#shanghai showcase

[ashxketchum]

Just sharing the regular dose of Digimon News from China (Cuz Bandai China and Toei China are on another level when it comes to Adventure + Reboot appreciation 🤭)

ChinaJoy 2024 (A Game/Toys related convention in China) opened in Shanghai today, Bandai had their corner there and a whole designated section for Digimon. Photos of the Digimon section layout was shared on their Weibo some time prior to the convention opening.

Today the Digimon Web account on Twitter also posted an update, showcasing the giant Agumon on display!

And another one from Bandai's weibo

Now the products!

They had on display the Digimon Adventure: Yamato and MetalGarurumon figure open for pre-orders, scheduled to release in 2025.

Close up photos from BN Figures' account

For any Yamato fan, this is like chef's kiss fr.

Next, the Kayo Horaguchi art of Digimon Circus, where the Adventure partners are dressed as a Circus troupe is now being turned into mini-figures.

Onto my personal favourite announcement, the 25th Anniversary memorial art is also being turned into figures!

Please check out op's post on Weibo for more stuff on display at the booth.

Not too many photos shared by official accounts yet, but most likely they will post more as the event goes on.

Some links from Weibo if you want to see more of the event: 1 2 3

[drvscarlett]

GRENADE (MV01)

EPISODE 1. Who is getting Checo's seat?

Grenade Series

Taglist. @spideybv28 @randomcuboidshape @mehrmonga @casperlikej @itsjustkhaos @stampiej

The newest episode of the documentary series starts in a studio with the camera crews focusing their camera to the Red Bull drivers. Aubrey Vaughn and Max Verstappen has conducted the interviews separately but they were showcased side-by-side. Max was in his usual Red Bull gear while Aubrey was dressed to kill. Right here there were words floating down the screen.

'Max Verstappen and Aubrey Vaughn, the two Red Bull drivers embroiled in intense rivalry finally sits down to talk to us' Max held the clapper indicating the Red Bull documentary is currently in-session. His usual blank face plastered on his face. Aubrey was flashed to the screen with a candid shot of her fixing her microphone. Then the camera angle shifted to a front view where she smiled and looked directly at the camera. "Aubrey are you ready to start this interview?" the interviewer was not in sight and Aubrey nodded to the camera "Can you first tell us how did you get your Red Bull seat?" "Honestly I owe everything to Checo"

Sergio "Checo" Perez has already had his fair shares of victories in Formula 1. It wasn't always sunshines and rainbows, for sure there were times where it was a really really bad weekend. There is a lot of experiences, teams, and stories for him to tell. He wasn't getting any younger and the calendar has just got a bit hectic. The kids are also growing up and he doesn't want to miss more milestones. He knew that it was a very perfect time for him to retire.

Of course,the first person he discussed it with is his teammate Max then the rest of the Red Bull crew. Christian made an offer to increase his benefits to convince Checo to stay but alas the driver wanted to retire.

It was a mess to pick which driver could work best with Max. Checo told about his retirement during the Shanghai GP and now its the summer break so the team is scouting for their second driver. Of course, Checo offered that he will join in the quest of finding the other driver for Red Bull which is why he is here in Spain.

"Are you here to look for a retirement plan?" Fernando greeted with a joke

Fernando Alonso, two time world champion and a good friend of Checo. He was also the first person outside Red Bull that Checo told about his retirement.

"Not planning to retire soon?"

"I'm doing okay"Fernando answered "I can still beat the kids"

The two glanced at the track. It was filled with children and teens practicing. Checo smiled as he remembers how he used to be like one of them.

At the corner of his eyes, he catches a bright pink go kart. His eyes followed as she moved gracefully and with precision around the track. By the end of it, Checo's eyes widened as the helmet was lifted up.

"Is that Vaughn?" Checo recognized her.

"Oh you know Aubrey, she's one of my pride and joys"Fernando proudly acknowledges.

Fernando was quite proud of Aubrey Vaughn like a father would be to their daughter. He have mentored Aubrey ever since he saw her frequent the track in 2015. He would always look into her races whenever he could andd offer advices about how to survive.

As for Checo, he knows all about her due to the Red Bull garage talking about Aubrey Vaughn.

He has gotten acquainted with the name when the garage buzzed about the rising star of the F1 academy. Then he soon found out that it was a sore topic for Max because the 8 year old Aubrey has beaten him twice when he was still karting.

Although from what Checo has heard, Aubrey wasn't able to win the championship. Plus she hasn't been seen ever since her crash so he was pretty surprised to see her here.

"How is she? Its been a while since I last saw her" Checo wondered

Frankly, Fernando remembered how broken Aubrey was after the whole F1 Academy shenanigans. It was even more unfortunate when she was not picked to race for F1 Academy for 2024 and even for the 2025 season.

"She's been resting here and teaching in my academy" Fernando admitted "I think she has far more potential than just staying here"

Checo nods his head in agreement. If Aubrey was as good as the stories that he heard then she should have been competing even in Formula 1.

It was like a lightbulb moment for him.

"She's not yet signed with anyone?" Checo clarifies.

"Not yet" Fernando looked at him skeptically "What's on your mind? You look like you have some grand elaborate plan"

"Well Red Bull is looking for my replacement, why not have Aubrey take a shot at my seat"

"I still send gifts every month to Checo because of that." Aubrey concludes "I think by month 3 he told me that I didn't have to but I was really appreciative of the whole thing so I decided to give gifts to his kids instead." The camera cuts back to Max. "What was your reaction to Aubrey being your teammate? Were you happy to know that a familiar face will be joining you? We heard you crossed paths in karting before" "Well I was pretty chill about it" Max replied

"WHO IS REPLACING CHECO?"

It was a good call for Christian to talk to Max first in a one-on-one set-up before announcing it with the whole team. Christian knew Max like the back of his hand and he will not be happy about the decision that he made but Christian knows that she is the best option to replace Checo.

"Aubrey Vaughn is replacing Checo" Christian repeated "I would rather you hear it from me than the media"

"What about Daniel? What about Carlos? Why are we putting a rookie as the second driver?" Max asked, completely in disraught.

"You know Daniel is not doing well, Carlos is signed with Mercedes, and she is the best option" Christian answered.

Max sat down as he rethinks his decision in life. He can never forget how a menace Vaughn was when they were kids. He was actually happy that he hasn't heard of her for the past few years ever but her F1 academy stint brought her back to the picture. As far as Max knows, she hasn't been up to a lot.

But now she will be his teammate? Hell no.

"How can she be allowed to go back?"Max's frustration was evident in his tone.

"She is really good Max, I have a clip of her testing the car" Christian pushed a tablet with the Visa Cash App RB car on track.

For a second, Max was taken a back with how well she performs on track. There were moments that he thinks that Aubrey lost control the car but then she handles it smoothly as if it was on purpose.

It reminded of Max that Aubrey is a driver that pushes everything to the limits.

"This will not work, she will be a pain as a team mate" Max groans

"Now stop being dramatic Max" Christian smiles "I'm sure you will enjoy having someone to challenge you during the races."

It was true that he wanted to be challenged, he expressed it multiple times that the only time he felt the competition was in Singapore 2023. Max should have made his wish clear that he wanted a challenge but not someone like Aubrey to challenge him. Now, he felt like he wants to run into a wall over and over again so he will be disqualified instead of having Aubrey as a team mate for a whole season.

"I'm telling you Christian that we will be a pain in your head" Max warns.

"This is a development that you have been asking for Max." Christian has a very convincing argument "Didn't you say that you're not crossing out the possibility of a female driver in Formula 1? And bringing Aubrey into the picture will help more female drivers to enter the sports"

Max really hates it when his words comes haunting him back. He remembered that interview well when he criticized the F1 academy for not making fast cars and delaying opportunities for female drivers.

"Okay but this one is on you if you have another multi 21 moment" Max says before leaving the room

"Oh Max said he was very chill about the news of me joining the team?" Aubrey stifles a laugh "I'm sorry but that's the craziest lie he said" "Really? What happened" "Well, this is crazy but we never saw each other until the testing season. Its like he is avoiding me like the plague" Aubrey recounts.

Aubrey knew that entering a new team requires her to be friendly with everyone so she spent a lot of time at Milton Keynes. She went to meet every engineers, mechanics, and the whole Red Bull crew to catch up with everyone.

It was quite funny because she almost met every single employee of Red Bull except for Max Verstappen.

"Aubrey Vaughn, its nice to finally meet you"

Now she is face-to-face with Gianpiero Lambiase, Max's engineer.

"So you are Max's race engineer"Aubrey grins, shaking his hands "So should I start bribing you to mess up Max's race strategy so I could win?"

"I'm not sure if you're joking.."

GP has heard of Max's crazy theories that Aubrey was out to get him. At first he thinks that Max is crazy but seeing Aubrey now, he definitely knows why Max is thinking of such things.

"Of course I'm just kidding" Aubrey laughs "Not unless you wanna join forces"

Immediately, GP relaxed in Aubrey's presence. There was something light and silly about Aubrey, that's for sure. GP thinks that maybe Max just misunderstands Aubrey's humor.

"Max seems to be missing in action lately" Aubrey pointed out "I hope he feels better"

"I'm sure he is okay"GP confusedly answer.

"That's good, Christian told me that Max called in sick because he had some food poisoning" Aubrey added

There was a scrunch in the face of the race engineer. As far as he knows, Max is doing some sim testing in floor 12. He immediately fixes his expression so that Max won't be caught in a lie.

Meanwhile, on the 12th floor, Max was on the lookout before going out to the corridor.

"Where is the devil?" Max texted Aubrey's trainer.

He wasn't scared of her. He just didn't want to meet her as much as he could because he knows that once the season starts then he is required to see her every weekend. It was even worse that the races this 2025 season is so close to one another.

"She is with GP at 4th floor"

Max felt really relieved that Aubrey was out of his way. He started walking towards the elevator when the door dinged open and he suddenly had a thought that maybe its her on the other side of the door.

"So basically I didn't know how to break and I crashed"

It was an unfamiliar female voice but it immediately triggered Max's fight or flight senses.

"fuck fuck fuck" Max muttered as he immediately hid behind a pillar.

He was not seen by those coming out of the elevator but he can see those going out of the elevator. He wanted to thank the heavens for his quick thinking and reaction skills because it was Aubrey coming out of the elevator.

It was the first time that Max got a good look at the devil's spawn. He haven't seen her ever since their karting days and the first thing he noticed was gone was the dark locks. It was replaced with a more blonde color like the barbie dolls.

She looked tall but Max thinks he is a couple of inches taller. She still had that grin on her face that she used to give him when she finishes ahead. Max absolutely hated it.

"She is exaggerating, I was not avoiding her" Max complains "I was just busy doing... things.....yes things"

There was laughter from the crew. Obviously they know it was bullshit but no one would dare tell the World Champion that.

"Okay max so how does it feel when you worked with each other on track"

"When you put two competitive drivers on one team, what do you think would happen?" Max asked.

"You already started racing during testing?" the interviewer clarifies.

"We weren't even on track and we started racing already"Max confirms.

Aubrey made it her mission to see Max on the first day of testing. She was waiting at the hotel lobby when she saw a familiar Red Bull cladded man eating at the hotel buffet. She sprinted her way to the table.

"Finally! The elusive Max Verstappen is in the flesh now" Aubrey grins as she sat down at the empty seat.

Max looked like a deer caught in headlights. He knew it was a bad idea to eat here for breakfast as there is 60% possibility to meet her here. But here goes nothing.

"What do you want from me?"Max grumbled.

"Just wanna meet my team mate"Aubrey said "You're just as grumpy as the first day that I met you"

Its been years but Max could still remember why he was so mad to meet Aubrey.

"You took my helmet and I have been disqualified because I did not have a helmet"Max pointed at her accussingly.

