pertaining to CD’s review? So in light of that I’m gonna be doing this second review instead of CD to see if I can bring anything different to the table. Furthermore, because your bio introduces multiple themes throughout, I’m going to go through once with light commentary and then make my changes at the very end when I’ve decided what themes to keep and which ones to toss.

Some info:in left i got him when he was the heir,i made an crown based on the fabric triangle some ghosts wear,also got an squid crown,got blinded for unknown reasons,got an squid cape that he hates and some cuffs that reflect how he is trapped on being the prince,on right theres him when ran from mean trollstodian,got an helmet and a bionic horn/tentacle,bad cover-up of his sign and the tentacles of his shoes are now off,id would like an re-design from the squid heir one,and the jelly runaway,also he does not look too muck jellyfishy…. Place:AU where theres an planet where trolls gets two custodians,an troll one and a lusus one,theres also a lot of communities like towns or villages,every one of them gets an fuschia leader and red bloods are important in society while limes are “trash”

Themes spotted: ghosts, squid, jellyfish?

Also, interesting concept of each principality having a fuchsia ruler! I guess in that context it makes sense for one to run away since there would be more fuchsias to fill the power vacuum.

Name:left is Glauce ?????? and right is Nomuro ??????, Glauce is pluto’s twin and Nomuro comes from Nomura,one of the biggest species of jellyfish,and ro because is the termination on some japanese boy names

Additional theme: Pluto??? Also I assume that when you say left and right you just mean first and last name???

Age:7sweeps,god he looks like 4!!,(reference to the turritopsis nutricula)

Yeah that’s pretty cool. Especially since he’s starting a new life.

Strife Specibus:hornmade brush

Additonal theme: paint…ing? Based on CD’s review I guess in reference to squids.

Fetch Modus:shock modus,guessing game,the item that is needed will not shock and the other ones will give an i wish little shock

Additional theme: …electric eels, maybe, if we’re going with the underwater theme? Unless this is meant to be a reference to a jellyfish’s sting…

Blood color:fuschia/hemoanon

It looks like his second look is clearly tealblooded, though, instead of hemonanon!

Symbol and meaning: Pimini mixed with variant of planetary symbol of pluto

And this is also from CD’s review. Given how much you’ve changed I’m no longer sure this is the same squid troll as last time, though the visual similarities remain…

Trolltag:JovenBidente Bidente is the combination of bident and seer on spanish,Joven is young

Hm so you seem to have fixated on “young” and “fuchsiablood,” which aren’t themes so much as parts of the character you want to highlight

Quirk: ]-ïmPortant stuff gets bidents-[ when theres an p and l together he types P_,double headed ï,uses symbols and caps,always cap P

I don’t think I fully understand this quirk beyond just being the first two letters of fuchsiablood signs?

Special Abilities (if any):seer powers like visions,also got mixed senses,can taste colors and feel sounds

And now we have a synesthesia ability? I guess that works pretty well with the squid thing…

Lusus:Jolly skid,an fusion between Jellyfish and an squid,also the name came from jolly rancher and skittles

Okay that’s pretty cute. Additional theme: candy? But maybe subsumed into the youth theme, which can be subsumed into the jellyfish one

Personality: shy,nervous but can flip to mad and brave

Interests:underrated stuff,jellyfish,necromancy

…ADDITIONAL THEME: NECROMANCY????

Title:seer of doom

Dream planet:Derse

Aight let’s go over the themes we found in this bio along with which themes can “eat” the other ones: squid (painting, synesthesia), jellyfish (ghosts/necromancy, youth/immortality (candy)), Pluto, and electric eels(?).

Hm. So if I wanted to collapse this into a couple broad and easily applicable themes, I’d probably stick with the jellyfish and squid? Which means I should go through and remove references to Pluto and electric eels?

Name: Which means, right off the bat, that we should change the first name from Glauce. Maybe Magfin, from the Bigfin Squid Magnapinna? They’re well known for being real freaky-looking squid with long, long tentacles that it uses to feed off the seabed, and are rarely even seen, which reinforces both the ghostly theme of hiding and the long chain of responsibilities that are difficult to escape.

Strife Specibus: Instead of paintbrushkid, maybe needlegun, like a tattoo machine?

Fetch Modus: I like the mechanic of the Shock Modus, so maybe we can just make it a Sting Modus with the same properties? We can also add in CD’s suggestion from last time of a Squid modus that works like a camouflaged tree modus.

Symbol: I agree that he’s a Doom player, a Dersite, and a Fuchsiablood, but I no longer think he needs the Pluto association? SO I might just make him straight-up Piminini again.

Trolltag: I think we can allude to him being “young,” to starting a new life, and to being a former heir without tipping our hand too strongly. How about splitImmortal? The “split” referencing his divided idenities as well as the bident, and “immortal” a reference to the immortal jellyfish you mentioned earlier as well as the fact that fuchsiabloods live significantly longer than their lower-blooded coutnerparts.

Quirk: I like the bident quirk, but I’d jettison the Pi quirk. For the rest maybe just a colon and an underlined equal sign after c? like so:

The quic:=k brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Looks a little like a squid, or a jellyfish, or a ghost, or a skull.

