#also there may or may not be lipstick marks on someone in the second image

[gz-missfit]

Some murder mystery au doodles with these 2! Genuinely adore the concept of the AU and of course who can say no to a buff dude in a dress!

AU by: @seriouslycalamitous AU Co-Creators: @sourlemonjuice and Pastel

#fitpac #hideduo #murder mystery au #detective pac #widow fitmc #voids gallery #qsmp au #if i got the au credit wrong #please let me know!!!! #but look at them gays pfffff #also #tw blood #cw blood #for the second image mainly pfffff #also there may or may not be lipstick marks on someone in the second image #who am i to say pffff

[tayliviaspeace]

Day 2 of analysing Taylor in quarantine

Day 2: cardigan

1 sentence summary: This is basically Betty, many years in the future, talking about what a mess her first love was, but how she is still with him now.

"Vintage tee, brand new phone High heels on cobblestones When you are young, they assume you know nothing Sequin smile, black lipstick Sensual politics When you are young, they assume you know nothing"

Taylor is talking about her albums as well as the love triangle. In her albums, 'vintage tee' is debut, 'brand new phone' is fearless, 'high heels' is speak now, 'cobblestones' is red, 'sequin smile' is 1989, 'black lipstick' is reputation, and 'sensual politics' is lover. In the love triangle, the vintage tee is something Betty keeps from James. The new phone symbolises a new start after he cheated on her. She moved away and completely changed herself. 'When you are young the assume you know nothing,' references James in 'Betty,' when he says, 'I'm only 17 I don't know anything.' Betty is smart and knows that however old you are, you do know things, which is why she sounds kind of resentful when she says that. Taylor could also be telling this to her past self, 'make your voice heard.' She is showing people that if you take time to educate yourself, you can give your opinions and people won't take advantage of your silence, because you won't be silenced. 'Sequin smile, black lipstick,' is her at the 2016 MET Gala, where she met Joe. Sensual politics is when she started speaking out, trading her sweetheart image for someone thats more forceful and who uses their voice. She also addressed sexist comments and things that have happened to her as a woman in the music industry.

"But I knew you Dancin' in your Levi's Drunk under a streetlight, I I knew you Hand under my sweatshirt Baby, kiss it better, I"

Taylor shows lovers when the wear jeans and Levi's is a jeans company in the US. This shows an ending where James and Betty get together. Like Taylor did with Betty, she's allowing you to pick the end. This shows Betty's idea of love and how she and James are together. 'Drunk under a streetlight,' references Betty, when they stopped at a streetlight. It could also reference Cornelia street on 'Lover,' when they're drunk on something stronger than the drinks at the bar, which is true love.

"And when I felt like I was an old cardigan Under someone's bed You put me on and said I was your favourite"

Betty feels like she has done something wrong, that she is unlovable, which may be a reflection of how Taylor felt in 2016, before Joe. Betty and Taylor show quite a few similarities here. They share the feeling of being vulnerable, and the fear of not being wanted. They also share the feeling that when the right person comes along things make sense and you feel a different way, which is a thought shared by all humanity. That's something I love in Taylor's writing. The songs aren't just for her. It's always so relatable. 'Putting on' could be putting a show and faking feelings, and it could also mean literally putting on a cardigan, which highlights the

"A friend to all is a friend to none Chase two girls, lose the one When you are young, they assume you know nothing"

This is showing what would happen in the event that James and Betty don't get back together. He cheats on her with Augustine, and he lost the love of his life in that process. Taylor left the ending very open ended so the listener can pick their ending. The repetition of 'when you are young they assume you know nothing' sounds like James constantly trying to get Betty to see perspective and forgive him. It also reminds me of 'only the young,' and how the line goes against the song, and the fact that only the young can change anything and that they have the power. But if you don't know anything you don't know what to change which makes this interesting.

"But I knew you Playing hide-and-seek and Giving me your weekends, I I knew you Your heartbeat on the High Line Once in twenty lifetimes, I"

Betty knew that James would never be honest about his feelings and in doing so he was hiding his feelings. However, he spends his weekends with her, but this could show him toying with her feelings as hide and seek is a game. High Line is a place in NYC, which could show a new start for Betty. She broke up with James and she's in NYC now (I've always imagined the love triangle to be like a small town scandal [that rhymes]) and she never imagined she'd meet James there, which is why it's only something that'll happen once in 20 lifetimes. 20 could also hint to how long Taylor's career has been and what she has gone through in the 20 years.

"And when I felt like I was an old cardigan Under someone's bed You put me on and said I was your favourite"

Same thing as above. The repetition also highlights how this is something people feel constantly, and a feeling that is repeated through the years.

"To kiss in cars and downtown bars Was all we needed You drew stars around my scars But now I'm bleedin'"

This is referencing Betty, where the line is "kissin' in my car again," and downtown bars is probably a place where Taylor and Joe went (a dive bar on Eastside). It also references earlier in the song, where they're drunk. James made Betty feel like she was special and he healed her from past wounds, but when he cheated on her, he gave her more things to need healing. It was as though he put a band-aid on her wounds, but when he cheated on Betty, he ripped it off.

"'Cause I knew you Steppin' on the last train Marked me like a bloodstain, I I knew you Tried to change the ending Peter losing Wendy, I I knew you Leavin' like a father Running like water, I And when you are young, they assume you know nothing"

This is relating to 'champagne problems' in evermore, where its 'you took the nigh train for a reason, so you could sit there in this hurt', which is probably talking about James' feelings when Betty didn't take him back. I love how the song [cardigan] is open ended for the listener to pick the ending they want. Bloodstains are hard to forget and James and his mistakes were hard on Betty and may have shaped how she feels about people later. Betty knew that James wouldn't give up very easily and he tried to change both himself and how their story ended. Betty's father may have left when she was a child. Sometimes people don't take the news of a child well, and they leave, and Betty could have associated James to her father. Water doesn't stop running, it moves like time, and if you want to move with it you need to make the effort. James refused to grow up and accept that he had cheated on Betty, and he kept saying, 'I don't know anything'. That isn't an excuse you can use after sometime.

"But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs The smell of smoke would hang around this long 'Cause I knew everything when I was young I knew I'd curse you for the longest time Chasin' shadows in the grocery line I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired And you'd be standin' in my front porch light And I knew you'd come back to me You'd come back to me And you'd come back to me And you'd come back"

A tattoo is something that's permanent, and James is Betty's first love. No matter how hard you try to forget, you can never forget your first love, and you always think that would my life now be different if I didn't do this with my first love. They're in your thoughts a lot, and there's some sense of permanence in it. Betty is going against James, and saying that your excuse of not knowing anything is rubbish. You had us both at one point and now you have neither. She also knew that he was cheating on her and that once he felt guilty for it, James would make amends. 'Standing in my front porch light,' is another reference to Betty, where James says 'I'm here on your doorstep'. Like Betty said, James does come back to her.

"And when I felt like I was an old cardigan Under someone's bed You put me on and said I was your favourite"

When this ends the song, from Betty's perspective it looks like they got a happy ever after, because despite everything that James put her through, he showed more genuine care and love for her than anyone else, and he made Betty feel special.

Overall review: I love this song so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love the meaning, the message, everything. One of the messages I think the song is trying to get across is to give second chances and people change. The ones who truly love us are there for us, and will apologise for their mistakes. I'm very optimistic in thinking they [James and Betty] get together and she forgives him.

#tay #taylor swift #taylornation #taytay #taylurking #folklore #song analysis #cardigan #betty #love triangle #james #inez #augustine #quarantine #13 #folklovermore

[sanjisock]

bark to smoke, wood to ash

ao3

one.

You are eight and the words that fall out of your brothers’ mouth hurt like gravels, like acid, like gunshot wounds. They call you useless and it tears at your skin, they call you weak and it rings inside your ears for days. The bruises on your skin fade, but the words claw underneath, bone-deep, like a phantom scar.

A failure. A burden. A mistake. A mistake —

Brother.

You don’t know what’s wrong with the last one. It isn’t one of the bad words your mother taught you not to say, and your brothers never said it with the tone and derision they reserved for your name. Brother. Almost in passing, like an afterthought.

The word clung to you anyway, dirty and foreign, seeping under your skin like mud. It has sullied you into something you’re not.

(You are not, you know — you are not anyone’s brother. You’re not a —)

-

two.

You are thirteen when you realize that you hate the way you look in the mirror. You know you always do, at the back of your mind, but it’s the first time that it catches you off guard; there’s bile at the back of your throat, and you almost drive your leg through the vanity, shattering the ugly image staring back from the surface.

Zeff has just started giving you salaries — actual salaries instead of the meager pocket money they used to be — so the first thing you do is to visit the town’s market.

You are a boy, so you get yourself a couple of men’s shoes, loafers and dress shoes, oxfords and sandals. You are a boy, so you pick up the three-piece suits and vests, the kind a gentleman would wear. You are a boy, so you walk past the nail polish and lipsticks, and you don’t wonder how they would look against your pale skin, if they should match the dresses you will never wear.

You narrow your eyes at your own reflection, rubbing your chin, feeling the beginning of a stubble under your fingers. Your chest is a flat and narrow thing, every part of your body telling you what you have heard a thousand times — you’re a boy. You’re a boy. You’re a boy. 

(You are a boy because you don’t know what else you could be.)

-

three.

You are sixteen and nobody tells you you’re beautiful; they call you handsome and strong and clean-shaven and many other words that don’t settle right at the pit of your stomach. A good husband, one over-eager patron once said to her blushing teenage daughter; a rough delinquent, most shopkeepers would say behind your back after you’ve haggled their prices one too many times; a handsome boy, some of Zeff’s old associates would sometimes say, a clumsy attempt to praise you. You hate the last one the most.

You are sixteen and you fall for the first boy who calls you beautiful.

He’s a boy from the next village, a year older than you are, sharp-tongued and sharper smile. He visits on Saturdays as his parents go to the island’s marketplace, a few ways down the street from Baratie, and when he kisses you behind a passing cart he tastes like a brilliant supernova.

Beautiful , he calls you, and for the first time a word slides off your skin like honey. Beautiful, he whispers to your lips, and it warms you from the inside, right in the very center of your chest. Beautiful, he presses against your skin, and you close your eyes and take it all in, the way the word fits right in between your rib cage, tucked neatly against your heart.

It doesn’t last. He also calls you his man.

(You’re not his man. You’re not anyone’s man. You’re not a man —)

-

four.

Today’s celebration is more crowded than you are used to, which says a lot, considering how it usually goes with the Strawhats. Luffy, you are quick to learn, always finds a way to surprise you.

You’re carrying five plates on one hand and three glasses of beer on the other, half-tiptoeing to avoid stepping on people’s feet. Some of the locals wave at you, complimenting you on the food, and you don’t notice Nami among the crowd until she’s pressed against you, her breasts digging into the crevice of your back as someone pushes her from behind.

You feel a shock of jealousy burst through you.

It is shocking, in its suddenness. There is nothing inherently sexual with the thought; you’ve always been attracted to men and women alike, in the safety of your own mind — but this is something entirely different. You are suddenly aware of your adam’s apple, your flat chest, your dick between your legs; how they’re wrong wrong wrong — 

She must’ve felt the way you stiffened, because she leaps back in surprise and stammers out an apology. You want to tell her that it’s fine, but for once, you can’t. There are a lot of people you can lie to but not her, who’s been carved open and forced to lie for so long.

“I can’t,” you tell her; no longer caring if you don’t even make sense. “Nami-san, I can’t —”

Something erupts among the crowd, and Luffy emerges from it a moment later, always the center of attention. Nami’s instantly distracted, and you have never been more glad of Luffy’s natural proclivity for trouble.

You chase after him, and try not to think of the way envy curls coldly in your chest.

(For the first time in your life, you dare to want —)

-

five.

They force you to wear a dress and you run.

It’s wrong, you try to tell yourself, because men don’t wear skirts and you may be a failure to Judge but you won’t be one to Zeff. It’s wrong, you try to tell them, to every single resident of this cursed island of Momoiro, and they look at you with pity , and you hate them for it. It’s wrong, you try to tell someone, anyone who would listen, because you don’t know what else it could be.

So you run.

You run and you feel the silk of the dress slide against the inside of your thighs, the bra tight around your chest, the straps of your panties dig into your hips. You wonder if they would leave marks against your skin, the kind that’s red and stark and doesn’t disappear for days, like they have become a part of you somehow.

You run because you know it’s wrong.

(You run because it doesn’t feel wrong.)

-

six.

Zoro is terrible. A brute, a dumbass, an oaf — you hate his guts, you hate his voice, and you hate the way he always knows the right words to set you off into a tirade. He is loud and brash and everything a man is supposed to be and you hate that, too — like a constant reminder of who you aren’t, of who you’re supposed to be.

He also looks at you like you’re an equal, like someone he can depend on when all else fails. He pushes you towards your dream and never expects any less than the best; when the two of you stand side-by-side, something in your blood sings, like you are strong enough to take on the world.

That part — you don’t hate that.

(Zoro is terrible, but —)

-

seven.

Your stomach drops when your eyes meet Zoro’s.

He’s not supposed to be here , you want to think, but in hindsight, why shouldn’t he, when the tavern they are in seems to be the only establishment in this quaint little town that offers alcohol on its menu. Of course that brute is here.

You should’ve known better than to risk it. 

You are not wearing the — the whole thing , thankfully; the red dress from Momoiro still safely tucked at the corner of your locker, never to see the light of day. But your hair is shoulder-length and your nails are in three different colors, and you are at least five-inches taller than him because of the heels you are wearing. Zoro’s a dumbass with only one good eye left, but he’s not blind.

Zoro blinks, does a once-over. You wait for the other shoe to drop, for the disgust to crawl up his expression like poison ivy, but it never comes; he simply tilts his head to the side, more confused than anything.

The first thing he asks is, “How did you get your hair so long?”

“It’s called a wig , dumbass,” you retort, the banter between you two coming as naturally as breathing, even when your heart is pounding against your ribcage. “It’s like — fake hair, basically. Not that you’d know anything about fashion.”

Zoro scrunches up his nose, and he’s wearing that expression he always wears whenever someone tells him to count higher than ten. You usually find it hilarious, just one more thing to tease him about, but right now it is comforting in its familiarity. The disgust that you have long dreaded never seems to appear, and you feel tension slowly bleed over your shoulders.

“Huh,” Zoro says after a moment. A blush blooms across his cheeks, and he sounds almost embarrassed when he says, “suits you.”

(You remember being sixteen, falling in love with the boy who called you beautiful.)

-

eight.

“Please change us back!” Nami calls out to Law, and you feel your blood runs cold. You know it’s selfish, that none of these is yours, the breasts and the curves and the long, soft fingers; but you can’t help begging still, please don’t please don’t please don’t please —

Law still turns you back.

You fall to your knees. Nami thought it was from the physical wounds she’d received before Law switched you back, and you let her think that way. Your hands will not stop shaking for the rest of the day, and you tell Chopper that it’s the cold.

(This is not your body, your brain traitorously whispers, persistent. It’s never been the right body for you —)

-

nine.

Zoro slips his hand under your shirt, and you groan at that, pleased — you’ve been making out for what seems like forever now, and the way his finger brushes against your nipple is a welcome development. His mouth starts to trail down your neck, and you tug on his haramaki, urging him on. This thing between you two — whatever this is — has been long-overdue, and you feel like a second without the two of you naked is just another second wasted.

You slip out of your pants without thinking, and your breath hitches when you realize you’re still wearing your panties.

Zoro seems to notice your discomfort, because his hands immediately still. He looks up at you, eye searching, and you find it sweet, the way he’d stop if you tell him to stop. You don’t want him to, of course, if the arousal pooling at the bottom of your stomach is any indication; but you like knowing that you have the choice. You can count on one hand the number of times you’re able to do that — making choices, that is.

You know that you don’t need to explain anything, when it comes to Zoro. You have that choice too. He has always been good at giving people space, and you know he will wait until you are ready to say anything. But you look at the man in front of you who has never been anything but honest, and the words claw out of your throat before you can think twice.

“I’m a woman.”

Your voice is small and confused. Your throat burns, like the words have been scraped raw from its walls.

Zoro doesn’t say anything at first, and you tear your eyes away from him, because you’ve never been scared of him but you don’t think you can stand it if he starts to look at you different. You think of your pathetic excuse of a family, their cold eyes and colder shoulders, and you don’t know if you can go through another heartbreak. You know the Strawhats are better than this — better than them — but you can’t help thinking what if, what if, what if — 

“Okay,” Zoro says. And, “Thanks for telling me.”

You exhale, then. You didn’t realize you were holding your breath.

He fucks you into the bed, long and sweet, softer than you’d ever expect him capable of. He holds your hand after, and the two of you lie on the bed, chests pressed against one another’s under the covers of a warm blanket. He breathes out when you breathe in.

(For the first time in a long while, the king of Germa doesn’t haunt you. You are not his son, and you have never been his.)

-

ten.

