#for some reason i associate it deeply with college and the ex

[liz-and-the-blue-bird]

Good evening to me

Since I've gotten some new followers: "Good ___ to me" indicate long personal posts. You don't have to read them ofc, they're mostly for me down the line.

This is kind of a weird one, it's mostly reflective stuff today. I don't usually make these without a lot of negative or at least melancholic emotions to work through. Regardless, I want to stop writing about the recent ex, but a lot of this is going to be tangential to her, so she'll pop up a few times. However, I want to focus on some personal thoughts that I've been thinking about.

Here's a song.

Right at the end of February, I took an OCEAN test or a "Big Five Personality" test. This is actually unusual among personality tests, it is actually supported by Psych research. Results tend to not change over a long period of time, etc. etc. You can take it yourself here, and be sure to share with me your results! I'd love to see them. In the meantime, here are my results:

The Extraversion and Openness to experience being so high is unusual, I think. It means a lot of what makes me comfortable involves art and people, or perhaps as an extension of that, expressing myself and communicating. With this context in mind, I've started to look back at my personal history. Moments where I'm sad or melancholic, I tend to write. When I was very young, it started with poetry, but now it has evolved into these journal entries. And I guess the reason I prefer to make them public is because of that extraversion, that longing to communicate with people my ideas or emotion.

Speaking of, I found a bunch of old notebooks the first week of March. So I've been reading through them all. And by a lot, I mean a lot:

And then, even older notebooks.

You can tell these are older because I doodled things on them. I never doodle anymore.

The first batch, the moleskins and stuff like that are primarily journals. Or at the very least, notes on what happened. The one that is open actually started 4 days after the ex 8 years ago. After a week of being sad and noting every single thing that has been happening, it abruptly jumps 8 months to me complaining about something else because I was not a very consistent note taker.

Meanwhile the one with the bird on it is actually a poetry notebook, before I started preferring to write exclusively online aka in the tumblr editor. The last poem written in there is Sucks. Then I stopped writing poetry for a very long time, and a lot of my writing energy became these journal entries, as well as other stuff on this blog, usually regarding anime.

The older notebooks, the spirals, are pretty much all poetry notebooks back from middle school and early high school. Though there's a few where I just doodled a bunch. They date all the way back to end of middle school.

But the poems SUCK. Like they're REALLY BAD. Most of them are actually on DeviantArt however, so they actually had an audience. Had.

I enjoyed looking through them. Interestingly, a lot of the love poems in them are reference to my first first girlfriend in middle school/high school. There was even a photo of us from back then, which was a big surprise. I don't remember much from her other than, well, making out a lot. I liked making out. I still do, but it started there.

We were a problem. We made out on all the band trips home. We would be late to band practice because I had brought her to a quiet corner of the school to just make out with her straddling me or me grabbing her butt. We made out so much in the practice rooms that the band directors ended up putting up signs in the band room saying to limit PDA ("no purpling" I think is what they said).

But I digress. I don't know her anymore. And she has such a common name that I wouldn't be able to stalk her if I wanted to.

Here's an indie song I just learned about and have recently been obsessed with.

I already kind of feel normal. I have spikes down but I've started waking up at 7/10 instead of 3/10 and winding up. 7/10 is about my default state. 10/10 is like... On a date with a girlfriend who I know is excited to be with me. 1/10 is trying to decide if life is worth living. 7/10 is "would dance to One Direction if it started playing right now".

I had a moment about a month after the break up where I just had a really bad breakdown. It was a combination of some more bottled up thoughts about the relationship that I had trouble finding a reason to write down or tell anyone and how poorly I had been taking care of myself and my surroundings because of my mental state. And I told it all out to a very old friend of mine. She comforted me but she said something that has made me feel better the most since the break up happened.

"But the fact that you're here, telling me this in this moment, just shows how much you cared and how much you can care for people."

It made me feel better. A lot better.

My capacity to care.

I care about a lot of things, very deeply, and often for very little reason. Stuff like the most efficient route to work, or my specific boba order that tries to get the "most drink per drink." How I tend to pause and stare at the sky for no real reason other than it's there and I won't see another like it. How I overthink things and memorize useless things. But this is the first time that that I've been told and thus realized, that it is no weakness or weirdness.

It's a strength. It's just me. A tremendous capacity to care.

I've been holding on to that ever since. I hope I don't forget it. Because from my old poetry and journal entrees, I tend to let girls and myself gaslight me into thinking that me caring about them so much, "too much" is a fault of my own. It isn't.

It isn't. It isn't. It isn't.

It is simply me.

But anyway.

I've started talking to a new girl. I've made it clear I just got out of a relationship, just to be fair to her, and tbh I'm not super certain on her, but it feels like I just want to see where this goes. I just really really want to meet people right now.

I think I have always had this fetish for nostalgia. Where I couldn't fall in love with anyone who I hadn't known for a long time. I think I learned about this very recently, and was why I was so aromatic until I re-met the ex. When I realized it, I started thinking I needed to grow out of it in some way. Especially if I'm actively trying to meet someone new. It's not that I wouldn't open up to people, I've always been a chronic oversharer (see, um, this entire tumblr post series), but rather I wouldn't feel supremely comfortable with people until I knew them for years.

But then a friend told me that my music taste is nostalgia. After I linked her that song I just linked. Because a lot of songs I send to her have this nostalgic feeling, even between different bands, genres, languages. Sometimes it's sad nostalgia, sometimes it's happy nostalgia, but it's definitely a longing for something deep and sentimental.

And I had just learned about that song.

This changed my feelings towards my "nostalgia fetish." I don't think I am looking for people who I have known for years. It just so happens that lot of my closest friends are that because I'm old and that's just how friends are when you're old. But I think it's moreso I'm looking for someone who has this same sentimentality. This same depth of emotion when looking at something old or close to them. My fetish for nostalgia isn't nostalgia for the person, but nostalgia in the person.

At least, I hope so.

Whatever, I'm looking forward to meeting new people.

Last song.

Many years ago, I remember the first time I felt normal after that break up. It was like 10 or 11pm and I was bringing someone home. They lived in Round Rock but I lived in downtown Austin, since I was a UT student at the time. After dropping them off, I still had like a 20 minute drive and I had just learned that The Summer Set's album, Legendary, had a deluxe edition, which that song I just linked is a part of. I look them up on youtube and hit play.

And on that drive home I found peace, somehow. I remember stopping before getting to the highway, next to a unkempt grassy field, and standing there, looking at the sky. I missed the sky and stars. I missed that hour drive home from her house when it was getting dark and you could see the constellations because I was between 2 medium sized cities. I missed that bumpy road that seemed perpetually under construction and twisted and winded and didn't make sense. I was a lonely boy who didn't have a place that felt like home and didn't know where he was going to end up. But I knew and, at least in that moment, was fine with it.

I still am that boy. But that constantly under construction road got finished in the past 8 years. That starry sky was gone, I noticed, from our drives to Austin together—too many small towns and buildings had popped up, too much light pollution. I thought I found a place person like home but it was a dusty extended stay motel that I ended up staying at for 5 months, with too high of a rent and a crummy landlord.

Last time I felt over her, I remember saying that my daydreams no longer had a girl on my shoulder. I felt really aromatic. Really antisocial. I became an island. And I don't know if I'm trying to replace her or what, but I don't think that will happen this time. I might be fine without a partner, but I know I am better with one. I know I'm ready.

For anything, really.

#the kyoukai no kanata gifs are important to me too #for some reason i associate it deeply with college and the ex #i have weird associations i think #i mean i describe songs with taste flavors #when i was in uni i made playlists named after drinks #anyway i digress #to me #this might be the last one for a while #thank you everyone who spends the time reading these #as well as anyone who just spends time interacting with me #i consider you all friends

[m0tel6mxzzy]

here’s how euphoria s3 can still work:

ngl if euphoria has an s3 i just wanna see all the girls happy in therapy and developing healthy repaired relationships and nate suffering. they need some succession writers pulling cousin greg succession whump levels of pathetic. make that man a loser as kat knew. not bc he isn’t living up to his expectations but bc he feels no shame about the harm he’s caused others. also, more interaction w elliot and nate just awkwardly in college altho i hope elliot meets a nice guy like a jock similar to who derek was and despite their differences, they grow to find happiness. maybe someone straight lace like lexi but social anxiety-ridden like rue and struggles to communicate, but in times of stress blurts out the truth and elliot just laughs bc he knows and is deeply intuitive.

like so far even when i’m in college nate is not relatable, and in fact the moment u get here you’re surrounded by ppl who are sometimes more advanced than u and i wanna see him crushed under that while refusing to improve and it killing him in this graphic, gory manner with intense greek mythological creature horror effects while the girls are motivated in whatever their choose to do w their lives but also make efforts to repair their relationships to one another.

the aesthetics revert to this glittery s1 while cassie adopts a darker, more effy stonem look but simply “darker and messy” but not fully emo like kat was, while dressing how she truly wants to dress w/o influence of maddy, but also in more complex mixed layers and patterns. lots of dark blues, maroon reds, blacks, greys, and silvers. some vivienne westwood archive looks that sounds cute and lexi wore a miu miu dress lol and bc cassie is now embracing her body but for her own sake and not anyone elses w/o feeling like she has to compensate to just exist. for once, she lets herself exist and dress as she wants even if others make fun of her or find it over the top, but it’s her.

and i’m assuming cassie finds friends who don’t give a shit abt her past w the leaks and in fact affirm she was a victim in that situation by those who manipulated her. the context of this is connected to kat, and rue narrates the negatives of what lat went thru similarly and closes the gap w her by acknowledging her presence (which levinson sounds scared to do) now that barbie is no longer present in the show.

also jules and rue seem to have mended things but i hope they talk bc a lot was left unsaid when they didn’t speak. cassie also needs to apologize to maddy bc it’s clear a part of her regrets her actions (ex: flaunting maddy’s abuser in her face) altho cassie is now part of nate’s abusive cycle and some of it is out of her control and she feels lonely, and knew inside that maddy and her family held that support nate and his disaffected parents could never replace. she does need to find friends outside of maddy tho bc part of her feels like she can’t always admit the truth to her, and college is the perfect atmosphere for new friends who acknowledge but don’t hate the old you.

it’s clear cassie never liked nate and liked the idea of someone who disregarded her past (even if she doesn’t know he was in on the reason the entire school demeans her) and i’d also like rue and lexi being roommates. lexi might be a writer but consider something else more “practical” like a stem field, and rue is undecided but considers becoming a child psychologist. i see jules as an artist that often brings awareness to childhood psychiatric abuses in her art as she grows popular, and moves to ny w maddy eventually

maddy and jules remain friends, and maddy decides to leave in east highland but adapt to college there first, as all she needed was a transition from her traumas associated w high school, and majors in fashion design, marketing, and fashion sustainability while also acing math bc surprise suprise this girl remembers everything. cassie i’m not so sure of, i think she’d be an excellent public speaker (obviously lmao) but i’m not sure what career she’d map out

***also nate’s secret brother, tyler, and anna are addressed

#my thing w the show is that a lot of the characters are multi dimensional on the drawing board #but levinson often has this pretentious or repetitive execution that defeats the purpose of whatever societal issue he was trying #to commentate on #euphoria hbo #rue bennett #jules vaughn #cassie howard #maddy perez #elliot euphoria

[fabien-euskadi]

12, 34, 42

12.Who are five (or more) people you want to hug right now?

After a period of deep isolation and foods, I guess I wanted to hug all those I am close to. Not just five of them, all of them. Including a friend that, right now, became an ex-friend - I want to say "I am sorry for the way I said it"; I want to talk endlessly with her about things we absolutely needed to talk about. Sadly, I fear that will not be possible.

I also wanted to hug my cat, Lenina, who ran away from home during last week's storms. I know she is scared somewhere, in the cold, with nothing to eat, hidden under a rock or under a tree, absolutely petrified with fear. I hope she can find her way back home.

I wanted to hug my grandma, for I know this may be the very last Christmas she is with us. But I said it about 2021 Christmas as well...

I wanted to hug an old friend (we were partners in crime during college) that I don't see for quite a long time. I really wanted to visit her in 2023. It's been quite a long time, we need to have lunch some of these days.

And...

I also wanted to hug you, anon. Just because I felt like it. Even if I have no idea of who you are. Consider yourself hugged.

34.What’s your favorite flower?

Les Fleurs Du Mal - The Flowers of Evil.

Now, seriously. All flowers are wonderful, all flowers are my favourites. Even dahlias - and I had good reasons to hate dahlias, but dahlias are not responsible for the fact that I associated them with lesser people whose existence I would rather forget.

42.Tag 5 of your favorite blogs

I am deeply sorry, but I am not going to choose just five. It would not be fair - or polite - for all I would inevitably leave behind. I don’t want to do that, that’s not me.

Yet, I shall tag you, anon. Because you sent me these asks.

Thank you very much, anon - and may this week be full of happiness for you and for all those you love :)  😉

[ssawboness]

do tell about Percy and the ghost they are haunted by

GAH i'm so glad you asked!!!

tw/cw under the cut: cannibalism, murder, talk of paranoia and delusion, etc. it all reads as much edgier than i intend it to be, but i can assure you the rest of the universe that i've placed the two in is MUCH less serious than this.

for anyone that doesn't know, this is percy! they're nineteen years old and was a medical student throughout the years leading up to their untimely but ultimately deserved death. they're my tf2 medicsona, and most of the other characters involved with them are also mercsonas to some degree, besides (most of) team bastille. the floating thing depicted as coming out of the lettering is kenneth, kenny for short, their first victim and ex-roomie turned poltergeist.

i developed a week-long hyperfixation on cannibalism and its cons, alongside associated diseases, and in that dark period of my interests, the temporary stain on god's green earth that we now all know and love to be percy emerged from the depths.

to put things simply, percy is a cannibal. they're deeply delusional, stemming from severe trauma and other unnamed mental issues, and their incessant desire to consume humane flesh and organs alike stems from a paranoia harbored deep within their brain since early childhood: as human lives are so short and the last caches of australium were emptied out just before they were born, they've deluded themself into thinking that the only way to keep themselves going... is to consume human hearts.

their paranoia festered strongly in their later teenage years, as the stress of coming of age was getting to them, and dorm life in college was just as lonely as they'd expected it to be when they entered. much to their chagrin, they and their roommate didn't get along, only exchanging a few words every morning or asking where something went, effectively isolating them even further. this drove them to their breaking point, and they finally snapped, committing their first murder; the scar on their face, accompanied by permanent nerve damage and an even more permanent ghost roomie, was the result of a fierce struggle. it was thoroughly planned; had they been caught for it, they would have been charged for first degree murder in a polite open-and-shut case. however, they weren't, for... obvious plot armor reasons.

kenneth, having been diagnosed with creutzfeldt-jakob disease only a month before being murdered, could only laugh from the grave as percy consumed his brain and as a result contracted kuru.

following the canon chronological string of events, percy doesn't live long after the symptoms start showing. maybe they die in just a month, maybe it takes five years of haunting for the illness to finally begin to fester and take control of their brain. who knows? it's all convenient for comedic timing.

backstory aside, let's talk about kenneth and percy's dynamic. before that, however, i should mention that i cannot see them being in a romantic relationship, unhealthy or not, to any degree. if you want to interpret it that way, sure! but just know they have no romantic chemistry because they genuinely hate each other and also i am smiting you where you stand.

after showing my boyfriend the concept art i'd done of my scoutsona whilst at work, his immediate thought was that of a comparison between percy and benrey from hlvrai. he's not entirely wrong, but i only realized the similarities a moment too late, so it's too late to change it i suppose. this was also before i'd decided that all my mercsonas' character roles would be correlated to each other in one way or another, for, again, comedic effect.

kenneth was also kind of fucked up, but instead of dissecting animals and eating them, he just hung out with other guys and got stoned when he didn't have to attend a lecture. he never saw much point in life, being a by-the-books historical nihilist, so he sought to enjoy himself as much as he could before it came to a close, which was much sooner than he'd have expected it to be.

this being said, what would be his motivations for staying back on an earth that never treated him kindly instead of sleeping for all of eternity, or better yet, playing checkers with whatever god was in whatever afterlife he was destined to go to?

the answer? spite.

being a ghost and all that, bystanders can't see kenneth, so he strives to make percy look as utterly insane as possible in public: yanking his hair, loudly singing in his ear, or just generally being a nuisance. he floats around being a cunt all day, but once percy dies, he'll probably be left alone. maybe not the best choice for your all-of-eternity afterlife vacay, but he'll find a way to make it work.

thank you again for the ask! i'll expand on the rest of the less gritty aspects of the team bastille universe lore if prompted.

#stoop.txt #long post #stoop asks #stoop ocs #my ocs #percy #kenneth #team bastille #tf2 #tf2 ocs

[melonisopod]

My “leftists who believe in predestination” post is making the rounds again and I guess the reason people are taking issue with it is cause my wording comes off as very over-generalizing. It’s a problem I noticed especially in leftist circles, and I think the reason it’s less of a problem on the right is because they’re very willing to recruit people to their side, so long as they get their foot in the door. Leftists are understandably more weary of moderates who are likely to be swayed and I think that’s a reason they tend to be more austere.

But the problem with that is it leaves no room for error, particularly with regards to ex-conservatives who genuinely want to be better. That “Personality predates ideology” post bugs the shit out of me because you’re telling people who were raised in often heavily isolated conservative upbringings that they just must have been awful people and not, you know, raised in a bad environment. Imagine telling someone who grew up deeply religious with internalized homophobia that they must have been always a bigoted person and not conditioned to internalize bigotry before they’ve even figured themselves out.

And that itself I noticed is a trend more associated with college town lifelong liberals who grew up in better environments who are, ironically, very scared of people raised with a different belief system than themselves. It’s not necessarily a universally leftist/liberal thing but it’s definitely consistent with leftist circles to a growing degree, as more and more people become radicalized and more celebrities are showing their asses.

I’ll use JK Rowling as an example. There’s some debate over whether she was “always a terrible person” or was simply spurned into radical trans-exclusionism by her looney fans harassing her, and I think the answer is that while her heart was in the right place she was still flawed and refused to check herself. She always took a rather flippant attitude towards backlash that geared more towards doubling down on her convictions rather than examine them and why they might have been wrong. And it was that flippant, stubborn attitude of “always being in the right” that pushed her towards an extremist form of bigotry.

(There’s also her casual racism antisemitism and fatphobia that no one gave a shit about up till recently which again, I say is a problem she never bothered to check, and it wasn’t up to anyone but herself ot check those behaviors, but it ultimately did lead to a mentality of policing bodies she felt were “wrong” without questioning why she had any right to police someone’s body or declare the “wrongness” of said bodies)

This is getting to be a long post but my point is that the ability to examine oneself and challenge one’s beliefs is a key to avoiding falling into bigotry, and realizing that also people can change over time. There is no delineation of immutable “good” and “bad” people, there are no innate qualities which relegate you to have always been either “good” or “evil”. People are far too complex for that. And this is something we all need to realize, particularly with people willingly leaving bigoted spaces to recognize their past mistakes and wanting to become better (and conversely, formerly “good” people radicalizing to the alt-right spaces).

#long post #morality #politics #discourse

[crybabysunflower]

I was thinking about how I would not have gotten into Mystic Messenger without the Given anime even when I knew about its existence even before I got into Given itself.

I actually even tried to get into mysme back when it first came but my old device could not support the file, I again tried to play it on like January of 2019 but because I did not know how to play and was like collecting hearts from everybody and also because of school i missed out alot I ended up getting the casual bad ending and I never touched it again since

UNTIL it was mid 2020 I was really into Given and I had a friend whom I had befriended because we both love Given also happen to be a big fan of Mystic Messenger and their favourite character was Yoosung. Now back in 2019 I particularly was not attached to anyone I used to like Seven out of the five because I liked the way he looked and thats all. Since that friend loved Yoosung so much I decided to pursue him first.

It was also the time when I was really really into making posts where I combined both of my biggest interests (kpop and anime) and made posts where I linked them together. For example:- associating songs with certain aspects of the anime's plot and making posts when I found a certain anime character reminding me of a certain kpop guy I am fan of. Now while Mystic Messenger certainly is not an anime, it is however pretty big among anime fans. (I still do them occasionally)

So when I was doing Yoosung route I realised how similar he is to my bias of my favourite kpop band (Kim Wonpil of Day6) and that made me love him alot. Also, Yoosung was not the only one who is similar to one of the members of my favourite band, I found Seven to be pretty similar to another (now ex) member of the same band.

Also not just that, I also related to Yoosung's character back then due to the situation I was in, it had been like some months since one of my friend died from her illness and I also was not getting chance in any decent colleges despite getting a high score and ended up being stuck in my home city with my parents. So I related to him with his grief and the feeling of being stuck while everyone moved away and having no aim for future.

Grief was also one of the reasons why I also connected with Given's Mafuyu Sato deeply but to be fair Yoosung gave me a different kind of comfort than Mafuyu did.