"Oh cmon Max that was years ago,would you let that go" Aubrey groans "Plus I said I was sorry and that it was all an accident"

"How is it an accident,it has a lion on it and you knew it was mine"

In Aubrey's defense, she was tired of people making fun of her because she is a girl. So she decided to take a random boy's helmet to wear to make them think that she isn't a girl.

Fortunately,it worked wonders because she was finally taken seriously. Unfortunately, the helmet she stole belongs to Max.

"It was a childhood mistake"

"Childhood mistake my ass" Max grunted.

He stood up to leave as he no longer has any appetite. Plus, he really needs to get away before this goes to a full screaming match.

"Oh cmon Max, were supposed to be team mates"Aubrey complained as she follows him.

The two Red Bull drivers earned looks from hotel guests as they bicker all the way to the parking lot. With Max telling her to go away while Aubrey keeps on pestering him to forgive her.

"Okay fine, lets settle this with a competition then dumbass" Aubrey challenged "What if the first person who arrives at the circuit gets what they want"

Max seems to think for a bit but then his face cracks to a smirk.

"Okay bring it on"

And so the cars started racing through the streets. Aubrey swears she can hear Tokyo Drift playing in her head as she drives her car throughout the highways. Max felt very determined to win so he could ask Aubrey to leave him alone.

The two were not mindful of their speed limits which is why sirens started following them.

"And that's the story why we got delayed to our first testing because we got speeding tickets" Max wrapped up. "So who got to the circuit first?" "There were no winners" Max answered "We were both at the police station" "I firmly believe that Max called the police because he knew that he would lose" Aubrey's interview replaced Max. "It was really interesting to be picked up at the police station by a fuming Christian Horner wondering where his two drivers are"Aubrey added.

[g5mlp]

In Shanghai, Hasbro has opened a pop-up gallery in the city center to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the My Little Pony franchise with art and fashion showcases.

According to an official Weibo post, the 40th anniversary art exhibition is open from May 20 to June 11, at 10:00–20:00 every day, and is located at 862–864 Huaihai Middle Road in Huangpu District, Shanghai.

Among other things, the gallery appears to include art submitted by children who are fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

[code-lyo-ko]

HI GUYS I'M TRYING TO FIND CLIPS FROM WHERE THOSE PIC ARE

That's a guitar strap isn't? must be a final? or maybe part of a concert? Ponytail so prob 2011

APPARENTLY THIS ONE IS EDITED

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WHY DOES HE NOT HAVE HIS COAT???? Background looks like the scene with "trop de notes", just before Le bien qui fait mal??? But the musician isn't dressed in red like the basic costume. So maybe it's not a play but a special thing. Haircut of Salieri makes me think of 2009/2010

APPARENTLY IT'S A PROMO PIC STUFF

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This must be same year as last pic. I have no other clue idkk but they're so pretty (maybe a mv idk i have to watch those)

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WHERE IS THIS COMING FROM. I actually saw that background in a showcase, i think it's in a concert from 2009??? but in the video i saw it was like 2 frames after that pic or something so i'm upset

like it looks very much like in this video :

but i can't find the context of it

IN HERE TOO

I THINK IT'S IN THE SHOWCASE IN THE MARIGNY THEATER IN MARCH 2009, 23/03/2009 I THINK

OKAY FOUND A VIDEO FOR THIS ONE

IT WAS ACTUALLY ALSO IN THE DVD ALL ALONG (just bought it eheheh)

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THIS. WTF IS THIS. (2009/2010 ig)

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THIS TOO. I'm 100% sure it's in a scene with rosenberg lol (Victime de ma victoire?)

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AND THIS??? asian tour isn't it? and during a finale ig

pretty sure it's on 2018.01.19, in Shanghai, here's another pic i've found :

OKAY FOUND A VIDEO THOUGH IT'S NOT CLOSE ENOUGH BUT IT'S THERE

I'M SO GLAD I'VE FOUND IT OMG IT'S EVEN SWEETER IT'S FOR THE LAST TIME OF FLOW

YAMIN SINGED A SONG FOR FLOW IT'S SO SWEET I'M CRYING

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I SAW THIS IN THIS VIDEO

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ALSO IF YOU HAVE ANY VIDEO OF LAURENT BAN!SALIERI BEING FLIRTY W MOZART PLSSSS SEND IT I WANT THOSE EVEN IF IT'S NOT FLOW

[neocatharsis]

231102 KUN IG & Weibo Update

"Hope everyone will like this album!

WayV showcase tour in SHANGHAI"

[ateez-himari]

Versace's Icons Dinner: The embodiment of elegance

Versace House's ambassador stuns netizens with ethereal visuals

October 19, 2023 (2:15PM)

A few days ago, news outlet Dispatch Korea uploaded photos of the idol departing from Incheon airport by herself for the first time, which some found rather curious as the group's calendar shared to fans by KQ entertainment contained nothing about a solo schedule. This curiosity was rapidly dissipated when the Versace instagram account revealed that the brand was to host its third Icons Dinner in Shanghai on October 18, which many thought to be the reason behind her sudden flight.

With Himari now officially holding the title of global ambassador, fans were anxiously awaiting the event outfit to be released and were far from disappointed when the dinner's images went public. Contrary to popular beliefs speculating the K-Pop star's look would be comprised of items from the 'La Medusa' collection, she made her appearance wearing one of Versace's rarest yet most iconic dresses. The timeless silver piece was only ever displayed and never worn even throughout fashion shows, leaving people to only ever admire its intricate details on mannequins.

However, the outfit was not entirely what caught netizens' eyes as her visuals were nothing short of captivating despite the stylists opting for a rather natural-leaning makeup in order to showcase the idol's delicate features. It is clear that the young woman's title of 'Versace Princess' was far from being hastily chosen, with her royal appearance and mannerisms leading some to state she was born in the wrong dynasty.

When interviewed about the event, the house's creative director Donatella made this statement about Himari: "When she walked in, it felt like my heart stopped...I mean of course I was expecting her to look gorgeous but she looked like heaven in human form."

Being a direct descendant of royalty, it is no surprise that the artist managed to distinguish herself as the princess of K-Pop's 4th generation and ATEEZ's precious Holy Maknae.

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[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with Style Magazine (2024)

British actor Jonathan Bailey became a hot commodity after the smash success of Netflix romance drama Bridgerton, the early 19th-century Regency-era series that catapulted him and his fellow cast members from obscurity into household names when it debuted in 2020.

While most people know him as his character Lord Anthony, aka Viscount Bridgerton, it’s his role in American drama series Fellow Travelers that cemented his status as a bona fide leading man and truly revealed his acting chops.

Bailey’s searing portrayal of a gay activist alongside Matt Bomer in the Showtime series has won Bailey a Critics’ Choice Award and plenty of accolades, from the LGBTQ+ community – Bailey is openly gay – and beyond.

Spanning almost five decades, from the Lavender Scare and McCarthyism of the 50s to the heartbreaking Aids crisis of the 80s, shown through the lives of two male lovers, the mini series is a beautiful love story as well as a remarkable history lesson. (The Lavender Scare was a mass dismissal of homosexuals from government institutions that paralleled the anti-communist campaign of senator Joseph McCarthy.)

Bailey, who is getting ready to embark on the promotional tour of Bridgerton season three, which debuts in May and June in two parts, was recently in Shanghai for the opening of “Crafted World”, an exhibition held by Spanish luxury label Loewe to showcase its history and to celebrate the 10th anniversary of creative director Jonathan Anderson, a fellow Brit and friend of Bailey’s.

On the night of the opening event, after Anderson gave Bailey a tour of the exhibition, we managed to grab the actor for a very quick chat.

Clad in a striped nautical jumper paired with army green trousers and paint-splattered shoes, all from Loewe, Bailey was extremely friendly and excited to share this moment with Anderson and the Loewe family.

Tell me about this trip to China.

It’s my first time here and I’m really upset to leave so soon. I managed to tour Shanghai today and you can just feel inspired being in the city.

What did you like the most about the exhibition?

Jonathan [Anderson]’s eye for collaboration is just next level. I’ve known him for a while and going back to see all his outfits in one room is like a montage of the last 10 years. My first Loewe show was in 2022, and I think his humble approach to understanding craft and collaboration, as well as what it really means to make something with your hands in a very fundamental way, is something that he stays true to. This adds a very special, celebratory and nourishing quality within Loewe as a brand.

Finally, how did it feel to work on a project like Fellow Travelers?

It’s something I’ll be eternally proud of. It’s such an important story; I learned so much. You sort of feel guilty and ashamed that you don’t know about that history. Then you remember that it’s been left out of the history books and, if you can through your work, you can shine a light on stories that haven’t been told and mean so much to so many people.

Source

[jeniffercheck]

red side of the moon

shivlina oneshot: canon divergence, shiv is sent to shanghai on the ceo tract and karolina is sent with as her handler. set in some combination of s1 & s2. no CWs, just good old rollercoaster of romance xx

words: 10k

read here or on ao3

A huge opportunity.

Karolina’s been repeating it to herself relentlessly, filling her head with those three simple words at every possible moment—scribbling them into the margins of notepads during meetings where she’s effectively useless, carving them into the steam coating her bathroom mirror on the mornings where she feels the dreaded thrum of regret pulse at her fingertips, tracing invisible letters across her thighs as her driver takes to her to and from the office—if for any reason than to stop herself from thinking any harder about it. It is a huge opportunity, and a good one at that. At least, that’s what Gerri had said.

It’s a test, Karolina. Pass it, and you’re well on your way.

She remembers asking Gerri why she had to pass a test like this at all, what part of her worth at a company like Waystar had anything to do with chasing Logan’s children around the world, couldn’t recall when in her nearly-two-decades of professional experience a promotion ever involved playdates with her CEO’s daughter, but she realizes now that those had been the wrong questions entirely. She should’ve asked Gerri if Waystar was worth it.

Currently, it seems entirely not worth it.

“How are we looking?” Shiv asks, briskly walking toward a packed conference room. Karolina trudges behind her, dodging random employees and underlings she’ll never learn the names of, and checks Shiv’s schedule on her phone. It’s a job that should be Sarah’s, but something about the Harvard Veritones and a summer showcase involving far too many shots in the Shanghai Pudong International Airport means that Sarah’s visa was denied, which also means that the roles are so muddied now that Karolina isn’t quite sure what her job is at all. Manager of Shiv Roy? Professional Adult Babysitter? Senior Grooming Advisor?

(I don’t quite understand what my role would be over there, sire,” she’d said, nervous hands clasped tightly in her lap.

“You’ll mold her, Karolina,” Logan said. “She needs guidance from someone who understands. You get it, don’t you? She needs a serious person.”)

“Two meetings left—and we have a tentative dinner with a tech reporter who has a layover in the city,” Karolina says.

“Who?”

“Freelancer,” Karolina says. “He has a history with a few A-List publications, but recent patterns suggest he’s likely looking to submit to Wall Street or The Post.”

“What’s his angle?” Shiv asks.

“Hard to say right now, but my best guess?”

Shiv pauses as they reach the door, her hand hovering over the handle.

“How America’s Politico Sweetheart has anything to do with Waystar’s recent tech grabs in China.”

“Prep some key messaging,” Shiv says. “Tell him I won’t be answering any questions about Kendall or Vaulter.”

“Okay,” Karolina says, glancing into the conference room. “You remember our goal for this meeting?”

Shiv winks. “Got my keys and wallet, too.”

—

“So,” Karolina said, cigarette burning loosely in her hand. She wasn’t expecting to find Shiv out here, hiding from the party like a wallflower. “Are the rumors true?”

“What rumors?”

“You know,” Karolina said. “The name on the front of the building. It’s gonna be yours.”

Shiv froze then, but there was a wistful look she couldn’t hide, a satisfied quirk of her lips and an all-too nonchalant of a shrug that all but confirmed it. He chose her.

“I’m just…observing,” Shiv said. “Getting to know the company.”