“You ready?”

Zoro is leaning against the door frame, waiting for you, but you can’t bring yourself to tear your eyes away from the mirror yet. You watch the way your kimono hugs your frame, thick and rigid; nobody could’ve seen any curves, even if you had one. That’s the point, you’ve been told — this is Wano’s idea of a woman’s beauty. Femininity through the concealment of body curves. It’s different than most concepts you’ve heard of female beauty, and you like that — that there isn’t one way to be a woman, that there is no mold to fit in for you to be one.

“Yes,” you say, and you let him lead you towards the door.

(You are a woman, and you have never been anything else.)

#opfanfic #zosan #sanji #roronoa zoro #one piece #trans!sanji

[oneweekoneband]

I’m slightly nauseous already with knowing I’m going to say this, but what does “self-awareness”  even mean? In modern parlance, as a descriptive phrase, as a comment on art? I’m asking in earnest, like, I’ve been Googling lately, which for me is basically on par with doctoral study in terms of academic rigor. The self is king, anyway, tyrant, so where is the line of distinction between material that intentionally is nodding at some truth about the artist’s life and what’s just, like, all the rest of the regular navel-gazing bullshit. I mean, I’m all self, I am guilty here. I can’t get it out of my poems or even make it more quiet. This is the tenth time I’ve invoked “I” in the space of six sentences. Processing art has always necessitated a certain amount of grappling with the creator, but the busywork of it lately grows more and more tedious. Joy drains out of my body parsing marks left behind not just in stylistic tendencies and themes, but in literal, intentional tags like graffiti on a water tower. This feels an age old and moth-holed complaint, dull, and I am no historian, or really a serious thinker of any kind. I’ve now complained at some length about self-referential art, but didn’t I love how Martin Scorsese nodded to the famous Goodfellas Copacabana tracking shot with the opening frames of last year’s The Irishman? Didn’t I find that terribly fun and sort of sweet? So there’s distinctions. I’m only saying I don’t know with certainty what they even are. I’m unreliable, and someone smarter than me has likely already solved my quandary about why self-knowledge often transforms into overly precious self-reflexivity in such a way that the knowledge is diminished and obscured, leaving only cutesy Easter eggs behind. Postmodernism has birthed a moralizing culture where art exists to be termed either “self-aware Good” or “self-aware Bad”.  Self-referentiality in media is so commonplace, so much the standard, that what was once credited as metatextual inventiveness often feels lazy now. In 1996, Scream was revitalizing a genre. Today, two thirds of all horror movies spend half their running time making sure that you know that they know they’re a horror movie, which is fine, I guess, except sometimes you just wanna watch someone get butchered with an axe in peace. 

This is all to say that in 2020 Taylor Swift looked long and hard upon her image in the reflecting pool of her heart and has written yet another song about Gone Girl.

“mirrorball” is a very good piece of Gone Girl —feels insane to tell anyone reading a post on a blog what Gone Girl is but, you know, the extremely popular 2012 novel about a woman who pretends to have been murdered and frames her husband for it, and subsequently the 2014 film adaption where you kinda see Ben Affleck’s dick for a second—fanfiction. It would be a fine song, a good song, really, even if it weren’t that, if it were just something normal and not unhinged written by a chill person who behaves in a regular way, but we need to acknowledge the facts for what they are. When Taylor Swift watched Rosamund Pike toss her freshly self-bobbed hair out of her face and hiss, “You think you’d be happy with some nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby. I’m it!” her brain lit up like a Christmas tree, and she’s never been the same. If you Google “taylor swift gone girl” there waiting for you will be a medium sized lake’s worth of articles speculating about how Gone Girl influenced and is referenced in past Swift singles “Blank Space” and “Look What You Made Me Do”. This is not new behavior, and if anything it’s getting a bit troubling to think that it’s been this long since Taylor’s read another book. Still, while the prior offerings were a fair attempt at this particular feat of depravity, “mirrorball” has brought Taylor’s Amy Elliott Dunne deification to stunning new heights. And most importantly, Taylor has done a service to every person alive with more than six brain cells and a Internet connection by putting an end to the “Cool Girl” discourse once and for all. By the power invested in “mirrorball”, it is hereby decreed that the Cool Girl speech from Gone Girl is neither feminist or antifeminist, not ironic nor aspirational. No. It’s something much better than all that. It’s a threat. I ! Can ! Change ! Everything ! About ! Me ! To ! Fit ! In !

Gone Girl (2012) by Gillian Flynn

“mirrorball” (2020) by Taylor Swift

When the twinkly musical stylings of Jack Antonoff, a man I distinctly distrust, but for no one specific reason, whirl to life at the beginning of this song I feel instantly entranced, blurry-brained and pleasure-pickled like an infant beneath a light-up crib mobile or, I guess, myself in the old times, the outside times, three tequila sodas deep under the disco lights at The Short Stop. Under a mirrorball in my head. I know very little about music, as a craft, and I really don’t care to know more. I’m happy in a world of pure, dumb sensation. I’m not even sure what kind of instruments are making these jangly little sounds. I just like it. I am vibing. We may not ever be able to behave badly in a club again, but I can sway to my stupid Taylor Swift-and-the-brother-of-the-lady-who-makes-like-those-sweatshirts-with-little-sayings-or-like-vulvas-which-famous-white-women-wear-on-instagram-you-know-what-I-mean song, pressing up onto my tiptoes on the linoleum tile of our kitchen floor and can feel for a second or two something approaching bliss. “mirrorball” is a lush sound bath that I like a lot and then also it’s about being all things to all people, chameleoning at a second’s notice, doing Oscar worthy work on every Zoom call, performing the you who is good, performing the you who is funny, performing the you who draws a liter of your own blood and throws it around the kitchen then cleans it up badly all to get your husband sent to jail for sleeping with a college student... Too much talk about making and unmaking of the self is way too, like, 2012 Tumblr for me now, and I start hearing the word “praxis” ring threateningly in my head, but I’m not yet so evolved that I don’t feel a pull. Musings on the disorganized self—on how we are new all the time, and not just because of all the fresh skin coming up under the dead, personhood in the end so frighteningly flexible—are always going to compel me, I’m afraid, but that goes double for musings on the disorganized self which posit that Taylor Swift still thinks Amy Dunne made some points.

Because on “mirrorball” Taylor is for once not hamfistedly addressing some “hater”, in the quiet and the lack of embarrassing martyrdom it actually offers an interesting answer to the complaint that Taylor is insufficiently self-aware. This criticism emerges often in tandem with claiming to have discovered some crack in the chassis of Swift’s public self, revealing the sweetness to be insincere. My instinct is to dismiss this more or less out of hand as just a mutation of the school of thought that presumes all work by women must be autobiography. And, regardless, it is made altogether laughable by the fact that anyone actually paying attention has known since at least Speak Now, a delightful record populated by the most appalling, horrible characters imaginable, and all of them written by a twenty year old Taylor Swift, that this woman is a pure weirdo. To accuse Taylor Swift of lacking in self-awareness is a reductive misunderstanding, I think, of artifice. Being a fake bitch takes work. Which is to say, if we agree that her public self is a calculated performance—eliding the fact that all public selves are a performance to avoid getting too in the weeds yadda yadda— why, then, should it be presumed that performance is rooted in ignorance? Would it not make more sense that, in fact, someone able to contort themselves so ably into various shapes for public consumption would have a certain understanding of the basic materials they’re working with and concealing? Taylor Swift, in a decade and a half of fame, has presented herself from inside a number of distinct packages. The gangly teenager draped in long curls like climbing wisteria who wrote lyrics down her arms in glitter paint gave way to red lipstick, a Diet Coke campaign, and bad dancing at awards shows. There was the period where she was surrounded constantly by a gaggle of models, then suddenly wasn’t anymore, and that rough interlude with the bleached hair. The whole Polaroid thing. Last year she boldly revealed she’s a democrat. Now it’s the end of the world and she’s got frizzy bangs and flannels and muted little piano songs. Perhaps this endless shape-shifting contradicts or undermines, for some, the pose of tender authenticity which has remained static through each phase, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been doing it all on purpose the entire time. I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try...

In the Disney+ documentary—which, in order to watch, I had to grudgingly give the vile mouse seven dollars, because the login information that I’d begged off of my little sister didn’t work and I was too embarrassed to bring it up a second time—Taylor referred to “mirrorball” as the first time on the album where she explicitly addressed the pandemic, referring to the lyrics that start, “And they called off the circus, Burned the disco down,” and end with “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me,” which actually did made me laugh, feeling sort of warmly foolish and a little fond, because it never would have occurred to me that she was trying to be literal there. I suppose we really do all contain multitudes. Hate that.

#taylor swift #folklore

[jamesedwinstark]

Okay, as promised I am posting the James noncon. There'll be 2 posts.

I wanna be SUPER CLEAR that this is NOT CANON. This is just a horrible "what if" scenario that I needed to vomit onto a page.

The concept here is that Justin Hammer is holding James hostage. He infected a number of his employees with nanites that will kill them if James doesn't do everything Hammer says. James also has nanites in him which monitor his behavior and make it so he can't call for help.

The first thing Hammer wants to do with James is... go on a date. This is the date.

I’ll pick you up around 8. Wear something slinky ;)

That was the text James had received a few hours earlier. After days of waiting, of trying to pretend nothing was wrong, it was finally happening. James didn’t know if he was glad to get it over with, or if he wanted a few more days of relative normalcy. In the end, it didn’t matter what he wanted. He’d do as he was told.

It was best to get ready like it was a normal date. James picked out an outfit he thought counted as ‘slinky’: a long-sleeved shirt with cut outs in the back and on the shoulders, cropped so it showed barely an inch of midriff, pants which clung to his butt and drew attention where it was needed, and boots with just a little heel, accentuating his legs. He was supposed to be a trophy, not a whore. Right?

Clothes at the ready, James sat down at his vanity. He made up his face on autopilot, not doing anything special; it wasn’t as though this was Valeria or Loki, people whose preferences he knew intimately, who loved him, who he really wanted to please. He wished either of them were here.

While digging through his lipsticks, James pulled out a tacky, pink glitter gloss. He considered wearing it. It suggested youth, naivety, innocence. It said, “set me free; I’m just a kid.” That doesn’t matter. It only matters whose kid you are.

Well, the pink was worth a shot. James never knew what little thing might give him an advantage. He picked out some earrings inlaid with pink gemstones to match.

As he applied the gloss, his phone buzzed. He waved a hand and a screen popped up in front of him. He’d been mentioned in one of his groupchats, specifically the one for former Young Avengers, which he’d been invited to join in an honorary capacity, having spent a decent chunk of his childhood as something of a team mascot. He tapped the notification.

TEDDY: Hey! @James, some of us are heading to a bar, wanna come???

KATE: Jimmmminmy!

ELI: Wr already got satarted

TEDDY: Kate already got started

TEDDY: Yeh, lmao ^^

TOMMY: Jimmy ger Dow. Here and I’ll find u and unstable girl

BILLY: Guys, he doesn’t like being called Jimmy. Plz use his full name

BILLY: Jimbo come hang out with us

A tickle in the back of his head told him that the nanites in his brain were on high alert.

JAMES: As much as I love watching you get trashed and butcher my name, I can’t tonight

KATE: Booo u whoree!

DAVID: Plx help me jim I’m not drunk enough for this

James sighed. The point was for people to know about it, so he may as well say something now.

JAMES: I actually can’t. I have a date :)

The smiley face felt a little forced, but that was probably just projection. Nobody would question it. He was supposed to be excited. It was supposed to be believable.

BILLY: Oh

BILLY: Ok

BILLY: Have fun :)

TOMMY: Lmao seriously tho do ew even wana kno who is it THIS TIME

James clenched his fist in front of his face, and the screen disappeared back into his phone. Even his own friends thought he was an idiot when it came to love. Because you are. You deserve this.

There was almost an hour where James was dressed and ready to go, just pacing around his apartment, waiting. As the minutes stretched on, the nervousness twisting up his insides heightened. It’s no big deal. It’s just a date. Not even, it was a con, just for show. All he was doing was working a mark, playing a role. He was good at that. This would be fine.

He checked his phone when it buzzed again at 8:34.

Car’s waiting. Hurry that cute little ass down here

James took a deep breath, grabbed his coat and headed out the door. While taking the elevator down, James replied.

On my way

There was a white limo parked outside James’ building. James knew it was where he was expected to go, because it radiated a nervous, vicious excitement that made him dizzy. As he approached, the driver stepped out and held the door for him. He had nothing but contempt for James.

“Thank you.” James told him sweetly, flashing him a demure little smile. The driver’s contempt was eaten away slightly by another, even less comforting feeling: pity. He wondered how much, if anything, the driver actually knew about what was going on.

Justin Hammer was waiting for him inside, and if he’d been any happier he would have been bouncing in his seat. The inside of the car smelled a little too strongly of Hammer’s cologne. James sat down across from him and Hammer looked him up and down appraisingly. He was… disappointed. Oh no.

“Is that what you decided to wear?” He asked.

James looked down at his outfit. “What’s wrong with it?”

“I mean, would it kill you to show some more skin?” Hammer whined. “I thought you kids wore skirts now.”

A skirt suggested something. Easy access. Hammer wanted people- James’ Dad most of all- to see James’ bare thighs and know who was getting between them. It seemed that he had been wrong; he was supposed to be a whore.

“I’m… sorry.” James said. “I didn’t know that’s what you wanted.”

Hammer sighed. “I think I’d better take a more hands-on approach to your outfit choices from now on.”

“If that’s what you want.” James acquiesced.

“When we get to the restaurant, there are going to be paparazzi.” Hammer explained, barely acknowledging that James had spoken. “I may or may not have tipped somebody off. You're gonna put on a good show for them, alright? I wanna see a big smile on that pretty face. Really sell how infatuated you are with me.”

James huffed. “I know how to play my role, Hammer. This is what I do.”

“Come on, sweetheart. We're in love.” Hammer said, unpleasantly pleased with himself. “You can call me Justin.”

“I was planning on doing that in public.”

“Well, I want you to do it all the time.”

That was all that needed to be said on the matter.

The car pulled up to the restaurant, and Hammer stepped out first. He held the door for James, making sure that the paparazzi who had indeed turned up saw him doing so. James played his part, put on a cutesy smile and batted his eyelashes as he got out of the car and wrapped himself around Hammer’s arm. As soon as he did, he felt Hammer get frustrated, and saw him glance down at James’ shoes. James was already an inch or two taller, and the slight heel made that little bit of difference all the more noticeable. He’d already messed up again. This might be a little more difficult than he thought.

The handful of paparazzi that had gathered and were being ushered away, unhurriedly, by the restaurant staff, barked questions at James, which he ignored. Their camera drones buzzed perilously close to get good shots of the absolute travesty of a date they were witnessing. James could practically hear the nasty headlines they were concocting in their heads about him and his wonderfully tabloid-worthy habit of getting into bed with the ‘wrong’ sort.

They were at the door when James got the sense of someone else trying to get his attention, but not in a mean way. He heard a child ask, “Is that really him?”

James turned on his heel to see a woman with a little girl, maybe five or six, looking at him. They both got very excited when they realized he’d noticed them. Abandoning his annoyed date, James jogged over to the pair.

“I’m really sorry to bother you Mr. Stark, but we heard you were going to be here and…” The woman began sheepishly, “You’re her favorite.” The little girl buried her face in the woman’s pant leg.

James laughed, sincerely this time. “I always have time for a young lady with such impeccable taste.” He said, before getting down on the little girl’s level. “I’m James, what’s your name?”

The little girl looked up questioningly at the woman- presumably her mother- before replying “Sarah.”

The paparazzi took some interest in what he was doing, but they weren’t as thrilled about it. Local Superhero Nice to Child wasn’t as attention-grabbing a headline as Cap and Iron Man’s Son Does Something Awful, Again.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sarah. Did you know Sarah was my grandmothers name?”

The little girl shook her head.

Hammer was getting exponentially more annoyed by the second, but he couldn’t exactly drag James away from a little kid in front of all these people. Not without looking like the second coming of Ebenezer Scrooge anyway. Still, James didn’t want to push his luck, he had to wrap this up quickly.

“Are you really the Golden Avenger?” Sarah asked.

James snapped his fingers, and a shower of yellow sparks spilled from his hand. “I sure am.”

Joy erupted in Sarah’s chest like fireworks. “We’re the same!” She squeaked.

“She has epilepsy.” Her mother explained. James nodded.

Seeing that Sarah’s ears were pierced, he took the pair of star-shaped pink sapphire studs out of his ears and pressed them into her hand.

“That’s for you. Wash them before you wear them; it’s not sanitary otherwise.” James said. “Now, Sarah, this is important. I believe in you, I want you to believe in yourself, and always, always listen to your parents. Do we have an understanding?”

Sarah nodded.

James hurried back to where he had left Hammer waiting, feeling the impatience directed his way. As soon as he was close enough, Hammer grabbed him, clamping a hand firmly on James’ butt (which the paparazzi adored) and dragging him inside.