Special Abilities: I like what you’ve given him! I would like if his visions of doom were similar confused due to his synesthesia.

Lusus: the lusis is cute as hell I wouldn’t take him away from you

Personality: I think it makes sense for this character to have two faces since so much of his character is based on splits, but I would expand on this a little more in terms of what circumstances would cause him to decide it’s worth standing up to someone. For example, it seems that he weighed the odds and decided that running away was the better option to standing up to his trollstodian.

Interests: I like the necromancy detail actually! Let’s add something arty to justify the whole ink thing.

Now to the redesign.

Both sprites are slightly edited from CD’s review last time!

Horns - This is an AU so I guess he doesn’t have to have Feferi’s horns, but I thought it would be worth trying on.

Hair - This is slightly edited from CD’s review of this troll since I felt it had the character you were going for.

Crown - The crown looked a little busy, so I gave him a tiara shaped like the top of a squid head and gave him a gem that imitated the top of the symbol!

Eyes - I know the “blind seer” is the most overplayed trope, but deep-sea squids and jellyfish often don’t have what we consider “eyes.” I went with a blind look more similar to when Sollux “died” rather than Terezi’s look

1) because a tealblood seer with red eyes would edge a little too close to Terezi

2) the black eyes look a little spookier, playing back into the ghost theme

3) this gives a stronger tie-in to his synesthesia since it will function similarly to Terezi’s strong sense of smell

Helmet - Since I made him blind, I wanted to give him a Geordie LaForge type visor for his helmet!

Scarf - most scarves in Homestuck just show the one side of it to get the visual across so that’s what I did.

Symbol - just changed it to straight-up Pimini

Shirt - for the teal sign, I gave his shirt a scalloped edge to better call back to the jellyfish/ghost themes, especially since his helmet gives his head a domes appearance. This way his fuchsiablood version leans more on squid themes and his tealblood version is more jellyfish!

Shoes - the tentacles made the design a little busy, so I took ‘em otu but kept the ink stains, since they’re a nice nod to the squiddyness of it all and also a reminder that no matter where he goes, he’ll leave some trace of himself.

And that’s everything! Hope this helped!

-TR

[echoofpasha]

What are the best airport tips?



Travelling Around the World

·

38m ago

Lived in The United States of America

hye folks happy you can go along with me again for some more travel tips today and explicitly discussing air terminal and security travel tips







My activity as an abroad purchaser and my affection for making a trip has sent me to a wide range of various nations and spots. So I should go through days, even a very long time in air terminals. Furthermore, these are things I've learned en route that assist me with having a superior excursion each time. Tip number one is to check in online at the earliest opportunity. Early check in will guarantee that you get first dibs on those plane seats. I would suggest that you pick seats in the front of the plane however much as could be expected.

This will ensure that you get off the plane first. This is particularly significant on the off chance that you have a corresponding flight, if your plane is running late, getting off that plane an additional 15 minutes sooner will have the effect once in a while between getting the flight and missing it. Another motivation to do early check in is that aircrafts regularly overbooked their flights. Despite the fact that you paid for your seat. It doesn't ensure that they'll put you on that flight. They can undoubtedly knock you to another flight like a later flight.

Checking in early will ensure that you pull up a chair and that way you're more averse to be knock off. Tip number two is to get to the air terminal early. I know many individuals like to get to the air terminal not long before their flight leaves, so they don't need to hold up quite a while. However, I've learned after some time that such a large number of things can turn out badly. This is particularly evident if it resembles a truly active time at the air terminal, such as during occasions or in the event that you realize that it's a huge travel season.

Security lines can be super long. So ensure you consider and get to the air terminal prior. I recommend you show up at the air terminal in any event one hour before your trip for homegrown flights and a few hours before for a global flight. Getting to the air terminal prior, as well, is much less upsetting. You're simply going to pass security and afterward have the opportunity to unwind. It's far superior to going through the lobby, practically failing to catch your plane and being overly worried.

Tip number three is that in case you're heading to the air terminal, ensure you snap a photo of where your vehicle is left. A great deal of you realize that it is so natural to overlook where you left your vehicle after a truly long flight or a long outing.

So snapping a photo of the parking area number will ensure that you'll discover your vehicle effectively when you return from your excursion. Tip number four is to ensure that your baggage is effectively conspicuous. Most gear comes in three conventional tones, dark, dim and red. Five get lost constantly on the grounds that individuals simply get a sack that resembles theirs and leave and they don't see that they have an inappropriate pack until they show up home. To dodge this, label your baggage with something overly conspicuous, similar to a splendid, fun gear tag, a scarf, or perhaps enclose your baggage by a lash.

That is bright. By and by, I travel with these great little travel labels that are formed like creature faces. I have a little monkey and a little fuchsia pink elephant, and that makes it such a great amount of simpler for me to discover my gear actually rapidly when it comes out.

Tip number five is to pack your Carry-On in view of security. Presently, before pressing your Carry-On, simply check with your aircraft and ensure that your carry on doesn't surpass the size or the weight limitation.

