#like. as a side note i Am a light skinned asian woman so maybe my rant is a bit off and im just reiterating points that have Already Been | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

silverrstarrr · 3 years

Text

Normal girl (2)

Note: i just edit this chapter a bit and added more dialog. Someone messaged me and helped me out with a few things, thank you!

Chapter 2:

Walking side by side down the stairs, you took a sip of your coffee and place your herd of keys the side of your book bag. yume was scrolling through her phone on tik tok, drinking from her coconut Carmel ice coffee. You didn't understand why she was drinking ice coffee in mid February, it was cold. It was surprising their wasn't any snow.

Grinning like an idiot, she shaked your shoulder, positioning her phone in front of you–you both watched the tik tok. You didn't laugh at first only smiling, yume kept gesturing you to keep watching, waiting for the punchline. Finally it came up and you both started laughing, you slowly shaked your head placing your hand over your mouth.

"NOOO, nooo. That was so wrong, yall are going to hellll" you whined out.

Yume wiped the tears from her face and continued down the last step. She opened up the door and slid out, you trialing behind her. You both proceeded to walk down the street, where all the park cars were out.

"We riding in rich today girlie, jump in," she lifted up her arm that held her drink, her other reached into her purse and grabbed her car keys.

"I thought we were gonna walk there? It's only 10 minutes." You headed towards her car as she unlocked it and sat in the driver's seat. She had a 2018 dark Grey Nissan altima. You remember her having this ever since junior year, you recalled her talking about getting a newer model since this one was old. Like girl what? Old your ass, if the car still functioning there ain't no problem. White people shit, man.

"Well, it's the first day of sweet college life," she dragged out the last few words, adding a sarcastic tone. Yume tossed her bag in the backseat through the open space from the front, She dropped her drink in the little cup holder as well. Catching up with her, you open the backseat's door and chucked your bag in there–immediately closing it after. You pull the passengers door open and sat down, closing it behind you. Yume did the same–letting out a large sigh as she used her long sleeve to rub her legs, which were freezing.

"Bruh, you were just cold. Shouldn't have wore that skirt knowing it was this cold. Your mother would be disappointed," you moved your head side ways, pretending to be disappointed. You dropped your dunkin' drink in the other cup holder next to hers.

"Y/n, shut upp." Rolling her eyes jokingly, She grabbed the buckled next to her seat and puts it on. You placed your seat belt on too. Automatically, her phone connected to the car, you check over at the screen in the middle. It had the time, the degrees outside and all that other fancy things.

"Wanna play something?" she inserted the keys into the ignition and started the car.

"Yeah, I'll type it in,"

You grabbed her phone, showing the screen to her to unlock it, automatically recognizing her face– the lock screen slid up, revealing all her apps. You went to spotify and played "C U Girl" by Steve lacy.

"OKAAYYY, MS. INDIE TIK TOKER." Yume said nodding her, jamming to song. It was only going to be a 5 minute drive, or 7 if you guys couldn't find parking. She swerved to the left, leaving her parking space and pulling off. You whipped out your phone and paused your music, rapidly switching to snapchat–you heard yume's loud singing.

"I WANNA SEE YOU GUURRLL, I WANNA PLEASE YOU GIRL....GO AHEAD AND BE YOUR GIRL," This girl was jamming her out heart out, steve lacy was her favorite along with Brent faiyaz and many others.

In response, you started cackling as you hit the record button—swiftly turning over it to the driver. Her black ponytail moving as she sang and motioning her head in all different directions. Eyeing towards your direction she sees the phone and leans towards the camera flashing a smile, moving her head side to side—still singing through the lyrics. Yume returned back to the road as she lightly taps the steering, avoiding the horn of course.

Once the quick little vid was done, you added a caption,

"I swear if we crash😭😭💕"

Your thumb jolted between posting it on your private or public. You decided to post on the public story because why not? The song was over pretty quickly as the next one played.

"Who knew white people had rhythm?!" It was obviously sarcasm. You knew she was half Asian but it was fun always calling out her white side.

"Naaahh, white people don't have any rhythm. What you saw there was my miki matsubara pop out". She eases down her breaks– the traffic light turns red. Miki Matsubara? Oh yeah, it's that woman who sung "stay with me". It was a good song, you were obsessed with the chorus mostly.

You giggled a bit at her remark, you checked your socials once again.