“I know that wholesome image is how you sell lunchboxes and all,” Hammer hissed in his ear, smiling as he did so, “but don’t keep me waiting, ever again. You got that?”

A thousand explanations and protests died on James’ tongue. While talking to the kid, he had briefly forgotten that someone else owned him. Briefly.

“I got it. I’m sorry.”

Once they were inside, James shed his coat. Seeing his exposed back made Hammer a little happier with James’ outfit. It was almost… uncomfortable how much happier seeing that skin made him. James brushed it off as just more of Hammer’s weird overenthusiasm.

“Is this more what you were thinking in regard to the skin thing?” James asked. He kept his tone light. “Specifically mine and showing more of it.”

“It’s definitely better.” Hammer agreed.

This was good. If they could get along while fake-dating, eventually Hammer would have to start seeing him as a human being. He would like James, if only James provided the camaraderie Hammer had always craved from James’ Dad, camaraderie which had always been denied to him. Then he’d let James go.

The maitre d’ seated them by a window, which meant more pictures of them together, and more acting for James. While they were across from one another, Hammer fixated on James’ eyes. He didn’t seem to be able to stop looking at them. You didn’t have to be a super-genius to figure out why. You just had to look very, very similar to one.

Nobody brought them menus.

“I took the liberty of ordering ahead of time.” Hammer boasted. “I’m gonna take good care of you tonight, don’t you worry.”

Again, James got a weird reading from Hammer. Something in the back of his head was trying to warn him about something. Danger, James Stark! Danger! Danger! Well, of course he was in danger, somebody else had his life in their hands. It’s more than that, don’t be stupid.

The waiter brought out their meals. James’ was not something he recognized as food, but he’d never been much for fancy cuisine. He’d survived this long mostly on chicken nuggets and takeout. Still, he picked at his dinner, not wanting to seem like he was ungrateful or that he disapproved of Hammer’s choice. He remembered what his Pop had told him about growing up in the Depression, and all the garbage they’d choked down trying to survive. I was 25 before I realized sawdust wasn’t actually an ingredient. If Pop could do that, James could work through something that had been meticulously crafted by a trained chef. Don’t be spoiled. You’re an Avenger, not a princess.

“Do you prefer red or white wine?” Hammer asked. “I know the sommelier personally. She’ll get us some of the good stuff.”

“I can’t drink.” James said, and when that led Hammer to get irritated, he explained, “Because of my condition.” It still wasn’t good enough. “But, I suppose one glass won’t kill me.”

The sommelier who poured their drinks was nauseatingly gracious to Hammer, but James could tell that she didn’t actually like him. Just has the driver had done, she regarded him (internally, of course) with contempt. James started feeling a little bad for Hammer; everyone around him was so fake.

Hammer raised his glass. “To us.”

Oh my gosh he can’t be serious. James raised his glass in answer, smiling through the pain of secondhand embarrassment. Having never really had more than a few sips of alcohol at any one time, James was unused to the taste of wine. It was nasty. He powered through it. People actually drank this stuff for fun? All it did was remind him that, right now, his friends were getting sloppy wasted on any number of unpleasant-tasting concoctions. He was supposed to be there, not here.

“Babe, has anyone ever told you you don’t talk much?” Hammer asked.

“I can honestly say nobody has ever said that to me in the history of my life, no.” James replied.

“It’s something you should work on.” Hammer continued as if James hadn’t spoken at all. “And smile more. Jeez, kid, you’re bumming me out, you know?”

James grinned. “Right, cameras are still on us and all.”

“And you’re having fun, aren’t you?”

He wants it to be real. Give him what he wants. “Yeah, of course.” He wants it to be real. Why did that sit so uneasily?

“This isn’t the sort of place I’d take just anyone.” Hammer gestured around at what was, admittedly, a very classy place. “This is the five-star treatment. It’s just for people I really want to undress.”

“... I’m sorry?”

“It’s for people I really want to impress.” Hammer leaned in. “You’re a very special kid. I’ve been waiting a long time to get my hands on you.”

Hammer was feeling at him very, very intensely. It was like being in a sauna, having him so close and emitting the thrill of power he was getting from all this. Power and… something else.

James laughed, clear and seemingly unforced. “I guess you’ve got me.”

“I guess I do, don’t I?” Hammer leaned back and just reveled in it for a moment. What he was feeling made James little ill. James took a drink of water. It was getting oppressively hot. Hammer was getting oppressively hot… for… James.

He was aroused. This, holding James hostage, hurting his Dad, was making Hammer horny, and he had James right here… he could do anything he wanted. He wants it to be real. How real? How real was he going to make it?

Hammer started talking at James, telling him about some impressive thing he almost certainly hadn’t actually done. James only half listened, his mind was occupied, trying to peel back the layers of Hammer’s intention like he’d been taught to do. Find and identify all the tiny little things Hammer was feeling at a given moment. His attraction was superficial, the real source of his arousal was the sense of ownership he had, of victory. It led to feelings of excitement, anticipation, expectation… certainty. He was certain.

"Excuse me, Justin." James tittered during a break in the ‘conversation’. His smile felt like it would crack his face. "I need to go powder my nose."

Hammer took a sip from his wineglass. "Ok, you can go. Don't take too long, though." Again, that sickening rush washed over him. "I want to get out of here soon."

James hurried away from the table. Soon. His vision blurred the second he stood up, so he navigated his way towards the bathroom mostly through magic. Once there, he clung to the nearest sink for support. Trying to combat the intense nausea that had overtaken him, he splashed cold water on the back of his neck. It was no use. Throwing himself into the nearest stall, James retched violently and puked up what little he had eaten. Cold, clammy sweat started to bead on his lip and the back of his neck.

He's going to rape you. It was not a matter of if. He was going to do it, certainly.

James really was stupid to think it would be anything but this. Why would Hammer be content with just letting everyone think he and James were lovers, when he could make it a reality? This would be the ultimate victory over Tony Stark: raping his baby.

James needed his Daddy. He needed to be rescued, to be held in strong, safe arms like he was a child again. He needed what was about to happen not to happen.

It was going to happen anyway.

Too much time had passed. James got up off the bathroom floor and brushed off his knees. He went to the sink and swished water around in his mouth, getting the acrid taste of vomit mostly cleaned away. This is going to happen to you, and you're going to let it. You'll be fine. You're a survivor. Stark men are made of iron.

He touched up his makeup, dried off a little and, as ready as he'd ever be, headed back to his table.

"There he is! I was starting to think you'd fallen asleep in there." Hammer remarked as James returned to his seat. Hammer was expectant. What was he expecting? Was that supposed to be a joke? It was. James giggled. His mouth was so dry. He sipped at his water. Even that made his stomach turn a little.

"Anyway, where was I? Oh right..." Hammer continued his anecdote in between bites. James smiled and nodded sweetly, his own dinner rendered inedible. He kept trying to get water down, but nothing seemed to help the thick sticky feeling on his tongue and down his throat.

His left hand was clenched in a fist under the table. I could burn a hole right through you just by staring. I could cook your brain in your skull with my fingertip. I could... golly, I really could beat you bloody with my bare hands.

"You're not eating?"

James fluttered his eyelashes. "I guess I'm not very hungry." He explained.

"So you don't want dessert?"

"No thank you."

Hammer's excitement hit James like a freight train, but it wasn't normal excitement. It was all twisted and wrong. He reached out and grabbed James' hand, running his thumb over James' knuckles in a gesture that, from the outside, might appear tender.

"That's ok. You and I are going to have a different kind of dessert. Doesn't that sound good?"

James swallowed thickly, eyes trained pointedly at the middle distance. His smile faltered just a little, and when he spoke, his voice was small, barely audible.

"Yes." He nodded weakly. "Yes."

How exactly they got from the restaurant back to the car, James wasn't sure. He seemed to drift, only barely aware of his coat being wrapped around his shoulders, paparazzi snapping his photo as he stepped outside, the car door being held open for him while he was ushered in like a curious child into an unmarked white van. Smile. You're having a great time. Hammer clutched him every step of the way, as though James were a fish caught in his talons which might slip back into the ocean and swim home before he could devour it.

In the car, Hammer sat next to him, practically right on top of him. James’ stepford smile dissolved the second they were alone together, but Hammer didn’t seem to have noticed. His hand was on James’ knee, inching up his thigh, as he whispered in James’ ear.

“I booked us a room uptown.” He was close enough that James could feel Hammer’s breath on his neck. “I thought we’d do something a little special for our first time.”

“Justin, nobody can see us.” James knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words came out of his mouth, but he had to try something. If he made it seem like he didn’t understand, he could say no without actually saying ‘no.’

Hammer’s joy evaporated, replaced with white-hot rage. He gave a short little laugh. “Now, baby, I took you on this nice date and all. I’ve been a real gentleman, and I just think it’s fair,” He squeezed James’ leg painfully hard, “that you put out. Nobody likes a tease.”

“...Ok.”

The anger didn't subside, and James was terrified of what might happen if he let Hammer stay too mad for too long. He plastered a smile back on his face.

“I can't wait.” Was his voice shaking? Had it cracked? “I can’t wait to make love to you.”

His heart was racing. He'd said it, and now he couldn't unsay it. He couldn't stop hearing his own words echoing in his head. Make love. This was the furthest thing from love he could imagine.

The hand on James’ thigh slid up to paw at his groin, and Hammer leaned in to kiss him on the neck. He sucked at the skin there (stop it) like he was trying to leave a mark (don't), and, honestly, he probably was (get off of me). James wanted nothing more than to blast a hole in the car and rocket into the night sky. He reached out, laid a gentle hand on the back of Hammer’s neck and pulled him ever so slightly closer.

“Yeah, good, Tony.” Hammer moaned against his neck. “Just like that.”

James clenched his eyes shut. It didn't seem like Hammer even noticed he'd said anything wrong.

When he was satisfied that he'd left an adequately visible hickey, Hammer licked a wet stripe up to James’ mouth and forced his tongue inside. Fighting the urge to spit the flicking, invasive appendage out of his mouth, James hummed as though turned on. Hammer leaned in, making James take a deeper mouthful of that fleshy, wet thing.

This is just his tongue. How are you going to deal with his…

They were at the hotel before James knew it. Hammer paraded him through the lobby, hand firmly attached to his buttcheek. By some miracle, James managed to continue playing his role, leaning into his ‘date’ and giggling whenever Hammer whispered some horrible, obscene thing in James’ ear. It was all he could do to keep from shaking.

When they got up to the room, Hammer slid James’ coat off for him. It seemed like a normal enough gesture, something a real boyfriend would do, something his real boyfriend had done before, but all James could think was that he was already being undressed. He was being stripped down to nothing.

The suite itself was unnecessarily opulent. Everything sparkled. There were two rooms connected by an archway, the first being home to a sitting area populated by fashionable, uncomfortable-looking furniture, an equally painful-looking dining area, and an oppressively shiny kitchenette with a wet bar. The bar was where Hammer headed, brushing his fingertips along James’ exposed back as he did so.

“I'm going to make myself a drink, do you want anything?” He asked as he got out a glass and a bottle of scotch.

“I'm ok.” If James could get drunk, he would have used any means possible to numb himself. “I have to go get ready.”

Without looking up from his drink, Hammer waved him off. James went into the other room, the bedroom, making a point not to look at the bed. The bathroom attached to the bedroom, and he retreated into it.

Halfway through peeling off his clothes, James felt the urge to vomit again. He knelt in front of the toilet and heaved for a while, but nothing came up. He was too empty. Hollow.

The fancy shower was sufficient for James to get himself clean. Ordinarily, he did this ahead of time in his own shower, because he knew what was coming. He hadn't been properly warned this time, or maybe it had been obvious all along and James had let himself remain in denial. Whatever the case, he didn't want to incur Hammer’s wrath now by not giving him what he expected. He wants the girlfriend experience. James found himself laughing out loud, bitter, strangled noises coming out of his throat. He doubled over and puked into the shower drain.

Would Hammer get mad if James took too long? He reached out his mind and found the man still vibrating with his strange, unpleasant happiness, only a little impatient. Biting his tongue, James reached down and forced himself to work past his revulsion and finger his hole open. It would be easier if he was prepped. It would hurt less. James wondered if Hammer had even brought lube.

After stalling for as long as he could by washing everything several times over, he finally left the bathroom in nothing but a towel. Putting his clothes back on would only get him in trouble. The first thing he saw as he stepped out was the bed. It hit him then. Really hit him. This was actually going to happen. It was going to happen in a few minutes. He folded in on himself, crumpling to the floor. He knew he shouldn’t, that he needed to keep smiling, pretend he wanted it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Desperately, helplessly, James started to cry.

Sensing Hammer approaching, James scrambled to his feet and quickly wiped his eyes, but it was too late. When he walked in the room, Hammer spotted James’ red, tear-streaked face. Again, burning rage emanated from him, tinged with a sense of betrayal. There wasn’t an ounce of guilt or pity inside him. He strode over and cupped James face in his hands a little roughly.

“It’s ok to be nervous.” He said. His voice masked his anger only thinly.

James stared at the ground and nodded, swallowing back more tears. Hammer took hold of one of James’ wrists and guided his hand down to feel his erection through his pants. It wasn't as small as James had hoped. I could castrate him right now. Burn him. He couldn't really, though.

“Feel that, sweetheart? That’s for you.” Hammer cooed. “That’s going to be inside you, and you’re going to love it. Trust me, you’re going to love it.”

“O-ok, yeah. I want-” James’ voice cracked, and he lost it. He was sobbing again, stammering, “Please, Justin, you don’t have to do this. There's a better way to... I can help you. I understand-”

“Stop crying!” For the first time all night, Hammer actually showed how angry he was, just below the surface. James bit his lip to keep any more sobs from slipping through. Hammer continued, “You don’t get to say no to me. Shut up, and go lie down on the bed.”

James whimpered. “Please…”

“Lie down on the bed. Now.”

There was, in fact, lube. As expected, there was minimal prepping. Then, it was inside him.

James tried to go somewhere else while it was happening. He was overwhelmed by the oppressive smell of too much cologne, the words being moaned at him (“Oh, yeah, Tony, fuck, Tony!”), the taste of scotch in the kisses that kept being applied to his mouth, as though this were something sweet and passionate, as though it wasn’t what it was. Most of all James was overwhelmed by the nauseating self-satisfaction that smothered him, threatening to choke the life out of him.

There was a glass chandelier above the bed. It swayed gently and cast diamond shapes on the hotel ceiling. James counted them out: one, two, three, one-e-and-a-two-e-and-a-three-e-and-a around and around the chandelier in a pattern that just wouldn’t stop.

It did stop, eventually. Hammer cried out and spilled into him. James’ mind instantly supplied the image of that fetid, mystery liquid which collected in the bottoms of trash bags and gushed out if the bag was accidentally punctured. Sated and victorious, Hammer gave a few final thrusts (Just stop. Please just stop) and his pleasure walloped James right in the chest. James came, despite himself, sticky and disgusting all over his abdomen.

“Holy shit. I made you come on just my cock.”

Bile rose in James’ throat. He swallowed it down.

“Smile, baby.” Hammer sighed, “I know that was good for you. See, I told you you’d love it.”

When James didn’t respond, Hammer started to get angry. James sensed the heat rising up in his chest. Don’t be stupid. Keep him happy.

“Yeah, of course I did.” James answered brightly. It was easy to slip into being someone else. He couldn’t stand the thought of himself right now. “You’re really… really good. I’m just a little… stunned. Because I enjoyed it so much.” He found himself giggling airily, like some lovestruck floozy. Where was that coming from?

Hammer rolled off of him and lay on the bed, sighing happily. He was floating on a wave of orgasmic bliss and the satisfaction of sweet revenge, in his mind long overdue. Of course he was happy now, but once his head cleared and he could see what he had done, surely remorse would start to set in. Surely.

“That’s good. I’m thinking maybe next time you’ll show a little more enthusiasm.” Hammer said. It was an order. “I wanna see how much you like it.”

Next time… next time. “Ok, I can do that.” James agreed. “I’ll do whatever you want.” Next time. It was all James could think about. The next time this happened to him.

“Good boy.” Hammer reached over and gently stroked the back of his knuckles down James’ cheek. There was no gentleness behind the gesture, however. All James could feel was glee. Sadistic, victorious glee. Hammer was congratulating himself for this.

Surely, surely he would feel bad about it in the morning.

The smugness and delight radiating off of Hammer’s body finally became too much. It felt like James was absorbing something toxic, being so near him. He sat up in bed like a reanimated corpse, restless and agitated.

“I need to get some-” No. Try again. “Can I go out and get some air? Please?”

“Sure babe.” Hammer acquiesced. “Just don’t fly away.” He said it with a smile, but it was a threat. Everything was a threat. Everything was dangerous.

James slid out of bed feeling, perhaps for the first time in his life, ashamed of how naked he was. His clothes were on the bathroom floor. It was like a different person had taken them off. It hurt to stand, to walk. It just hurt.

