#stream nil for clear skin

[brooklynislandgirl]

💋 from Nil with romance and reservations on the existence of good luck :3

Tabhair póg dom, is Éireannach mé || Accepting

Beth cannot express how glad she is when she hears a truck outside and a peek out the window proves it's not one of the National Guard. A few hikers have turned up missing and so there have been search and rescue parties all up and down the mountains which has put the entire Sept on alert and tension. None of the packs have admitted to having anything to do with the people who have gone missing. Most conventional wisdom muttered or growled under breath is that a few stupid humans aren't anything to be sad about, but the kinfolk and the elders know that that's just the rage of the young. They know that things could go bad with so many strangers poking around the sacred lands. Cubs are kept close, and a couple of the packs are now involved in the search. Beth doesn't know what to make of it all, but she would be lying if she said she wasn't scared. The last thing they want or need is a stand off between human soldiers and the tribes, the collateral damage is too high a cost. But for now, she lets out a breath and fixes a smile. In the reflection of the glass Beth finds herself trying to hurriedly fix a few stray wisps of hair back into place and straightens her dress. If she knew Nilza was going to come today, she would have put on her best dress. As it is, the light streaming in through the windows, the warmth from the over where supper's cooking, and the fresh baked scent of soda bread might have to be enough. The door is opened perhaps almost as soon as Nilza thinks about putting a hand on it and she's greeted with the warmest sort of welcome, a slim armed hug around her neck and maybe Beth lingers a little too long, breathing in the smell of her hair. By the end of the night though, Beth has forgotten all the things that had her blood buzzing like bees and while they curl up in front of the fire toasting the evening with the apple-shine, Nilza does mention her being at least part Irish. It's clear that the Latina doesn't really put stock in all the things Beth does, but they have different views. When Nilza asks if she really believes in it all, Beth laughs. "Better question would be…do you?" Her hand comes up and cups Nilza's cheek, feeling the smoothness of her skin beneath a calloused thumb which she's almost apologetic for, but not quite. She wonders if Nilza can feel the faint tremble to that touch. "Idea behind it comes from kissin' the Blarney stone in its castle. Supposed to bring you luck an' t' bless ya with the skill of smooth talkin' flattery. Of course,w e're a long way from the auld sod…so I guess the next best thing is…kissin' someone who's Irish." It takes those few moments to work up the nerve to lean in. Green-gold eyes half lidded she focuses on Nilza's lips. How pretty they are. How soft they seem. Imagining them sweet with traces of apple warmth, counterpoint to the almost cinnamon nature of her own. A compliment like carved spoons nestled together. She remembers what the woman had said about what she'd do to someone like Frost if he'd kissed her without permission and Beth knows she's playing with fire but she can't help herself. She's been daydreaming about this for a while now, and she doesn't mean Nilza any harm. When her mouth presses against Nilza's, there's a certain kind of delicacy. No great urgency or desperation that turns into a bite or a flail. If anything it's maybe a little uncertain, the hesitation that comes from someone who doesn't really have any experience. But there's the intention of desire. Fingers that feather through Nilza's hair, the start of a shy smile that parts Beth's lips. "You're beautiful," she whispers. "Sweet." Then even more quietly if possible, a fervent sort of prayer. "Please don't be mad." Then she isn't saying anything at all, as she's too caught up in pulling Nilza closer for another more solid kiss.

[honorhunt]

𝐂𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐃𝐈𝐏𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐍, boba maneuvered through the door so that his back never faced the senator or the open hallway. even over the threshold, boba kept his peripherals slanted where he knew she might appear. what would padme amidala do if she’d followed? didn’t matter, the survivalist within him promised any angle unscrutinized was a shade of death.

                  boba.

      he was halfway to the refresher when an emphatic voice stopped him in his tracks. the threat of tears burned boba’s vision as a single syllable fell silently from his lips. spinning in a circle, boba expected to find the voice’s owner standing behind him in a regalia of matte steel. but the hall was empty save for himself and his angular shadow.

      with a sigh, boba stuck his head back into the bedroom. amidala was still there, right where he left her only seconds before. ❝ thanks, ❞ he muttered before shutting the door. this time the ghost stayed silent.

      vaporous heat enveloped the sanisteam’s spacious cubicle. suffocatingly thick, it transformed the tiled confines into a hellish sauna with a visibility level of nil. it filled the lungs, blurred the eyes, even potent enough to make ears feel stuffed full of bantha fuzz. but it was in that deprived state that boba fett finally relinquished himself to exhaustion. he’d picked a corner and sunk into it. limbs netted together in a protective cocoon, boba buried his chin into his chest, letting the water burn away the knots under his skin.

      it’d been awhile since he last cried but with a screen of artificial mist protecting him from the galaxy, an outpouring of clogged feelings came in hiccuping waves. sometimes in silent waves that shook his shoulders. other times, his grief was so violently loud he sunk his teeth into his arm to avoid being heard. but only here did his depths of his agony feel safe enough to expunge themselves. no witnesses, evidence seamlessly drained away with the plumbing and treated with the same fanfare.

      spent, boba’s awareness melted like the puddles of prison grime. not asleep but not wholly there, he drifted thoughtlessly in haze till he reluctantly willed himself back. no matter how welcome the ether, he couldn’t let control over himself slip away. boba was in enemy territory. and with jango gone, he always would be.

      without looking, boba slapped at the controls till the constant stream of boiling water waned to a dying drip.

      a full body groan escaped from the boy as he lay flat on his back on the floor. arms stretched out to the side, legs slack, warm tiles slowly cooled beneath him as boba stared up at dense particles of grey.

      ❝ she didn’t say where the karking kitchen was. ❞

      reluctantly, boba rolled onto his feet. it didn’t take long to dry off ( his hair was as present as his willingness to be here ) and he dragged his steps to where he’d left his new clothes. surrounded by steam, boba had to feel around. his fingers eventually found the yielding fabric among the hard surfaces. trousers went first, holding off on obscuring his sight, even for a second.

      boba hopped around, tugging everything on till only the tunic was left. it hadn’t looked as big as felt as the boy slipped it over his head. he was blinded for brief moment, but as his head cleared the collar, boba found himself face to face with a stranger.

      eyes widened then narrowed, his muscles reacted in an instant as he postured himself for a fight. one arm readied to deflect an attack while the other felt the walls for a tile loose enough to weaponize.

      she lied. of course she lied. boba had seen the way the young jedi looked at her. skywalker, he’d been with windu on vanqor, he’d been there when the kel dor and the togruta delivered him to manacles of the republic. manacles skywalker’s senator would benevolently deliver him from.

      it was all a lie, a fraud, a farce, a ploy, a scheme, a trap, a —

                        reflection.

      brows bunched together, boba cautiously approached the stranger who didn’t hesitate to mirror his steps. boba got close enough to see his breath on the glass. still clinging to disbelief, boba raised a hand to his cheek, its skin moist from the lingering steam.

      the stranger did exactly the same.

      he didn’t look like jango’s son. feirfek, he didn’t even resemble a run-of-the-lab cadet. what boba saw was a sleemo some senator scraped off a coruscanti prison floor.