Check early the principles and guideline of the air terminals in your own nation and see what you're permitted to acquire your lightweight suitcase. When in doubt, fluids and gels all must be stuffed in a three ounce or less holder, and they likewise need to fit into a one quarter size sack. I like to put this one quart size pack in a spot that is effectively open in my Carry-On so I can haul it out immediately when it's an ideal opportunity to pass security.

Presently, all doctor prescribed medicine ought to likewise be in your Carry-On and it ought to be left in the first jugs are in the first bundling so they're effectively recognizable. You'll additionally need to ensure that in case you're conveying a PC or an iPad, that it's completely energized on the grounds that regularly they'll request that you open it or turn it on. Additionally, ensure that you're not conveying any combustible things. You're not permitted guns or any sharp articles. So be cautious, in light of the fact that a ton I see many individuals get their stuff seized men, particularly in the event that they convey these little Swiss Army blade on their key chains and afterward they need to surrender it at the air terminal and they're outrageously vexed about it.

Tip number six is to have your desk work prepared, ensure your international IDs, your I.D., your tickets are generally effectively available. It assists with staying with them in a different. Men like you, they're an identification holder or an I.D. holder for fast and simple access,

tip number seven is to bring yourself a vacant water bottle. When you pass security, you'll have the option to top off that water bottle before getting onto the plane. It's obviously superior to spending a little fortune on air terminal water containers, and it assists with sparing the climate.

Tip number eight, if picking between a privilege or a left line in security check, consistently go for the left path. Individuals are generally right given and they'll set out toward that correct path intuitively. So normally the left path is an a lot quicker alternative. Additionally, don't really choose the shorter line scope the individuals who are in those lines before you. In the event that you see a line with brimming with financial specialists and it's more drawn out than a line with a family going with little youngsters, pick the line with money managers, it will frequently be quicker than if you go with the family.

The family going with small kids will have carriages and numerous sacks to open up at security, and it'll really take you longer to pass the security check than if you go in the line with finance managers who are accustomed to voyaging. Tip number nine is to dress for your flight. In light of security, in case you're taking a flight that they simply keep your gems, your PDA, your change, your wallet, every one of those things in your Carry-On. So way you're not unfilled your pockets at the security line.

This will make it a breeze to overcome security, but on the other hand it will guarantee that you remember your possessions in those security containers. Additionally, much of the time, you will be needed to take off your shoes or your boots to pass security. So you need to ensure that you're wearing a couple of shoes that doesn't have a ton of bands or clasps or that that are difficult to eliminate or put on. I generally simply pick to wear slip on shoes.

That way they're overly simple to sneak off. I can place them in the container across security and put them directly back on and I'm on my way. Tip number ten. In case you're running late and your plane is loading up or going to load up, ensure you tell somebody, tell a security official or somebody in control, they'll frequently assist you with falling through the line somewhat speedier and get to the door snappier. You can likewise solicit individuals in front from you, simply clarify your circumstance, say that you're regarding to fail to catch your plane, that your flight is loading up, and regularly individuals are truly understanding they'll let you through or they're released you in front of them.

Tip number eleven is to be mindful so as not to overlook you're charging Wayas for your telephone and your iPad.

This has transpired once. I was charging my telephone the night prior to a flight and I left actually rapidly the following day and I overlooked the wire and the charging block. In case you're at the air terminal and you understand that you overlooked your stuff, don't freeze. Simply go to the lost and found at the air terminal. Anything that has been left there for 90 days or more is available for anyone. They will frequently simply give you a telephone charger complimentary.

Another extraordinary activity is to pack an additional telephone charger in your handled in baggage. So in the event that you overlook it and you don't have it on your portable luggage, at any rate you'll have it once you show up at your objective. So you charge your telephone for your excursion to number 12 is to attempt to gain admittance to air terminal parlors. Air terminal parlors are incredible to simply chill and hang tight for your flight. You get free Wi-Fi, free food and beverages and free understanding material.

In addition, if your flight is postponed, it's quite a lot more agreeable to simply hold up there than in a hardened air terminal seat. The most ideal approach to do this is exploit your preferred customer credits in case you're someone who voyages a great deal now, in the event that you don't have preferred customer credits, check with your Mastercard. A great deal of Visas offer free admittance to air terminal parlors. Another choice is to beware of keeg or eBay for air terminal parlor passes. This may be a wise venture on the off chance that you know early that you will be stuck in an air terminal for truly long delay.

Alright, tip number thirteen is to bring yourself a coat or something warm. Regardless of whether it's the late spring, once in a while it's truly cold in the air terminals and particularly in the plane. So you need to ensure that you have a little coat or a wrap or something to conceal and keep warm. Furthermore, these things are additionally incredible. On the off chance that your flight gets deferred and you're there quite a while and you need to sleep, you can utilize your coat as a cushion or as somewhat cover to conceal.

[artificialqueens]

Counting by Threes (Thorcid) by Samrull

AN: Sometimes, love isn’t about doing what seems easy. Most of the time, love is about doing what is right.

Long time, no see! Drop me a note if you enjoyed this.

It feels as if Thorgy went to sleep still in a fairytale, and woke up in a nightmare.