“Sure. Observing,” Karolina said. “Do you also like to sit at construction sites and watch concrete dry?”

“What, is your job not exciting enough? You need extra drama?” Shiv asked. “I’m sure Kendall will have you in a bind bright and early on Monday morning. What was it this time? Vape fluid?”

Karolina brought the cigarette to her lips. She couldn’t help but laugh as Shiv’s eyes turned toward her, bright.

“And candy.”

—

Karolina’s already entered the room by the time she realizes she shouldn’t have, news of the freelancer canceling their dinner sitting on the edge of her tongue as Shiv’s voice reverberates through their makeshift conference-room-turned-battle-station.

“This is ridiculous,” Shiv says, pacing in front of the large windows showcasing the city’s nightcap, phone glued to her ear. “You know that’s not it, Tom.” Tom. “Fine, yeah, I’ll just—keep rearranging deck chairs on the fucking Titanic, I guess.” Silence. “That is what I’m fucking doing.”

It’s then that Karolina makes her move, pulling open the door as if she’s just entered, louder this time, so that Shiv has no reason not to notice. She does, a sly glance in Karolina’s direction and Karolina walks over to her laptop still open on the table. She checks the time as she sits down. 6pm, which means it’s a heart 6am in Manhattan. If she remembers correctly, which she most certainly does, Tom has a division sync in just two hours. Regret threatens her once again, but not for any crucial matter—she just really wishes she could’ve seen the shit show that would’ve been Tom’s first few weeks of reign over ATN.

“Whatever, I have to go,” Shiv says. “Yeah. Love you.”

Karolina busies herself on her laptop as Shiv hangs up. It’s not like she has as much work as she wishes she did, it’s, so far, all felt like a colossal waste of both her time and talent, but she lets her fingers do her bidding before she gets too far ahead of herself. A huge opportunity. Huge.

Shiv sits down in her spot, only a few seats away, and they settle into a comfortable silence. It’s like this most days, working in quiet unless there’s a meeting to prep for, responding to email chains while five feet away from one another, Shiv sending lists of prospective investors and projects and Karolina sending page-long lists back of why it would be a terrible idea for Waystar to get involved with any of those companies.

It’s only when Karolina stops fake-typing that she realizes Shiv isn’t typing at all, and she looks over, Shiv lost in thought as she stares at her computer screen. Karolina’s done a lot of shit that’s been far above her pay grade the last few weeks, and she doesn’t think adding emotional labor to the list is going to help her growing resentment at all, but she knows firsthand how objectively awful this entire endeavor has been, so she humors Shiv.

“Are contactless computers our next great investment?” she asks. It’s a second before Shiv realizes she’s being spoken to, looking at Karolina with a tired kind of confusion.

“I just didn’t know if you were testing out some kind of eye-tracking software,” Karolina goes on. “I mean, knowing Waystar’s customer base, I don’t really think spyware is the direction to go in, but—what do I know?”

Shiv leans back in her chair and crosses her arms, glaringly unamused. She stares at Karolina for what feels like an eternity and then speaks, her question begging with sincerity.

“Do you think this is all bullshit?”

Karolina is briefly stunned, unused to Shiv speaking so plainly to her. Much to Karolina’s surprise, in the four months they’ve been working together it’s stayed strictly professional. Small talk, business talk, even the occasional serious talk—because that’s what Karolina’s there for, right?—but never real talk. And this, is real. It’s not Shiv asking Karolina to give the answer she wants to hear; she’s asking Karolina to give the answer that Karolina believes to be true. She’s asking if it’s worth it. She doesn’t have the heart to tell Shiv that that’s something she doesn’t quite know just yet, but she does know one thing.

“I think that it better not be.”

Because she’s given up things for her career before, weekends, bachelorette parties, first dates—dating—but this is a lot. Chasing some nepo-baby to China just because her dad dangled the proposition of a promotion in front of her was a big risk, and she’s not about to let it amount to nothing. Shiv’s jaw clenches then, at nobody in particular, and she looks up at Karolina, serious.

“Roman’s in the management training program,” she says. Karolina can’t help but interpret a small amount of worry in Shiv’s tone, a new emotion from the youngest Roy that she hadn’t yet discovered could be shown. Shiv says just as much then, a tired hand running through her hair. “Should I be concerned?”

Shiv looks at her like Karolina’s got all the answers in the world, and despite the fact that part of Karolina’s need-to-know briefing prior to coming to Shanghai was centered around Shiv entering the CEO tract, she still couldn’t guess Logan Roy’s plan of action with a loaded gun pointed to her head. All she knows is what’s in front of her. The facts.

“Roman’s never been to Shanghai,” she reasons.

“But he’s been to LA.”

“And then he was fired.”

“And now, he’s COO,” Shiv says. “And they just shipped him off to Management Training.”

“Look, Management Training is largely for on-the-ground suits who will never make it past regional management,” Karolina says. She should know, she led the campaign research. “It’s where executives go to die, Shiv.”

Still, it’s not enough to satisfy Shiv.

“Maybe for executives who don’t have a name on the building.”

She wonders if this simmering insecurity is something she’s missed, or if it’s a new development in the world of Shiv Roy. She’d always imagined there was some. She could always see it with Kendall, the validation seeking, the overbearing need to be involved, to have his voice heard—but Shiv, she’d always been the wild card. The prodigal daughter, the one who got away and built something for herself. She seemed sure. Even when Karolina had stepped down and made her way to the Shanghai office for the first time, Shiv hadn’t let a shred of her nerves show, but now—Karolina thinks she isn’t the only person who’s tired.

“He doesn’t have anything over you,” Karolina says.

“He has Gerri,” Shiv argues. “A fucking steel-rod in the Old Guard, and he has her wrapped around his fucking spiny finger. He has Gerri.”

“And you have me,” Karolina blurts it before she can stop herself.

Shiv gives her a once over, as if she hadn’t considered Karolina as anything of value yet. It’s funny, she’s probably no less of a pawn to Shiv than Shiv is to her, only Shiv hadn’t realized the stakes were even, didn’t know that the goalposts were shared.

“And what are you exactly?” Shiv asks.

“I’m your golden ticket,” Karolina says, not missing a beat.

Shiv’s lip quirks. “How’s that?”

Karolina leans forward. “Because, whether I like it or not, my career hinges on yours,” she says. “And truthfully, Shiv, I’m not wasting a year in Shanghai without getting my dues.”

—

It’s at night, when Karolina misses home the most.

The cracked asphalt and yellow cabs, college students littering her street with the butts of stale Newport Reds as their two-in-the-morning laughter echoes through her thin front windows on their way to the subway line that takes them back downtown, the subway, going to sleep knowing she’ll wake up and get to stop by her favorite cafe on the way to the office. She thinks she’s almost forgotten the smell of cigarettes mixed with some twenty-one-year-old’s lavender oat milk latte, not that she’d thought to savor it anyway. Stopping to smell the roses only works if you have time to notice there are any roses at all.

They left for China right after the New Year. She remembers her holiday bonus and an ultimatum. She doesn’t recall any roses.

  —

  “Media day?” Shiv asks, tense as her arms stiffly on the back of a chair in the conference room. Karolina looks up at her from across the table. “I thought you said this would blow over.”

This, also known as “The Shiv in Shanghai: America’s Politico Sweetheart and Her Grab for the Crown,” published in the New York Mag by the very reporter who’d skipped out on their planned dinner. It’s a lengthy think piece on the future of Waystar and the impending battle of the heirs, and it had been a nightmare to deal with twelve hours ahead of New York. Karolina thrums her fingers along the wood, trying to come up with the simplest explanation of their current predicament.

It’s simple, in her mind: the Roy siblings are cash cows for the American news machine, and even the smallest scent of a fight for the throne is much too intriguing to let pass without making it as big of a deal as possible. Unfortunately, Shiv entering Waystar’s payroll is a big deal, a very large, unprecedented, huge deal.

(“Say, Karolina,” Logan folded his arms across his desk. “Shiv’s in Shanghai, what’s our angle?”

“Well, we wouldn’t want to make Kendall look unfit—not when he’s still largely a face of the company,” Karolina said. “Bridging the gap, maybe. The youngest Roy bringing a new perspective to Waystar’s tech wing. It’s broad. Prepping for the future. Maybe we bring her…liberal politics, into it. Western expansion in the Asian market. Growth.”)

“Things are moving faster than we’d initially wanted, yes,” Karolina says, treading lightly. “But, it’s important that we’re the ones controlling the narrative surrounding your introduction into the company. Not caricature drawings on Page 6.”

“And, what—inviting a bunch of reporters into our international offices is supposed to show them that I’m just on some field trip? Shaking hands and making nice for shits and giggles?”

“If you want to put it that way, sure,” Karolina says, looking at her laptop. “It’s just what we need them to believe. That you’re an addition to the company’s roster. Not anyone’s replacement.”

“For the time being.”

“What?” Karolina’s eyes shoot back to Shiv.

“At a certain point, they’re gonna know,” Shiv argues. “We’re dancing around the inevitable here.”

“Shiv, your father—”

“Isn’t here,” she says. “He sent me off to China with a half-baked plan and a watchdog, and I’m just supposed to follow along?”

“It’s not half-baked, Shiv, it’s procedure.”

“But, you are a watchdog, then?” Shiv asks, a smug smile encroaching on her face.

Karolina exhales lightly. She’s unsure if the argument would be worth it at all, unsure if there even is anything to argue at all. The leash is taut on Karolina; she either succeeds, or she’s sent back to the pound.

“If that’s how you want to put it, then sure,” Karolina says. “I’m your personal watchdog. And right now, I’m watching you waste an entire prep slot complaining about an opportunity to show your father exactly why you should be CEO.”

Shiv’s posture stiffens, and Karolina knows she’s got her right back where she wants her. Karolina may be on a tight leash, but she needs to keep Shiv on an even tighter one.

“Fine, media day,” Shiv huffs, sitting down. “Lay it on me.”

—

Shiv is brilliant.

She’s warm smiles and schmoozes, floating through the office like she owns it—Karolina wonders if that helps, knowing in some way that she actually does—and it’s relieving, to know that beyond the complaints, beyond the bitterness behind closed doors and the pushback that feels all too personal at times, Shiv has been listening to her.

Karolina’s staying late, wrapping up a report on all of the follow-ups she’ll need to do after the weekend when Shiv enters the conference room, silently placing a paper coffee cup next to Karolina’s laptop as she sits down next to her.

“Do you ever leave this room?” Shiv asks, hands wrapped around her own cup of coffee.

“They still haven’t found an office for me to take over, so…” she drifts off, twisting the coffee cup around to look at the logo. It’s someplace down the street that they stop at occasionally on their way back from off-campus meetings. She quirks an eyebrow at Shiv as she picks it up.

“I made one of the IT guys go get them,” Shiv admits, and Karolina nods. Sounds right. “Sorry if it’s not hot enough, you were on a phone call earlier and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“It was Gerri,” Karolina offers. She sips the coffee, knowing she probably shouldn’t be having any caffeine this late in the evening, but her sleep schedule’s never been one to boast about, and, anyway, it could do her some good to get her work done, now that she actually has some to do.

“Yeah?” Shiv asks. “How’s the old Fairy Godmother?”

Which, not good. There are rumblings of a major leak surrounding cruises, not to mention Kendall’s pause from reality still causing blowback in the press, and Roman, well—Karolina’s just lucky she’s with Shiv.

“We were just catching up,” she says. “Hard to stay in touch when we’re twelve hours ahead.”

“Tell me about it,” Shiv sighs. “Tom and I are lucky if we get a conversation in every few days.”

“What does he think about all of this?” Karolina asks, then. She says it absentmindedly, like she would about the weather or a new restaurant, and maybe she is prodding, poking her head into things that don’t concern her, itching for a sense of normalcy within the throes of the upheaval of her life with the source of said upheaval as her cannon fodder, but Shiv doesn’t seem to back an eye. Maybe she’s searching for something normal, too.