      ❝ huh, guess green’s not my color. ❞

      putting as much distance as he could between himself and the mirror, boba returned to the hallway. despite the clean skin and crisp clothes, his mood was just as sour as before. he guessed which direction a kitchen would most likely be and shuffled on with the liveliness of a corpse.

      with no one around and time to spare, boba did a bit of cursory snooping. he counted doors and corridors. took mental measurements of the walls, huttballing how thick they were and what materials they were made of. there was no one to ask what he was doing but if someone did materialize to pester him, boba had a legitimate excuse: he was never actually given directions to the glorified food dispensary.

      it was boba’s nose that eventually found its way. following an aromatic trail, boba came upon the kitchen where the first thing he noticed was not the loaf of fresh bread or the architecture, the strident lines across amidala’s skin.

      her back to him, boba was reminded of her ordeal in the arena. a reminder that she survived while others did not.

      easing himself the rest of the way, the young fett was met with instant regret when he realized the senator was not alone. there were two other women with her; one older, the other a similar age as amidala. that made a total of three women. women who were nothing like taun we or zam, and certainly not like aurra. a league of their own, entirely alien to the boy. he couldn't pin what it was that set the trio so drastically apart but boba felt — for the first time in his short life — outmatched.

CONTINUED FOR BETA EDITOR ›› ( @honorhunt )

                    sober russet gaze tracked his progress along the stuccoed wall, remaining sat still against the bed until he reached the opposite side.   only then did she shift onto a hip, an arm resting atop the blankets.   he reminded her of the myriad of feral tookas she had met in her journeys in how he spat and hissed before retreating into a low growl.   but, unlike those, ones who could be carefully caught and tenderly coaxed into domesticity once more, the young senator knew far too well she instead had a nexu kitten in her life.

                    his bites did smart, but unlike all the others before, a half hearted smile remained her only response.   for the moment, she no longer struggled to convince him to cooperate at least in the smallest measure.   responding to each lash of his tongue in hopes to find some weak point to persuade had been her only recourse.   hardly would she have attempted to drag him into the steamer kicking and screaming…

                    that would have been nothing short of a disaster.

                    led by her chin, a soft nod leaned in the direction of the main door out of the room, a threshold he had refused to cross since they’d arrived a few hours before.    ❝  directly across the hall.  ❞     simply exiting the room had become a milestone, shiraya help her.     ❝  when you’re done, come find me in the kitchen.  ❞      it was about as far from an order as a jest, but in hopes of soothing any still ruffled feathers, padmé tacked on an encouraging smile.

                    and remained frozen to her spot until the door closed behind him.

                    curls spread across the coverlet as her face fell against it, chin tucked into her arm.   somehow, she’d taken upon herself another front in this war she struggled so relentlessly to fight, and she understood it from the moment she knew she would not leave the prison without boba beside her.  still knowing all that, she could feel the drag of more weights laying across her shoulders.   at least these were chosen only by her.

                    a full minute passed before she gathered the strength to stand, having snatched no more sleep than the boy.   their one distinguisher there remained only her dark circles were well covered by a skilled hand.  for a moment, as she slid through the doorway into the oh so familiar hall, with its holos and flora which looked all the galaxy like they had always been there, the sight of her own childhood room tempted her.  but alas, not yet.

                    she had promises to keep.  foremost, updating her parents…

                    ❝  he’s so angry, mom.   i knew he would be, but i worry for him.  ❞     after a sigh of relief had spread through the kitchen at the news that boba finally had been somewhat reasoned with, her father escaped outside with the girls, leaving a mother and her two daughters alone… and padmé to finally breathe her fears leaning against the counter as if she were merely a child again.

                    a dark brow so like her own raised as the family’s matriach failed to bite back a chuckle.     ❝  oh?   i couldn’t tell.  ❞     a fresh and steaming loaf of five blossom bread settled onto the tiles.

                    padmé gave into the long desperate urge to bury her head in her hands, elbows propped on the counter’s edge.     ❝  mom…  ❞      the groan held no anger, but she was in no fit state for jokes, even from her mother.

                    a soft hand settled upon her bare back, stroking along the long white lines remaining from the nexu’s claws, her sister’s soothing voice settling the jump in her heart.     ❝  just keep on being patient with him.   he’ll eventually realize you’re being honest.  ❞    then too did humor bleed into sola’s warm voice, more welcome now that it followed some advice.     ❝  probably won’t tell you though.  ❞     

                    a soft groan escaped her lips as padmé shook her head still cradled by her palms, curls falling in a veil about her forearms.     ❝  as long as he knows, i don’t need him to tell me, but i mostly worry about when we return to coruscant.  ❞     the mere words pressed dread cold and heavy into her belly.   and how horrible was it that the crux of her concerns were not the harm he could muster?     ❝  it will be so easy for him to slip out, disappear into the city even with someone watching him.   i know he can take care of himself, but if he goes after master windu, someone again…  ❞     most importantly, she would lose him, fail this duty she had taken onto herself, but both of the women beside knew as much from her frantic call the night before.   there were other, even more practical issues pertaining only to her.     ❝  i put a lot of credits into his bond, mom.   if i only had the trouble it’d cause to deal with, that’s one thing, but that amount of credits?  ❞    a small bit of weight slid off her shoulders at the admission.   at least, they knew.   they understood.

                    her sister’s vexed sigh spoke as loudly as her mother’s horrified breath of a whisper.     ❝  oh, padmé, you didn’t.  ❞     

                    once more, her head felt too heavy to lift, her only defense a weak but stubborn,    ❝  if either of you had been there, you wouldn’t have been able to leave him either.  “     and she knew in her heart they wouldn’t have been, financially ruinous or not.

[citronlouis]

<3

[mohini-musing]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 13 Oxygen Mask