Betty is sitting by the table in their messy kitchen, her body facing Thorgy and her face as beautiful as ever, but closed off, eyelashes nearly sweeping her eyebrow arches, and Thorgy thinks, awful clarity overtaking last night’s hangover, how the fuck is she not mine anymore?

“It’s actually only three pages and three places where you have to sign. Should I, I don’t know, leave you alone with these?”

Three pages. No children to share custody of, no common possessions that they haven’t already dealt with, not even a pet to fight about, just three signatures to invalidate the seven years they’ve spent together, five of them as a married couple. The thought alone makes Thorgy’s head spin and her hands shake, but Betty would probably say it’s just withdrawal.

She’s too scared to check if Betty signed the papers already.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Betty raises her perfectly painted eyebrows like Thorgy is being stupid again. “Baby. You knew this was going to happen, right? We’ve talked. We’ve talked about this a lot. If you’ve been drunk or high most of these times, well, this is not my problem, is it?”

“But… I thought, that night last week? Didn’t that mean anything to you?”

“That night? Thorgy, you got me drunk and practically dragged me into bed. What did you expect?”

That wasn’t really how Thorgy remembers that night. She certainly doesn’t recall any dragging, mostly just the two of them falling back into old habits, Betty being a little overly enthusiastic with the amount of booze in their margaritas, her touches lingering a little too long and then there was nothing but a blur of picking out the tones of minty toothpaste in Betty’s breath and the ever-fading tones of pink in her hair.

“Glad to know it’s all that perfectly simple for you.” Thorgy can feel tears glistening in her eyes, threatening to spill right out and embarrass her in front of her wife.

“Nothing about you was ever simple.” Betty’s expensive watch knocks against the slightly sticky kitchen table as the woman opens her arms invitingly. “C’mere, babe.”

Thorgy lunges forward as if she’s been underwater for too long and struggling to breathe. She clings to Betty, losing herself in the only place she belongs, the only home she’ll ever have and the first she ever had, and if she had any before, she had chosen to forget all about them. The crazy love affair with Betty might as well be Thorgy’s first memory, the one that shines in all the bright colors of the world. The magnetic force that brought them together, disappointment in Laila’s eyes when Thorgy fed her lie after lie, breathless nights and days on pins and needles, disregarding everyone and everything just to be with Betty, the two of them wrapped in each other, naked on top of a blanket on the rooftop of Thorgy’s apartment building, getting high. The endless conversations about how they only deserve each other, too tainted for the world and only good enough for this thing they had, the thing that burned like flying too close to the sun and never really stopped.

“But… but, Betty. I love you.” Thorgy hates the pathetic way her voice sounds when she speaks into the fabric of Betty’s clean-cut suit jacket in electric blue.

Betty pulls away from the hug, running the back of her hand slowly down the side of Thorgy’s face. “I love you too, cuckoo bird. How could I ever stop?”

Why is she doing that then?

Letting go, Betty gets up, wrapping a fuchsia scarf tighter around her arms and tapping her long nails on the divorce papers. “I’ll come back for these the day after tomorrow, alright? But please don’t think about this for too long. Beating yourself up is overrated.”

She laughs, dryly, and Thorgy doesn’t understand a single world leaving her mouth. Betty’s heels click rhythmically when she walks to the door and then turns to look at Thorgy one last time, a lightning-fast assessment of her dirty leggings and a t-shirt from last week. Betty pushes her hair behind her ear on the left side and a small, somber smile grows on her lips. “See you, Thorgles.”

The door is closed swiftly and quietly and Thorgy can only think about how Betty’s hair smelled, not really registering her own movements that lead her to the fridge from which she pulls out a carton of orange juice.

Sitting down by the table again, not too happy about not wearing her glasses but lightheaded enough to decide against retrieving them from the bedroom, Thorgy holds the juice carton close to her chest as she finally looks at the divorce papers and leafs through the sad three pages.

Betty’s signatures are nowhere to be found.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Pile Interview: Lighten Up

BY JORDAN MAINZER

As I talk on the phone a couple months ago with Pile frontman Rick Maguire, he’s blocks away. I’m in my apartment; he’s just scarfed down a plate of poutine at Chicago Diner, with a Soul Bowl coming on the way. We could meet up, but he’s got a show that night at Lincoln Hall to prepare for. Plus, as I learn later in the call, he likes being alone.

Pile’s new album A Hairshirt of Purpose, out tomorrow, sees Maguire coming to terms with this solitude. A decidedly mellower affair that still finds room for the rockers like the ones on the previous You’re Better Than This, the new album is a sign of growth for a band that’s been at it for almost ten years. At this point, they’re split playing houses and clubs (a cancelled Wicker Park Fest set last summer saw them instead play a house), but their new material is certainly more friendly to a venue. Unlike lead single “Texas”, which could have fit on any of their previous albums, the second single, the string-laden “Dogs”, is par for the course with A Hairshirt of Purpose. This time around, they’ve proved they can deliver their reliably nervous music all with a sense of humor and melody.   

During our conversation, Maguire shed light on his and the band’s intentions with A Hairshirt of Purpose. He also talked about his and the band’s growth over the years--including becoming a bath person. Read the conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.