“Uh, excuse you?” Hammer said, stopping James in his tracks.

What now? What more could he possibly want now? James turned to see him sitting up on his elbows, staring at him.

“Yes, Honey?”

“I’m letting you do something you want. What do you say to that?” His tone was condescending, like he was scolding a child. No, more like he was training a dog.

“Thank you.”

Seemingly satisfied, Hammer laid back down. James wasted no time in scurrying to the bathroom and shutting the door behind him. It felt good to finally be alone. A tear fell down his cheek, but he fought the urge to cry in earnest. He didn’t think he could stop if he started.

It’s fine. These things happen. This time it happened to you. James kept it together as he wiped the… as he wiped off his stomach and the insides of his thighs. Then he gathered his clothes off the floor and, hands shaking, covered himself up again. He was safer now; there was a barrier, however thin, between his skin and Justin Hammer’s hands. It’ll be fine. It’ll be okay. It didn’t seem fine. He could still feel it inside him. He felt where he’d been pried open and then invaded…

You’re ok you’re ok youreokyureokyourokuro

The bathroom floor was still wet. Had so little time really passed since he’d showered? He needed to get up, but he couldn’t force his body to move. It was something like being trapped in a frozen lake, and how you couldn’t swim to the surface because of the shock, so you just drowned. He had hoped that he’d feel better after it was over, but it wasn’t really over, was it? It was never going to be over.

A long time passed before he could stand up and walk out of the bathroom. When he did, he found Hammer already asleep. Good. He didn’t think he could fake his way through any more niceties.

He pictured himself taking a pillow off the bed and pressing it down on Hammer’s face. James was much stronger; he could hold Hammer down with his magic and he wouldn’t be able to fight back. He would just choke (painfully) and die (terrified) and James would get that indescribably terrible feeling he got whenever a soul was extinguished in front of him. He shuddered just thinking about it. No, he wasn’t capable of that, and even if he was, he knew that if Hammer died, everyone infected with his nanites would die too, including James.

James’ coat was hanging in the next room, and he pulled it on and headed for the balcony. The added layer provided him with a little more safety, but didn’t do nearly enough to block the cold wind outside from attacking his damp clothes.

For a while, he just stared at the street below. The people walking down the sidewalk or riding in their cars were too far away for him to read, so he could just imagine that they were all happy and carefree. The couples striding hand-in-hand were all deeply in love, the children were totally safe with parents who had no enemies and never made mistakes, the commuters were on their way home, or maybe to a friend’s house. Nobody had to do anything they didn’t want to do.

James pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket. It was an almost Pavlovian response at this point, smoking after sex. It was normal, felt normal.

That wasn’t sex, his brain supplied that was not sex.

No, but you did have an orgasm.

The balcony was decorated with plastic plants in tacky stone pots, and James hunched over the nearest one and dry heaved until he finally vomited, the effort of it wracking his whole body. It’s not my fault I came. It’s not my fault. I’m not just letting this happen. I don’t have any choice.

He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Ok. He got all the evil out of him, and it was ok now. He looked down at the now-ruined fake plant and thought, guiltily, of whatever underpaid hotel employee would have to clean it up.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled at nobody as he stood unsteadily.

Leaning against the edge of the balcony, he stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit the end with the tip of his finger. The first inhale settled his nerves immeasurably. Things were bad, yes, but James knew he could find a way out of this. He was smarter than Hammer, all he needed was a plan-

“Prohibited substance detected.” A voice rang in his head.

What?

“Prohibited substance detected.” The voice said again. “Desist or you will be punished.”

“I don’t know what that means.” James snapped at the AI.

“Prohibited substance detected. Desist or you will be punished.”

“What substance?” James hadn’t eaten anything at dinner that he hadn’t been specifically instructed to, hadn’t had anything to drink that he hadn’t been given. What arbitrary rule could he possibly be breaking? Unless… James glanced down at the cigarette he’d been idly puffing on. No. No no no no no…

“Standby for punishment.”

“Wait, wait!” James cried out, but it was too late. Every nerve in his body lit up with intense pain. For a moment, his vision blacked out and he struggled to remain standing.

“Desist or you will be punished again.” The voice instructed as the pain ebbed.

Gazing sadly at the mostly-unsmoked cigarette still in his hand, James incinerated it between his fingers. It was just a cigarette; he didn’t need it, but gee whiz he wanted it. It was the one thing he’d had to look forward to, however small and unimportant it was in the grand scheme of things. Even that had been taken from him. He had nothing. He really, truly had nothing.

Tears started to fall, softly at first. Soon, however, his shoulders were shaking with sobs and he was gasping for air between them. It was loud, ugly crying, but that didn’t matter. Nobody could hear him, anyway.

[indic0lite]

someone probably made this post in 2017 but oh well I wrote the most of this when I was probably supposed to be sleeping so here we go

I was going through the WKM tumblr and some image of the detectives wall caught my interest so here’s some things I wanna point out(these might not have any meaning but they’re still interesting)

IMAGE 1:

-       (in red)  A picture of Damien, Celine and William, most likely after Celine and Mark break up since Celine and William seem rather close

-        (in pink) ‘celine is a qt’ mood

-        (In blue) ‘What kind of name is Markiplier anyways?’ Abe asking the real questions

-        (In orange) ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘who’ and ‘what’ all visible questions on the desk

-        (In purple) ‘Police remain following celebrity death’ Last word isn’t shown here but is shown in a later image

-        (In purple) ‘Fallen movie star’ This also brings up the fact that this murder wasn’t exclusive to what we saw, people outside of the manor know about this

IMAGE 2:

- (in red) Nothing to much of note here, but something worth noting about the news article is that the headline above is ‘City mayor is secretly a demon in disguise?’ which brings up a common thing in these newspaper clippings where Damien is in some kind of legal trouble with Mark or just the mayor’s actions being questioned

-Interesting photo where it’s all blacked out, I can’t make out anything in it

IMAGE 3:

-         Three notes

-         ‘who had eyes on the chef between 11pm-3am?’

-         ‘Research locations of the colonel’s travels’

-         ‘where did it all go wrong?’ The last word is blocked by the lamps shadow but brightened up it shows up

IMAGE 4:

-         The same newspaper clipping from the first image

-         Second newspaper clipping is another article about the mayor being in legal trouble ‘Mayor in legal trouble’ Can’t make out what’s being said in the article though

-         Two pictures of the colonel and Celine being romantic, which is interesting, there’s a lot of images which we haven’t seen before

-         The napkin might say laundering (which is basically concealing the origins of illegally obtained money by transferring it through foreign banks or actual businesses)

-         ‘men... why?” God that’s a mood

-         Three different papers documenting crimes and the person investigating

-         The chef’s: Four different names under who was investigating ( Simmons, Myers, Simmons, Lady(??) ) so 4 different crimes, the actual crimes are unknown, blocked out by a sticky note

-         The colonels: MANY names and repeated crimes  (Dickens, O’Brien, Franklin(???), Bernard(???), Nelson, Dickens, Simmons, last is unknown) He’s committed poaching 6 times, has resisted arrest and apparently murdered someone before all of this(or was at least accused of it)

-         Celine has committed two crimes (the names being Harvey(??) and Rose)I believe the second crime is theft, but I can’t make out the first one

-         The napkin with the kiss mark, ‘call me’ and the phone number on it might be from Celine, but her lipstick doesn’t match up with the shade she wears during WKM, which means this happened before, so Abe somehow got a hold of it

IMAGE 5:

-         Abe also has a paper but has crossed out all boxes, probably because he’s the one putting all of this together

-         There’s a closer look of a newspaper we saw in the last one, the transcript of what I can make out is:

      Multiple officers with the city police department are investigating a crime scene at Markiplier Manor on the northside of town.

     A spokesman with the CPD said a 911 call was received around 8:30 am reposting a case of possible foul play. When officers arrived to investigate, they discovered a young man on the floor of the manor unconscious. He was ruled dead at the scene

 The city police department held a press conference on Tuesday regarding the incident.

  Chief of the police force says that the man, identified as Mark Fischbach, was found dead on the floor of the entryway that morning. Police believe that the child was there since 9 am, but that will not be confirmed until an autopsy is complete on the body. The Chief also said that the butler admitted to not doing a headcount of the party guests arriving at the manor the night prior

  The press conference also revealed that the mayor was involved in shady business practices with mark which may affect his dealings leading into the election happening next January. Criminal charges may be placed against one of the partygoers after the autopsy is completed or if any new information arises

IMAGE 6:

-ANOTHER news article about the mayor doing something with Mark ‘Celebrity actor in cahoots with beloved mayor’ I mean at least they know we all love Damien

Image 7:

-         A weird photo of the butler, Abe, the chef, and William, it’s weird and I don’t like how dark the image is

-         ‘Spotted Mark in the study @ 5 pm(last seen?)’ Who spotted Mark in this study? Was it Abe? I’m guessing the house either let Abe see this room and see Mark in it or it was an eyewitness account from another one of the guests

-         ‘Is he a secret’ who’s a secret? Is it William? Is it Mark? Is it Damien? Who is I t???

IMAGE 8:

-         Again, another paper for the partygoers crimes and Damien has only one, investigated by Meyers, but what he did is aggressively crossed out, someone is trying to cover Damien tracks and what he did, though we do know it involved Mark, also there’s a good picture of Damien, at a party, I don’t think it was the one we were at, I think it was another party he was at.

-         Under all that is a list of dates Damien was at the manor, he was there a lot, though he wasn’t there in June at all, but came back in July, the list is longer, but Abe’s picture blocks out the bottom dates

-         The butler has a crime paper and the only crime he committed was public nudity, Benjamin what were you doing, what happened dude

-         ‘what is a lets play?’ what is a lets play indeed dude

IMAGE 9:

-         Just says it straight up ‘Mayor in legal trouble’ Damien what did you do, what did you and Mark do that got you in trouble, what happened

IMAGE 10(this ones from a video but shhhh):

-         The sticky note reads ‘Dream? Hallucination? What is it?’ (that last part is obscured Im just guessing)

TLDR:

Abe was keeping track of everyone, yes, but specifically William, Damien and Celine, most likely because they’re the ones closest to William, hell even William shouts about Abe taking Damien and Celine from him in the final episode.

Damien got into some kind of legal trouble involving Mark, we don’t know what he did. He’s a dumbass so I’m not too surprised, it might’ve been laundering money, but I don’t know why Damien and Mark would be involved in something like that 

Everyone in wkm besides Abe it seems, has committed at least one crime

#markiplier #who killed markiplier #wkm damien #wkm celine #wkm actor mark #wkm abe #wkm the colonel #I didnt expect to be even more confused but here I am #again this might not have any meaning but oh well #long post #Watch this kid with ADD ramble on

[artisticestheticreads]

Connected

Writer’s Note: This will be my first published fanfic series with redeemed Erik “Killmonger” Stevens. This is taking place before the birth of Serenity and how he meets her mother who was the reader in Easter but now is a Black OC. Not quite sure how many chapters this will be. Please enjoy and read this chapter while listening to Tadow by Masego. Please enjoy and I will love to hear some feedback or suggestions.

Warning: This will contain that, some race issues, fluff, alcohol, and sexual tension. Definitely a slow burn and much more.

~

ONE

       It was an easy Friday when Erik as a Teachers Assistant. He was off finally for Spring Break and decided to make it to his favorite smooth jazz/poet slam club called SMOOTH in Downtown LA. He went by his studio apartment to shower and change. He threw on dark blue jeans, a black turtleneck sweater and black Timberland boots he got custom made from his old friend in Oakland. He put some Jamaican Castor oil on his braided dreads to protect against the cold weather; grabbed his jacket and was on the way. He parked his car in the lot, gave dap to the bouncer and made his way to his usual spot in the corner. A light skin waitress with a long red lace front wig made his way with a cup of whiskey on rocks and greeted him; she made her back to the bar. He sipped and tasted the nut, fruit and floral smoothness and watched the talent on stage. The band was playing a smooth jazz beat in the background as the burnt umber tone male made his way to the mic.

“Hello, everyone. Welcome to SMOOTH Friday Nights to ease the tension of the hard work week. Next up with the poetic flow of Erykah Badu, the skin of a rich coffee and the heart of a true queen. Please give it up to our sweet, black sista, Maya Symoné.” The crowd all snapped applauding her as she made her way. She wore a long, black body con dress with deep slits on both sides starting from the top of her thigh down. Her hair was neatly tucked underneath her African tribal head wrap, baby hairs and edges resembled the curves of the Pacific Ocean. She dressed her feet in a pair of combat boot heels that had golden lace hoops and black laces. Her skin looked like it glittered and golden under the yellow spotlight. Her ringed fingered hands touched the microphone and her glorious face became clearer. Her brows were thick but clean shaped. Her lips had a beautiful, deep Cupid’s bow and full covered in ruby lipstick. Her deep almond eyes were blessed with long thick lashes. Her round button nose had a beauty mark placed under on the right side of her nose; Erik was stunned especially by her voice.

“Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. If you are new here, let me formally introduce myself. I am Maya Symoné. I am a free stylist but my style is more of a rant of some sort. Sometimes I’ll rhyme and others I may not so bear with me. For the ones, who know of me, also knows of my Instagram and YouTube channel where I basically talk to my lovely family also known as my subscribes about things I go through on a day to day basis.” She sipped the tea on her stool and held the mic taking a deep breath closing her eyes making the crowd laugh.

“I had a follower by the user name beth”. She looked side to side at the crowd as they grunted and understood where this was going. “Beth something or other commented under a post I photographed with a beautiful, sensual black couple with fros and the caption read ‘nothing is more real than BLACK love’. She commented and I quote ‘WHY are you sooooooo obsessed with black on black love? WHY don’t you try a different race? WHY does it have to ALWAYS be about black love and pride? WHY is being with a black man so great?’“ She stopped and placed her hands on her curvy frame and popped her tongue pretending to think. She placed her hands and said “why” as the yellow dim light turned red and everyone snapped waiting to her words. “Why does my love for my brothas threaten them so fucking bad? WE should be asking opposite races why them dating our men is such a fad. Y’ see, there is nothing wrong with loving who you love. But somehow, someway my love for a strong, black, independent king is a sin BUT all I gotta say it ain’t nothing like black men.  I honestly can’t see myself with the opposite race. I can’t see myself with some who have not been here, right here in my place. Why? Why? Because how will I show my future chocolate covered baby girl, my angel, my image how it feels to be loved by the black man. When I see a black father with his daughter, it is the most beautiful thing I witness. The love, the strength, the example of how that little girl’s future king should treat her when the time arrives. Without black fathers, our little queens may meet their demise. How will I teach my sons how to be strong black kings? Because ladies, we can only do so much for our future warriors, correct? Because without our men, our baby boys won’t know what the future of a  black male brings.” 

  They agreed and she continued. “Why would I want to bed with the opposite race? I would not and Ima tell ya why. Because have you ever felt so much love, protection, intimacy during intercourse with other than a black man? Nope. Our men and women, know how to love one another. The way a man, a black man makes you feel can make ya whole day. That little touch, that caress he does can make a black woman smile for hours. It has happened...trust me. WHY would I want to be with someone....” She stopped and wiped a tear off her cheek with people encouraging her to keep pushing; Erik noticed from afar. “Why would I want to be with someone WHO does not get my anger when my people are being slaughtered for sport? Who does not get my anger, frustration or how I feel about losing apart of me. Who has never been through the struggle of being Black in America? I tell you why. Because nothing is more real than having your lover, your friend, your everything gets you because they are you in every aspect. Because nothing is more real than BLACK love...that’s why. Thank you.” Everyone cheered and the red light turned black to her not on stage anymore. 

     Erik sat there taken back, letting every word marinate in his mind. The way Maya spoke to his soul got him by surprise. He looked throughout the crowd to see her sitting by her self sipping her drink which looked like what he was drinking. The waitress came by his table to drop off another drink but before she left, he whispered something in her ear. Maya looked up to the stage playing and felt a presence too familiar. “Hey, girl. Here is another drink, from a secret admirer” pointing towards Erik and, with that, she walked away. Maya met eyes with him and nodded her head looking towards the stage, he smirked as she sipped from his offering.

    Erik sat there leaning on his folded forearms. Watching her until he saw a tall, fair skin man sit next to her and kiss her cheek. He felt defeated in watching so he sipped from his second drink and looked to the stage. In peripheral, he noticed her stealing glances from him. She turned to her friend and spoke in his ear, giggling and she pointed towards his table subtly. Her friend looked up to Erik, who pretended he didn’t notice and got up fixing his leather coat. He stood on Erik’s left and asked in his deep voice “may I sit, brotha?” Erik nodded and he sat. “I see you bought Maya a drink.”