MCU - canon adjacent

~~~

Mission complete. Mostly.

They pile onto the transport after a trip that should have been simple and exploded instead.

Buck has one of Nat’s arms dragged across his shoulders, his metal arm around her back. She’s technically on her feet. But only just so. If she was anyone else, she should have been carried aboard.

“Nat?”

“Shut it,” she growls back at Steve’s attempt to check in on her.

“Just, you’re a little blue.”

He’s right. Her lips have a purplish tinge beneath the red stain. She’s a bit greyish as well, her skin damp with sweat but lacking the flush that this level of exertion should have given.

Buck lowers her onto one of the benches and there’s a faint pop.

“Fuck. That’s a rib,” Nat tells them as though remarking on the weather.

“Just the one?”

“Mmm, makes two,” she admits.

Buck looks pointedly at Steve and puts a hand over his own mouth and nose before inclining his head toward the med cabinet. There’s a faint wheeze to her speech that’s making them both uneasy.

Steve digs out the mask and tubing, yanks the concentrator free of the space and flips it on. There’s gentle humming before there’s flow through the clear tubing. He hands it over to Buck, who glares at Nat until she slips it over her face.

“M’not a fucking princess,” she grumbles.

“That mean you don’t want this?” Steve teases her, holding up a painkiller autoinjector.

“I can still kick your ass, Rogers,” she reminds, though the stuttering breaths between words take a good bit of the venom out of the threat. The wracking coughs followed by a stream of bright red blood vomited onto the floor make it fully nil.

“Talk to me,” Buck tells her, his hands roaming over her torso, cataloguing injuries and making a face Steve knows good and well means they’re not going to enjoy the rest of the ride home any more than the beginning.

“Left,” she admits.

“Down or full?”

It takes Steve a second to realize he’s asking her if the lung is collapsed or full of blood.

“Feels full,” she groans. “Get Barton?”

Steve scurries to the front, whacking the door and sticking his head into the space where Barton is guiding the craft along.He can hear Nat gagging again, followed by another spash of blood on the floor.

“Need you back here,” he tells him. “Nat’s got a lung down.”

“Dammit,” is all Clint says before he’s past him and skidding to his knees next to Nat.

He’s barking orders at Buck and it hits Steve that for all his bumbling idiot act, the man knows his shit. He flips Nat onto her stomach, divesting her of her tac gear and shirt in the process. Buck hands him a metallic packet of instruments and supplies he calls a CT kit and the next thing Steve knows there’s a scalpel and a flash of blood before a tube is threading into Nat’s chest and foamy blood drains into a collection bag.

“I hate you,” she tells Clint, as he kisses her on the forehead after she’s right side up again, fresh wound on her back clearly easing her work of breathing. When she moves to take the oxygen mask from her face, Clint smacks her hand like a naughty puppy.

“Leave it,” he tells her.

She nods, closes her eyes, and reaches for his hand instead.

“Rogers?” Clint calls over to him.

“I’ve got us,” Steve offers back, heading to the front to take them the rest of the way home.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Insomnia Brass Band

Photo by Frank Schindelbeck

The Insomnia Brass Band — made up of trombonist Anke Lucks, baritone saxophonist Almut Schlichting and drummer Christian Marien — was founded in spring 2017 and spent the next several pre-pandemic years on the road at jazz clubs and festivals. Their recorded debut, Late Night Kitchen, out near the end of 2020, was raucous, irresistible and bursting from its seams; it is hard to believe that it required only three musicians. In her review, Jennifer Kelly wrote, “Insomnia Brass Band sounds like a cubist painting of an oompah band, noses jutting off in every direction, cerebral and off-beat, yet somehow capturing an eccentric, unexpected groove.” The band’s sax player, Almut Schlichting, contributed this listed.

Bloor (now Bloar) — “Bast” from Drolleries (Astral Spirits)

This record invariably calms me down, it is so wild and screaming and so clear and concise at the same time. Right now, it seems like a dream — One dark Berlin winter night in 2019, I rode my bike down the hill to a small place full of friends and musicians, listening to wonderful sets of improvised and composed music spun around Ken Vandermark’s New Marker band, and talking and drinking beer in between... and their drummer Phil Sudderberg recommended his Brooklyn friends, Sam Weinberg’s band Bloor (now Bloar). We hope these situations will soon be real again. Meanwhile, Dusted is not the worst digital place to spend a dark winter night in 2021.

Miles Okazaki — “Misterioso” from Work (Complete, Volumes 1-6)

Work (Complete, Volumes 1-6) by Miles Okazaki

To me, this is Monkish in a double sense of the word — Okazaki shines through Thelonious Monk’s work in a deep and thorough way; but he also seems to be a medieval Monk himself — severe, concentrated, meditative, playing the solo guitar, a clear sound, in transparent magnetic rhythmic layers, in the early morning abbey garden...

Elza Soares — “Luz Vermelha” from A mulher do fim do mundo

The Woman At The End Of The World (A Mulher Do Fim Do Mundo) by Elza Soares

Who else wants to sound like Elza Soares when they are old? No matter if singer or instrumentalist? Moreover, the band and arrangements are amazing, the detailed care with which the sound is built... I love listening to this on headphones while taking a midnight walk across empty streets.

Sons of Kemet — “In The Castle Of My Skin” from Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do (Naim Jazz)

Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do by Sons Of Kemet

Grooves in cycles and cycles in grooves, the music is sparse and focused and fascinating, driven by the tenor saxophone of Shabaka Hutchings, who in turn is carried through the song by the tuba and the two drummers. I listened to this album a lot before our Insomnia Brass Band studio session in January 2020. Like most of the tracks chosen here, it resonates with my growing wish to fall into an intense rhythmic trance, repetitions welcome, no matter if listening or playing myself...

Frank Rosaly’s ¡Todos de Pie! — “Cantares de la Sierra (Yaguaré)”

Frank Rosaly's ¡Todos de Pie! by Frank Rosaly's ¡Todos de Pie!

Discovered thanks to Rigobert Dittmann’s great little magazine Bad Alchemy — Drummer Frank Rosaly and vocalist Jaap Blonk go back and forth between abstract landscapes and the carnival with a fat band, combining underwater-like weirdness and a Puerto Rican All Star attitude!

Tom Waits — “Clap Hands” from Rain Dogs (Island Records)

Tom Waits and this record are very old friends of mine, fueling the addiction to tell bizarre stories in songs, each song carelessly-carefully arranged to become a dark few-minute-fairytale...

Charles Brackeen — Rhythm X (Strata East)

An old recording, a new discovery — my current online jazz history class is New-York-based trumpet player Thomas Heberer’s Facebook stream, where he is sharing his giant record collection little by little under the simple heading “from the ongoing series of recordings that I love.” Adding to my thousand projects for next week — listen to every record Ed Blackwell and Charlie Haden made together; finally find out more about Don Cherry; and get to know Charles Brackeen at all...

Konono No1 — “Kin 78 One” from Kinshasa 1978 (Crammed Discs)

Kinshasa 1978 by Konono N°1

Another track featuring masters of cycles and grooves, grooves and cycles, the music very vivid and animated through minimal but infinite variations – apparently one of the first recordings of “Congotronics,” presented by the wonderful label Crammed Discs.

Danyèl Waro — “Plantèr” from Gafourn (Piros)

Since the first Corona lockdown in March 2020, I have been doing improvised late night dance sessions in my kitchen— and the music of Danyèl Waro, Maloya from far away La Réunion, is among my favorite dance partners, as well as the London band Melt Yourself Down, and the old acquaintances Celia Cruz and the Beastie Boys...

Nils Wogram Root 70 — “Hot Summer Blues” from Listen To Your Woman (nWog Records)

Listen to Your Woman by Nils Wogram Root 70

A great band. A great band, has been for years, playing brilliantly and radiating warmth and companionship on this record... according to the liner notes, they had been on the road just before recording this album on a Berlin winter night in 2010, doing what we are all dreaming of right now — travelling and playing and travelling and playing and travelling and playing and really being together again!

[mrscullensrutherford]

5 Questions for Writers

Tagged by the amazing @myfeyrelady

I am going to answer these with all of my fanfiction in mind. 

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

HZD - I have a love/hate relationship with writing Nil. He was always my problem child and took the story wherever he wanted to but he also helped me create some of my best scenes, the macabre psycho.

DA - Cullen, for sure. I love exploring his trauma, addiction, and growth throughout Inquisition. 

ME - Say what you will but ALTEA SHEPARD takes the cake. I love my OC and that’s all there is to say about that. 

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

Nada. I have covered SO MANY tropes that it is hard to pick a favorite. While it isn’t exactly a trope, I do enjoy placing characters in awkward situations and seeing how they handle it. My characters or the characters I utilize write the story, I am just their tool. 