“He’ll come around,” Shiv says, and it’s an admission of sorts, that Tom isn’t fully on board with the change.

“To which part?”

“Which part?” Shiv asks.

“The part where he’s not going to be CEO, or the part where you’re going to be.”

Shiv pauses, a dilemma she’s obviously thought of before by the way she bites the inside of her cheek. How could she not? Everyone knows Tom’s endgame. When Karolina read the presser for their wedding announcement she was surprised the venue was listed as Eastnor Castle and not One World Trade Center.

“I think…” Shiv trails off, ultimately shaking her head. “It’s too early for those kinds of conversations. Dad, he’s unpredictable.”

Something snaps in Karolina at the noncommittal statement. Like this is all just some side quest, a will-they-won’t-they between Shiv and the C-Suite.

“Shiv,” Karolina says, and Shiv’s eyes snap to hers. “Do you want this?”

Because she has to know. Karolina is wasting time and credibility if Shiv isn’t all in. Shiv hesitates, and Karolina can see the grips of the voices in her head, the Dads and the Toms and the Kendalls, and Karolina doesn’t want their satiation. Doesn’t want the Politico Sweetheart’s centrist neutrality. She wants honesty.

“You,” she adds. “Not them.”

Shiv’s brow furrows, a determined little movement that Karolina’s noticed only appears when things get serious. Real.

“I do,” Shiv says.

“Okay,” Karolina says, like an affirmation. I believe you. “Thanks for the coffee.”

She turns back to her laptop, but Shiv’s voice rings out again.

“Hey,” she says. “I mean—what’s in this for you? Being here.”

“It’s my job, Shiv,” Karolina says.

“Last time I checked, Waystar PR took place halfway across the globe. This couldn’t have been what you thought you were signing up for.”

It’s not, but there are only three words Karolina can think of. Well—the other three.

“It’s a test,” she says. “For you, and for me.”

Shiv’s face contorts in confusion.

“How is this a test for you?”

(“Now, Karolina. We’ll see how things fair over there, and if you’re successful, well. We can talk about what that means for you.”)

“You’re my test, Shiv,” Karolina says. “Your image, your progress. It’s on me.”

“So, I am just a puppet,” Shiv says. “Your puppet.”

“You’re not,” Karolina says. She doesn’t say what she really thinks—that Shiv is a type of untamable beast. That she’ll do her best to shape and mold, but to what avail, she’s not so sure. “This is mutually beneficial. You fail, I fail.”

Shiv mulls it over, crosses her arms.

“And what happens if you fail?”

Karolina settles back into her chair.

“I don’t fail.”

—

Karolina would be lying if she said she didn’t notice the shift happen.

It’s subtle in the way something drastic can only be, like one night you go to sleep in New York and the next you’re in Shanghai. One night you can’t even figure out the remote control to the television and the next you’re rehashing three seasons worth of Chinese reality show drama into your weekly email to Gerri. One night, your apartment has never even seen another person, and the next, Shiv Roy is inside of it, two glasses of wine deep, sitting on your couch and talking like you’ve been friends for years.

“C’mon, you and Gerri have never done anything?”

It’s most likely the wine when Karolina almost blurts that Gerri has been far too busy with Shiv’s brother to ever notice her, but she keeps her composure, laughing slightly as she puts her glass down.

“I said you could ask one personal question, and this is what you’re stuck on?”

“Fine,” Shiv says. “Can I have a redo?”

“One,” Karolina says. “So ask wisely.”

She knows in the morning she’ll regret offering, thinks what was supposed to be a simple prep session for an on-screen interview later in the week turned into one episode of Karolina’s newest reality show binge, which then turned into one glass of wine, which turned into two, which led her here. Invasive probing into her personal life by none other than Shiv Roy.

“Aside from Gerri, anyone waiting for you at home?”

Karolina rolls her eyes at the added innuendo, but she finds it difficult to stay annoyed at the satisfied look Shiv throws her way, a realization that rolls around nervously in the pit of her stomach.

“No,” Karolina says, grasping onto her composure. “Married to the job, I guess.”

She doesn’t realize how sad it is until after she’s said it, the loneliness that hangs in the air in the aftermath of her words. Shiv, to her credit, doesn’t give away whether she’s surprised or not, only a lingering curiosity in the following quiet.

“The job,” Shiv repeats, slowly. “So. Why PR?”

Karolina shrugs, grateful for Shiv’s swift change in subjects.

“It’s what I’m good at.”

“Sure—” Shiv says, notably not disagreeing, “But what do you like about it?”

“I don’t know,” Karolina says, picking her glass back up. “I guess…I like problem solving. Crafting a narrative, watching the pieces fall into place.”

“Control?”

Shiv eyes her, the intensity of her gaze growing, and Karolina’s nerves return, unsure of Shiv’s endgame.

“Storytelling,” Karolina says. Shiv nods, seemingly satisfied enough, and she takes a sip of her wine.

“What’s my story?” she asks.

“You tell me.”

“No, come on,” Shiv says. “What narrative have you crafted for the infamous Siobhan Roy?”

Karolina sighs. She doesn’t know why she’s stalling. She’s worked on this relentlessly, time-stamped and color-coded, refined, and then refined again. Sleepless nights spent on this very couch, crafting the journey.

“You’re the future,” Karolina says. “Optimism, growth. A new era for Waystar with a sense of safety under the same Roy name.”

It loses some of its magic as she says it out loud, as if the entirety of the endeavor is only possible as long as it’s never spoken into existence, as long as nobody knows that the plan is real enough to be taken away. Shiv seems to notice as much, lightening up the mood with yet another thorn jammed into Karolina’s side.

“But I’m a registered Democrat,” Shiv says. “I don’t think shareholders want a filthy liberal leading their company.”

“Your husband is a registered Republican,” Karolina says. “You’re amenable to alternative viewpoints.”

Shiv laughs.

“What?”

“Tom’s a registered Democrat.”

“He—what?”

Shiv must be entertained by Karolina’s horror, because the shit-eating grin won’t leave her face as she continues. “He named his dog after Walter Mondale,” she says through a new fit of giggles. “How’s the strategy now?”

Karolina closes her eyes and rubs a hand across her face, mumbling to herself, “Fucking—Walter Mondale?”

“Relax.” Karolina opens her eyes as Shiv’s hand lightly hits her knee. “He’s voted Republican since 2008.”

Despite this, Karolina still makes a mental note to carve out some time to redraft phase four of Shiv’s ascension to account for her Nazi-elbow-rubbing husband apparently being a registered Democrat. Shiv’s laughter dies down slowly, and just as she’s about to speak again, her phone dings, her smile faltering with a light, Shit, as she reads whatever’s on the screen.

“Everything okay?” Karolina asks, noting the frown.

“Yeah, sorry,” Shiv says. “Tom—he thought we could try scheduling our phone calls and I missed one.”

“Oh,” Karolina says. “We can call it a night if you need to get back to him.”

“No,” Shiv says, with what seems like, if Karolina didn’t know any better, urgency, and she tosses her phone aside. “No, I mean—the last thing I need from him right now is a lecture.”

“I take it he still hasn’t come around?”

“He’s just—” Shiv cuts herself off, waving her hand around flippantly.

Karolina’s asking before she can stop herself, “Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Making excuses for him.”

Maybe it’s another thing that she can blame on the wine when it happens, but her stomach twists slightly as Shiv’s face falls, nerves replaced with something more somber as she notices a familiar tiredness display so clearly across Shiv’s features.

“He’s worked hard for it,” Shiv says. “We had a plan.”

“So have you. So do we.”

Shiv looks at her unsure.

“You can feel guilty,” Karolina continues, “but it doesn’t have to be the only thing that you feel.”

Shiv breaks the eye contact, “I know, I know.” She pauses as her gaze falls on the television. “You know, you weren’t this complimentary in the beginning.”

Karolina’s surprised by the assertion. She’d had been so caught up observing Shiv, she never thought that Shiv would be observing her right back.

“I was guarded, sure,” Karolina says. “This whole thing, I mean—I was weary.”

“Weren’t sure that the spoiled-runt of the Roy clan had it in her?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say you’re the runt.”

“Humor me,” Shiv says, though nothing currently feels warranting of a joke.

“I just didn’t want this to be a waste of my time,” Karolina admits. “Packing up and leaving for a new country without a clear result—it felt risky.”

(She’d done that once already, young and wide-eyed, suddenly stuck in a world that didn’t want her. It taught her how to adapt, sure, but she thinks somewhere inside of her it’s always left a gap. No place ever truly feels like home, no building or title or role. New York had become that—as much as it could be, and Waystar, well, it’s still a gamble.)

“And now that you’re here, four months into it?” Shiv asks.

“It feels less risky.” Risky all the same, but the payout is starting to look more likely.

“What changed?” Shiv asks.

There’s only one reasonable answer, one honest answer that she pretends to mull over. She keeps her eyes downcast as she says it, doesn’t need to look up to feel the intensity of the gaze that she knows is on her.

“You.”

—

Shiv starts to show more of herself, letting Karolina craft the story with all of the pieces, not just the ones that she wants people to see.

“Are you sure about this?” Shiv asks, smoothing her blazer.

“You’re ready,” Karolina says from behind, locking eyes through the mirror. “It’s a puff piece, nothing major.”

“It’s early.”

“It’s five months, Shiv.”

“You said six.”

It’s strange, being allowed to see Shiv like this, nervous and fussy, worried about making an impression.

“I said the timeline moved up,” Karolina reminds her. Shiv turns around, huffing out a deep breath.

“Can we go over everything one more time?”

“No,” Karolina says. “I want you to be organic, not rehearsed. You know this. It’s your life, Shiv. We’re having lunch with a reporter, and you’re just going to talk. You’ve done this before.”

“This one feels different,” Shiv says.

“Because you know what’s at stake,” Karolina says. “The reporter doesn’t.”

Shiv nods, taking another deep breath, and Karolina’s doing it before she realizes, her hand reaching up slightly to smooth out a stray strand of silky-red hair. Shiv just straightens her shoulders.

“I’ll be right there beside you,” Karolina assures her. “Just—enjoy it.”

“Enjoy it,” Shiv repeats to herself.

By the time they’re with the reporter, it’s as if Karolina isn’t even there at all.

—

“You know that’s not true.”

They’re in the car, speeding down the highway on their way to tour a potential partnering facility. It’s mostly for the press—shaking hands with VPs and laughing in front of the cameras with opposing executives. Karolina’s supposed to be giving Shiv the rundown on each of the high-ups they’ll be meeting with, but Shiv’s been on the phone with Tom the entire ride, leaving Karolina no choice but to eavesdrop as the conversation slowly devolves into an argument, Shiv’s agitated tone and Tom’s agitated voice the only sound filling the back of the car.

“I mean, what,” Shiv says. “Did you think I was just going to get bored and call it quits a couple of months into the job?” Silence. “A year, Tom. Six in Shanghai, and six in Europe, we’ve talked about this.”

(Just three months ago the entire prospect of seven more months of this seemed nauseating. Now, it seems exciting. When there are no meddling voices taking up her valuable prep time.)

“I don’t know, London, Berlin? Does it matter?” Shiv’s silent for longer than expected, and then she laughs, coldly. “I’m sorry you’re stuck in your en-suite at Headquarters getting chauffeured three blocks to work every day. It must be stressful for you.”

Whatever it is that Tom says on the other end must not be good, because it’s enough for Shiv to hang out the phone without another word. Karolina steals a glance in her direction, Shiv’s gaze firmly set out the opposite window.

“Wanna talk about it?” Karolina asks. It’s not her business, not really, but it feels wrong not to offer. Shiv’s silent for a while, Karolina just listening to the drone of the car’s tires speeding down the highway when Shiv does speak.