Since I Left You: A Hairshirt of Purpose shows an expanded sound in terms of pace and instrumentation. Was that a conscious decision?

Rick Maguire: Yeah. Most of the records we’ve done in the past were documents of us as a live band, so we tried to do something we couldn’t reproduce live. We weren’t sure what form that was gonna take, but we were still open to those ideas.

SILY: Your live show tends to be abrasive. Is that gonna continue with these songs?

RM: Yeah, for some of them. Some of them will probably stay on the mellower side to add a little dynamic to the live part. A lot of the older stuff is aggressive, so it’d be nice to balance.

SILY: Did you play these songs live for a while before sitting down to record them?

RM: Not too much. What we’ve done on the past is go on tour with new material and then go right back into the studio. Some of them this time around we hadn’t played in front of anybody before.

SILY: Tell me about the string arrangements on “Dogs”.

RM: Our friend [Elisabeth] Fuchsia plays viola. It’s kind of a dramatic song, so I thought we’d have a string arrangement on there. She was the one who went into the studio and layered one after the other.

SILY: Your vocal register on “Worms” is almost a country western twang. On other songs, you hit a higher register. What were you trying to do on this album as a singer?

RM: I wanted to do stuff a little differently. I’ve done the yelling and screaming thing on the past couple records, and there’s obviously some of that on there, but I’m more focused on melody.

SILY: Thematically, the record touches on solitude. But with the album’s title, specifically the use of “hairshirt,” were you going for any themes of self-punishment?

RM: It’s mostly sarcastic as far as the punishment part of it goes. The hairshirt of purpose is that it’s awful to have some objective of yourself. As for being alone, I enjoy being alone. I was being sarcastic in reference to earlier stuff where I was a bit hard on myself. It’s a sarcastic way of telling myself to lighten up a little bit.

SILY: The album art has that sense of humor in it.

RM: I just really like the image. I thought it fit with the title.

SILY: Are you a bath person?

RM: Yeah, I would say so. I actually took an epsom salt bath for the first time ever. Up until a week ago, I would have said no. But I enjoyed it. I took pictures of myself in the tub and everything.

SILY: With your lyrics, are you conveying a feeling rather than autobiography?

RM: Yeah, kinda. A lot of it is pretty vague, which is obviously intentional. It’s equal parts autobiographical and equal parts observation. It’s putting myself in it and taking myself out of it.

SILY: Is the “Leaning on a Wheel” line “Let’s have a baby to save the marriage” a reference to something that happened in real life?

RM: Oh, no. Not actually. It’s sort of what people do when they see something that’s failing and rather than walk away or assess it rationally, they double down.

SILY: That is a hairshirt of purpose in a nutshell, right?

RM: Yes [laughs].

SILY: How do you think you’ve grown since the last record, and how do you think you’ve grown throughout your entire lifetime?

RM: From the last one to this one, we were more prepared, intentional, and deliberate in recording. Being able to manage stress personally has been a big thing. I’ve grown in that way. I used to not really be able analyze that sort of stuff. I was much more anxious.

As a band, I think were just trying to explore different avenues. We’ve been doing the loud rock band in a basement thing for a long time. I’m content to continue doing that to an extent but it’s fun to try stuff out, see what we’re all capable of. We’re just as committed to playing with each other as we were when we started. I’m really grateful for that.

[anajaylis]

Wednesday

Scarf: 28 inches.

Today being Ash Wednesday, about a third my office went out at lunch and came back with smudged foreheads. (It would’ve been half, but due to committee hearings, a number of folks couldn’t make noon Mass.) Lent should be interesting: my boss has given up all grains; the Deputy Fearless Leader is off sugar again; and the Deputy Fearless Lawyer is still working on identifying something that fits into the “this will make me a better person” overarching intent. (She was considering trying to give up cussing, but....)

The Attorney General’s office has formally absolved me of any wrong-doing in a recent complaint concerning records production. (The bulk of my job is providing records upon request. Ninety percent of those records are confidential, with no time requirements, unless there’s a court order. The other ten percent are public records, with strict timelines, and $100/day fines for failure to comply. This guy complained we’d (meaning: me) failed to comply. The Attorney General’s office today sent him a polite “yeah, bullshit” letter. I occasionally envy the FBI’s public records folks: they’re allowed to sit on requests for six years, doing nothing, and then send a letter saying “it’s been six years, we haven’t done anything, you haven’t said anything, so we’re just round-binning this one”. And then I remember that I can pull high volume/short turnaround/embarrassing topic requests on time and under budget, so why the hell can’t they? They got a couple hundred folks devoted to doing this sort of shit! I got me and four overworked underpaid attorneys! ....And then I go home and have a stiff drink.)

The Science March has official hats. I’m thinking a fuchsia + teal GENEie pussy hat for my friend. If she agrees, anyway. It took some work just to convince her fuchsia was okay. She’s some decades past her pink phase.

Today’s Non Sequitur sums up my general opinion on subpoenas. (People send them. I sigh deeply, write either an objection or motion to quash, and smack ‘em with the Rules. A process I typically abbreviate in conversation as “bugger off”.)