“Look, I ain’t mean-” The friend interrupted him and said “no, no man. I am not mad. I am used to brothas doing that” as he chuckled and grabbed the cigar from his pocket with a lighter. He lit it and blew the air out to the other direction. “Maya has swarms of negroes coming to her. Trying to get into her panties and shit. Makes me sick that she goes through that what is more important is what makes you different?” Erik looked to him finally and stated the obvious. “Unlike them, I ain’t tryna to do anything,  aight? My folks raised me better than that. She seems like a woman who ain’t with the bull shit and that’s why them muthafuckas didn’t stand a chance. I just bought her a drink to show that her performance was spot on and to the point, nothing more.”

“Well, that is a huge relief. Thought you would be the type of man who just wants to hit it and quit it.” He turned and saw her to his right, with a smile and her hands behind her back. He said, “Hello, Miss Maya.” She returned a grin and a “hello there” before looking to her friend. “Tay, ya man is here. He is waiting for you at our table. I’ll stay here and keep this young brotha company.” Tay stood and said his goodbyes and she replaced him in the seat, leaning her round face on her hands. “Thank you for my drink. I appreciate it.” He smirked while saying “don’t mention it. After what you all told us, you needed one.” She gave a silent giggle and kept her eyes on his. “Tell me about it. What is your name by the way?”

“Erik Stevens. Nice to meet you, Miss.” He shooked her hand and took note of how soft her skin was. “Well, Mr. Erik. What do you do?” He sat back with his hands on his thighs. “I’m a TA at an elementary school in downtown.” Maya’s lips parted. “Really? Why not teach?” He shook his head then replied. “Not yet. Still training. I just like helping little kids stay woke, love watching their minds work.” Maya leaned back in her chair with a little raise in the corner of her mouth. “Well, by the look of your arms through that sweater, you are not built for it”; his deep chuckle filled the air between them and made her smile. “What were you doing before,” she asked him as she got closer. His smile slowly disappeared. “I’m an ex-Navy veteran. Served since I was 21, left when I was 29.” 

“Ah, that makes more sense”, she stated with narrowed eyes and a raised brow. “It’s actually funny. My father is retired from the US Army. Served ever since before I was born.” She brought her glass to her lips that the waitress bought her. Erik observed her and the way her skin glowed, so beautiful so radiant, as he heard smooth jazz in the background. “Maya, would you like to dance?” Maya grinned with her lips and nodded as he stood to pull out her chair and she led him to the dance floor. He watched the way her hips swayed side to side. She spun her body to face him and he placed his hands on her hips while she put her on his broad shoulders. They danced side to side, looking at one another in the eyes. He asked “so, I was wondering how you would feel about going out to eat? Y’know to get to know each other.” 

     She sized him up then said, “let me see if you can keep up”. She stretched her arm out and he spun her in a circle to the beat. Her back was pressed against his back and their hips were moving together as one. She lied her head on his shoulder and his hand slowly went up to caress her neck with the tips of his fingers. Maya smiled at his touch and wrapped his left arm around her waist. He took whiff her scent and was instantly enticed. She lifted her right arm to place around his neck and let her hand caress the back of his neck. His fingers caressed the back of her hand once she turned to face him. “Ya pretty damn smooth”, Miss Maya said. He chuckled and said, “guess I’m just blessed with.” She giggled as she got closer to his body, looking up into his eyes. Those eyes, her eyes made his knees weak, his heart smile and a grin appeared from across his face. He held her left hand in his right with his other hand on the small of her back, pulling her in. They danced the whole night but, unfortunately, it was time to go. They stood outside as she waited for her uber. 

“Sure, you don’t want me to drive you home”, Erik asked with his hands locked behind his back. “Yes, thank you though Mr. Stevens.” He looked at her then asked “so, was I smooth enough to get ya number or nah?” She gave half a smirk and started to walk away to her uber. Leaving him confused. “I'm guessing you haven’t checked ya pockets yet, brotha,” she said over her shoulder. He dug in his pocket to find a napkin with a kiss mark and her name along with ten numbers. “How did you”-

She interrupted and said, “you’re not the only smooth one” with a wink and finally leaving. He placed the number back inside and made his way to his car, with a smirk of his own.

~

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#Erik Killmonger #erik killmonger x oc #killmonger x reader #killmonger imagine #bp fandom #redeemed erik #soft boi erik #connected series #artisticestheticreads

[dateing101]

#1

“Introduction

Why Men Love Bitches is a relationship guide for women who are “too nice.” The word bitch in the title does not take itself too seriously—I’m using the word in a tongue-in-cheek way representative of the humorous tone of this book.

The title and the content address what many women think, but don’t say. Every woman has felt embarrassed by appearing too needy with a man. Every woman has had a man pursue her, only to lose interest the minute she gave in. Every woman knows what it feels like to be taken for granted. These problems are common to most women, married and single alike.

So why do men love bitches? An important distinction should be made between the pejorative way the word is usually used, and the way it is used here. Certainly, I’m not recommending that a woman have an abrasive disposition. The bitch I’m talking about is not the “bitch on wheels” or the mean-spirited character that Joan Collins played on Dynasty. Nor is it the classic “office bitch” who is hated by everyone at work.

The woman I’m describing is kind yet strong. She has a strength that is ever so subtle. She doesn’t give up her life, and she won’t chase a man. She won’t let a man think he has a 100 percent “hold” on her. And she’ll stand up for herself when he steps over the line.

She knows what she wants but won’t compromise herself to get it. But she’s feminine, like a “Steel Magnolia”—flowery on the outside and steel on the inside. She uses this very femininity to her own advantage. It isn’t that she takes undue advantage of men, because she plays fair. She has one thing the nice girl doesn’t: a presence of mind because she isn’t swept away by a romantic fantasy. This presence of mind enables her to wield her power when it is necessary.

In addition, she has the ability to remain cool under pressure. Whereas a woman who is “too nice” gives and gives until she is depleted, the woman with presence of mind knows when to pull back.

Among the hundreds of interviews I conducted with men for the book, over 90 percent laughed and agreed with the title within the first thirty seconds. Some men chuckled as though their best-kept secret had just been revealed. “Men need a mental challenge,” they said. Time and time again, this was the recurrent theme.

The men I interviewed all phrased it slightly differently, but the message didn’t change. “Men like it when a woman has a bit of an edge to her,” they said. Two things became clear across the board: First, they would regularly use the phrase mental challenge to describe a woman who didn’t appear needy. And second, the word bitch was synonymous with their concept of mental challenge. And this characteristic, above all, they found attractive.

When I used the phrase mental challenge with men, it was immediately clear to them the quality I meant. On the other hand, when I interviewed hundreds of women, rarely did they understand the same phrase. They often related the phrase to intelligence, rather than to neediness. It wasn’t just that my hunch was confirmed by these interviews; they also strengthened my sense of purpose. I thought that anything this obvious to men should not be kept a secret from women.

This book addresses the very issues that men won’t. He won’t say, “Look, don’t be a doormat,” “Don’t always say yes,” “Don’t revolve your whole world around me.” This book is necessary because these are things a man will not spell out for his partner.

In the chapters that follow, you’ll find one message coming through loud and clear: Success in love isn’t about looks; it’s about attitude. The media would have us believe differently. A teenage girl picks up a magazine and reads: “Get that boy’s attention” with an item of clothing, or a certain look. “This nail color or lipstick will wow him,” the magazine assures her. And what does the girl learn? How to obsess over someone else’s approval.

Then there is the issue of how the media treats aging. The teenage woman evolves into a twenty-something woman with confidence, and the media bombards her with negative images of aging. The message here is: Two wrinkles and a stretch mark, and she’s “marked down” like last season’s merchandise that’s sold at half price. And what does she learn? How to obsess over someone else’s disapproval.

So what’s the message of this book? It’s that a bit of irreverence is necessary to have any self-esteem at all. Not irreverence for people, but rather, for what other people think. The bitch is an empowered woman who derives tremendous strength from the ability to be an independent thinker, particularly in a world that still teaches women how to be self-abnegating. This woman doesn’t live someone else’s standards, only her own.

This is the woman who plays by her own rules, who has a feeling of confidence, freedom, and empowerment. And it’s this feeling that I hope women will glean from reading this book.

The woman who has a positive experience with men possesses the ever-so-subtle qualities I discuss in this book: a sense of humor and an aura that conveys, “I’m driving the train here. I’ll tell you where we get on and where we get off.” This woman has that presence of mind to do what is in her best interest and an attitude that says she doesn’t need to be there. She is there by choice.

The bitchy women who are so loved by men give off a devil-may-care quality and, yes, have that “edge.” This is that same edge, coincidentally, that men say they find so magnetic. The difference is this woman isn’t looking for it outside herself; it is a special quality she carries within.

Excerpt From

Why Men Love Bitches

Sherry Argov

https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=366704956

This material may be protected by copyright.

[thalia-amongst-the-thorns]

OC Kiss Week #1- First Kiss | Forehead Kiss

The Morning After

(Mae/Angie/Daniel)

      Mae enjoyed routine. Routine Saturdays started with a pre-dawn jog through her complex’s park, calisthenics by the pond, getting the paper for Ms. Mundrai on the fourth floor. Unfortunately, that would have to wait, as there was a tiger in her bed at present.

        And another woman. It was hard to decide which was more unexpected.

The tiger was only mildly unusual; Daniel usually changed form before bed.  Animal form felt more natural to him, and it was best to get it out of the way rather than risk a spontaneous shift in the middle of the night. It was one of the few things he’d been shy about, but Mae had been pleased that he’d felt comfortable enough to tell her. Besides, it turned out that lions, tigers, or bears (oh my!) where excellent space heaters during the Neoville winters.

There was a groaning snort from the other side of the bed (which was significantly smaller than Mae remember) and the covers jerked up, exposing her bare legs. A wave of goosebumps spread over Mae’s skin, and once again she regretted not listening to her mother and packing pajama pants. Curse the seasonably warm Midwest.

Gingerly, Mae rolled over, leveraging out of the bed so that she didn’t disturb her partners. The sun was starting to rise and she didn’t want it to outpace her. A quick scratch between Daniel’s ears prompted a sleepy chirp and he flopped over, covers tangling around his tail, curling tighter against Angie’s side.

The sight had Mae doing a double take. The woman was definitely stranger

Last night’s patrol meant that Mae had gotten home late enough that she’d barely had the energy to strip out of her costume, dimly registering the state of the apartment. Now in the light of day she took stock of the carnage from last night; like a trail of breadcrumbs, Daniel and Angie’s clothes led directly to the bed. Though how Angie’s bra ended up on the potted hibiscus was a puzzle. The couch had been pushed askew and one of the throw pillows was ripped open, it’s cotton guts spilling. 

Five minutes to straighten the living room and gather up clothes, ten to go down to the laundry room and start a fresh load, another ten to get the spackling paste from the tool box and fill in the claw marks on the wall. 

Those were new too. Mae rubbed her thumb over the fresh plaster, smoothing out the uneven lumps. Daniel wasn’t as …enthusiastic with her. Which is how Mae liked it, she’d never been into that sort of thing. It was nice that they’d found someone who was, though she’d have to lay some ground rules if they wanted to keep the apartment from collapsing on them at this rate.

Angie snorted again, followed by the general rustling sounds as she sat up, stretched. The edge of a tattoo, all delicately intertwined black lines, curved over her shoulder. She put her hand down to brace herself and lurched back when she got a handful of sleeping tiger face. To her credit, Angie looked merely intrigued by this turn of events, as if she were used to her nightly paramours turning into reptiles but not mammals. 

Mae stored the toolbox back in the hall closet, suddenly acutely aware of how odd this was. At least for her. That it might only be odd for her made it all the more awkward.

She smiled at Angie, trying to look as at ease as possible. No reason to spread the nerves around. 

“Mornin’”, Mae said quietly. “I was gonna get a pot of coffee going–?”

“Please.” Angie dung the heel of her hand into her eye, leaving behind a streak of mascara that curled all the way up into her eyebrows. “Black with three sugars.”

One minute to fill the pot and set it to boil, two to find the filters and measure out the grounds. The fancy, free-range-organic-pre-ground Venezuelan beans Angie gave her as a house warming gift.

Angie sauntered over and perched on the kitchen counter wearing one of Daniel’s shirts. While Angie may be as tall as him, she definitely wasn’t as stocky, the fabric hanging off her slim frame. Mae took a half-second to admire her. She may not be into sex, but Mae still appreciated the view. It reminded her of the analogy she’d blurted to Daniel when she’d first explained asexuality, about how just because someone liked looking at Leibovitz’s photos it didn’t mean they wanted to take them home and fool around with them.

Mae started as Angie let out a burst of laughter. That Angie laughed at all was unexpected, the closest Mae had ever seen her get was an enigmatic smirk.

“I’m sure there’s a fetish for that”, Angie said.

Mae blinked. “For what?”

“For…”, a glassy look passed over Angie’s eyes, “… Leonardo DiCaprio with a swan around his neck?”

Mae thought a moment, remembered an exhibition in Manhattan she’s gone to years ago.

“Leibovitz! “Said Angie

“Leibovitz?” Mae said, a beat later.

“Shit. Sorry.” It was shocking how someone so tall could fold into themselves so completely. Angie rubbed at her temples, eyes closed. “I didn’t even think about–I never have to worry about it with Daniel, can’t read animal or human/animal hybrid minds, so I just kind of let go last night. Guess it carried over.”

“It’s okay”, Mae said. “At least you got a bit of artistic culture to start your day.”

“It would help if some gods could keep their opinions to themselves.”

Mae nodded in sympathy without any idea what she was talking about. She bustled about, fetching some mugs while Angie stared intently off into space, her face that peculiar blankness she got when arguing with the Wandering God that shared her mind. While magic had its perks for hero work, it was times like this that Mae was thankful for good old fashioned human mutations. It was much more straight forward.

“Better?” Mae asked once Angie took up her mug, quarrel settled. 

Angie shook her hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “Helps there’s only one person.”

She pushed off the counter and headed toward the door. The sunlight streaming through the window caught the purple highlights in her hair, lingered on the studs in her ears and nose. 

Mae stuck her head around the corner after her.

“Where are—“

“Laundry room. Shit. Stop it.” Angie flicked her forehead. She held up the mug, working the door open with her foot. “I’ll bring it back up with Daniel’s stuff.”

Concern panged in Mae’s chest. She strode over, put her hand firmly on the door. Even with Angie putting her full weight on it, it didn’t budge an inch.  “Angie, why are you acting like you’ve got the holler tail all of a sudden?”

After another futile attempt to open the door Angie sighed and fixed Mae with her best neutral face. “Are you sure you want to do this, because I can assure you it’ll be awkward for all parties, but mostly you because good people always pick up secondhand guilt.”

It wasn’t said unkindly, just as a matter of fact. Some people said it was raining on Thursday, Angie told you how your mind would respond to new information.

Mae nodded. “Better to air it out than let it fester.”

“Okay.” Angie retraced her steps back to the kitchen, sat back on the counter, coffee clutched before her like a talisman. Mae obediently followed, standing at attention across from her by the couch, arms clasped behind her back.

“Okay, okay so—at ease, this isn’t a court martial—“, Mae relaxed her arms to her sides, “—so, I don’t want to even touch on the ace stuff ‘cause that’s personal, but all of this is personal so whatever, but also because that’s between you and Daniel. And I know you said you were okay with us getting it on last year because you two weren’t official yet. And then you both came to me about this arrangement and said you’d be cool with it if I was, but I’ve picked up some brainwaves from you for a few days now that make me think you’re not so cool.”

Angie took a long swig of coffee. Mae waited silently, suddenly painfully self-conscious of the flood of thoughts and emotions running through her mind.

“There.” Angie pointed at Mae with a black polished nail. “Primordial guilt soup.” 

“I’m not guilty.” Mae reconsidered. “I don’t feel bad for my emotions or decisions. I do feel guilty if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

Angie tapped her temple. “I’m always uncomfortable.”

It was a wry joke, but it still saddened Mae how much truth there was to it.

“I just don’t want you to feel obligated to do—this.” Angie gestured to the space between them, then wagged her eyebrows suggestively. “Besides, I hear one night stands are all the rage now.”

“One night stands imply ‘one night’, Angie.”

“Semantics.”

More silence as Mae thought and Angie drained her cup. It was hard to keep her mind quiet, like trying not to think of pink elephants when someone told you not to think of pink elephants, but she had deep reservoirs of discipline to call upon. And it was for Angie’s sake as much as hers. She focused on the half-moon of deep purple lipstick on Angie’s mug. On the way her eyes crinkled when she focused. How she unconsciously curled her fingers closed on her right hand to hide old scars.

“Maybe I like having you around.” Heat shot through Mae’s ears, and she was thankful her dark skin made it impossible to notice. “As, uh, more than a friend.”

Angie’s face was unreadable, as always. Her head titled back and forth; maybe it helped her focus of picking up stray thoughts?

“Really? That’s not what you said last time I asked.”

Mae closed the gap between them in a few steps. She had to look down to meet Angie’s eyes (she wasn’t the only tall one here).

“I can change my mind, can’t I?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Angie’s lips. Like her laugh, it was rare and all the more precious.