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

This is from I Didn’t Ask for This 2.0 - Cullen/Trevelyan

I was thankful that the stream wasn’t too far from camp; with every step, I became more aware of my surroundings due to the burning mark within my palm. I can hear the scurrying feet of small animals in the foliage below my feet, feel the cool breeze softly caress my shoulders as I make my way to the water, and smell the snow that caps the distant mountaintops. The air is intoxicating, overwhelming my senses with the sharp scent of evergreens as I pass between their trunks, mixing with a bittersweet tinge of the cocoa that still lingers on my tongue.

From this distance, I can hear the sound of voices rising from our camp, but I block them out and focus on getting to the water. I can only imagine what the others are telling Cullen. I’m sure that Dorian will attempt to be discreet. But Sera, Bull? Not a chance. In fact, I can imagine Sera reenacting the events of my evenings in outlandish gestures with dramatic gasps and sighs for the Commander. Though she had previously warned me to stop talking when I needed to “do that,” it is always much more difficult to stop myself in the moment when the rush hits me. At least I am careful to not say anything that would make them believe I had someone specific in mind, and usually, I don’t.

As I continue through the trees, aching to reach the stream, I remember the way my body ached when we encountered a group of warriors training with swords and shields. One, in particular, was quite handsome, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from trailing down his body as the sweat dripped from his skin, gleaming in the sunlight. It had awoken something primal within me, and I imagined him pressing my body against the rough bark of a tree, scratching at my skin as I tore into his with lips and teeth as we devoured each other. I used him in my imagination as I would have used him in the Circle. But tonight would have been different. Tonight, I have no doubt there would be a specific person on my mind.

I crest the hill and find the stream I knew would be there, my skin tingling with the need to immerse myself. I follow the curve of the water’s edge to a small pool where the current lapped slowly along the rocks. It may not be deep enough to submerge myself beneath the shallow waves, but it will cover enough of me to fulfill my need. Our party had stopped at this same pool previously on our way to the Hinterlands, and I can still recall how the cool water greeted the sensitive flesh of my chest as I stood in it all of those days ago.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

So, conversations between Aloy and Nil are always amusing but there isn’t always a ton of dialogue. However, Nil has some of the best lines in-game and in fic. From Seeker of the Nora.

Aloy began to worry the feather at the recurve of her bow. If she wasn’t careful, she knew she’d strip the small fluffs but she was less concerned with how her bow looked than she was with what she was about to say. “This mission, it is more than it seems.” She shifted her weight, raising one leg onto the platform and squaring her body to face him, wanting to ensure her words were clear. “I may have found my Mother. And I am quite sure it is not the woman I have been chasing this whole time.” She hoped that some kind of realization would cross his face, that he would somehow understand what she was trying to say but there was only his calm visage reflected back at her. There was patience and waiting.

She wasn’t sure she could bring herself to say the words aloud. She needed to find peace with it but she hadn’t even gone into the Mountain, yet. How was she supposed to reveal her deepest fear if she didn’t know it was real? What would be revealed when she entered the Nora’s Sacred Mountain this time? She now knew that the door to the Mountain hadn’t recognized her but Elizabet Sobek. She was still uncertain of her connection to the woman. She really only knew that they looked and sounded alike.

Nil took her hand then, rubbing small circles into her flesh with his calloused fingers. “Aloy, I don’t care where you were born, who your Mother is. You could have fallen from the Sun’s anus and it wouldn’t change who you are.”

Aloy scrunched her nose and held back a small laugh. She should have known Nil would use his macabre sense of humor to bring her anxiety down a notch. She flipped her hand over and took his rather large one into hers, squeezing it gently and just holding onto him for a while longer before deciding that they should probably make their way back to the camp and to, what she could only assume, would be an over-anxious Erend.

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

I am now working on a full-length fic for my OTP, so everything is a little exciting. I am most looking forward to the moments in Wrong Side of Heaven where James and Altea start to realize they have genuine feelings for each other. I have written smut and one-shots but never the real romance part of it. And they are flirty as hell, so there isn’t anything lost there but the heart of it, the finding the person you can count on and always has your six. THAT’S what I am looking forward to the most. 

Tagging forward to @oops-gingermoment @pikapeppa @orbrandir @natsora @obvidalous @dafan7711 @rpgwarrior4824 @smolbiotic @inquartata30 @helila @amostsovereignlady @valaloy @shepardluvsgarrus @kittleskittle @bronzeagelove @autodiscothings @n0rmandysr1

Feel free to ask me questions about my OCs! I’m always happy to gush :)

[coeval-magazine]

Kedr Livanskiy

The opening of Kedr Livanskiy’s Your Needtwinkles into audibility—a breathless mist, an upbeat shift. Quickly, it’s back down to earth, leveled by warm, warbling vocals. But for a minute, it’s pure pop, effervescent teenage girlhood cut, deliciously, with a little winking excess. Yana Kedrina—the artist behind the nom de plume—is radiant, unfathomably long platinum hair echoing the yellow stripe down the side of Your Need’s album cover. This second album, the Bandcamp copy tells us, is “a celebration of life and rebirth”—a high-energy jaunt, clubby and cavorting with peaks like “Bounce 2” and the focused, grainy build of the penultimate “City Track.” 

We’re eating hummus in the back of a Persian grocery store in London when Lawrence tells me he has a surprise. It’s embargoed but Really Exciting; he needs my passport and won’t tell me why until I guess the spot. He holds up a photo of the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre, and my dumb American sensibility is like, uhh, I don’t know, it’s some grungy former Eastern Bloc destination that, five years down the line, guys in Carhartts will describe as the Bushwick of the East? Maybe, in a manner of speaking. The depth of my Russian cultural knowledge is really nil, pathetic, so he humanely cuts me off to answer. Moscow. We’re going to Moscow.

Aside from some half-retained undergrad lectures about early Soviet film montage, Kedr Livanskiy is the beginning and end of my insight into the Russian avant-garde. I stream her debut EP, January Sun, on repeat while I wait for my visa to get approved, wandering around Berlin and relaxing into the titular track’s metered, melancholy flow. I’m kind of down about a bunch of impending change so January Sunand Audrey Wollen’s Sad Girl Theory are propping me up while I twitch around the cramped apartment block where I’m staying for a filmmaking residency, in which I learn that I actually really, really don’t want to be a filmmaker. The early EP, released in 2016, has a lo-fi grit about it that perfectly suits Berlin’s much-maligned maxim, “Poor but Sexy,” with its reverberant hum. 

Landing in Moscow, I’m allayed, for a second. Compared to Berlin, everything’s immaculate—pastel confections of buildings sit low on the horizon; a glass of complimentary champagne is stuffed in my hand when I check into Hotel Richter. My room! It has a fucking fresco on the ceiling! But within a day, the smoothness sours into homesick disorientation. In line for the bar one night, I watch a lethargic progression of gallery totes, screen-printed with Cyrillic sans-serif. Vacillating into and out of elation,Your Needturns out to be perfectly suited to my first trip to Russia. Grounded by slower moments like “LED” and “Why Love,” the albumflutters into occasional severity, recalling the coarse, foggy rhythms that magnetized me to January Sun.

Of course, it matters that I don’t speak any Russian. In my total alienation from lyrical meaning, Livanskiy’s songs come to me as pure structure—texture and affect and the granular nuances of each tiny build and fall, fully divorced from signification. I feel kind of icky and preposterous as I fumble towards interpretation, so it’ll suffice to offer a personal read, here. If January Sun scored a month of depressey self-searching, Your Need, released at the beginning of May, came right as the clouds began to clear, all while retaining a sense of the meticulous depth that made Kedrina’s early work so haunting. 

Lawrence shows his movie one night at a cinema club that was founded by Sergei Eisenstein. Lights up after and it’s really well-received by a crowd comprised entirely of plausible Gosha models. An angelic blonde with pigtail braids is the first to find him in the front row, before most have risen from their seats. “It was so great! I loved it!” He thanks her warmly. She rushes out. I elbow him, giggling. “That,” I hazard through a dumb starstruck grin, “was Kedr Livanskiy.”