“Do you really think I can do this?” she asks, teary eyes turning toward Karolina. “Like, actually win the seat?”

Karolina doesn’t even have to think before saying it.

“Yes.” She clutches the papers in her hand. “What did he say to you?”

“It’s not what anyone says to me.” Shiv turns away again. “It’s what they’re not saying.”

“What are they not saying?”

“That they think I can do it.”

Karolina can’t imagine how unbearably lonely it must feel to be going after something so huge and to be made to feel so small for it. The people closest to Shiv are all of her direct competitors. Hell, even her own husband is vying for the very same spot.

“You can, Shiv,” Karolina says. “You can do it.” She does it before she has a chance to stop herself, reaching out to grab Shiv’s hand across the seat. She squeezes it lightly, Shiv’s eyes stuck on the window.

“Yeah,” Shiv breathes out. She squeezes Karolina’s hand back, once, and lets go. “Thanks, Karolina.”

And because she doesn’t want to leave the mood so heavy before sending Shiv off to smile and wave for three hours, “Does Tom really take a car three blocks to work every morning?”

Shiv laughs slightly, and Karolina bites back a small smile at the win.

“He says it’s for safety.”

“From what, the fucking rats?”

—

One meeting.

One meeting is all that’s left and Shiv will have closed her first deal. It’s monumental. Karolina heads to her usual spot in the corner of the conference room, ready to send a play-by-play to Gerri as the proceedings begin, but Shiv stops her.

“Sit here.” Shiv taps the chair next to her. She hadn’t requested Karolina for the meetings earlier that day, or earlier that week, or, ever, but then she sees the jerky pen and the stiff posture and Karolina realizes—Shiv is nervous. She’s nervous and she wants Karolina.

So, Karolina sits there diligently. In an attempt of brevity, she slides a post-it in Shiv’s direction right before the acquisition target walks in, a swirly enjoy it in ballpoint-black that Shiv palms with a small smile before anyone else can see it. When it begins, Karolina takes notes, offers calm, affirming nods when Shiv says something, and glances in her direction. It’s going well. Until the client gets cold feet. Karolina holds her breath.

We’re just not sure we’re ready for this kind of move. We have to think about our shareholders.

But Shiv is quick on her feet.

“Forget acquisitions for just a moment,” she says. Eyes around the table look nervous as soon as the word forget tumbled out of her mouth, but she keeps going. “With our partnership, well—the integrations we can offer through our movie studios and amusement parks alone bring impressions into the millions. That’s not even factoring in our cruise lines and ATN—I mean, we get one actor on your app and the hits will be rolling in. Profits doubled within the year.”

And it’s missing something, but Shiv already knows that. She looks down at the papers in front of her. Frowns.

“Of course, with losses in the US market for five quarters straight, that’s not exactly difficult to achieve. Truthfully, if we’re talking Hollywood, that’s about as good as dead.”

(Karolina thinks she’ll savor that look forever, the gawking eyes of the men across from her as the target realized that Shiv backed them into an inescapable corner. Karolina knows the intensity of that gaze, has to wonder if she herself is moving somewhere she’ll never get out. Can’t decide if escaping is something she’d even want to do.)

—

They’re not late yet.

In ten minutes they’ll be five minutes away from being late, and it’s Karolina’s job to count, so she’s counting, but they’re not late yet. She knocks on the green room door again. No answer.

“Shiv?” she calls out, her voice met with silence. She knows Shiv’s in there. It’s the last place she’s checking and Shiv wouldn’t have just left. She tugs on the handle, and it’s unlocked. Because why shouldn’t that be the very first thing she checks?

She opens the door slowly, unsure of what could possibly be holding Shiv up other than some sort of wardrobe malfunction, but what she finds isn’t anything she had in mind. Shiv is sitting in silence, staring at herself in the mirror. Her gaze is steeled, and Karolina can see large inhales and exhales as her chest rises and falls. She steps into the room and closes the door.

“What do you want?” Shiv asks.

Karolina looks into the mirror, finding an unflinching sort of anger in Shiv’s eyes.

“They need you in the studio.”

Shiv’s first interview with a live audience. Celebrating her win. But why does it feel like there’s nothing to celebrate?

“I need a second,” Shiv says, and Karolina nods, a soft, Okay, escaping her lips.

Karolina busies herself on her phone, refreshing her email about twenty different times. This trip has been the driest her inbox has been in years. She’d have almost called it a sabbatical if it weren’t for—

“What do you normally say to Kendall?” Shiv’s voice pipes up. “When you used to prep him, what did you tell him?”

Karolina looks up again, Shiv’s eyes softer, now. Karolina isn’t sure what exactly Shiv’s getting at, what she hopes to achieve from Karolina’s response, but Karolina says it nonetheless.

“To remember what I told him.”

“Did he?”

Karolina pauses and locks her phone. She takes a tentative step closer. “Not usually.”

“Do you think I—” Shiv’s voice catches, and she has to take another deep breath. “You always tell me to—”

“Enjoy it,” Karolina finishes before her.

Shiv continues to stare straight ahead.

“This place fucking sucks.”

“I know it does,” Karolina says quietly.

Shiv looks down then, one deep breath, and then she’s back, shaking off her tears, steadying her lungs. She’d fool Karolina if she didn’t know her so well, couldn’t see the slight shake in her hands as clamoring fingers rub roughly across her wedding ring before pulling off forcefully. She stands and drops it onto the vanity in front of her, fixing her hair one last time in the mirror.

“Send that back,” Shiv says. “Don’t include a return address.”

Karolina nods, swiping it off the counter. Shiv seems to stand straighter, as if the weight of the ring itself was the very thing dragging her down.

“You ready?” Karolina asks.

“What’s it gonna be today?” Shiv asks.

“Just do what you’re here to do,” Karolina says. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“…and what we really want at Waystar is for the people to enjoy it—to come on this journey with us, so that we might look back on this time as one of growth, of innovation, and of cultivation. To know that we are all the future of the Royco family.”

And Shiv looks directly into the crowd as she says it, enjoy it, and it’s as if she’s staring right at Karolina, piercing her with those eyes, saying her words back to her exactly as they’d practiced, and that feeling returns, right in the pit of Karolina’s stomach and she knows that she’s trapped. That she’s entered the space that she cannot get out of, and that feeling follows her all the way back to the green room until the door is shut and Shiv’s drunk with applause and a few glasses of whiskey and Karolina is cornered, her back against the vanity and Shiv flush against her front.

She can’t remember how they got here. One moment they were laughing on the couch and the next they were touching. One moment Karolina was moving away and the next she was standing still. One moment Shiv was across the room and the next she wasn’t.

“Shiv,” Karolina whispers, lips hovering unbearably close to hers. She can feel every breath Shiv takes, the slight movement as Shiv moves her glass to the vanity. Shiv looks onward, unphased, staring at Karolina as if they’re both exactly where they should be, and it’s a flaw, that gnawing thought that Karolina isn’t so sure where she belongs ever, but she doesn’t have to say anything. Shiv is already searching, already reading between the script that Karolina’s building in her mind.

“Why not?” Shiv asks. As if it’s meant to happen, as if Karolina’s pushing against something that shouldn’t be fought, even though she’s desperately aware that it should be.

“You know why,” she says. Still, she doesn’t move.

“But I don’t care.”

Karolina brings her hands up to Shiv’s shoulders, feels Shiv’s wedding ring dig into her thighs through the loose fabric of her pocket, and then she lightly pushes Shiv away.

“Not now,” she says. “Not like this.”

—

She thinks about it in the moments she shouldn’t, in meetings sitting right across from Shiv, wondering what might’ve happened if she’d said yes. In press interviews, watching the way Shiv’s lips curl around the words that Karolina feeds her, the words Karolina spends hours writing down, meticulously picking them out, imagining just how Shiv is going to say them. She thinks about it at night, imagines those lips on hers as she lays in an empty apartment no more barren than the one back home, and wonders what all of this is worth, what she expects to come out of it.

(“Then when, Karolina?”

The ring, buried deep in her pocket—“Shiv—”)

—

Logan, in all of his spite, chooses Berlin.

“—God forbid he sends me to the country where I have citizenship,” Shiv says. “Or where anyone speaks fucking English.”

Karolina watches Shiv pace back and forth in her living room, hand in her hair and a warm mug of tea propped on her lap. She realizes she’s lost track of what Shiv’s saying when Shiv’s suddenly stopped moving, arm on her hip as she looks at Karolina expectantly.

“What the fuck are you smirking about?”

Karolina bites her lip, not having realized that’s what she was doing.

“He’s sending you to Berlin because business is notoriously more difficult there,” Karolina explains.

(She leaves out that she’d made the same exact complaint to Gerri just hours before Shiv barged through her door.)

“He’s happy with your performance,” Karolina adds, and Shiv stills, her brows furrowing.

“Really?”

Karolina feels it this time as she smiles at the innocence of the question. Really? Like a kid in a toy store, tantrums and all.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he trusts you.”

“Trust is a strong word,” Shiv says, moving toward the couch. “This is another one of his fucking tests, isn’t it?”

“Look who’s finally catching on,” Karolina says, playfully knocking her shoulder.

“Whatever,” Shiv scoffs, getting comfortable on the couch. She leans across Karolina to grab the remote, and the proximity sends a jolt of nerves through her gut. “I’m not leaving the country until we finish this show.”

  Later—after the wine’s been poured, and poured, and the television show is complete, they sit in a comfortable silence as Karolina surfs the channels.

“This apartment is a shoebox,” Shiv says, an observation made about four months too late, considering Karolina’s going to be moving out in less than two weeks. Besides the fact that it’s not, but—

“Someone else took the penthouse,” Karolina says pointedly. Shiv ignores the dig, placing a hand over Karolina’s on the remote.

“What’s that?”

Karolina knows this one. “A bunch of celebrities get sent out into a foreign country without their personal assistants,” Karolina says. Shiv quirks an eyebrow. Sound familiar?

“It’s not that hard.”

“Sure,” Karolina says. The couch shakes as Shiv turns fully toward Karolina, resting her head on the back of the couch.

“You know they asked Kendall to be on The Surreal Life?”

Karolina laughs at the reminder. That shit show.

“They pitched a season with Lori Petty and Fabio.”

“Wait—you were there?” Shiv asks, surprised. “How long have you been at this fucking company?”

Too long.

“It was when I had just gotten hired,” Karolina says. “The PR head at the time wanted them to go for it. Thought it could make him more sympathetic to the public if he had some heartfelt moment on national television.”

“So?” Shiv says. “Why didn’t he go all Simple Life?”

Karolina shrugs. “Anyone with half a brain could figure out that Kendall shouldn’t be monitored by cameras twenty-four-seven.”

“Fair enough,” Shiv mumbles.

Karolina looks over then, Shiv still leaning on the couch lazily. Her cheeks are whiskey-flushed, glassy eyes stuck on Karolina.

“What are you doing here?” Shiv asks.

“You’re in my apartment, Shiv.”

“No,” Shiv shakes her head. “Here. In Shanghai.”

“I told you, your father is—”

“Fuck that,” Shiv says softly. “With a resumé like yours, you could go to any firm in the world. Why take a grunt position after fifteen years with a company?”

It strikes her then, that Shiv knows exactly how long Karolina has been working for Waystar. How long she’s been working up to this.

“You know why.”

“Say it,” Shiv says. “I just want to hear it from you.”

Karolina grabs her wine glass, taking a sip before answering.

“Because I want the success story,” she says. Though, no, not quite. “I-I want your success story. To be a part of it.”

Shiv tilts her head.

“It’s more than that.”

Karolina knows it is. Knows the ugly part of her ambition has been rearing its head for the last six months, knows exactly why she’s willing to sacrifice so much for what could possibly garner nothing in return.

“I don’t want the glory, Shiv,” she says. “I just want—”

But how does she explain it? That she’s happiest in the wings? Watching her plans come to fruition, hearing her words coming out of Shiv’s mouth?

