#and especially the nonanswer line

[tirfpikachu]

Please feel free to answer only if you find it productive to explore these questions. They’re also coming from the assumption you see sexuality along the lines the bulk of the trans community claim to (ie, gender based, not sex based).

What do you think lesbians are attracted to in women that lesbians can’t be attracted to in men?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives woman-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait women have that men can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

this is such a good question! this might get lengthy.

i honestly have been thinking on this for a long time, for years. i was identifying as nonbinary since i was 13-ish, even taking testosterone for a while, very deep in the trans/nonbinary community until i detransitioned and embraced being a woman, specifically a lesbian woman. i still have many trans & nonbinary friends irl. i've never actually felt attraction to a... well, i was gonna say a man, but in trans terms i HAVE been attracted to pre-transition trans men. so i thought i was bisexual due to that. but the thing is, i knew something was off with me labelling myself bisexual. i've never felt truly attracted to an amab person. there were some post-hrt trans women i had sexual videocalls with back in my camgirl era, but i tried very veryyyy hard to focus on their hrt breasts and even then i kept drying up. when doing anything (long-distance) with amab people, i always had to pretend they weren't there, and always found myself imagining an afab body. if anything amab-typical showed up, like their deeper voice, or a certain angle of their face, my faint conditional attraction would dissipate. i'm attracted only to people with bio vaginas and breasts. i could say that applies to amab people post-surgery/hrt, but they just will never be the same, and the second i'm told they're amab the conditional attraction will vanish; and, if i had done things w them, i will feel very upset afterwards. just like how upset i was after my camgirl days. i knew that external forces, poverty, comphet, etc made me feel like i needed to "give amab people a chance." i felt guilty even daydreaming of same-sex exclusive lesbianism. i felt transphobic. misandrist. close-minded. like i needed to unlearn something that was preventing me from being amab-attracted. but it never worked, no matter how much therapy or personal growth i did

i was always more attracted to trans men -- even if that attraction wavered if they went on hrt or had surgeries, especially with just the social role of suddenly passing as straight -- because they had gone through afab puberty with an afab body and usually had a bio vagina, and often breasts, or at least feminine curves. trans people often joke they have a trans radar, but if cis people note the same thing, they all brush it off as delusion and bigotry... but if you spend enough time in transfem & transmasc spaces, you notice typical amab and afab traits in trans folks. and for me it just became too much, i couldn't be dissociated trying to force myself to date trans women anymore; i had done it in large part bc i knew they saught that validation from wlw very badly and posted about this quite frequently, and were all over me when i was a camgirl so i felt the pressure build. i have dpd and people-pleasing tendencies, and i knew i would've been dry or at least dissociated af if i had tried anything sexual w an amab person irl. that was a constant issue with the videosex. it's just not in my nature, i was just built to be afab-attracted, just like a cishet man. yes, afab-typical traits in an amab person can pique my curiosity if they trick me into thinking they're afab, but once it's confirmed they're amab it's just complete disinterest, everything in me is indifferent at best, repulsed at worst, depending on how pushy they are. and if i try to push through i get very upset, like a cis man thinking briefly of a guy being pushy with him at a gay bar. it's just dread at being made to do something you're not into. pure dread.

so yes, due to all this, i believe that i, and honestly the large majority of the population, has an attraction that is sex-based. in general, i believe that most people use man/woman to refer to sex anyway; they're straight bc they're exclusively sexually attracted to bio vaginas & afab traits or bio penises & amab traits in bed, they just don't get truly aroused otherwise so a relationship wouldn't work out. they can try to pretend, focus only on one part of their trans partner, but it just wouldn't be healthy. unless it was a sexless relationship i guess, but i believe that at least my own romantic attraction is purely sex-based as well, and that most ace straight people still wouldn't be able to stomach dating a same-sex trans person, as rude as it sounds. it's just not in their nature!!

and the thing is, this should be okay. sexual and romantic attractions ARE NOT PREFERENCES no matter what anyone say; typically the people saying so are bisexual, and so of course they don't understand monosexual experiences. it's like saying that a carnivorous animal has a meat preference... no, it's unhealthy for them to eat anything else even if they tried!!! i truly believe that sexualities are built in from birth, or at least a young age. anything else is typical conservative homophobic rhetoric. like lady gaga always said, baby i was born this way! you can try to change me, you can try to force me, but that'll never change my nature. i tried and tried and tried. but i'm homosexual. i feel bad for trans women struggling to find women to date, but they may have better luck with bisexual women. bisexuals and transgender people have a looong history of dating eachother. why they hyperfixate on homosexuals is beyond me... i respect trans people transitioning to better their lives, but telling us to fix ourselves bc they want to date specifically homosexual people to feel valid in their identity is honestly creepy, and super unnecessary