"If this light doesn-" Yume sentence was cut off by the light turning green. She pressed her foot on the gas and carried on with attending class.

~~~

Pulling up to the parking lot, yume leaned towards her wheel, searching for a place to park. She slowly went down each isle searching for a vacant lot she could snag. You had your drink in between your lips, you took the last sip and shook the plastic cup trying to get a little more. All you heard was ice rattling against one another, dropping the cup back in the holder. You peer out the window looking at the campus, there were a ton of kids, like a lot. Anxiety began spiking up through your veins, this really is the college life, huh? Maria University. It was a school for literally anything, it was one of the biggest universities in the country as well being highly diverse. Yume would be allll the way on the other side of campus while you're slightly in the middle.

"Uggghhh! I regret not leaving earlier, I don't see any open slots." She whined. This was her 2nd time driving around the parking lot looking for a space.

"I said we should walk but nahhh, you wanted to be lazy and take the car." You rolled your eyes as yume, exaggerating, throwing your hands in the air. But you weren't going to be late on the first day. As the generous queen you are, you aided your roomie with looking a space to park. After analyzing for a few moments, you spotted a space and immediately tapped at the window, pointing towards it. Yume car swerved to the left, sliding right into the parking. Taking her keys out the hole, she grabbed her drink and headed out.

"No leaving trash in my car, miss L/n!"

You grabbed your plastic cup and opened the passenger door.

"Yes ma'am," you opened the backseat and grabbed the two bags and closed the door. Beep yume locked her car. She was sipping her coffee but gave a bitter expression when her sweet drink was watered down because of the ice. You looked at your phone, checking the time:

8:38 am

Monday, February 18th

38m ago

Kittykiller27, prettygirlnene liked your photo

45m ago

[Andyhas]: CRONA BECK started following you and 48 others.

Your phone was blowing up from insta notifications. It was time for class and you weren't sure how long it'll even take you to find your classroom. Slinging the bag over your shoulder, you handed yume her own, which she grabbed. You both were speed walking, despite her coffee being ruined she still continued to drink it. It was for the caffeine you guessed. Reaching the sidewalks, it was time to part ways. Yume turned her face towards yours pouting.

"We're leaving each other nooww," she stuck out her bottom lip staring at you. You grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to you. Her arms slithered around your waist, resting her chin on your shoulder–giving you a warm hug. You returned the hug by grunting and holding her tightly.

She started giggling and patted your back a few times, you released your grip and she started to jog in the other direction while looking back, waving at you. You waved back hollering a "BYEEEE!" A trash can was next to you so you dumped your empty dunkin' there.

It was now time for your own adventure, to find this damn classroom. You click the play button on your phone's lock screen, "baby powder by Jenevieve began playing. (Play the song whores👩🏾‍💻)

Walking downwards to the left side of campus, you searched for a pair of doors to go inside of. At this moment, you regretted not going to orientation. That day you were busy setting up your website for your makeup line. You haven't released any products yet, but you had plentiful of ideas and themes you wanted to do. Since it was black history month, maybe you'll drop something as simple as a face cream to help clear and brighten up the skin. But you discarded that thought because you weren't anywhere near ready to start your own small business. Plus, you had bigger things to worry about.

Standing in front of double doors, you grab the handles and pulled it back, you stepped inside while students behind you did the same. You came in slowly, admiring the interior. It was hella spacy with paintings and photos hanging along the walls. Students were roaming the hallways going back and forth from classrooms. Most of the students seemed to be in some sort of costume, or they were dressed fairly well like they were models. You didn't know the directions to your designated class, so you took up the courage to ask someone. You turned to search for someone who didn't seem busy, since most people were rushing to class. Finally you laid eyes on q girl leaning against the wall, typing on her phone. She had long pink acrylic nails, her blonde hair tied into a low ponytail, which complimented her pale skin tone. She had a gold nose piercing on the right nostril.

She seemed nice enough, so you decided to approach her.

"Um excuse me, do you know where Mr. Fargo's class is at?"

The blonde girl averted her eyes from her phone, now focusing on you.

"I'm not really sure—um, I believe it's down that way." She pointed to the right of her.

"Mr. Fargo, he's teaches cosmetic right?"

"Yeah," you replied

"Then I think it should be down there." She scrunched her face in a confusing manner, meaning not to take her word for granted. But you couldn't care less, it was worth a try.

"Ight, thank you." You bid her goodbye. Oop. You accidentally switched your lingo. You were used to speaking in AAVE but you knew how to change your tone and wordplay around others who weren't African American. The girl didn't seen to notice so you just continued down the hall.

"Down... here right..? Yeah this is the way," you murmured to yourself while you strut down the hall. Then turned left as the lady told you. You were now at a hall with multiple doors. Out of all them, you forget the most important, class started in five minutes. You looked to the left as your braids swayed with your movement, then searched to the right. You walked down the hallway, stopping at the fifth door on the left. You were hesitant with grabbing the door, you didn't want to make a fool of yourself walking into the wrong room as all eyes are on you. You pulled out your phone and texted yume.

(I did a different message format just in the previous was confusing)

colonizer but times 2🧑🏻‍🦲

I'm so lost, this is embarrassing.

Lost? What happened

Idk where my class is

& its starting in a few

You don't know where?? Bruh

Ask someone, im sure they'll help you

I did...but she didn't tell me

which class it was😭 all.

she said was "down the hall"

BYEE LMAOO

Uhh

Just open the door you think it is😋

UH- HUH🧏🏾‍♀️ YOU SETTING ME

UP FOR FAILURE.

Imagine going into the wrong class and

all you see are eyes 👁👁

Girl, half of the people won't even see you again on campus👩🏻‍🏫

If you don't recognize the teacher, try to ask a student close to the door for direction

Okay, im blaming you if I make a fool.

outta myself 😟

Read at 8:43 am

(Play quicksand by SZA rq 👩🏾‍💻)

You decided to take your roomie's advice and pick a class, which you already did.

You dropped your phone back into your jacket pocket and swung open the door–you were prepared for the stares. The classroom was vacant, not even a teacher in sight. Just a bunch of stools and white pull down screens. You saw a few cameras standing in front of these screens. "Was this the photography class or sum?" You mumbled to yourself.

And well, eyes were on you but it wasn't a herd as you expected, just one. Sitting on one of the stools in front of the door, was pale skin boy with long brown hair. It rested at his shoulders, some of it covering his face even. He seemed around 6ft, or 6 ft 2? You couldn't really tell since he was sitting.

He had on some black jeans with a black long sleeve sweatshirt as well with a beige greenish short sleeve unbutton shirt rested on top of it– a long golden key necklace dangled from his chest. His hands were sitting between his lap, you noticed sliver rings on them.(his outfit for people who need help visualizing) The teal eyed boy was also rocking black & white air Jordan 1 retro, literally the same as you.

You screamed internally at how fine this man looked and he had shoe gang? Uggghh. Class been started and you were going to be late on your first because this OBVIOUSLY wasn't your class. You decided to break the awkward silence and speak,

"Hey, um, is this Mr. Fargos class?" You stepped more into the classroom for the brunette male to hear you.

"Wrong one, babe. His class is in a totally different building." A different building?! You wanted to die right there and then, especially after hearing him laugh after his statement. Not just the wrong class but the wrong building? Bye–you're so stupid. His eyes scanned your body, his eyes lingered a bit longer at your shoes–it seems he noticed. A smirk appeared on his lips after finishing his quick outfit interrogation–wait, did he just call you-? I-, yes he did. You tried your best to hide your smile and not react.

"O-ooo, I got it. Thanks" Eren released a small chuckled seeing your reaction, he could tell you were caught up with the little pet name.

"I'll walk you over there." He got off his stool and walked towards your direction.

"I-, nah it's good, I got it." You said in defense not wanting to bother him. He didn't respond and just passed by you, exiting the classroom. He held onto the door, looking at you.

"You coming or no?" He was so nonchalant with it everything. You smiled a bit and walked out the class alongside with him. He released his grip once you were out and started trialing behind you.

You paused for a moment because you didn't know where you were going. You turned back to look at him, he caught on and let out an "ah". He quickly got in front of you as you proceeded behind him.

"So," he said.

"What?" You replied. Why did he start a sentence and not finish it? Was he expecting you to start the conversation, weirdo. You just wanted to get to class l.

"Oo, sassy are we?" He raised a brow.

"What—? boy, say what you wanna say."

Once again, he let out a chuckle, flashing you a small. God, was his laugh attractive.

"You're into makeup and stuff?" He questioned.

"Yeah, I'm into 'makeup and stuff' " You said the last few words in the mocking tone, referring to what he called cosmology.

"That's good, at least I'll be seeing you often."

"Often? Oh, are you in that major also?" You said.

"No...Do you really not know anything?" He made you feel dumb by his response. How were you suppose to know what he meant? You clicked your teeth and started walking ahead. You pushed back the door that lead to another hallway and walked towards the end to push the second door that lead to another building.

The brunette boy watched as you left him behind in the dirt, waiting for the moment you'll turn the wrong corner—so he could tease you about it then correct you.

It wasn't too long till you reached your destination, you both stopped in front of the class's door.

"Well, see you. I hope you don't make snarky remarks to every girl you meet."

"Nah, only you princess." He had a smirk on his face, ooo! You wanted to wipe it off.

You glanced at him and his eyes were already on you, you broke eye contact and reached for the handle.

"Wait–" you whipped your heard back.

"Yeah?"

He cleared his throat

"Name's Eren," you let out a small giggle, did he really just stop you to say his name? Puhleasee. Hearing your laugh, his face brightened up and kept his eyes on you.

"Okay, Eren~. Thank you for walking me, I gotten get to class now."

You opened the door and stepped inside. Eren didn't even get a chance to ask your name. Luckily for him, your major mingled a lot with his own, he could only hope to see you again around campus.

‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿‿

Authors note: UGHHH, I STAYED UP ALL NIGHT FOR THIS just to pass out a few hours before school started. 🥲 I wasn't even paying attention in English and math class, but hope yall enjoyed <3.

Pt 3

#x reader #attack on titan #eren headcanons #eren x reader #eren yeager x reader #eren yeager #anime #eren yeager x y/n #eren x black reader #eren yeager x you #aot x black reader #eren jeager #eren jaeger x reader #connie springer #aot season 4 #eren smut #fanfic #anime fanfic

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uwuthatshit · 3 years

Text

What Azusa Would Look Like IRL! (Part One?)

IMPORTANT NOTE!!!!

I give a LOT of Credit to @pettyval for inspiring this series! They do a similar series about Kanato, and I thought, “WHy NoT AzUsA?!” So I asked for permission and they said yes!!

Go Support @pettyval because they’re amazing and I love them. Go see what they do with Kanato!!! Very accurate, from a kanto kinnie :)

Okay, HERE WE GO! I am SO excited to start this series and include my own head cannons about Azusa in the mix! I have recently been reading the actual game play plot (I’ve read through Ayato in HDB and I’m working on Azusa in the Second Game, thanks to @dialovers-lover-xoxo for sending me the translations!!!!) AND OH BOOOOOOOY LMAO THIS IS A TRIP! SO GOOD. SO SCARY. I LOVE IT.

TW, duh, because this is DL and all the boys got trauma. SH mentions. yea

SO LETS GET STARTED~!

Azusa in real life would be a cutie pie.

I checked all the fandom websites and made SURE that I had most of his Zodiac, Height, ect.

CANNON FACTS: His birthday is October 28th. He’s a Scorpio, 170 cm (5'7"), and he’s in his 3rd year of high-school (night school, whatever).

So to start off with, I’m gonna be describing his Face features and some of his personality.

So without further ado, lets begin!

Face:

His facial features would not be overly masculine, but also not overly feminine. He is very alike to Kanato in the sense that he has some female attributes to his character- But with the correct balance of masculinity. In my opinion, Kanato looks more like a feminine child. He uses his vulnerable appearance (along with having Teddy) to manipulate other humans and vampires to get what he needs.

Azusa does not use the way he presents himself as a way to manipulate other people, but does use it to attract his prey. He’s not insecure about how he looks, but he also doesn't boast about it. He’s a Scorpio, he’s just kinda... there. He marches the beat to his own drum and doesn't care about anyone else.

~Side Note: I 100% believe that all of the Sakamaki’s and Mukami’s are physically attractive for the sole purpose of finding prey. Why else are they all hot??? Have you ever met a ugly vampire?? No??????????????? YEAH THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT.

As a vampire, there’s some sexual attributes to how they consume their prey (Fangs “thrusting” in and out of a woman, the neck being an extremely sensitive place to bite people, tongue, UGH ya know, that sort of thing... @papuru666 talks enough about this sorta shit all the time if you wanna read their head cannons which, again, sinfully accurate, from a kanto kinnie’s perspective @~@).

This is shown also with Azusa’s eyes WHICH ARE CAPTIVATING and his body features which will be addressed later~

(Okay get back to business Sage-)

SO, his face. Honestly, a LOT like a k-pop star. Face shape is similar to Sota Fukushi.

Azusa would LOVE to get piercings. He would go in for the rush of pain getting something pierces into his skin. I feel like he’d have his nose done at the very least. maybe his tongue~ and his ears imagine the chains dangling down UWU

Eyes:

Azusa has Asian- inspired eyes with short eyelashes. His eyes are HEAVILY hooded. His eyebrows are rather light. He doesn't have to take care of them, nor does he plan to. (explanation later)

Azusa has trouble sleeping because of his avid nightmares, and it’s a form of self harm. Like... It’s not that surprising. He’s into pain. Staying awake for long periods of time gives him a rush of Adrenalin and makes him feel oddly proud of himself. He’s the type of person to have streaks of how long he can stay awake and keeps track. He’d use spicy food to keep him awake, and energy drinks like Bangs/Monsters.

Kou would laugh and encourage it like the little bitch he is, while Yuma and Ruki would have a freak out and get SUPER worried about his health if they were to find out about it. They’d force him to go to bed, and Azusa would go to sleep... But then he’d do it all over again ;)

This man knows no limits. What’s self care? Sleep? We don’t know her. If he can’t get pain from other people, HIS idea of self love (from a base-character-form perspective) is self harm.

I’LL SAY IT AGAIN. Let it sink in. His idea of self love/self care, is self harm. Treating himself to a bit of pain after a hard day, staying awake and reading as a treat. Eating spicy food after getting a B on a math test.(fuck math)

Although, since he had an addiction, he wouldn't be able to day no to those urges. It's just giving him an excuse.

So, because of his lack of sleep, he’d have AVID red/purple/yellow bags under his eyes that stay no matter what, even if he was to get some sleep. This man needs to go to bed-

Although I feel like if he WAS to actually sleep, he’d sleep for 12 hours straight, dead-ass.

NOW HEAR ME OUT- He’d totally do a little bit of makeup to mess around, break gender norms, and/or to start a fight so the homophobes would beat him up (sad but true). He’d let his SO do his makeup around his eyes.

Something like this- a little bit of red on the corners- would be his go-to. Not a lot though, just a little. It would make him look more tired and it would match Justin and Christina. (His SH scars). BOOM. makes the man a little happy.

Hair

Azusa’s hair is not well kept... By himself. I feel like Azusa, at best, only takes showers, really. Other than that, he struggles to take care of his base needs. He barely eats, as seen in the Anime. He knows how to wrap a bandage, but doesn't disinfect the wound, as seen in the Games and one of the DL CD’s.

And, most likely, he doesn’t know how to pick out a good outfit. He doesn't really want to spend a lot of time taking care of his Hair, makeup, appearance, whatever. It’s not that he want’s to be bad, but he wants to focus more on Self Harm and, eventually, his Eve.

But... As much as a little shit he is, I feel Like Kou would definitely take some time out of his day to dress him up and cut his hair and play dress up with him from time to time. Kou isn’t the best brother in the world, but he hates seeing Azusa in awful outfits. It would bring his PHYSICAL pain. He gives him outfits to put on, and tells him what goes good with what.

and Azusa would listen and copy him with open arms.�� (the baby, we love to see it @~@)

Azusa, after his base-character form, would grow out and be able to be put into a man-bun. It would be like a mullet, black, dark, messy. Nobody can get him to get it cut. He won’t let anyone touch his hair, he’d cut it himself with his knives.

He loves chains. He likes plain clothes, silver, and is mostly plain when it comes to his appearance. He’s a docile boy, we love to see it.

SO yeah! That’s pretty much all for now, just the basics about his face. Lemme know If you wanna see it more?

(I spent a whole week on this please give it some love this is way harder than I thought it would be @~@)

#diabolik brothers #diabolical #diabolik lovers #azusa mukami

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

Note

Ok please if you don’t mind saying - who is Stuart semple and what did he do? I’m so confused. Like I recognise the name and I think he might the an artist or something but I have no idea

He is indeed an artist! He’s a English multidisciplinary fine artist best known for his ongoing beef with English sculptor Anish Kapoor over the 2016 exclusive licensing on the process to make Vantablack colour coating, which meant Kapoor was the only artist allowed to use it. Then Stuart Semple made Pinkest Pink pigment and said it was available to everyone but Anish Kapoor, and there was a big blowup which there’s a lot of documentation of - it was very memed.

Since then, Semple has made a bunch more pigments, most of them with the available-to-everyone-but-Anish-Kapoor disclaimer, and the beef periodically flares up, although I will say as time goes on it seems to me to have got increasingly one-sided given that Kapoor has pretty much wandered off.

(I’ve used several of his colours, btw. Pinkest Pink is pretty good. Blackest Black, his attempt to make the blackest possible paint (as opposed to Vantablack which is a nanofibre coating) I was pretty disappointed in, I’ve honestly had better light capture from mid-range art shop paints. His other pigments vary in quality - some I really liked, some I was meh on, but I think Blackest Black is the only one I was actively unimpressed by)

Anyway. Where I come in is much less exciting.

A few months ago I reblogged a post on Tumblr asking about Semple from a discourse tag (my reblog did not tag or @ anyone), and I made a glib comment where I said (very truthfully) that while I thought he was pretty decent at pigments, both his paintings and his online persona came across pretty adolescent to me.

so it turns out Stuart Semple is an inveterate name searcher (hi Stuart if you’re reading this!)

(Side note: I actually should have guessed this from 2019 Twitter when he saw and commented on an untagged thread I wrote about him and Kapoor’s beef (which was because I’d seen an article in which Kapoor, a British-Asian man, said that the racist Prevent strategy was liable to drive young British-Asian men into the arms of terrorist groups by making it clear their country hates them reblogged on Semple’s account with a caption claiming Anish Kapoor was pro-terrorism, which, while tongue-in-cheek, isn’t a neutral statement for a white person to make about an Asian person and was a pretty phenomenally bad-faith reading of Kapoor’s actual words) and in my thread I pretty much said that when the story had broken, I, like everybody else, had found it very funny and been firmly on side with Semple’s bit, but I felt that a) after a couple of years it really wasn’t very relevant any more and it had started to feel less like Fighting The Power and more like bullying the amount of Semple’s web presence was devoted to talking about Anish Kapoor; b) that it was a shame that Anish Kapoor was increasingly only known as The Vantablack Guy given that I really like a lot of his work and c) that continuing to frame a Jewish person of colour as the Face of the Artistic Elite was a bit weird given how overwhelmingly white the high-end art world is. but I digress. Semple responded to that thread, I don’t really remember what he said, it wasn’t an acrimonious response but it was a bit Oh I Didn’t Do Anything To Tag You?)

so anyway he found my reblog and commented saying ehhh I don’t remember, something along the lines of not feeling like I was being very kind and that he was trying his best. also I think he said I had accused him of being racist? which again the actual Tumblr post literally just said I thought his art and persona came across as juvenile and I think in the tags? I mentioned that I thought it was time for him to step off the Kapoor beef.

then he screencapped my post, including my profile picture and username, and posted it on all his socials with a kind of :( people are so mean on Tumblr :( caption and um

idk if you know this about Being A Public Persona With Tens Of Thousands of Followers but. if you post someone’s identity and say ‘I do not like what this person is doing’ it. can get messy fast.

uh I don’t follow Stuart Semple (see the original post I made) but he commented to make sure I knew he’d posted my post on Instagram and “all my followers like your wig :)” which. according to my partner who did go and look at the time, the Instagram comments were largely about how I was an ugly non-passing trans woman aka “man in a wig” which. throw the whole suitcase out. There were a good few days where I got a lot of angry anons, ranging from ‘stop bullying Stuart Semple!!!!!’ to ‘die in a ditch graphically’ to ‘how can you claim to have opinions on art when You Are On Tumblr’ (I have been a freelance illustrator for 7 years and I have a Masters in art and design) to ‘your art sucks and you’re fat and ugly’ and my personal favourite ‘how can u be cis and use she/her pronouns you dumb snowflake’

(within that furore was a whole branch where someone was like ‘sex worker huh bet you’re bad at it’ and I was like ‘yep! that’s why I don’t do it any more! it’s hard work and it involves a lot of self-promotion and customer skills which I don’t like and am not good at!’ and this was a Whole Thing where they kept trying to insult me (much like today’s anon) about my supposed failures as a Slut Who Is Bad At Sex and I kept going like ‘ok but here’s how that just. doesn’t make sense in reference to what sex work actually is so like, ok?’)

and Stuart Semple and I were also having a conversation which, depending on your perspective I would call his attitude either conciliatory or passive-aggressive, there was a lot of ‘me and my followers would never say rude things about you :) keep up the art kiddo :)’ and being charitable I would say he was trying to be nice while being angry, and to avoid escalating (but with the added context I got later about the wig comment, I think that interpretation of his behaviour maybe. has some cracks?) and ultimately he took down the posts, we had a brief conversation about keeping pet reptiles (apparently he has a lizard) and we left it on, if not good terms, at least peaceable ones.

however I still periodically get messages about it from angry Semple stans. and I’m not sure the argument was resolved, in that I still very much think it’s fair to make criticism, including quite harsh criticism (which I’m not sure ‘adolescent’ is), on art which is put out for public display and enjoyment, and that it isn’t a personal attack to post a criticism of someone’s public-facing work and statements on social media unless you actively target it towards them (for example, @ ing them), and Semple still thinks there’s no difference between a random blog with under a thousand followers criticising a public figure’s work and a public figure with 100k followers on most platforms criticising that blog (out of context - he clipped out the post I was reblogging from and my explanatory tags, and looking at my blog you may notice that 90% of my nuance is in the tags) while giving his followers all the information to find said blog.

(also as multiple people have remarked. if you want to say it’s an unfair criticism to call your online presence immature, being a middle-aged artist who as far as I can tell has a net worth over a million who spends your time name searching yourself in order to get mad at untagged mild criticism from strangers on the internet and share it on all your socials for your followers to join you in Being Big Mad is uhhhhhhh. it uh. it’s not like. not super thin-skinned and immature)

(also also I just googled his net worth and unsurprisingly I can’t find a source on it I’d consider reliable, but I did find multiple articles about him getting in trouble for breach of contract and nonpayment for gallery employees, including two accusations of him writing a big defensive blog post then changing it after a few hours to a very short post saying I LOVE YOU so like idk how true that is but it does seem. consistent with the above interactions.)

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harryandmeghansussex · 4 years

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Day 18 of @defendingtheduchesses 's Meghan memories challenge.

Meghan's writing has always been one of my favourite strengths of hers. And I thought I would share one for day 18, so I picked this important one.

'What are you?' A question I get asked every week of my life, often every day. 'Well,' I say, as I begin the verbal dance I know all too well. 'I'm an actress, a writer, the Editor-in-Chief of my lifestyle brand The Tig, a pretty good cook and a firm believer in handwritten notes.' A mouthful, yes, but one that I feel paints a pretty solid picture of who I am. But here's what happens: they smile and nod politely, maybe even chuckle, before getting to their point, 'Right, but what are you? Where are your parents from?' I knew it was coming, I always do. While I could say Pennsylvania and Ohio, and continue this proverbial two-step, I instead give them what they're after: 'My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I'm half black and half white.

To describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined. Yet when your ethnicity is black and white, the dichotomy is not that clear. In fact, it creates a grey area. Being biracial paints a blurred line that is equal parts staggering and illuminating. When I was asked by ELLE to share my story, I'll be honest, I was scared. It's easy to talk about which make-up I prefer, my favourite scene I've filmed, the rigmarole of 'a day in the life' and how much green juice I consume before a requisite Pilates class. And while I have dipped my toes into this on thetig.com, sharing small vignettes of my experiences as a biracial woman, today I am choosing to be braver, to go a bit deeper, and to share a much larger picture of that with you.