Later I fall into some party at Strelka, the architecture-school-cum-cultural-hub that’s hosting a NTS showcase sponsored by the British Embassy. Beatrice Dillon—another favorite from the Cult of Domesticity playlist, dedicated to Women in House, where Kedr takes up residence in my Spotify library—takes the stage. Dancing mechanically, I catch a glimpse of platinum in my peripheral. I ask my newish buddy, probably an appropriate source of journalistic guidance because he has a monthly Vice column, whether it would be bullshitty to approach her. It’s loud so I don’t really know how he answers. 

I try to put it out of my mind. I keep grooving. Eventually, my dedication to hardcore reporting outweighs my sense of personal self-preservation, so I shuffle towards her and yell over the music.

—“Hey, I love your new album!” 

Graciously, she smiles. Magnetic.

 —“I’m writing a review for this online fashion magazine—want to talk to me about Your Need?” 

—“What?” 

 Yelling now, I’m so hyper-conscious of my shrill American valley-girl affectation, I want to unzip my skin and leave my body on the dancefloor. Mortified, I still persist, pressing on in service of Journalism. 

 —“I’m writing about Your Need! Is there anything you want my readers to know?” 

She’s stilted, no recognition. 

—“Uhh….. maybe later.” 

 Is that a scoop? Whatever. I still give this album five stars.

courtesy KEDR LIVANSKIY

@kedr_livanskiy

words ADINA GLICKSTEIN

@addieglickstein

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[fuckyeahcaryagos]

Matt Czuchry’s speech for the College of Charleston’s final Spring Commencement Ceremony 2018

I double majored in history and political science at the College of Charleston.

And yet, my profession since graduation has been on the field of acting, so one could defensibly argue I have not used my College of Charleston degree for one second since receiving my diploma from this very stage.

This begs the question…

What the hell was the College of Charleston thinking when they asked me to give the commencement address? I’m a guy who has never used his College of Charleston degree, and yet they want me to speak to the graduating class of 2018 on one of the most important days of their lives, right before they receive their degrees from the College of Charleston.

Well, truth to be told, I don’t know the reasons as to why I have been invited here today.

And up front, I need to further admit to this, that my own journey in life that has brought me here with each of you in this moment, is just as confounding for me to understand as perhaps it will be for you to listen to me speak about it.

Point being, I don’t have things figured out in my life. And I certainly I don’t feel that by simply being asked to speak here today, I should tell the class of 2018 how to lead theirs.

What I have to offer you today is my truth, my unique life story.

So, I accepted this deeply special invitation to speak here at Charleston, with the simple intention of sharing a few quick tibits of my life perspective in the hope that it might aid in yours.

That being said, my dad used to always tell me “The great thing about advice is that you don’t have to take it”. So in that spirit, I would like for you to consider this speech as just some advice, advice you don’t have to take.

Now circling back to my original question of why I have been invited here, perhaps one explanation is that the college liked the idea of a person who could stand up here and justifiably shout from the rafters that after you walked under the arch back there today as newly confirmed graduates, know that your diploma from the College of Charleston is just a piece of paper, and that diploma does not guarantee you anything; nor should it be the focus of your celebration today.

Some might say that sounds a bit harsh, but my candor on diplomas represents a core piece of my truth, my unique life story.

Throughout my studies here at Charleston I planned all of my days towards the intention of going to law school, hence the history and political science majors I mentioned at the top of this speech.

But then when it came time to actually deliver on all those years of work here at CoffC and get into law school, I completely bombed the law school admission test. Somebody else also blew the test.

I blew the test that was the gatekeeper to my law school future.

So in a instant, after receiving these tests results, a once assumed open door to my future was for all intents and purposes swept away.

So I had failed at my first primary goal in life. Note to self, we all fail.

And now because my failure I had to figure out a way to change my entire life’s course.

So in this moment of crysis, I followed up my horrible performance in the Lsat test, by saying ,hey, I’ll become an actor. Now let me through that choice.

I decided at the time of my graduation, with degree in hand, that it was a super smart idea to purse a career in which I had no degree, no understanding of the art or business of acting  whatsoever, and I had no job prospects in my chosen profession.

That was the reality of my potential acting career on my graduation day. Sounds ridiculous. But that’s my truth. That’s my unique life story.

Now in the present moment her today with each of you, upon reflection looking back, I can say that my choice to become an actor looks like a pretty decent enough idea because I have had some successes in the business of being an actor over the course of these years spanning from graduation till now.

But from first-hand experience, I can tell you this. Steve Jobs was spot on when he said in his commencement address in 2005 that, quote, you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somewhat connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. End quote.

On graduation day for me looking forward, my future life and career was completely unknown. And yet despite all the unknowns after graduation I crafted a strategy to pursue a career in acting that centred around a move to Los Angeles. So I drove west, roughly 2,379 miles from South Carolina to my final destination LA.

And upon seeing a sign on interstate 10 nothing 675 miles to Los Angeles, for the very first time my choice to pursue the profession of acting became terrifyingly real. And in that moment of realization, instantly I began to weep uncontrollably tears streaming down my face because I felt so much doubt, I felt so much fear, I felt so much anxiety, I felt what we all feel in times of trasformative change in our lives. I felt the vast unknowns of life thrust upon me, and I was struggling mightly, as I continued down to that interstate towards LA, in the background playing through the car speakers I started to notice a song called “Lie in our graves” from the Dave Matthew Band. My ears perked up. And as the song reached its conclusion the lyrics rang out like this.

“I can’t believe we would lie in our graves wondering if we had spent our living days well, I can’t believe we would lie in our graves dreaming of things that we might have been” hearing that lyrics, this was a light bulb  moment for me and suddenly I found myself firmly in the present moment. And in this present moment three things were now crystal clear to me. One, I knew that I was going to give this acting thing my best shot. I promised myself – ridiculous or not – I would fully committed to the pursuit. And that commitment to the pursuit gave me a sense of purpose.

And two.

I still had no idea how it would turn out. Even with a sense of purpose, the unknowns were still strong as ever.

And three, because I had a sense of purpose, to just give to this endeavor my best shot, the fear was gone. I became fearless and focused on being in the present moment. Focused on the pursuit rather than on the unknown. And so the fear was replaced with trust. Just like that Steve Jobs’ commencement speech. I had trust in the unknown, that somehow the dots would connect and make sense later. We have to accept the unknown challenges in our lives because they are the reality of our lives.

Hardships are guaranteed for all of us  but they are not guaranteed to define us. We control that what define us by understanding that sometimes we just we have to slog through the tough stuff to get to the good stuff. And further, we can’t worry about the past. That’s done. We can’t worry about the future. That’s not happened yet. The present moment that is the only moment in which we are truly alive. And our attitude towards the present moment, whatever the present moment reveals to us, that is what will define us. That is where we must live, in the present moment, before we live in our graves. And before we lie in our graves I want you to be able to say the gap between what you want to do in your life and what you actually did was nil. My Tv Dad, on “The Resident”, Glenn Morshower, he impressed that upon me. Now the closer gap is to nil. Now, the closer the gap is to nil, the closer you are to your fulfilled sense of purpose.

How many of us can say that the gap between what I want to do in my life and what I am actually doing is nil. Very, very few. I can’t say I’m there 100 percent, but I can promise you I’m taking my best shot. And that’s what I want for you. I want your life to be lived in the present moment in a way that captures uniquely who you are with a sense of purpose. I want you fulfill whatever aspirations you may have for your unique life. To be a mother. To travel and invest in experiences. To be great at your job no matter what that job is. To enact change in the world. To be a friend who can be counted on. The opportunities of purpose to seek are just as limitless as that which is within you.