#asks #lay text #radfem #gender critical #man idk why i ended up using so many semicolons lmao #feeling fancy

[tcrmommabear]

The Weight of Debts Unpaid

Hi, I’m a terrible fandom mom and best friend, but I’m crawling out of the hell-hole work has buried me in to toss this very late birthday present into the wild, wild world.

So, my lovely @catsafarithewriter, I promised Emara AU, my favorite creation of yours besides the lovely face you maintain (and everything else you’ve written), and by god was I going to give you Emara AU

A few months late.

You can expect your Christmas present on Valentine’s Day XD

Threw in my own theories and slight headcanons, but I’m still excited for when we get the official version of the AU. You know I’ll be screaming and cheering from the stands XD

Let us begin!

He was heavy in her arms.

Not a surprise when his body is half wood and all dead weight. She’s feeling it in her legs as well, the feeling of something viciously sucking at her soul, but really, she’s done this well without legs. Who needs them with arms like these?

He’s still heavy.

The hallways stretch for miles, barely different from one to the next. Swathed in red and carrying the heavy pinging blare of alarms miles ahead of where they started. She doesn’t feel like she’s made any difference running through these halls, finding no relief, no sanctuary, just a million different eyes and guns trained on her limping form.

He’s so god damn heavy.

There’s a door cracked open from fleeing cats who couldn’t be bothered to follow evacuation protocol. She crashes into it and through it, pulling it full shut until the locking mechanism clicked louder than the alarms.

Silence reigned in the small room, the alarms cut off mid dutiful shriek, but the world remained red, flashing through the unnecessary window watching the hallway.

She sets him down as gently as she can spare, sinking a bit more harshly onto her knees before him. He’s still lifeless, torn between two wholes until they couldn’t even form a half. Skin, fur, and wood melted and warred together, fighting for the right to be called “horror”.

In theory, she knew this was what Macavity had planned. Pushing, pulling, twisting, breaking in the name of thoughtless science. Experimenting until every idle curiosity had been fulfilled. Seeing the product of such twisted ideas made her stomach recoil.

His chest rose in sections, eyes startling real glass, and all the rest of him was the exact shade of wrong she wanted to believe the real one was gone, and this was just a fake. She could maybe walk out of here, leaving behind all of this, this world, this fake doll, and go see her real one-.

He is real. He is her real one.

She wasn’t going to abandon him. Not again.

She raised a hand, pressing them against his “scarred” lips, sinking the tips past the teeth and opens his mouth wide. She spares a second for the squeamish and violating feeling, then pulls out the bottle she’d managed to save from the chaos known as Macavity.

She steals a swig of the formula before making his wooden throat choke the rest of it. Her taste gives her enough energy to unlock her legs from their crouch, falling back against the opposite wall. As fast as it came, it tore through her system and flare uselessly out her damaged, mechanical right knee.

For him, it started slow. Chest rising together section by section until it was a whole, left hand shuddering to replace the claws, the right side of his chin shifting between furry and flesh. His chest became more hurried as magic revitalized itself, fireworks beneath his skin until burning out his eyes, green and blue and yellow.

He hacked the formula onto her lap, the blue liquid hitting her legs and sparking up into her chest. She grunted, knee jerking as the black hole was fed, and as quickly as they hit her system, the flared out again, unable to hold much of a charge.

At least the blue left no stain on her clothes. No clean up necessary, mind-numbing sparks guaranteed or your money back. Legs sold separately.

The process of watching him shift, cat, man, wood, was enough of a show she felt an odd motion sickness surge in her gut. Drenched in guilt and expired Creation juice, but she’d really prefer to blame everything on the flashing red lights, cutting streaks across his face like prison bars.

He got his glare back before his words, though she could read “I will eviscerate you” through the context clues. She had told herself a million things as she stalked through the building towards the highest level lab they locked him in.

That she was righting a wrong. That she’d get revenge against the ones who took both sets of legs. That she was helping a friend.

That he wouldn’t be heavy in her arms.

She doesn’t know what to tell herself now. Not when he’s fully back and glaring at her. She never knew the weight of his glare felt like until now.