It was the late Seventies when my parents met, my dad was a lighting director for a soap opera and my mom was a temp at the studio. I like to think he was drawn to her sweet eyes and her Afro, plus their shared love of antiques. Whatever it was, they married and had me. They moved into a house in The Valley in LA, to a neighbourhood that was leafy and affordable. What it was not, however, was diverse. And there was my mom, caramel in complexion with her light-skinned baby in tow, being asked where my mother was since they assumed she was the nanny.

I was too young at the time to know what it was like for my parents, but I can tell you what it was like for me – how they crafted the world around me to make me feel like I wasn't different but special. When I was about seven, I had been fawning over a boxed set of Barbie dolls. It was called The Heart Family and included a mom doll, a dad doll, and two children. This perfect nuclear family was only sold in sets of white dolls or black dolls. I don't remember coveting one over the other, I just wanted one. On Christmas morning, swathed in glitter-flecked wrapping paper, there I found my Heart Family: a black mom doll, a white dad doll, and a child in each colour. My dad had taken the sets apart and customised my family.

Fast-forward to the seventh grade and my parents couldn't protect me as much as they could when I was younger. There was a mandatory census I had to complete in my English class – you had to check one of the boxes to indicate your ethnicity: white, black, Hispanic or Asian. There I was (my curly hair, my freckled face, my pale skin, my mixed race) looking down at these boxes, not wanting to mess up, but not knowing what to do. You could only choose one, but that would be to choose one parent over the other – and one half of myself over the other. My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. 'Because that's how you look, Meghan,' she said. I put down my pen. Not as an act of defiance, but rather a symptom of my confusion. I couldn't bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn't tick a box. I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt.

When I went home that night, I told my dad what had happened. He said the words that have always stayed with me: 'If that happens again, you draw your own box.'

I never saw my father angry, but in that moment I could see the blotchiness of his skin crawling from pink to red. It made the green of his eyes pop and his brow was weighted at the thought of his daughter being prey to ignorance. Growing up in a homogeneous community in Pennsylvania, the concept of marrying an African-American woman was not on the cards for my dad. But he saw beyond what was put in front of him in that small-sized (and, perhaps, small-minded) town, and he wanted me to see beyond that census placed in front of me. He wanted me to find my own truth.

And I tried. Navigating closed-mindedness to the tune of a dorm mate I met my first week at university who asked if my parents were still together. 'You said your mom is black and your dad is white, right?' she said. I smiled meekly, waiting for what could possibly come out of her pursed lips next. 'And they're divorced?' I nodded. 'Oh, well that makes sense.' To this day, I still don't fully understand what she meant by that, but I understood the implication. And I drew back: I was scared to open this Pandora's box of discrimination, so I sat stifled, swallowing my voice.

I was home in LA on a college break when my mom was called the 'N' word. We were leaving a concert and she wasn't pulling out of a parking space quickly enough for another driver. My skin rushed with heat as I looked to my mom. Her eyes welling with hateful tears, I could only breathe out a whisper of words, so hushed they were barely audible: 'It's OK, Mommy.' I was trying to temper the rage-filled air permeating our small silver Volvo. Los Angeles had been plagued with the racially charged Rodney King and Reginald Denny cases just years before, when riots had flooded our streets, filling the sky with ash that flaked down like apocalyptic snow; I shared my mom's heartache, but I wanted us to be safe. We drove home in deafening silence, her chocolate knuckles pale from gripping the wheel so tightly.

It's either ironic or apropos that in this world of not fitting in, and of harbouring my emotions so tightly under my ethnically nondescript (and not so thick) skin, that I would decide to become an actress. There couldn't possibly be a more label-driven industry than acting, seeing as every audition comes with a character breakdown: 'Beautiful, sassy, Latina, 20s'; 'African American, urban, pretty, early 30s'; 'Caucasian, blonde, modern girl next door'. Every role has a label; every casting is for something specific. But perhaps it is through this craft that I found my voice.

Being 'ethnically ambiguous', as I was pegged in the industry, meant I could audition for virtually any role. Morphing from Latina when I was dressed in red, to African American when in mustard yellow; my closet filled with fashionable frocks to make me look as racially varied as an Eighties Benetton poster. Sadly, it didn't matter: I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn't book a job.

This is precisely why Suits stole my heart. It's the Goldilocks of my acting career – where finally I was just right. The series was initially conceived as a dramedy about a NY law firm flanked by two partners, one of whom navigates this glitzy world with his fraudulent degree. Enter Rachel Zane, one of the female leads and the dream girl – beautiful and confident with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law. 'Dream girl' in Hollywood terms had always been that quintessential blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty – that was the face that launched a thousand ships, not the mixed one. But the show's producers weren't looking for someone mixed, nor someone white or black for that matter. They were simply looking for Rachel. In making a choice like that, the Suits producers helped shift the way pop culture defines beauty. The choices made in these rooms trickle into how viewers see the world, whether they're aware of it or not. Some households may never have had a black person in their house as a guest, or someone biracial. Well, now there are a lot of us on your TV and in your home with you. And with Suits, specifically, you have Rachel Zane. I couldn't be prouder of that.

At the end of season two, the producers went a step further and cast the role of Rachel's father as a dark-skinned African-American man, played by the brilliant Wendell Pierce. I remember the tweets when that first episode of the Zane family aired, they ran the gamut from: 'Why would they make her dad black? She's not black' to 'Ew, she's black? I used to think she was hot.' The latter was blocked and reported. The reaction was unexpected, but speaks of the undercurrent of racism that is so prevalent, especially within America. On the heels of the racial unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, the tensions that have long been percolating under the surface in the US have boiled over in the most deeply saddening way. And as a biracial woman, I watch in horror as both sides of a culture I define as my own become victims of spin in the media, perpetuating stereotypes and reminding us that the States has perhaps only placed bandages over the problems that have never healed at the root.

I, on the other hand, have healed from the base. While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I'm from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman. That when asked to choose my ethnicity in a questionnaire as in my seventh grade class, or these days to check 'Other', I simply say: 'Sorry, world, this is not Lost and I am not one of The Others. I am enough exactly as I am.'

Just as black and white, when mixed, make grey, in many ways that's what it did to my self-identity: it created a murky area of who I was, a haze around howpeople connected with me. I was grey. And who wants to be this indifferent colour, devoid of depth and stuck in the middle? I certainly didn't. So you make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You push for colour-blind casting, you draw your own box. You introduce yourself as who you are, not what colour your parents happen to be. You cultivate your life with people who don't lead with ethnic descriptions such as, 'that black guy Tom', but rather friends who say: 'You know? Tom, who works at [blah blah] and dates [fill in the blank] girl.' You create the identity you want for yourself, just as my ancestors did when they were given their freedom. Because in 1865 (which is so shatteringly recent), when slavery was abolished in the United States, former slaves had to choose a name. A surname, to be exact.

Perhaps the closest thing to connecting me to my ever-complex family tree, my longing to know where I come from, and the commonality that links me to my bloodline, is the choice that my great-great-great grandfather made to start anew. He chose the last name Wisdom. He drew his own box.

#meg39 #meghan markle #duchess of sussex #meghan's writing

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keelywolfe · 5 years

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FIC: Any Other Tuesday (ch3, baon)

Summary: It started the same as any other Tuesday

Tags: Spicyhoney, Original Undertale Characters, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Prejudice Against Monsters, Violence, Injury

part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

Notes: You guys have been watching the tags on this one, right? Okay, then, let’s go.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Any college student in Ebott could tell you that Golden City was the best place for Chinese in town. They served obscene portion sizes of delicious food, at a price that kept them very busy throughout the week. Despite that, they didn’t have to wait long after they walked in the door. A tiny Asian woman in a large apron came up to them almost immediately, chattering away as she gestured for them to follow.

Stretch prattled along with her, not a single word that Jeff could understand. Possibly Mandarin? He didn’t know. Neither Edge nor Antwan seemed surprised by this turn of events, only following her to a corner table where they were promptly sat.

“i’ve got a standing reservation here,” Stretch leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. “featured them on my twitter once and the owner loved it. course, the edgelord here doesn’t like to eat out that much, so i mostly use it for lunch.”

“Eating out is perfectly fine for an indulgence, not as a daily practice,” Edge told him. He was trying to surreptitiously wipe the table with one of the napkins. It looked perfectly clean to Jeff, but he didn’t ask, and when Stretch absently picked up his water glass and the soy sauce bottle on his side of the table so that Edge could wipe beneath it, Jeff automatically did the same with the little basket of sweeteners and the salt shaker.

Cleaning off the table, no matter how unnecessary, seemed to calm Edge somewhat. He allowed Stretch to take one of his gloved hands, twining their fingers together. Beneath the table, Antwan did the same, closing his warm hand over Jeff’s, his thumb stroking the smooth skin of his wrist, and Jeff felt like his heart might burst.

No menus appeared but that didn’t seem to matter. Hot tea was on the table in minutes and not long after there were plates loaded with food, bowls filled with rice, all wedged together on the table between water glasses and sauces, piled together family-style.

Thinking of that way pinched, a little, but…yeah, they were good friends, the best of. Jeff didn’t think Stretch would mind if he thought of them as family.

It was fun. Stretch was just…Stretch, but Edge showed more than a few glimpses of the bone-dry sense of humor that Jeff knew lurked beneath the surface of his scowling veneer. There was plenty of food; sesame noodles and fried wontons, vegetable stir fry and egg foo young. Antwan and Stretch battled with chopsticks over the last egg roll, neither of them noticing until it was too late that Edge stole it out from under them, and Jeff couldn’t stop laughing at their outraged expressions while Edge smugly chewed.

There was more tea and laughter, and by the time they were splitting up the fortune cookies, the Great Action Figure Catastrophe was mostly out of his mind.

“okay, okay, let’s see what i got,” Stretch broke open his cookie, absently munching on a piece as he unfolded his fortune. “’the early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese’,” he read, then scowled. “that’s not a fortune, that’s a proverb. bleh.” He crumbled it up and tossed it on the table. “what did you get, babe?”

“It says my lucky numbers are 7, 14, 26, 32, 47, and 59,” Edge said, so seriously that at first Jeff didn’t see the sparkle in his eye lights.

“turn it over, asshole,” Stretch sighed, “come on!”

“Ah, there it is,” Edge squinted at the tiny print. “Hm, it says a beautiful, smart, and funny person will be coming in to my life.”

“that one’s a little late.”

“It is,” Edge said agreeably. He set the broken bits of his cookie on Stretch’s plate, where they were promptly consumed. “Once they find me, I’ll have to explain to them that I already married you.”

Stretch choked on his last bite, chewing furiously before reaching over to give Edge a rough shove.

“you shit,” Stretch said fondly, and didn’t resist when Edge took hold of his hand, drawing it up to press a kiss against his knuckles.

“You see?” Edge murmured against the delicate bones. “This is why no one should set their path to the declarations of baked goods.”

Antwan only shook his head and opened his. “’To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing’.”

“must be why people are always bitching at you, antwan, you don’t do any of those.”

“I’m a lawyer, I thrive on criticism,” Antwan said easily. He gave Jeff a nudge with his elbow. “All right, what about you?”

Jeff broke the cookie over his plate to keep the crumbs from scattering, unfolding his fortune.

Don’t worry about money, the best things in life are free.

He only realized he was staring at it for too long when Stretch said, cautiously, “andy? you okay?”

“Um, yeah.” He crumpled it up, tossing it on the table. “I’m going to hit the restroom before we take off, be right back.”

He didn’t wait for anyone to say anything, pushing back his chair and heading towards the long hallway that led to the toilets. They were meant for a single person and he went in gratefully, locking the door behind him. Inside, he ignored the toilet with its little basket of potpourri on the tank and went to the sink. Splashing cold water on his face helped ease the stinging heat and he braced his hands on the sides, breathing deeply as the water trickled down his cheeks.

“It’s okay,” he told himself, “It’s okay, they don’t mind.” Yeah, didn’t mind that he was a fucking freeloader, all starting with his student loans getting paid off for the low, low price of being a decent person.

Jeff sighed, yanking a few paper towels from the holder and drying his face. They really didn’t care, he honestly knew it. Knowing it didn’t make him feel better, though, and the food was sitting heavy in his belly when he opened the door…and almost ran headfirst into Antwan.

“You were taking a while. You feeling okay?" His dark eyes searched Jeff’s face with visible concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine,” Jeff summoned up a smile, settling a hand on Antwan’s chest before he asked lightly, “So, am I headed back to your place with you tonight?”

He knew the answer before Antwan said a word, the apologetic expression that crossed his face said it all, and his hopes fell.

“I can’t tonight, I’m heading out as soon as we’re done with dinner. We have a big court case coming up and I need to polish my opening statement.” He glanced out of the hallway and whatever he saw must’ve satisfied him because he leaned in to nuzzle a soft kiss at the base of Jeff’s throat, soft and teasing. “You’re too much of a distraction to have laying around.”

"Aww, not even a cuddle at bedtime?” Jeff tried. Going home alone tonight sounded like a misery. if he could just sleep in Antwan’s bed, wake up in the middle of the night and know someone was sleeping beside him, maybe—

Antwan only shook his head. "I’m not very good at only cuddling around you. Better not to have the temptation.”

His fragile soap bubble hopes popped just like that and Jeff nodded, keeping his smile firmly pasted in place. But some of his disappointment must’ve shown, because Antwan’s reached up and cupped his face in one hand.

“What about this weekend?” Antwan suggested. “Stay over Saturday night and Sunday morning we can sleep in.”

It was a good compromise, a few nights on his own to earn a morning in Antwan’s bed. “I like the sound of that. Come on, before they send out a search party.”

Stretch and Edge were waiting when they came out, bags of leftovers sitting in wait. The bill was on the table, signed in Edge’s precise hand and Jeff couldn’t help looking, wincing as he saw the total. The bags only made it worse and he couldn’t decide if he should carry one to help out or leave it so it didn’t look like he was claiming it as his own. Antwan and Edge took the choice out of his hands, gathering up the bags between them.

Whatever cheerful farewell Stretch called to their hostess got him a chorus of the same from the kitchen, the entire staff waving as they went out in the cool night air. It was almost dark, the sun just dipping below the horizon.

“is all that gonna fit in that suitcase you call a trunk?” Stretch asked. He was lighting a cigarette almost before they were out the door, deliberately walking ahead of them so he couldn’t see Edge’s scowl.

“There is nothing wrong with my trunk,” Edge said coolly. The bag rustled at his side, almost creaking from its burden as he walked a little faster. “At least my car fits four people, unlike someone else.”

“Don’t be shitting on my car, it didn’t do anything to you,” Antwan grumbled.

“Oh, please, I have serious car envy from both of you,” Jeff said, wryly. That much he could admit, couldn’t he? “Someday, I’m going to own a car like yours. Or maybe a car at all.”

“nothing wrong with the bus,” Stretch said loftily. He danced nimbly aside as Edge tried to pluck away his cigarette. How he moved that quickly without actually shortcutting, Jeff did not know, but somehow he was suddenly on the other side of their little group, taking a hasty drag as Edge stalked him determinedly.

“Yeah, but you only take it to prevent vehicular homicide,” Antwan said with a snort.

“please, it would be manslaughter at best…okay, okay, i’m done with it, edgelord, fuck me.” He tossed the butt down, grinding it out under his sneaker and retrieving the squashed remains to toss in a nearby trash can.

Edge watched Stretch a moment longer, until he was sure the lighter wasn’t making a reappearance, then said, "Jeff, if you’d like, you can drive mine for the ride home.”

That made him stop, staring at Edge in disbelief. Edge’s car was gorgeous, sleek and cherry-red, and probably way out of Jeff’s lifetime budget. "Seriously?”

“Of course.” Edge pulled out his keys and started to hand them over, then drew them back inches from Jeff’s hand. "You can, I assume?"

“Yeah, yeah, of course I can!" Jeff laughed. He snatched the keys as they were offered to him again with a whoop of joy. Fuck it, if nothing else, he could enjoy driving an awesome car, even if it wasn’t his own.

Edge always parked in the back of any lot, away from the crowd of other cars. Jeff ran ahead, all his attention on that gorgeous cherry-red paint job and it had been a while since he’d driven, sure, but he wasn’t worried. Maybe this was only an excuse for Edge and Stretch to make out in the backseat, but Jeff didn’t care. This was going to be awesome.

When he tried to remember what happened later, nothing stood out. He saw them standing there, sure, but didn't think anything of it, why would he? It was barely nine o'clock and Ebott was a nice town. Three men in t-shirts and work boots, nothing remarkable about them, standing around on the sidewalk with cigarettes in hand. It was about as normal as could be.

That one of them swung into his path only brought surprise, not fear, and Jeff nearly ran into him, apologies automatically coming to his lips, “Oh, sorry about—"

He broke off, couldn’t even cry out at the sudden shock of tearing pain.

“That's what you get, monster fucker." The face so close to his own was unshaven, bloodshot eyes boring into his own. His breath was rank with alcohol, sickeningly thick, and he spit when he talked, a fine spray of foulness against Jeff's face.

Past that first jagged thrust of excruciating pain, it didn't even really hurt, not at first. Like a weak punch, once, twice, three times, against his belly, and then Jeff staggered back, away from the man, who had tiny blossoms of bright red suddenly speckling his white t-shirt. Jeff looked down, saw the handle sticking out and all he could think was that it didn't belong there. He fumbled at it with numb fingers that turned crimson and slippery when he touched it.

Later, he would think how strange it was that everything was sort of blurred in his memory, but he could still remember some detail vividly. There was shouting, cursing, screaming, but none of it was him. He only stood, wavering on his feet and staring at the redness dripping from his hands.

He stabbed me, Jeff realized numbly, I’m bleeding. It was a knife handle, the knife was still in him, and there was the pain, sharp and wrong and terrible. He opened his mouth to cry out and couldn’t, warm copper choking him, blood bubbling out from between his lips.

The screaming cut off abruptly into a new, terrible silence broken only by scuffling against pavement, but Jeff was sliding to his knees in slow motion, falling back on the sidewalk. There was a street light over him, pouring harsh fluorescents down in a glaring circle.

"Jeff?" Antwan was suddenly there, the light behind his head cast his face in shadow, but Jeff could still see his eyes, so wide the whites showed all the way around, "Jeff? Baby? Fuck, oh, god, oh fuck—“

He's never called me that, Jeff thought hazily, reaching up to touch him but his hands were bloody, couldn’t touch him with dirty, bloody hands, tried to pull away. Antwan grabbed his hand anyway, the wetness squelching between their palms, and that was blood, his blood, he was bleeding.

More scuffling sounds and feet appeared next to him in worn converse with untied laces dragging in the dirt.

"edge, let them breathe. if you kill them, the paperwork will never end." Each word was bitten off with sharp precision, colder than he’d ever heard Stretch talk. “antwan, i need you to move, pal. come on, we need to hurry. give me your jacket.”

The knife handle vanished beneath Antwan’s jacket spread over him, and Stretch was crouching next to him now, his bones stark in the garish streetlight. His eye lights glowed fiercely in his sockets, no, it was only one eye light, strobing orange with seizure-inducing intensity.

“jeff? jeff, look at me, kid." No, not, Jeff, Stretch never called him Jeff. He was Andy, Handy Andy. Jeff tried to correct him and coughed, gagging on the thick taste of iron in his throat. “i need you to listen to me, okay? i’m gonna help you, but the police are on their way and we can't have this much blood and no one hurt, do you understand?"

Police, yes, he could hear sirens, distant still but getting closer.

“Stretch, you need to hurry.” Edge’s voice was further away, oddly strained.

"i know.” He leaned in close, whispering softly, “don't worry, kiddo, you're going to be all right. I promise."

I promise. It sounded so fierce, no hilarious little pinkie swear, but more like a vow, an unbroken oath.

The feel of long, bony fingers sliding under his shirt was impossibly ticklish, strange to feel anything outside of the pain. They were cool against his skin, then suddenly they weren’t, warming, almost painfully hot. From beneath the jacket came an eerie, greenish glow, mostly stifled but Jeff couldn’t look away from it, mesmerized. It went brighter, streaming out through the sleeves and the seams. The pain receded some, draining into that heat, swirling away and leaving a strange weakness behind. Until that faded, too, and the glow dimmed to nothingness.

Suddenly, Jeff could breathe much easier again; his mouth still tasted foul, but it was easier. Next to him, Antwan leaned in close, gathering up Jeff’s hand again. His knuckles were grimy even in the streetlight, rusty with drying blood.

“there you go.” Stretch wobbled where he was crouching, falling to his knees on the sidewalk. Sweat was beading on his skull, running down his face in translucent orange rivulets and his eye lights were back to their normal pale, soft white. “it's all good, kid, just like i said. go to sleep now, all right? we'll be there when you wake up.”

He pulled his hands out from beneath the coat and tossed something aside. It was the knife, Jeff realize distantly, it wasn’t in him anymore. “antwan, here, you need to keep pressure on this still.” And when he didn’t move, Stretch grabbed his hand impatiently. “come on, help out here. jeff’s gonna be okay.”

"Supposed to call me Andy," Jeff mumbled. It still hurt, but not as bad, a tooth-ache sort of throbbing in his gut as Antwan did as he was told and pushed the bunched-up fabric of his jacket down where only moments ago his blood was spilling out.

Stretch let out a tired chuckle. "sorry, running jokes were disrupted by injury. okay, andy, go to sleep, yeah?”

It was hard to resist that order, darkness dragging at him even as the sirens soared in volume, other voices raised around them. Two hands were holding his own, uncaring of the mess. One was bony and hard, but comfortingly warm and the other gripped almost too hard, trembling in his grip.

I’m okay, he tried to say but the words didn’t come. Instead, his eyes drifted closed on their own and the darkness pulled him down.

~~*~~

Read Chapter Four

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name

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umbureraakademi · 5 years

Photo

Introductory Note About the AU & Other Chapters & Face Claims

-a/n start-

[Potential spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen or finished TUA Netflix series but seriously how could you stop yourself from watching such a captivating show.]

Word Count: 2265

SADAKO!!!

-a/n end-

The Hargreeves Case

Chapter 15

2 Months After

Diego and Monica had planned on keeping their relationship low key in the precinct considering how the latter was related to the Commanding Officer and they were both working in the same office. However Chuck, the amazing detective he is, found out only a few days after upon noticing the changes in the way they acted around each other.

Or rather, he confirmed his suspicions when he found them making out in the records room.

Well, Chuck was bound to know anyway seeing as he was the closest to Diego in the precinct. They could trust him with their thing, it was Chuck who wasn’t sure they could keep their hands off each other during office hours and run the risk of someone else catching them.

They weren’t sure if Captain Lee had a hunch or not as he was hard to read, but they did notice Monica started getting less and less involved in assisting Diego as opposed to Chuck or the other detectives in the precinct. It came to a point where the Captain told Diego if he needed anything from him he could just go straight to his office and not have to course through his requests with Monica.

Guess that was his subtle way of being the uncle he is.

This had Monica interacting a lot more with the other detectives and less with Diego, mostly the only times he’d be approaching her desk was when he was bringing her lunch. Most of the other detectives were guys with just a couple of females, but it was cool since no one really dared to try hitting on the Captain’s niece.

Well, maybe except for this one time.

“Hey Monica, I was wondering if you were free sometime this week as there’s this great movie--” rambled on a random detective as he collected a file he asked the Captain to sign.

“No.” Monica responded flatly, not making eye contact as she handed the file over and turned back to her computer.

“Okay.” responded the detective in defeated finality as he walked away.

Diego had been watching the whole scene unfold from his desk and he had to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing.

With Jessica and Ben, they had managed to be civil around Diego though Ben was a little more obvious about his dislike for him. When they were in the same space together it was like Ben was perpetually flexing and at first Diego found it amusing then grew tired of it and decided to ignore it.