And what is within you, what is within uniquely you, that is what we are celebrating today. Today is not a celebration of diplomas and objects of achievement, but rather it is a celebration of you, the individual you. It is a celebration of what it took within you to make it to this day. And that is the beauty of your college education. The true gift of college is not about diploma or what you learned in class. No, it lies in what you have learned about yourself because you were required to go to class. The College structure of majors, tests, grads, deadlines, that is all outside stuff. A diploma is an object discovering and harnessing what is uniquely you for your work and your personal life, that’s inside stuff. And that inside stuff is where everything lives. Figuring out what strengths and weaknesses are, in good times and bad, and in turn to coming to understand them in a way to make you powerful in your own skin, that’s beautiful.

And it’s up to you to figure that out. And here the great news. You have already done it. Maybe without even realizing it fully, but you have done it. You tapped into your essence to figure out how to meet the demands of college and at the same time have a blast in your personal life. Over these years in school to make it to your graduation day, you tapped into all that is within you.

You called upon your grit to make it to that 8 a.m. class despite your hangover. You found the strength to address you social anxieties and went out and made new friends. You had the courage to overcome the loss of a loved one and still pass your test. You loved someone, and they broke your heart.

You loved someone new and you broke their heart.

All of this is within you.

This is why you made it here today.

This is your truth.

This is your unique life story.

And this is why we are celebrating you today.

You’ve done it to get here.

Now moving forward from this point, the magic trick for you in life is understanding is your responsability to continually evaluate and try to understand that constantly changing self within you. That exploration and then turning it into purpose, that is what makes you uniquely you and your life, your best life.

Your life as individual demands the constant reevaluation of the daily routine every day.

And further, the world needs your constant examination of who you are. Because our individual lives are now deeply interconnected to the world, more than ever.

Your life and the lives of others are intertwined by the tentacles of technology. Now is the time to take that connectivity between the self and the world that has magnified in your lifetime by computers, apps and social media, and turn it into human unity.

And on this point in particular, the world needs change from you, this generation. The world needs your truth, your unique life story, to inspire others to live their best lives. Because if we can now be so personally connected through images liked on instagram or through the stroke of a key on a keyboard, we can most certainly see that all of us behind the  image, behind the keyboard crave an equal shot at our best lives. Therefore, there’s no place in this world for racism, gender inequality, ageism, and the denial of rights to the LGBTQ community. Just as vast technological advancements creating interconnection is the new normal of your generation, historic issues such as ensuring equality for all have found a renewed strength and voice in your time, because of you. And as result, now your generation has the power to finally guarantee that all of us gain access to our own unique shot at our best lives.

History is watching what we do with our own lives and how we connect our lives to positively impact the lives of others. And I learned that from that my history and political science degrees. Charleston also taught me how to find my purpose, my truth, my unique life story in order to aspire to my best life. The College of Charleston is the place where I not only earned my degree, but mostly importantly, I learned that what you take with you after you leave these grounds is that which you have found within you. And today each of you among the class of 2018 continues in the long tradition of graduates across the world who have come before you. Today you take all that you have discovered within you and you continue to shape your own truth, you continue to crave out your own unique life story. And I want you to take your best shot at creating your own best life. And while doing so, in the process make the world around you a better place. So to honor the class of 2018 taking their best shot at their best life, I would to like to close using the lyrics from the musical “Hamilton”. This is from a song titled “My Shot”.

(Singing)

”I’m not throwing away my shot”

“I’m not throwing away my shot”

“Hey yo, I’m just like my country”

“I’m young, scrappy and hungry”

“And I’m not throwing away my shot”.

Thank you.

[Cheers and Applause]

[shadowphoenixrider]

Stitched Up

(I wrote this on a whim, and it suddenly became canon! We’re going back to Draenor, when Draggka and Khadgar were still bumbling around each other, a day or two after being stabbed by Alt-Garona. Hope you enjoy!)

(Oh, and tagging the delightful trio: @galleywinter, @elfgirl931 and @fer8girl)

Khadgar was not a man who got angry easily or quickly.

But when his robes tugged on the sutures in his back for about the sixth time, the archmage had to clench his fists to resist the urge to try to pluck the damn things out of his skin.

He couldn’t do that, of course. He needed his stab wounds to heal and he was fairly sure Cordana would probably double-stitch them in revenge if he managed to pull them out (was it possible to do that to wounds?). Oh, what he wouldn’t give for the ability to regenerate like a troll and not have to worry.

Like Draggka.

The archmage felt his train of thought come to a crashing halt, and a sliver of...embarrassed guilt curled through him. He really shouldn’t have been thinking about the Darkspear hunter, especially since she was starting to occupy most of his mind instead of the more important things, like dealing with Gul’dan, and the Iron Horde.

And yet, he couldn’t stop. No matter how many times he reminded himself that no-one could love an old man such as himself, and that there could definitely never be anything good coming out of falling for a member of the Horde (and a troll, at that), Khadgar found his mind meandering back to her.

It was certainly better than thinking about how fucking annoying those damn sutures were and how he couldn’t pull them out. And really, the two thoughts were linked.

The first time Garona (Alt-Garona, Khadgar reminded himself) had attempted to kill him, she’d given herself away by decking both Draggka and her raptor companion Spike over the head; it’d given him the warning he needed to freeze himself in a trusty block of ice, thwarting her attempt and letting the Warden send the would-be assassin packing.

Cordana had given her usual spiel that he should have stayed at Frostwall like some coddled child, but Khadgar had been more concerned for Draggka. Friendly concern, of course. Not the way his heart had chilled in his chest when he saw her head jerk when she’d been struck, bright orange eyes going briefly, sickeningly blank in her concussion. Thank the Light that such phenomena were just inconveniences for her race, and were easily shaken off.

The second time, however, he was not so lucky. Garona had gone for him first, and by the time he’d realized something was amiss, he was being stabbed, the fel-poison burning as it entered his blood.

His memory got blurry from that point on, his mind clearly trying to spare him from the traumatic event of almost dying, but he remembered some things with surprising clarity. Some things...that made him thoughtful.

The wounds began to itch again, and Khadgar grumbled, rolling his shoulders with displeasure, resisting the urge to reach around and scratch at them. Mostly because every time he did, Cordana caught him and gave him a withering look until he stopped, though she never told him how else he could relieve the sensation. Maybe next time he’d rub up against a wall, as embarrassing as that would look; he had to itch them somehow!

The archmage began to think back to the day again, forcibly shifting his mind away from the silk holding his broken skin together. Although he’d never recommend anyone to be stabbed, Khadgar had found that so much better than the poisoning. The stabbing, though painful, had been mercifully brief. The poisoning had not.

It had hurt, like fire burning him up from the inside out, and he felt his strength draining against his will. It had reminded him of when Medivh (Sargeras) had rapidly aged him, except instead of having his lifeforce ripped from him in one go, it had been pulled it out of him, as if someone was unravelling a tunic by a single thread. He’d found himself starting to struggle for breath, having to gasp and heave for air.

But he remembered things; fragments, more than anything, considering he was fighting for his life and his vision had soon blurred and muddied.

He’d seen the shock in Draggka’s eyes as he’d fallen, heard the angry roar of her raptor. Cordana shouting for the hunter to go after Garona, the Warden’s helmet filling his vision and her quiet urging for him to hold on (he’d tried to reply with something witty, but his breath had already started going). Suddenly Jaina being there and her being cross at him (Khadgar got this distinct impression he was making a habit of upsetting women). Yelling, that for once wasn’t directed at him.