With Mafuyu I solely connected because we are very similar personality wise but with Yoosung, personality wise we rather differ alot but there is a comforting warmth about him. He has severe depression from the events and is hopeless about his future but, he is well a natural optimist who tries his best to see positive in situations and in people, he sees the good in others first before seeing the bad in them. He is depressed but he tries his best to be happy with whatever he can with what he has. He is also very exceptionally kind and selfless, (something the fandom barely credits him for). He is like a blanket, and a warm cup of coffee on an extremely cold day in December. Mafuyu on the other hand feels like a "mini me" I want to make happy and to protect.

Its been two years, since those days, while I still love Yoosung, I started to realise that we might not really be compatible as a couple for a variety of reasons and now I wish he was my best friend because I need a friend more than a love interest.

#mystic messenger #yoosung kim #saeyoung choi

[lets-talk-spirituality]

People think sex is everything when they haven’t had a lot and because society tells you it’s this thing that validates you.

The biggest lie women ever believed from men is that being desired sexually gives us worth. Dudes did that so assholes can still get laid since our self esteem has been destroyed.

Men aren’t shit, I promise and the sooner you accept this the better. Sex with someone you don’t care about is empty usually. It’s just to fill a need. I can share a poem on my feelings if you want.

Yes! People conflate sex with intimacy. A lot. Especially men. You don’t want to have empty sex. Promise.

////////

1⁰- wow i'm so glad i found you :) so casual sex is overrated. I think it must be amazing because people loooves doing and bragging about it 🤪 i feel embarassed for being inexperienced and i fear my future partner making fun of me or the sex with me not being good as the sex he had with others🥺 like comparing.

2⁰- i had a coworker who used to project her insecurities onto me, this was one of the reasons she treated me like I was inferior, she would get a man every saturday, but the male coworkers (she said she hooked up with 3, we were in a company, with multiple sectors) i don't want to say i'm better than her at all but i felt like the men respected me more(?) they never even liked to curse in front of me, immediately they say sorry. If you have high standards, is a way of being respected, don't you think?

3⁰ ah, men are far from going to heaven but I've never had an experience that makes me score DAMN MEN ARE SHIT, I hate harassment, I hate being at the bus stop. The way they look at me is scary, my facial features convey naivety and delicacy, which makes me wonder if they think they can do anything with me easy. One of them was even smiling at me (from the panoramic vision, i pretended i didn't see) and whistled low as I passed and had my back to him. I remember when one called me "little princess" I was in black leggings and a tee.

4⁰ the difference between sex and intimacy I learned other day in an insta account about spirituality lol, was mind blowing, i also learned about creative energy and sexual energy (if i'm not mistaken SF said Harry had a lot of creative energy).

1. I’m glad you understood what I was saying. People brag about it because it’s like associated with college life or like a phase. I think people think it’s like this coming of age thing, but you don’t have to choose that. No! Don’t fear inexperience and if a partner is an asshole over it they don’t deserve you. If you really are concerned, you can buy a dildo and kind of get some experience that way. I did that. I was always afraid to let a man have that level of power over me, so yeah I dealt with that myself, and so the first time me and my ex got together. He didn’t know. He didn’t know I had never had sex before him until like three/four months later.

2. Yes it is a way to be respected. Because of what I just went through and how I feel, I cant really talk about this. I know you don’t mean anything by your ask but it’s just the idea of like the virgin and the whore that you’re bringing up and that’s a dichotomy that deeply effects me.

3. I hope you never have an experience with a man that makes you think that. I hope you learn some self defense because the idea of your ability to be innocent with men and to have hope in them getting taken away so abrasively just hurts me to think about. I hope you learn self defense and feel confident but never need to use it.

4. I’m also sort of understanding the differences finally.

#ask box #deep talks

[wordupcomics]

Where are the rest of the villains in this AU? :0

So I've actually answered this question before, and was just gonna link you to the post....but I can't seem to find it so....guess I'll be answering this again...(I honestly wouldn't care if there weren't enough villains to fill a college campus 🤦‍♀️)

So a lot of this is repeated from the last post, wherever it is now 😂 but I believe I expanded on several of these villains too.

First let's cover all the villains as a whole. They are all no longer villains! Tobey went good at around 14 and ended up unintentionally inspired a lot of villains to slowly do the same. The last few villains gave up crime when WordGirl retired because they didn't feel like crime would be the same without WordGirl coming to stop them. A few years after Tobey went good, when several villains had already gone good, Two Brains and Tobey teamed up to create the Anti-Villain Association (AVA), which was intended to be a place where former villains and criminals could talk out their issues with other former villains so that they wouldn't turn back to crime. It's still running to this day and they meet once a week at Two Brains's old lair. They don't just keep it to their meetings, they also have fun functions and activities. For the most part the city doesn't think twice about the AVA, but you know there are always those people who don't trust others, and these types of people are convinced the AVA is simply a cover up, that all the former villains are still villains and are gathering to plan a teamed take over of the city or world. The AVA generally ignores these people. Many of each villains' respective weapons were destroyed after going good, but some weapons still remain for different reasons. Some weapons are nice to have for an emergency (Two Brains has rays that don't hurt people, just trap their feet with spray cheese, a nice thing to keep around in the event of a burglary), some weapons have uses in every day life (when making dozens of sandwiches at once, Chuck's condiment ray comes in handy), some felt it was wrong to destroy them for no reason if they weren't hurting anyone or anything (Tobey's robots who weren't destroyed by WordGirl are happily living in a very large cabin DEEP in the woods, Tobey didn't feel right about destroying them, they are practically sentient!) and some the villains felt were too dangerous to destroy (Mr. Big had more advanced mind control tech that he and Leslie were worried would send out a mind control signal if destroyed, rather than take the risk, they simply locked them up under high security.)

Now let's get into each AVA member (well I mean i guarantee I'll forget people, but I'm gonna try and if I missed a specific former villian you want to know about let me know):

Two Brains- The Steven brain was especially inspired by Tobey's actions, and wanted to be a good guy again. However he knew keeping the mouse brain at bay would be a challenge, and knew his only chance of being good was to find a legal way of getting his cheese fix. So Two Brains started making his own cheese. He even made a cheese aging ray to speed up the process. He ended up being able to make more cheese than he could eat, and turned it into a business. Because he doesn't have to spend actual time on the aging part, he can sell quality cheese for a cheap price, and it's a very successful business. I don't have a company name for his cheese business, but the slogan is "Evilly Delicious!"  His henchmen joined his efforts and still help with the cheese factory. One henchmen, the one with no name, had a daughter (also unnamed because I think I'm funny XD) that Two Brains always considered to be a granddaughter to him. She is aware of her family's past actions and is fine with it. She sometimes will help in the cheese factory but generally prefers not to. Two Brains still co-runs the AVA with Tobey.

Chuck and Butcher- Since they went good around the same time and did the same thing, I'm just doing them together. Chuck went for his dream of running his own sandwich shop, which started as a food truck and now is a restaurant, and Butcher partnered with him and helped him. Chuck makes the sandwiches and figures out the recipes, and Butcher helps and supplies the meat. They buy their cheese from Two Brains. Chuck has a better, albeit not perfect relationship with his mom and brother. Chuck also at one point made T shirts to sell in the sandwich shop...the only people who bought any were the other members of the AVA, and that was only to be supportive. The only people who ever actually wear the T shirts are Butcher and Whammer, and again, it's really only to be supportive and it's not very often they get worn. Butcher got married, had a son, and later had a divorce. The marriage was fine, and the divorce was civil, and he's really good friends with his ex-wife and her new husband. His son's name is Kale and he has powers similar to his dad, except dealing with vegetables. Butcher and Kale don't have the best relationship, and this is really on Kale's part. Kale's very prideful and shuts out help when it's offered to him, even if he needs it (which is often) and Butcher's instinct is always to help his son. Kale has a son of his own who he had at a younger age, and who's mother is currently out of the picture. The son's name is Baker, he's 8 and like his father and grandfather (and great grandfather!) has food related powers, his relating specifically to bread (bread, not pastries! Though Baker does like baking pastries!). Baker loves his grandpa and loves spending time with him. While Kale may shut his dad out when he needs help, it's nothing that would ever make Kale keep Baker away from Butcher.

Granny May- Oh yeah, she's still alive. TBH she's probably the oldest person in the city lol. She simply retired crime upon her family's request. She currently is living in an assisted living facility and is still going strong! She's in a scooter now, but still carries a cane with her for no other reason than to whack people of her own volition.

Mr. Big- Big really struggled with going good, despite wanting to. eventually he figured out his problem was greed and wanting money, so he went in the complete opposite direction and became a minimalist hippie. He currently lives in a trailer park, still has a collection of soft bunny toys and uses a walker now. He and Leslie are good friends.

Leslie- When Big went all hippie, he gave his business to Leslie. She, practically overnight, turned it around into a very successful, but also very sustainable and ethical business. Essentially it's Amazon if they had a heart 🙃

Whammer- Whammer loves his job as a professional demolisher! You need an unsafe building torn down? Call Whammer and he'll wham it down! Remodeling your kitchen and need it gutted first? Call Whammer, he'll be happy to wham your kitchen! Snow covering the ground and need the roads cleared? Call Whammer with caution cause he might accidentally pile all the snow against the buildings, trapping everyone inside, but damn those roads sure will be whammed clear!

Amazing Rope Guy- ARG got decent at rope tricks and is now an entertainer. He will certainly not be considered for America's Got Talent but if you want to entertain children at a birthday party and are on a budget, he's your guy! Becky and Tobey used to call him for every one of Theo's birthday parties (to support him) until Theo politely requested they stop. Now he's being hired for Julie's parties.

Lady Redundant Woman- over the years she moved up in her copier place, and eventually had done every position there. Now knowing how to do every position required in a copier store, she opened her own store and her copies are the employees. It's perfect because no matter what, she always has the EXACT right amount of workers, and technically she's the only one working so she can keep all the money for herself or her business (corrupt business people, don't get any ideas!). Dave visits her often and is so proud of her. She hates this. But she sure does love her copy store!

Ms. Question- She got hired onto the police force as a professional interrogator. As you can imagine, she's VERY good at her job. She doesn't even use her powers most of the time. That being said, if it was a severe crime like a murder and the person just wasn't talking or she had reason to believe they were lying or withholding details, she would be happy to use her powers, but most of the time she refuses to use her powers on others.

Learnerer- Is a detective! He watches suspects and learns their habits and can easily detect clues that will tell him exactly who it was if it was someone he's observed. He works with Ms. Question often and they're actually a pretty good team. How's that for a team up?

Victoria Best- When her and her brother were teenagers, they were taken away from their parents and put into a foster family. At first neither of them were happy for obvious reasons, they were just taken away from their parents and home. However, while Victor stayed loyal to his parents' wishes and refused to believe that they should have been taken away, Victoria soon began to see their parents for who they really were, and her own past actions for what they really were. She joined the AVA and made an effort to change, encouraging her brother to let go of their parents' control. She currently has no contact with her biological parents, and sees her foster parents regularly. She has one daughter who she loves deeply and always encourages her to just have fun with things. Try everything and fail with pride. Victoria's daughter sees Victoria's foster parents as grandparents. Victoria visits her brother somewhat regularly for small talk, sometimes she'll try to convince him to join the AVA, but she's learned to not push it. She really just sees him to stay in touch, her daughter has never meant Victor, and while Victoria would love for her daughter and brother to meet, she refuses to let them until Victor starts making an effort to be better. She still has hope her brother will come to his senses one day. Victoria runs a daycare, and did so because she wanted to be able to catch warning signs of poor parenting early in life so the children don't have to suffer in a bad household for as long as she had to.

Eileen- Inspired by, I think it was one of those "The Time I..." commercials Disney Channel used to do, Eileen learned that many people don't have the resources to have as nice birthdays as she does. She felt bad and started donating things to charities so people could have as wonderful of birthdays she always wanted to have every damn day. She currently runs her own charity, and if someone seems just a little too greedy, Eileen goes all hulk on them and turns into the Birthday Girl. People usually listen after that.

Hal- Hal sells his old blueprints for weapons to the cops so they can get a lead, and might even work undercover at times to sell current villains crappy weapons that allow them to get caught.

Coach- Instead of coaching new villains on how to be villains, Coach coaches newcomers to the AVA on the basics of staying good when you just want to commit a crime.

Seymour- Started  a Youtube series called "Can You Spot the Scam?" where he exposes scams around the city and gives advice on how to spot them and avoid them. What he's learned from this is: people are not very good at spotting scams.

Inviso-Bill and Big Left Hand Guy- Married. They got married before going good and before WordGirl retired. AVA members and current villains and WordGirl were all invited to the wedding. They spent a little bit of time as a married criminal duo before retiring. They still don't really know what they should do with themselves as good guys, they both sort of hop from job to job. But they are happy none the less!

Rhyme and Reason- Retired after WordGirl did, just didn't feel right to continue crime without her. They are in a QPR and like Inviso-Bill and BLHG don't really know what to do with themselves, but are happy just to have each other and the AVA

Okay I'm probably missing people, so again if your curious about someone in particular that I missed, let me know!

#villians #former villians #ava #don't mind me i'm just actually tagging things so i can find this one later #i will not type this shit a third time lol #word up

[mel-at-dusk]

SEX, LIES AND CHEAP COLOGNE: AN ORAL HISTORY OF ABERCROMBIE & FITCH’S SOFTCORE PORN MAG

The story of how an oversexed, strangely intellectual magazine by a polo shirt brand completed the improbable task of changing the course of sexuality in America’s malls, homes and moose-print boxers

Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries was a shrewd businessman, but he didn’t always make the best decisions. Between the blatantly racist T-shirts he signed off on, the child thongs he called “cute” and the series of public statements he made admitting that his brand intentionally excluded anyone who wasn’t “cool” and “good-looking” with “great attitudes and a lot of friends,” it’s no wonder that he spent the majority of his reign at Abercrombie in hot water. (For the uninitiated, Abercrombie made what fashion writer Natasha Stagg calls “sexy versions of the clothes kids already wore to school: T-shirts and jeans, stuff you could toss a football in or throw on the grass if everyone decided to go skinny-dipping.” More importantly, as she writes in her book Sleeveless, it was “for those who were casually peaking in high school.” It, meanwhile, peaked in the 1990s.)

An exception to Jeffries’ questionable CEO-ing would be A&F Quarterly, the glorious, controversial and questionably pornographic “magalog” he created at the height of the brand’s popularity in 1997 in order to connect “youth and sex” to its image. Woven in amongst surprisingly thoughtful interviews with A-list humans like Spike Lee, Bret Easton Ellis, Rudy Guiliani and Lil’ Kim was a cascade of naked photos from photographer Bruce Weber which showed nubile youngs in various states of undress. They were frolicking, they were caressing and they were deep in the throes of experimenting with types of sex that — at the time — had never been portrayed by mainstream brands.

With issue titles such as “XXX,” “The Pleasure Principle” and “Naughty and Nice,” the Quarterly dove headfirst into the risque. During its 25-issue run between 1997 and 2003, it printed interviews with porn star Jenna Jameson, offered sex advice on how to “go down” in public and suggested — on multiple occasions — that its readers dabble in group sex. One issue published an article on how to be a “Web exhibitionist,” another featured a Slovenian philosopher barking orders to “learn sex” at school and big-dick Ron Jeremy even stopped by to talk about performing oral sex on himself and using a cast made from his own penis.

The actual Abercrombie clothing being modeled in the magalog was an afterthought, appearing in Weber’s photos as more of an impediment to nudity than an actual, purchasable item. The whole thing was, as journalist Harris Sockel put it in an Human Parts essay, “20 percent merch, 20 percent talk and 100 percent soft-core aspirational porn.”

None of this would have been vexing had a more adult-oriented brand been the ones hawking it, but Abercrombie & Fitch was — and still is — marketed toward suspiciously toned teenage field hockey players named Brett. Though he might have looked like a man in his big salmon-pink polo, Brett was but a child. Abercrombie was fond of saying its clothing was for college-aged clientele, but we all knew where its real haute runway took place — inside the crowded halls of every middle school in Ohio.

The Quarterly, too, was intended for college kids, and to prove it, Abercrombie shrink-wrapped it in plastic and sold only to those over 18 for $6 a pop. You could buy it as a subscription, of course, but it was more commonly found in-store, nestled alongside A&F’s cargo shorts and “thongs for 10-year-olds,” a questionable placement that prompted concerned parents, conservatives and Christians to accuse Abercrombie of sullying their children’s minds with impure thoughts.

As such, the Quarterly became the subject of a mounting number of boycotts, protests and controversies that some believe were responsible for its eventual demise. By the time circulation peaked at 1.2 million in 2003, it had been denounced by organizations like the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the American Decency Association, Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Women and, of course, the Catholic League.

Yet the outrage against the Quarterly was matched — if not exceeded — by its cult following, who found its frank portrayal of sexuality to be transcendent. Journalists, artists and the teens whose hands it fell into adored the magazine, and its rarity — plus its utter absurdity — makes it a sought-after collector’s item to this day.

At the same time, few people know about the Quarterly and even fewer realize what it meant to the generations of young people discovering themselves and their sexualities through the unlikely lens of branded content. As journalist Emily Lever puts it, “There’s no weirder way to learn about sex than to pick up a magazine by Abercrombie & Fitch — a brand for hot, mean mostly white kids who shoved you into lockers — but, I guess I’ll take it?”

This is the story of how an oversexed and strangely intellectual magazine by a polo shirt brand completed the improbable task of changing the course of sexuality in America’s malls, homes and moose-print boxers.

AND IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS ASS

The first issue A&F Quarterly debuted in June 1997. With 70-ish pages of full-color hard bodies, it was relatively tame compared to later editions, but it quickly became popular when Abercrombie’s nubile clientele realized it was a paper-backed portal into an adult world of sex, nudity and the kind of unbridled sensory hedonism their parents warned them about. As rumors of its legend began to spread, people began to wonder: What the hell is A&F Quarterly, and why is it printing ass for teens?

Emily Lever, journalist and chronicler of the Quarterly’s absurdist philosophical leanings: A&F Quarterly was an in-house magazine put together by Abercrombie & Fitch that published a who’s who of literati to accompany their images of young adult and teen bodies in order to hawk expensive distressed jeans and polo shirts to kids who would shove you inside a locker.

Alissa Quart, author of Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers and director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project: From what I recall, it had a Bruce Weber-y vibe — gorgeous young men and teens unapologetically objectified, a leering retro pin-up element, also sort of like the highly stylized, sexed-up, nostalgic 1980s and 1990s black-and-white Guess ads. Men — boys, really — were photographed without their shirts, elaborately muscled abs, sometimes naked.

Harris Sockel, in his Human Parts essay: [It was] Playboy crossed with Fratmen.com and a bit of Field & Stream. The Quarterly made my hormones do a kick line across my frontal lobe. I wanted to nibble the soy ink for snack until sunrise. To absorb it so deeply I sweat grey drops onto my pillow. To rip a page from that issue and fold it into a paper flower and stick it all the way up my ass until it came out my mouth.

Lever: Yeah, it was hot. But it was also extraordinarily literary. It featured big-time thinkers, writers and philosophers — stuff that was supposedly intended to expand your mind. It was way too high-brow for the average Abercrombie teen, and its existence made almost no sense given what the brand represented.

Savas Abadsidis, editor-in-chief, 1997-2003: There was nothing else like it. We were the first mainstream brand to combine playful, irreverent, intellectual content with sex and youth in this beautiful, high-art magazine format. Was it controversial? Sure. But it made the entire country take notice.

What they didn’t necessarily see, however, was what was going on behind the scenes. Not only were we the first brand to do this kind of advertising, we were also the first big brand to normalize gay culture for a mainstream audience, expose America’s youth to some of the era’s most progressive thinkers and use our platform to address sexuality in a useful, hands-on way. And you wouldn’t necessarily expect that from Abercrombie. That’s what made it so cool.

It all began in 1996. I was 22 and working at a temp job for a prominent New York architect who happened to be friends with Sam Shahid, a big-time creative director for Calvin Klein, Banana Republic and later, Abercrombie & Fitch. He was looking for an assistant. I had taken a deferment to go to law school and was looking for a job for that interim year, so I applied. I got in.

It was a horrible gig at first. Just awful, Devil Wears Prada-type stuff. I left crying many nights. But I had two things going for me. The first was that Abercrombie had a really small office in the West Village. Mike Jeffries, the president and CEO of Abercrombie, used to come in. He wore flip flops, had a desk made out of a surfboard and began each sentence with the word “Dude.”

Mike Jeffries, ex-CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, speaking to Salon in 2006: Dude, I’m not an old fart who wears his jeans up at his shoulders.

Abadsidis: I didn’t know it at the time, but Mike was gay (I wouldn’t find out until much later). I think that was part of the reason why he and Sam — who was also gay — took me under their wing. They actually didn’t realize that I was, too — it’s not like we all sat around a bonfire at Fire Island and talked about how us gay guys were infiltrating Abercrombie — but that dynamic dovetailed nicely with Bruce’s photography for both the brand and the Quarterly, and it certainly set the tone for what was to come. I was grateful to get what amounted to an unofficial apprenticeship from both Mike and Sam, and eventually, they had me doing much more involved tasks than I was hired to do.