Although, Ben thought Diego ignoring it was him losing the non-existent alpha male competition. Ben celebrated his “victory” with hot, passionate love-making, to Jessica’s blissfully unaware delight on what brought it on.

Currently, Diego was driving Monica home after he took her to the boxing gym he frequented for her first session. She had been groaning and whining for the entire ride.

“Why did I let you talk me into this?” she whined, barely being able to lift her sore arms.

“Because you said boxing was easy.” Diego’s answer had been the same every time she asked that and his tone grew more and more impatient every time. Monica made a weeping noise as she rubbed her swollen, reddened knuckles, she winced as she accidentally swiped over a piece of raw skin that ripped off.

“I don’t think my hand wraps were put on correctly.” she complained.

“I put on your hand wraps. You got that because you tried stopping the bag from swinging towards you with a punch. I told you not to do that.” Diego said sharply.

“No it was definitely the hand wraps.” Monica insisted.

“You never listen to me, don’t you?” Diego’s tone started getting more annoyed as he glanced at Monica.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Rocky.” Monica responded in an equally annoyed tone as she waved a dismissive hand at Diego and turned away to look outside the passenger’s side window. When she did that they had passed by a streetlamp which illuminated her hands for a brief moment.

It was a quick moment but Diego was still able to see that her hands really weren’t in the best shape. Bruised, swollen, and on some knuckles the skin had broken exposing sensitive patches of raw skin.

Maybe she had been working hard on the bags trying to impress him. He turned back to the road and was quiet for a moment.

“How bad does it hurt?” Diego asked, his tone softer.

Monica didn’t respond immediately but after a few seconds, said, “I can still move my hands.”

“Do they feel numb?”

“No.”

“Do you have a first aid kit and ice at your apartment?”

“Of course we do.”

“We’ll put some ice on your bruises. Bandages on those cuts too.” he couldn’t see with his gaze on the road and Monica looking out the window, but the latter was smiling like a giddy schoolgirl being asked out to prom. “Sorry for dragging you into that.” Diego added.

“It’s okay. Muscle pain and beat up hands aside, I still had fun.” Monica responded, looking at Diego this time.

“Oh, you wanna go back sometime and do another round?” he asked.

“Pfft, not a chance.” Monica laughed as she relaxed a bit now their argument had been diffused.

“Pity.” Diego started as they reached her apartment and parked right in front. “You looked hot.” he commented as he looked at Monica, their gazes meeting.

There was a silent moment of them taking their seatbelts off before they lunged themselves at each other, lips locking and hands snaking around each other. Boxing hadn’t really stirred Monica’s adrenaline enough for her to enjoy it, but kissing Diego alone got it through the roof all the time, making her ignore the aches and sores of her body.

They stopped to take a breath, their foreheads touching.

“Come up.” Monica demanded.

“For the ice and bandages?” Diego asked.

“That can wait.”

Monica & Jessica’s Apartment

The two spilled into the darkness of the apartment with Monica fumbling to get the door locked as Diego started feeling up her tank top and nipping at her neck from behind.

“C’mon, Diego you gotta give me a moment to concentrate.” Monica whispered.

“You did just fine before why is now any different?” Diego whispered back, biting gently at the lobe of her ear which sent shivers down her spine.

“You forgot my hands aren’t exactly in their perfect condition.”

“Hmm. Guess I’ll stop then.” and in an instant Diego had taken his hands off and distanced himself from Monica, walking away backwards. Monica scoffed in response as she managed to lock their door before she stormed up to Diego and grabbed him by the shirt.

“Two months and you’re still a fucking tease.” she hissed as she maneuvered Diego around the coffee table and pushed him down so he sat on the couch. Monica straddled him and peeled off her tank top, leaving her in her sports bra and leggings.

“You could’ve worn just this as your top to the gym.” Diego commented as he ran a finger along the hem of her sports bra, a teasing habit he picked up (most of the time it was the strap he liked playing with) and Monica hated as it gave her the strong temptation to rip all his clothes off.

“And you want me exposing all this skin to all those other guys?” she said, firmly taking Diego’s hand off the hem as she leaned in closer, keeping his hand to the side.

“The guys there know who I am and know not to fuck with me.” Diego said as he used his free hand to caress Monica’s cheek. “Or my girl.” as he said this he could feel Monica’s cheeks heat up and her grip on his other hand loosen, clearly being caught off guard. He took this opportunity to give her a soft kiss before saying, “Gotcha.”

“You’re the worst and sometimes I hate you.” she responded.

“Mm hmm.” Diego murmured dismissively knowing full well she never meant it when she said that, she just didn’t like it when he could tell he did something that made her feel like jelly. He was about to kiss her again when an unfamiliar voice sounded off in the darkness.

“Wow, you two must be really into each other.” judging from where it came from it seemed like this other figure was sitting on the other side of the couch, but they couldn’t make out who from the silhouette since the apartment was too dark.

“Who the fuck--” Monica started but was quickly shut down when the figure had shown a flashlight below their face, illuminating a female they definitely haven’t seen before who was Asian with long black hair and since the light lighted up parts of her hand and shoulders she seemed to be wearing something lacy and white.

Monica screamed bloody murder as she fell off Diego and was crawling and weeping on the floor.

“IT’S THAT BITCH WHO COMES OUT OFF THE TV KNIFE KNIFE KNIFE DIEGO KNIFE KNIFE!” Monica yelled hysterically.

“CALM THE FUCK DOWN!” Diego yelled back, more surprised at her reaction than seeing this unknown Asian chick in their apartment.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” this time it was Jessica’s familiar voice that rang in the dark apartment as the lights were suddenly switched on by a groggy, boxers-only wearing Ben. Once they were on both Diego and Monica were able to get a full view of the other woman, who was indeed wearing a long, lacy, Victorianesque nightgown; and the couch, which had pillows and a blanket to the other side next to where the woman was sitting.

“What the actual fuck.” was all Diego could say.

“Am I going to die?” Monica said, still shaking on the floor, now more scared of Jessica’s livid expression than the weird nightgown wearing Asian on the couch.

“Rule number fucking three, Maica.” Jessica said coldly.

“Hey did you see Ben over there?! What about rule number fucking five?!” Monica retaliated.

“With you screaming like you did when we watched It did you think he had time to put a shirt on?!”

“Love, please.” Ben begged, his eyes squinting from adjusting from the darkness to the now-lit room. “Can we just introduce your cousin and get back to sleep?”

“Cousin?! You’re related to fucking Sadako?!” Monica said in disbelief as she got up from the floor.

Jessica rolled her eyes before starting, “Guys this is Alice, yes she’s my cousin and she’ll be living with us too since she got herself broke after buying her boyfriend a gaming PC.”

Diego tried to hide an impressed and slightly jealous expression in his eyes but when he made brief eye contact with Ben they both had a mutual understanding for the first time.

“He needed the specs. He’s a digital artist. His clients are top-paying. It's an investment for our future.” the Asian woman, now named Alice, defended.

“Ugh then why didn’t he buy the fucking PC himself--you know what, I’m not having this conversation with you anymore it’s just pointless.” Jessica said frustratedly. “Her mom and my mom are sisters, her dad’s Japanese, thus the Asian-ness.”

“Konnichiwawa.” Alice said in response.

“But it’s evening… and doesn’t that only have one ‘wa’?” Diego pointed out.

“My dad left my mom when he knocked her up so I never learned Japanese.”

“Uhh… okay…”

“You could’ve told me your cousin was moving in.” Monica said.

“Hey she was just as much of a surprise to me as she is to you she just popped out of nowhere and dropped her shit here and started nesting on the couch.” Jessica responded.

“It’s a nice and fluffy nest. Probably filled with many love juices.” Alice commented.

“Alice shut up.”

“And what’s up with the fucking nightgown?” Monica said, and suddenly Alice made a sudden movement with her hands where she imitated Madonna’s vogue pose.

“Sutairu.” she said.

“What?”

“Su-ta-i-ru.”

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re saying.”

“I’m trying to say ‘style’ with a Japanese accent.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

“Anyway! Ben and I are tired and sleepy so… Alice, Diego, Monica; Monica, Diego, Alice. We’re done here.” Jessica said, pointing to the respective individuals as she said their names before she and Ben retired back to their room.

There was an awkward silence before Monica said, “Uhh… I think you should just go home tonight.”

“Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Don’t forget about those okay?” Diego said as he got up, referring to Monica’s bruised and cut knuckles.

“I won’t.” Monica responded with a small smile.

“See you tomorrow at the precinct.”

“Yeah, see you.”

Diego gave Monica one last kiss before he exited the apartment and Monica locked the door after him. When she turned she met Alice’s staring eyes, feeling creeped out at the fact that she was watching them the entire time.

Monica decided not to mind her as she made her way to the kitchen where they kept the first aid kit in one of the cupboards, in her peripheral vision she could see Alice fluffing her pillows and getting under her blanket.

“Wait.” Alice said, suddenly sitting up as Monica had just retrieved the first aid kit from the cupboard and the sudden movement and voice made her jump, dropping the kit and spilling its contents.

“Can you not do that please?” Monica said through gritted teeth.

“Sorry. I was just wondering… is your boyfriend Mexican?”

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gildedink · 5 years

Text

The greasy man leered at me. “Well? Don’t just stand there! Shoot her!” he snapped at the taller, blond man. His expression was unreadable, ice-cold and apathetic. After a moment the blond pointed the gun at the greasy man’s leg and shot. The man howled in pain and fell to the grimy ground. The music from the club continued to pound through the brick and concrete wall. “What the fuck! What the fuck!”

The blond looked at the screaming man. “I don’t kill little girls.” His voice was surprisingly quiet. He walked over to where I lay shivering on the ground, holstering his gun as he did. He reached out a hand to me. “I’ll take you home.” Those brilliant aqua eyes were far softer when looking at me. Hesitantly, I took his leather-gloved hand. He pulled me up with ease.

“Cassius!” the man screamed to the blond. “You’ll never work in this town again!” The blond man, Cassius, ignored him, shepherding me away. He placed a hand lightly on my upper back to guide me. Cold mist clinging to my skin as we walked out of the alleyway.

The music from the club continued thrumming around us. People in line to enter the club glanced at us nervously, probably because of the gun shot and slowly quieting screams from the man. Cassius ignored them, continuing past with a short nod to the bouncer outside. We crossed the street and approached a glossy black motorcycle. A sidecar was attached. He reached into it and pulled out a helmet. “Where do you live?”

I took the helmet handed to me. I pressed my lips into a thin line. “Nowhere.” Technically the truth; this wasn’t my home town. This wasn’t even my own dimension. The neon signs around had a mixture of English letters and East Asian characters. Nothing was readable. I wasn’t quite sure how I could understand the man in front of me. Magic? I had used it to get here without understanding how; maybe it was translating everything as well for my ears and mouth.

Cassius nodded. “Get in.” My stomach a mess of nerves. He’s a stranger. He didn’t hesitate to shoot that man. If he wants to hurt me, he will. I shouldn’t go with him. He straddled the motorcycle and put on his helmet before turning to me, waiting expectantly. What if he doesn’t ‘kill little girls’ but he does something worse… I’ve read enough stories to know how a hero gets trapped. I stopped myself; hero? What kind of hero was I? What was I fighting? Nothing, that’s what. Still, he had protected me. He was offering to take me someplace presumably safe. I could feel the cold creeping into my bones, the unpleasant griminess of the alleyway and runoff soaking into my pajamas. My palms were scrapped. My left foot was bleeding a bit. I needed to get cleaned, bandaged and warmed. “I’m not taking you anywhere bad. Just somewhere safe.” I don’t have much of a choice. I don’t even know how to go back to my own world. I put on the helmet and climbed into the sidecar.

I couldn’t keep track of the streets we zipped through. Cassius wove in and out of the lanes with an experienced grace. When we arrived at our destination and the engine was shut off, the world became silent. There were dingy streetlights casting yellow light and black shadows on the ground. He helped me out of the sidecar. When I took off the helmet I stared at the building. It was a very tall building, not quite a skyscraper but close. Panes of tinted glass crawled up the side of the building facing the neon lights of what I guessed was downtown. There were a few mopeds and beat-down cars parked around. An apartment complex. “Come on.” I pulled my eyes from the surroundings and saw my escort was already at the building entrance. I put the helmet into the side car and hurried over. “Stay close.” I nodded, shivering; the wind from the drive had chilled me to the bone in my damp state. My breath came in mist clouds.

Cassius lifted his right wrist to a small white plate by the side of the door. I noticed a slim black bracelet made of something that shone in the yellow light illuminating the landing. A cheerful beep and he pulled open the door for me. I went inside. The ground was a bit dirty, a few tiles chipped at the corners exposing dark grey concrete. There were panels on the sides of the walls, flickering a little. I looked at one to see it was a virtual board. There were virtual stickies and sheets of tacked-on paper. I pressed the screen over a sticky note and the image sprang to life, something popping out. I flinched and shielded my face. “It’s a notice board.” I looked to see Cassius watching me. “It won’t hurt you. Look.” I turned back to the board to see that, while the sticky note was now somehow popped out of the screen, it hovered harmlessly. I reached for it and my fingers went through, as if it wasn’t there.

“How…” I could feel my eyes widening.

“We don’t want to linger.” He said. He came to my side. With a small swipe of her hand towards the screen, the stick note image dissolved and reappeared harmlessly on the screen. “Let’s go.”

I followed. “How did it pop out of the screen? Why did the screen change when I touched it? How is that possible?”

Cassius lifted the wristband again to a panel which pinged. I heard mechanical movement behind what looked like elevator doors. “You’ve never seen a holotouch?” I shook my head. He frowned but made no comment.

Curiosity was getting the better of me. “What’s a holotouch?”

The door pinged again and opened to reveal an elevator. Someone came out, noticing Cassius. “Hey man, where’ve you been? Tida’s been clawing at the doors looking for ya.” The woman noticed me and smiled. “Aww, who’s this cutie? Don’t tell me you’re adopting a stray?” Cassius simply placed a protective hand on my shoulder. “Aww, don’t be like that! I don’t bite unless paid.” The woman squatted down and looked up at me. Her mascara was thick, lips a brilliant lilac. Her cheekbones seemed to glow on her deep brown skin. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Elena.”

“Ooo, a vintage name. Your parents musta missed their old country.” She tilted her head. The earrings she wore caught the yellowed light. “I’m Samila, Cassius’s neighbor. It’s very nice to meet you. If ya need anything, just givea holler. May not look like much but no one makes better cookies then me.” She winked before standing up again. I felt a bit confused; how old did she think I was? Seven? Not that I’ll say no to a good cookie… “By the by, Cas-.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“By the by. Tida was reeeeal mad when I saw her last night. You’re gonna get an ass-whoppin’ for sure this time around. Can’t ya just ping her on occasion? I’m sure she’d be grateful.”

He sighed. “I was busy.”

“Ya get unbusy for family, ya hear?” Samila patted the top of my head. “Especially when you’re decidin’ to make it grow.”

“I’m twelve.” I said suddenly.

Samila blinked for a second before laughing. “Ooo, she got a mouth! I like her. Gonna grow up to be a sassy young thing. Keep an eye on her, Cas. Boys and girls’ll flock to this one.” She frowned. “Although… it will give her a lot of heartache.” Her warm brown eyes looked at me, a bit unfocused. I could see shards and sparks of amber and gold. “Yes… a river of blood… an ocean of tears…” She looked to Cassius. “You were meant to find this little Goddess.”

“How…” I felt my blood freezing; how did she know!

“Mmm…” She pressed her knuckles to her temple. “Forget I said anythin’, darlin’. I ran low on my meds this month.” The smile was fragile. “I say silly things sometimes.”

Cassius’ expression softened a bit. “Samila, you know you’re not-.” His mouth was covered by her manicured hand, cutting him off.

“Yes. I am.” She hissed. Her eyes darted around. “Just a woman who sometimes hears voices. All I need is my medication to keep it under control. That’s all.” She removed her hand. “Anyway! Time to clock in for work. Those drinks won’t serve themselves!” Unexpectedly, she hugged me as well. “Do not trust the witch. She seeks to destroy you.” The message was whispered fervently, so fast and low I almost didn’t catch it. “Steal her knowledge with caution.” She pulled away. “You’ll be just fine with Cassius. Tida’s no slouch either; amazing cook, can get stains outta anythin’ and can throw a punch. Best big brother and sister you can find.” Samila sauntered off, exiting the building without another glance.

- part I (part ii)

#character: elena zlatariva #character: cassius valentino #series: moag #writing: excerpt

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thetigarchives · 6 years

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THE TIG ARCHIVES│BEAUTY│MORE THAN AN ‘OTHER’

“What are you?’ A question I get asked every week of my life, often every day. ‘Well,’ I say, as I begin the verbal dance I know all too well. ‘I’m an actress, a writer, the Editor-in-Chief of my lifestyle brand The Tig, a pretty good cook and a firm believer in handwritten notes.’ A mouthful, yes, but one that paints a pretty solid picture of who I am. But here’s what happens: they smile and nod politely, maybe even chuckle, before getting to their point, ‘Right, but what are you? Where are your parents from?’ I knew it was coming, I always do. While I could say Pennsylvania and Ohio, and continue this proverbial two-step, I instead give them what they’re after: ‘My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I’m half black and half white.’

To describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined. Yet when your ethnicity is black and white, the dichotomy is not that clear. In fact, it creates a grey area. Being biracial paints a blurred line that is equal parts staggering and illuminating. When I was asked by ELLE to share my story, I’ll be honest, I was scared. It’s easy to talk about which make-up I prefer, my favourite scene I’ve filmed, the rigmarole of ‘a day in the life’ and how much green juice I consume before a requisite Pilates class. And while I have dipped my toes into this on thetig.com, sharing small vignettes of my experiences as a biracial woman, today I am choosing to be braver, to go a bit deeper, and to share a much larger picture of that with you.

It was the late Seventies when my parents met; my dad was a lighting director for a soap opera and my mom was a temp at the studio. I like to think he was drawn to her sweet eyes and her Afro, plus their shared love of antiques. Whatever it was, they married and had me. They moved into a house in The Valley in LA, to a neighbourhood that was leafy and affordable. What it was not, however, was diverse. And there was my mom, caramel in complexion with her light-skinned baby in tow, being asked where my mother was since they assumed she was the nanny.

I was too young at the time to know what it was like for my parents, but I can tell you what it was like for me – how they crafted the world around me to make me feel like I wasn’t different, but special. When I was about seven, I had been fawning over a boxed set of Barbie dolls. It was called The Heart Family and included a mom doll, a dad doll, and two children. This perfect nuclear family was only sold in sets of white dolls or black dolls. I don’t remember coveting one over the other, I just wanted one. On Christmas morning, swathed in glitter-flecked wrapping paper, there I found my Heart Family: a black mom doll, a white dad doll, and a child in each color. My dad had taken the sets apart and customized my family.

Fast-forward to the seventh grade and my parents couldn’t protect me as much as they could when I was younger. There was a mandatory census I had to complete in my English class – you had to check one of the boxes to indicate your ethnicity: white, black, Hispanic or Asian. There I was (my curly hair, my freckled face, my pale skin, my mixed race) looking down at these boxes, not wanting to mess up, but not knowing what to do. You could only choose one, but that would be to choose one parent over the other – and one half of myself over the other. My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. ‘Because that’s how you look, Meghan,’ she said. I put down my pen. Not as an act of defiance, but rather a symptom of my confusion. I couldn’t bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn’t tick a box. I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt.

When I went home that night, I told my dad what had happened. He said the words that have always stayed with me: ‘If that happens again, you draw your own box.’

And I tried. Navigating closed-mindedness to the tune of a dorm mate I met my first week at university who asked if my parents were still together. ‘You said your mom is black and your dad is white, right?’ she said. I smiled meekly, waiting for what could possibly come out of her pursed lips next. ‘And they’re divorced?’ I nodded. ‘Oh, well that makes sense.’ To this day, I still don’t fully understand what she meant by that, but I understood the implication. And I drew back: I was scared to open this Pandora’s box of discrimination, so I sat stifled, swallowing my voice.

I was home in LA on a college break when my mom was called the ‘N’ word. We were leaving a concert and she wasn’t pulling out of a parking space quickly enough for another driver. My skin rushed with heat as I looked to my mom. Her eyes welling with hateful tears, I could only breathe out a whisper of words, so hushed they were barely audible: ‘It’s OK, Mommy.’ I was trying to temper the rage-filled air permeating our small silver Volvo. Los Angeles had been plagued with the racially-charged Rodney King and Reginald Denny cases just years before, when riots had flooded our streets, filling the sky with ash that flaked down like apocalyptic snow; I shared my mom’s heartache, but I wanted us to be safe. We drove home in deafening silence, her chocolate knuckles pale from gripping the wheel so tightly.

It’s either ironic or apropos that in this world of not fitting in, and of harbouring my emotions so tightly under my ethnically nondescript (and not so thick) skin, that I would decide to become an actress. There couldn’t possibly be a more label-driven industry than acting, seeing as every audition comes with a character breakdown: ‘Beautiful, sassy, Latina, 20s’; ‘African American, urban, pretty, early 30s’; ‘Caucasian, blonde, modern girl next door’. Every role has a label; every casting is for something specific. But perhaps it is through this craft that I found my voice.

Being ‘ethnically ambiguous’, as I was pegged in the industry, meant I could audition for virtually any role. Morphing from Latina when I was dressed in red, to African American when in mustard yellow; my closet filled with fashionable frocks to make me look as racially varied as an Eighties Benetton poster. Sadly, it didn’t matter: I wasn’t black enough for the black roles and I wasn’t white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn’t book a job.

This is precisely why Suits stole my heart. It’s the Goldilocks of my acting career – where finally I was just right. The series was initially conceived as a dramedy about a NY law firm flanked by two partners, one of whom navigates this glitzy world with his fraudulent degree. Enter Rachel Zane, one of the female leads and the dream girl – beautiful and confident with an encyclopedic knowledge of the law. ‘Dream girl’ in Hollywood terms had always been that quintessential blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty – that was the face that launched a thousand ships, not the mixed one. But the show’s producers weren’t looking for someone mixed, nor someone white or black for that matter. They were simply looking for Rachel. In making a choice like that, the Suits producers helped shift the way pop culture defines beauty. The choices made in these rooms trickle into how viewers see the world, whether they’re aware of it or not. Some households may never have had a black person in their house as a guest, or someone biracial. Well, now there are a lot of us on your TV and in your home with you. And with Suits, specifically, you have Rachel Zane. I couldn’t be prouder of that.

At the end of season two, the producers went a step further and cast the role of Rachel’s father as a dark-skinned African American man, played by the brilliant Wendell Pierce. I remember the tweets when that first episode of the Zane family aired, they ran the gamut from: ‘Why would they make her dad black? She’s not black’ to ‘Ew, she’s black? I used to think she was hot.’ The latter was blocked and reported. The reaction was unexpected, but speaks of the undercurrent of racism that is so prevalent, especially within America. On the heels of the racial unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, the tensions that have long been percolating under the surface in the US have boiled over in the most deeply saddening way. And as a biracial woman, I watch in horror as both sides of a culture I define as my own become victims of spin in the media, perpetuating stereotypes and reminding us that the States has perhaps only placed bandages over the problems that have never healed at the root.

I, on the other hand, have healed from the base. While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I’m from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman. That when asked to choose my ethnicity in a questionnaire as in my seventh grade class, or these days to check ‘Other’, I simply say: ‘Sorry, world, this is not Lost and I am not one of The Others. I am enough exactly as I am.’

Just as black and white, when mixed, make grey, in many ways that’s what it did to my self-identity: it created a murky area of who I was, a haze around how people connected with me. I was grey. And who wants to be this indifferent color, devoid of depth and stuck in the middle? I certainly didn’t. So you make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You push for color-blind casting, you draw your own box. You introduce yourself as who you are, not what color your parents happen to be. You cultivate your life with people who don’t lead with ethnic descriptions such as, ‘that black guy Tom’, but rather friends who say: ‘You know? Tom, who works at [blah blah] and dates [fill in the blank] girl.’ You create the identity you want for yourself, just as my ancestors did when they were given their freedom. Because in 1865 (which is so shatteringly recent), when slavery was abolished in the United States, former slaves had to choose a name. A surname, to be exact.

- Written by Meghan Markle for the July 2015 issue of Elle UK

#meghan markle #the tig #the tig archives #meghan markle family #doria ragland #thomas markle #more than an other #tigbeauty #i put this under a read more because it's very long