And there’s a lolcat which totally captures my issues with baking. High altitude, dry climate, cold house... it all adds up. I tried to make naan once - ended up with something resembling a hockey puck. Bah.

[moriahdyfportfolio]

HWIC | Head Women In Charge

These Are the Women Organizing the Women’s March on Washington

Vogue.com JANUARY 10, 2017 8:00 AM by JULIA FELSENTHAL

Top row (left to right): Ting Ting Cheng, Tabitha St. Bernard, Janaye Ingram, Paola Mendoza, Cassady Fendlay, Linda Sarsour, Bob Bland, Nantasha Williams, Breanne Butler, Ginny Suss, Sarah Sophie Flicker. Bottom row (left to right): Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, Vanessa Wruble Photographed by Cass Bird | Sittings Editor: Jorden Bickham

One very cold New York City morning just before Christmas, a group of women showed up to have their picture taken by photographer Cass Bird at a warehouse turned studio in the South Bronx neighborhood of Hunts Point, a chunky little peninsula that reaches out into the East River toward Rikers Island.

Those who made the trek were among those responsible for organizing the Women’s March on Washington, a mass mobilization of activists and protestors that will descend on the capital on January 21, the day after we inaugurate into office a man who ran the most brazenly misogynistic presidential campaign in recent history, and whose victory has emboldened a Republican-led Congress to wage an epic war on women’s rights.

Perhaps you’re planning to be there? Perhaps you’re bringing your mother, your grandmother, your daughter, your sister? You’ll be in good company. Per the event’s Facebook page at press time, 176,000 people are planning to attend, with another 250,000 still on the fence. It seems likely, said Linda Sarsour, one of four national cochairs acting as spokeswomen for the movement, that it will be “the largest mass mobilization that any new administration has seen on its first day.”

Ahead of our shoot, emails flew back and forth about just how many organizers we could expect to show for the portrait. First it was 10. Then 15. Fourteen women materialized, but several of them informed me that it might have been more like 20.

That fluidity says something about the Women’s March and how it functions; it’s an organic, grassroots effort that prides itself on being inclusive, intersectional, and nonhierarchical, on taking what Bob Bland (one of the movement’s cofounders, now serving as a national cochair) called “a horizontal approach to leadership.”

It’s also an all-hands-on-deck, eleventh-hour, race-to-the-finish-line kind of endeavor, which has required all 10, or 15, or 16, or 20 of its chief orchestrators to work around the clock since the week of the election. This is the type of national effort that the group’s communications czar, Cassady Fendlay, told me could take “six months to a year to plan.” These women had just over two months to pull it off.

“We don’t sleep much, as you can probably tell from all our faces,” Sarsour said drily, her own face framed by a fuchsia head scarf. She’s Brooklyn born and bred (with the accent to prove it), the Muslim daughter of Palestinian immigrants, and a veteran activist who heads up the march’s fundraising efforts. She juggles that with, among other things, her job as executive director of the Arab American Association of New York.

Sarsour was sitting with me during a bit of downtime before the shoot. “Hey, sweetie; hey, sweetie,” she greeted a couple of her fellow organizers, wandering in late. Nearby, Bland’s infant daughter, Chloe, born just after the election, began wailing.

“I couldn’t get it together this morning to have her at home,” announced Bland, her red hair tied up in Harajuku-style double topknots. “So I just brought her along.” Later, Sarsour, in her mid-30s and the mother of three teenagers, would go over and use a baby blanket to swaddle the crying newborn tightly into what the activist called “a cigar” as a couple other women looked on admiringly. It takes a village, I thought to myself.

But that impression of cozy familiarity was not the whole picture. The day of our shoot, I later learned, was only the second time that this particular group of women had ever been in the same room. Some members of the team had worked together before: Sarsour and two of her fellow national cochairs, Tamika D. Mallory, an African-American civil rights activist and gun control advocate, and Carmen Perez, executive director of Harry Belafonte’s Gathering for Justice, had collaborated on previous marches against police brutality, for example. But many of these women were newly acquainted strangers who communicated mostly by email and phone. “I’m not going to lie to you,” Sarsour said. “When I started this process, more than half the women I’d never met in my life.”

“It’s a bunch of people who have no idea who each other is, creating something massive,” Vanessa Wruble, in charge of campaign operations, added later. “If you think about how hard it is to trust people normally, on a day-to-day basis,” she said, “try to do that within the span of a month and a half.” The activist smiled, in some mélange of frustration and awe, and gave her head a little shake.

Left to right: Nantasha Williams, Breanne Butler, Ting Ting Cheng, Ginny Suss, Bob Bland, Janaye Ingram, Paola Mendoza, Carmen Perez, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Tamika Mallory, Tabitha St. Bernard Photographed by Cass Bird | Sittings Editor: Jorden Bickham

The story of how the Women’s March on Washington came into being has already been codified into lore. As the returns rolled in on November 8, a Hawaiian grandmother and retired attorney named Teresa Shook created a Facebook page suggesting that women gather to protest in D.C. on inauguration weekend. Then she went to bed. By the time she woke up, 10,000 people had affirmed the plan.