One of them was sitting in on important meetings. At the time, Mike was inviting all these different editors from magazines like Interview, Men’s Journal and Rolling Stone to come in and brainstorm ideas for what the Quarterly could be, but their ideas were flat. They felt like ideas coming from 45-year-olds writing for college kids, and I could tell Mike was getting frustrated by how little they seemed to grasp what he wanted.

One day in a meeting, one of the magazine editors threw out an idea. Without even acknowledging him, Mike turned to me. “Savas,” he asked. “What do you think about that?”

My mind raced — I could tell he was testing me. If I flubbed the answer, I’d be done. I briefly considered censoring myself, but then I thought better. What did I have to lose? I was young. Surely, I’d find another summer job. “I don’t think it’s a great idea,” I told him.

Apparently, that was the right answer. Mike practically threw the guy out of the room.

After that, I started to think more about what I’d want to see out of a magazine. I was just out of college as a French comparative literature major at Vassar, and I was super into that sort of 1950s-style Esquire journalism with the dapper closing essay. I was deep into The New Yorker, Interview Magazine, 1990s-era Details, MAD Magazine and 1980s pop star mags like Tiger Beat, too — those were all an influence. I also loved philosophy, social theory and comics. And graphic novels. You know — college stuff. Then it hit me: If the magazine was for people like me, why not get actual college kids — not 50-year-olds — to create our content?

I suspected my ideas were what they were looking for and knew they’d look fresh compared to what other editors were throwing out, so I decided to take a risk. I got up at 2 a.m. and typed out a 20-page proposal for what I thought the Quarterly should be. The next morning, I faxed a copy to Mike. I left another on Sam’s desk.

About a (very anxious) week later, Sam called me into his office and told me to pick up his phone. Mike was on the other line. As I reached for the receiver, he leaned over to me and said, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

I didn’t even have time to comprehend what that meant before Mike’s voice was in my ear. “Congratulations, kid,” he told me. “You get one shot.”

Shortly thereafter, I was promoted from Sam’s assistant to the completely green, 23-year-old editor-in-chief of the Quarterly. It was a Jerry Maguire moment. I was thrilled and terrified at the same time.

They gave me a month to put together a staff and get the first issue out. Bruce Weber was named as its exclusive photographer — he’d already been shooting ads and campaigns for Abercrombie — and Sam was the creative director. As for me, I knew I’d need an editorial staff, and stat.

HOLY SHIT, THERE ARE NO LIMITS

Abadsidis quickly throws together a team composed of two college buddies, Patrick Carone and Gary Kon, who he describes as “pretty funny and stuff.” Carone became the only straight guy on the editorial side. Kon is Jewish and gay. The three of them vow to stay as true to the idealized college experience as possible with their content — even if it means chasing white whales.

Abadsidis: I can’t remember the exact starting budget, but it was upwards of a few million, probably much larger than most magazines get for their first issue! But our budget was also Bruce’s budget. He was getting advertising money, so we were well taken care of in that regard.

We weren’t really expected to turn a profit, though. That was never the point. Come to think of it, I don’t even think we tracked how much the magazine impacted clothing sales, although from what I can remember, clothing sales bumped up double digits every quarter after we launched (for a while, at least). [This statement is unverified.] But that didn’t matter: Our mission was just to set the brand image and make people aware of us. That was our version of success. We were also our only advertiser for a while, so we could get away with a lot of stuff that other publications couldn’t.

Gary Kon, managing editor, 1997-2003: When Savas offered me the job, I jumped at the opportunity. I’d already interned for Sam, and I’d have to scan hundreds of Bruce Weber images that he shot for Abercrombie as part of the job. And I fell in love with his work. It was the visual connection that seduced me. Weber’s photos were like a new Greek mythology; the men and women depicted in the photos were both idealized and sexualized. As a gay kid, who was pretty comfortable by that time in my own skin, I had no problem recognizing the eroticism in his work.

Abadsidis: Me, Gary and Patrick was definitely something special. I don’t think I’ll ever have an opportunity to create anything like that again. I was a huge comic book fan. If I had to describe it, it’s the closest thing I’ll ever come to Stan Lee’s Marvel comics bullpen. Pretty much everyone I hired was super unique. We weren’t all gay (maybe half of us were) but few of us really adhered to the Abercrombie image.

I think Sean came on in 2001.

Sean T. Collins, managing editor, 2001-2003: I was a little skittish about it at first because Abercrombie & Fitch represented everything I was not. They marketed, almost exclusively, to the lacrosse players that called me names I cannot repeat. It was very preppy, and that was not me at all.

I was alternative, maaan. I was a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. I wore a lot of black. A&F was everything I wasn’t, and in a way, everything that had tormented me as a kid. The irony of me working for them was palpable, but what I learned very quickly was that at the Quarterly, you could do anything that you wanted.

One of my first articles was an interview with Clive Barker, the writer and director of Hellraiser (he also wrote Candyman). Now, if you’ve seen Hellraiser, you can imagine just how far of a departure a sadomasochistic horror film was from Abercrombie & Fitch, but getting him to sign on was easy. He’s gay, and at the time, he was super ripped. I think he appreciated the extravagant gayness of the Weber stuff in particular. He was also a photographer, and his husband was, too. I think he recognized what was going on with the photography.

We had an unlimited expense budget, so I took him out for drinks at the Four Seasons. I talked to him for hours, and then he invited me to go back to his house and hang out and see his art studio. He had three mansions in a row on Sunset in Los Angeles, up in the hills. One for his office, one for his actual domicile and one that was a painting studio. I got to see that. I was just a 23-year-old kid. This was my first job out of college, and I felt like Cameron Crowe from Almost Famous. After that, I was like, “Holy shit, there are no limits.”

Kon: I have to credit Savas with pushing us to work without limitations. We were very lucky. At some point during my tenure, I realized that as long as we worked within our (sizable) budget, we had almost full autonomy. We could plan trips to Hollywood to shoot our favorite actors. We could travel to Thailand to reenact our version of The Beach. We could tag along to London or Rome or wherever Bruce was shooting the catalog. We could stroll into the office at 11 a.m. and work until 11 p.m.

Collins: If I wanted to talk to Bettie Page, the pinup model from the 1950s, they’d be like, “Okay, sure.” If I wanted to feature Underworld, my favorite electronic music band, it was, “Sure, go ahead.” It was total editorial freedom, which was so strange knowing how specific of a person the “Abercrombie type was.” I’ve been writing for two decades now, and I’ve never experienced anything like it since.

Abadsidis: Everyone wanted to be in it, too. At first, it was just indie musicians. But then, in the second issue, we snagged Lil’ Kim. That’s when I knew we’d made it big. She was into it — she loved everything about the Quarterly. A lot of people did. The whole high-brow/low-brow thing was really appealing, and the idea of going to college, reading good books, getting drunk and having sex felt uniquely nostalgic and fresh in the context of America back then. Clinton was getting impeached for getting a blow job. It was just a weird, puritanical time, and the Quarterly gave people a national platform to let their freak flag fly.

We had Rudy Guiliani, early Britney Spears, Paula Abdul. There was the New York issue where we talked about the Harlem Renaissance. Spike Lee — one of my idols — asked me if he could be in it. He’d done advertising, you know? I remember him being like, “Yo, this is the deal. I’ve got to give you mad props. This is the dopest thing out right now, advertising-wise.”

We had big-time philosophers and literary figures, too. They were great. We wanted to mimic the experience of being in college and having your mind expanded, so we got writers like Bret Easton Ellis and Michael Cunningham on board. There was a whole Sex Ed issue plastered with musings from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a friend of a professor’s from college. I believe Jonathan Franzen was in there, too.

Jonathan Franzen, award-winning novelist and essayist: I gave hundreds of interviews between 1997 and 2003, almost all of them at the request of various publishers. One of them must have thought it was a good idea to talk to A&F. The fact that I apparently did (I don’t remember it) signifies nothing except that I felt grateful to my publishers.

Collins: We got a lot of weirdos, too. John Edward, the guy who talked to dead people. Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote Fight Club. At the time, it didn’t have the meathead reputation that it does now. It was legitimately looked at as this piece of anti-corporate, anti-capitalist art, the irony of which was just delightful given that we were a capitalist brand trying to sell polo shirts and $90 ripped jeans.

Abadsidis: The only guy who refused an interview was Donald Trump! I have a feeling his 90-year-old secretary had something to do with it. Though we were technically a magalog and did belong to the brand, our stuff was just really visionary. David Keeps, who was the editor of Details at the time, always defended the Quarterly as a real magazine and publicly said that we were doing more innovative stories than most “real” magazines at a time.

ASPIRATIONAL HOMOEROTICS

It’s no secret that the photography and creative direction of Weber and Shahid contained homoerotic undertones. Irreverent, minimal and moody, it was suggestive without being literal, spinning entire storylines into a single frame. At the same time, it was too idealized to be “real.” The queerness that their photos showed was, as Collins puts it, “aspirational,” meaning that like the mostly white, ab-riddled models instructed to sell cargo shorts by taking them off, they didn’t necessarily represent the full reality of what queerness actually was.

Still, the photos that the Quarterly published during its seven-year run did more to normalize and represent queerness and non-monogamy than any other mainstream brand at the time — weird, considering that Abercrombie’s target market was hegemonic suburbanites whose parents bred genetically pure golden retrievers and had cabins in Vail. Without these photos, the Quarterly might have read more as a minor-league Esquire or Ivy League MAD Magazine, but with them, it became one of the least-discussed, most under-appreciated items queer history.

Collins: Our editorial content — which almost functioned as a parody of so-called “Abercrombie people” — was always accompanied by this extremely beautiful photography that was also extremely queer. But it was never explicitly so. It was all this nudge, nudge, wink, wink stuff. I don’t know how you could miss it, though. The homoeroticism was so overt.

Abadsidis: You’d have had to have been blind not to consider the imagery homoerotic (though, it was really in the eye of the beholder). We had the Carlson twins posing on the cover and riding a motorcycle. We had a drag queen named Candis Cayne. There was a lesbian couple kissing at a wedding.

Kon: David Sedaris, Gus Van Sant, Gregg Araki, Avenue Q, Stan Lee, Peaches, Fischerspooner… you could teach a queer theory class with everyone we featured.

Abadsidis: At the same time, we never labeled anything as “gay” or “lesbian” or “queer.” We never came out and said, “Welcome to our gay magazine!” and we never had a meeting where we were like, “Okay, guys, let’s figure out how to make this thing gay.” It was more nonchalant. The imagery implied it without saying it.

Hampton Carney, A&F Quarterly spokesperson, 1999-2003: The message we were sending was clear: “You do you, whatever that is. Have fun!”

Abadsidis: That was a very 1990s thing.

Collins: There was a specific brand of Abercrombie gayness that got shown, though. The word that they always used to describe Abercrombie as a brand was “aspirational.” They didn’t want to make it like an everyday, normal-people brand. They wanted it to be associated with money, glamour and that WASP-y aesthetic. So all the gay raunch of it was presented within the context of what appeared to be a very square, nuclear family: white, wealthy and secure.

At the same time, that was really when same-sex marriage was kicking off as a political issue. I think you can see a commonality in how Abercrombie was essentially making an argument that you could be a normie and also be gay. That was a newish thing at the time (though I’m barely an expert as I’m not gay myself). Still, I can’t help but see a resonance between coming up with this clandestine content that normalized being gay at the same time this big political fight that was brewing.

Maybe being more forward about it would have come across as “too political.”

Abadsidis: Part of me wishes we’d gone a little further with being more outwardly queer, but I don’t think the time was right. Maybe with a braver CEO — no one at the time was brave enough to take on queerness or gay rights as a mainstream brand, including us — and that’s why few people remember the Quarterly as the sort of transcendent queer thing that it was.

Kon: It’s never been credited as such, but the Quarterly is really an item of gay history. I don’t think we were pushing a “gay” or “metrosexual” lifestyle on people as much as we were showing that it already existed, even out in Middle America. Perhaps that’s what made people uncomfortable. We took that thread of counterculture and taboo that ran through the imagery and continued it into the editorial content. We dealt with topics like drinking, drugs, religion, politics and sex. Again, these are issues young people dealt with daily, but were rarely editorialized.

At Vassar, there was a yearly party called The Homo Hop. It was one of the biggest parties of the year and leaned on Vassar’s history as a women’s college. I bring this up because, on the night of my freshman Homo Hop, I was instructed that each student had to do something sexually that they had never done, and one drug that they had never done. It wasn’t that you had to be gay, but you had to experience something that was new and different. I think that translated well into the Quarterly. Yes, there were a bunch of gay guys writing and shooting and drawing images. But we were simply trying to expose Cargo Short Brett to ideas, images, artists, books, writers and directors that he may have never heard of before. Our shared experiences would become his.

Collins: It was culture jamming, really.

Abadsidis: It was also very “college” to be fluid or experimental without labeling it. I think it’s safe to say that college is one of the gayest places there is in life, maybe not sexually, but definitely in terms of having your mind expanded about different types of people.

Carney: I was in a frat. I’d see fraternity brothers streaking across campus together. It was never a big deal. There are a lot more people in the middle of either extreme of sexuality than people talk about. We’re not one and 10 — we’re one through 10, if you will. That kind of stuff has always happened on college campuses, and that’s the kind of mentality we had around sex. We just happened to editorialize it really beautifully.

Collins: There’s a Barbara Kruger print that reminds me of the mood we were trying to capture: It reads: “You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men.” That’s basically what Abercrombie & Fitch was. It was an intricate ritual that allowed sunkissed lacrosse players to metaphorically touch the skin of other men.

Carney: You know what’s funny, though? It was never the gay stuff people had a problem with. It was everything else.

LET THE CONTROVERSIES BEGIN

For almost every moment of its seven-year life, The Quarterly was a controversial publication. Parents, politicians and conservative-types didn’t appreciate its no-holds-barred approach to rampant fucking, and they could not, for the life of them, understand how such an adult magazine was making its way into the hands of their precious teens (who were probably jacking off to dad’s Playboys long before the Quarterly came along, but I digress). There was approximately one year — 1997 — where the amount of people it pissed off stayed below a critical mass, but after a certain somebody published a story that vaguely suggested underage kids drink, it was off to the races.

Abadsidis: We got in our fair share of trouble with Christian groups and concerned parents right off the bat. Let’s take one of the earlier issues — I believe it was Summer of 1998. It was my story. Basically, I suggested that people could do better than beer and that they should “indulge in some creative drinking.” There was one drink I made up called the “Brain Hemorrhage” and a few others you could play a drinking game with. We also included a spinner insert people could cut out.

None of it had anything to do with driving, of course, but the issue was called “On the Road.” It was a sort of beat-focused, Jack Kerouac thing, so some people interpreted that as us promoting drunk driving (though we did nothing of the sort). Also, the kid on the cover was underage. He was 16, if I remember correctly. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) didn’t like that.

Karolyn Nunnallee, vice president of public policy for MADD: We had been really focused on underage drinking and had been instrumental in getting the country’s legal drinking age raised to 21. Then Abercrombie & Fitch comes out with this weird magazine that basically said, “Don’t go back to college drinking the usual beer. We’re going to show you a new way to drink.”

Not only did they have this drinking game, but they had recipes for these mixed drinks for young people to partake in. I was like, “Abercrombie & Fitch? Aren’t they in the clothing business?” What in the world were they doing? I mean, they were a high-end brand, not Walmart. Why would they take their focus off of clothing and put it toward alcohol? Were their clothes not good enough that year or something?

Needless to say, we weren’t happy with them. Curse words were handed out. We sent a letter to them and started a whole media campaign about it. We went on as many news media outlets as we possibly could with the story of how incensed we were.

Abadsidis: I was sure I was going to get fired over that. We had to remove the page with the spinner out of every single issue across the country. We apologized, of course, but it ended up backfiring against the protesters — that incident gave us so much publicity. It put us on the map. It also made us a target for conservative types. They hated us. After MADD, boycotts of Abercrombie started flaring up all over the place. That’s around the time we hired Hampton to do PR.

Carney: It was my job, at the time, to defend the brand. I’d go on talk shows like Entertainment Tonight or Today Show and explain away our latest controversy (there were a lot). It wasn’t hard, actually; each time, I’d give them what was more or less my go-to response: “It’s a beautiful publication intended for college-aged kids.” And that was the truth! It was way ahead of its time and was absolutely meant for people 18 and up.

Though not everyone saw it that way. The sex and nudity really got to people. A lot of them definitely thought we were making porn. That was the constant complaint: We were deliberately putting porn in the hands of young kids.

Lever: The Quarterly featured about the same level of nudity as a European yogurt commercial. Which is to say, a lot. It was a “clothing catalog” with almost no clothing. Of course [American] people thought it was pornographic!

Carney: Okay, sure — there were photos of like, six girls in bed with one guy and more than a few spreads that enthusiastically suggested naked non-monogamy — but it wasn’t porn. It was tasteful. And let me tell you — nothing we had in there was surprising to kids.

Abadsidis: The models ranged from 16 to 20. It was erotic. It was art. I don’t think there’s anything pornographic about the Quarterly unless you think that nudity, in and of itself, is pornographic.

Illinois Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood did, apparently. In 1999, she called for a boycott of Abercrombie & Fitch because its “Naughty or Nice” holiday issue “contained nudity” and “even an interview with a porn star.” That porn star was none other than Jenna Jameson, who at the time was well on her way to becoming a household name. A so-called “child prodigy” occupied the neighboring page, sparking accusations that the Quarterly somehow intended to connect children to porn.

A cartoon of Mr. and Mrs. Claus experimenting with S&M across from the statement “Sometimes it’s good to be bad” didn’t help, nor did the “sexpert” who offered advice on “sex for three” and told readers that going down on each other in a movie theater was acceptable “just so long as you do not disturb those around you.”

The Illinois Coalition of Sexual Assault joined Wood’s boycott. Later that year, Michigan attorney general (and eventual governor) Jennifer Granholm sent a letter to Abercrombie complaining that the “Naughty or Nice” issue contained sexual material that couldn’t be distributed to minors under state law.

Carney: There were four states that tried to ban us after that. I remember Granholm. She was my arch-nemesis at the time — we really got into it. I respected where she was coming from, of course, but our whole thing was that we weren’t showing anything that wasn’t actually happening on college campuses. And I’d already made it pretty clear to the press that the magazine wasn’t for minors.

Also, it’s not like we were the only magazine talking about or showing sex. You could find all the exact same stuff in Cosmo or Playboy — it’s just that we were a clothing brand, and one whose major customer base just so happened to be teens and young adults. No one expected that from us. Brands weren’t “supposed” to be talking about sex period, let alone to teens and young adults. But we took it upon ourselves to pioneer a more open, honest view of it. That’s the wrinkle that made it so interesting.

We did come to an agreement with Granholm. We decided to wrap the magazine in plastic and make it available for purchase only to those over 18, that way, it’d be even more clear that we weren’t “selling porn to the underage.”

Kon: I believe it was one of the few times the company acquiesced.

Collins: Other than that, don’t remember getting any instruction from Savas, Mike or Sam to tone it down. It was kind of mutually assumed that we weren’t going to apologize for the sexual nature of our content. We knew we had to keep things sexy, as it were — that was our whole thing.

We weren’t deliberately trying to piss off people, but we were trying to push the envelope, and there was definitely an element of deliberate trolling of conservatives and Christian groups. It was a good thing if we pissed them off. It created the controversy that made the brand seem edgy and dangerous, which is what you want if you’re trying to appeal to young people.

Carney: We were also just showing real things that happened at college. And as anyone who’s been to college knows, it’s not just about reading and writing papers. It’s also about sex. Not only that, of course, but we’re sexual beings. We respond to images that are sexual. We were trying to take the stigma away from that and acknowledge that it’s not a bad thing to do.

But no matter how clear we made it, our stance on sex polarized people more and more. I could tell, because almost as soon as I started speaking on behalf of the magazine, strange things started to happen to me. I got stalkers. People left me messages saying I was going to hell and I’d have no afterlife. I got hate mail to my house. One person left a package containing their dirty, stained underwear at the front door of my apartment with a note saying they’d be “coming by later” to “talk to me about it.” I had to call the police on that one.

I was the face of the publication, so I got the vast majority of the harassment. But I didn’t mind. It was my job to take the fall, and I heard and respected every single person’s complaint and talked to them about it. Plus, for every message I got banishing me to hell, I got another from a journalist or a fan begging me to save a copy for them. People collected them. They really loved it, precisely because it was so sexual.

Abadsidis: Mike didn’t flinch about any of this stuff. He wanted to defend it because he could see it was working. We weren’t about to tone anything down (at the time).

Flash-forward to June 2001. The Twin Towers are still standing tall, tips are being frosted and Apple has just unleashed iTunes onto an unsuspecting populace. A&F Quarterly, now in its fourth year, is in hot water once again. Having survived a number of boycotts, lawsuits and controversies since its inception, it’s now in the midst of weathering another minor national conniption over its use of nudity.