“Why?” he hisses out, eyes slit in the human face he fluctuates to. His question is followed by a cough, wheeze, and the cat form fully takes over, the human disguise melting away. Less magic being used now that he’s in his more natural state, doing a terribly accurate impression of a badly animated doll. He looks as terrible as she feels, though she’s sure his slightly wrinkled suit would have some words to exchange with her torn and dirty jeans and shirt.

Her heart constricts.

Why indeed.

She's prepared herself for all scenarios. This one scared her the most. She hadn’t the faintest clue for why she did any of this. Maybe because their partnership wasn’t “just a job” anymore? Maybe because of the way he kissed her hand during tea? Maybe because, despite knowing intimately well the soulless depravity, seeing the results up close had been the final straw?

“Why not?” she supplies, going for nonchalant and falling somewhere between robot and blubbering. The answer isn’t an answer, the exact opposite of an answer, a nonanswer that left both of them dissatisfied and hurt.

But was there really any better one to give?

She sold him out. Let him be experimented on and drained of his magic- his very essence, the equivalent of a soul and blood pumping through your veins- until he was catatonic.

His glare doesn’t drop, and a childish impulse tells her to return it. She didn’t want to be an adult when the he, the world, and all the little regrets were being unfair to her. She knows she fucked up. She gave up her partner, her friend, her confusing source of feelings she did not need to identify right now, for…

Hunks of cogs. Scrap metal. Parasites made of the equivalent of an atomic bomb and lighter fluid sucking at whatever scraps of magic a human could contain. All loving connected to the ends of her thighs and twice as shiny.

She focused too hard on distracting herself, a tear slipping through her “brave” facade. She saw him shift, out of the corner of her eye, from murderous to agonizingly sympathetic.

“Haru…” he begins cautiously, eyeing her legs, “Why haven’t you moved your legs?”

“I didn’t want to do it,” she blurts out, instead of answering, “Turning you in. I didn’t even really want to do the whole “Demeter” thing, but hey, who can say no to Macavity?”

She laughs. He doesn’t. She wishes she hadn’t.

“I knew if I turned myself in, let Macavity know I wasn’t going to do this anymore… He’d just send someone else. Someone not me. And where would I be? Locked in a room with no way to get out.”

She takes in a shuddering breath, “No way to rescue you.”

There’s more life to his appearance, more flesh than bark, but he’s just as stoic as when she began. She sits before him, waiting for something to snake across his face so she can get a read, an idea. But nothing. Green eyes, still faintly glowing, remained fixed on lead, and cogs, and betrayal, and a haphazard reason she could barely stand on.

Hardy har har.

“Okay.”

That’s it?

“That’s it,” he echoes back, just as she realizes she’d said the thought out loud.

“But-” she sputters, attempting to lurch up before remembering her body had taken a democratic vote to be everything but useful and complying, “After every- How could you- Do you have- Do you not realize what betrayal is, Humbert?!”

They both paused at the sound of his name, a moment of red light flashing between that’d been all but forgotten. She wonders, dimly, and not for the first or last time, if that was his real name or one he’d picked up over the years.

“You’ve saved my life countless times, Haru, as yourself and as my partner, Demeter. The betrayal was unexpected, and it hurt, but…”

He looks at her, made up of hope and magic, and she realizes how badly she’d read the moments leading here. How easily fear can come across as anger, confusion as hurt.

Oh.

‘Do you trust me?’

Didn’t know the play, but still willing to play the part.

“I think, Haru, I can afford to put a little trust in you.”

Well, now she’s a goddamn fool.

“Humbert,” she chokes out between tears, “I liked you better when you were emotionally constipated. I can’t handle this emotional rollercoaster.”

The laughter bubbles up unwillingly, shared between the two for a second as the whole situation registered into their minds. For a moment, though, she could almost believe they were just back at the tea shop.

If only the “red alert” alarm could be so kind.

The shrieking beeping stops, the flashing red light pinging on and glowing ominously steady.

Lockdown.

“Shit.”

“We’re trapped, aren’t we?”

“Lesson learned, heart-to-hearts saved for after great escapes.”

“With the state your legs are in, we can’t make it much farther, can we?”

Right, those appendages.

They’re busted from the 9th Hell and back, and can’t hold on to much of a charge. At least not the fake magic solutions usually put into the machine. She knows she can’t move. She knows she can’t stay.

She knows she’s too valuable to kill.

“Baron, you need to-!”