“Control?” Shiv asks.

Karolina realizes how close Shiv is now.

“Power?” Shiv tries again, leaning in closer.

“Shiv—” It’s a weak attempt, but Shiv is close now, and Karolina doesn’t think she wants to push her away.

“You’re always telling me to go for the things that I want,” Shiv whispers. “To understand what it is that I deserve.”

Karolina swallows, frozen to her spot. Trapped.

“What do you think you deserve right now?” she asks.

Shiv pauses, inches away from Karolina’s lips. They lock eyes.

“What do you think I deserve?”

Karolina’s fucked.

“Anything you want.”

—

For a brief moment in time, she feels unstoppable.

Whoever said not to mix business with pleasure certainly never experienced what this feels like. Like every time they walk into a crowded room everything slows down, the attention shifts, and the moment is theirs. Every time she locks eyes with Shiv she can feel power surge, like the city only sleeps when they’re no longer in it. Every brush of the fingers in their daily sync, every sly look during a conference call, every stolen kiss behind closed doors because the arschlochs in Berlin actually bothered to give Karolina an office, affirms that she’d made the right choice all of those moons ago.

That worth, should never have been in question at all.

  —

  It’s vicious, the way things seem to fall apart just when they’re coming together.

“Are you serious?” Shiv asks, voice immediately loud in the privacy of her apartment. “I don’t give a fuck if Kendall’s run off into the fucking Siberian Forest or wherever the fuck they think he’s run off to, I n—you can’t just go, Karolina.”

“Shiv, please don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” Karolina says. “It’s a few weeks, tops. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“But you’re mine,” Shiv says. “That’s like, the whole fucking point of you.”

It’s a stark reminder, those few words, how complicated simple things can be. There are two parts of her, clawing at each other. One is Shiv’s. Her coach, glorified babysitter, scriptwriter, pep talker—all things that grew out of a role that hadn’t yet existed, a role neither of them knew she was going to fill. The other half, the more frightening half, is herself. A side to her that she can’t qualify into small little sections. The part of her that would give everything up to follow her heart, to follow Shiv.

“Yeah?” Karolina asks. “I’m just another name on your father’s payroll. Here to do your bidding, right?”

“My keynote is tomorrow, Karolina,” Shiv says, voice growing louder. “You couldn’t have asked Dad for one fucking day?”

And it’s funny, ironic in a sadistic sort of way, maybe, that the side that belongs to Shiv, is the side that forces her to leave.

“You don’t think I did?” Karolina asks. “He said you’d be fine. That if I’ve done my job correctly, you won’t even need me there. Don’t you get it? It’s a test.”

“I don’t give a shit about your stupid tests, Karolina,” Shiv says. “Fail the fucking test!”

Karolina scoffs. “This isn’t a game, Shiv. This is my life. My career.”

“Exactly. So fucking do something for yourself. For once in your life—”

“It’s not just about me,” Karolina snaps. “Leaving is for the both of us. It’s for you. I mean, Christ, Shiv—everything I fucking do it for you. Everything.”

Shiv’s nostrils flare. Maybe it’s something she can’t admit, or something that, if she admits right now, will break her—Karolina is her anchor.

“If you go—” Shiv crosses her arms, her voice rigid. “My father’s payroll, is the last payroll you’ll ever be on at Waystar.”

It’s a make-it-or-break-it, the last ultimatum she might ever receive from a hot-headed Roy, but the choice is clear to her. If she stays, Shiv fails the test. Karolina loses either way. So, she chooses Shiv, whether Shiv wants to believe it or not.

“I guess I’ll start counting my days, then,” Karolina says softly. “Good luck at the keynote. Don’t expect me at the coronation.”

—

She attempts to watch the keynote while on the road, unsure of what rainy-mountainous European countryside they’ve dragged her off to this time, but the service gets spottier the farther out into the hills they go. Instead, she picks up Kendall, cleans up his bloody nose and straightens his blazer, all while pretending she isn’t thinking about Shiv, imagining she’s sending her off for the big presentation— smoothing her hair just one more time, fingers always hovering over places they shouldn’t be; not dressing up Logan’s second eldest like a newly unboxed Lobotomy Ken.

It’s not fun. There’s no joy in it. She feeds him the script and she prays that he remembers, clutches her coffee that’s gone cold and tries not to think about the waning Berlin sun and which version of the closing paragraph Shiv had chosen to go with as thunder claps off in the distance outside the sound studio.

“I saw their plan, and my dad’s plan was better.”

It used to feel good, her words on national television. Her publicity plans making or breaking business deals, her work paying off as if it was worth something, but it’s missing something now.

(Later, under the covers, the keynote in 1080p on her hotel’s high-speed Wi-Fi—her words.

It feels like it did, before she left. As if it meant something when Shiv read her script, because it did. Because they were being said by someone who cares. And when she closes her eyes and listens as the crowd applauds, it feels like that applause is for her. Like she can take pride in this thing that she’d created. Like she passed a test. But when she opens them and sees her face, watches a smile that doesn’t quite stretch as far as she knows it can, the feeling fades. The light dims.

But it’s better this way. That’s what she’ll tell herself.)

—

“It’s bullshit.”

Karolina watches as Roman paces throughout Gerri’s office. He’d barged in without a spare glance, not that she and Gerri were in the middle of any sort of thrilling conversation—not that they’d been in any sort of conversation at all, Karolina perched on the couch in the corner of Gerri’s office as her last remaining salvation from the hordes of new underlings barging through her own door every few minutes. Still, she finds a quiet kind of amusement in the way she goes from slightly unnoticed to forgotten in a split second, a fly on the wall to Roman Roy’s first tantrum of the day. She discreetly marks a tally in her planner. This is the fourth one she’s been privy to this month alone.

“It’s business,” Gerri replies, a tired kind of sternness taking up her voice. Roman doesn’t seem to notice.

“No,” he says, like a child trying to correct their parent. “It’s bullshit. She doesn’t work here, a-and she doesn’t even want to. She’s just—showing her fucking dick.”

Gerri’s eyes move past him towards Karolina, and Karolina looks down. This is Gerri’s mess.

“She’s just coming back to shadow, Roman,” Gerri says, as if that should somehow pacify him. “You and Kendall—”

“Me and Kendall worked for this,” Roman argues. “She’s just walking back in here like she’s owed the place.”

Karolina has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing at the prospect of Roman and Kendall having worked for anything at all. An entire media conglomerate at the tips of their fingers, only shielded from them by the silver plate itself. She also has to stop herself from shouting out in a rage that Shiv has worked for this. Probably more than Roman ever has—

“Roman, if you have a problem—”

“Take it up with the big man,” Roman says, waving her off. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Whatever.”

He turns around then, finally spotting Karolina. She smiles awkwardly over her laptop.

“Oh,” Roman says. “Hey, Karolina.”

“Hi, Roman.”

“Congrats on the new title.”

She’d returned to her own office and a new plaque. Head of Public Relations and Communications. It hadn’t felt like winning.

“Thank you, Roman.”

He stops in front of her, eyebrows scrunched and arms crossed.

“This doesn’t really change anything, right?” Roman says, feigning interest. “You still have to run around and tell all those press people how many sugars Dad takes in his coffee?”

Karolina shifts in her seat. Not that a squeaky twink in a two-piece is any match for her resolve, but it’s a Thursday and her patience is wearing thin, and those press people forgot the correct amount of sugar in Logan’s coffee the day before, so yeah. Maybe he hit a sore spot.

“That’s not really—”

“Now that you have some staying power, could you tell them to stop referring to me as Logan Roy’s middle child?” Roman interrupts. “I’d prefer something more debonaire like, I don’t know, C-O-O?”

“I’ll run it up the chain,” Karolina nods, not letting her smile slip.

He shrugs. “Wait—” It hits. “They sent you to Shanghai. Shiv’s in Management Training now?” He laughs. “I mean, what’s your take here? Aren’t these optics, like, a major fuckhole?”

Fuckholes aside—“It’s an exciting time for the company,” Karolina says. “That’s what I’d say.”

“God, you people are—”

—

Logan dies.

It’s drastically subtle, how she’s learning most things tend to be. One moment she’s dreading traveling halfway across the world, and the next she doesn’t want to leave. One night the only conversation she’s ever had with Shiv Roy was a brief chat on a smoke break and the next she’s leaving Shiv’s wedding ring on Tom’s desk in a plastic sandwich bag. One day Logan is alive, and the next he isn’t.

Pronounced dead in fucking Bergen County. Humiliating, really.

Karolina drafts the statement. Perfunctory, complimentary, assuring—everything the public needs to hear in all this PR nightmare’s glory, and then they don’t need it. She watches Shiv’s statement to the press from her office, the building’s floors more quiet than she’s ever heard them in all fifteen years, and it’s perfect. Everything she wrote and more, with a little bit more heart. It’s a feeling she can’t quite place, not at all like she’s passed the test—maybe someone like she’s failed it—but even still, it’s like her work is done.

It’s how she knows Shiv is going to win the seat.

(She goes to the funeral. It’s her first time seeing Shiv since Berlin. She looks older, like the six months they’d spent apart were enough to change them into entirely new people. Tom’s not at the funeral, but Karolina notices the ring. The ring that she never mailed but brought back with her, and left on Tom’s desk without a return address. She dodges Shiv at the repast, hides behind Gerri’s questioning glares and distracts them all with interim CEO gossip.

And then it's like she was never there at all.)

—

Gerri is interim CEO for one month when Shiv returns, and then it’s hers.

Nobody thinks it’s going to happen. The office buzzes in the days leading up—Kendall this, Shiv that—but then the board convenes. Logan’s last order of business—a merger with some Swedish tech outfit, and Karolina hears the rumors from the room as they come. Shiv just spent the last year crafting relationships with big tech in China. She just did a successful keynote on the future of entertainment tech in Europe. It’s hers. America’s Politico Sweetheart turned Sweet-talker of Tech. The board wants her and her shiny new relationships. She wins.

Karolina goes to the coronation. She doesn’t think she’d be able to live with herself if she didn’t. She watches from the corner as Shiv signs the dotted line, smiles for the photos, shakes hands and earns their blessing. A year ago, she wouldn’t have been ready. She most likely still isn’t ready—who could be—but it’s not the same Shiv that it would’ve been. It’s the confident Shiv. The one who believes in herself. The one who isn’t asking if she can do it anymore. The one who is doing it.

After, she goes back to her office. She thinks about packing her things, abandoning the office that she’d only gotten to use for the better part of a few months. Shiv had said it clearly, and it’s not that simple, legally, but Karolina knew the terms. She knew it could come to this. She starts a “Where I Left Off” document for Hugo—though it pains her to imagine him besting her in the end—or whoever. She hopes it’s some shiny new suit, one of those millennial consulting firms that Shiv doesn’t have to get close to.

Then Shiv shows up at her door. The air is rife with tension.

“You came,” Shiv says, breaking the ice.

Karolina sits stiffly behind her desk. “Would’ve looked bad for you if I didn’t,” she says. “The board should know you have the V-Suite’s support.” Shiv nods. That’s all it was, optics.

“I got your flowers.”

“I thought a call would’ve been unwelcome,” Karolina says. Shiv shrugs. Moves closer. That’s when Karolina notices—

“Where’s your ring?”

Shiv looks down at her hand, as if she’s just noticed it was bare. She hesitates.

“I only put it on for the cameras,” Shiv says.

“Why?” Karolina asks.

“Well—divorce is too dangerous for the brand-new, inexperienced CEO,” Shiv says.

Karolina keeps a still face. Divorce. “Who told you that?”

Shiv shrugs, walks further into the office. “It’s what I imagined you’d say,” Shiv says. “Shareholders need stability right now, Shiv. It’s not like you have to be with him. Just pretend.”