Jeannine Stein, describing the Summer 2001 issue in an excerpt from a Los Angeles Times article called “Nudity? A&F Quarterly Has It Covered”: [It’s] explicit in ways that most catalogs and fashion magazines are not, and its use of male nudity is uncommon among general-interest publications. It features 280 pages of young, attractive men and women alone and together, in serious, romantic, sexual and party modes, wearing lots of A&F clothes, some A&F clothes and sometimes no clothes at all. Among the coffee-table book-ish photos by Bruce Weber is a man, covered only by a towel, surrounded by five women; a woman at the beach reclining body-to-body with three men; a back view of a naked man getting into a helicopter (we haven’t quite figured that one out yet); and a few topless females.

There are many naked butts and breasts.

Abadsidis: We also had photos of nude women in a fountain — which were inspired by Katharine Hepburn skinny-dipping at Bryn Mawr College — and a whole set dedicated to the Berkeley student that spent a day naked in class. It was par for the course for us, but even though we’d done the whole shrink-wrap and over-18 thing, people still felt it was too sexual for branded content.

In response, an unexpected alliance formed between cultural conservatives and anti-porn feminists to boycott Abercrombie & Fitch over the Summer 2001 issue of A&F Quarterly. According to Wikipedia, the offending issue included “photographs of naked or near-naked young people frolicking on the beach,” “top-naked young women and rear-naked young men on top of each other” and an “interview with porn star Ron Jeremy, who discussed performing oral sex on himself and using a dildo cast from his own penis.” Once again, Wood was at the helm.

David Crary, journalist, excerpt from a 2001 Associated Press article: Illinois Lt. Gov. Corinne Wood — a Republican who has been sparring with A&F since 1999 — announced the boycott campaign last week in Chicago. She has recruited a diverse mix of supporters more familiar with facing off against each other than with working together.

Wood, writing on her website in 2001: A&F is glamorizing indiscriminate sexual behavior that unsophisticated teenagers are not possibly equipped to weigh against the dangers of date rape, unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease.

Michelle Dewlen, president of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women, speaking at one of Woods’ press conferences in 2001: It’s not a catalog. It’s a soft porn magazine.

Rev. Bob Vanden Bosch, head of Concerned Christian Americans, as quoted by the AP: It’s very important for people to get involved. The exploitation of sex and young people in A&F’s catalog isn’t only atrocious but also a psychological molestation of their teenage customers.

Quart: It was predatory in a few ways, really. One was that it confused the corporate identity of Abercrombie and the advertising with the editorial. It preyed on young consumers not understanding the difference between editorial content and sales content. Back then it led, I saw, to a way that girls were objectifying themselves and commodifying themselves. It ultimately led to boys also objectifying themselves and commodifying themselves — not to the same extent, but far more than they were when I started reporting Branded a little more than two decades ago.

I have the stats on the male body image dysmorphia at the time in Branded (which has only worsened). Then, male body shaming and “manorexia” was on the rise, for the first time on a mass scale. It couldn’t help for the most popular brand at the time to have a dedicated giant glossy magazine filled with pictures of male teenagers with zero body fat half undressed.

Abadsidis: I mean, sure, as much as any advertising does. It wasn’t like we were leading that charge. Any effect on self-image was certainly unintentional, but I do think it did make people want to be athletic. You definitely saw a lot of guys trying to look like that during that period, especially as time went on. If you look at the first few issues, the guys aren’t that built. Ashton Kutcher was actually in the second one — that was his first big break — and they get increasingly more cut from there. That whole era is when men’s body issues started to come out.

Lever: I’d also submit that all this was controversial because it was pre-internet. The internet mainstreamed sexual content in a way that makes A&F or other “scandalous” ad campaigns (like the 2003 Gucci ad with the model’s pubes shaved into the shape of a G) seem quaint, even obsolete. Like, do you remember that Eckhaus Latta ad a few years ago that scandalized people for five minutes because it showed people having real (albeit pixelated) sex? Neither does anyone else.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK TEACHES SEX ED

Always filled with philosophy, social theory and intellectually minded topics that likely soared over the heads of most Abercrombie consumers, the Quarterly outdid itself in the Fall of 2003 with its penultimate issue. A gorgeous romp of summer-spirited abandon accompanied by some delightfully incoherent, Dada-like musings from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, it connected a “back-to-school” theme with a pretty clear directive to fuck. Yet, the information it presented was actually rather safe and tame, a reality which confused and irritated Quarterly staff. Their content was legit, so why was everyone up in arms?

Abadsidis: The “Sex Ed” issue was the second to last one that we did. It got some of the most criticism, and was supposedly the reason everything was finished. I literally had stuff in there cited straight from the University of Michigan’s freshman student handbook on sexual conduct, and it still pissed people off! Then, of course, there was Žižek.

Lever: Žižek identifies as a radical leftist. He’s very famous for his work on cultural theory and critical theory. He analyzes all kinds of topics in his signature, impenetrable — but also approachable — style. And when I think of him, I think of his very distinctive manner of speaking, that some people have described as being on cocaine constantly. But he’s definitely kind of a cult figure, a favorite of people who consider themselves highbrow, but also fun.

He’s really touted as the greatest anti-capitalist of our time, and yet, here he was, “sexually educating” the mean girls and boys of your high school, in a brand catalog whose entire goal was to ensnare young people for the purpose of selling them distressed jeans.

According to the magazine’s foreword, the editor wrote to Žižek and said this: “Dear Slavoj, enclosed please find the images for our back to school issue. We’ve never had a philosopher write the text for our images before, so write what you like. We’re looking for that Karl Marx meets Groucho Marx thing you do so well. Thanks, Savas.”

Abadsidis: I love Slavoj. He was friends with one of my professors from school. He only had 24 hours to write this, so we actually sent someone to London where he was to drop off the images we wanted him to write text for. They hung out for a day and then flew back with what he’d written.

Lever: It was basically a series of insane, absurdist ramblings pasted over really hot naked people.

Žižek, excerpt from A&F Quarterly’s 2003 Sex Ed issue: Back to school thus means forget the stupid spontaneous pleasures of summer sports, of reading books, watching movies and listening to music. Pull yourself together and learn sex.

Lever: I mean, that’s like the first episode of every teen TV show, where these three nerdy boys start high school and they’re like, “Okay, we’re going to be cool this year guys. We’re going to lose our virginities.” It’s very formulaic. But there’s more.

Žižek: The only successful sexual relationship occurs when the fantasies of the two partners overlap. If the man fantasizes that making love is like riding a bike and the woman wants to be penetrated by a stud, then what truly goes on while they make love is that a horse is riding a bike… with a fantasy like that, who needs a personality?

Lever: The “go learn sex at school” part really struck a nerve with conservatives. But I don’t think it was that transgressive. Fourteen-year-olds are receiving messages to have sex all the time — what did it matter if some Eastern European anti-capitalist was hitting them over the head with it through the pages of a polo shirt advert?

Abadsidis: Fox News got involved, if I remember correctly. That was one of the few times I actually got pissed off about how an issue was being covered. I mean, the information in there was handed out to students by an actual university. Half the issue was quotes from this really influential philosopher. But for some reason, people really took offense to the language of it. That whole year [2003] was just a bad one for us.

THE LAST HORNY CHRISTMAS

For its final trick, the Quarterly released a holiday issue featuring 280 pages of “moose, ice hockey, chivalry, group sex and more.” It had oral sex, group sex, sex in a river, Christmas sex and pretty much every other type of sex you could think of, all which followed an earnest letter from Abadsidis which read: “We don’t want much this year, but in keeping with the spirit, we’d like to ask forgiveness from some of the people we’ve offended over the years. If you’d be so kind, please offer our apologies to the following: the Catholic League, former Lt. Governor Corrine Wood of Illinois, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Stanford University Asian American Association, N.O.W.”

But the issue didn’t really hit. By fall 2003, Abercrombie was involved in a number of lawsuits and protests related to exclusion and discrimination, which left people cold despite the inviting warmth of a crackling, fireside circle jerk (a Weber offering which, I’m told, can be found on page 88 of the final issue).

Cole Kazdin, journalist, writing in a 2003 Slate article called “Have Yourself a Horny Little Christmas”: The challenge for me, when masturbating with my friends to the nubile nudies in the Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, is trying not to think about serious things like racial diversity; it tends to kill the mood. But because most of the models in the catalog are white and because a lawsuit has been filed against the clothing retailer for allegedly discriminating against a Black woman who applied for a job at the store, it’s hard for the issue not to rear its nonsexy head. [In 2004, Abercrombie also agreed to pay $40 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of promoting whites over Latino, Black, Asian-American and female applicants.]

Collins: As a brand, Abercrombie did a lot of things that were quite gross. I’m sure you remember when they came out with these T-shirts with these racist stereotype characters on them. You would just see it in the catalog and just be like, “Jesus Christ.” It was awful and stupid and self-defeating, just tone deaf. And we just couldn’t figure out how no one at the company saw the problem with it.

Stagg, excerpt from Sleeveless: Kids in my high school wore shirts that read, “Wok-n-Bowl” and “Wong Brothers Laundry Service: Two Wongs Can Make It White,” accompanied by cross-eyed propaganda-style cartoons. If you weren’t part of the in-crowd (and white), A&F was oppressive. Non-jocks made their own anti-A&F T-shirts, using the brand as a catchall for exclusionary, competitive behavior and old-fashioned bullying.

Carney: That stuff was indefensible, really. Those were the darkest days of my job — listening to calls and reading letters about how offensive those shirts were. Even though the Quarterly was quite separate from the brand and we had no influence over what they did or what clothes they designed, we did still have to print their stuff at the back of the magazine. It was pretty uncomfortable.

Stagg: By 2006, Mike Jeffries’ most controversial public statement on sex appeal was really just saying what we were all thinking: “Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” Those remarks were followed by lawsuit after lawsuit, mostly involving staffing discrimination. An announcement about the store refusing to carry anything over a size 10 reportedly marked a noticeable decrease in sales.

Abadsidis: There were a lot of underlying problems at the company. The amount of negative press Abercrombie was getting was getting silly. No matter what we did, we’d end up in the news, especially if it was related to the Quarterly. After so many bad news incidents, it just felt done, like its moment had passed. It was bound to crash at some point.

Gina Piccalo, excerpt from the Los Angeles Times: Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has pulled its controversial in-store catalogs after outraged parents, conservative Christian groups and child advocates threatened a boycott over material they said was pornographic. However, a company spokesman said the move had nothing to do with the public outcry. The catalogs were pulled to make room near cash registers for a new Abercrombie & Fitch fragrance.

Abadsidis: People like to think that the boycotts and Christian protests had something to do with it, but that wasn’t the case at all. By 2003, Abercrombie’s stock was low — something to do with ordering too much denim. The store was having negative sales for the first time. There was the line in the New York Times, who covered our demise, that Mike was “bored” with it.

Collins: We had no warning. We were all there one day, and the next, we were gone.

Lever: The Quarterly was a relic of a different time. I feel like it could never have been made after 2008 for so many reasons — economic, and cultural and political. It would just never fly. It was made before feminism pervaded everything, at a time where you could be completely flagrant about gross patriarchal shit and still get away with it.

It was kind of like this last gasp of a certain conception of what’s desirable — a very hegemonic coolness exemplified by white Ivy League frat kids who got fucked up the night before their philosophy class. That doesn’t have much currency anymore. Abercrombie kept that image on life support until its last gasp.

Now, 20 years later, what’s cool is not that. What’s cool is to have depression and ADD. The ideal is out. The real is in. And the Quarterly, having always existed in the liminal space between, is neither here nor there.

EPILOGUE

In 2008, Abercrombie resurrected the Quarterly in the U.K. for a limited-run special edition to celebrate the success of its European stores. The original team was reunited — Abadsidis, Shahid and Weber — with the hopes that Britain’s more “open-minded approach to culture and creativity” would provide a welcoming substrate on which to re-grow their original ideas of sexual liberation. The issue, “Return to Paradise,” was “more mature” than its American cousin. It was well-received — aside from the usual protests about sex and nudity — but it wasn���t continued.

Two years later, in 2010, the Quarterly was revived again, this time as a promotional element for Abercrombie’s Back-to-School 2010 marketing campaign, which bore the unfortunate title of “Screen Test.” The lead story Abercrombie put out on its website sounded like a cross between American Idol and a gay porn shot: “The staff of A&F Studios opens up to editorial to explain the steps the division takes to find new, young, hot boys. The cattle-call approach to herd young talent ends with the best of the beefcake earning a screen test that ‘could be the flint to spark the trip to the star.’”

Bruce Weber would be shooting, of course. This would become especially ominous after he was accused of a series of casting-couch style sexual assaults by 15 male models beginning in 2017. According to the accusations, he subjected them to sexually manipulative “breathing exercises” and inappropriate touching, insinuating that he could help their careers if they complied.

Arick Fudali, a lawyer at the Bloom Firm, which represents five of Weber’s alleged victims, declined to confirm or deny whether any of the alleged assaults happened on a Quarterly shoot. If they did, they’re not prosecutable as sexual assaults in New York. Because the states’s statute of limitations on reporting rape is only three years, anything that happened during the Quarterly’s run wouldn’t count toward a sexual assault charge (unless a minor was involved, which Fudali also declined to confirm).

No one I spoke with for this story remembers seeing, hearing or experiencing anything like what the allegations against Weber describe, but some expressed concern over how they might affect the legacy the Quarterly leaves behind. “The accusations are pretty grim,” Collins told me. “You feel for the people who are put in that position. People had power over them. It just makes you think, ‘Was any of this worth it?’ Not really, if people were getting hurt.”

As such, it’s difficult to conclude with definitive sign-off about the Quarterly’s legacy. Either it was a bastion of progressive and transversive sexuality that simultaneously trolled and nourished the very audience it sought to mine, or it was the product of darkness and pain. Either way, Sockel sums it up just right: “The Quarterly was discontinued in 2003, after the American Decency Association boycotted photos of doe-eyed bare-assed jocks in prairies and glens,” he wrote in his recollection. “It was nice while it lasted.”

[carriecutforth]

The Shit

Tumblr is telling me to go ahead, put anything...so here it goes

I haven't been public about this for reasons that will be apparent but gonna start this with all the trigger warnings. I'm writing it here cause I can't talk to the majority of people about it cause most people can't even grasp, and then questions start, putting me in the situation of feeling like my GIANT SWEATER of trauma is being unraveled answering questions that lead to more questions and gah PLEASE DO NOT RETUMBL-- I just need to scream in the void This is the shit: On the day my sister-in-law's mother died she had to call form-1 my baby brother because his psychosis (undiagnosed mental illness which I will get to) was terrorizing their family (three small kids). My mother WHO IS SCHIZOPHRENIC had him released into her and my ANTI-VAXXER ANTI-MASKER narcissist father's care, but NOT before they found out, incidentally due to the FORM 1, he is ALSO really sick with leukemia. I only found out because I decided to dip into the special folder for emails called MOM that I try to avoid reading as long as they can FOR REASONS. But I felt for some reason an urge to, and then I had to try to parse out what had happened from her ramblings that are A LOT. Then I had to confirm with my poor sil who is at her wits end and was in no position to tell me herself. My dad stopped talking to me back in November when I called him for his anti-vax rhetoric as being EUGENICS when he told me it is just the flu and only killing old people and the disabled. I reminded him I've been immuno-compromised my whole life (he KNOWS this) and got chronic fatigue after a flu in late 2016 (he knows this), and did he not care if I DIED? (apparently not) But I was like lol, fine, don't talk to me anymore. Die mad about it for all I care. A lot of people are like: 'oh, that's tough, losing a relationship with your father' and I'm like YOLO (it really isn't if you knew him). SO THEN I have to reach out to my dad: "Why isn't my brother in the hospital being treated by medical professionals for YOU KNOW, HIS LEUKEMIA." My dad responded that the doctors were JUST GOING TO PUMP HIM FULL OF DRUGS! And that HE is treating my brother's leukemia with I dunno baking soda (he told me before it is a cure for cancer). THEN HE GOES RADIO SILENT. I have no idea where my brother is cause they got him an apartment somewhere in Toronto. *though I do have a Machiavellian plan to try to find out. The reason my brother has untreated psychosis is that even though I've begged my parents since he was a TEEN to get him diagnosed, they refused. It's like they have the opposite of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in that their ABLEISM is soooo bad they refuse to see he has been very sick, and even if he was really sick, 'doctors are stupid' <--quoting my dad. This is the backstory. My dad was always on the road for his job. My mom had my baby brother AGAINST all wishes of her doctor to ever get pregnant again. I'm not talking aborting, she got PREGNANT on purpose again to SERVE GOD'S GREATER PURPOSE even though it might kill her and said future fetus. So he was born with a lot of issues because of the very bad pregnancy's complications on TOP of the very hereditary bipolar/schizophrenia, AND everything else we got going on besides. After he was born, my mom went into a very deep depression for years and then would vacillate between that and mania. Which meant me: THE ELEVEN year old was forced to raise a baby that wasn't hers and had no ultimate authority over. I was called by everyone his *BROTHER'S NAME* SECOND MOM. *More on this later Our relationship is very strained because of this, particularly when at 17 I had enough momming a child while being constantly undermined by my parents absolute shenanigans. So there was resentment when I quit being his 'second mom' and that he equally resented for things like, trying to put him into bed, when my mom would come in and say let him stay up all night or getting him to eat something other than candy for breakfast (you can guess the dynamic with my parents here). Even if my disabled ass could sue my parents for his

care, he doesn't WANT me to be in charge of his care.

And yet still, I tried to advocate for him for years fighting my parents TOOTH and NAIL to get him on disability and out from underneath their thumb so he could have a measure of independence and autonomy. They had every excuse in the book not to get him diagnosed including expense. It was so goddamned awful fighting with them on this cause in their mind: he was going to live with either them or me forever (they decided this for me and my ex-husband and kids with no consultation), so WHY bother set up his future for him??? So when he was 20?, I hatched a Machiavellian PLAN: I got him, against my parent's wishes, into college for the sole reason of getting the resources for him to get diagnosed so that he could get on disability. AND IT WORKED! (kinda) Except my parents twisted him so much into only talking about his autism spectrum symptoms and NONE of the psychosis because their ableism is sooooo entrenched. (but I did manage to get him on ODSP). And subsequent times I forced my dad to take him to a psychiatrist, he's like: 'oh, I forgot to talk about the psychosis we just talked about the aspergers. Besides people with psychosis are untreatable, you can't convince them otherwise' (see again, my mom). Over the years, I have begged my dad to take my brother to get properly diagnosed and treated (I'm not meaning forced, my brother is also agoraphobic, and won't leave his place UNLESS he is driven by my dad and was living in a city far away from me). I said, I was very concerned for his kids but my dad always gaslights me (and tells everyone I'm crazy -- the IRONY). So now my mom is writing me emails about how this is all my sil's fault because 'she is on drugs' (she is not), 'she is sleeping around' (she is not), 'her kids are scared of her not my brother' (it's the exact opposite). WHICH IS A HUGE TRIGGER FOR ME because She did the exact same thing to ME with my other brother (a diagnosed PSYCHOPATH) who used to beat me and the rest of us mercilessly when my parents weren't around (and they never believed me, and told everyone not to believe me because I was crazy), who pulled a KNIFE on me and threw a drawer at me when I was NINE MONTHS PREGNANT, and how absolutely awful I was AS HIS SISTER to kick him out of my house with no place to live or go (cause he was living with me and my ex-husband at the time because THEY KICKED HIM OUT OF THEIR PLACE and didn't want him back.) Are you beginning to get a sense of the dynamic of my family? Soooooooo the last few weeks my brain has just been in total trauma mode going processing, processing, processing, processing as the final total realization of how absolutely awful my family is finally laid bare (I mean I knew but at least I can stop feeling guilty about cutting them out of my life). So back to the 'second mom' shit, as relevant to my trauma brain processing the last few weeks. This whole shit above is just the tip of the iceberg. I was raised as a Joho in which a lot of my trauma comes from a pedophile left loose on three generations of girls in my family over a thirty year period, and if anyone came forward they were threatened with disfellowshipment and there is SO MUCH there it would take me several Tolkien novels to get how absolutely awful, extensive it was, and how the coverup went straight to the top. ANYHOO. So who was calling me my brother's 'second mom???' Well since, I wasn't allowed to have any association with non-witnesses, it was my congregation. No one questioned that I was being parentified and it was a deeply abusive situation. NO WHAT HAPPENED instead was, this sister in the congregation told everyone (when I was fifteen and 80 pounds soaking wet at the height of 5'10 1/2) that my brother WAS REALLY MY CHILD cause it was so obvious the way that I was the one who took care of him. And the elders of our congregation MARKED me as bad association for loose morals for having a supposed child out of wedlock when I was ELEVEN YEARS OLD. AND NO ONE in my congregation would talk to me, and I had NO IDEA why, cause they never told me that I HAD BEEN

MARKED. But the caveat was I was not allowed to talk to people outside of the faith. And we only found out about this a year an a half later when she said the same shit back in my hometown where he was born to a sister who was at the hospital where my brother was born. AND NO ONE thought, hey: maybe if we think she had a baby when she was eleven we should um CALL CHILD SERVICES or some shit? So i was like 16 1/2, not allowed to have any friends OUTSIDE OF MY PARENTS, find out THIS SHIT, and then people wonder why I had my first manic episode at 17??? Yeah, so this is where my brain has been stuck the last month, complicated that I knew I would be at risk for hypomania with things opening back up, and I'm supposed to be shooting a pilot for a potential series I'm the creator/co-shorunner of, so now I've had to go BACK on seroquel and it's the worst while i try to acclimatize myself to the drugs and stave off hypomania at the same time. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

[kkemtal]

Risk and Benefit: Where Was I For You Not To Mind My Own Business Here

September 1, 2021

The peak of my red tide has got to be the cause of why my mind goes intangled and triggered a growing deeply sown frustation throughout this whole day. I might second my over intake of caffeinated beverages today to be part of the major blame too. This has conjured images of the things I really want to do and enjoy. In the unprecedented world we're currently caught on, with my reluctance, I am jeopardized by having second thoughts on weighing out the risks and benefits on pushing what I desire to do as part of my self-love - gym, solo travels, driving classes. From these planted frustrations unveils what rolls out at the end of today.