She feels a surge starting in her calves where he’d dug his fingers into the grinding gears, frozen lightning blazing through her veins. It shifts, feels like leaves stretching to sunlight, water running through roots, worms churning in the earth, and she’s back.

The light fades, but her legs click before whirring back to life, lowly humming with an abundance of energy. She catches her breath and watches the mirage of flesh melts away until he’s back to the animated wood form that tells her he’s barely got any magic running through him.

He gave her as much as he could.

She’s furious he gave her so much.

She can’t deny that having her legs devour something other than her own energy isn’t a nice feeling, though. She tests it, bends a knee, and watches it move like magic and machine and a normal human limb. It’s foreign and familiar and she wishes it was neither.

Humbert presses against the door, glancing down each end of the hallway through the window.

“We better get moving. I’m not letting either of us get left behind.”

He offers her a hand to stand up, one of many. But this feels different.

Her legs are heavy on her body.

The magic Humbert poured into her is nothing but crumbs for a black hole.

There’s still a dozen more floors before they’re even close to ground level.

She’s pretty sure her foot isn’t supposed to feel itchy.

“Ready, Haru?” he asks.

Well, they’ve had worse days.

Her hand clasps his.

“Ready.”

#tcr #the cat returns #tcrmommabear #tcrmommabear writes #emara au #tcr emara au #do creations dream of clockwork sheep #clockwork sheep au #catsafarithewriter #i had a lot of fun writing this #and doing that writing thing where youre dumbly sassy as internal dialogue #my favorite part is all of it #and especially the nonanswer line #cat my love i hope you like this!!! #i know you liked the bits i showed you #now here's the full thing #bring this au back when youre ready #youre doing amazing sweetie!!! #happy birthday cat #happy very late birthday #the queue returns

[rinusagitora]

The foundation of a relationship.

Fandom: Over the Garden Wall

Characters: Wirt, Sara

Pairings: Sara x Wirt

Words: 1.2k

Summary: Canon compliant & post-canon. WARNINGS- discussion of trauma; Wirt didn't leave The Unknown without scars. So he keeps secrets from his girlfriend Sara, as if it can keep him together.

A/N: Commissions are open! For @yummi-gummi-zines​‘s Beyond the Garden Wall fanzine. Found here: https://gummizines.itch.io/beyond-the-garden

Sara once asked Wirt, "Do you wanna marry?" He, being the Casanova he was, proceeded to choke on soda. "Not like… now. Or to me. But settling down in the future with someone."

Wirt didn't remember what he said but he remembered feeling like he would end up dumped if Sara didn't like his answer. He remembered his throat swelling thanks to his anxiety while he wracked his brain for an answer and tried to figure out if it was a test. Whatever he said, though, Sara ended up liking it. So much so that they moved into a university apartment together after graduating high school.

The U, as it was fondly referred to by the locals, had a great performing arts program, so Sara became even prettier and more popular while Wirt started smoking and got medicated and saw a shitty psychology major on Thursdays at the campus clinic.

Suffice it to say Wirt had no idea why Sara stuck around when she could've been dating way cuter, more functional guys. But he never told Sara about it. Too scared he would end up jinxing their relationship if he voiced his worries.

Wirt kept a lot of things from Sara, much to the chagrin of his counselor, like how much he smoked (a pack a day), what his grades were (Bs and Cs), or why he didn't talk to anyone in his family except Greg (because his stepdad was a prick and he never forgave their mom for remarrying). The Unknown, and his coma by relation, was a topic he gave an especially wide berth. Three years had passed since Greg and Wirt were there and Wirt still couldn't process it. He would sooner wander its haunted acres before trying to explain that shitshow to Sara. 

The quack Wirt was seeing managed to coax it out of him. Wirt left out the part where he and Greg remembered it with remarkable vividness, of course, and his psychologist was more than happy to give a shot at translating it. Wirt stopped listening around that time. As inclined as he was to seeing art in melancholy and trauma, he drew the line at his therapist's asinine interpretation of The Unknown.

Nonetheless, his counselor ended up convincing Wirt to tell Sara about The Unknown. Leaving their office, he said, "She's outside. I'll tell her now."

He climbed into the driver's seat and fiddled with a lighter. Sara turned down the radio. "How'd it go?"

"Therapy isn't easy."

She hummed. When they first started dating, he didn’t get her humming and she didn’t get his nonanswers. But like most couples, they eventually created a dialect unique to their relationship. Her intonation was easily interpreted, and she got her yeses and nos reading between the lines.