A thought formed in Mae’s mind. She made the image as clear as possible, trying to get Angie’s attention, along with the silent question, May I?

Touch was always a tricky subject with Angie given how it amplified her powers, so it was some matter of pride to Mae when Angie smirked and leaned her head forward.

Mae brushed her lips against Angie’s forehead. Angie leaned into the touch, and just as quickly pulled away.

“Don’t want to test it too much”, Angie said in response to Mae’s worried expression. Her mouth stretched into a wicked smile. “But we could always practice later.”

Another blush crept over Mae’s ears as Daniel came stumbling blearily from the bedroom, hand absently scratching at the stray patches of fur receding on his abdomen. With a bone grinding pop the last of his vertebrae snapped into place and he straightened, stretched his arms over his head.

“Mahhhhiiiinnng”, he yawned. Dreamily Daniel padded over to Mae and kissed her neck, pressing his nose against her skin so he could take in her smell, before going to Angie and repeating the gesture without fear of aggravating her powers.

He emerged from her side sniffing curiously and instantly brightened.

“Coffee!”

With a surprising burst of speed, Daniel disappeared into the kitchen.

For a moment Angie stared after him, then slowly turned to Mae, eyebrow quirked.

“Does he often wander the apartment naked?”

Mae sighed. “Constantly.”

“Well.” Angie hopped off the counter in hot pursuit. She threw a glance back at Mae. “Guess he’s really not just an animal in bed.”

#ockiss2018 #ockiss #ockiss18 #oc squad #Mae #Angie #Daniel #everyone has superpowers and angst #this is sooooo long oh god why #my writing #maybe i'll edit the tags later i'm just gonna sleep

[movieswithkevin27]

Bright

Deciding which film - Bright, The Mummy, Amityville: The Awakening, or The Circle - is worse is a tough task. The Mummy is so bad it is good, so it gets ahead of the competition. The Circle feels incomplete, so it is probably the worst, whereas Amityville feels like multiple movies slapped together. Bright, however, as the third worst (or second best, but I do not want to sound too complimentary), is old school bad. It is boring, it is horribly written, it is incompetently directed, and yet it is coherent. Nobody can mistake Bright for being multiple films or an incomplete film. Instead, it is a straight-forward film with a plot that easily mistaken for actual depth or world-building, characters who are intended to be engaging, thematic content working throughout, and a clear narrative arc that will engage less discerning viewers quite adequately and deliver “a fun movie”. However, in having seen Bright, it is hard to imagine how one could find this slop fun. A pig would think this is just too shitty of a pen to play in if given the option between its own shit and Bright. Compared to the other ⅕ star films I have seen thus far in 2017, Bright is the only film that is just not horribly made, but it is a completely horrible film. It is exactly what the filmmakers wanted to put together, which earns it some points for being less horrible, but is hardly an endorsement of its quality as director David Ayer and writer Max Landis have found a way to waste a seemingly. compelling and original idea. To accomplish this, they put it into a buddy cop film, inserted lame pop culture comedy (“swipe left” right as he swipes to detonate a bomb...hello my fellow kids), had dull action scenes, stilted dialogue, and forced racial commentary that would make Paul Haggis and the filmmakers behind Crash think Bright is too heavy-handed.

The opening act of this film pours on the racial commentary hot-and-heavy. Establishing this as a world in which orcs are hated due to their allegiance to the “dark lord” in a literal race war 2,000 years ago, Bright shows humans to be normal middle class folks, elves to be the 1%, and orcs to be the minorities in the hoods who become gangsters. Meanwhile, the LAPD has hired an orc cop as part of a forced diversity initiative, but every other cop wants to kill orc cop Nick Jakoby (Joel Edgerton). Paired with Darrell Ward (Will Smith), the two traverse Los Angeles, encounter racism towards orcs, discuss the tribalism of orcs and how they are indebted to their clans, they discuss orc culture and being “blooded”, cops want to frame and kill Jakoby, and fellow orcs call Jakoby a traitor. The racial commentary, tragically, is established even further through imagery that aligns orcs with inner city black Americans with graffiti showing images of cops killing orcs without reason. All of this racial commentary could have been fine and even a unique take in a fantasy world, but Ayer and Landis are so blunt and on-the-nose in their treatment, it often feels as though Bright reaches out and slaps the audience in the face while shouting, “Do you get it?! THEY’RE RACIST!” While the film may have its heart in the right place in regards to racism in society and the need to see equality between races, Bright is simply not film that executes on this theme well enough for it truly resonate or have its desired impact. Instead, it just plays out as a hamfisted theme that is never developed in an interesting fashion.

A lot of the films issues in following its racial commentary in a more subdued and compelling fashion is the same reason why its general plotting and originality falls apart. It all felt very surface-level. Ayer was unable to actually make things work beneath the surface, instead opting for a cliche buddy cop movie - which is in his wheelhouse, as End of Watch shows - with cliche action “the hero never gets hits” shootout scenes, one-liners, a generic group of bad guys that want to summon the “dark lord”, and useless federal agents who, despite possessing a threat, disappear for the final half hour after pin-pointing where Ward and Jakoby were within a few blocks. This rather uninteresting foundation for the film, leads all of the cliche fantasy elements such as prophecies, orcs, elves, references to past wars, wands, a dark lord, fairies, etc to just feel like a magic trick. It is a way for Ayer and Landis to distract audiences from the rather shallow and skin deep treatment of its fantasy setting it is giving in favor of exploring a rather straight-forward buddy cop action-comedy set-up. For many audiences, they will praise this distraction and even point to a shot of a dragon flying over Los Angeles as a hint to the depth and possibilities this world holds. Unfortunately, it is merely akin to putting lipstick on a pig. It is still a pig with nothing special or unique about on the inside compared to the other pigs, all it has is some lipstick. Bright is that pig (I do like my pig comparisons for this one, maybe all of the forced racism via calling orcs “pig-faced” is influencing me here), with some nice glossy fantasy elements but without the heart and soul of a fantasy film underneath.

This leads perfectly into the film’s horrific script. With forced comedy, exposition, and awkwardly stilted dialogue, it is easy to see that David Ayer was looking for his next, “So that’s it? We some kinda Suicide Squad?” through the entirety of the dialogue. Between a prolonged bromance scene, a cliche villain waiting just long enough to kill someone for them to be stopped, any discussion about prophecies (Will Smith literally says, “So we’re in a prophecy, huh?” after previously saying, “We are not in a prophecy. We are in a stolen Toyota Corolla.”), and really any joke attempt all mark true lows in Bright. Further lines such as “You need to unfuck this. Magic us to Palm Springs or some shit,” and the “it’s time to go home / “It’s too late to go home” / “Fucking kill me,” back-and-forth between chief antagonist Leilah (Noomi Rapace) and her sister Tikka (Lucy Fry) who is helping Darrell and Nick, are examples of just how horribly written Bright is, with awkward dialogue that continuously misses the boat. References to Tinder (previously quoted in introduction) and the elves having killed the illuminati additionally demonstrate that not only is Bright poorly written with awkward jokes, terrible “intense” dialogue, and continuous exposition explaining where they are in Los Angeles, who they are meeting, what they are doing (“We need to protect the wand”), regurgitating of a prophecy far too many times, and through racist interactions, but it is also a film that is trying far too hard to be “hip”. It drops in pop culture items it knows millennials will love, while trying to serenade them with the latest pop hits from their favorite “hip” rappers and singers as a means to elicit a positive association between Bright and the apps or songs the young folks of America love to use. As such, Bright comes off as not just a long music video like Suicide Squad did, but also a pandering work that consistently tries to reassert just how badass and in-touch with pop culture it and its makers are. To top it all of, the parade of cliche interactions - such as the final moment where Nick nervously tells the feds what happened without being prompted to do so - only serves to help Bright’s script become worse, solidifying it as certainly the worst element of an already horrible film.

The film’s direction and action further harms the film, both through inane and cliches action set-pieces with car chases, shootouts, and crashes, that never really capture the imagination of the audience. As opposed to his work in Fury, Ayer seems content to stick with rather incoherent, dull, and cliche action scenes - there is a scene where Leilah jumps through a glass window in an incredibly similar way to Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell - which only serves to help Bright become even more uninteresting. An already dull slog of a film becomes worse every time an action scene starts up with nothing but explosions, endless gunfire, “cool crashes”, and forced moments of intensity as the bad guy pauses just long enough to be shot or as the good guy runs out of bullets at exactly the wrong time. These cliches and rather dull exploration of a fantastical world - could we really not get some cool fantastical gun or weapon? - are what really pull down the facade of fantasy put up by Ayer and Landis. It is in these derivative shootouts that Bright screams out to the audience that this is not some adventurous or daring original film. Instead, it just another action movie that is happy to become mere white noise in the background as viewers opt to pay their taxes or bills instead of paying attention. Adding to these issues with direction, the film’s final act seems to occur at least three times with multiple almost endings that hint at putting the audience out of their misery before, somehow, finding more (and worse) content to tack onto the end of the film. This one winds up feeling entirely unending with Ayer and Landis managing to concoct new ways to keep this one dragging on for an eternity.

A dull, unredeemable, and decidedly unfun film, David Ayer’s Bright makes one wonder if he actually wrote Training Day and directed both End of Watch and Fury or if he just killed or blackmailed whoever did before taking all of the credit for himself. Will Smith finds yet another bad movie to star in and Joel Edgerton is saved by the fact that we cannot see his face through the make-up. Honestly, it is entirely possible that this was just a cliche buddy cop film until Edgerton signed on because he needed the money and demanded his dignity was saved by wearing makeup that hid his face, giving birth to this fantastical world. It would certainly explain why the fantasy world is so shallow and uninteresting. The fact that this film is earning such acclaim from audiences and is doing well enough to earn a sequel demonstrates just how starved audiences are for “original” films, willing to accept anything that slightly fits the bill.

#2017 movies #2010s movies #bright #david ayer #will smith #joel edgerton #film reviews #film analysis #movie reviews #edgar ramirez #noomi rapace #lucy fry

[clarencenicholsonata]

10 Examples of Winning Email Design And How To Make Your Own

Around 40% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are one of the key features to their content marketing success.

There are tons of statistics that prove just how profitable emails can be for your business. What the numbers don’t show is that there's a lot of testing and tweaking that goes into the email's design and layout that allows the sender to get massive rewards.

What makes a successful email or email campaign? One of the major elements in the design and layout that draws people in and grows your click-through rate.

Today, I'll be showing you ten examples of winning email design and how to make your own.

1. Use Colors & Images in Your Email Designs

Color has the power to affect the viewer's mood and actions. Adding a bit of color to your email can go a long way.

1. Tock

Why this works Copy: Right off the bat, Tock places itself as the best choice to book reservations for readers by speaking to the different aspects of their product, and the solutions it offers.

Design: Contrasting colors like yellow and blue grab the reader's attention, in this case they also happen to be Tock's brand colors. At the center of the email is a simple illustration of the city to highlight the hustle and bustle of the life surrounding restaurants. They decided to match the color of their button or designs to their brand’s colors, with the help of a contrasting background color for yellow and dark blue and yellow and white.

Placement: Two CTAs are placed in the emailer: "Explore Tock" and "Learn more."

If someone's ready to use Tock's services, they’re more likely to press the first CTA.

If they're still in the awareness stages of getting to know the brand, then they'll most likely keep reading more on what Tock has to offer. They're using one email design to speak to two types of readers both in the first stage of their welcome email.

You can also change an email design’s color based on new product, season or to match a marketing campaign’s new look and feel.

2. Harry's

Why this works Copy: The copy for this email is more focused on the person than the product itself, which is a great way to soft sell your products. This allows the potential buyers to imagine what it might be like to own or gift this item.

As you scroll down further in the email, it starts to speak to the benefits of buying this product as a gift, such as the option to engrave the initials for the lucky recipient. The end creates a sense of urgency by using the words "Limited Edition", and reminding the reader that it's only available for a short time because winter only lasts for so long.

Design: The email imitates a product marketing funnel system, bringing the reader towards each CTA with "Awareness, Consideration, and Action" as the main stages. Harry's used a color block design to guide the reader through each step of the email. Color blocking helps to guide the reader through your copy, making it easy to read with a pleasing layout.

Placement: There are two CTAs, one at the top of the email and one at the end of the email. Again, this is a good practice when you have a heavily designed email. The first CTA works best for readers who might be impulse shoppers, and the second CTA is for the reader who has taken the time to read through the email and might have missed the first CTA as some readers tend to skim over details.

You can also consider using monochrome in your email design if the play on colors seems a bit too much.

3. Miss Selfridge

Why this works Copy: There's a lot of copy in this email, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Each text is custom to a product image along with a CTA. The code for free delivery is placed in yellow to contrast against the monochrome look to draw in the reader’s attention.

Design:Using limited colors in your emails means that you have to use your colors wisely. Miss Selfridge made sure to add colors to highlight their offers and "Shop New In" CTAs so that they didn't blend in with the rest of the email.

Placement: From top to bottom and for each clothing item promoted, there was a CTA in place to carry the reader to their preferred product. This is an effective way of making sure that if you're introducing more than one product in your email, the reader can easily be redirected to the item or category without having to search your website.

4. Beauty Bay

Why this works Copy: Sometimes less is more. Beauty Bay found a fun way to lead readers to their website with a one-line header, "This way, follow me, come on. " Automatically pointing the direction with the lipstick moving around the page.

Design: The GIF and copy go hand in hand, leading down the email. Why this email works? The element of surprise. How often do you open an email with an adventurous lipstick? Not very often.

Placement: The email is designed with only one CTA, placed at the end. Again, the animation, copy, and placement go hand-in-hand, guiding you to the end of the email to click, click, click.

Add Some Animation to the Mix

GIF email designs aren't new, but they are more popular with B2C emailers. They give emails readers a different kind of experience when compared to static images or text.

Every day your subscribers have more and more emails competing for their attention. Today studies reveal that marketers have just 10 seconds to grab an audience because their attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. So it's time to roll up your sleeves and get creative by adding some GIFs and videos.

Emails that include videos or GIFs can increase your open rate by 19% and click-through rate by 50%. That's because videos are 12 times more likely to be watched than text is to be read. With video, you're able to convey a feeling or message much faster than text so readers can take action more quickly.

5. Hunter Original

Why this works Copy: Let your GIF do most of the talking so your copy can get straight to the point. This email copy simply tells the reader that Hunter has a new water product, time to shop.

Design: The GIF shows the different colors shoppers can get their raincoats in, so they can easily decide which color they'd like to make their own.

Placement: Since most of the email is a GIF, it's already eye-catching. The copy and CTA are placed in the center of the email so the reader can quickly find and take action without much searching.

Ready to make your own GIF email design? Here are two helpful guides to learn how to create a GIF in Photoshop or Canva.

Taking animation in your emails a step further, you can try and gamify the design of your emails. Hear me out; gamification is incorporating an element of a game in your email, motivating users to do something for a chance to win a discount or a reward.

If you're an email marketing geek, check out EmailMonk’s gamified email. They were the first to design a gamified email, including a maze.

6. EmailMonk

If you're an email marketing geek, check out EmailMonk’s gamified email. They were the first to design a gamified email, including a maze.

Taking animation in your emails a step further, you can try and gamify the design of your emails. Hear me out; gamification is incorporating an element of a game in your email, motivating users to do something for a chance to win a discount or a reward.

7. HD Brows

Why this works Copy: If you're a shopaholic like me, nothing brings you comfort like a brand that knows you want to shop. Adding a CTA copy to sweeten the deal stating, "You deserve it." Even if you didn't intend to shop, you can't help but click.

This copy perfectly speaks to its target audience of new and current shoppers, using the tone of a friend rather than a marketer. Having a personalized brand voice in your emails goes a long way.

Design: The design of the email is very clean and simple, with product images and copy colors that complement the white spaces. Going a step further to place their best seller below for ease of shopping.

Placement: The placement of the email reads as an upside-down "T" shape with the copy and CTA is placed in the dead center since the text is the most important aspect of the email. Best seller products have their own CTA for ease of shopping.

Creatively Place Your Copy & Typography No rule of thumb says that you can't use words to design your email. You can use text to entertain and inform readers about your brand and products. You can also design your letters typography to give the reader a sense of urgency without using too many copy tricks or CTA's.

8. Nordstrom

Why this works Copy: Nordstrom doesn't waste any time with their copy. Readers can tell off the bat that there’s a clearance sale and they can save up to 40% off purchases.

Design:The color red captures any reader’s attention. Red is associated with emotion, passion, danger, energy, and action. In this email, red was used to drum up excitement and bring the focus on Nordstrom's sale.

Placement: The use of copy and color complements each other; this is an excellent example of how to use typography in your email design without making the reader feel overwhelmed.

At a loss for words? Take an ingenious approach to use emoji's or symbols or punctuation marks. That’s what J.Crew did with their email design.