Throughout the day, just out of the blue, while waiting for my appointment at the hospital, I decided to meet with someone who works at the coffeeshop. It's just a walk mile distance. I had a fine moment of transient socializing with 'them' while jumbling with my client calls and a few mail reports. As always, on how consistently thoughtful and welcoming they were, they treated me with my favorite coffee drink along with vegetarian salad and blueberry cheesecake. Honestly, I felt an immense gratitude on my every visit there as I thought they and along others associated with me are angels in my life based on their gestures imbued of positive energies. Along with our conversation, it was just me being accosted of how I was doing. I was expressing on wanting to unwind on local travels and beaches as a solo traveller or hoping to be adopted by any willing adventure seeking cliques. As an open opportunity for me to explore and along the way make new friends which I know how crucial this is at my age.

From suggesting cool beaches and tourist spots into harboring mixed emotions of frustration and dreading over you as they asked me how am I with you. They kinda felt dubious on our non-label or lowkey so to speak kind of relationship. They kinda felt a pity on me as they knew how expressive I was on assuring you that I still have feelings for you. They adamantly advised me not to take this martyrdom too long while you're at abroad as they had a gut feeling you might possibly met someone more special. Since, we haven't spoken yet for almost two months right after you left me on seenzone last July 20, 2021, I believe? You were at the van on your way home from whatever was your part-time job related errands at night. As an overthinker, I have already thought about that as one of the future major possibilities for another painful heartbreak in this cusp of adulthood. Most likely the reason to be would be you finding yourself falling in love more in there and choose to live permanently there and restart a new life chapter. I sensed it's never gonna be as traumatazing as my last toxic ex-boyfriend. But, a somewhat liberating yet a very painful and great lesson in love to be embedded from.

Right now, honestly, I'm crying here at my room because I'm overthinking that maybe our depth of love for one another since then was we misinterpreted in some way on confronting what's so special and rare we had or we took it differently by meaning. Maybe, on your side, this is just a fleeting rollercoaster moment, a phase you'll take what we had a special connection for granted. From my side, I know I prayed for this to have it with you during college which right now I yearned for something greater between us and that has left me feeling one-sided with you. Maybe, I mistook what you've felt for me as something greater and beyond just purely a crush. Since you've got no father figure and are a single child, maybe you loved me more as a sibling with no romantic/intimate attachment, perhaps. I don't know, I feel kinda guilty, confused and hurt with these self-inflicting thoughts. I have a hunch that could be the reason on your phases of denial flickering out. At the same time, I'm sulking to the thought of you being taken over by your selfishness and pride or your own demon as you mentioned then. Maybe you might forget me and along with your closest loved ones here who are missing you. I know you just have to figure things out for yourself and come up with some thoughtfulness and considerations whilst exploring on your dream land which I'm so happy for you that you've made it given the global situation.

Being so emotional right now and incessantly crying, fuck. Of course, I have thought about these possibilities on being on your shoes because I want to save myself from being too idealistic in love and shift my perception into what is realistic. I have considered every factor amidst this pandemic while being patient with you without waiting, I don't know if that makes any sense. The pain caused from these thoughts is something I should embrace as a cure of a future heartbreak. I don't want to disturb you although I want to besides on how much I miss you so much and wondering about you. But, truly the main reason is I know you have received more than enough of my assurance that you'll always count on me based on the poems, songs, letters and most especially that birthday presentation I sent during the lockdown period.

Apart from that, I will just let you be. Just like that significant gist from the film Ruby Sparks, I don't want to control or try to change you out of frustration to stay in line what favorable consequences I'd like to project through you in choosing me. Teary-eyed me painfully sees this as a challenge on what's meant for me will find its way back to me on the right time granted by the Universe. Done right out naturally. Regardless, the balance of negative and positive opinions I gathered from others, I'm still gonna be on flow and patience with you. Wholeheartedly, no matter what, I'll always be thankful for how long I take this too far on reaching you amidst the uproar of doubts and approvals, cheers and jeers from the crowd on how our relationship unfolds. Despite, I felt I am silenced onto holding with this, anchoring with hope though I'm drowning in despair. Because, I swear to God, what we have is so unimaginably rare that I couldn't find this kind of special connection with a gazillion of people I met who just come and go. I kept searching for you to anyone who has been enamored by me or anyone at our age group connected with me both in and out of my professional field. At this far reaching point, you are beyond comparable. No one is anywhere near significantly special as you - the fear of losing and the risk of temporary place in my life serving as what figure of platitude.

Tonight, I saw a post introducing one of the locally known DJs residing from the middle region of our country who's in a long-term 6 year relationship with one of the Miss Universe candidates from the aformentioned region competing against other beauty pageants for the globally crown reigning competition. As I viewed the couple's adorable pictures and appreciating how beautiful they are, I cried asking God how I wish to be genuinely happy by having this kind of exact inspiring and loving relationship with open acceptance and no room of denials coupled with exuberance and blessings from both parties and the public with no clouded judgements and be perceived as subject to love is beyond what's intangible. This. I felt envious. I know this overblowing trail of messed up rumination will pass but come in lighter degrees from inexplicably thinking about you past work hours until I hit the hay.

Right now, I only hope and ask the Universe for you to be safe at all aspects while chiselling in becoming the better version of yourself by weeding out the realized toxic traits you figured from yourself based on your encounters from living with your abroad ambitions. Hoping you will have more strength and energy to take care of yourself and tread against whatever plummets you down in this new journey as the world has been hard enough. As you say, happiness is such a luxury.

- kkemtal

#kkemtal #Hope #Love #Desire #Pray #Adulthood #Diary #Gratitude

[quagmireisadora]

[Jonghyun / Taemin] After the Fire

Prompt: A is a struggling writer going through a creative block, until B literally crashes into their life, claiming that they are a modern-day muse.  Rating: R-ish(?) Warnings: some explicit descriptions Length: ~10,000

Summary: Drawn to danger, I burned my own house down.

(Written as part of the Winter of SHINee fic fest. Please go support all the entries there)

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“... we thank you for your manuscript and applaud your efforts in completing another book. Unfortunately, it is not quite in the vein of what we are looking for. Please stay in touch for…” 

In Jonghyun’s eyes, there is only one way to construe the letter—your stuff isn't sexy enough.

He knows the standards the publication house upholds. When he’d first applied to write for them, presenting a short story full of elucidated gasps and pants and whatnot: he’d done his research. The other writers and their works are miles apart from what he could ever produce. Those books are too salacious, too irreverent for him to match.

So, he knows there is a yardstick, and that he is required to be faithful to it, if he must help retain their astronomically high readership. 

Honestly, though… the only reason Jonghyun writes erotic literature is because it is easy money. 

Coming straight out of college, he first tried his hand at working for obscure webzines. That was a very weird, isolating experience. His colleagues were constantly embroiled in intellectual and cultural debates, the likes of which a man of his upbringing could never participate in—the elegance of noir films, the chaos of punk history, the artful French New Wave. Not only did these subjects evolve outside the barriers he grew up between, the webzines’ subscribers were largely foreigners, rendering a monolinguistic man like him… well. Useless.

Following this, he’d done a stint at small, virtually unknown publications. He’d written largely ignored thought pieces for national papers. He’d even submitted the less embarrassing specimens of his attempted poetry to the Metropolitan office of which, none were imprinted on subway doors. Yet.

To the interested employer, his CV reads like a grocery list of jobs: I did everything I possibly could with my mediocre talent, just so I could earn a living. And he doesn't mind that—encourages that thought, in fact. It is Jonghyun's earnest belief that only by downplaying his past professional experiences will he ever get a step ahead, climb a rung higher. It is also Jonghyun's earnest belief that dream jobs do not exist and, in this economy at least, settling is a good idea when you have qualifications as meaningless as his. 

So no, he doesn't turn any work down. Nothing is beneath him. And that attitude has led him here—to writing cheap erotica for easy money.

Except, Jonghyun hasn't a single erotic bone in his body. 

He is a man, most certainly. Red-blooded as they come. But something about writing down the act, about describing it in the most colourful and drawn-out details... femininity must surely be a prerequisite, he thinks. To notice the way that things look or sound or feel or taste in those short moments. To recreate that passion, that ecstasy, that urgency with paragraph upon paragraph of meticulous and explicit narration: one must need a very observative mind. Or a hyperactive imagination. Because something that lasts just a few minutes from his perspective, can only be recreated with such intensity if it were a woman on the other side of the pen.

So no, Jonghyun doesn't do sexy. Despite having penned three short novels, all with the reluctant perusal of internet porn, he doesn’t do sexy. He doesn’t do softcore, he doesn’t do taboo or wild or… anything, really. He just isn't capable of indelicacy like that. He reasons he can probably try romantic, but that’s not what this specific job entails, does it? No, and the letter is good evidence of that, he realises, stowing his last manuscript away for recycling. 

 Where sexual depravity is concerned, Jonghyun is running on empty. And if things don't change soon, his bank account will too.

------

His mother doesn't know, of course. She thinks her poor son, her youngest baby, is so deeply mired in the nine-to-five that he doesn't even have time to visit these days. Writing is time-consuming. Writing entire novels, even more so. He doesn’t tell her what his job is, though. He keeps it vague. I’m working at an office. I’m working for a big company. I’m working in a building on Saemunan-ro.

As common a name as Kim Jonghyun is, a pseudonym is useful in many ways, he realises. He doesn’t get strange calls from distant relatives, demanding what the hell does he think he’s doing, while ignoring the fact that they went looking for erotica in the first place. He doesn’t have his young cousins approach him with was that really you, hyung? or can we get an early copy of your next one? His friends and ex-associates don’t have a clue. He would like to keep it that way: Minho already gives him a hard time about growing into an old shut-in, if he had the faintest idea of what was going on behind those closed doors and drawn curtains… Minho would no longer be a friend, Jonghyun wagers with shame.

Even so, the question of inspired writing—if he can call it that—still remains. Rather, the question of how he will pay next month’s rent, how he will settle the stack of overdue power and internet and water bills, still remains. Seoul is an expensive city to live in by oneself, and he cannot move back under the same roof as his mother and sister, not with a scandalous job like this. 

At this point he has no way of stimulating his mind without resorting to stealing from other writers. 

And so, the idea of a fan-meeting event is a sort of lifeline. He figures it could help if people show appreciation for his work: even if those people are wild-eyed and pimple-faced oily young men who should be ashamed of themselves, his morality yells wordlessly. But he is no one to judge. And if they prove to be a motivation, if they can help him get out of his block, then all the morality in the world can go to hell. 

The event isn’t as clandestine as he imagines it to be, either. Outside the venue is a board yelling out a “SHIN YUN BOK PUBLICATION AUTHORS’ CONVENTION”. The doors are wide open. The sound of chatter, the smell of food, the murmur of excitement, all floats out to the lobby just outside. 

When he enters, his face obscured by a surgical mask and a large pair of sunglasses, the place is packed. A man is on stage, calling out polite directions for crowd control. Jonghyun recognises him as his employer. Or at least, he is the guy who interviewed him over a grainy skype call late one night. He self-consciously checks his disguise and walks deeper into the fray.

A semi-circle of tables is arranged around the hall, each nominated to a writer. Upon studying the occupied seats, Jonghyun’s premise is solidified when he realises eight out of ten appear to be women. Somehow, this information impresses him.

When he ducks under the ropes and is stopped by a security guard, he points at the only empty table in wordless explanation. Some awkwardness ensues: a request for ID, a weary denial on the basis that pseudonyms aren’t on any ID, a quick consultation by text message, an unenthusiastic “OK, sir. This way, please.” Soon after, Jonghyun has taken his place and assumes the target of many pairs of staring eyes in the room. Some point and snicker, some watch him awestruck, some even take photos. Selcas! Like he is some sort of celebrity! He feels uneasy and oddly vulnerable, fidgeting with his sunglasses as they threaten to slip on the sweat beading his face.

But when the doors are finally shut and the event declared open, Jonghyun’s jealousy soars.

There are lengthy, winding lines of people waiting to speak to nearly all the other writers--but not him. No one approaches him. Not for the first ten minutes, not for the next half hour. In spite of all the staring from before, no one wants to speak with him. No one is interested in getting his signature. 

It is only now, at such a place and such a time, that a series of paranoid questions fills his head. Does anyone read his books? Does anybody like them? Is he not popular? Is his work insignificant, even in circles like these? 

If the number of people dying to speak with the others is anything to go by… then no. Jonghyun is not in the least bit popular. 

He overhears his neighbour chuckle to say things like, of course there is a sequel coming out or yes, I based that character on myself. There are squeals, there are gasps, there is enough veneration to drown Jonghyun in self-pity. Suddenly, he wishes for that love and admiration. He wishes someone would ask him interesting questions and expect fascinating answers; dote on him just the way they dote on the rest of the panel.

His jealousy is poisonous enough that it spreads through his blood. His eyes burn with it, his pulse throbs against it, he feels it bristle in and out of his nostrils with every breath. His sweat begins to sting. His solitude starts to prick. His confidence dwindles to nearly nothing. The weight of envy makes him slide lower and lower into his seat. He plays with his marker and acts nonchalant. Acts like he is unaffected. But in truth he feels like crying. He feels like going home. He feels like quitting-- 

When his latest book is suddenly slammed onto the table, he yells and jumps a foot off his seat. Eyes turn to him again, this time with thinly veiled distaste rather than disinterest. He looks up at his assailant to find a lanky young man donning fashionable sunglasses and equally fashionable clothes. 

“Sign, please,” the guy says in a tone that borders on demanding. 

------

What surprises Jonghyun isn’t the fact that he has a “fan” in someone like Lee Taemin, as he introduces himself later. It is more astonishing to him that other people immediately follow his example and accost Jonghyun with copies of his work—some that look well used and dog-eared to the point that he is afraid to touch them. More and more readers who claim to love his writing flock over, while this Taemin character stands by. Silent, watchful, critical. 

As he doles out autograph after rushed autograph, Jonghyun can’t for the life of him understand how the situation reversed itself in the blink of an eye. 

“Uh… thank you?” he expresses uncertain gratitude. “I was. Surprised.”

“Mm hmm, so what do you want to do next?” the guy counters, folding up the sleeves of his baggy tee-shirt. The crowds have long dissipated. Security has rounded up all the stragglers, even the rowdy ones trying to get too close to that overly popular writer who went by the penname of Eonsook. But no one seems bothered by Taemin. No one cares that he is still here, still engaging in lazy conversation, going at his own pace. Everything about this is so peculiar. Everything is the opposite of his expectations.

“Well, I was about to go home and eat dinner, so—”

“I meant,” an exasperated look berates him. “What do you want to do for your next project?”

There is no answer for that. Jonghyun doesn’t plan these things out. He sits in front of the screen and starts to pour things onto it until he realises none of it is usable. Then he gives up. Rinse, repeat.

But he is expected to answer now. He is expected to say something rooted in a fully formed thought. He is expected to answer this man, this person who appeared out of nowhere and somehow managed to single-handedly create the interest Jonghyun was looking forward to. So, is there also an expected answer? Is there a right and a wrong response? Should he take the question as a cue to say something else, something scripted for such interactions? He doesn’t know.

He settles for a vague, “Uhm, is there anything in particular that Taemin ssi likes to read?” If he has learnt something from his time writing about politics, it is this: the best answer to a difficult question is another question.

An indifferent shrug replies. “Don’t really care. As long as there’s sex in it.”

He’d make a great politician, Jonghyun thinks as he starts to gather his things. “Well. I’m sure you’ll find plenty to satisfy you, then,” he gestures around them at the nearly vacated hall. 

The man on the stage waves to him, he waves back. They will probably speak on the phone later on, and Jonghyun will bombard him with questions.

“But I like what you write,” Taemin continues, drawing is attention back. Physically holding his chin and turning his face so they are looking at each other again. “I want you to write more. Much more. A series!” there is a hint of excitement on those puffy lips.

Jonghyun knows not to aggravate people like him. People who are probably more dangerous than they appear to be. He takes a cautious step back. “I… I wish I could, sir. But you see—”

“I’ll pay you to do it.” A sure motion pulls an expensive-looking wallet out. A wad of cash is counted before nearly all of it is set onto the table. “An advance. I’ll give you three times that when you’ve finished the first draft. How about it?”

He stares at the fan of ten thousand won notes. Rent, he reminds himself. You must pay rent by the end of next week. But what the hell is he going to write?! “Sir, I’m… I’m really very sorry. I don’t have any plans to write the next book and. And I’m not even sure what to write so—”

“I’ll help with that,” Taemin insists. “You need ideas, I’ll give you all the ideas you need. I’ll… I’ll be your muse,” he decides.

Jonghyun stares for a long uneasy moment. Where is security and why aren’t they doing anything? he wonders. He takes another step to back away from the weird man. But the money is right there, perfect bright green rectangles that seem to have come fresh out of the mint. The overlapping portraits of Sejong the Great are all pleading with him to be pocketed. Just say yes! the king is shouting out, even in that placid gaze. You don’t have to follow through, just take the money and run! He can’t find you, anyway!

No. That would be disingenuous. That wouldn’t be right. No matter how desperate his situation, Jonghyun would never resort to thievery. He shakes his head and stays his hand, making no move to accept the money.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you, Taemin ssi,” he bows and rushes off.

------

Their story begins and ends at Namdaemun.

She looks at its sombre face, artillery fire still marking some of its masonry and disrupting the course of the story. Their story. It is the gate that reaches out for a hug, she thinks when a cold wind picks up and threatens to swoop her shivering self away. It is the gate that offers an embrace, arms angling out from its stiff middle, like a father consoling his sad and broken child. How odd it looked in its place. How quaint, to be the only survivor of its own story. No more kings roam under its elegant archway. No more guards train their arrows from the pagoda. No more tigers rustle nearby under the cover of trees, desperate to find a meal.

This gate… this thing. It shouldn't be here. But someone has shown it their kindness and tended to it; fed it with mortar and concrete and newly painted timber. Someone has seen fit to breathe new life into it.

Their story begins and ends here.

She met him once, then many times, upon the tufts of grass framing Namdaemun. She met him and with every meeting the distance between them diminished from feet to inches to barely anything. She met him, met all of him, met every place on him with every place on herself. His hands would smell of spice. Of coal and heat and rain… perhaps he tended to a garden in their time apart. He had the gentlest hands. When he touched her, they felt like lamps against her skin. His warmth would intoxicate her.

Maybe he was made of fire, she would wonder in the hours they lay next to each other, breath stuttering and pulse racing. Maybe he was a jinn.

“You’re not small enough to fit in a lamp,” she would tease him when they'd stumble over each other.

In her loneliness, she’d dream of him, floating on clouds made of cotton. She'd imagine him traveling from land to unknown land and sea to unending sea. She would imagine him soaring, his skin burnished and his eyes like bronze.

But he is long gone, now. He has left her side and his hands warm someone else's days. She is the survivor of her own story. She is a stiff gate looking for someone to embrace, someone to comfort. She endures, just as Namdaemun endures. They stay and they wait, the gate and her, in the hope that someday there will be a finale to their respective stories.

And then they will breathe a unified sigh of relief.

------

Jonghyun supposes it would’ve been wise to expect a second meeting.

He is still shocked when the time comes: a buzz from downstairs, a murmured excuse about routine maintenance, a knock on the door that sounds far too eager to be just pest control. 

When he opens the door to find the familiar lanky frame, he panics. There are no more disguises obscuring the distance between them now. Each man is plainly visible to the other. Jonghyun feels caught. Trapped, like a wild animal hunted until metal teeth closed around his leg. He frantically searches for something to hide behind, forgetting that he could simply shut the door again.