Karolina bites her lip as Shiv mocks her PR voice.

“So that’s it?” she asks.

“I mean, he’s gonna fight it,” Shiv says. “Figure out some way to say I broke the terms of the prenup. Say he sacrificed progress in his career for me to have this. It’ll be public. Ugly.”

“He won’t win,” Karolina says, immediately.

The shift is subtle. Drastic.

“I know.”

Karolina raises her eyebrows.

“He can’t,” Shiv says. Then, she looks nervous. “Not with you on my side.”

Karolina attempts to hide her surprise.

“Thought you were firing me,” Karolina replies.

Shiv shrugs.

“And I thought you weren’t coming,” she says, and Karolina wonders if Shiv understands. Understands that there’s no world where Karolina wouldn’t show up for her. Shiv leans forward in her seat. “So. How’s CCO sound?”

Karolina’s mind blanks.

“Are you serious?”

Shiv leans back, “Sure, yeah, Shiv, I’d love to be Chief Communications Officer of a female-led Fortune 500. Thanks for the offer.”

“I mean—of course, I’d love to,” Karolina’s speechless. “Is this real?”

“It’s my company, Karolina,” Shiv says. “I want you in it. I do.”

Karolina bites back the tears coming to the surface, looking down if only so that she doesn’t have to look at Shiv.

“Shiv—”

“Not now,” she says softly. “Look, I—I owe you a lot.”

Karolina nods, eyes still glued to her desk, waiting to see where this is going to go.

“And—” There’s a movement out of the corner of her eye, Shiv’s hands, playing with the empty space on her ring finger, “There are things I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Things,” Karolina repeats, letting the word move around in her mouth. Karolina looks up again. Shiv is nervous.

“Dinner. This week?”

Karolina wonders if it’s worth it, if saying yes is some sort of destructive self-entrapment that she’d missed the first time around, but Shiv standing here now, in Karolina’s office, both having achieved everything that Karolina bet they would—she can’t find it in herself to say no.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, I—that would be nice.”

Shiv nods to herself, that self-satisfied small smirk Karolina hadn’t realized she missed this much until it’s gone once again, and Shiv stands, looking at her watch.

“Transition meetings all day,” she says. “I think you’re scheduled for a few.”

“I am.”

“Great,” Shiv smiles, a small smile. “I’ll see you around then.

There’s more to say, they both know it, but Karolina nods and Shiv heads for the door, pausing as her hand reaches the handle.

“Hey, Karolina?”

Karolina looks up expectantly.

What?”

Shiv smiles, an easy glint in her eye.

“Enjoy it."

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

Alexis Nikole Nelson

Alexis Nikole Nelson is a queer actor, writer, producer, social media marketing manager, and forager. Born on March 27, 1992, in Columbus, Ohio, Nelson sang in the children’s choir at her father’s Baptist church at just three years old. At five years old, she began playing classical piano and throughout her junior high and high school years she sang in her school choirs.

Nelson graduated with an honors diploma in 2010 from Walnut Hills Highschool, a college preparatory school for grades 7-12, located in Cincinnati, Ohio. While attending Walnut Hills, she was involved in a wide variety of extracurricular activities including the Senior Choir, and Women’s Ensemble. She was also captain of the varsity bowling team and played on the tennis team. Nelson was in the Culinary Club, Junior Classical League, and President of the Cappies chapter. She was also a National Merit Semifinalist at Walnut Hills Highschool.

Nelson studied environmental science and theater at Ohio State University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater in 2005. During her time at Ohio State University, she was involved in many extracurricular activities including the Acapella Alliance, OSY Quidditch League, OSU Ukulele Club, and Hall Council. Nelson was also a member of an American National Theatre Honor Society for participants in college theatre, called Alpha Psi Omega.

In 2016, Nelson worked part time as an English teacher for EF Education First Teachers, an education management firm based in Shanghai, China. She taught online English classes to students ranging from elementary to advanced, around the world.

In April 2020, Nelson rose to internet stardom when she gained over 600,00 followers and earned 10.3 million likes on her personal TikTok account, where she shares her extensive foraging knowledge. The first video she ever posted about foraging garnered 40,000 views overnight. She also showcases her knowledge of cooking with wild plants on her TikTok account. Nelson mixes her environmental science education with her theatre skills, producing humorous and educational videos that both entertain and educate her followers on how to reduce their environmental impact. Nelson is a vegan and her TikTok videos showcase foraged plant-based meals.

She attributes her love for the outdoors to her parents and two sets of grandparents who fostered her interest in exploring the outdoors at a very young age. She began learning about growing plants outdoors at five years old while gardening with her mother on weekends. In her early childhood, Nelson also attended a Montessori school that was environmentally oriented, which she credits for allowing her to explore her love for foraging and nature more deeply.

Nelson continues to foster a love for music, particularly singing and ukulele playing, and incorporates those interests into her TikTok videos from time to time.

[azurlanefigures]

Sakura Empire Beauties– A Showcase of Upcoming Azur Lane Figures

Atago & Takao – Race Queen ver. – 1/4 Scale – Mimeyoi

Shinano – Race Queen ver. – 1/4 Scale – Mimeyoi

Shinano – Party Dress ver. – 1/7 Scale – Good Smile Arts Shanghai

Amagi – Swimsuit ver. – 1/7 Scale – Apex Innovation

Taihou – School Uniform ver. – 1/7 – Alter

Musashi – scale unknown – Alter

Kashino – Swimsuit ver. – 1/4 Scale – Mimeyoi

[batsplat]

watched donington 2005 bc of your rec and loved it! do you have any more recs for interesting (and/or messy) wet races?

sure do! we're going to take a broad definition of 'wet' race here... there's also been some major rule changes this century, like bike swaps didn't used to be a thing - plus I'm not particularly inclined to check how each race was actually categorised. so for our purposes here, any race where I remember the track being wet playing a significant role counts

in honour of being incredibly inconsistent with the asterisk system, this time I've added * or ** by how much of a definite recommend it is as a wet race (also to be complete I'll include donington '05)

donington 2000*: valentino's first premier class win and a very valentino way to do it. absolute horror show of a start that drops him to thirteenth on lap one, and he picks his way through from there on the damp track. lovely little comeback ride as they wobble around - crucially at a time when vale did not have a good reputation as a wet weather racer. fun 3-way fight for the win

suzuka 2002**: the first ever motogp race in nasty nasty conditions, and features an unexpected starring performance from japanese wild card rider akira ryo who was very familiar with the track and where all the puddles were. valentino sticks behind him for much of this race, watching and learning. showcases valentino's approach rather nicely

le mans 2003: this one isn't wet for most of the race, and when it starts raining the race is interrupted. that being said, the sete/valentino duel in slippery conditions after the race resumes is fun and fiddly enough to justify its inclusion. banger of a last lap

mugello 2004: same as above - interrupted a few laps before the end for rain. the conditions are very uncertain when they resume, and the last few laps involves a multi-rider scrap between riders on slicks on a track that is very much not dry. fantastic race

shanghai 2005: conditions proper nasty start to finish, crazy amounts of spray. vale does the thing where he gives himself a bit of work to do and is 6th at some point during the first lap, though he's soon up to 2nd and goes about hunting down kenny roberts jr. in the end he disappears out front, so it's up to everyone else to make it exciting (mostly by struggling to stay on track)

donington 2005**: this one's a go-to pick for a reason. horrendous conditions, high attrition rate, lairy saves, a tense fight for the lead before valentino eventually feels comfortable enough to pull a painful margin on the field. classic race all round

phillip island 2006*: first ever bike swap race! late in the season so it's all very dramatic with the title fight - you've still got several different contenders at this stage with constantly changing fortunes. drama up and down the field until the very very end

donington 2007**: proper wet race and exactly what you want from these things, with the run order constantly chopping and changing. the winning rider spends a lot of time in a lot of different positions, great ride to fight his way through

sachsenring 2008: dani's leading the championship, vale crashed the last time out at assen before recovering to 11th, casey's won the last two races... all three of them have very different races in the full wet conditions. incidentally the last race before laguna

indy 2008*: proper fun scrap in appalling conditions! the usual suspects and also some more unusual suspects (that year anyway) scrapping it out at the sharp end of the race - and they really are going for it given the conditions. once stopped, there isn't a restart, though there's still that fun bit where casey joins valentino to (presumably) tell ezpeleta that they are not going back out there

le mans 2009*: my pitch for this one is that it has a claim to being the most embarrassing race of valentino's career. everything that could possibly go wrong did go wrong. I laugh every time I think about this race, but I suppose you have to admire his perseverance

mugello 2009*: yeah, this one's fun! bike swap race right after le mans so Certain Riders are playing it a bit safe... some great tussling and mixing it up and odd run orders in this one, just what you're looking for. incidentally the last race before catalunya

donington 2009*: another one for people who sometimes want to watch some very talented athletes embarrass themselves. casey has the mystery illness excuse for making a ridiculous tyre choice, but the others? lemme not speak. great chaotic shenanigans

sepang 2009: valentino's first matchpoint race, but he has a horrendous first lap (after qualifying well for once) that makes it look like the championship might not be quite done yet. great race out front from casey, though a lot of this one is about tracking vale and jorge's progress through the field. good fun!

le mans 2011*: plenty of talking points post-race, with some riders perhaps not balancing risk/reward quite right on the slippery track. a fierce fight for the final two podium spots behind casey

silverstone 2011*: the signature casey wet weather performance, and it's just too good from him to be exciting out front. still, the conditions are nasty enough there's plenty of peril behind - which two riders in particular discover while attempting to take on dovi

valencia 2011*: unpleasant first corner pile-up, but it's a nice little race from there in tricky conditions that get worse at the end. an extended dovi/dani duel that has real stakes for championship standings and pride. also you get a really dramatic ending out front, kinda out of nowhere? worth sticking with this one

le mans 2012*: jorge's in that stage of his career where he's a decent wet weather racer, and he very much disappears out front as battle rages behind. valentino fights with casey, fights with dovi/cal, fights with casey again... the last vale/casey duel featuring a last lap overtake

assen 2014: wet to dry bike swap, with more rain threatening. it features the first real dovi/marc scrap (doesn't last long, but they have a 2nd go at it as marc hunts dovi down). plus there's also an impressive comeback ride from vale after a poor tyre choice

aragon 2014: rather a nasty valentino crash close to the start - but once you're through that, you're in for quite a silly one. let's just say the dominant rider that year does not have a particularly dignified day in the office. dry to wet bike swap race, which some perhaps grasped a little too late

silverstone 2015**: first race in which valentino lost the championship lead, but this is the bounce back race in the soaking wet. marc puts a lot of pressure on valentino here, it's 2015, what more do you want? late pressure from other riders too, a signature valentino wet weather ride

misano 2015*: big twists, big turns, massive title fight implications. a flag-to-flag race where both title contenders perhaps don't get it quite right... a lot of chaos where bike swap timing makes all the difference. a truly excellent performance from the winner

sachsenring 2016: no prizes for guessing who won this one, but way more jeopardy than the average visit to the circuit. marc just got these flag-to-flags bang on so often, and it's fun watching him secure what at one stage looked like rather an unlikely victory

brno 2016**: if you can, go into this one without being spoiler-ed, because I promise you that you will not be able to guess the podium combination after the first few laps. a lot of this race ends up being about tyre choice. a slow burn but a goody

misano 2017**: in that stretch of 2017 where every race is a Big Title Fight Race, which makes it so fun 2017 had so many of those in the wet. a fun race throughout, but the last lap is particularly daring and memorable. a signature marc performance

motegi 2017**: a race that gradually builds to a dovi/marc duel - and the additional jeopardy added by the conditions makes it something special. one hell of a last lap

sepang 2017**: first match point race, just to add a little extra drama to proceedings. a lot of tense wobbling about as dovi attempts to navigate his way back to the lead of the race - including past his rather stubborn teammate. excellent performance under high pressure from dovi

valencia 2018*: the conditions get so poor you do get several crashes that just make for unpleasant viewing... when they finally red flag it, the field is severely depleted, then it's broadly more of the same. defo a good race if 'chaos' is what you're looking for

le mans 2020*: entire race on wet track. I don't remember the 1st half of this being all that exciting, but once it gets going it's just SUCH dumb chaos, in a title fight that's all about dumb chaos

austria 2021**: a race that will be remembered more than anything because of the crazy way in which it was won. the whole race is fun, but the last few laps are kinda unforgettable

motegi 2023*: quite fun to have a flag-to-flag this late in the championship fight! the title contenders feature heavily in this one and there's enough shake-ups in the order to keep things interesting. psa: this race doesn't get restarted. pretty short

honourable mentions: valencia 2001, estoril 2002, jerez 2004, estoril 2005, le mans 2007, assen 2011, phillip island 2011, assen 2016, le mans 2021, argentina 2023

[star-dust-n-astral-wind]

Adrien's Best Is Never In The Show

At the time of writing this, the Miraculous Paris special has not long gone by (only a few days ago now). And between this special and the movie not terribly long before it, it has highlighted that Miraculous is never at its best when it is in its primary form.