Simultaneously, Bland, founder of the fashion incubator Manufacture New York and an advocate for domestic manufacturing, had a similar idea. She also posted about it on Facebook, where her followership had ballooned after she raised $20,000 for Planned Parenthood by selling Nasty Woman and Bad Hombre T-shirts. “We need to form a resistance movement that’s about what is positive,” she remembered thinking. “Something that will help empower us to wake up in the morning and feel that women still matter.”

It wasn’t long before Shook and Bland caught wind of each other and consolidated their efforts. Soon Wruble became aware of their plan. In her real life she runs Okayafrica, a media platform seeking to change Western perceptions of Africa that she cofounded with her business partner, Ginny Suss (also the march’s production director) and The Roots drummer Questlove. Having worked for years as a white person in a black space, Wruble quickly recognized that Shook and Bland, both white, could not be the sole faces of the protest they were starting to organize. “I think I wrote, ‘You need to make sure this is led or centered around women of color, or it will be a bunch of white women marching on Washington,’” she paraphrased. “‘That’s not okay right now, especially after 53 percent of white women who voted, voted for Donald Trump.’”

Bland agreed, and Wruble reached out to a friend, activist Michael Skolnik, who recommended she and Bland talk to Mallory and Perez. The latter two activists brought Sarsour to the table shortly thereafter.

Somewhere in there, controversy bloomed over the name Shook had floated: the Million Women March, which threatened to overwrite the history of a same-name protest by thousands of African-American women in Philadelphia in 1997. It was Wruble who proposed that they call it the Women’s March on Washington instead, locating their protest in direct lineage with the 1963 March on Washington, the occasion for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

The new coordinators even reached out to the civil rights leader’s daughter, Bernice King, who offered her blessing and shared with them a quote from her mother, Coretta Scott King. Perez read it to me when we followed up by phone a couple weeks after the shoot: “Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.’”

“It gave us all chills,” she remembered. “It assured us that we were moving in the right direction.”

What I think she meant is this: Where past waves of feminism, led principally by white women, have focused predominantly on a few familiar concerns—equal pay, reproductive rights—this movement, led by a majority of women of color, aspires to be truly intersectional. So though the Women’s March has partnered with organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America—and though second-wave feminist icon Gloria Steinem is now an honorary cochair—the march’s purview is far more sweeping. Women are not a monolith, solely defined by gender; we are diverse, we represent half of this country, and any social justice movement—for the rights of immigrants, Muslims, African-Americans, the LGBTQ community, for law enforcement accountability, for gun control, for environmental justice—should count as a “women’s issue.”

If you’re a woman in America, you probably feel personally affected by at least a couple of those struggles. “Women are Muslims,” Sarsour offered. “Women could be black Muslims. Women could be black Muslims and African and undocumented.” Personally, she said, she might care about immigration, “but I also understand that if I don’t have a planet to live on in 30 years, my civil liberties are quite moot.”

“Yes, it’s about feminism,” Wruble elaborated. “But it’s about more than that: It’s about basic equality for all people.” Women’s rights, in other words, are human rights, a turn of phrase that march leaders, several of them self-identified Bernie Sanders supporters, have reclaimed from a 1995 speech by Hillary Clinton. And if you believe Coretta Scott King (and can look past the results of the presidential election), where women lead, men will eventually follow.

“I think it has been the downfall of the progressive movement in the United States,” Sarsour told me, “that we have not figured out how to organize all the different progressive social justice movements into one intersectional movement.” Pluralism is a sacred principle. Identity politics is important, but so is winning elections: What makes a pluralistic electorate, with its deep rifts, its tensions, its conflicting agendas, cohere into an actual voting block? If the women behind the march pull this off on the scale they’re hoping for, their success at communicating a message that resonates with a wide array of communities, that activates the formerly politically complacent across racial and cultural lines, could offer a blueprint to the flailing Democratic Party.

Those may be the unspoken stakes, but the organizers are insistent that the march be treated as a nonpartisan protest. It will surely send a message to Trump, but the coordinators explicitly want to leave his name out of it. “He’s a narcissist,” Sarsour pointed out. “He wants us to make this all about him.”

It’s bigger than him. “Racism, misogyny is in the fabric of this country,” insisted Perez. “I think Trump was just an individual who was able to ignite a spark, awaken a sleeping giant.”

She meant the racist, misogynistic minority of voters who tipped the balance in the president-elect’s favor (along with those who looked the other way so that they could cling to his promises of simple fixes to complex problems). But I couldn’t help but think that the sleeping giant might also refer to the masses of women who seem suddenly eager to get political in the face of a president who offends and frightens them to their core, the women who, after a long campaign cycle in which they saw their candidate forced into a perpetual defensive crouch, would like to mobilize for something and not just against something.

“This is absolutely not just about us having a symbolic march in Washington and that’s it,” said Bland. “It can’t be that way. We’ve helped facilitate the self-activation of so many people. Because when you think about it, especially those first 48 hours when people were just saying, ‘Yes, yes, yes’—that’s them self-selecting into a movement. When we get together, who knows what we can do.”