The creepy man named Lee Taemin invites himself in. He saunters casually, ambling the length of the hallway, looking around the room and humming, appraising it, measuring it. Measuring Jonghyun, who is still shocked and unable to react in a way that protects him.

“Wh-what’re you—?!” he begins when some of the shock has worn off.

“You don’t make a lot of money, do you?” Taemin cuts him off. “Why don’t you accept my offer? I’ll pay you plenty. More than you’ve probably ever seen. Then you can move out of this dump.” Even as he says this, he runs an appreciative hand over a row of books. “I can help you realise all your dreams, you know?”

“How did you even find me?!” Jonghyun counters. 

“Does it matter?” the other drawls, shaking his head in exasperation. He swings his arms around himself as he walks, and when his palms meet, he lets them clap together. Like he’s out on a relaxing stroll in the park. Everything about the setting is preposterous. “I tracked you down, now I’m here, and I’m giving you a second chance. Isn’t that what’s important?”

He stares, trying to figure out this puzzle of a human being. What is this guy? How is he so at ease right now? What is this game he’s playing and why? Why with Jonghyun, of all people? Does everything out of his mouth sound like that? Like a simple fairy tale? I’ll do this, then you do this, then we’ll live happily ever after. Ridiculous!

He’s only ever seen people like that on dramas. Badly written and poorly acted dramas.

“Please leave,” Jonghyun requests, maintaining a formal tone despite all the peculiarity of the setup. “Or I'll call the police.”

Taemin clicks his tongue. “Not until you answer me.”

“Sir, I can’t be bought for no reason.”

“But I’m giving you a reason,” Taemin points out as if the concept is too difficult for Jonghyun to understand. Which it is. “I pay you, you write for me. I like what you write, I pay you to do more. It’s like…” he gestures, standing in the middle of the room, his stance oddly graceful and formidable at the same time. “Like when a king enjoyed an artist of his court and promised his patronage,” he illustrates. “That’s what we’ll be like.”

The smile on his face is a perfect representation of a magician’s. Maybe he is something of a trickster, Jonghyun thinks. Maybe he likes to put on a show and confuse people.

“The publication house already pays me,” he informs. 

“After you finish the book,” he is challenged. It isn’t a lie, but how does this guy even know?1 “And only proportional to the sales. I’ll pay you regardless. In fact,” Taemin points. “I want you to write these books especially for me. My eyes only.”

So that’s it? Jonghyun wonders. Just a rich kid feeding his own kinks? He scoffs and rakes through his hair, sitting down at his desk to think.

He decides to consider it, because yes, he needs the money. Yes, he wants to stop living in fear of sleeping hungry. Yes, he doesn’t want to be destitute at the age of thirty-one, before he’s even had a real relationship, let alone marry and have kids. 

But can he really uphold his end of a deal like that? Can he really write what this guy is expecting him to write?

“I’m not good at… at sexy things,” he finally declares, motioning with his hands as if to show they were empty. “I have to work very hard at it. I can’t do it the way the rest of the authors do, and—” he sighs, remembering the way crazed readers had flocked to everyone else’s tables. Remembering his sales numbers, and the words of the manager of the obscure bookstore as he complained about having to lug all the unsold copies back into storage.

Trash, he’d called them.

“Really, I’m not even sure why you came to me, when someone like… I don’t know. Eonsook? She’s the better choice, clearly.”

Taemin walks closer, his lips pursed like he is thinking of a convincing argument. Maybe he is, from the way his eyes are so focused and bright. There is an unbreakable determination in his every movement. He crouches in front of Jonghyun, sighing as he looks up. 

“Your first book,” he begins. “A story about a man with a delusion. That he is in love with a woman. They fight, then they grow close together. And then, the man is cured through therapy. But,” he clicks his fingers. “His delusion has been passed to the woman. Brilliant idea,” he compliments. “Excellent writing. And yeah, sure, the sex stuff left a lot to be desired but…” he shrugs. “I liked the story. I liked that there was more to look forward to than just two people going at it. And you wrote to tell us that story, not to satisfy my needs, I could see that,” he assures. “So why not do more of that?”

Jonghyun gives a soft laugh despite himself. “Because that book sold less than a hundred copies. And the feedback was dismal—”

“Fuck the feedback,” Taemin shakes his head, a frown creasing his features. He looks young; too young to be involved in disreputable matters like this. Or… maybe at the perfect age to waste his time on such prurient endeavours. “Fuck what any of them think. They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“And you do?” Jonghyun doesn’t mean to be so standoffish but he cannot help it. Here is a stranger, coming out of nowhere, to validate him and say nice things about his pathetic attempts at writing. Here is someone trying to convince him that sales don’t matter, popularity doesn’t matter, even the adoration of the readers doesn’t matter. Then what does? Jonghyun confronts with a scowl. What does this guy know?

Taemin chuckles. “All I know is this. I like everything you write.”

------

“This world is built on supply and demand,” Taemin explains. 

He’s still here, hours later. By Jonghyun’s benevolence, of course. They are sitting on the floor, a laptop with a blank word document between them. The cursor is blinking… blinking incessantly. It taunts with each flicker.

Tell your story, Taemin said to him. Tell your story. Write it all down. Whatever you’re thinking of. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as your put it down in words.

Easy to say. Because try as he might, he doesn’t know where to start. He doesn’t even have the shadow of a beginning, forget the middle and the end. There is no story in his mind, no words waiting at his fingertips. 

This is a waste of time.

Taemin continues regardless. “The readers of this kind of stuff... their lives are filled with disappointment. With reality. They want the impossible: sultry encounters, beautiful getaways, improbable scenarios. You see?” he signals like his words are shedding light on abstruse philosophical concepts. “They want what they can’t have. And writers like Eonsook understand that. They supply that demand. That's why she’s always making bestsellers.”

Jonghyun considers this for a moment, seeing some truth in those claims. He takes a look around his own apartment, eyes roving over the small desk and small sofa and small kitchen. It is a liveable space, he reckons. It is better than a half-basement, or a slum with toxic asbestos roofing and poor access. But he is aware that in the bigger picture, he is still poor. He is confined. He is restricted. He is at the bottom of a heavy and insurmountable hill. 

Disaffection comes easily to people like him. And short of being on the wrong side of the law, there is only one way to be at ease with his circumstances.

To pretend.

“But you? You fuck everything up,” Taemin carries on, amusement in his features. “You take that supply-demand model and turn it on its head. You say, I decide what I'll write. I decide what I produce. This is my art, not my bread. This is more than a paycheck for me. This is more than a popularity contest for me. That's what I see you think, and…” he shakes his head, chuckling as he reclines on his palms. “I gotta say, I find that really ballsy.”

A small balloon of pride inflates Jonghyun’s chest at the words, to his own surprise. He shifts and clears his throat. “Th-that’s all well and fine, but… but it doesn’t help that no one will read my stories.”

“Tell me something,” the other contests. “Why did you start writing in the first place? And—” he holds up a finger between them. “Don’t tell me it’s for the money. You could do anything and earn money. Why this specifically?”

“W-well, because… because what else am I going to do with a major in—?”

“No,” another shake of the head stops him. “No. Don’t answer from up here,” Taemin taps his temple. “This isn’t about rationality. This is about how you feel. About why you feel that way. Give me the answer in here,” he reaches forward and pokes a finger into the centre of Jonghyun’s chest.

He stares at the perfectly shaped fingernail, at the faint pink that dissipates into flesh below the joint. Why does he write? What compels him to scribble on stray pieces of paper? What makes him put his thoughts down on phone notes? What is it that surges in his chest when he’s in the shower, when he’s about to go to sleep, when he’s listening to a beautifully sad song for the first time? What makes him write? 

“I… I have a lot to say,” he concludes. It feels like an admission of guilt—freeing. Splitting the restraints he’d been struggling against for… perhaps, years. It is like a large weight has come off his shoulders and now he can stand up straight. Now he can float off the ground. Now he can fly. He sighs and closes his eyes. “I have a lot to say. About… everything. And I—” he shakes his head, looks up from the finger, glances at the blank screen, turns his attention to the face of someone who is listening. Someone who is here and who does not appear to be in any hurry to leave.

“I really want someone to listen.”

With a pleased smirk, Taemin tilts his head and nods. “So start talking.”

------

He wonders what sounds he would hear, if he were up on the moon. 

Would he hear the distant roll of waves? The rushing and ebbing of tides, their froth effervescent in the shell of his ears, their folding and retreating as sharp as the feeling of sand between his toes. Would he hear the occasional beep of a passing space shuttle? Would he see the face of another human in the window of the craft as it zooms past, their hands mirroring a wave and their faces reflecting each other's smiles? 

What would he hear in that vacuum? 

Would he hear the patter of his heartbeat, like water dribbling off a tin roof to roll along the eaves and fall against leaves, touch the ground, seep into the earth and become lost? Would he hear it speeding and softening like the tides, waxing and waning like the moon, repeating itself over and over, spinning like the earth does, like the stars do, like this universe does? Or would he feel an urgency in his lungs, the frenzy to drink in as much breath as he could, to gather as much oxygen in each inhale and retain it until his sight shook and his hearing went dissonant and he realised that he could hear nothing on the moon?

Nothing?

Maybe it would be hope. Maybe he would hear the sound of unfiltered sunlight hitting his skin. Maybe he would hear the whisper of a solar wind playing with his hair. Maybe he would hear his smile, his happiness, his joy even in solitude like that. Maybe he would hear something like that. Maybe it would be melodious to his ears, maybe he would dance to it, on the ashen rigoleth, the dead and cracked surface of the moon. Maybe he would float from crater to crater and find himself repeating circles, large ellipses that never ended. No beginning and no end. Maybe he would hear the most perfect sounds that ever existed. Maybe he would hear the sonorous representation of heaven.

Maybe the moon is full of music.

------

Jonghyun stretches his arms and arches his back, rolling his neck tiredly. The light outside his windows has dimmed by a large degree. The sun has gone down hours ago, without his noticing. He blinks and feels around himself to reach for a light switch. An afterimage of the laptop screen remains in his vision for a while as he stands on complaining legs and ankles. A grumble in his stomach alerts him of the time. Dinner time. 

“Taemin ssi…?” he calls out, rubbing his eyes. “Taemin—”

It takes him a moment to realise he is alone. “Eh?” he scratches his cheek, trying to recall the sound of the door opening and shutting. He can’t tell how long it has been since the other left. There are no traces of his visit, no discarded teacups, no dirty plates with crumbs, nothing. He checks the bedroom, the bathroom, just to be sure. But it’s true: he has been a bad host. 

Jonghyun really has been doing nothing but writing. 

Searching for his phone to type out an apology, he realises belatedly that he doesn’t have a contact saved under “Lee Taemin.” With a repentant pout, he hums to himself. Next time, he promises himself. I’ll make it up to him next time.

When he’s settled down in front of his laptop again, this time with a steaming bowl of kal-guksu, he makes a choked sound at how much he has typed. Scrolling through page upon page of a very coherent-looking storyline, a reverberating surprise runs its course through him. Did he really do all this? Was that guy really serious about all that stuff? Has his inspiration finally returned to him, after all this time, all these years?

A muse… he feels the hint of a smile playing under his cheeks. He has a muse. 

“That… isn’t that something imaginary?” Minho asks him when he excitedly gushes about the encounter. “Like, something that old men used to think up so they could make paintings and all that?” 

“You’re just looking for an excuse to call me old,” Jonghyun dismisses. They’re lying on Minho’s carpet, listening to music. The sun is streaming through tall slider doors, and the usual sound of traffic is absent on a Sunday morning like this. Even the shadows look blue, their hue fluid and sparkling like light bouncing off of water. He feels calm, he feels like he is cradled in a hammock. As they relax side-by-side and read off their phones, there is a plot swirling in the back of Jonghyun’s mind. It buzzes and stirs, waiting to break out and lay itself down in orderly lines and sentences. He nurses it, pets its back, scratches it between its ears. He gives it a name. 

But it can wait.

“Look at this,” he scrolls through a namuwiki article on the Muses, holding it out for the other to see. “It says this famous novelist from America calls his bowling trophy a muse. Wah…! He’s written so many famous books!” 

“He’s old, too,” Minho snorts before he’s swatted at by an annoyed Jonghyun. “OK, OK!” he defends. “OK. I get it. You have a muse. So, is she hot?” he grins and rolls onto his elbows, a happy glimmer in his large eyes. “Does she pose for you? Do you get to take her on dates? How does it work?”

“It’s a guy,” Jonghyun frowns. 

“Really?” Minho hums, the slightest disenchantment pulling at his lips. “But it says here that muses are supposed to be beautiful women. Look,” he wrests the phone away from his friend and goes to the image section of the article. 

His point is proven by several old and colourful depictions of elegantly posed women, loose garments draped over their voluptuous fronts. There is no hint of an awkward lanky male form in dark and brooding clothes that blend him into his bleak surroundings. The women’s expressions are calm and filled with wisdom, unlike Taemin’s youthful fervour. The only feature that is barely reminiscent of the young man are the dark, mystical eyes.

Something inside Jonghyun grows uneasy.

“I mean…” he shrugs, hoping to give an explanation. He doesn’t have one, not at that moment. He doesn’t know how to defend his experience. All he knows is a name, some very sound advice, and the promise of money… money he hasn’t yet received, mind. He realises he is dealing with a stranger, after all. That if he isn’t careful, his prefatory suspicions of Taemin being a dangerous guy might still come true.

“Look, why don’t I introduce the two of you when he visits again?” he offers as justification, trying to push the issue aside. “You’ll like him, he’s got an... entertaining sort of personality, you’ll see—”

“I have a better idea,” Minho rejects the response. “Why don’t you just let me read one of your books, eh? I searched for your name and nothing comes up, you know? Are you really getting published at all? Or are they just taking you for a ride and stealing your work—?”

“Let’s just,” Jonghyun holds his hands up between them. He feels alarmed at the turn their conversation has taken. “Look. Let’s talk about this later, OK?”

“Hyung…” Minho makes an exasperated face, but he’s a good friend. His words are rooted in concern. He slowly settles back onto the floor, giving up on his argument, intertwining their legs. The soothing sounds from his music system take over once again.

What remains is Jonghyun’s fear of losing a dear friend.

------

“Who are you, really?” he shoots his misgivings the first chance he gets.

It has been many weeks since their last meeting. He has been progressively furthering the new book, or whatever it turns out to be in the end. What first sat as an idea in his scribbled notes has grown tall and strong. He now has chapters, and multiple plotlines that diverge from and converge on each other. He has dialogues, he has beats, he has imagery, he has descriptions. He has woven all the ends to make one whole, one complete mass, one continuous flow. Things are coming together, and Jonghyun is amazed at his own progress.

But his gratitude doesn’t dilute his distrust.

As soon as he barges into the apartment, Taemin demands to read through whatever there is so far. For a long time, he sits reposed on the sofa: silent for once, interest wavering only when he is addressed.

“Huh?”

“Are you just some rich chaebol kid looking to spend his dad’s money? Is this… just fun for you?” Jonghyun expounds on the interrogation. There is some insecurity in his tone, some residual lack of confidence from previous encounters that have left him wounded. Even he can tell. But he continues, unabashed in his self-preservation. “All this… this muse stuff. What’s in it for you?”

“I told you,” Taemin offers an apathetic shrug. “I like your writing.”

“I thought you like books with lots of sex,” Jonghyun frowns and counters, pointing at the tablet in the other’s hold. “I don’t have any of that in there.”

“Are you planning on keeping it that way?”

“Well, I wasn’t really going to, but—wait, no, listen to me,” he is nearly distracted, and the momentary look of triumph on Taemin’s face leaves him flustered. “I need to know who you are. I need to know why you’re doing this, and I need to know now,” he places his ultimatum. “Or I’m not writing another word.”

Taemin sits up and releases a slow exhale. His gaze is amused. It roves over his host, appraising him like a teacher would a child on his first day of school.  

“What if I don’t tell you?” he posits. It’s not a challenge. His tone is chatty, conversational. As if he’s asking, what if cars could fly. He leans forward and smiles that magician smile again. “What will it change, if you know? Is it going to fix your life? Is it going to rid you of all your problems? Is the world going to make sense?” he motions with his hands. “Of course not. So why do you want to know?”

“Because—!” Jonghyun wants to say it will sate his curiosity, but he can’t admit that. Something about that feels like a confession. He can’t speak his mind like that.

“Look, I like that you’re curious,” Taemin reads his mind anyway, still smiling. “I like that you want to learn about things you don’t understand. I think that’s important for a writer. But I think what’s more important is figuring out what the real question is.”

He blinks with confusion. “The real question…?” he shakes his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’re writing this thing,” the other waves the tablet. “And you’ve advanced really far into the storyline. Things are getting exciting, characters are finally starting to become full people I can be invested in. I can’t put this book down even if the house was burning,” he compliments. “But there’s something missing. And I can’t tell what it is, except that it exists. In there,” another poke into Jonghyun’s ribcage. “Maybe the question you should be asking then, is what is missing? What else do you need? What else is there for you to find?”

A clearing of the throat, a shift of the seat. Jonghyun won’t acknowledge it, but the words resonate with him.

Missing. Something is missing. Something needs to be found. Something is waiting to be discovered. Something that he requires to complete this story… or maybe complete himself. Something that once sat in an empty slot in his chest must be recovered. He doesn’t mean for the thought to be so profound. But it is that very same profoundness that makes him believe it’s probably true. Something is missing inside him. Something is missing from his life. Something is missing from his world. And he needs to find it.

“Will you help me look?” he entreats his muse.

A magnanimous stretch of the arms replies. “It’s what I’m here for,” Taemin grins and falls back onto the cushions, continuing to read.

------

They stand outside the apartment block and Jonghyun is still not sure about this.

“Look, I really don’t think—” he starts to beseech, but Taemin silences him with a wave of his hand. He clicks on one of the call buttons and a ring starts to go, only raising the panic in Jonghyun’s gut.

“Just meet with her,” the other persuades, rational as always.

When someone answers on the other side of the line, it’s as if his entire body freezes until he is nudged. “U-uhh… yes. M-my name is uh… I mean. That is—”

“Is this a prank call?” the woman asks with anger in her voice.

Another nudge shakes his senses up. “N-no…!” Jonghyun insists. “Uhm, we—you and I. We work for the same company. M-miss Eonsook.”

A long pause. Some rustling of cloth. Some whispered conversation in the background. Then the woman’s voice returns. “OK, come on up,” she finally acquiesces before a loud buzz swings the front door open.

“Go!” Taemin hisses at him, grinning wide under the dark sunglasses that have become his signature.

The building isn’t much different from Jonghyun’s own apartment block, but there is something lighter about everything. It feels… nicer. There are planters with pretty flowers along the corridor. The lifts are clean and fully functional. The walls are devoid of posters and advertisements. TV sets can be heard outside some of the doors, as can the whistle of pressure cookers and the nagging of mothers. The atmosphere is homely, welcoming. He doesn’t feel like he’s intruding on anything, so he continues to walk in confidently.

He reads the numbers on each unit as he passes by, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings and wishing Taemin were accompanying him.

When he’s at the door he was looking for, he rings the bell and waits.

The woman who answers him is somewhat recognizable. He remembers seeing the straight jet-black hair, the round jaw, the parrot-hooked nose, the no-nonsense stare. Even if he has never before glimpsed her puffy lips or heard her soft voice, he remembers her from the fan-meeting—and possibly from other occasions, when they bumped into each other at the publication office.

Nobody can tell she is one of the most popular writers in the country.

“Ah, hello,” he bows low and his sunglasses slip off his face to clatter to the ground. He scrambles to put them back on, but simply pockets the disguise when he notices the turn in her mouth. “M-my name is—”

“You must be the person who writes as Grapefruit,” she guesses correctly. Her diction holds a soft lisp. Barely there, unlike Minho’s often baby-like pronunciations. He blushes and nods at the floor in response to the question.

“Come in,” she invites him, the grille door swinging outwards.

Other than the ordinary-looking furnishings, her home is full of photos. As he pulls the surgical mask to his chin and wanders through the apartment, Jonghyun cannot help but study them all, turn by careful turn. All over the walls she has displayed pictures of herself, her family, her friends, and another woman. A sister, he guesses at first, before correcting himself when his eyes go to a shockingly intimate polaroid.

He doesn’t realize he is staring until he hears his host pointedly clear her throat.

“Some juice?” Eonsook offers the glass on a tray. He accepts and stands awkwardly for a few minutes, shifting from foot to foot.

“Y-you have a very nice place—” he begins.

“So,” Eonsook cuts him off, showing him a seat. “How can I help?”

“H-help?” he blinks, his thoughts clouded.

She raises her eyebrows, wets her lips, digs her teeth into the lower one. “It’s a polite way of asking why you’re here,” she clarifies. He can tell there is laughter waiting to bounce out of her throat. In everything she does, there is an underlying strain of confidence. She exudes it in waves that come off her and lap at his own chest, nearly pushing him back with their force.