9. J.Crew

Why this works Copy: There is no copy! That’s the genius of this design. Just a large exclamation mark that takes you on a scrolling journey to your friendly CTA.

Design: Black and white with the uncomplicated look and feel that gets the job done. A simple and daring copy that piques the reader’s interest instantaneously, leading them to J.Crew’s website.

Placement: Adding a mix of urgency and a touch of mystery is what makes this simple but effective design a winning email.

10. What Do All These Winning Emails Have in Common?

Here are some key takeaways you may or may not have noticed with these winning email designs. Grab a pad and take some notes!

Pick one main message, one theme, and one benefit that you want your email design to focus on. Try to do more than one and your email design is going to oversell or confuse your readers. One is enough (two only if you’ve already mastered your email design).

Lay out your copy logically and aesthetically, especially if there's a lot of copy. For every piece of text have an image or color, so your readers don't get bored or your click-through rates will start to suffer. Treat your email layouts just like landing page layouts; the same rules apply because both aim to convert viewers into buyers.

Spend time on your email design; the color, images, appropriate sizes, and use of spaces. People get 10-20 emails each day; once they make it past your email subject lines, you only have one click to make a good first impression, make it worth their while.

The secret sauce to creating a winning email is A/B testing the design and layout until you get maximum results. Without testing your email, you won't know what's working and what's not. Stop shooting blindly in the dark and start A/B testing your emails.

Here are some email marketing guides to help you:

7 Five-Minute Email Marketing A/B Tests You Can Do Right Now

How to Create an Awesome Interactive Email

6 Welcome Email Templates that Do More than Welcome

Not ready to start your email from scratch, but still need a winning email in your corner? Click here to book a free call to find out what features work best for your business.

Summary

I'm not going to lie to you, this isn't a one-size-fits-all guide. If you want to see results, you have to take each point from this article and make it your own.

What I can promise you is that once you start to practice good email design and copy, it's like riding a bicycle.You won’t forget the basics, and you can only get better.

What were your favorites from our 10 winning email design examples and why? Comment below - I’d love to hear from you.

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#IFTTT #RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801

[artificialqueens]

Courtney’s Infinite Search for Love Ch. 8 (Witney) - Grinder

AN: So I took a break from writing (kinda) to focus on my University work or I’d fail majorly. But that’s all over for now so here’s the next chapter of Courtney’s story. This chapter is quite filler-ish not gonna lie so forgive me. But also I wanna thank those for the feedback on the draft chapter of Justifying the American Dream as I am super super excited to write it! You’re all so lovely.

~Grinder

“So, hopefully you bitches have brought feedback and ideas to the table this time.” Bianca questions, slamming her palm down on the table waking us up more.

I would groan at the collision of her hand on the table but I’m already trying to keep a bright smile with my hand in Alyssa’s under the table. We know everyone’s aware of it, but there’s nothing like a bit of discretion.

Dela and Bianca have brought the whole team of Tune.105 to discuss the station’s content as they do every fortnight. The whole team including Willam. And this time I’m not cursing her existence (well maybe with my inner voice I am). Instead I’m just showing off as I pretend to be secretive of my new relationship.

Alyssa and I have been dating for nearly a week now. In the beginning, I was really just looking for a one-night stand. But she had thanked me for a “wonderful” time and requested to see me more. To me, Alyssa is really naive when it comes to love. Kind of like one of those girls who when someone shows them one ounce of affection they’re expecting a wedding the next day. But she is sweet and kind hearted. And as I drunkenly crawled onto the bed next to her I thought of Willam’s jealous reaction. So I accepted Alyssa’s request to see each other more.

I’ve practically spent a whole week with Alyssa, fucking nearly every night. Does it get tiring? Well yeah, but it is so worth it, especially when I get to show off. Yesterday we were nearly caught out making out in the coffee room as Willam had walked in moments after we had finished up. Yeah, she missed everything but she hadn’t missed the sight of our lipstick smudged around our mouths. Then there was my favourite moment. I had this huge hicky on my neck and by huge I mean it was fucking massive and I needed Willam to see it.

Alyssa had been sent up to the station with free cupcakes during Willam’s 80’s show. Trixie and Katya hadn’t left since finishing their show so they were there too. Seeing this as an opportunity, I decided to give them out instead. I passed one to Willam (trying my best to keep a cheery smile and not a murderous one). Then I passed one to Katya. Then, pulling my hair over one shoulder, I leaned over to pass the last to Trixie, exposing the huge bruise like mark on my neck. I didn’t give Willam a second look which I regret now. But I would imagine she stared wide eyed.

That situation has been my favourite so far. I know it doesn’t sound like much but today is another day after all.

“I’m happy to say that I do have an idea!” Alyssa exclaims with excitement. “More guest stars.”

There’s a pregnant pause before Dela replies, “We have enough guests. We’ve had politicians coming in and out for the politics show for the last few weeks.”

“Yeah, but famous people, girl.” Alyssa elaborates.

“Well, if you can get Beyoncé in here, come back to me then, ‘girl’.” Bianca replies, her tone thick with sarcasm.

Alyssa looks slightly defeated, sighing and leaning back in her chair. Poor Alyssa. She really does try.

“To be honest, I like that idea.” I state causing heads to turn. “Who said anything about celebrities? You know we do quite a lot of music shows here yet we’ve never had live sessions from local talent. And besides, I know it is Election season and we’re all slowly getting stressed out so it would be good to put out something different. And not to mention, it could broaden our listenership.”

There’s another moment of silence as the team takes the suggestion into consideration. Fuck, is this awkward or are they actually listening?

“I can’t believe it. Of all the years I’ve run this station…” Dela starts “…I’ve never thought to have local talent guest star in shows.”

“I guess we should get on with finding talent then.” Roxxxy speaks up, looking to her team, Alaska and Matthew.

“Yes. I would appreciate it if you and the rest of the entertainment team could find someone have them in here by the end of the week!” Dela states, writing a few words on her notepad. “Get back to me when you find someone.”

I look to Alaska and her team, smiling as Alaska winks at me. Then I turn my smile to Alyssa who looks happier than ever. I squeeze her hand under the table as she strokes her thumb over the back of my hand. Talk about team work!

-_-_-_-

“Do you think this would look good on me, baby?” Alyssa asks, holding a black dress against her as she pulls faces in the mirror. She doesn’t realize it but she’s kind of blocking the way of other customers.

“Yeah, it’ll look great on you!” I tell her, trying to sound as enthusiastic as I can. I move in order to make room for a pissed off looking Granny. I roll my eyes as I hear the old woman mutter under her breath something about ‘hoes’.

Alyssa sighs quite loudly, turning to face me. “What would I do without you?”

I don’t get a chance to say ‘you’re welcome’ as she gives me a quick peck on the lips. I hear some boys nearby snicker and say shit like ‘Look! Lesbians!’ Why are boys so fascinated with lesbians anyway. I get that girls are majestic but Christ! Down boys!

“I might try this on actually.” Alyssa contemplates turning to look at her reflection again.

“Go for it then.” I reply, but she’s too engrossed in her reflection, pulling faces and tongue popping to herself. People are looking again which causes a bright red blush to burn my cheeks. “So are you gonna go try that on or…”

“What was that?” Alyssa mutters, still fascinated by herself image.

“Never mind.” I say, shaking my head.

-_-_-_-

“So we got either Purge: Election Year or the new Ghostbusters.” Alyssa informs me, turning away from her TV. “Which one would you prefer?”

“I don’t mind.” I reply, munching on a dorito.

“Actually I’ve been really wanting to watch something Disney recently. It’s been a long time. Oh my Gosh, I make it sound like I’m ancient, girl.” Alyssa pauses to laugh. “I’m feeling Beauty and the Beast.”

“Sounds great.” I reply.

And it was great. Thank God Alyssa doesn’t have neighbors because we would have had many noise complaints with all the loud and obnoxious singing. It was great.

Up until a certain scene.

“This is bullshit.” I blurt out as Belle fan girls over her new library. Shit.

Alyssa, who’s laying with her arms around me with her head on my chest, looks up to me with a confused look. “What?”

“Sorry, it’s just reminding me of someone.” I say, brushing it off.

Alyssa’s face falls slightly and she twists a lock of my hair around her finger. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

A bottle of wine later, I’m just staring at the ceiling while Alyssa sits on the other end of the couch listening.

“…and then she built this big fort thing for us to chill out in. No one has ever done something like that for me. It made me feel I was worth all of the effort, you know? And weeks after, she stabbed me in the back. Literally. She took a long pointy knife and stabbed me right in my back with it.”

“Literally??” Alyssa questions, her eyes slightly widening.

“No. I wouldn’t even be here. What’s wrong with you?” I reply, taking a sip from the wine bottle. “We both went to this festival where she decided my attention wasn’t as valuable as the attention of some random guy.”

Alyssa’s eyes are wide again. “She didn’t cheat on you, did she?”

“She did! She was hoisted up on some van while he fucked the shit out of her. I saw it with my own eyes. And I haven’t been able to erase the image from my head since.” I pause again as my voice cracks. I don’t want to cry. There’s no way I’m crying over Willam. “And she had the audacity to try and act like nothing happened after. She only said that we weren’t right for each other and that we should see other people. So, here we are…”

Having one more sip of the wine, I look to Alyssa who’s eyes shift away from me and to the bottle in her hand as if she’s really thinking about what I’ve just said.

“…So…” she pauses, “Am I ‘other people’?”

Realizing my mistake, I put my bottle on the table, sit up and shuffle near her. “No. Of course not. You mean a lot to me, Alyssa.”

“I do?” She murmurs giving me puppy eyes.

“Yeah!” I exclaim. She’s silent. “I think…you’re really attractive. And you’re funny. And you have a good heart.” I pause contemplating on whether or not I should continue. With each thing I say I just feel guilt. Or is it just the misery that I’m feeling in the moment? “…And I know you’re gonna go far.”

Alyssa stifles out another laugh, rolling her eyes. “Girl, I may have the looks and personality but I’m dumb as fuck. I ain’t going nowhere.”

“You are not! I promise you, you can do anything you put your mind to.” I beam at her. I’m not going to lie but hearing Alyssa say these things is only making it worse.

She stifles a laugh as her eyes meet mine again. “You think?”

I caress her cheek with my hand before I answer, feeling a pang of guilt hit my heart. “I know. Besides, you’ve got class. Willam’s just messy. She has nothing on you.”

“Baby, stop.” She whines playfully slapping me on the shoulder as I lean forward and plant my lips on hers, trying to kiss away any thoughts of Willam and every good memory of her. Who needs the bitch anyway? That tiring…slutty…obnoxious…childish…trashy…restless…messy…careless…care free…spunky…free-spirited…bright…charismatic Willam.

#witney #courtney act #willam belli #adore delano #bendelacreme #alyssa edwards #fluff #angst #au #cisgirl au #grinder #rpdr fanfiction #submission #lesbian au #cisfl

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

#ACLA24 #ACLA24Leaders #youtube #youtube video #climate leaders #climate solutions #climate action #climate and environment #climate #climate change #climate and health #climate blog #climate justice #climate news #weather and climate #environmental news #environment #environmental awareness #environment and health #environmental #environmental issues #environmental justice #environment protection #environmental health #Youtube

[allollipoppins]

Ch.6: MinaYuu - A Study in Scarlet/愛して愛して愛して

Read it on AO3 here.

Minami Kenjirou sees red.

The water pools around his ankles, cascading down his pink legs and splashing against the tiles of the shower stall.

[Distantly far away far away long ago a coiled necklace]

“Now Minami, you'll be a good boy and stay still for your shot, will you?

He tries to scream but hands slap on his mouth, restrain his limb. One wraps around his neck and its coil gets tighter, tighter, tighter –

Black spots invade his vision, eclipsing the pain of the needle sinking into his skin.”

[“I want people, I want people,” it cried, this cursed necklace]

His skin is turning pink from the scalding water, the color sprouting from various spots on his limbs and spreading like wildfire, a distant rash his eyes ache to relieve but not his hands.

[Don’t get angry.]

“You good-for-nothing brat,” a woman spits from behind him before striking him on the back one more.

He sits on his knees, hands balled into fists and a neutral, distant expression on his face. The ideal figure of the obedient child.

The first strikes have that effect. They don't sting so much anymore, or maybe it's just that he can't feel them as acutely as he does for the next ones.

His nails dig into his palms as the whip hits the tender, marred flesh of his back which he is sure is a cobweb of red lines by now, a maze of strings entangled together and imprisoning his frame.

He grits his teeth when she pauses, then lashes out at him with a howl-like scream. There we are, he observes. The whip drags itself along his spine, dragging with it remnants of the skin it has reopened, and blood. The movement, somehow, reminds him of a dog licking its master's wounds.

Such irony.

Maybe if he untangled his hands from his hair, he could give in to the pulsing curiosity. Run his fingers along his arms, his legs, his chest and back. Search for dark places and feel them burn underneath his numb fingertips. Rake them with his nails, just the tips, then pressing, digging into the flesh then rubbing, and scratching, until skin there is no more.

[Don’t abandon me.]

"Please, Minami, my darling, my love..."

He advances towards the woman half-sprawled on the floor, her body slowly emptying itself from blood, liquid seeping between the fingers she presses on her stomach. If he closes his eyes, Minami could almost hear it drip. Each and every single drop leaving the veins, slipping through pink flesh and reddening fabric, attracted by force of gravity to the fellow trickles and pulling itself to the ground in a steady beat. A pulse outside of a body, a rhythm in echo wth the faltered breathing and choked sobs.

What a sweet, sweet music to his ears.

“Oh my god, Minami, I beg of you!”

His feet bring him closer in the direction of the body, reaching out towards the extended hand. He raises his own in response, fingers clutching a torn card to the pint the corners have dug into his palm and etched a new web of lines interwined with his own natural lifelines.

The knife resting in the palm of his hand is the only god he knows.

[Don’t go anywhere.]

(Hey.)

His nails, he notices, have dug into the flesh of his palms deep enough to leave crescent-shaped indents. The hot water's strangely relaxing effect, added to the cacophony thumping inside his head, has left him too numb to focus on the pain. The mark becomes an open wound and even as it draws blood, Minami's eyes only follow the trail crimson droplets take, plunging into the pink water and blooming atop the rose water. They disperse themselves as soon as they come, washed down the drain.

[Fasten it tightly, til you could throw up, so there aren’t there aren’t any people here.]

Like poppies, a voice pipes in his brain. Alive for a day, then gone tomorrow.

Just like humans.

[Nice results, huh? Hey hey, aren’t I a good kid?]

He exits the cabin and lifts his hand in front of his face, bringing it to the mirror next to the stall. The temporary crimson hair dye he used on missions has left his fingers tinted as if he's dipped them in a can of paint.

These days, he doesn't bother putting on gloves to dye his hair or using cottonballs and makeup remover to wipe the blotches of red and white caked on his face after a long night.

[Aren’t I a cute kid? Hey hey, I’m good, right?]

He touches a finger to his lips, chases the movement of the tip as it traces the remnants of wine red that formed a perfect line on his mouth only hours ago. A blunt slip on one side smears cosmetic beyond the left corner of his lips. His finger presses flush on his cheek, and he repeats the motion faster on the other side, smudging the right cheek with a wider, paler line that still burns bright under the bathroom led.

[It hurts, hey]

Maybe he should start investing in better cosmetics. If only to stop looking like he just stepped out of a freak show. He knows himself to resemble such a specimen out of overhearing the people coming by the orphanage, the same ones who come to adopt and yet whisper behind his back. They say a lot of things, mostly about how he does'nt strike anyone as a fit role model for the children he teaches at the small college. Some even go as far as saying things along the lines of him trying to find a family that will love him through his work. Someone who who will appreciate him in spite of his antics and queer physique. About what a child he is. On the outside he gives them the smallest polite smile he can msuter. On the inside he's dismembering them and cutting inch by inch with a dull saw. See how pretty they'd look with red decorating their faces.

Minami may be naïve, but he isn't so stupid as to not know what others have to say about him.

[Love me.]

But then, Yuuri did say red suited him, didn't he?

[Love me.]

“There my little puppet, I'll show you how to do it.”

Minami's wide eyes remain fixated on Yuuri's face and hands as they remove the cap atop the lipstick, the color slowly popping out of its tube like a pointed needle, threateningly long and crimson. He shivers at the thought of it pressing against his lips.

As if sensing his inner dilemma, Yuuri – or rather, the Puppet Master as he'd introduced himself the first time (he really ought to get it in his head by now, stupid stupid stupid) – smiles at him reasurringly, warm brown eyes crinkling from underneath his lace mask.

Minami almost flinches when Yuuri raises his hand, and scrunches his eyes shut tightly in expectation of a slap or a blow far worse. Surprise almost makes him pull back when instead, the vigilante carresses his cheek as if cajoling a scared, wild animal.