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unicyclehippo · 6 years

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ok bc i have no self control Whatsoever - patterson & jane

she’s the smartest one in the room, pretty much always. it’s not something she likes to bring attention to for a number of reasons—everyone in the team is brilliant at something, everyone brings their own skills to the table, it’s not polite—but it’s something she knows like she knows that two is the prime element in the Z/6Z quotient ring. a fact.

so when she has no idea what to do, it’s a new and frightening situation for her.

‘patterson?’

jane—taylor, maybe—touches her elbow very gently and patterson looks up at the bird tattooed across her neck, at the choppy haircut, and then, finally, knowing that she must, at the concern in jane’s eyes.

‘hi, hey, are you headed out? too? because i certainly am, yup.’ patterson clicks again at the button to the elevator, realising that this is the sixth one that she’s called. she hears the faint click of moisture in jane’s—taylor’s?—mouth when she opens her mouth to speak and she thought she could deal with it, she really did, but the relief that crashes through her at the sound of the elevator doors opening is...really something. ‘oh wow that was quick! i should, uh, time these elevators at some point.’

‘you don’t already know?’ jane asks, stepping in with her. patterson chances another look and jane has her head tilted away, shoulders hunched a bit uncomfortably.

‘it differs in a lot of elevators, actually,’ patterson tells her, and she lets the facts filter out. ‘gearless traction elevators move, eh, about twenty metres per second.’ jane makes a small sound of surprise and patterson grins. ‘which is cool, right? that’s only a climbing speed, though, and it doesn’t factor in acceleration and deceleration time but, you know what I mean. but yes, that’s climbing. safety regulations mean that descent is restricted to ten metres per second.’ the elevator dings politely and patterson lights up, gesturing to the opening doors. ‘fortuitous timing.’

‘yeah, that’s cool.’ jane looks a little baffled but she’s nice enough not to mention it.

she walks out with patterson, through the lobby and toward the street. patterson picks up her pace a little; with every second that goes by, it’s another second that jane might try to talk to her about it.

‘i heard the call this morning,’ jane bites out before they make it to the door.

patterson sighs and slows. ‘oh.’

‘yeah. sorry.’ jane looks as awkward and uncomfortable as patterson feels but the difference is that she presses on. ‘i think you should go.’

‘excuse me?’

‘i know, i’m sorry, it’s none of my business,’ she hurries to say, ‘but i think—pattereson, i don’t know anything about my life or the people i lost or, or, hell i don’t even know what my favourite colour is and when i get flashes of anything, it’s...’

‘good?’

‘terrifying, actually.’

‘oh.’

‘yeah.’ jane shoves her hands into her pockets, casts a look over the street. it’s not a look that civilians have; it’s one patterson recognises from weller, from zapata and reed. mayfair less so but patterson thinks that’s just because she’s better than all of them. patterson adds it to her growing number of mental notes on jane. ‘anyway, i know it’s not the same but, you said to me that you feel empty.’ she lowers her voice, which patterson is grateful for. ‘maybe if you go to this dinner and, and surround yourself with all the things you and d-david,’ she stumbles a little over his name. likely because patterson feels herself flinch. ‘sorry.’

‘it’s fine.’

‘right. it was just a thought.’ jane shrugs. ‘uh—good night, patterson.’

‘good night.’

they part at the door, jane toward the train, patterson toward the taxi rank.

‘i’m not brave like you.’

jane looks very much surprised to see her there, which...shouldn’t surprise patterson. but it does because she tends not to think about what other people are thinking; she gets so wrapped up in her own plans and train of thought that she forgets that other people aren’t following. or can’t.

‘patterson, what,’

‘i’m sorry,’ she says, steps back from the door. ‘i’m sorry, i totally just barged into your life and,’

‘hey, whoa, calm down.’

jane’s hands settle around hers; they’re cold, and patterson hisses, wraps her own always-warm fingers around hers.

‘your hands are freezing.’

‘yeah, i,’ jane looks embarrassed. ‘i can’t get the heater to work.’

‘what?’

‘i—can remember how to take out a guy in two seconds flat,’ she grumbles, ‘but i can’t remember how to turn on a radiator.’

‘oh. oh no.’ patterson doesn’t mean to sound amused but...she is.

jane rolls her eyes. ‘yeah, yeah. hey, you’re smart.’

‘i...i am, yes.’

‘come on in then,’ jane offers, and she opens up the door to her safe house and guides her in. ‘it’s over there.’ she points and patterson nods.

'oh sure, you just need to turn the valve.’

‘the...valve.’ jane lifts a hand to her forehead. ‘of course.’

patterson tries not to smile, pressing her lips tight, but she can’t really help it. until she remembers why she had come, and then her smile drops away. ‘i, actually, came to ask you for a favour.’

jane leans back against the counter, crosses her arms over her chest. ‘sure.’

‘really?’

‘yeah.’ when patterson doesn’t say anything, twisting her fingers together until it starts to hurt a little, jane says, ‘you said you’re not brave.’

‘huh?’

‘when i opened the door. that’s what you said. is that about the restaurant booking?’

‘the—no, pfft, no, it’s about something completely different and—yes. yeah, it is,’ she sighs, when jane just looks at her, eyebrows raised. ‘it is. i want to go—actually, funny story, doctor borden said something really similar to what you did, which means it’s probably a good idea and,’

‘patterson?’

‘huh?’

‘breathe.’

‘right.’ patterson sucks in a breath. ‘i don’t want to go alone.’

jane blinks. she straightens, a look of surprise mixed pity—no, not pity, something that grates less at patterson. understanding, maybe? the look is there for a second and then it’s gone.

‘i’ll get my jacket.’

they look ridiculous.

the restaurant is nice, something david always insisted dressing up for. ‘anything to treat my lady,’ he would say with that goofy smile of his,that made all those crinkles curl around his lips and his eyes, and patterson feels warm and then so, so cold thinking about his smile.

‘steady,’ jane murmurs next to her, and patterson lets go of jane’s wrist where she’s clutching so tight jane’s skin has gone blister white.

‘sorry.’

‘it’s fine,’ she says, and she sounds honest, she sounds like she really wasn’t hurt, and patterson lets herself wonder as they’re lead to the reserved table what exactly jane might have gone through. what kind of pain she might have felt. true, patterson isn’t the strongest person but having someone grab at your arm so tight hurts a little, she’s sure of it. does she just have a high pain threshold? stupid, she chides herself, we already know that she does. yes to a high pain threshold, and to experience, judging from the scars.

‘patterson,’ jane murmurs, and she touches a hand to patterson’s elbow to pull her back into the moment. ‘we can leave, if,’

‘no. no. i’m here.’ she forces herself to look at jane, smile. ‘i’m okay.’

‘okay.’

jane nods to their server, a young asian man wearing a very neat apron tied around his waist, and he sets the water and their glasses on the table.

‘may i get you something to drink?’

‘bourbon,’ patterson says, almost a rasp.

‘i—uh,’

‘two bourbons,’ patterson corrects herself, and the man nods and leaves with a brisk step. ‘if you don’t like it, i’ll drink it.’

jane, instead of looking worried by the comment, grins. ‘good to know.’

she’s wearing a leather jacket over a thin hoodie and her best non-stained shirt. and patterson, she couldn’t change out of her work clothes for this—couldn’t think about it being anything like a date with her now-d—her now dead boyfriend, so she’s in the same clothes she’s been wearing all day and smells a bit of sweat and chemicals. super attractive. she hopes david is happy. the thought sends a pang through her chest and she takes the bourbon when it arrives, wraps her fingers around the glass, and sips at it.

jane tastes the bourbon too. ‘not bad.’

‘you might like whiskey. i wouldn’t be surprised, actually, you have a bit of a,’ patterson wiggles her fingers toward...jane. just all of her. ‘whiskey vibe.’

‘what’s a,’ jane mimics her, grin growing, ‘whiskey vibe?’

‘i don’t know. just, zapata plays this game where she looks at someone and figures out what their favourite drink is. she’s pretty good at it.’

‘what did she say about me?’

patterson sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, tries to smile. it comes out as a bit of a grimace. ‘she didn’t know.’

jane turns her head away, laughs. there’s a harsh edge to it, but just the edge. the rest is a little sad. ‘figures.’

‘sorry.’ patterson looks over at her for a minute longer, the line of her neck, the lines of her tattoos, before she takes up the menu and scans it. ‘do you know what you want to eat?’ her neck and cheeks burn when the silence stretches on and she clears her throat. ‘right. memory.’

‘yup.’

‘well, how about we get another bourbon each and pick some random meals and we see what you like? it’s all really good here,’ she adds.

looking up to see how jane feels about that, the other woman just shrugs, nods. ‘it’s fine, patterson. this isn’t about me anyway.’

‘no. it’s about my dead boyfriend having made a reservation for me and me needing a f-friend to come with me so that i can face it. and i’m not doing too well,’ she says, as lightly as she can, fingers fluttering at the sides of the menu, ‘so let me do something nice for you so i don’t have to think about it. okay?’

jane’s eyes flash again. ‘yes ma’am.’

‘thank you.’ she downs the rest of her bourbon when she sees the waiter making his way over. the burn of it makes her voice tight and high—or maybe the whole situation, who could tell? ‘two more bourbons, please, and we’ll take the tasting course.’

‘of course. excellent choice.’

the wait for their meal is excruciating until patterson remembers the crossword she shoved into her bag. she pulls it out and jane instantly moves to clear a space on the table between them, an interested frown creasing her brow.

‘you like crosswords?’

‘i don’t know.’

‘but you remember what they are?’

‘sure. borden said that i have my... my procedural memory is fine but my declarative memory is,’ she makes a sound like a miniature explosion, opens her fingers out from her right temple. ‘so i know what a crossword is but i can’t remember ever having done one before.’

‘right.’ patterson drums her fingers on the newspaper. ‘this is the times crossword, it’s kind of a big deal. lots of readers, lots of followers. they’re pretty difficult.’

‘okay.’

‘and i have a way i like to do it,’

‘patterson.’ she looks up a little nervously to find that jane is outright grinning at her. ‘we can do it your way.’

‘okay great, it’s just that i have a way that i like to do things and,’

‘and i don’t remember having a specific method so i don’t mind using yours. we’re a perfect fit,’ jane drawls. ‘go ahead.’

patterson wants to laugh, almost, at the comment but she isn’t sure if that would be in poor taste. instead, she quirks a little smile at jane—relieved to see it returned—and pulls the crossword toward herself.

‘i like to start by using the gimme’s.’

‘gimme’s?’

‘oh, those are, like, the easiest ones. the ones you can fill out without even trying. once i have those, it’s like having landmarks that you can pin into a word and work backwards from there.’

‘got it.’

‘okay, so, drones, seven letters—‘

‘like airforce drones?’

‘not necessarily. the crosswords are a bit of wordplay sometimes so it might mean a surveillance system of some kind or it could mean,’

‘you already know what it is.’

‘it’s menials, i’m sorry,’ she apologises, writing the word into its place.

jane laughs. ‘next one. maybe by the end i’ll actually get one before you.’

patterson sucks in a breath through her teeth. ‘is that a challenge?’

‘i think it is, yeah.’

‘you should know that i am incredibly bright.’

jane shrugs. ‘i might be too. let’s find out.’

‘five down, six letters, response to don’t panic.’

‘panic,’ jane says promptly, making patterson grin.

‘that’s five letters and it doesn’t fit with the letter l that we have.’

jane cranes her neck over her plate, purses her lips. ‘something that ends in calm?’

patterson taps her nose with her pen, nods. ‘very good.’

‘you already guessed that.’

she smiles at jane, ignores the way her vision blurs to put david’s face sitting across from her. tugging her attention back to the page, she murmurs a quiet, slightly smug, 'maybe.’

‘navigation abbreviation. three letters.’

‘ene.’

‘huh?’

‘ene,’ jane repeats. ‘east nor east.’

patterson points to her, competition and success shining from her eyes. ‘good one.’

‘wow, that sounded painful.’

‘it wasn’t. i’m thrilled you got one.’

‘keep trying, patterson, i nearly believed you that time.’

‘got. one. patterson.’

‘what?’

‘that’s what it says,’ jane tells her. ‘got one, patterson. do you think...’

‘david,’ she whispers, snatching the paper back. she traces the letters, fingers shaking. ‘what—‘

‘you said he booked the restaurant a month ago, right?’

‘yeah.’

‘and you said that you do crosswords on your romantic nights out?’

‘yeah.’

‘so,’

‘he got a clue in a crossword for me, for us to solve together? why would he do that?’

jane purses her lips. ‘he solved one of my tattoos with you, right?’

‘well, yeah, but,’

‘miss? something sweet?’

patterson looks up, smiles a tremulous smile at their server who sets the slice in front of her and makes a quick getaway. she isn’t sure if it’s a heavily tattooed woman in leather, or a plain, sweet looking woman perpetually on the verge of tears, but he hasn’t lingered at all tonight.

‘there’s a sheep on my dessert.’

‘is that common?’

‘i,’

‘i’ll find out.’ jane stands swiftly, sets a hand on her shoulder when she passes by headed for the kitchen. only moments later, she’s back. ‘it’s not common. david came by weeks ago with it and directions to put it on your cake.’

patterson glances over at the david in jane’s abandoned chair. ‘why? david, what is this?’

he smiles. ‘a clue.’

‘a clue.’ she turns the sheep over between her fingers. ‘got one patterson. you solved another tattoo. he solved another tattoo,’ she says, bursting from her chair. ‘we have to go!’

‘patterson!’ jane tears after her, following her out of the restaurant. ‘patterson, wait!’

‘we can’t wait—i’m not crazy, jane, david left this for us—me—to follow and,’

jane catches her hands, one a fist around the little sheep. ‘i don’t think you’re crazy. i just don’t have any money and we have to pay the bill.’

‘oh. oh.’ patterson looks back to the restaurant, the server waiting, nervous, on the stairs. ‘yes, yes, of course, i’m so sorry.’

‘do you really think it’s a good idea to break into this apartment?’

‘we showed him our badges,’

‘your badge,’

‘my badge,’ patterson nods, a grumpy little frown making her nose crinkle. ‘i can’t believe he didn’t let us in!’

‘not everyone loves the FBI.’

‘yeah, well, this is really important and—what are you doing?’

‘huh?’

‘why are you climbing—jane, get down.’

‘you said we need to get in there,’ jane points out very reasonably. ‘that is a ladder.’

‘that is illegal.’

‘do you want to find out what your boyfriend left for us or not?’

‘left for me,’ patterson reminds her, sharply, and jane steps back. the metal taps under her boots and then there’s a dull sound as she jumps down from the air conditioning unit. ‘i’m sorry.’

‘don’t be, it’s fine. it’s your information to follow. however you want to do it.’

‘it’s yours too,’ patterson reminds her. ‘i mean, it’s literally yours.’ she waves a hand to jane, her body, and turns back to the ladder. ‘i don’t think i can make that jump.’

‘you can. i’ll go first, kick it down for you. you climb up after me. if that’s what you want to do.’

her eyes are totally calm fixed on her, though they’re the colour of a churning green sea, and patterson’s breath hitches at the thought of directing jane—a super secret memory-wiped top agent—to do something that’s super illegal like breaking into an apartment block. it’s wrong. very wrong.

it’s also pretty cool, and she’s had three drinks, and she wants to.

‘do it.’

jane nods. she swings back up onto the air-conditioning unit. while patterson does the math—force, distance, mass, time—jane simply looks and then leaps. her hands catch around rusted bars and she heaves herself up like a chin-up, pulling the ladder further down with an ugly squeal of metal.

‘better hurry,’ she advises. ‘we don’t know who heard that.’

‘right. right. because it’s super illegal.’

‘last chance to back out.’

‘no.’ she clambers up the ladder until she’s on the fire escape next to her. ‘this could save lives. it’s important.’

and, she doesn’t tell jane, she can see david waving down at her cheerily from a few levels above.

she pushes ahead of jane, climbs the steps quickly. there’s a single heart-stopping moment three floors up where one of the railings gives way and she topples through it, falls. and then jane is right there and she grabs the back of patterson’s jacket and swings her into the ladder. there’s another horrid squeal crunch of metal and patterson is shaking but she’s alive and clutching onto the ladder.

‘you okay? come on,’ jane guides her, voice soothing. ‘climb back over. i’ll go first and make sure it’s all safe.’

‘o-okay,’ patterson nods, and jane’s cool hands ease her tight grip on the rungs and grab her thigh behind the knee and haul her over the railing. ‘you’re bleeding,’ patterson pants.

‘huh?’ jane pokes at a red spot on her shirt, wipes it away on dark jeans. ‘no, it’s nothing. rust.’

‘i am a scientist, i know what blood looks like.’

‘fine, it’s blood,’ jane allows, but doesn’t tell her where it’s from or if she’s okay, instead walking ahead to test the railings and the steps.

the landlord from before starts to yell at them, slamming his window shut. they hear his feet on the inside stairwell and exchange a look, running up to beat him.

‘alright, we’re inside. now what?’

the landlord screams at them from the other side of the door. jane drags a chair across the apartment and tucks it underneath the jiggling handle.

‘that’ll stop him for now,’ she says. ‘but not for long. and i feel like i probably shouldn’t kill him.’

‘probably not,’ patterson huffily agrees, though adrenaline and alcohol are mixing to make her feel like, hell, maybe jane should take him out. she wheels around to point to david, who leans cockily against the window like an asshole. ‘and you! all your shit is gone! why didn’t you tell me that before we wasted all this time getting here?’

‘how would i know that? i only know what you know,’ he points out, and patterson makes a disgusted sound, turns away from him, throwing her hands up into the air. remembering her company, she spins around to find that jane is examining the walls and floorboards, testing for suspicious creaks and knocks.

‘i’m not crazy.’

‘i didn’t say anything.’

‘i know.’ patterson does know that, and she would leave it. except for the fact that if jane mentioned it to mayfair, or borden, or weller then...then she wouldn’t have her job anymore. no one wants to work with or hire someone who talks to ghosts. ‘i know he’s not real,’ she continues. ‘i just...it makes me feel,’

‘better?’

‘yes.’

the landlord batters again at the door. screams his head off to be let in.

like hell, patterson thinks, and tunes him out.

jane nods, walks the perimeter of the apartment slowly. ‘i can’t see any normal hidey-holes,’ she says. ‘it’s your boyfriend, your clue. where would he hide it?’

‘well. everything is gone. but,’ she glances over to the still-grinning david, looking the same as he had in life, lovely brown eyes, glasses slightly smudged. hope that this might not be an entire waste of time, she starts to talk out loud, hoping that will help her pick up on something she’s missed. ‘he gave me the crossword clue. and the sheep—of course. the sheep.’

‘of course!’ jane agrees.

patterson looks eagerly over to her, only to stop and laugh when she realises that jane is joking. ‘it’s—it’s from one of your favourite boardgames,’ she explains, fishing the sheep out from the zip up pocket in her bag. ‘you have the sheep and you cook it in the fireplace.’

jane’s eyes flash to the fireplace. she strides over, hand disappearing into the dark space up to the shoulder. after a moment, she takes her hand back and stands.

‘well?’

‘it’s your find,’ jane tells her, waving her forward. ‘i just wanted to make sure it was safe.’

‘oh. i—okay.’ patterson kneels. sets her bag to the side. she slips her hand up the inside of the fireplace, fingertips brushing against rough brick and the smooth band of metal and then—‘i feel it. a bag?’

‘that’s what it felt like to me.’

it crinkles under her questing fingers and she sticks her tongue out, reaches a little further. grabbing it, patterson pulls it out and stands, bringing it over to jane to examine.

‘a key?’

‘carson’s clockworks. i know this, it’s a speakeasy on willabe street.’

‘well then.’ jane grins, orange from the streetlight throwing her face into a puzzle of shadow and light that patterson finds fascinating, beautiful. she moves before patterson can memorise it, though. ‘what are we waiting for?’ she asks, voice tight with anticipation, and her cold fingers wrap around patterson’s wrist and she tugs her to the window.

the speakeasy has an automaton— ‘is that not the coolest thing ever?’ she asks jane, who agrees but in a placating kind of way, which makes patterson roll her eyes— that stabs a constellation into the placemat.

‘lets get this back to the lab. i’m about nine hundred per cent sure that it’s andromeda but i want to be certain.’

‘nine hundred per cent isn’t certain?’

‘not in my line of work,’ patterson grins. the alcohol has mostly burned off by now so she’s running on fumes and maybe a little desperation. that this whole thing isn’t a waste of time, that david really did solve another clue. that somehow, just for this one night, she can keep him right here next to her a minute longer.

it’s funny, being back in the exact same place only a few hours later, and jane grins at her when she leans back against the wall of the elevator, watching the numbers click over in the screen of the elevator.

‘thank you,’ patterson blurts out after a few seconds that draws out to feel like an age. ‘for coming with me tonight and doing...all of this. without question.’ jane nods, shrugs, but patterson continues on. she wants more than that, she thinks. some acknowledgement that jane knows that this is above and beyond. ‘people don’t, they don’t really do things like this.’

‘what? help people out?’

‘you barely know me,’ patterson says quietly, steps to halfway across the elevator. jane’s arms come up to fold over her chest, so patterson stops. ‘i just, i just mean that i’m thankful. and you didn’t have to do any of this so the fact that you did, it...it means a lot.’

‘you’re welcome,’ jane says in that low, crackled rasp of hers. it gets stronger when she’s tired or worked up or maybe uncomfortable, patterson has noticed, so she steps back and bobs a nod, smiles.

david, in the corner, smiles too.

‘so, to your lab?’

‘yes! to the lab.’

‘it’s the bull,’ patterson whispers. ‘but we’ve figured that one out already.’ she sags, lifts shaking hands to press against suddenly hot eyes. ‘weeks ago.’

‘patterson,’

she jerks away from the cold touch to her shoulder and there’s a moment when she thinks jane is going to leave but then she’s holding her again and turning her into her chest, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

‘it’s okay,’

‘it’s not, it’s not okay! i dragged you all across the city because i thought we would solve another,’

‘patterson.’

she pulls back, swipes under her eyes. jane shakes her head.

‘i didn’t go with you because i thought we would solve a tattoo. i went with you because you asked me to.’

patterson blinks up at her. ‘oh.’

jane’s lips flatten into an uncomfortable grimace. ‘yeah. besides, maybe it’s one of the tattoos that has a second meaning,’ she suggests, like it isn’t the most brilliant thing anyone has ever said before, and when patterson gapes at her, she says, ‘is that stupid?’

‘stup—no. no that’s amazing,’ patterson tells her with a surprised laugh. the slip of emotions is dizzying but so is the possibility of another clue and so patterson grabs onto that and whirls back to her monitor. ‘what are we missing!’

‘it would make sense if it was taurus, it would connect to the constellations,’ she suggests, chewing on her lip.

‘right.’ jane squints at the screen, clearly out of her depth. she smiles grimly at patterson. ‘i’m sorry, i’m not much of a partner for this bit.’

‘that’s okay. we just need to find someone to chase down or shoot and we’ll be right up your alley again. that was a joke.’

‘you’re not wrong,’ jane shrugs. ‘you think it’s constellation aligned. taurus is a bull.’

‘yeah, but that’s too general. what about this,’ she points to the eye, blank where the rest of the bull is totally filled. ‘this...could be a star.’ she lines up the taurus constellation with it, barks a satisfied laugh when the star and line of the constellation fits perfectly with it. ‘ah! we solved it! that’s great!’

‘and what is the name of that star?’ david asks, and for a moment his face moves through jane’s to smile at her.

she blinks quickly, looks away from that back to the screen. ‘alderbaran. what...is aldebaran?’

‘this is the only place within three hundred miles with the word alderbaran in the name.’

‘can’t imagine why, it just rolls off the tongue,’ david snarks from her left.

‘super catchy,’ jane drawls from her right.

‘tattoo must point to something in here,’ patterson tells...them...and she makes her way to the shop door, talks her way inside. it isn’t long before the owner offers them tea, and breakfast, and patterson is already telling him about david, and the scavenger hunt, before she notices jane’s frantic signals not to say anything.

he leaves to bring out some pieces from his astrological section and jane strides over.

‘what was that about?’ patterson asks her.

‘you just told him everything.’

‘not everything.’

‘enough, then.’

‘he seemed nice. and he gave me tea.’

jane squeezes her eyes shut. ‘patterson, everyone seems nice. it doesn’t mean they’re not...’

‘what? russian spies?’

‘honestly? yes.’

‘that’s enough, mark is nice.’

jane sighs. ‘i’m going to look out back for more bulls or something. just be careful.’

she doesn’t see the rag.

‘—blood sacrifice under taurus—they sent another message! —lovely veins,‘

‘i’m so stupid.’

‘opposite, opposite,’ david says, and patterson sobs because it’s just one more fucking sign that he’s just a figment of her own mind.

the ropes rasp against her skin, burning red lines around her wrists.

the snow is freezing on her bare feet.

‘jane,’ she whispers to the trees, stretching out forever into the distance. ‘god, jane,’ she says again—if he did this to her, what did they do to jane?

‘hey, hey don’t do that. don’t you give up. we’re gonna stay here, stay quiet, stay low.’

‘patterson,’

‘that’s jane,’ david says. ‘go to her. pick yourself up and go to her.’

‘she’s not real.’

‘she is, she’s real,’

‘right. real in the same way you’re real.’

david’s face falls. ‘patterson, trust me. she’s real. go to her.’

she has a log in her hands and he’s there, nice mark with the bleeding scratch she gave him, and jane is in his crosshairs and it hurts so much to hold onto the log that it’s almost a relief when she loses her hold of it, smacking it up into his arms and making his shot go wide.

blood spatters bright red over the white snow—it’s not poetic, or holy, blood spilled under the taurus stars. it’s just red.

and patterson hurts all over.

jane’s hands feel warm, which isn’t a good sign. ‘—hear me? can you hear me, patterson?’

‘i - i can hear you.’

‘we need to get you warm,’ she says, and her words are brisk but so, so gentle, and she strips off her own jacket and helps her into it and then, telling her exactly what she’s going to do, she crouches down and pulls patterson up and over her shoulder and carries her out of the forest and back to their truck.

the cold and the air still stings her feet and hands and face, but jane’s jacket is burningly warm around her and she just keeps talking to her, ‘you’re gonna be okay, patterson, you did so good, i’m so proud of you, you did so good’ and patterson relaxes.

the hospital releases her once her core temperature is normal again. her toes are still tingling but she buys three pairs of socks from the giftshop - all of them ugly - and checks out AMA. the ride to david’s old apartment is inadvisable by any stretch of the imagination but she stops a few buildings down and leans against the railing, looks up at the window of his old apartment and remembers the plants that used to hang there and how they could see the new years fireworks from the firestairs.