“R-right! Yes, of course,” he jumbles with the glass in his hold, looking around for a moment before accepting the proffered seat. “I—I came to ask you for… for advice.”

She follows his example and sinks into an armchair, crossing her legs and watching him for a moment. A long and entertained moment. “Oh?”

“Y-yes…” he insists. “You see. I’m—I’m currently working on this book, and. And I’m at this part that I need to research before I write it. So…”

“What kind of part?” her interest is immediate.

He tries to think of a way to describe it, nervously scratching the back of his neck and fumbling with the collar of his tee shirt. He feels unreasonably nervous, cognizant of the sweat beginning to stream down his back. “W-well…” he tries.

���Is it a sexy part?” she asks.

“N-not really.”

“Hmm, I guessed as much,” she leans back into her chair. “I’ve read your work. You’re not much of an erotic writer, are you, Grapefruit ssi?” she sums him up with narrowed eyes. And yet, there isn’t any sign of malice in her observation. He glance is approving, in fact. Admiring. “Your stories are very different. Emotional. They’re for a very… cerebral audience. Is that always your intent?” she asks with some fascination in her gaze.

He blinks up at the ceiling, thinking of a genuine answer, not wanting to disappoint her for some nameless reason.

“No,” he concedes after a while. “I think it’s just… because of the kind of person I am. I think it requires me falling in love first before… before my characters fall in love.” He runs a finger over the rim of his condensate-covered glass, nodding contemplatively for a moment. “W-what about you?” he asks. “What is your intent? When you write, I mean.”

She hums, crossing her arms across her front. “Intent…” she hisses a breath in. “There doesn’t always have to be one, you know?” she says conversationally. “Like you said, we can feel very strongly about something, and then write about it. Tell a story around it. I think that’s possible,” she accepts. And when she smiles, he feels an odd sense of solidarity with her.

“What… what does Eonsook ssi feel strongly about?”

The woman smirks. “You were staring at her just now,” comes the simply reply. Accompanying it is the smooth motion of a hand coming up to support her chin, a ring glinting on its third finger.

Jonghyun bumbles an apology.

“There is nothing else I feel as strongly about,” she reveals. “There is no one I love as much, no one I care about as much, no one who matters to me as much. And so,” she holds out a hand between them. “I write about her. About us. I suppose…” she finishes with a grin, a clever gleam nestled in her eyes. “I suppose you can say she’s my muse.”

“A muse…!” Jonghyun’s heart runs on a treadmill at the words. “Do you think…” he begins, shifting forward in his seat. She mirrors the movement. “Do you think you could teach me? How you find the courage to tell your stories?” he requests.

“Courage?” Eonsook chuckles. “It doesn’t take courage to make people happy, Grapefruit ssi,” she shakes her head. “Because that is what we do. We ultimately make people happy with our work. They read it, they smile, they feel good. Maybe they forget about it after some time. Maybe some of it stays with them for years. Who knows?” she shrugs. “As long as we get them to smile.”

He feels awe at that. “As long as they smile…” he nods again, this time in understanding.

------

With every jump of his hips, he is filled with a murder of crows that flutter to the far edges of his body—to the villages settled in his fingertips and the townships developed in his toenails. With every jump of his hips the leaves inside him quiver from the force, as birds take to the skies between his stomach and lungs.

When they travel, when they journey through him, his sighs tell the tale of that journey. They sing like bards, reciting how the crows travel carrying messages tied to their feet. The sighs paint pictures of beaks pecking at his outer edges, his boundaries, his geographical territories. With every jump of his hips he is breaking those boundaries, violating the treaties that hold those borders sacred. With every jump, he is less self-contained, less of an uncontested dominion.

He secedes. He surrenders his independence. He lets himself be taken captive by the thrum of the man below him. Inside him.

With every jump of his hips, he abdicates the throne of his identity. He makes the other king. Gives his crown to another head. And the crows carry news of this shift in power to all the lands that were once under his reign. They carry the news, propelled by the sighs, released at every breath, every hitch, every gasp. Every jump.

In his own kingdom, he is now a pauper.

To have meaning, to be defined by a name and description—all this no longer applies to him. The other man has changed his definition. The other man has made him… not him. But if he is not himself, who is he? If he is not who he was born as, if he is no longer the man he introduced himself as, who is he? What is his name, now? What can he call himself? How will he present himself to strangers, if he is a stranger to his own self? If he looked himself up online, what would the results be? Would they just become strange unreadable symbols?

If he is not himself, then he does not exist: or, at least… this is what he has always thought to be true.

But now his hips jump, and his voice breaks, and he calls out a name that doesn’t belong to him. With every jump, he becomes a blurry existence.

------

They grow close, Eonsook and Jonghyun. They become friends.

She talks to him often, sometimes on the phone, other times over dinner. On a second visit to her apartment, he learns the other woman from the photos is Gwiboon, who talks a mile a minute and laughs like an erupting volcano. The two of them accept Jonghyun like he has always belonged in their life, always had a place in their home and their hearts. They are kind to him. They are kinder than most others have been.

Perhaps because there is nothing to hide from them. He doesn't have to lie about what he does for a living, doesn't have to make up stories about how he spends his free time. He doesn't have to shut his doors and draw his curtains with them. There is nothing to be ashamed of, in their company.

It's freeing.

Jonghyun continues to write, faster and longer than ever before. He writes like he breathes. He enjoys how uninhibited it makes him feel. He finds himself feeling more and more confident about this story, even going back to the rejected manuscript and making edits with a red marker. He meets Taemin at a café and spends most of the time scribbling in a notepad as they hide from other patrons in a corner booth.

With every page he writes, a mass of pride grows in his ribcage.

“So, what now?” Taemin asks him one afternoon, having finished the latest draft and giving it his seal of approval. “Where does the story go from here?”

“Hmm...” Jonghyun nurses a cup of coffee. It is early in the morning. He has been organising his books and wardrobe and even his thoughts while the other read. He has been carefully making his way through all that needs to be settled—in his writing and outside it.

“I could write some more about the way the characters feel. You know, build more plot buffer. Or,” he gives half a shrug. “I could. Resolve it in a certain way.”

“A certain way,” Taemin raises an eyebrow. “What way?”

“Well. They could. I don't know. Fall in love, and—” the other is vehemently shaking his head before Jonghyun even finishes his sentence. “What? Why not?!”

“Too forced,” Taemin disapproves. “It would just be pandering to your readers, when the story doesn’t naturally flow that way. Consider everything that’s happened. There is no justification for them falling in love. All they've done is meet a few times and exchange... banter.”

“Sometimes that's enough!” Jonghyun defends, then softens. “Is... is it not?”

“You tell me.”

“No, you tell me!” Jonghyun insists. “Is it not enough for them to know each other? To enjoy the company? To... to feel comfortable with each other? That should be enough sometimes, right? Wouldn't that be enough for you?”

“Is that the real question—?”

“Yes! Yes, it is!” Jonghyun shouts, and as he does, he is painfully aware of the fact that this is not how he had planned for this conversation to ensue. He is conscious of the fact that he has made it a confrontation rather than keeping it within the bounds of an emotional exchange. There is a feeling of being put under an unannounced spotlight, its glare harsh against his face. He breathes hard, gripping the edge of the kitchen counter before him, doubling over in preparation for the rest of his episode.

“Yes, it is,” he repeats in a quieter, gentler tone. When he straightens up, he stares at the other with pleading eyes.

“What am I to you?” he repeats with some desperation.

Taemin looks satisfied at the question, like he has been waiting a long time for it to emerge. He remains relaxed despite the friction, despite the anxiety in his host. He continues to smile like an illusionist, continues to watch like a judge. “Before I answer that,” he begins in a calm, collected voice. “And I will answer it. But before I do, I need to you to tell me first: what am I to you?”

The reaction enrages him. “No,” Jonghyun warns. “No. Enough games. Enough running around in circles. You’re never honest with me. You only talk about this… this shit!” he angrily motions at the tablet the other had been reading from. “You can’t avoid this anymore. You have to answer me now.” He holds a hand up between them and counts. “Who are you? Why are you helping me? What do I mean to you?”

“Hmm,” Taemin rocks back and forth. “You really want me to tell you?”

Jonghyun makes wide, aggravated motions. “Who else will—?!”

“You want me,” Taemin clarifies. “To tell you. Who I am,” he raises his eyebrows. “You really don’t know? Have you really not known? All this time?”

“That’s why I’m asking—!”

“No, you’re not,” the protest is cut off. “You’re asking because other people are asking: what does he do in there all day, who is he with, who is this muse he’s talking about all of a sudden. You’re asking because you need to give them an answer. An answer that isn’t really the answer,” the corner of Taemin’s lip turns up. “Isn’t it?”

“Wh-what…?” Jonghyun shakes his head, the hair on his arms standing on end.

Taemin skips off his stool, meanders around the counter, advances on him.

Jonghyun’s breath sounds like an elasticized gong. His inhales are like rubber bands, stretching on for hours and hours. He is buzzing, like he sits inside something alive. Inside a heart and the lights decorating Namdaemun at night are made of lamps that glow soft and warm as if someone is holding him in an embrace and showering him with solace while their eyes are speaking to him in a different tongue in a speech of a foreign land where jinn live and grant wishes and there is nothing to see for miles except murders of crows carrying messages on their feet telling the world that the empire has fallen the world is coming to an end and the—

------

Mapo bridge.

It talks to him. It asks how he is, if he’s eaten yet. It tells him to turn his head up and look at the blue sky once. It tells him it loves him. It tells him that the brightest moments in his life are yet to come.

Jonghyun cries hard enough that his body shakes from the force. Minho stands very close, looking worried and reaching out for a hug. But he is told to wait. Not yet. He is told to wait, Jonghyun will need him soon.

Words are everything he is. Words are his life and soul. His bone and sinew. His drifting days and sleepless nights. Words have created him, penned him down—not the other way around. They have built him up, bound his loose pages and given him a spine. They have made him Kim Jonghyun. They have made him a writer, a poet, an artist. They have made him what he is. And he would never have realised this, were it not for Taemin.

Were it not for himself.

“I write for myself,” he claims to the sad and bloated waters of the Han, knowing the other is listening. Somewhere. From within the crevasses of his mind, Taemin is listening. “I write for myself.” It is a heavy claim to make. It is heavy as lead. It is tied to Jonghyun's feet as he trains to run his ink across a coastline. The claim is heavy enough to need lugging around on his hipbone. It is heavy, it is full. Like an earthen pot spilling its contents.

His face is drenched when he speaks those hefty words, when he acknowledges them. He sobs and his fingers tighten on the rails of the bridge, the place he would often visit when he felt sad and alone. But he isn’t alone. Minho is here for him. Eonsook and Gwiboon wait in a car nearby. And Taemin.

Taemin exists in the beats of his pulse.

Behind him, traffic swishes past. In front of him, the river hushes his crying. “I write for myself,” he lets go of the full pot and watches it splash, watches its shards rock a little on the ground, after they've separated from the whole.

많이 힘들었구나

He touches the words of the bridge and nearly answers out loud. He nearly says yes. Yes. It was tiring. It was terrifyingly easy to give up on my dreams. He rocks a little in place and finally Minho gathers him into a tight hold, stroking circles on his back.

It was awful, Jonghyun wants to say. But I found him. I found myself. I found contentment. I found it. And now I can walk away from you saying yes. Yes, it was tiring. It was hard. But now my breath comes easily. My heart beats easily. My life runs easily. I am alive. I am free. I am happy.

I love myself.

#jongtae #long fic #shinee

[imuybemovoko]

My beliefs now

I set this blog up for a bunch of different purposes including conlangs/worldbuilding stuff, my writing, and my views on religion and maybe also politics. So far, mostly, I’ve ranted a lot about the beliefs I left behind. Now that I’ve let that particular sketchy brand of Christianity, now that I’ve discovered the ways it and my conservative family background were probably turning me into a fascist while I was still in all that, I figure I might as well try to hash out where I stand now. I’m around eleven months out from my deconversion, and a lot has already changed. I might try to attempt a before and after thing but there’s a lot to unpack about how I used to think and I’m not sure I’ve understood everything yet. I think I made the mistake of thinking that not very long before that repressed memory about “Sharon” and her Jonah display came crashing back in March. This is current to late July 2020 and may not include everything. 

So without any further ado, let’s talk background. First, some things I’ve already either mentioned or given more than enough evidence for. I used to be a Christian fundamentalist. (Clearly. I rant about it a lot.) I got into that because I was raised religious, then let myself fall right the fuck into what I’ll call “deep end lite” shortly before senior year in high school. Some local churches in my small town arranged a missions trip thing and the way I agreed to go along felt in the moment like surrendering to a voice that’s been speaking to me all along. In ...a way, it was. Just not the voice I thought. I’m pretty sure I didn’t want this god, at any point like ever, until that little part of me whispered that it would be easier to accept him. I have a megathread document that I’ve stored a lot of my “God stories” from my time as a Christian in. Unfortunately I didn’t remember many specific details of this experience to write down in there, but I did write a bit of a “life-story” thing that reminds me that, chronologically, that happened after a period of focused attempts by the church to indoctrinate me, some traumatic things my family did, social struggles, and feeling like an asshole because of things I’d done in the past. I remember having this growing sense over the previous year that I was approaching some kind of very dangerous breaking point, to the point where (trigger warning: mental instability, school shooter mention. Please either stop here or skip to where it says “in other words” in the next paragraph after this if that’s going to be an issue. It also keeps getting dark from there for a minute. Please, please tread with care if you need to. There is no shame at all if this becomes too much. Take care of yourself first and foremost.) 

when discussing how I came to accept the faith, I told some of my Christian friends that I felt like there was a scary chance of me becoming a school shooter. I think this may have been a post-hoc projection, but I can’t quite be sure of that. I was in a bad place for a bit there in high school. I had a wild temper and some sketchy intrusive thoughts.

In other words, it hit at a perfect moment of weakness. That’s how oppressive forms of spirituality function, it’s how hate groups function... it’s a massive shit cocktail and I found a pretty bad influence in the form of people who promote that whole “born again experience” thing in Christianity. I’d say I’m glad I missed out on being dragged into a fascist ideology this way, but uh... I’m no longer convinced I didn’t grow up around something like that. More later. 

From there I spiraled my way through my first attempts at college through the university’s chapter of the Chi Alpha campus ministry and, peripherally through that, Assemblies of God (holy shit those guys are wild), then through a local Baptist church (more peripherally) and Calvary Chapel (I was a worship guitarist here for like 18 months and helped with their youth ministry for almost as long) closer to home and a CRU chapter at my community college. With each passing year I slipped further and further into this weird shame-induced funk where I got like... addicted to Jesus and hated myself or something. It’s a bit hard to find words that don’t take multiple entire extra pages and I want to be concise, so I’ll simply call it “Jesus-flavored depression” for brevity and because that was enough of a genuinely bad time (and I’m still fucked up enough) that I might need some fairly serious therapy.

Near the end of 2018 I was reaching a breaking point, wondering why nothing ever seemed to change in my life from “sexual sin” (...which in my case literally consisted of being attracted to women and occasional self-pleasure, but they literally teach you to hate yourself for less than that in the spicier churches rip) to my direction in life to how trapped I felt by my family. I also started to have more questions about the violence in the Bible and some of the sketchier doctrines, and that was strongly reinforced by some of the things I saw in a creative writing class I took, including an atheist who shared a story of a profoundly negative experience involving being taught about hell at a very young age. All that led to the absolute disaster that was December 2018. It was my last semester at the community college I went to. Finals week was a fucking disaster, and the week before that too, and my grades were really good but at great cost. I won’t go into a ton of detail because 1. space concerns and 2. this time is still damn painful to discuss, but just know that I’m unconvinced I’d have survived that month without this song. (Yes, that’s Paramore. Shut up xD they’re still good.) I looped it for like three days straight and I think it was just enough to keep me going through what was the third time I had any suicidal kind of thoughts ever and by far the worst and longest period of it so far.

So the next several months (and I won’t go into a ton of detail about this, I intended this post more to describe my current position and I don’t wanna get too in the weeds with background) were a confusing period of questioning, starting with, of all things, my family dynamic. The spiral after the week before finals was ...considerably worsened by some comments my dad made, and between that and some experiences in the past that the creative writing class I took that fall reminded me of, I was exposed to a bit of a deeply toxic pattern. I might discuss that more deeply in another post, but for now suffice it to say that extensive youtube binges and some other research between about January and March told me the situation is probably adjacent to pathological narcissism in some way. I brought some of this up to the church I was attending at the time (a small town Calvary Chapel, if I haven’t mentioned that already) and their responses were ...inconsistent. Some people blamed me, some people said “oh dang your dad is abusive”, and some people took the “your parents are trying their best” tack. In retrospect I think that made me doubt if God’s messaging to these people could really be trusted. Then, in about April, the question of hell came up again. I was helping in the church’s budding youth ministry at the time and we had about four regular attendees between the ages of 12 and 18. There were about three weeks in a row when one of the other adults (I’ll call her Kelly for the purposes of not doxxing; also more on her later) talked at length about how unbelief leads to hell. I remembered that atheist from creative writing, made the connection to these four kids, and thought, “what the hell are we doing?” (Pun not intended but rather convenient.) I immediately backed down from my role in the youth ministry, citing other equally valid but less pressing reasons involving stress from the issues with my dad, and tried to go on with life. But the floodgates were open. 

In late May or early June, I was staring out a window one morning and suddenly a question crossed my mind unbidden: “Is God a narcissist?” I thought back to a relatively recent sermon by the associate pastor in which he explained that the purpose of the world was “for God’s glory”, to some apparent sudden flights of rage, and some other factors in the scriptures, and thought, “holy shit, I need to investigate this, because God is also very adjacent to narcissism.” It took a hot minute for the ball to really get rolling with that, but once it did... I came to a point by late June or early July where I delivered an ultimatum to God, something to the tune of “Ok, either show me how all these questions I have can be answered beyond a doubt or I’m done.” 

There was no answer. 

God was silent during this time, and the people in the church were shocked that I had the questions I did and either concerned or ...rather spicy. I joined an ex-Christian discord server to aid in a proper, thorough investigation. I aired my questions both there and on a Christian discord server. The Christian server was toxic as fuck and the ex-Christians started making a crazy amount of sense. I watched some videos from Cosmic Skeptic and TheraminTrees (most notably the latter’s deconversion story) for new perspectives and, by mid-August, had crashed out of the faith altogether.

So the last time I ever stepped into a church with the intent of attending service (I showed up after once in January of 2020 to kinda let them know and that went pretty badly lol) was about two weeks before I started college again in the fall. I burned all but one of my Bibles and a collection of gospel tracts I never did anything else with and stylized it like my limited understanding of what a satanic/pagan ritual looked like, complete with a chant in my conlang Aylaan for a more personal twist because of course, to feel edgy. (I did a lot of kind of weird shit to feel edgy; that’s one of two of them I’m sure I don’t regret.) And after that, things got ...ah, confusing?

Because of course when the linchpin of your understanding of the world gives way, everything becomes fucked for a hot minute. 

So the first thing that happened was a couple months of anxiety and confusion. I slowly started to deconstruct my inherited political views too. (More on that later.) Then I had this really beautiful interesting moment in late September where I walked past a tree on the way to a class and had a sudden realization that I didn’t have to force the tree into a Christian framework anymore, it was just a beautiful mass of green shit and cellulose. I could appreciate it in whatever way I felt was best. I damn near broke down crying in the bathroom before class, it hit me that hard. So that’s fun xD

Since then I’ve kinda gone through a bunch of funky phases with this, including a couple of months of fairly salty atheism. Along with that process, I started questioning my sexuality in December (more on that in another post in a minute lmao it’s a trip) and literally shredding my politics in the face of Trump being a crackhead in a dangerous position getting away with confirmed illegal shit, COVID-19 and the ...dehumanizing responses of corporations and their sponsored politicians, and then what I noticed about the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and the fallout from that. (In a nutshell, holy FUCK there’s a huge problem and it’s messed up that people don’t see it.) At this point, I’m socially progressive and pretty left leaning. I don’t know what the hell to do about it or how either other than some of the tense discussions I’ve been having, but I’d like to work against racism and discrimination too. So that’s cool and a lot better than where I was... 

which... I regret deeply.

I don’t know exactly how to define my old political views, and they were marked by considerable cognitive dissonance. I’ll try to illustrate this as best I can but I don’t know what label I can use. Here goes. 

Cursed images aside, I think the best way to explain this is through some background, i.e. what my parents believe, because my beliefs were largely inherited. 