Wirt fumbled with a shitty Bic lighter. It took about as long for it to light a cigarette as it did for him to formulate an opening that didn't sound insane or dumb. "I need to tell you something." 

Sara turned three shades lighter. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"What? No. Nonono." Wirt combed his fingers through his hair. That almost gave him a heart attack. "But this will sound insane, so I need you to put a ton of stock into my sanity."

She frowned. Her voice was shaking and his hands were shaking because of it. "Okay. What's up?"

"Remember when Greg and I almost drowned?"

"Yeah."

"We…" Wirt debated telling her that he and Greg shared their time in The Unknown and then decided it was too much too soon. "I saw something while I was drowning."

"What did you see?"

He tapped his fingers on the wheel. "A lot. And every minute was more bizarre than the last."

"Wirt, I don't understand…."

"I just. I wandered through a potter's field where the dead never rested. I fought ghosts. All the while, I was chased by a beast trying to take my soul to… to more or less feed off of." Wirt ashed his cigarette out of the window. "And I remember, vividly, wandering through the forest trying to find my way home, and knowing, just knowing I'd be stuck there forever."

Sara stared dumbly. He swore. He wasn't making sense. "I know it's nonsense, but I'm trying, Sara."

"I know you are. Let's just… let's slow down. Take it from the top, y’know?”

He sighed. “Right. From the top.” He ashed his cigarette out the open window again. “When Greg and I almost drowned, I lived through something. Days, if not weeks, of wandering through a forest the inhabitants called The Unknown, avoiding a monster who fed off souls.”

“I… I know,” he stopped and took a long puff from his cigarette, trying to stop his hands from shaking, “I’m mostly certain at least, that it wasn’t real, but I still dream of being made into sustenance for The Beast, and my dreams feel so real, they make my blood feel like ice.” Wirt rocked in place. His eyes were watering so much he didn’t dare blink. "Like… even if it wasn't real, the terror I felt was real.” Wirt tore at his hair before he flung a hand up. He could smell his cigarette burning a hole in the car’s ceiling and cursed. “Am I even making sense?"

Sara pulled one of her feet onto the seat and wiggled her toes. “It makes sense, Wirt.” She smiled. “I believe you.”

He sighed. “Really?”

“Did you beat it? The Beast, I mean.”

"Kind of." Wirt never really talked about that part. Not even with Greg. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure Greg would understand what happened there. He coped better in fairy tales than Wirt did. “I didn’t bother killing it if that’s what you mean.”

"Why not?"

"It seemed pathetic. I mean, it was dangerous," Wirt said, almost forgetting that The Unknown was supposed to be a dream, "a manipulative hallucination, I think. But I outwitted it. I caught it in a lie, and its bluff didn't work, so I walked away." He had done everything that needed to be done, looking back on it.

It was the Woodsman who deserved justice most anyway. Wirt decided to save that for another day, though.

Sara held his free hand. "I'm sorry, Wirt. You had to have been so scared. But I'm so glad you're here now. Just… I just want to know why it took so long for you to tell me about this."

Wirt scratched his head. He wasn't sure how to answer her question without sounding paranoid. "I guess I was scared you'd think I'm crazy and leave me."

She laughed. “We do stupid things when we’re scared, huh?”

“Crap.” Wirt’s cigarette almost completely burned away and the embers burnt his hand. He flicked the butt onto the asphalt and shook out his stinging fingers as if pushing blood flow into them would stop the stinging.

He sighed. Beautiful, brilliant, kind Sara, brave enough to face his insanity unflinchingly. Sara, who never let him sink into his dark, abyssal feelings without a lifeline. Sara, the first thing he saw waking from The Unknown. How he adored her. As she squeezed his hand, smiling at him, he felt lighter with fewer secrets, like rocks slipping off his chest.

“I love you, babe,” he murmured, running his thumbs over her smooth knuckles.

She smiled at him and the tension seemed to dissolve like styrofoam over an open flame. “I love you too, baby.”

#over the garden wall #wirt over the garden wall #sara over the garden wall #sara x wirt

[ferryboatpeak]

late late werewolf

I chewed on @wickershire‘s ask for a werewolf carpool karaoke timestamp for weeks, and then tumblr fuckin’ ate it, but here’s the outcome anyway. It’s mostly inspired by this photo and this video, and also here’s some Azoff den house porn and Jamesy baby’s place in Malibu.