Mallory, who grew up in the projects of Harlem in the ’90s, in a family directly affected by Bill Clinton’s omnibus crime bill, who has spent the past two decades on the front lines fighting for her community’s civil rights, shared a slightly more cynical, world-weary view. “Maybe it took your own pain to realize that we’re all bound up in this thing together,” she said. “For me, success for this march doesn’t happen on January 21. It happens after.”

*** You’ve probably already guessed: All has not been seamless or simple in the organization of the march. Many of its leaders were quick to speak to how difficult it has been to align so many different agendas into a single movement. “We never shy away from history, from the difficulty of where this started,” I was told by Paola Mendoza, a Colombia-born filmmaker serving as artistic director for the rally portion of the program. (She and Suss are wrangling high-profile talent like actress America Ferrera, who is chairing a group called the Artist Table that includes, among others, Scarlett Johansson, Margo Jefferson, Frances McDormand, Amy Schumer, and Zendaya.) “It goes to show how inclusive we’re trying to make this movement,” Mendoza said. Muddling through differences of opinion and experience has required what Perez referred to as “real, courageous conversations”; what Wruble called “really uncomfortable discussions.” (For more on that dialog, check out this piece from the New York Times about the tensions that permeate the march at every level).

Mallory told me that the friction came as no surprise. “There’s always conflict, even when all black folks are organizing,” she said. “Because it’s discussions that people shy away from. They don’t want to talk about issues of race, of white privilege. It’s, ‘Woo! Why do we have to talk about that?’ There are those, particularly in this movement, who want to have an ‘all women matter’ conversation. Our position”—and by this, I assumed she was speaking for her community, not for all her fellow organizers—“is that all women do matter. But black women are particularly suffering. And therefore the black women’s voices will be heard. Not just heard, but leading the charge.”

Any internecine struggles were well below the surface on the day of the shoot, where I watched this loose confederation of women, dressed in a uniform of black jeans and crisp white shirts, goofing off on set as they awaited further instructions.

The women were getting a little cabin-feverish after a long day of waiting around. Music played on the sound system, girl power anthems like Diana Ross’s disco hit “I’m Coming Out.” Wruble danced with Nantasha Williams, a 28-year-old from Queens who’d recently lost her run for New York State Assembly and was now volunteering as Mallory’s right-hand woman. Several women took selfies. Perez emerged from a makeshift changing area in a sharply tailored black coat. “Okay, Neo!” crowed Janaye Ingram, the woman in charge of on-the-ground logistics.

Earlier, Sarsour had pointed Ingram out to me as “the poor lady who had to get asked about the permit,” referring to a series of news stories speculating that the organizers had either failed to apply for the correct clearances or might yet be rejected by federal agencies. Those concerns have been allayed, and per Ingram, the permits were never actually in doubt—the hubbub surrounding them had been an annoying distraction. Perez later pointed out the underlying sexism at play in the media: “Was Dr. King being asked if he had a permit?” she asked. “Is it because we’re women, and people think we’re incapable of organizing and mobilizing such a major event?”

Bird was ready to shoot. She instructed her subjects to arrange themselves in two rows. “The back goes high,” she said, “and the front goes low.”

“When they go low, we go high,” Ingram quipped, quoting the line from Michelle Obama’s rousing DNC speech that became Hillary Clinton’s rallying cry. But when Bird started snapping photos, the women of the Women’s March channeled a different woman’s words. Fists raised, they followed Perez in a call and response chant cribbed from Assata Shakur, the Black Liberation Army member controversially convicted of murder in the ’70s, who escaped prison and has lived for decades in exile in Cuba. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom,” Perez shouted, the rest of the group echoing her. “It is our duty to win. We must love and protect one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains!”

Later, the women put on coats—a mismatched assortment in shades of purple inspired by the suffragists—and assembled outside in the middle of Lafayette Avenue. It was bitterly cold, and pedestrians were few and far between, but those who scurried by did a double take. A couple cars crept up and honked at the road-blockers, and the activists, Wayne’s World–style, cleared the way.

During a long pause in traffic, they returned to the middle of the street, arranged themselves in a semicircle, and began stalking toward Bird as she walked backward, camera raised. But each woman moved at her own pace and within seconds the “u” had become a squiggly line.

It suddenly occurred to me that the women in charge of the Women’s March were good at a lot of things, but marching wasn’t yet one of them. A photo assistant tried to help. “Right, left, right, left,” he called out. “Too slow!” some of the women retorted.

Then Sarah Sophie Flicker chimed in. An activist with a background in political theater and media production—she worked extensively with the Clinton campaign—she had described her role to me as “trying to fill vacuums and show up where I’m needed.”

Here was a need for her kind of stagecraft, and an illustration of the flexibility of horizontal leadership in action. “The ends go, the middle stays,” Flicker suggested, as the semicircle reconstituted itself for another try. And that, at least for a few crucial moments, seemed to do the trick: Fourteen individuals melted into a single organism. Bird glided backward, finger on the shutter. And the women of the Women’s March lurched forward, in tenuous formation, as one.

Set Design: Nick des Jardins Hair by Ilker Akyol and Makeup by Mariko Arai