‘thank you.’

‘for what?’

‘everything. today. and the scavenger hunt.’

‘have you forgotten that i almost got you killed?’

patterson smiles. shakes her head. it’s harsh to hear that from him because it’s her own stupid mind saying it, and it’s hypocritical because she is the one that got him killed. she looks down at her hands and can’t make them move, too stiff in her mittens. when she cries, she can’t stop that from happening either.

‘i’m so sorry,’ she tells him. ‘i - i don’t know how i’m ever going to forgive myself,’

‘you can’t blame yourself.’ the words don’t sound real, not really. because she still feels guilty and so fake-david doesn’t really believe what he’s saying either? or because she doesn’t want to hear it?

‘i do. if i hadn’t’ve,’

‘it’s not your fault. you loved me. i know that. and i loved you. you know that. i won’t go away. i know you think you’re never gonna find someone like me again and,’ he shrugs, with a cocky little tilt of his head. ‘well, you’re right. it’ll be impossible to find someone of my specific intellectual and,’ he grins, ‘sexual gifts. i know it seems impossible but one day you’re gonna be ready for someone else. and they’re gonna be incredible.’ patterson shakes her head. david presses on. ‘know who i’ve always liked? that jane chick.’

‘what?’ patterson’s head snaps around. ‘you’ve never even met her.’

‘oh wow, you’re right. it’s almost like i’m a manifestation of your subconscious or something.’ he laughs when she huffs, looks away. like a pang in the chest, she knows what he’s going to say next before he says it. upside of creating company yourself—you always know what they’re gonna say. that would make everything so much easier. or not, because when he does say it, her heart still breaks a little. ‘i’m gonna go.’

‘i don’t want you to,’ she says, almost a wail. she’s glad there’s no one around to see her.

‘i know. but i’m already gone.’

patterson lingers a minute longer, then as carefully as she can with numbed fingers, she sets the little sheep on the rail.

‘goodbye, david.’

there’s a figure all in black at the end of the street, dark hair chopped to just below her ears. patterson stops when she’s on the corner across from jane, noticing that she didn’t bother to hide herself.

‘see everything you wanted to see?’ she calls over, knowing it’s not fair to be harsh to her but unable to help it. ‘crazy patterson who gets herself kidnapped talks to her dead boyfriend. more on the six o’clock news!’

jane stares over at her, eyes so dark in her bone-white face. ‘you shouldn’t have left the hospital.’

‘i was cold. it’s not like i’d been shot or something.’

‘you were freezing,’ jane hisses, nearly unheard from across the street. she looks both ways before jogging over. patterson thinks about leaving but doesn’t; she really is very cold and she can’t make her legs move. whatever jane wants to say—probably how foolish it was to talk to mark, or go into the backroom without her, or anything else like that—what she does say is, ‘do you need help?’

‘no.’

jane waits.

patterson’s shoulders slump. ‘yes,’ she whispers. ‘i can’t feel my legs super well.’

‘okay.’

jane flags down a car, takes her home. she must have found a wallet somewhere because she pays with some tattered twenties over the picked vinyl taxi seat and helps patterson out, and up into her apartment.

‘exposed brick. nice.’

‘you like that?’

‘apparently,’ jane tells her, turning her head slightly to grin at patterson. their faces are very close together and jane looks quickly away. ‘keys?’

‘here.’

she hands them over, well aware that she can’t use them when her fingers are like icicles.

jane leads her to the bathroom, runs the water warm and leaves her with instructions to slowly heat up the water so she doesn’t scald herself.

patterson doesn’t know why but she assumed that jane would leave but fifty minutes later when she stumbles out of her bedroom, pink-skinned and dressed in her thickest flannel pyjamas, two blankets in her arms, there she is. staring at the wall.

‘oh. that’s, those are,’

‘my tattoos. i thought you were told to stop bringing them home,’ jane says, but she doesn’t sound mad.

‘i was. i did.’ patterson dumps the blankets onto the kitchen counter. ‘but. i’m sorry—is it weird for you to see?’

‘they’re on my body,’ jane tells her. ‘it’s not any weirder. besides, i’ve got a wall of my own. i’m really not allowed to bring things out of headquarters, though, so all of mine are hand-drawn.’

‘really? you’re an artist, then?’

‘i’m pretty sure i was a soldier,’ jane tells her, exhaustion written into every line of her body and in the flatness of her voice. she turns away from the wall, casts a careful look over the apartment, over patterson. ‘you look warmer.’

patterson becomes very aware of the beanie on her head, bright pink with little round tufts of fur. ‘ah. yes. i am.’

‘good.’ she looks toward the door. ‘can i sleep here tonight? on the couch, i mean?’

‘yes.’

‘i won’t get in the way and i’ll clean up after—oh. okay. great.’

‘you saved my life, jane. you can sleep here.’

‘it was a, a team effort,’ jane points out, and she scratches a little uncomfortably at the tattoos on her left wrist, the beehive on her hand.

‘and if they wanted to stay over, they could,’ patterson lies without a flicker of hesitation. ‘d-david used to get cold so there are a lot of blankets. you’re welcome to take some.’

‘thanks.’

‘you’re welcome.’ patterson looks to the kitchen, to the tea she was going to make for herself and the file she was going to look over, but maybe it’s the long shower, maybe it’s knowing that jane would watch her the whole time—or even help—or maybe it’s the fact that she is keenly aware that there is very little in this world, blood-sacrificers included, that can get through jane, but she feels the lure and tug of sleep at her eyelids. ‘goodnight,’ she yawns, and to her surprise jane strides across the room and pulls her into an incredibly gently hug.

‘i’m glad you’re safe,’ jane tells her, and patterson curls her fingers into the shirt jane is wearing, still blood-stained, and breathes in the smell of gun-smoke and sweat and pine and biting cold.

she blinks. an arm curls beneath her knees.

she blinks. the light in her room flickers on.

she blinks. a cool hand brushes against her chin as it tugs warm blankets up. ‘sorry,’ a familiar voice rasps. ‘cold hands, i know.’

‘s’okay,’ patterson slurs.

she blinks. the room is dark, but the door is cracked open an inch. there’s a faint hint of light and the flutter of papers. jane, she remembers, and sinks into her pillow, sighs. she is warm, and safe, and for now that’s kind of the most she can hope for.

#patterson x jane #blindspot #i dont know where this came from i just had to write it #i mean i do know #i just fnished that episode #i had to write it its clawing at me i love them

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arizcross · 5 years

Text

Movies, Music & Celebrities! (KHR Idol AU)

Some months before Tsuna’s debut as an Idol…

“Hello~ Freaks!” Greets a handsome female. She seems to be in her twenties, her hair is styled in a short bob haircut and colored with a vibrant red, her eyes are a dark blue that reminds one of the northern seas. She is wearing a black tank top with a M.M.C. graphic at the front and a simple black choker around her neck as accessory. “Be welcome to another episode of Movies, Music & Celebrities! or M.M.C. for short, the #1 Vlog about your favorite World Idols! For those who don’t know me and this is your first time in my channel, I’m Maria but you guys can call me M.M. and I welcome you to my lovely channel~!” Introduces the woman, M.M.

The background behind M.M. is a picture of a sunflower field.

“This week I bring to you some juicy news from a favorite of the past… well, more like from four years ago.” Starts the red-head as she gesticulates with her hands. “I know that you all remember them with love even though they took different paths after a quite nasty situation… if you have connected the dots, good job, if you haven’t, don’t worry, I’m going to reveal the mistery for you right now. I’m talking about the world’s favorite sweethearts, the duo known as X♥X♥. As you all remember, the lovely duo broke up due to ‘artistic differences’ with their, in those days, Producer House. You know, Vongola Entertainment, rings any bells? Anyways, after four years of silence today a communique has been made by no other than Kyoko! The same ditsy and lovely Kyoko from X♥X♥! In this communique, that by the way has gone viral faster than Dash, Kyoko is informing us that she is ready to come back into the Idol World, but wait for it… She is doing this as a soloist!” Exclaims M.M. to the camera. “And there’s more, her new Producer House is no other than the Arcobaleno! That’s right! You heard that correctly! Arcobaleno Wide World Entertainment Company is going to give us back Kyoko! Yay~!”

The background changes and instead of the sunflower field we see the picture of a lovely young woman.

The female painted in the background does not look older than twenty, with big honey colored eyes framed by long, thick and curly eyelashes, her princess like face framed by long and stright honey colored hair tied in a high ponytail.

“Kyoko also informed in her communique that she will release her first album by the end of the year, and please pay attention to this bit that I’m about to say, Kyoko has warned and I quote ‘By re-starting my musical career I’m not only standing my ground before those that belittled me when I was younger, I am also taking a risk by, this time, staying true to myself and my style. This new album will be nothing like the ones I used to do during my time as an X♥X♥ member… I am done with being a princess.’ And to that resolve my fellows I say Yasss Queen! I’ll leave the link to the full communique down in the description so you guys can look at it later.” Informs the red-head.

The background changes once again and Kyoko’s picture transforms into a fedora wearing man that is covering himself with a dark grey trench coat, he is walking on some busy street while making a phone call.

“And following with the Arcobaleno Company topic… a while ago photographers captured the image of no other than The Reborn walking into the Arcobaleno Company’s Japanese Branch Building! The Idol World fandom went crazy and the conspiracies are no better, many say that this is probably a come-back project for the original Arcobaleno Group, others say that maybe it’s just Monsieur Reborn who is doing a come-back, some say that Reborn will be named as the new president of the Producer House and some others think that Reborn is actually coaching the ultimate Idol… I personally hope for the middle one, I would pay good money to be in a come-back concert of Reborn.”

The background changes again and the picture of a group of five is shown.

The group is made by four males and a females. The youngest looking of them is a boy in his late teens with short and curly black hair, freckles and droopy eyes with vibrant green irises. There are two silver haired males; one of them looks like a fairy tale prince with a bad attitude, his hair is kinda long and tied in a half ponytail, his eyebrows form a soft frown and his sharp eyes are the color of tropical seas, the other one is slightly taller and tanner, with the trained body of a boxer and his hair paler, way shorter and messier, his eyes are droopy and light grey and has a scar on his left eyebrow. The final male is also the tallest of the bunch, clearly of asian heritage, with short and spiky ink black hair and beautiful eyes that are the color of hazel. The sole female of the group is a pale beauty, her big eyes colored with the loveliest of burgundies and her long purple-ish hair styled in layers, her right eye is covered by an indigo rose eyepatch. They all are wearing a sort of uniform that has being adapted to their respective fashion styles and color schemes.

“In other news.” Starts M.M. “The main vocalist of Generation X, Takeshi, had an emergency surgery due to a case of tonsillitis and won’t be allowed to sing until medical approval, which means that the group’s world tour has been cancelled until new announce, but don’t worry, Vongola Entertainment has informed that the money of the tickets will be returned to those that have already paid.” Assures the red-head. “And moving from Music to Movies…”

The background changes again, this time there is the picture of a car in mid-drifting with explosions surrounding it.

“For those faithfully waiting for Kyoya Hibari’s newest movie, Drifting Cloud II, I have good news for you! This humble server has been blessed with eight, EIGHT! Eight tickets for the premier! If you want to be one of the eight lucky winners all you have to do is answer the three questions in the description of this video and send you answers to my howler account, if you are one of the first eight and all you answers are correct then you will be able to attend to the premier of Drifting Cloud II.” Informs M.M. “Moving on, Mukuro Rokudo, actor/singer/model and, in my personal opinion, incarnated God, is realising his very own fragrance named Mist, adding to this, Rokudo has revealed that he will be making a collaboration with Varia, which has caused some commotion among Mukuro’s fans since Varia has a more aggressive sound.”

As M.M. speaks the background changes on last time, this time two separated pictures take reign. On the left is the picture of a devilish handsome man with sharp features and heterochromatic eyes, one red-ish and the other dark blue, his long dark blue hair is straight and tied in a low ponytail. On the right is the picture of another group, this time all male. Five men are posing on a vintage red and gold couch; the one sitting in the middle looks like a wild king with shaggy dark hair and olive skin, his red-ish eyes are sharp and his gaze heavy. On the right side sits a handsome european man with long platinum hair and deep grey eyes and on the left side sits a beautiful blonde whose bangs cover half of his face but his smile seems welcoming and charming. Behind the couch stand two other men, one of them is tall and with olive skin, sharp dark eyes and spikey black hair, he has a silly mustache and beard but for some reason that only makes him look sort of adorable. The other man posing behind the couch has a mohawk hairstyle and his hair is colored with green and a vibrant orange, a pair of sunglasses cover his eyes and a feather boa surrounds his neck.

“Tell me what you think about this collaboration in your comments!” Continues speaking the red-head. “And with this last note we have reached the end of this episode. If this was your first episode and you liked it please click on the star below and subscribe! I post a new video every week. See you next week with more M.M.C.!”

#khr idol au #khr au #katekyo hitman reborn

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bonbrizzle · 6 years

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Here you Rise, Furiously and Fearlessly

Log Line: Labeling in Tattooing: Seemingly Disastrous or Actually Misconstrued?

For my lovely Tumblr followers, this piece is written especially for you.

To give a bit of info about myself to those who are new or aren’t familiar with the writer of this blog, I’m Bonnie, an undergrad at UC Davis. If you’re an OG here, you’ve seen me experience tremendous changes throughout the years I’ve maintained this blog. Due to a mish-mash of circumstances I’m unfortunately not as keen about writing long feel-fests as as often as I did in high school. Back then, days were slower, school meant less, and we all had so much more much needed free-time. As many of you may or may not know, I’m a first generation Vietnamese-American girl born and raised in the most ecstatically eccentric part of the country, the (San Francisco) Bay Area. While I was able to grow up in one of the most progressive areas in the world, my parents weren’t given this luxury we take for granted here. The rift between our two cultures forced me to grapple with a singular sense of “identity” throughout the majority (or entirety? actually) of my life. Many of you fellow Asian Americans are aware of the difficulty in regards to finding a comfortable medium between the lifestyles of both your parents and yourself.

Any-who, I am writing to my fellow tattooed folk in zealous hopes. I have a willful and fire-y desire to push you all to keep on fighting. Fight the stereotypes burdened upon us as a people. Fight to change the way we, society (as a whole), interpret labeling. If you haven’t already noticed, our culture is bizarrely infatuated with the need for identification. Let’s try to undermine this idea with a grand plan.

While I usually materialize just my subjective POV in this diary-like blog of mine, at this instant I’ll be tacking on a little something extra. This piece has the familiar anecdotal experiences that one is familiar with in reading my style, (mixed with subjective thoughts, etc) AND will have some interlaced informative/factual bits to provide you with some background info. If you are compelled, you’re more than welcome to investigate further...and or skim as you wish! I mainly chose to write about resistance and tattooing’s marriage with labeling because I’m enamored about tattoo as a culture. Don’t be alarmed! It is not a research paper. It is a branch of anthropology that requires me to provide some sort of anecdotal recollection of my experience(s) with resistance. In actuality, I haven’t updated in so long, I’m not even sure if anyone’s listening. “Posting into your Tumblr is like talking to your cat. You’re not sure if anyone is listening, but it feels good anyway.” To those who will continue to be loyal to my musings, I hope this piece leaves you with a sprinkle of new insight or a refreshed perspective.

You may or may not be familiar with the newfound anxiety that tags along with getting your first piece. Going into the shop on the day of, I was like anyone else...ridden with anxiety and feverishly wondering if this life-changing decision would alter the way I fit into the world. Would the modified version of me be rejected and outcasted by society? My cocktail of feelings was mixed with a variation of things. Some of it dismal, because maybe my parents would disown me. Others were optimistic, I finally was getting one step closer to the way I only dreamed to look. As I was being escorted onto the tattooing chair, I discovered my circumstances were changing everso quickly. Was I leaving my previous identity behind? Yes, this does seems dramatic, but to be frank, I didn’t fully realize the intensity of this horrifying possibility until the days to started to dwindle. Imagining my future around my family and wanting their acceptance seemed grim, but I stayed positive because I knew this was exactly what I wanted.

Maturing through the lessons of traditional Vietnamese folks meant I was constantly torn between accepting the traditional aspects of being a Vietnamese daughter, while also trying to navigate myself around what being American means to me. Pressure to fill the image of a traditional Vietnamese woman in the eyes of my parents surrounded many reasons behind my actions and plagued my subconscious. I feared they would judge their ability to raise a child by watching me grow into what they dreamed, while evaluating me by my qualities of submissiveness, obedience, and "normality,” But I didn’t want to blend into the rest of the colors and become a muddled brown, being arbitrarily mixed with everybody else. I am not only Vietnamese, but American. Being American means a plethora of things. To me, it is mainly founded upon the notion that you should always allow yourself to have an opinion. Not only in America should you be informed and form opinions from what you’re surrounded by, you need be unabashedly outspoken. In my specific case, being an American in the bay meant even moreso using these exclusive opportunities to fight courageously both for your rights and for what’s right. In an overall sense, this meant acceptance. Let yourself thrive, be who you want to be––without a care in the world––and bloom wherever you are planted.

Let’s take at a comparison between my brother and I. To someone like him, the identity route resembles straight line. My brother seems to lie on the side of the scale that’s on the complete opposite end of what I’m on. He is undoubtedly a gifted child. With that being said, he became simply a breeze for my parents to teach. Never to stray to committing anything outlandish, my brother willfully blended into the cloak of “normality.” I want to note that there is nothing wrong with the desire to be normal. So for my parents, he was a prize, a gifted student with not a single note of resistance; a child who was everso far from the idea of “troubled.” On the other end of the spectrum however, was little ‘ol me, a small Asian girl who started out as a little bit obnoxious and is still honking and tonking with confliction to this day.

It originated early on in my life but came to show it’s face in high school. The amount of worrying about my future my parents were plagued with increased every time I dyed my hair abnormal and kooky color. In high school I died my hair more than 30 times. Throughout the process of maturing, gnawing teenage angst hindered me from communicating the way I needed to with my folks. Because of this, my parents didn’t understand me at all, and thought even moreso that I was trying to erase my identity as a Vietnamese woman after dyeing my hair bright blond for the first time. “Are you trying to be white?!” My dad roared at me as he stared at my bright, freshly bleached blond hair in disbelief. This idea of me that I was running away from the idea of being normal was devastating to my parents. “Will she be okay? Will the kids at school make fun of her?” The idea of me being bizarre to hasn’t stopped there though, unfortunately. However, it’s started to take a change in direction.

After adding several new piercings to my ensemble of body modifications, I eventually broadened myself to a new and considerably “outlandish” form of self expression, the tattoo. Writing this now, I just wanted to say that luckily for me, my parents were able to find a a new meaning for my eccentric taste and childlike imagination. Going out of my way to receive this tattoo, a completely unfamiliar form of body modification meant I was changing myself drastically. This fear only translated to one thought: I would never be the same. Being tattooed meant permanent “disfiguration,” to my parents, and that frightened them immensely. With their somber fear riding on my shoulder, in moved in my old pal anxiety. Would I regret this? Would my family be ashamed to be seen with me, or even worse, reject me fully? Making this conscious decision to permanently alter myself opened a new door of unfamiliarity, something so scary but something I wanted so badly at the same time. I argued with this little voice in my head, the voice that kept telling me that I wasn’t making a bad decision, and would still of course, be a respected member in society. This dream of mine, looking and feeling the way I wanted to unapologetically and fearlessly, gave me the the courage to make the decision to finally make the change. This new drive to bravely make conscious decisions for myself gave me a sense of empowerment and even security. My skin was my own, and I can bravely defend that idea. In getting tattoos, I am forever altering my identity and resisting the labels primarily associated with being an Asian female in today’s world.

So first, what is it about tattooing that’s so special to this project about resistance?

The tattoo on my arm in Davis is a nouveau form of self expression. To the myriads of people around me, it might be perceived in many different ways, depending on the individual is who’s looking at it. Those of you who are familiar with me know that in me is an immense appreciation for art. So tremendous that I even applied to UCLA as an art major 3 years ago. This blossomed into the supreme desire to be inked, having a permanent form of art to adorn on my body forever. I dealt with bullying in the past for dyeing my hair the range of the rainbow, but nothing felt like what I was about to do to my skin. Hair is always able to grow out and revert back to the way it was. Skin, however, was not. But the possibility of bullying didn’t scare me. It never scared me because it always came from doing something I wanted, and loved. In this case, it was the same, but not...the new audience was my parents, my respected relatives, my extended family...not my immature classmates from school.

Tattoos can have a lot of stigmas behind them. Stigmas come from a variety of individuals who interpret something in a certain light. Here in reality there obviously is a plethora of different perspectives one can interpret the tattoo as. Because of this diversity, I must connect what I learned in my anthropology class this fall, to the idea trying to be expressed in this blog post, that there is a multiplicity of ways we as a people can digest the things around us, depending on who we are as people, whether be in groups like socio-economical or individually, like “Asian American,” for example.

On a personal scale, the tattoo on my arm to me is a beloved form of self-expression. It is an area of my body that represents, or shows some indication about who I am and the things I love. It is a form of my identity that gives me confidence and comfort in my own skin, it makes me feel more beautiful, special, etc. But to others, it can be taken in a completely different light.

To authoritarians, like my future employers, it may look entirely different. These authoritarians, based on the previous history of tattoos, may believe that I may be harboring some criminal tendencies, may not take school or my education seriously, or am frankly––even a “good for nothing,” individual. This all depends on many different things, however, like what environment the authoritarian grew up in, what kind of environment they are surrounded by now, what their personal views on “x” and “y” are, etc. Because of this dangerous tendency, individuals like me who like to wear tattoos may be slightly more secretive, and get pieces done that are easily hidden. In places like Portland, in Oregon, however, tattoos are very common and popularized by the rising modernity scene. You can easily see a bunch of tattoos individuals hanging out at multiple joints in the city, all without a care in the world. This is because the city of Portland is open to this form of art, and has gotten moreso used to it by now. In other places, say maybe more conservative states where tattoos are less popularized, like Philadelphia as a friend once told me, tattooed individuals can be shunned, stared at viciously, and even treated with disrespect.

To older-generations, tattooing comes off as taboo and an indicator of poor-morals. Because tattoos are constantly shown off on criminals, adorned by gang-members, etc. These stigmas in tattooing have been constantly perpetuated by tattoo culture in criminalized areas, or jails and prisons. Those who spend some of their time in these institutions typically get tattooed by non-professional “friends,” who don’t use cleanly measures like sterilization. Those who get these “homemade tattoos,” can give tattooing a bad rep, because the public views these individuals as a whole image, a criminal with tattoos, so a person with tattoos will most likely have some tendency to do immoral things. Because of this constantly breathed idea, the tattoo to the public can give a lot of citizens anxiety. They can be immediately threatened by this individual who looks like they’re up to no good, and if they were to assume who the tattooed individual is, they would probably not reach for the guess of say, a doctor or a lawyer.

Likewise to the Japanese, tattoos are an indicator of a troublesome individual who is associated with some type of Yakuza group, or “gang,” in Japanese. Those who are dedicated to the lifestyle of their respective gangs in Japanese culture prove their loyalty by getting big tattoos spread all over their body, because obviously if you weren’t a dedicated member why would you A) subject yourself to that type of pain B) be committed to permanent body art for the rest of your life? Because of this traditional idea, Japanese people, although conservative already, are not able to be comfortable around tattooed individuals, and even go as far as banning tattooed individuals at public bath-houses, the “onsen,” they call it.