And then Draggka. He knew it was her because she was blue, with a shock of red on her head and by her sides. She’d grasped his head with her hand (two fingers, one thumb), and pushed the edge of a vial between his lips, urging him to drink.

He’d gulped at the thick liquid greedily as he could manage, Draggka helping by tilting his head back to let gravity aid him. And that’s when he’d heard Cordana speak.

“Draggka, you’ve been wounded. You’re poisoned too!”

“I be a troll. I’ll live. De Archmage needs dis more den me.”

She’d not stopped until Khadgar felt Cordana pull the vial away from him and almost scold Draggka into taking her share. The antidote had worked fast from there, the burning subsiding and his breath slowly returning to him. He remembered everything else clearly from there, from him ordering the Warden to stitch his wounds, briefly arguing with Jaina about working with the Horde, using his power to upgrade the troll’s ring.

Trying to get his head around the strange, tight knot of feelings he’d felt in his chest ever since.

The archmage toyed with an Apexis crystal he’d left on his desk. He couldn’t stop thinking about those words, and what they meant. Obviously, it was logical choice; she was a troll, resistant to poisons and blessed with quick wound regeneration, and he was a human and wasn’t. It made perfect sense that he would be prioritised.

And yet, the shock in her eyes when he’d gone down, the sheer relief on her face when he’d sat upright, the feel of her hand on his face. A strong grip, brokering no argument, with calloused fingertips and the groove her bowstring had worn into her skin. It was quite the intimate touch, when she could have just held his chin (or not touched him at all), and he swore his skin tingled where she’d touched him for a while after.

Did...did she care for him?

As a friend, of course. He’d said he viewed her as much in Talador, and she’d returned the sentiment, that one day that Spike had almost knocked her into the stream and he’d caught her and it had all gotten very awkward. They’d talked about all sorts of things together, from the innocuous ‘what kind of day do you like the best’ to the more dangerous ’what was being in Pandaria like?’. He’d even managed to get her to talk about her Loa and culture, something he was sure no troll had volunteered so easily (he’d been tempted to note it all down, but he figured she might take offence).

After all, she was Horde, and very aware of her factions’ recent actions. Painfully aware; it wasn’t hard to see her guilt in her hate for Garrosh, especially as she spoke more about what had happened to the Darkspear tribe under the orc’s rule. The mage was getting the impression that there was something amiss with the troll herself, something he’d glimpsed in the Garona he knew well. Something hurt, something damaged. It had made Khadgar quietly seethe and cultivate a further deep dislike of the orc, though he’d put it down to seeing a friend hurt and wanting the perpetrator to pay (though for some reason, Garrosh’s death didn’t really seem like such a bad idea).

She was definitely a friend. She could be, never would be, anything more than that. They were on different sides. She was a champion and hero in her own right, looked up to by her people, and the chances that she’d look in his direction and see something she liked was zero. Nothing. Nil. Nada.

And yet Khadgar could not shake the thought from his head. The thought that she’d given him the antidote first because she cared enough to sacrifice herself for him. That she put her own life before his without hesitation. And somehow that shook him. His natural reaction was a rejection; she shouldn’t throw her life away for me, I have nothing to offer. But there was something else.

A fear of losing her.

The fear was not unusual. Its strength was. The thought alone was enough to make his heart ache and his chest a little too tight. But it didn’t make sense, she was just a friend-

Unless she wasn’t.

For once, the irritating yank of one of the silken threads getting caught was a welcome break out of his thoughts. Khadgar did not want to entertain the possibility that he maybe had feelings that were more than just admiration, and interest in the troll hunter. Khadgar thoroughly enjoyed their verbal sparring whenever she engaged him, and her company was always welcome. Enough that he liked to seek it out, and her raptor didn’t seem to mind; indeed, Spike would often lead Khadgar to where his companion was, or lead her to him.

Hold on.

The archmage frowned. Spike often guided the two together. He’d pushed the mage into the Frostfire snow one time after leading him to the hunter. It was Spike’s fault that Draggka had almost fallen into the stream, and he’d slammed into Khadgar’s legs that one time in Frostwall when-

Is her raptor trying to...matchmake us?

He shook his head rapidly. No no, that couldn’t be it; he was reading way too much into the creature’s behaviour. But Spike had always seemed very calm around him, when he’d expected the beast to be hostile to him. And that time the mage had fallen into the troll...He, he wanted to - he’d almost kissed her-

Khadgar groaned, burying his head in his hands.

I have a crush on Draggka.

Just what he needed. A stupid infatuation when he had to have a clear mind to find and stop Gul’dan. He wasn’t a fresh-faced initiate just entering puberty; he was in his forties! He thought he was well past fawning crushes, but clearly his heart thought otherwise.

The archmage sighed. He just hoped it would all peter out soon, and he could stop embarrassing himself. And her. The last thing she needed was him behaving like a pillock because his hormones thought now was the most appropriate time to be having a party. He had stuff to do, he had to work out a way to free Alt-Garona from Gul’dan’s control.

Khadgar uttered a curse as his wounds were pulled again, the need to scratch the damaged skin flaring to life once more. And he was going to pull those bloody sutures out if it was the last thing he did!

[mikemortgage]

Brandon Truaxe built, then nearly broke, Deciem. Can it go on without him?

Nicola Kilner, chief executive of the skin-care company Deciem, has a joke about last year. If you didn’t get fired in 2018, she says, “then you didn’t really live 2018 at Deciem.”

Kilner was fired twice, by Brandon Truaxe, the company’s founder and one of her closest friends. Last year, even as Deciem grew, Truaxe plunged the company into chaos. He was committed to hospitals four times in three countries. He died in January of this year, after a fall from a Toronto condominium.

His death left Kilner at the top of a company that is projected to sell US$300-million worth of products this year. She is working to stay faithful to Truaxe’s vision. She considers him a genius, but she also wants to integrate new values into the company’s culture, like kindness.

Because 2018, she said, “wasn’t a very kind year.”

Deciem founder Brandon Truaxe dead at 40

The inside story of how Deciem, the Abnormal Beauty Company, lived up to its name

Deciem founder ordered to stay away from Estee Lauder offices, workers after ’harassing and menacing’ communications

Kilner and Truaxe met in 2011, when she was working as a buyer at Boots, the British pharmacy chain. She was inspired by his energy and constant stream of ideas, and when he founded Deciem, in 2013, she was excited to be hired as the company’s brand director. They spent every working hour together.

Truaxe was passionate and funny, but also quick to anger. Kilner, who is preternaturally calm, would help soothe tensions in the aftermath of any given blowup. He recognized his own volatility, though, and the two grew to trust each other. She soon became Truaxe’s co-chief executive.

Deciem was conceived as a skin-care product incubator, a company that would house 10 different brands with different missions. Truaxe’s background was in computer science, and he approached moisturizers and toners as engineering problems.

Shamin Mohamed Jr., Deciem’s director of operations under Truaxe and his good friend, said that beauty was supposed to be just the beginning; Truaxe had intended to disrupt other sectors, including apparel, nutrition and technology.

“He’s more Silicon Valley than beauty,” said Nils Johnson, whose company Beautylish was one of the first retailers to stock Deciem products in the U.S. “He was kind of in a position where he didn’t care about status quo and he didn’t have respect for status quo.”

Deciem founder Brandon Truaxe is shown in this undated handout photo posted to Instagram.

Truaxe grew frustrated in an industry in which brand names determine prices and packaging is crowded with marketing gobbledygook. So he created The Ordinary, a line of a la carte ingredients that are usually prettied up or disguised and sold at a premium by other brands. Much of Deciem’s value derives from The Ordinary, which has become its most popular offering, leaping over brands like NIOD, Loopha and Ab Crew.

The Ordinary was released as a product line in September 2016, just a few months after the company started opening retail locations. It was Deciem’s 11th brand. None of its products cost more than US$15. Between August 2016 and August 2017, the company more than doubled its wholesale revenue, causing a stir in the industry and attracting Estée Lauder Cos. as a minority investor — even as Truaxe’s behaviour shifted from passionate to disturbing.

What Does a Visionary Look Like?