This might be majorly over-simplified and based on what I remember of my own pre-deconstruction views and what I hear them say lately. I’m doing my best, but take it with a grain of salt. Basically, it seems like they walk this weird line between constitutionalist and very authoritarian that I see a hell of a lot of in rural America. Kinda like the Republic party used to before they yeeted into Trump’s mindfuck wholeheartedly. They’re homophobic to a rather alarming degree (more on that in another post soon) and not ...overtly Christian-supremacist but you can tell that their ethics are dripping with it and they’re terrified of Islam and they’d like to legislate some aspects of Christian morality. They also support the second amendment, which is the one thing I still agree with them on that I’m aware of, but they take it to more of an extreme than I’m willing to. For further ...flavor, they also reject the premise that parts of our society are systemically racist (and maybe also the idea that such a thing is even possible because of course), subscribe to the “bootstrap theory” for everything they can think to apply it to, reject climate science, and have been extremely conspiratorial about COVID-19. Also they like making it out like everything is a Democrat conspiracy theory, compare the Democrats to Hitler and Stalin to a weird degree, have on at least one occasion called Fox Motherfucking News left-leaning, and think Alex Jones is wacky but sometimes raises valid points. 

So that’s, in a nutshell, a bit of a look at my past political views, except I think I was a bit more Christian-dominionist than them and I think I had moments of “...does this really make any sense?” for years before I crashed out of everything. The first domino was my Christianity, but once that fell, my entire approach to the world went some places. 

So ...yeah. Oof. I was sketchy as shit. Glad that’s changed. 

So uh... I’ve already mentioned a vague (read: as much detail as I feel confident providing) description of my political views now, but after all this bullshit let’s finally get to the other half of my titular current beliefs. This ...isn’t going to be easy to explain either, but I feel more confident going into more detail. Buckle up :^)

Alright. So except for a couple of months where I was like “there is no god reeee” half because I was sOmE hYpErInTeLlEcTuAl SkEpTiC and half because of trauma from the toxic flavor of Christianity I left and some shitty developments in both politics and my social circles (I’ll talk at some length about “Kelly” in a sec here I think), since leaving Christianity I’ve always been what I’ll call “hopeful agnostic” (I think I stole this term from Rhett and/or Link lol). In a nutshell, what that means to me is “there may or may not be a god, but I hope there is at least one and they’re nice, or like, at least some spiritual thing that has a good aspect that can help me”. I also dabble in shitty rituals where I burn dead plants and occasionally also hate literature like gospel tracts (and, that one time, a couple of bibles) and basically call on “anyone who is listening and gives a fuck, else the placebo effect” for whatever my goal is. Like... witchy-adjacent but I don’t think about it very much at this stage. I kind of enjoy it, and I think for one reason or another it can be good for my mental health, but I’m wary of any kind of commitment or even more serious experimentation, even as I hope to find something good, because ...trauma, and maybe even absent that a desire to not be wrong in a way that’s dangerous to anyone else again. So that’s fun :^)

So if you’ve made it this far through this weird bullshit, thanks, this story is kind of important to me xD and if you couldn’t, and you’re not reading this ending thingy because it got too dark or it pissed you off or something, that’s cool too and you’re beautiful and valid. Whoever you are, I hope you find whatever healing you need. :)

#ex christian #spirituality #politics

[the-cookie-of-doom]

Earlier I was thinking of an AU where Mitch is a detective and Stiles is an FBI agent.

Mitch is somewhere around 35, has been a cop for a long time, and is deeply jaded by the business. His daughter is the light of his life, though, and she's a constant reminder not to let his job fully destroy his soul. It's hard sometimes, though.

Daughter is like 8 or so, and is a product of his relationship with Katrina. That relationship has since ended... not quite terribly, it was a mutual divorce, but they definitely like each other now that they're not married anymore. Mitch and Katrina we're together since high school and married right out of college; they tried to commit too much too soon, and within a few years they realized they weren't as suited for each other as they though. Having a new baby plus Mitch's high-risk and high-stress job was hard to deal with, and Mitch isn't good at dealing with stuff at the best of times, so. Divorce. Five years later they're still friends, not falling into the trap of bitter exes.

Katrina has probably moved on but Mitch quickly finds out he's not that good at holding down a relationship, but he doesn't really mind. Marrying Katrina seemed like the logical step; they were high school sweethearts, went to college, obviously the next corse was to get jobs, get a house, and have a baby. That's probably one of the reasons their relationship failed. Nowadays Mitch tends to stick to one night stands and short flings, not all that interested in finding someone to settle down with again.

Mitch has been working an ongoing case for the last 5 years, amongst the others: a human trafficking ring operating out of the city Mitch works in. They're slippery bastards and keep getting away, when suddenly there's a break in the case that leads the FBI to their doorstep.

Stiles is the newest member of the team that's sent to help with the case, all bright eyed and bushy tailed and fresh out of the Academy. He's way too chipper, not beaten down by the job yet, and Mitch can't stand him. He's too hyper and hopeful, and Mitch is enough of a bastard that he takes some sick joy in crushing Stiles' hopes. His unit has been working this case for longer than Stiles has been in the FBI, and will probably be working it long after. Trafficking rings are notoriously hard to break.

Stiles doubles down on his optimism though, out of spite, and that impresses Mitch a bit. After working with Stiles he has to grudgingly admit respect. He's professional and efficient and notices details and patterns that other miss. They might actually make some headway afterall (not that Mitch will admit it.)

Stiles is also great with Mitch's daughter, and she adores him. That goes a long way in thawing Mitch out towards him. And Stiles has a way of getting under his skin; it's not long before they fall into bed together. It's almost inevitable. At least, that's how Mitch justifies it to himself, since he's usually not one for fraternizing with coworkers. But you know how it is; working close quarters, under a lot of stress and pressure, something was bound to break...

There's another break in the case, as well, in the worst possible way. They get too close and one of the traffickers kidnaps Mitch's daughter, and he wishes he was as optimistic as Stiles because all he's left with is the memories of all the case reports and victims associated with this group. She makes for effective bait, getting Mitch out in the open and vulnerable without a moment's hesitation as soon as he recieves the pictures of his terrified daughter, and a location.

It's a trap, of course it is, Mitch knows that. But that's his baby girl, he's not going to sit around waiting to get a strike team together while god knows what happens to her. (He's knows, he's seen the aftermath, and he's not willing to wait.)

Predictably Mitch is outmanned and out gunner, as is given to options: give up all his weapons, or watch them put a bullet in his daughters head. Mitch takes option one, promises his daughter that everything is going to be okay, and does his damndest to stall and figure out a way to get them both out of this.

Lucky for him, Stiles catches up quick, and finds a position that gives him a good vantage point over everything that's happening. Mitch sees him lurking in the shadows, there's some silent communication, and then all hell breaks loose.

Because Mitch has spent the better part of his adulthood exposed to the worst sides of humanity, he's a bit paranoid. He taught Katrina to fight when they were together, and has started doing the same with his daughter. He's also taught her more than your average stranger danger lessons, and when she sees Mitch give her a specific handsignal she drops to the ground; a second later gunfire rings out as Stiles shoots the man that was holding her. But Stiles isn't an assassin, he's a federal agent; so he winged the guy, trained to wound not kill. Mitch goes for his guns and his daughter, his first though to get her out of there, while Stiles lays down cover fire.

Mitch meets Stiles outside and hands his daughter off to him, telling him to get her out of there—something he wouldn't trust anyone else to do, especially now, after coming so close to losing her. But there's no way he's letting the asshole ringleader get away again. Now it's personal. Stiles knows Mitch is about to do something incredibly stupid and extremely illegal.... and decided to step aside and cover for him if he needs to. So Mitch goes back, wounded (he took at least one shot in the back/shoulder while running back out with his daughter) and pissed, to stab a mother Fucker in the eye.

After everything is said and done Mitch gets put on medical leave, miraculously avoids a lawsuit and/or suspension, and everyone gets to go home okay. Oh, and of course Stiles is going to have to have a Serious Talk with him about... everything, really. Mitch being stupid and reckless and almost getting his dumbass killed, and he's so damn lucky Stiles was there to cover him, and if any of them had any sense he would spend the rest of his life at a desk so he didn't do anything else incredibly stupid... and the whole time Mitch is just grinning through Stiles' tirade, until Stiles finally stops in his tracks to ask what the hell is so funny. And Mitch just says,

"You like me."

"No, I don't. I think you're a stupid, reckless, inconsiderate asshole."

"Sure. But you wouldn't be so pissed if you didn't care; you like me."

"I hate you."

And what's worse, is Stiles knows he right. Only people he cares about can get him this furious, dammit. But it's okay, because Mitch likes him too.

#cookie writes #stitch #stiles stilinski #mitch rapp #Mitch is a gritty noir detective #who adores his daughter #because that is a dynamic i LIVE for okay

[savage-rhi]

I know your not a therapist but like... How do you get past losing a best friend? Like you two use to be close and now your nothing to them and your lonely... and it’s hurts allot....

Hoo-boy, this is never an easy subject no matter how old you are. 

First, thank you for acknowledging that I am not a therapist. While I am training to be a peer support specialist, it doesn’t mean I qualify as a therapist (I mean with the shit I’ve been through and what I know about the system, I should be without a master considering I have 2 bachelors and associates plus a shit ton of psych credits but I digress) but I’m gonna attempt to help you sort through the painful bullshit that is losing a friend. I may speak from personal experience, so I apologize in advance if this comes across as “me me me..”etc. 

The first step should be asking yourself this question: have you communicated properly with your friend to talk about your feelings and see if said person is okay? 

More often than not, we grow distant from friends not because we don’t value them, but because life has a way of throwing us into its stresses. It’s perfectly acceptable in my opinion to have a friendship where you’re not constantly talking to each other, but a check-in every now and again is nice. I have dear friends where we haven’t spoken in like years but then get back together when life isn’t kicking our asses the curb. That being said, every friendship is different. Sometimes people have more needs than others and that’s okay, but it’s important that you communicate this in a healthy way with your friend.

I feel like I went off on a tangent here, but yes, please, please, please before you move on and do any other action: TALK TO YOUR FRIEND. Communication is vital in any kind of relationship. Don’t beat around the bush either, get to your point and concerns so you both can work together to figure out what’s causing the rut. 

Now, if all is said and done and they tell you to kiss their ass, or pretty much give all the signals and cues that they’re done, this is hard but take these steps and tread lightly. Be kind to yourself when going through this. 

My first step would be to not force closure. It’s not healthy for you, and potentially not healthy for your ex-friend should they want distance and you want to try and salvage something. 

Second, tailor your social media or whatever else you have them on. Give them a light block or a full-on block. Whatever you do, commit to it. You’ll save yourself the trouble and won’t feel pressured to try and salvage the relationship. 

Third, if you have mutual friends this can be tricky but remain civil. Do not divulge in the reason why you and so and so don’t speak anymore. Just say you grew apart or there was some conflict, and leave it at that. Should you two bump into each other at friend gatherings or something, try to keep your composure. Focus on the friends you do have, or you can do what I do, and pretend ex-friend is an NPC character and you don’t feel like interacting with said person to move onto the next quest. I’ve done this to co-workers I couldn’t stand, and peers who drove me up a wall and it works wonders. But find something that works for you. 

Fourth, focus on something that is going to benefit you. If you and bestie were always there for each other 24/7 it can be difficult figuring out what to do with your time now that they are not at the center, but trying out new things and new experiences are essential in helping one deal with heartbreak be it from a friend or partner. Enjoy the little things, find your zen or whatever the fuck gives you that spark to keep staying curious. 

Fifth, get involved with community. Now, I am not saying go out there and get another BFF. I am saying that as social creatures, we need each other. Getting closure from other people can be a step towards healing and maybe forming future friendships. Find your niche, tribe, or pack of people and let them know you’re hurting and need help getting to your closure. 

Last, and to me, this is the most important step: What did you learn from this relationship? Do you tend to have a lot of friendships where this happens? Do you tend to choose a lot of friends like this person? etc. etc. etc. The silver lining to a friend breakup is addressing your own potential toxic behaviors if there are any. Of course, your friend may have been deeply problematic on their own, and you might have to realize a sometimes-harder truth: there was nothing you could’ve done to fix them or the relationship. It is what it is. But can you learn from it? Can you grow from it? Look for the patterns so that way you come out stronger. 

Speaking from personal experience, I went through many of these steps after I broke off with someone I considered family. My dad beat me up and I couldn’t drive to get help cause my body was fucked up and I called her repeatedly in the middle of the night to help me, but the following morning she blocked me from social media, phone, and wouldn’t even talk to me at college. When I addressed her a few days later, she flipped on me for not being considerate and how if I truly needed the help, I should have found a way to get to her. 

At that point, given the circumstances, I didn’t want to explain myself given how dire the situation was. Since she already took the steps to block me, I kept my distance, re-evaluated our mutual friends and how to navigate through that, focused on my classes at the time, and tried to get involved with other people. It wasn’t easy, but since she took drastic actions right off the bat, I knew this was a relationship I didn’t want to put more energy into and if I continued to feed it, who knows how toxic it could have become. 

I see where I was at fault for my end of things as well as hers, but I did grow from it. There were many lessons learned after that friendship ended that I otherwise wouldn’t know. 

My point of all this is that you will heal. Like mourning a death, it takes time and self-compassion. You need to be there for you and try not to force things back into place. What’s done is done. Maybe you guys can come back later and try to reconnect, but if it doesn’t happen, that doesn’t diminish your worth as a person or a friend to others. You’ll find your people and you’ll have new experiences. It’s okay to mourn, it’s okay to be angry and frustrated at what happened, but give it time and move on to the next best thing. 

Honey, you got this. Aunt Jay may not know a lot of shit, but I know you’ll find your way. This is the part where I’d smack you hard on the shoulder and rile you up after a tough dad talk but I can’t do that lol. But what I can say is that you’re loved. You are worthy and you’re gonna be alright. Like I say often, get to the good. 

#hope this helps you honey #and other people too #stay safe #don't give up #Anonymous

[albusdumbles]

My Head Canon for Sherlock and Molly is a mixture of what Sir Doyle's stories tell us and the Moftiss version :

After Sherrinford, Sherlock returns to crime solving in 221B as a more mature, humbled man, better attuned to his and others emotions. He now understands and acknowledges the power of emotions and does not actively discount them as he used to before, but accepts them and most importantly respects them.

John and Rosie remain a huge presence in Sherlock's life. John retains his position as Sherlock's best friend and partner in crime solving. John continues to live in 221B for some time but as Rosie grows up and her safety becomes an issue, he shifts to another more homely location, and balances time between Rosie, his clinic and case solving.

The situation is now brought to the one that was canonically established in the Sherlock Holmes books, where in the later stories Dr. Watson would generally come to visit Baker Street and find Sherlock amidst an interesting case or would get a call from Sherlock for help in a certain case. The original stories mostly start off from this point. However since we have Rosie to consider as well I am guessing John's involvement is lesser. In the original books too there were times when Holmes solved entire cases and only then told Watson how they happened or would mostly do the legwork himself. Adhering to that in this version Rosie and the clinic are the factors for John's lesser involvement, though it is only relatively lesser as John really can't stay away that much.

Sherlock's relationship with Molly is however not this simple. It is complex on various levels. After Sherrinford, Sherlock does explain everything to Molly, and it is a moment between them that neither can I describe nor can they both themselves as to give complete justification. What words are exchanged, what is said is between them is not known, but there is an assurance that Molly being Molly does forgive him. She has always seen right through him and even now can see his pain, his remorse, his vulnerability which shines through stating the deep emotional trauma that he has suffered. He doesn't tell her whether he meant that I love you or not. Neither does she mention it again. But John, Mrs Hudson and even Lestrade if ever asked about it will certainly tell you that something had started to change around that point of time. No Sherlock and Molly are however not in a relationship. But when Molly's other friends and colleagues try to set her up with dates, Molly's doesn't really seem interested. They chastise her for not trying and soon give up one by one, though there are some close friends who know the actual reason and don't say anything, merely shake their heads and go away. Once a relative of Molly's asks her that doesn't she want to have children of her own? To which she replies that she already does have a child.

Molly's description of that relative's face on her answer keeps John and Sherlock laughing all night when she tells them. She has come at that time for dinner as she sometimes does with them. Both John and Sherlock look at her fondly as she makes some more bad jokes and plays with Rosie. Eventually though John goes home as its Rosie's bedtime and Sherlock and Molly are left alone. He suggests a walk and she agrees. They walk around in the quiet of the London night, not saying much, but as hands brush and soft smiles are exchanged a lot more is said then words could express.

Life goes on at 221B, John eventually finds another woman, and proceeds to settle down again. His involvement becomes lesser now though and updates from 221B aren't that regular. However one day he gets a shocking message that Mrs. Hudson is very ill. He rushes to Baker Street along with Rosie and his wife. Sherlock looks a bit haggard, and for the first time John's new wife sees some emotion on Sherlock's face. John's always told her that he is a deeply emotional man and while she has not doubted his affection for Rosie, she hasn't seen him anything other than stoic and practical in the time she has known him.

Molly comes in moments later, hand in hand with another man, and Mrs. Watson can swear that this time she can feel a palpable change in the air. A tension that was not there before even with the sadness about Mrs. Hudson's situation has suddenly seeped in.

She may not be perceptive like Sherlock but she knows in the way that Molly and Sherlock avoid looking at each other and how Molly has not paid much attention to her boyfriend while she has been in the house that there is something here.

Later she asks about this to John who says that he himself doesn't understand it much and that they are not what you could call a couple, nor are they exes and he also doesn't know what exactly does Sherlock feel for her.

"He doesn't love like us and I can't always understand him or what he is exactly feeling. But know this, that Molly can, she is vital to him and while Sherlock can deduce the whole world to the T, the only person who can deduce him back is Molly. However Sherlock and Molly are an unsolvable case which I gave up ages ago". The topic is halted as the Watsons go to sleep too tired and drained to try to make sense of what they saw today.

Mrs. Hudson's death follows a few days later from this event and after the funeral the new Mrs. Watson again observes Sherlock and Molly. Again she sees the rare occasion of Sherlock showing emotion and as her heart wrenches a bit for the man who looks like he has lost a long battle, her gaze shifts to Molly who has incidentally come alone and not left Sherlock's side. Her hand on his arm the whole time, him slightly leaning into her as he addresses the guests that have come.

Mrs. Watson files that image away for later analysis. But the evidence and sources for these two people to clearly define whatever is going on between them is so confusing and so rare that soon, she like her husband comes to discover as to why its an 'unsolvable case' and gives up as well, eventually just accepting Sherlock and Molly as they are.

Rosie on the other hand suffers no such problem as her parents and when asked quite happily tells them about her Godfather and Godmother and how they are in fact a couple. She is the Watson who sees and observes; perceptive like her Mother she sees what others miss and hence is the only one not surprised when, a few years later as she is going off to college she hears that Uncle Sherlock who had shifted just last year to Sussex Downs, to pursue his passion for beekeeping has now been joined by Aunt Molly, who has given her resignation from Bart's and sold her flat.

Sherlock and Molly never married. They did not appear to be a couple to anyone and no one apart from Sherlock's closest and nearest circle of people knew about the relationship that they shared.

As Sherlock Holmes became a legend immortalized through Dr. Watson's blogs, now talked about in past tense, no one ever associated the name of Molly Hooper with him. She wasn't ever mentioned in the blogs and not seen with him often enough by the press who came to the conclusion that she was just a colleague. Hence the stories, movies and series that were inspired from it later never acknowledged her.

It only had once come to the attention of Molly, Rosie's grandchild who had scoffed while watching a movie about the great Holmes and his supposed private life thinking that if only they had observed the subtle hints in her great grandfather's old blog and not merely skimmed through, they could have known better about the actual private life of Sherlock Holmes. For though she hadn't ever met Sherlock Holmes, she knew his stories well. Her grandmother had read the blogs to her in her childhood and had filled in a lot of blanks about Holmes life that Dr.John Watson had deliberately left in his writing as a tribute to a certain pathologist. However she had most of all remembered a photo of him which had been in her grandmother's old touchscreen cell phone. Seriously who even used touchscreen anymore?! The photo had been of the said detective smiling down with all the love in his eyes at a woman with brown hair tied in a ponytail, flecks of grey here and there, a wrinkled face but sparkly brown eyes that crinkled as she smiled back at him with her arms around him. Molly had wished that someone looked at her as Sherlock Holmes had once looked at her namesake.

Sherlock and Molly's tale was one which was forgotten through time, kept away from the world; in the beginning by Mycroft Holmes' zealous efforts to keep that part of Sherlock's life well hidden and then eventually through the natural course of fading memory. For Mycroft, the fear of old enemies discovering about Molly and using her in some unscrupulous manner was unacceptable. He had seen how vulnerable a pressure point Molly was to Sherlock and he never wanted to see his brother go through the anguish and pain he had witnessed in the room with the coffin again.

Hence while throughout history Sherlock Holmes' name was taken with a lot of people, primarily with Doctor Watson, his best friend, confidante and blogger; Irene Adler and James Moriarty his rivals and enemies, both great in their own regard; Mrs. Hudson his landlady and not his housekeeper; Lestrade his first colleague and friend and even with Rosie who never stopped boasting about the fact that he was her Godfather, his name was never ever taken with the one person that mattered the most.

Molly Hooper.

#sherlock #sherlolly #molly hooper #sherlock i love you scene #sherlock holmes #headcanon #feels #mollock #molly #tfp #ilyanniversary2018 #random #long reads #louise brealey