To give an even more extreme example, take tattooing during WWII. Jews who were captured and wrongfully imprisoned by Nazi concentration camps during the war were not only cruelly mistreated and tortured, but were also branded like caged animals. Jewish prisoners had numbers etched into their wrists in order to mark them as prisoners but also label them so they were easier to keep track of. This marking gave them a huge sense of shame and misery, and was forever a reminder to them of a nightmare so horrible they wish it didn’t really unfold. Because of this, Jewish people, as I noted when browsing on Quora this one day, are not at all interested in getting tattoos. They may not be so critical of others getting ink done, but for themselves, would never because of the terrible past and memories associated behind it.

To tattoo artists, on another note, tattoos are a form of art that they create, but also prosper from. The tattoo on my arm may look like a mark of criminalization on me to naysayers, but to these artists, the creation of the tattoo on my arm meant they were able to eat dinner or have a roof over their heads for another day. After meeting a couple artists while searching for the perfect artist for me, I learned a little bit more about the tattooing scene in their perspective. Lianna deFleur, a floral specialized artist in San Francisco, noted to me that tattooing to her is a form of valuable and beautiful expression. Every time one of her clients leaves with a new piece, she feels like she is giving the world another beautiful piece of artwork to be loved and cherished, and that all those who are marked by her all share a beautiful piece of herself, that she worked so long and dutifully to create. Likewise, because of those who want tattoos, the industry has grown so large and normalized that you can now see cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Portland full of tattooed individuals. The rising scene has given birth to an abundance of careers, whether giving ink or tool shops more business, or giving an artist more fame. These artists give rise to individuals who are selling certain materials: ink, tattoo needles, sterilization tools, spaces for rent, etc. Such a new industry has also gifted communities with more openness and awareness to the trueness of tattooing, that it is an art-form that shouldn’t be feared. While I usually don’t support capitalism and the monetization of everything, the monetization of the process of tattooing has gifted certain individuals with a new way of life, while blessing others in the process.

To other tattooed individuals, my tattoo may be a source of common ground, another way to connect to a stranger that they’ve never met before, even without ever speaking to them. I know that when I go out and I see a fellow tattooed person, I feel a little more connected and comfortable with them, because they understand the way it feels to be marked and forever changed by ink. There’s a quote that I heard that I believe is exceptionally true. It is as follows, “The only difference between tattooed people and non tattooed people is tattooed people don’t care if you are not tattooed.” I think this quote represents our population pretty well. When hearing the quote for the first time, I am reminded of American politics. This is because a lot of individuals who fight against something sometimes fight for things that don’t relate to them. For example, I can speak about the issue of marriage equality when talking about gay marriage. A lot of conservatives who voted against gay marriage argue that it is to protect the purity of marriage between a man and a woman, and to allow marriage to be in a different form would be allowing the sanctity of marriage to be at risk. Although allowing gay marriage to exist may not apply to the person directly who is voting against it, it hurts those that want it. Similarly to how people who aren’t tattooed despise tattoos and don’t want others to get them, although it doesn’t directly affect them. I say if it’s not hurting anyone to let it be. However, in this case I am no way trying to equate tattoo culture to the need for marriage equality, for those who feel like I am being insensitive, I apologize, and wanted to use a simple example, although not perfectly appropriate.

There is a great deal of types of tattoo in the community. Because of this, many different genres of tattoos have developed over time. From the homemade, branding types that scare people away, to other more recognizable types like “Old American,” tattooing. I think all the people who get the same genre of tattoo also feel a strong sense of connection towards each other, the connection through mutual appreciation of the same artform. In my case, I especially love blackwork tattoos, a tattooing style that places special appreciation and priority for black and grey ink only, without color at all. This style of tattooing to me, as a form of art, looks very crisp and clean cut. Other styles I especially love are florals. The different genres in tattooing allow smaller groups to form from the overall larger group, and allows individuals like me to seek out other people who also enjoy the same art form, again a part of tattooing that specializes individuality but also the seeking of mutual common ground.

After announcing to my housemate about the subject on my final project, he asked what about tattooing am I trying to write about? I told him that tattooing has so many different genres, and sub-genres, and subgenres of those sub-genres, for example. He noted to me, “Actually, I was just going to mention that. That tattoos can have so many different meanings. A tattoo can represent a positive, happy thing, but also a terrible negative thing. Like if someone has an anti-semitic tattoo sprawled largely across their backside.” I think this is true. While I for one try to always see the positive side of tattooing, there is a stigma for a reason. I have to admit that this is true. The problem of the stigma arises because some individuals choose to get tattoos that are hurtful, and are negative, and this hurts the community in a general sense.

Likewise, you could get a tattoo that is both sad and positive. Some individuals get the date of their loved ones deaths tattooed. This is both to commemorative in the best, loving way, but also melancholic and can be opening up to a sad memory, a bad thing. Tattoos can be viewed in so many different ways, but to me I want to try to alter it to be more accepted as less of a bad thing and more of an individual thing, like dyeing your hair for example.

The enormous stigma behind tattoos have created a rift between people who understand and perpetuate the culture and those who resent and fight against the culture. Let me talk to you about how tattoos fit in our world and how we fit in the world of the tattoo.

My tattoo was produced by an artist at Black and Blue Tattoo named Michael DeMatty. He first drew up a drawing and presented it to me, asking me how I wanted it tweaked, trying to adhere to my taste as much as possible. This is a time-consuming process that he needs to get right perfectly in order for the tattoo to exist in the most positive light. The drawing may take a long time, need a considerable amount of retouching, and may have many opportunities to change into something else. Most often busy artists charge a fee for a drawing that they use as a deposit to the tattoo, because they only want committed clients who will not back out and waste their time. After my initial consultation with him, DeMatty drew up my design, then stenciled it onto special tracing paper. On the day of it was his responsibility to adhere the stencil precisely and accurately onto my bicep so all the lines would match up as accordingly. This was a tiring process because the horizontal lines wouldn’t line up much of the time, and the stencil had to be redone time and time again. Afterwards, when everything was stenciled on and placed correctly, DeMatty started tattooing me, a process that took multiple tattooing needles of different sizes, widths, and amounts. All these needles were stabbed a gazillion times into the skin on my bicep.

The ink involved in my tattoo is from a laborer that DeMatty has sought out himself, the ink supplier is a trusted laborer and that creates ink that went from their own production line to now inside my skin, for the rest of my life.

Tattooing history has come a significantly long way. It went from being a practice in villages in Southeast Asia and even the earliest Native Americans to being a common form of self-expression in many countries and the beyond, in this case, the US. Villages used tattooing as a form of marking, status, and symbol. In the past it has been traditionally done with needles tied around sticks, dipped in ink that was made from mashed up flowers. It has it’s dark history, however, as a means to mark Jews during WWII, in concentration camps.

Nowadays, tattooing has evolved, because mine was made through the effort of a tattooing needle machine, which is automatic, and electric. The creation of the tattoo happens primarily in the shop, it sometimes originates from the ideas of the individual getting tattooed, but after the action has been completed at the shop, the tattoo is generally maintained on the person.

After I got my tattoo, I healed it with special burn victim ointments, like bacitracin. I kept it covered for the first weeks, and now I maintain the color with sunscreen, everyday.

The tattoo originated and inked into my arm in San Francisco, California, but it’s traveled to a plethora of places. It’s traveled to my hometown in San Jose, the cities on the way to Davis, California where I go to University. It has even traveled to Los Angeles and all the cities on I-5 N and I-5, so the cities in between.

Here is a picture of myself, staring at the Seattle sky during a great weekend in May. I wasn’t reluctant to wear a tank-top here because Seattle is more progressive than other places, and I happily and gratefully noticed that there were other tattooed individuals scattered across this city as well! I think my tattoo is simple enough that people won’t judge it very much, and if they do, I wouldn’t know what they would really say about it anyway. The three band tattoo sitting on my right bicep pays homage to Native American styles of tattooing. One that places special emphasis on lines. The three lines represent each member of my family: mom, dad, and brother. I would assume no one would really know this by looking at it, which is nice. I think it also looks really aesthetically pleasing, which is a good reason to get a tattoo too if you like it!

A Wide Angle View

Tattoos are generally scrutinized as a categorization, one that links criminal or suspicious looking citizens into a group as a whole, unfavored by most of society. However, tattoos also can mean a plethora of different things. In this case, tattoos as a form of historical art are a form of self-expression, and continue to act as a visual culture to all those who love and adorn them.

Tattoos, in a historical sense, were meant to mark tribe members with important symbols to shine light upon them as special group members. This could mean adorning the leader of the tribe with the most detailed and beautiful ink, or even to brand criminals as those who need to be taken note of and feared.

The economy behind tattoos as a form of art has grown tremendously throughout the past decade, from being labeled as an illegal act in the state of Massachusetts previously to be a bustering new business in the city of San Francisco, where tattoo shops are in full demand. While tattoos before looked simply like a way to brand those who broke the law, there now is a whole new meaning to the act of tattooing itself, one could look at it in a whole sense as a form of resistance against society, but on a more personal sense––as a form of belonging, one that allows us to express ourselves, but also be a sort of rite-of-passage to those who are old enough to get it done legally.

I for one, felt like I was breaking the stereotype culture of Asian women as submissive and obedient when I went into Black & Blue Tattoo in San Francisco to adorn myself with new ink. I got 3 bands done around the bicep of my right arm, in thus paying homage to the Native American tribal style of tattooing, one dating back to as far as 2000 BCE. This style of tattooing was prominent when the natives were tattooed, becoming a religious ritual, usually during war-time. The band style of tattooing was usually present to distinguish different tribes from each other.

To me, it meant personally to rid myself of the submissive stereotype but also be there to remind me of my family’s permanent impact on me, with 3 bands being for 3 family members––my mother, father, and brother. My parents at first, were not crazy about me getting tattooed. I thought to myself, that this was a choice for me to make. I loved the artistic side of tattooing, and wanted to be a collector, but was also afraid of all the prejudices society already has set up for me. Tattooed individuals are not looked at with the most equal and honest eye by society due to the general criminal stereotype. I think personally, with the general introduction of good-mannered, kind-hearted individuals with tattoos being present in society, there will be at least a small shift in the perspective of those who still view tattooing as a negative categorization of criminals, with my existence being as useful as possible.

So what does this all have to do with labeling and resistance?

I feel as though these two aspects of tattooing go hand in hand with each other. Tattoos, on one side are a form of categorization. Those who are tattooed are lumped together as a group, judged collectively in a lot of time bad ways, and are stereotyped as a group accordingly. At the same time, the idea that tattooed individuals are looked as a group has its perks as well. I mentioned earlier that when I meet a fellow tattooed individual, I feel a little more connected to this person, even if I don’t know them personally. This is because I feel as though the person also experiences the same judgements placed upon them by society as me, and because of that we can be empathetic towards each other. Likewise, when we are grouped together as a collective, I feel as though we can resist the stereotype together, not while acting as a group, but changing people’s of tattoos on an individual scale, making it better for the group in general.

Tattooing as a group can be seen as a special thing to help individuals relate and understand each other. While we can be judged harshly as a group, the same group is able to help each other feel and understand each other’s feelings and experiences, which I deeply appreciate. Knowing the stereotype for tattooed individuals and then taking heed this information and changing it by not being the stereotypical “criminal,” or “suspicious,” person will make our group look less daunting as a community. These little steps to resist the stereotype together are what I think can be considered as a new way to interpret the verb, “tattooing,” and “labeling,” Labeling our group as a whole may mean categorization, but it also is a means to help our group come together and resist together.

There is this mutual experience with tattooed individuals about the dilemma about openly showcasing your tattoos. We bond as a group when we know the annoyingness of people who intrusively come up to you to touch your skin or ask you what your tattoo means. We have this silent agreement in the tattooing community that those who come up to you musn’t be intrusive, disruptive, or too invasive to you as they see you. If they do, it’s fine for you to ignore their interaction if you wish. I feel that this is true, and some people don’t have respect for others space when they try to inquire knowledge about another person’s body modifications. This is a way for the group of tattooed individuals to understand each other.

The visual culture surrounding tattoos gives a whole new meaning to the practice now, than it did before. Before, labeling could be seen as a harsh way to judge a tattooed person, instilling upon them stereotypes that they didn’t ask for that may not accurately depict them. Nowadays, tattooed individuals are now in a community that expresses new principles. The tattooed community focuses on the sharing of visual culture through self expression. Tattoos are meant to portray an artist’s best work that also physically symbolizes something a person values, loves, or wants to remember, all in the form of ink.

In tattooed culture, it is wrong to copy another artist’s work, stroke for stroke. There is however, welcoming attitudes to inspiration from another artist, but it is the new artist’s responsibility to make the new piece unique and in a style individually connected to them, therefore keeping the work’s integrity. It is also a very important point to remember that “tattoos are not for today, they are for forever.” This rings true to those individuals who knock down a couple of drinks in a sitting and want to get inked. Artists refuse to ink these people, one because they are making a decision without being sober and therefore have impaired judgement, and two because alcohol thins the blood, making the individual bleed more during the tattooing process, which is dangerous.

There are a couple of conflicts in the community, however, about certain things. A lot of artists scoff at trendy tattoos, while others don’t really care enough for them to reject them outright. This is true for trendy tattoos like: native American dreamcatchers, feather tattoos, infinity signs, Chinese characters, etc. These trendy tattoos can sometimes be harshly judged in the community when an artist refuses to do them, a lot of the reason because society doesn’t respect tattoos that are cultural appropriation, which they shouldn’t be anyway. Those who get tattoos that appropriate another individual’s culture usually make fools of themselves, this is because they usually don’t get the right word they were trying to communicate tattooed. I remember watching a YouTube video on Chinese character tattoos where one individual thought it mean, “bravery,” but when they showed it to their Chinese friend they soon learned that it meant “refrigerator,” which I thought was both humorous and tragic...humorously tragic. On this kind plane, it is easy to see why some people don’t respect tattooing. If you are going to get another culture’s language permanently etched into your body, why not go through some research to get the write meaning instead of making yourself look like a fool? This creates a negative image on those who get tattoos in general.

There is also a firm understanding in the culture that novices should not tattoo professionally. This is because homemade tattoos give professionally done tattoos a bad rep, and make tattoos look bad, or “trashy,” and not respectable. Novices are supposed to learn from professionals by being “apprentices,” and must be recommended and backed by a professional typically to get a permanent position in a tattooing group. There is a special gripe in the community about “tattooing schools,” that artist are insulted by. Tattooing schools serve to simply turn tattooing into a monetized means of production. That is, those who want to start tattooing others to make money can just apply for some generalized class to start their new career. This is dangerous to those who perfected their art and have taken special time to develop their own sense of style, go through hoops to secure a shop, and have learned through the help of fellow tattooed artists. Going to a school for tattooing that doesn’t really care about your work or you individually as a person is a joke to the tattooing community. You can see this easily by reading up posts about “tattooing schools,” on your own.

The fact that there is rules in this new community makes the whole thing so much more special. You can easily see the form of resistance to the stereotypical ideas of tattooing and strip away the previous label placed upon it. The tattooing culture has grown so large that those who love the culture have made strong rules to live by to practice integrity, respect, and mutual understanding of each other. To follow these rules means that you are giving tattoos a new label, one that can connote respect, sensibility, and cultural awareness.

Tattoos as a form of art, contrary to the belief of group categorization, are obviously a way to promote individuality. Many of us individuals who choose to get tattooed look for unique artforms to get adorned onto our bodies. Because of this, you can see in the tattooing world that often tattoos are not repeated exactly as they are, not only because copying another artist’s work is wrong in tattooing culture, but because you usually want a unique piece.

Snake tattoos are common in tattooing culture. Why would anyone get a tattoo of a snake, you might ask? This is a time for me to give you some cultural awareness of tattooing culture. Snakes can be interpreted as vile beings to be feared, but to some, they are beautiful. One point is that snakes have to do with religious texts, such like the inclusion of the snake in the story of Adam and Eve. Secondly, in some cultures, snakes represent healing and rebirth. When a snake sheds its skin and grows into something new, it is like it is being reborn, and healed again into something new. You wouldn’t have really thought about this if you didn’t get an explanation right? It does make sense.

Likewise, when people get tattoos of say, scary symbols such as skulls, this is sometimes an expression of their lack of fear to death. People who are not moved by death sometimes get skull tattoos because they accept that life has it’s unexpected turns and you should live it to its fullest potential. I see that skulls get a bad rep in tattooing culture because some people think it’s a tacky symbol, but it’s there in the traditions of tattooing for a reason.

People are nowadays also placing special emphasis on floral tattoo designs. I see that many individuals think that flowers are beautiful, so why not let them wear them in the form of permanent art? I too stand behind flowers being a beautiful thing to tattoo, and support this movement completely. I love it. The image of a flower is also less scary to people who don’t understand tattoo culture, and therefore can help resist the stereotype of scary tattooed people, one step at a time. I think this movement of including tattoos that aren’t super traditional helps us relabel the idea of tattoos as less of a way to label someone in a negative way, but allow people to think that some people just like the way things look and want to wear them permananently.

So how does this affect me on a more personal scale?

For instance, I noticed you wrote at length about 'labeling' - how others label you, how you sought to relabel yourself, how tattoos can be a way of (re)-labeling, and also how you seek to escape labels entirely.

When I started growing up and noticing the realities of life, I noticed that everyone around me will judge me without my consent, no matter if I like it or not. This is not necessarily a reflection of who they are as people, although it can be, but I think is a simple and integral part of what makes us human. With this being said, I remember in high school sulking and being hurt over the bullying I incurred do to my taste in hair color. I routinely mocked by constant whispers around me when I came into class, and I especially remember those who called me names such as, “Crayola,” and “carrot-head.” While my classmates at school chose to judge me on that part of myself I chose to reveal, I noticed that some individuals who judged me prior decided to still try to be my friend and therefore try to get to know me. My best friend to this day was one of the individuals who thought my hair made me “odd,” and somewhat unapproachable even, but she chose to disregard that for the most part to get to know me personally. Through this, she was able to understand who am as a person and discard her previous idea of me. I want to work this way continuously to escape labels entirely, person by person.

To convert my parents to my side, I first started to warm them up to the idea of me getting a tattoo by slowly hinting at it, and showing them designs that I liked. They didn’t believe me at first, because to them, it was such a preposterous idea. No one in my family has a single tattoo. It is not spoken about, ever, and no one has dared or desired to get one either. I think in Vietnam at least, tattoos are not popular at all, and are simply a part of the idea of a typical street-gang member or institutionally jailed individual. Because of this, my parents weren’t keen on me also “branding” myself and making a choice that I could possibly regret my entire life. Sure enough, I realized that they were going to react this way, and chose to try to educate them instead of permanently resist and do what I want. I started out by telling them how common tattoos are nowadays and noting what percentage of my classmates had big and small tattoos, and also showing them multiple Instagram pages of tattoos, so that they would see how wildly common they are. I also let them know that employers nowadays are more understanding of body art, if it is in moderation. At the end of the day, they just wanted me to be comfortable in my own skin and not bullied or mistreated for being a certain way. I understood this and assured them that this was my dream, and if it would help, I’d get it in an easily hidden place, just in case.

Sure enough, everything ended up alright. I guess my parents are more understanding than others, but I’m glad I was able to convince them from downright rejecting it and saying no, to giving me their blessing, as long as I do my research and get it done at a reputable shop. My extended family however, is a different story. I haven’t gone out of my way to show my tattoo to other family members, who I don’t know as personally, and who I feel won’t choose to accept me in a positive way. I am still taking my chances with these people, and choose to hide it, at least until I’ve gotten a secure job in the outside world. I know that I cannot convince everyone to see my side of the field, but I will continuously try to change people’s ideas of me personally by acting in a different way than they expect me to be.

I admit, to get to know people on a personal scale is extremely difficult. If I were to try to befriend everyone who judged me and get close enough to them where they would learn that I am not “weird,” in a bad way or odd, is too time-consuming, difficult, and honestly, just unrealistic. However, I do want to make it a point to come across to every individual I have an interaction with to change their opinion of me just a little bit, just enough to make me seem like less of a stereotypical person. I go about this in my everyday life, when I’m getting coffee, when I meet a classmate for the first time, etc. At the beginning of a relationship, I usually try to escape from labels by firstly, covering my tattoo. This may seem backwards because I shouldn’t be hiding it, but I find that it is a strength of mine if I can allow myself to be known first, as a non-tattooed individual, and then later, reveal it, to not make it as big of a deal as it usually would be if they just met me for the first time and saw it.

I have this dream that someday people who are tattooed will slowly change the minds of others who think tattoos are are indicator of a person with low morals, etc. I honestly think that this can be accomplished on a small scale, one step at a time. I know that it may take years and years to get to this point, but I feel that if we slowly show others that we are normal, loving, caring, understanding, feeling people like themselves, people will slowly understand

#personal #tattoo #tattooing #project #art #anthropology #paper #creative #seattle #washington #explore #travel

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sunset-wishes-upon-hill · 7 years

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The Liars and Soothsayer (Previously known as ‘A Kiss To My Prince’) Chapter 1 (REWRITTEN)

A Kiss to My Prince series (Unchanged): FF

Chapter I: Timeslip Yuri

A/N: So this is a bit of an exclusive chapter for people on Tumblr as I won’t be updating the story on Fanfiction.net as of yet. But this is the rewritten version of A Kiss To My Prince for chapter 1 (yes, I have started to rewrite them) and I’m hoping to hear from my readers here about what they think about this chapter! Hope you enjoy this chapter!

“My name is Yuri Park. There was an incident and I woke up in 1887. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever’s happened, it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet. Now, maybe if I can work- out the reason, I can get home.”

“Ms. Katie George, your doctor will see you now.” The nurse called to the waiting area filled with awaiting patients. Majority of those waiting consisted of young men and women, some passed out on the floor from alcohol with their injuries presumably from alcohol-related incidents on Friday night.