He lets himself be manhandled, Yuuri's hand propped under his chin and fingers raising it higher. This time Minami doesn't jump when the lipstick fills the distance between himself and the other man. The tip, spotless a second ago and almost so silky he could have sworn seeing his reflection in it, dissolves as it brushes his cupid's bow, then bends in accord with the curve of his upper and lower lip. Yuuri never once takes his eyes off his work, focusing hard on getting his apprentice's mouth perfectly shaped. His touches are slow though deliberate, a painter's brush strokes on a blank canvas.

If such is a muse's occupation, then he wouldn't mind having Yuuri's eyes on him anytime.

[Love me, more and more.]

And yet he also insisted that personal hygiene remained a capital matter.

[Love me. Love me, so much that it’s maddening.]

For the umpteenth time, Minami messes with his lipstick. It had started out as it usually did in these situations: out of curiosity he'd probed at the sticky substance spread across his lips in a perfect circle, finding it a little itchy despite the smoothness of the applied cosmetics under his now smeared finger. He doesn't need to look at the mirror to know that he looks like a mess.They haven't even gotten started on his hair for the day, and yet there's no doubt he already makes for a vision in red.

[It’s painful, it hurts.]

Yuuri sighs in fond exasperation by his side, if the telling smile that makes its way to his lips is any giveaway. It sends his heartbeat going at a faster pace, having this smile dedicated to him, and him only in this moment ...

[Undo undo the curse, okay?]

“Hey, isn't that my lipstick?” Yuuri raises an enquiring eyebrow. “The shade looks familiar.”

“It is!” Minami exclaims. “You gave it to me when I first started as your assistant.”

“I did? My, my, was that long ago...” Yuuri muses, hand propped under his chin and inching closer to Minami.

His hand then reaches for Minami's, while the other comes up to carress his jaw in a soft manner. Mnami feels his cheek heat up under his teacher's knuckles.

“I must say, my little one, it suits you very well. Though you probably already knew that.” Minami's breath catches at the compliment and sincere compliment, but he has no time to muster a “thank you” before Yuuri pulls him in for a kiss, and he reacts of his own will once their lips brush. The flavor of the flowery paste invades his mouth and melts with Yuuri's own minty and sweet taste.

“Oh, poppet” Yuuri whispers when they break apart, breathless and panting in each other's ears, “I'll make a bonfire out of that spark of yours.”

[It can’t be stopped.]

Red carries memories and images that Minami shall never forget, the kind burnt in a corner of his brain, always there but never really. The scarlet fringe that falls into his eyes, the sole untainted reminder he has of his dark days. The flames burning in the hearth of Victor Nikiforov's home at every gathering, eternally burning come what may. The blaze shortening his breathing, chocking him, almost licking his body with unbearingly strong heat.

“It's okay, you're gonna be okay.”

He succumbs to darkness in the arms of a dark angel.

He won't die.

Not today.

[It hurts now, it’s not enough now.]

The temporary hair dye has washed away, Minami's once fiery red hair fading back to its original flaming, marigold hue. Though the strands are slowly regaining their strawberry blond shade under the bathroom light, rose liquid still beads on the half fringe falling on his left eye, forming scarlet tears that trickle down his cheek.

[People aren’t people aren’t enough.]

“You'll leave me, won't you?”

[I won’t lose to anyone in my class.]

His sobs are delving into dangerous territory. As much as he wish he could stop that big mouth of his  from opening itself and sputter nonsense, he can't stop. What had first been repressed tears have turn to openly hysteric screaming and crying. His throat and face burn under the combination of neon lights and raw anger.

[Aren’t I a lovely good kid?]

“Just say it already! Say it! SAY IT!”

(Hey.)

Yuuri isn't replying – or could it be he isn't here at the moment? The Puppet Master's personality hardly ever strays far away from Yuuri's own, but he knows better than anyone what it takes to get him to blow a fuse.

When his mind comes into focus on this one single thought, Minami's brain shortcircuits. Shit. He just went all out on Yuuri, of all people, in a situation where he wasn't being Yuuri. He suddenly found himself praying for survival.

[More than that kid, more than any kid. Everyone come look at me.]

“Joker...”

“DON'T “JOKER” ME!” Minami snaps, then promptly slaps his hands to his mouth. Oh fuck fuck fuck now he's gone too far now he's lost it and Yuuri's gonna hurt him hurt him hurt him –

“Joker.” Yuuri's hand claps his shoulder in a tight grasp that shakes him awake from his daydreaming.

“My little trickster...c'mere”. Minami finds himself wrapped into Yuuri's arms.

[Was it kind of a lie?]

“Come on over then.” he encourages without force, rubbing his back for good measure in slow, small circles. “Cry all you need, I'm right there for you. I'm not going anywhere, okay?”

Tears stream silently on Minami's cheeks, the sobs building at the back of his throat not to far away now. He succumbs to Yuuri's embrace, burying himself deeper into his hold.

[I like you, you who are so filthy]

“Who am I to you?” Yuuri asks him one day, when they're facing each other.

A thousand words come to mind, interwined in sentences Minami is positive no language can render beautiful or meaningful enough.

His only response, the most logical that comes to mind, is to shrug, giving him his trademark lopsided grin and saying: “What's a Joker without his Queen? I'll tell you.”

He breaks the distance that separates them in a heartbeat, using one of the ropes he'd bought from a joke shop and customized to his taste – a subtle reference that, surprisingly enough, didn't go unnoticed. “Nothing.”

[It’s not enough,]

“Master! Master, look!”

Yuuri sighs. “Puppet, how many times have I told you not to call me that?”

“I know, I know, but look, look! I made us assorted cards for my new deck. What do you think?”

Truth be told he had only made two cards to replace their predecessors, but the prospect of aligning the rest of the package with the brand new ones was a tempting project.

The cards are beautiful. Polished and brand new, depicting on one Yuuri's newly acquired indigo costume and Minami's own three-piece, gold and carmine suit; with the exception that Yuuri wore a golden crown encrusted with rubies atop his head, whereas Minami had on a glittery, purple jester cap up on.

Minami rushes to show them to Yuuri, but in his haste he almost flings them straight into his palm, and barely avoids cutting it when –

[you’re not enough.]

Blood oozes from the tiny papercut. Though the cut isn't deep, Minami is close enough to watch the copper fluid beading from the tip of Yuuri's finger. They both stare as his blood seeped from the fingertip and dropped in the middle of Yuuri's own card, now baptized with its inspiration's essence.

[I won’t let go.]

“Yu – Master” he hushes, breath tightening at the back of his throat and forming a ball that threatens to choke him. In his panic he'd almost let out that he knew about his true identity.

[I’m so sorry.]

Yuuri waves him off, smiling reassuringly. “It's fine, Puppet. See? Just a papercut.” Yuuri brings the fingers to his lips, sucking in the trickle of blood descending on his finger. Minami unconsciously holds his breath at the sudden intake of air and fluid, the suction producing an almost inaudible and obscene sound.

“Besides,” Yuuri reflects, coming closer until their faces are inches apart, “I am sure you can make it up to me, can you?”

[This is happiness,]

"Puppet..."

Later on, he drinks in the sight of Yuuri sprawled under him. His lips swollen from kisses, his ruby-coloured lipstick bleeding at the corners of his mouth. Cheeks flush and burning. Skin tattooed with bruises and handprints, soft to the touch and body pliant under his hands.

[This is happiness.]

#yoi harem #yoi villain au #minayuu #yuuri katsuki #minami kenjirou #yuuriharemheadcanons #allollipoppins

[perspectiveswithjasmine]

Jeffrey Aviles: His Children’s Book, The LGBT Community, & Racism

On a blanket in the middle a park located in Old Town Monrovia, Ca, sat across from me a young man who couldn’t stop giggling at a song he recently heard by the musical artist, Kesha. His name is Jeffrey Aviles, an illustrator from Los Angeles, California. The song apparently was about girl who brings Godzilla to the mall with her and how he destroys everything. “I can totally relate,” Jeffrey says with a huge grin on his face, “It’s basically like me going to public places with my Social Anxiety, it destroys everything.” We both began to laugh hysterically. With his vibrant personality and contagious laughter, you would never assume that he would ever struggle with anxiety, “Oh yeah for sure, It’s crippling. Every time I go outside I feel like everyone’s eyes are on me and it stresses me out.”  

           Seeing him at first glance, one could definitely notice that he was an artist in some way, shape, or form. With the sides of his hair shaved and the longer, top portion of his hair in an artistically formed bun with a pair of large sun glasses, he was dressed with a olive green button up shirt that was neatly ironed and the sleeves cuffed up. As he wore denim cut off shorts and a white pair of sneakers, he was definitely sporting a very casual look but with a twist of his own glamour.

           Only at the age of 22, Jeffrey Aviles has been producing a lot of work, pushing out illustrations and graphic images of anything and everything that inspires him. But most recently, one of his biggest achievements yet, has been a Children’s Book, titled “The Flower Prince”. It’s a LGBT-Friendly book that he published in the month of June 2017. What started out as a simple hobby, led to a passion that would eventually help Jeffrey escape reality, and create a world in which he could control and make everything Beautiful.

JH: How old were you when you realized you wanted to be an Illustrator?

JA: I think it was my second year of college, I went to Los Angeles Trade Tech and took a fashion illustration course where I was told  it was a field I should get into. Growing up I didn’t think I was going to be an illustrator, I thought I was going to be an actor, or a pop star, or a princess. Something Glamorous.

 JH: As an Artist how would you describe your style? What inspires you to create?

 JA: My style is very Disney influenced. My style is very clean, basic, and straight to the point. I’m not like those artists who take time and detail into their pieces. I’m an illustrator cartoonist type. I like simplicity and I find inspiration everywhere, when I’m trying to think of something to draw, I go on Instagram and look at pictures. I don’t care who or what it is, if something captures my attention, I’ll draw it. I can be inspired to create by anything, It could be an old poster from the 1800s or someone walking down the street and it’ll remind me of something. I’ll go home, do some research, look at pictures, and begin the drawing process. Also Thoughts and moods I’m in, so everything inspires me to create, it’s not just one thing.

 JH: You just released your first Children’s Book, can you please explain a little bit about the book and what inspired you to write it?

 JA: After David Bowie had passed, I had listened to a song of his Titled, ”Heroes”, I had never heard any David Bowie songs prior to his passing. The song really touched me and I began to imagine a couple being heroes for one day, and I had then thought, what if it was two boys that were the heroes, and thought it would be an interesting story. Before I would try to create little stories here and there, but never anything solid. With this story, I said, you know what, people are writing books and doing all of these things, I wanted to do something big. It was a challenge for myself and I told myself, I’m gonna write a book. I kind of just wrote it, I didn’t do any research on any LGBT kids books before that, I just figured I would write it and then get it published. The book is my life, creating stories for me is difficult, I figured that I should just write what I know, and what do I know more of then my life.

Inspiring kids is probably the biggest part. One of my goals is to inspire kids because kids Are the future, and as cliché as that sounds, it’s the truth. Art is a very important part of our lives, so I wanted to create this book and show them its okay to be who they are and love who they want. To just erase the barriers, open their eyes, and help them be better than the generations before them. 

JH: Seeing that your involved in the LGBT community, what are your thoughts on the community? Do you feel it’s integrated, or do you feel there’s an aspect of exclusion?

JA: I believe there is a lot of exclusion and separation in the lgbt community and it’s something that has really bothered me. With the lgbt community, their whole thing is ‘we’ve been shunned, we’ve been this and that from society and our families, and we want freedom, we want acceptance, but within the community, you don’t really find that sometimes. With gay men, there’s thing where it’s like, no Fems, no Asians, no Fats. That’s creating separation.You want togetherness but your contradicting yourself. I do believe that humans like to put things in categories to understand things because we’re Dumb creatures. We categorize everything to make everything simpler. Within the community its like, the bears here or the twinks there, and for the lesbians, its like your either a lipstick lesbian or a butch lesbian.

I’ve noticed, you don’t really hear much about lesbians, like when you think of LGBT, you think of gay men. When you hear Lady Gaga, it’s always the Gays. What about the lesbians? There’s no inclusion.

JH: It seems more like Sexualization?

JA:  Yes! That’s where the patriarchal society comes in. Lesbians, I feel, don’t get attention, it’s only about the men. 

JH: Do you feel like the community is more sexually based than actually being based on individuality?

JA: I think so, yes. I agree, at the end of the day we’re all sexual creatures. We label people and only focus on the sex part. But that’s what creates division. It just separates people and just makes them feel bad. We want to see change in the world, but honestly, we’re just not doing anything. We need to learn to work together.

JH: How do you see yourself making a difference in the world? How do you see yourself contributing and fixing some of the current issues? Or something you would like to fix in the world today.

JA: Something I would like to fix is Color. Skin and Race. Before we do anything else in this world, we really need to fix that issue. Some people think of that before anything else, It’s all about color. 

I feel like my book is my way of contributing. When I was writing the book, I drew a white character and it didn’t feel right. I’ve never really seen a book for Latinos that were lgbt. Most lgbt books have a handful of African-Americans and the rest are white, so I think it’s important for people depicting different ethnicities in their work. Growing up, I had all these male dolls and they were white. I remember telling my mom as a kid that I didn’t like my skin tone because I was darker from them. It’s really important that we bring issues to kids when their little because their more open to things.

Ending the Interview with Jeffrey, he had showed me a video of these cats and couldn’t stop laughing, at one point he had to hold his stomach, he was laughing so hard. As he was going through his fits of laughter, i couldn’t help myself but to look at him and feel inspired. This young talented Artist is working so hard and diligently in order to make his mark in this world. Though he may struggle in some aspect of his life, he pushes through, making sure that it doesn’t stop him from achieving his goals and making the world a better place. If you are interested in seeing more of Jeffrey Aviles’s work, you can check out his website at http://www.jeffreyaviles.com

#jeffreyaviles #artist #lgbt #lgbtq #illustrator #illustration #disney #race #changetheworld

[zahramalik]

♥️ — APPEARANCE.

RUBY RED LIPS: At thirteen, she had managed to gather enough courage to swipe a tube of Dior’s 999 lipstick from a glitzy department store counter. From that day on, her lips were never bare, her smiles painted on with precision. Her lipstick collection grew as the years went on, amassing every signature red listed in the beauty magazines she hid between her unread textbooks. It was the first costume Zahra ever put on, cultivating the image of a girl wise beyond her years, mature for her age, someone who knew what she was doing, and all the other labels grown men created for her whenever she glanced their way. Those lipstick smudges became Zahra’s calling card; her lovers would purposefully fall into the line of fire, hoping to immortalize her scarlet kisses on their shirt collars and waistbands. She was always generous, always sure to leave their skin marked in some way; hickies that bloomed like roses on their necks, jagged cracks into their backs carved by her manicured nails, blood staining bed sheets in ways lipstick can’t.

A CASCADE OF CURLS: There’s an art to looking purposefully messy. The others in the group might roll their eyes at how she manages to spend up to two hours just fussing with a ponytail, but they’ll never reap the same rewards she does. She doesn’t miss the impatient sighs directed at her everytime she inspects an invisible strand in the mirror, defying gravity with a counter full of products. She can’t stand it when it’s undone without her permission; when she was young, she thought that when lovers tugged on her hair it was a sign of love, of adoration. Now, she knows that it was an attempt to own as much of her as they could, drag her into the cages of their hearts and never let her leave.

There’s also a lot to be said with how her hair falls in her face, how it frames the darks of her eyes and how lovers twirl it through their greedy fingers. She loves the feeling of letting it loose after a long day, allowing all the pins to clatter to the floor. Zahra treats it with homemade remedies she held onto from her youth, which may or may not work, but are more of a comfort than actual treatment. It’s the smell that does it; the bitterness of castor oil mixed with sweet jasmine takes her back to when her sister was small enough to crawl in her arms and sit patiently while Zahra stroked her hair.

SMILING THROUGH GRITTED TEETH: It’s a ticket to freedom, to riches and adoration. A smile always got her further than words ever could. It’s an invitation understood in every language, the perfect mask for all occasions. It’s disarming, bur never raising any alarms or causes panic. Every knowing smirk and toothy grin draws people in, as though the secret of the universe is located at the curve of her lips. It’s a defense mechanism that’s become second nature. From a young age she’s learned that she can get out of almost anything, so long as she’s baring her pearly whites like stars on the horizon. As a child she’d strain the muscles in her face for so long, lips cracking but never falling apart. If one looks close enough, they can see the faint lines that have already formed around her mouth.

AN OBJECT IN EVERYONE’S EYES: Of course she’s two-faced; every actor has their own mask, and Zahra hides her imperfections until she has a chance to scrub them away. Her features, once the sharp edges of a girl thrust into an unforgiving world, have been smoothed out to fit a woman who was forced to make herself palpable and charming and easy-to-digest. And it works; so many foolish men have often complimented her on how she’s so different and special because she doesn’t need makeup to feel confident or look good, that’s why she’s better and deserving of their attention. They don’t even notice how her cheeks are always rosy thanks to NARS, that everything about her is manufactured in order to get ahead.

#♥️ — her demonic lustre.

[ecoamerica]

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