Truaxe’s behaviour began to change in the early days of 2018, after he said he had spent the end-of-year holidays in Mongolia. (Kilner came to believe that he was not in Mongolia but in Venice, Italy, and Amsterdam; Mohamed said that Truaxe had never planned to go to Mongolia.) In January, he announced on the company’s Instagram that he would be taking on all marketing — that there would be no more barrier between himself and Deciem’s followers. “From now on I am going to communicate personally with you,” he said.

It was difficult for his co-workers, including Kilner, to make judgments about his behaviour. When the founder announced that he would no longer be using his cellphone or email, they weren’t sure whether he was being unreasonable or a genius.

“Brandon was so infectious in whoever he spoke to,” Kilner said. “You were just in his magic charm. I remember having conversations with my husband around things he was saying. You challenge yourself thinking, ‘Am I the one not getting this?’ ”

Mohamed thought that Truaxe’s behaviour was less a sudden break than a continuation of familiar behaviour. “Brandon didn’t magically become crazy in eight months,” he said. “He’s always been like this. He’s always been this manic guy who ran this company.”

Kilner felt compelled to say something in February when, on Deciem’s Instagram account, Truaxe abruptly ended the company’s relationship with cosmetic doctor Tijion Esho. Esho was caught off-guard and upset, a preview of what the rest of the year would look like for those in the founder’s orbit.

“I started to ask him, ‘Are you OK? Are things OK?’ ” Kilner said. “The next day I was terminated.”

Truaxe delegated the firing to the company’s human resources director, Neha Gupta. Kilner’s husband, Sean Reddington, booked the couple on a flight to Barbados. The two had been married for several years but had put off having children. They decided that, free from an all-consuming workplace, it was time. In March, she became pregnant.

Progress within the company almost ground to a halt. In March, Truaxe fired Deciem’s U.S. team. In early April, after he published an Instagram post insulting Kilner, Reddington emailed him, disclosing that his wife was pregnant and that the stress was unwelcome. Truaxe responded warmly, congratulating the couple. He knew that Kilner had always wanted a baby and had told her he worried that Deciem would keep her from starting a family. Then he posted the news on the company’s Instagram account. Kilner was only about four weeks pregnant and had told very few people.

Kilner said that such behaviour marked a definitive break. “Before 2018, Brandon was the most respectful person in the world,” she said.

The Vanishing Line Between Public and Private

Deciem’s employees embraced the common startup practice of referring to co-workers as one’s family. Kilner, the company’s U.S. director, Dakota Isaacs, and others tend to speak in superlatives about their colleagues. (And Truaxe’s longtime partner, Riyadh Swedaan, worked at the company for years.)

But Truaxe’s actions further confounded the boundaries separating the workplace and the home. His Instagram posts and conduct within Deciem suggested that he was having trouble parsing which behaviour was appropriate for the public, what might belong at Deciem and what he might keep private.

Kilner did not deny a report in the Financial Post that he was ingesting psychedelic mushrooms in front of employees. She said he did not attempt to persuade team members to take drugs with him.

But he did recommend that they take mushrooms; he was convinced of their creative and spiritual benefits. This behaviour constituted another change. “Before 2018, he barely even drank alcohol,” Kilner said.

Mohamed said that he did not think that Truaxe had been mentally ill, but said he did think that he had been addicted to drugs: crystal meth and psilocybin.

In May, according to an interview with the Financial Post, Truaxe took crystal meth in Britain, which led to him being arrested and committed to a hospital. By June, he was calling Kilner and begging her to come back, partly, she said, because he was hoping to win back the support of Estée Lauder Cos., whom his behaviour had alienated.

At first, she was not sure whether she would return. But ultimately, she decided, “This wasn’t a job. This was family. You’re there for family.”

View this post on Instagram

Our co-worker is back—but never behind. We love you, @nicolalkilner. You’ll always be our only 🐌—and always stronger than any 🐅 can ever hope to be or become. 🧡💛🌕😜

A post shared by THE ABNORMAL BEAUTY COMPANY (@deciem) on Jul 3, 2018 at 7:04am PDT

Breaking Point

At first, Truaxe seemed improved upon Kilner’s return. He was in the Toronto office infrequently, which helped Kilner and the rest of the team to get things done.

But it became clear that he would not return to being the person he had been. At one point, in late summer, he and Kilner spent hours together in a New York restaurant talking about new products, one of the most normal exchanges she had with him in months. She texted her husband, telling him that she wanted to cry with happiness. Ten minutes later, Truaxe got up and said he had to leave the restaurant “because people were in there watching him.”

In August, Truaxe and Kilner cut off Deciem’s relationship with Beautylish. Johnson said that in the meeting, Truaxe seemed to be “having one of his episodic experiences” and that he talked at length about subjects that were unrelated to the business. (Johnson has not forgiven Kilner. He sees her as having enabled Truaxe’s darker tendencies; it was she who sent the email terminating the relationship.)

In an email sent Oct. 1, Truaxe addressed the distrust for him that had grown rampant at his company. He wrote, referring to himself by his own initials and in the third person, that “I recognize that many of you may have allowed doubt to cloud your judgment of B.T., despite much kindness, love, respect and generosity that our founder has shown us.”

People react as they look outside a Toronto Deciem store after all locations closed unexpectedly on Tuesday, October 9, 2018.

Eight days later, he announced on Instagram that the company would stop all operations and close down its own stores, provoking pandemonium within the company and a run on its merchandise from a consumer base worried that their preferred products would soon be unavailable. Three days later, Estée Lauder Cos. successfully sued to have Truaxe removed from Deciem. Kilner, then seven months pregnant, replaced him as chief executive.

“You’ve got 700 people who’ve got livelihoods, they’ve got families, they’ve got bills to pay,” she said. “So when it came up what needed to happen there was a part of me that thought ‘Maybe this is what he needs.’ ”

A New Deciem

Kilner believed that he would recover and return. She called him as the court case was proceeding to see if one more conversation could make a difference. But after that, she made a firm decision to focus on Deciem and on her soon-to-arrive baby.

She stopped talking to him as much. Conversations with him were trying. Truaxe seemed consumed by the idea that those around him had committed financial crimes, and had an obsessive interest in and affinity for President Donald Trump. His anger at being removed from Deciem also made him hard to talk to.

Mohamed thinks that Truaxe may have closed the stores to cause his own ouster. He does not blame Kilner for taking over, but does think that Truaxe should have been able to remain in contact with some of his co-workers. Cutting him off from the colleagues he saw as family was cruel, Mohamed thought, and he said he believed it led to the further deterioration of Truaxe’s condition.

As she entered the final month of her pregnancy, Kilner began to envision the company’s future. Deciem this year will open a new, 70,000-square-foot facility in Toronto, the first in years that will be able to house all its employees. The facility, in the Liberty Village neighbourhood (the location was chosen by Truaxe), will include an on-site laboratory, a factory and a store. They expect to introduce between 100 and 150 new products this year, and several new brands. Both Kilner and Mohamed plan to devote their organizations to furthering the study of mental health.

One of Deciem’s new brands will make skin-care products for babies, something Kilner said the company’s customers ask for all the time. She had a daughter at the end of December. She did not know the sex of the baby until the birth, but had already picked out a name for a girl, Mila, which she shared with Truaxe in July. He adored it, she said.

Kilner took no leave from work; she answered emails about Deciem from the hospital. She said she loves her job so much that managing the company does not feel like work to her. When Kilner was interviewed in early April, her infant daughter had taken more flights than she had lived weeks.

Kilner learned in January that Truaxe might be dead from reporters emailing one of Deciem’s publicists: one last awful piece of news that strangers had access to before Truaxe’s work family did.

She said she feels privileged to be able to work on building the company that he created. “The best thing that we can do to honour him is to make sure his vision lives for eternity,” Kilner said.

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For general information on mental health and to locate treatment services in your area in the United States, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Treatment Referral Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). In Canada, visit the website of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

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