The show is never the best form of the show.

And, in my opinion, it always comes back to the same reason. Oh, sure, there's a lot of reasons that I love the movie, and there's equally as many as to why Miraculous Paris is great, but there's one thing that stands out:

Adrien exists as a character independent of Marinette.

Now, this isn't a perfect metric of course, a lot of his drama in Miraculous New York tied back to Ladybug, and he was honestly rather superfluous in Miraculous Shanghai, but the movie and Miraculous Paris gave him some real characterisation. Even New York, for all its flaws, managed to land some points on that front by giving him a bit of trauma related to accidentally using Cataclysm on Uncanny Valley.

Miraculous Paris doesn't do terribly much with him, but he gets a nice little scene alongside Claw Noir, showcasing some vulnerability and internal pain that clearly gnaws at him.

And the movie? It has its flaws, but we are really getting some insight into his thoughts about his mother, about how deeply the loss of her wounded him.

This is what Adrien's fans have been clamoring for since we realised that the title of "Miraculous: The Adventures Of Ladybug And Chat Noir" was more than a little misleading: giving him some time to exist as a person that is independent of Ladybug/Marinette, as well as independent of his father.

Adrien in these pieces of the franchise gets to be Adrien, rather than Marinette's Love Interest, or Gabriel's Son.

So, going forward into the as-of-yet unaired Season 6? More of that please.

[jarenka]

Sudden guest post under my music tag.

My friend @erlenwein recently introduced her students to the different styles of Chinese opera. She also showed a video of these styles to me with some commentaries and I asked her to translate them into English (these commentaries very much expanded in the process).

Fragments of 2024 Lunar New Year Gala from CCTV-1 (main TV channel in Mainland China)

Here are @erlenwein 's commentaries:

1:33 Beijing opera 京剧 presented by two laodan 老旦，the role of older women. The play they're presenting is called ”杨门女将“ ("The female generals of the Yang family"), one of many plots based on the fictionalized story of the military Yang family (Song dynasty period). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Generals_of_the_Yang_Family

2:36 Yuju 豫剧 (Henan opera)， Kunqu 昆剧 (around Shanghai, one of the oldest forms of Chinese opera), presented by wenchou 文丑 (comical role, in this case literati). The name of the piece ( “话梨园” ) can be translated as "Talking about the Pear garden" (Pear garden being the metaphorical name for the opera world), but I couldn't find any specifics, and I frankly couldn't be arsed to read the subtitles, sorry. Fun fact: the white patch on their faces is called 'a piece of tofu'.

3:15 Chuanju 川剧 (Sichuan) presented by a huadan 花旦. The play is ”别洞观景“ ("Looking from a different side of the cave"? Seems like it). The main character singing is 白鳝仙 (Immortal White Eel?) who came to the world of mortals. Check out her use of pheasant feathers! Usually the most known thing about Sichuan opera is their technique of 变脸, changing the masks really fast, but they decided to showcase a different role here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ayy7wcfeHU - Face-changing performance.

3:57 Chaozhou (Teochew) opera 潮剧 (Chaoshan region, southern Fujian and eastern Guangdong), presented by xiaosheng 小生 (young man, usually a romantic character) and huadan 花旦 (young woman in a romance plot). The play is “苏六娘” ("Su Liuniang").

4:34 Pingju 评剧 (Hebei opera), presented by huadan 花旦. The play is “花为媒” (“Matchmaking flowers").

5:07 Yueju 越剧 (Shaoxing opera, from Zhejiang), presented by xiaosheng 小生 and huadan 花旦. Both performers are women — it's typical for Yue opera, since the art form switched to primarily female troupes in 1930s. The play presented is “梁山伯与祝英台” ("Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai"), a very popular story often referred to as "Chinese Romeo and Juliet". You might've seen it also being called "Butterfly Lovers".

6:31 This part is just called 武戏, "military opera". It starts with a wuchou 武丑, comical military role, then wusheng 武生 (military male role) and wudan 武旦 (military female role) come out to present their fighting, juggling, and acrobatic skills. The flags behind their backs show their status as generals/officers. I can't imagine the skill needed to do this all so seemingly effortlessly. *I've seen mentions that the flags 靠旗 represent an army under the command of the character wearing them, but I can't find any info on it again to back up my claims. If you know something about it, please let me know! The piece is titled “杨威奋勇” (I'm not quite sure how to translate it, but it seems to refer to the Yang family again).

8:32 And back to 京剧 with laosheng 老生 (older men, also known as bearded sheng 须生). The play is “龙凤呈祥” ("Dragon and phoenix bringing prosperity").

[yanyuegege]

On My Youth Showcase in Shanghai

[miracleandplagueau]

What are your thoughts on the season 5 finale?

INHALE (S5 finale spoilers, duh)

Before I start, disclaimer, I didn't watch most of the season 5 episodes in full. I mosty watched the important lore things and completely gave up on filler. That being said I didn't need to apparently, so let's just get on with it.

✦ PART I. What the actual fuck just happened.

The entire episode felt like some kind of fever dream, like it was written by a 10 year old just starting their journey with original characters, power systems and stories on general and had little idea how to tie the plots together in a satisfying way. Unless we count the mass reunion of everyone from the past whereas I hoped that the NYC and Shanghai specials were just ""fun episodes"" in the vaccum.

The whole plot of both episodes is basically Marinette is badass for 1.5 episode, but fails at recognizing that Gabriel (cough cough THE Monarch) is way beyond redemption and fucks up the entire world (not really, will be explained later)

I'll say it right now, I hate how miraculous went from a magic-focused story to ending on so many science involving plotlines. I mean, come on. He suddenly got himself a laser to turn the miraculouses to rings, created brand new jewelry with floating displays. It sucks, I hate it all over.

✦ PART II. Gabriel and his shenanigans

Personally, I hate the one-wish quota. No matter what happens, I've always seen it boil down to two outcomes - either the villain is stopped from making the wish and he has to be dealt with in a regular way or he succeeds in making the wish and faces no consequences in the end because the world has changed so much

It's the latter with Gabriel, but at the same time not exactly. He succeeded in making the wish, bailed on everyone and get this - he not only got what he wanted, he also got away with it scot free. No, I don't care If he was trying to do the "good" thing by bringing back his dead wife because he loved her. He did horrible, horrible things to get to that. I'll tackle the lack of consequences a bit later on.

✦ PART III. After-wish consequences

HA what the fuck am I saying, CONSEQUENCES? IN MIRACULOUS LADYBUG? That's fucking hilarious. Apparently, not only Marinette doesn't have to worry about being called out, because Gabriel put n the earrings and suddenly he's the most lucky bastard in the universe. Spoiler alert: that's not how it works.

During the scenes that showcased how Emily and Nathalie are alive, how his house is no longer grim and is instead filled with life and roses and bushes. It was nice, It really was.... visually. It's one to look at it and think "yeah, that's a nice finale" and other to look at it while knowing the context.

Oh and by the way, Emilie. So happy we got to see her.... for 5 seconds without counting the video. SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE MOTIVATION FOR GABRIEL TO REWRITE REALITY?!? I'll forever be salty about that.

Going back to the wish for a second and the outcome of making the wish,,, are you fucking serious. I thought the world was supposed to be rewritten when the wish is made, not fixed? What kind of wish did the fucker make, because clearly he brought back TWO people and nothing else seems to have changed. And do not get me with the "Oh but he sacrificed his life for the wish!!--" BULLSHIT. HE WAS AN HOUR AWAY FROM TURNING INTO DUST SMARTASS, THAT IS NOT A WORTHY SACRIFICE OF BRINGING SOMEONE FROM THE DEAD AND HEALING SOMEONE.

I'd at least enjoy it a little If he vanished. Like went poof, gone, no more Gabriel, because then the sacrifice would hold some weight. He gave up his existence so that Adrien is happy, but nooo motherfucker got a STATUE IN HIS HONOR.

Nobody took the blame for the Hawk Moth/Monarch situation either. To people of Paris he just appeared, caused chaos and destruction before fading away after GABRIEL AGRESTE SUDDENLY HAD THE POWER TO GIVE CIVILIANS WITH HIS NEW RINGS POWERS OF A HERO. Nobody found it weird? No? Just me? Okay.

✦ PART IV. Marinette more like Marynette Sue

Marinette was especially unbearable this finale. The fact that she was the only one who fought Monarch, that she's the only one that knows his identity, that she just casually got two most powerful miraculouses all for herself. It just. hurt me physically.

She thought she can be steven universe fr

✦ PART V. Can Adrien stop being a plot device FOR TWO EPISODES

I'm sorry, is this too much to ask for? Is it too much to ask for Adrien to have a part in anything here. During my watch, I can confidently say that I forgot that Adrien existed and yes I know that he's closed off in a padded room, because Gabriel wants to "keep him safe", but come ON at least give us a take away back to him seeing Gabriel on the screen, struggling with the nightmare or considering taking the whole Miraculer deal. It shouldn't be like that in the first place where the secondary main character, the second hero is left to rot while the strong female lead do everything seamlessly.

In the end, the only thing he did is kiss Marinette and take Gabriel's rings. He didn't even find out about his father being the literal Monarch, It felt so cheaped out I dunno. It could've worked If he had a bit more part in the actual fight.

✦ PART VI. Oh yeah, and about Lila's cliffhanger (and season 6 and 7)

WHO THOUGHT OF THIS BRIGHT IDEA?! (I know damn well who did)

I hate the fact that Miraculous will actually continue with Lila as the new butterfly holder. I hate the fact that she got what she wanted and that she will continue to BE there. I do not give a single fuck about Lila and I will not be watching beyond season 5 because for me, the show of Miraculous: Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noir has ended and it has ended horrendously at that.

✦ PART VII. The little positives the finale had

I liked Bug Noir's design. VISUAL DESIGN. and the animation in Agreste's garden.

I also actually really enjoyed Tikki and Plagg's true forms and Gimmi's fun attitude. They really gave them that great look where you go "Oh yeah, these guys aren't JUST bugs and are actually something greater than a human being" and I like that a whole lot..

PART IX. Finally, final thoughts

There are so many things I still have to say about the finale like the Adrienette, other characters like Luka, Nathalie, Kagami's mother also getting away scot free (for now) and blah blah blah but I am TIRED. I'll likely talk about it in the future or just hopefully forget that it exists.

This one is rough as fuck I know but I'm just writing it as I go

In short, man, am I glad this is over. Am I glad this is over.

Thomas, get your fucking shit together, because middle schoolers write better and more consistent stories. Bringing in all your half-assly written characters to just fight a distraction of sort and having your main character face the villain all alone because she's a strong female lead is not good writing thank you for coming to my ted talk