A girl aged sixteen with blonde hair and brown eyes — stood up from the midst of the awaiting crowds. After what felt like hours of limping, her right leg was finally ready to give out and her knee buckled awkwardly, just managing to catch herself onto the edge of the chair before her face hit the ground.

A hand shot out to aid the girl’s balance, other hand massaged the ice pack against her forehead. Yuri wondered how the hell she ended up in the A&E at 2AM on Friday night, although technically it was Saturday. She briefly wondered if the concussion she suspected she has sustained was the reason for her hazy memory, until it slowly began to take shape as Katie handed her bag to be looked after and walked into the office.

They had been at their friend’s sleepover, and she barely heard Katie coming down the stairs. Yuri had bent down to give the dog a hug when there were loud ruckus tumbling down the stair with foreboding yell as she felt something hard connect with the back of her neck and head. The two of them ended up on the floor, with the poor dog’s leg stuck under them with their limbs twisted and sticking out in such way it could not have been natural. With the lack of first aid kit in the house, they made use of period pad and tampon to reduce the bleeding and ice to sooth the migraines. It wasn’t long before Katie complained of crippling pain in her ankle and wrist and so they headed to the nearest hospital. As they wait, others decided to venture out for food, leaving her and Katie in the waiting room. The passing by nurses seemed to do a double take before nodding their head impressively at their ingenuity, giving them a big thumb up.

She wasn’t sure how long the initial examination would take, but she quickly left the message to her other friends that she headed out for some fresh air. Yuri leaned against the railing, closing her eyes as she felt the drift against her skin.

Even at dawn, man-made lights still shone brightly lighting up the sky; large pumps of music escaping from nearby night clubs, brawling football fans as they shouted at the loss of their teams, wild and free teenagers having the time of their lives. She heard a sound, indicating she wasn’t alone and turned to the direction. To her right stood a woman in simple attire and for a moment, Yuri mistaken her for someone else were it not for her lavender hair. Her presence wouldn’t have alarmed her if not for how she was standing. She was standing on the far side of the barrier with nothing protecting her from falling onto the busy wet motorway. The ice pack she held dropped from her hand.

She was going to throw herself off.

Yuri wanted grab her and just pull her over the hand rail, but it was too high and if she try and just pull her over, the woman could have slipped and fell. So she spoke to her in panic:

“It’s going to be alright! WHATEVER IS WRONG, IT’S GONNA BE ALRIGHT!”

The woman turned around, her eyes almost smiling yet held unspeakable sadness. It was a look that was familiar. The woman couldn’t have been more than in her early twenties, and Yuri quickly put her arms around him from the other side of the barrier.

“It’s gonna be alright. I know it seems like it isn’t but whatever is wrong can be made right.” Yuri held her tight, pinning the woman to the barrier but even then Yuri knew if she were to jump, there was no way she could physically stop her from doing so. There was a nagging feeling she was familiar but she could not pin point just where such notion was coming from.

The woman’s finger touched her exposed arms and felt her skin hitch at the indescribable jolt. Her exotic coloured hair swished against Yuri’s eyes and at that moment, they both fell.

Yuri tumbled over the rail to agony filled promise of hard Earth grounds and her mouth open to let out a silent scream as they toppled to the group in sickening slow speed. She couldn’t close her eyes and felt her hot tears float to the sky. Then she saw it; a sudden blinding light that wasn’t like any other artificial, man-made entity.

“I’ll let you be the angel who makes the devil repents.”

There was a slight breeze. She could feel it tickle the strands of her hair. Who opened the window? The bed underneath her felt softer, almost like it was flexing under her weight. The breeze was a little more pronounced now too and she could feel the goose bumps on her arms start to rise. Birds tweet somewhere to the right. It sounded like it was in the room with her. She fought the urge to open her eyes and look for it. The air felt cleaner and nicer. Gone was the smell of burning wicks from the car fumes and sterile of hospital.

Then she felt an arm wrapped around her waist. Huh? Oh, it might be Katie or Anne or Alex or…wait she was in a hospital with Katie. Then she fell off the balcony. Was she in heaven? Is this what death was??

Shall we follow this ray of sunlight that shines itself to the inhabitants below? All right, but very carefully…

The Phantomhive manor is located in a mist-covered forest on the outskirts of London. Vast expanses of land contain the gargantuan building. A long stairway leads to the manor, outlined by a great quantity of bushes and trees. In addition, ruins and a rubble of stone border the area.

A huge fountain is established at the entrance of the tall manor. The building consists of a substantial amount of stories, in which each story upholds numerous rooms. The various rooms are furnished with elegant, luxurious furniture, and the Phantomhive household’s possessions and belongings.

The distinguished Noble family of Phantomhive’s morning event is..started off with early tea.

“Young Master, it’s time to wake up now”. Gentle clacking noise of tea cups being lifted from its silver, wheeled trays break through the curtained, quiet chamber, soon followed by onomatopoeia of lovely aroma tea being poured into dainty china.

“Today’s breakfast of poached salmon and mint salad has been prepared. Side dishes of toast, scones and campagne have been baked.” The handsome butler announced, lifting the silver dorm that covered the luxurious ambrosia, “Which one would you like?” Sebastian asked.

“…The scone…” Ciel drawled, slightly groaning as Sebastian drew the curtain to let in the sun light. Ciel flinched as he snuggled deeper into the bed. His arms found something to wrap around, soft and warm. He was answered with a feminine groan and snuggled deeper into him.

Swish—

Sebastian had pulled the cover up when he spotted long black strands leaking from the bed — after all what kind of butler will he be if he cannot notice a mere intruder in his Master’s bed. At the discovery, he could only let out an amused look.

Ciel turned around, startled at sudden movement at his sudden, ambiguous action by Sebastian before following his butler’s gaze and landed onto another figure in his bed.

The head of Phantomhive let out undignified yell, scrambling away from a woman who was currently occupying his bed wearing loose yet heavy looking grey muff and sheer black tights plastered to her legs. In her arms held a bag with intriguing design, with words “Paul’s Boutique” written onto the pink and black leather.

The pair noted her ethnicity as of Asian descendent like Lau, and Ciel grabbed his gun he always had beneath his pillow and slowly backed away until he was within a safe distance.

“Wake her up.” He coldly ordered, “How did she get in here? It is your job to make sure nothing like this happens!”

Sebastian frowned, confusion apparent in his countenance, “My apologies. I made sure no intruders could penetrate into the manor or your chamber.” The butler bent over just so slightly, reaching out with his long arm to give the slumbering girl a firm shake.

“I don’t have school…”

“I apologise for intruding your sleep, Ms., but how did you get into this room?”

Her eyes snapped open, blinking several times to make out the black bob in front of her face and she scrambled out of the bed in undignifying fashion as soon as she realise the pointed gun barrel. Instinctively, she backed away until she hit the wall all the while with both her hands up in surrender, “W-wait..d-don’t shoot.”

She didn’t have the time to look around the ornate room nor the person at the end of the weapon. Her eyes were glued onto the barrel with paralysing fear.

“Who are you? How did you get in here?” Ciel demanded in ruthless tone.

She refused to meet his eyes, although from the sound of his androgynous voice that was yet a man, she knew he was young.

“I-I don’t know! I-I mean I was at the hospital and I saw someone about to jump at the balcony and I tried to help her but she jumped and I went over and I’m..dead…” She ended the last word in whisper.

She heard the bang before she saw the muzzle light flashing as he aimed at the wall few inches away from her. Yuri twisted her neck to the side so quickly she’d have whiplash to avoid the bullet.

“I shall ask you again; who are you and how did you get in here? Who sent you?”

Yuri was frozen, her heart hammering painfully against her rib and felt her hair rise at the back of her neck.

“I..I..” She swallowed, feeling the tears gathering at the corner of her eyes, “M-My name is Yuri Park…I-I swear to God I’m telling you the truth; I-I was at the hospital and swear I fell off the rail – I swear, no one sent me! I don’t know how I got here! I’m sorry! Please believe me!” She was begging, tears freely flowing down her face as she attempted to make herself small before burying her face into her knees she brought up. She sniffed her sobs as her entire body convulsed with tremor with the effort to supress her wail.

“Young Master,” The older man spoke after several minutes of silence, “As bizarre as it may be, perhaps she is telling the truth?”

Ciel narrowed his eyes, searching for any traits of deception. It was hard to without looking properly at her face and reluctantly lowered his gun to his side, the safety unlocked.

“Search her bag.”

Sebastian wordlessly picked up the bag that had fallen on the floor when she proceeded to jump out of the bed and shook the objects onto the floor for his master to see. Various objects came pouring out of the said bag, most of which puzzled the pair further. The girl had still not looked up from her knee, as she sniffed silently.

“No weapons.” Sebastian confirmed, although he was fascinated by a medium sized white rectangular object with black screen compassing the majority of the shape.

“What is this?” The demon asked to the girl, and it took moment for her to lift her face from her arms.

Hiccuping in fright, she managed to ask, “Y-you mean my phone?” The man seemed surprised at her answer.

“Please don’t k-kill me; I promise, I won’t tell anyone. I’ll forget everything I saw; please let me go.” She mumbled pleadingly.

“Master?” He referred to the boy, still on the bed.

“You say you do not know how you came to be here, yes?” She noted aristocratic, clipped and controlled accent – a subtle but profound evidence of his social standing. The way he worded the phrases sounded almost unnatural. It was almost like hearing the Queen's annual speech.

She frantically nodded her head.

He sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, “Tell me, where do you come from then?”

Yuri was confused by the question, did he wanted her address? The country of birth?

“Um…I-I live in the Surrey…I-I live in New Malden…” She didn’t know what else to say, “It’s about 30 minutes by train to Waterloo.” She explained, “It’s near Wimbledon!”

“Wrong. It takes more than half an hour.” He raised his gun as if it affirmed of her lies.

“I-It’s true! It takes 30 minutes with National Rail!”

He frowned, “I have not heard of such company.”

Yuri was so confused, no that was an understatement; she was literally lost. It was obvious there was a bit of misunderstanding of what they know of the place. He looked familiar now that she had the time to look at him properly.

She blinked, no way. There was absolutely no way in hell. It couldn’t be…

“M-may I ask for your name?” Yuri ventured.

“Ciel Phantomhive, the present head of Phantomhive household.”

It felt as someone knocked the air out of her stomach in a cruel attempted prank. She let out a huffed laugh, unable to find word for the situation she was in.

“You can’t be…” She spoke unconsciously, earning a narrowed glare from the said Earl.

“I am quite sure I am who I am.”

“What year is this?” As idiotic as it sounded and she was sure it was judging from how they were looking at each other before back to her.

“1887.”

She didn’t speak for a long time until she stretched out her arm and opened her palm, “Can I have my phone?”

Sebastian handed her the white contraception.

She swiped the screen and clicked call button before dialling ‘mamu’. She held it against her ear, hoping even a single dial tone would be heard.

Nothing—

It automatically hung up and her hand limply fell to her laps, landing on the background picture of her and her friends for several moments until screen blanked into black abyss as if the battery has died. Only it wasn’t because she checked right before it shut off, the battery had a good 50% left.

It’s something that shouldn’t exist…

Yuri felt the air between them growing thicker, her trepidation mixed with their impatience and irritation.

“Will you believe me if I said I’m from the future?” She asked with hopeless tone. She left out the fact that she was in some fictional domain and that they were just drawings in the paper whose futures and actions were pre-determined.

“I’m considering it, yes.” Ciel revealed, if a demon existed, why not time travelling?

She looked up at him from the ground, ignoring the aching protests from her back and bottoms, “…What are you going to do?”

“It depends on what you know.” Ciel warned, a small smirk appearing at the corner of his full lip.

“…A-and if it’s something useful?”

Now he gave her his fully unconcealed smirk, jerking his head up to reveal both his eyes and she saw the one inked with demonic contract which his bangs had managed to hid until now.

Yuri swallowed her thick, dry saliva she hadn’t noticed had pooled inside her mouth.

“Sebastian, prepare some tea for our ‘guest’.”

The demon smiled and bowed, “Of course, master.”

#black butler #black butler story #kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji story #kuroshitsuji fanfiction #black butler fanfiction #ciel phantomhive #ciel phantomhive x yuri park #ciel x yuri #sebastian michaelis #sebastian michaelis x yuri park #sebastian x yuri #aktmp story #a kiss to my prince story #the liars and soothsayer

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sentrava · 5 years

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Books a Million, Part XXI: Memoirs, Chick Lit & Growing Up Different

Winter tends to be my favorite time to catch up on my reading. From the week of Thanksgiving until midway through January, everyone in the tourism industry seems to disappear—it’s as if conference season is over, their budgets have been planned for the following year, and they’re taking a very lengthy hiatus. I took the opportunity over the holidays and my birthday trip to Puerto Rico to whittle down my 2019 book list, just a smidge.

Here’s everything I’ve read in the past couple months in case you’re heading on a Spring Break or summer trip of your own soon and looking for a good vacation read of your own.

Man in the (Rearview) Mirror by LaRue Cook

I’m at that point in my career where so many peers and friends are publishing books, and I can barely keep up with reading them all. But when a friend sent me a link to LaRue’s book, I bumped it up the chain and immediately ordered the paperback instead of waiting for the Kindle version to drop. LaRue and I started as writers at the UT paper, The Daily Beacon, on the same day; I was 20, he was 18, halfway through his freshman year. We immediately became journalist friends, and I was soon promoted to features editor, he one of my most reliable writers. He later went on to be the editor of the paper after I graduated.

Our lives ran parallel for years; I worked a stint at Entertainment Weekly, and he took over the same job a year or two later. He and his girlfriend at the time, another of my close college pals, moved to NYC in my final months there before moving to California, so I got to spend some time with them as my neighbors while he was getting his feet wet in sports writing for ESPN. But then, he dropped off my radar. He was never on social media back then, despite being younger than me, and I often lose touch with people I can’t track via Facebook and Instagram. I now know that’s partially because he was going through his version of an existential crisis, and after a decade with ESPN, he quit, moved back to Knoxville and became an Uber driver. While doing this (and driving more than 5,000 passengers around town), he wrote a book—a memoir told through the parallel lives of his passengers. A read that covers so many topics in the span of 234 pages: racial inequality, sexual orientation, faith and religion, his own infidelities. It’s always weird reading a memoir by someone you know, as it feels a bit like your peeling back the layers of their soul. I’d love to write something similar someday, but am not sure I’d ever be able to approach it with such honesty as LaRue did. This is a great book for anyone looking for a non-fiction read that examines how losing your pillar at a young age—in this case, LaRue’s dad at 15—can go on to shape a person’s identity as a young adult.

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais

I’m still shook by this book. You know that it’s a powerful read if you’re still thinking about it two months later. I started and finished this book at the beach in less than 24 hours, and man, it was some heavy stuff.

Taking place in an 18-month span during the height of apartheid, Hum chronicles the lives of two very different heroines—a nine-year-old white girl whose parents are slain and a 50-year-old black woman who came to the big city to track down her rebel daughter caught up in the Soweto Uprising—and at the heart of the story, impresses upon the reader how no matter the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our religion or where we were born, no one is any greater or worse than the next human (and that good people do bad things and bad people do good things). Particularly poignant during the racial inequality happening still today, this book really tugged at my heartstrings and should be on everyone’s must-read list.

All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

I love me a good mystery, and All the Missing Girls is in a similar vein to Gone Girl and every Mary Kubica book I’ve ever devoured. It starts off with Nicolette, a 28-year-old teacher who had fled her small Appalachian town after high school to move to the big city, returning home to care for her ailing father—and confronting the ghosts of her past, specifically the disappearance of her best friend. Not long after she arrives, another young girl goes missing, and Nicolette makes it her mission to figure out what happened to her—and if it is indeed linked to the same missing girl from a decade prior.

Contrary to what other reviewers have written, I found the pace of this book quick and engaging, and those who like suspense will likely find it entertaining. The only thing I didn’t really care for was the erratic storytelling style in which the author kept jumping a day back in time to set the stage. It made it a bit confusing to piece together the timeline on the reader’s end. Overall, though, I’d read this book again and give it four out of five starts if I were still rating my reads.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

We’re never really told what exactly is wrong with Eleanor Oliphant; we just know from the opening lines of the book that she’s different. And that difference takes us through her life in a deadbeat job with no friends or family to call her own, a curious character who becomes overly infatuated with a rockstar she’s never met, to the point where she begins to stalk him, both at gigs and at his own home, and even thinks he’s her boyfriend.

Socially awkward Eleanor is always saying the exact wrong thing, and she’s never even aware she’s the butt of everybody’s jokes in the office. A chance encounter, however, brings her close to a coworker who she previously had written off as uninteresting: She falls into an unexpected friendship with Raymond when they come to the rescue of an older man who has fallen in the street and needs to be taken to the hospital. This book isn’t so much plot-driven, as it is about character development, and Honeyman is a master of that particular trope. Peculiar and uplifting despite its somber undertones—alcoholism, mental illness, child abuse—Eleanor Oliphant was one of the most unexpectedly endearing books I read in the past year. The cadence of Eleanor’s narrating takes a bit of getting used to, but once you insert yourself into her mind, reading in her voice becomes second nature.

The High Season by Judy Blundell

The premise of this book—an artist and gallery curator, Ruthie, dealing with a separation who longs to keep her life in a sleepy Long Island coastal town in one piece when everything around her seems to be falling apart—made me think this was going to be a beach read (or maybe the fact that it was actually set on an island did that). But it was a bit, well, sleepier than that. It took nearly halfway through the book until I even knew what it was really about: Ruthie’s failed marriage, her career crumbling at the hands of her board and coming to grips with everything changing around her, including the loss of her home and her daughter, who is midway through high school. There was a socialite aspect to this book I kind of liked when the Hampton set arrived in the North Fork for the summer; it brought a little Sex and the City edge and scandal to what was dragging on as a mundane novel to that point.

In the end, this book was fine; not great, not terrible. I liked the art gallery aspect of it; the fact that SVV and I are part of so many groups and on various art boards these days made the book a bit more relatable. If I still gave ratings, this one would get two-and-a-half stars: very slow in parts, but enough of a story to hold my interest till the end.

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillroy

The Wedding Date is, hands down, one of the worst books I have read ever. I am still shocked it got such positive ratings on Good Reads and Amazon—does no one read for content anymore?! I stuck with it kept waiting for the plot to develop and … nothing. In the opening pages of the book, Alexa meets Drew in an elevator, then soon after agrees to be his fake wedding date to his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. The two fall into an on-again, off-again romance, and there’s just no storyline AT ALL.

I never read any of the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, but I imagine it was a lot like this: heavy on the sex scenes, light on the content. No thanks, not my jam. It’s a shame, too, as this could have been a powerful tale about interracial relationships and the trials faced by both side, but instead it was just plain garbage.

When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger

If you loved The Devil Wears Prada, you’ll be happy to see that Lauren Weisberger is back many years later with another follow-up tale that chronicles Miranda Priestley’s assistant Emily Charlton as she navigates life’s changes after her time at Runway. (Side note: Somehow I must have missed the second in the series, Revenge Wears Prada? Anyone read it?) Emily is a fixer, an image consultant of sorts for the Hollywood set, and when her career starts to falter, she takes a job in Greenwich, Conn., trying to help a former supermodel navigate a scandal involving her senator husband while also suffering life in the suburbs.

I’ve read every other book of Weisberger’s, and while none can compare to Devil, this one is satisfying for anyone who loved the original.

Crazy, Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

I’ll admit that I had no desire to read this book until I saw the movie trailer. Then, I immediately signed up for it at my local library, but was approximately 368th on the list, no exaggeration, so it took ages to land in my inbox. And when it finally did, it was worth the wait—nothing at all like I expected.

Rachel Chu is a professor at NYU whose boyfriends Nicky invites her back to Singapore with him for his best friend’s wedding; little does she know, his family is basically Singapore royalty. Despite the fact that she’s Asian-American—she never knew her father, but her mother was a Chinese immigrant—many members of Nick’s snobby family doesn’t give her the time of day, particularly his mom who is out to destroy their relationship. What follows is a fascinating look into how the upper crust, the social-climbers for whom dropping a cool million on a pair of earrings is an everyday occurrence, live—private planes! private clubs! private islands!—in one of the world’s most extravagant, over-the-top cities. One of my dear friends is a Singapore native, and I fact-checked much the book with her—she says it’s very accurate to the 1% there and even knows the families upon whom the book is based.

I then watched the movie on a recent flight and was equally pleased by it. I suppose next up I’ll be reading the second and third installments of this trilogy—please tell me they’re as entertaining as the first?

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

You know the kind of book you think is going to end one way, then midway through, you’re hit with a whammy and completely left off-guard? That’s The Last Mrs. Parrish to a tee. Amber Patterson is a con-artist who weasels her way into heiress Daphne Parrish’s world of excess by becoming her friend in Single White Female fashion—later going as far as trying to become her, attempting to take over her husband and her home. The book ping-pongs between narrators, both Amber and Daphne, and there’s really no way to tell you anymore of the plot of Amber’s metamorphosis into Daphne without spoiling any of the zingers, of which there are many. Go. Read. This. Book!

I’m really, really hoping The Last Mrs. Parrish gets made into a movie starring (or produced by) Reese Witherspoon.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

Oh my, I LOVED This Is How It Always Is. I didn’t know what it was about in the slightest, but so many people recommended it, that I immediately requested it from the library. Based on Frankel’s own experiences with having a boy who early on began identifying as a girl, this book chronicles a set of five brothers, the youngest of whom always felt different. When this feeling becomes evolves into exploration—wearing dresses, putting on makeup, playing with dolls—his parents begin to realize it’s more than just a phase. So they take steps to letting their son become their daughter by moving across the country and completely resetting their lives.

At the root of this story is the message that all families have issues, all families keep secrets—it’s how they choose to deal with them that sets them apart.

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Currently I’m reading The Paris Secret and A Gentleman in Moscow, neither of which have really grabbed my attention, but I’ve also got Bad Blood, Becoming, Pete Buttigieg’s Shortest Way Home and Far Away and Further Back, a memoir by my friend Holly’s dad. I guess it’s a non-fiction kind of reading month over here!

What have you read and loved so far this year?

Books a Million, Part XXI: Memoirs, Chick Lit & Growing Up Different published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

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waynebomberger · 5 years

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Books a Million, Part XXI: Memoirs, Chick Lit & Growing Up Different

Here’s everything I’ve read in the past couple months in case you’re heading on a Spring Break or summer trip of your own soon and looking for a good vacation read of your own.

Man in the (Rearview) Mirror by LaRue Cook

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais

All The Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

The High Season by Judy Blundell

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillroy

When Life Gives You Lululemons by Lauren Weisberger

I’ve read every other book of Weisberger’s, and while none can compare to Devil, this one is satisfying for anyone who loved the original.

Crazy, Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

I’m really, really hoping The Last Mrs. Parrish gets made into a movie starring (or produced by) Reese Witherspoon.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

At the root of this story is the message that all families have issues, all families keep secrets—it’s how they choose to deal with them that sets them apart.

**********

What have you read and loved so far this year?

from Camels & Chocolate: Travel & Lifestyles Blog http://bit.ly/2Ghl547

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