--

Los Angeles is thicker with wolves than London is. James hadn’t realized that when he made the move. He’d only known that the boys were in and out of LA as much as London anymore, and hoped that would be enough to keep him from getting lonely. So it was a surprise to discover that LA has a disproportionately influential network of werewolves, and a bigger surprise to find himself welcomed into it.

James isn’t easily dazzled by superstars. It’s hard to be, when you’ve hoovered One Direction’s fur off your sofa. But he still can’t quite believe that he and Justin Timberlake get together every couple of months to chase coyotes in Griffith Park.

All the same, there’s nothing like seeing the boys. Any of them. So he’s only half-joking when Harry mentions doing the show during album promo, and James suggests that he stay for a week. move into the studio, you can sleep under my desk, he texts.

i’ll wee on your rug, comes the response. They trade increasingly terrible jokes about overnight guests and Harry earning his keep, and then James heads into a meeting and puts it out of his mind. He won’t need to remind Ben to get Harry scheduled as a musical guest when the time comes. Maybe they can even get a skit out of him.

The next day, Jeff Azoff calls. “Harry said he’s been talking to you about doing a week on the show?”

It takes James a moment to remember the text chain from the day before. Following through on vague ideas about getting together isn’t usually Harry’s thing. Their friendship is more of an endless series of joking texts and unfulfilled promises to make plans, right up until the point when Harry needs a sympathetic ear and someone to scratch his. That’s when he turns upon James’s doorstep.

He’s not sure whether Jeff’s interested in the idea, or calling to chew him out about presuming there’s a place for the Late Late Show in Harry’s well-oiled highly calculated promo plans. “Yeah,” James says, hoping for the best. “Yeah, we’d mentioned that.”

“Harry likes the idea,” Jeff says. “We all do. Let’s get it scheduled.”

Jeff starts talking about timing and strategy, moving other commitments to free up a whole week, and James checks out. Ben can handle that part. Ben’s not a wolf, and therefore Ben can have pleasant uncomplicated professional interactions with Jeff. Every conversation that James has with Jeff is shaped by crosscurrents of hierarchy and power that flow well beyond the two of them. Especially when the conversation’s about Harry.

James wants to believe that this residency is Harry following through, for once. This is Harry wanting to have some fun together. But he can’t help the uncomfortable suspicion that Jeff’s driving this somehow, and, inevitably, behind Jeff is his father.

Irving Azoff is the most powerful alpha in Los Angeles, and James doesn’t want to owe him any favors.

***

Late one night the week before the show, James’s phone rings with What Makes You Beautiful, and Harry’s photo pops up. James still uses an old picture from London, Harry wrapped up in a blanket burrito on James’s couch, managing to look disgruntled even as he naps. It’s a surprise; he hadn’t expected to hear from Harry until rehearsal later in the week. James swipes to answer the call, wondering what’s going on. “Harold!”

“Hellooooo,” Harry croons.

James remembers all over again how a direct hit of Harry’s voice is both soothing and disorienting. “You in town?”

“Not yet, flying tomorrow.” That explains the late phone call; Harry’s just waking up bright and early in London.

“Looking forward to next week,” James says, flipping the lock on the sliding door and starting up the stairs toward his bedroom.

“Sure, it’ll be fun.”

“Rehearsal Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah, Wednesday.” Harry pauses.

James waits him out for a moment before reaching for a prompt. “Where are you staying?” James realizes he hadn’t even offered, although Harry ought to know he’s always welcome.

“My place is going on the market.” James had forgotten Harry even had a house in LA. He still seems to prefer staying with somebody else when he’s in town, Ben and Meri or Jeff and Glynne or Cindy and Rande. Sometimes James, but James had assumed that moving out to Malibu last year would take him out of the rotation.

Harry’s still talking, rambling around to some kind of a point. “The art’s going into storage, and they’re going to like, fill in the nail holes, or paint or something, or maybe it’s something happening to the floors, I don’t remember. I think they took the rugs out too. So I’m staying with Jeff, but on Thursday we’ll all be up at his family place for the full moon, and do you want to come with?”

A loaded invitation. “Are you sure that’s all right?”

“Sure,” Harry says, broadly. “Irv actually said I should invite you.”

Which doesn’t do anything to allay James’s trepidation. But he’s not going to pass up a rare full moon with Harry, even if the rest of the company’s not ideal. “All right,” James says, like it’s easy as can be. “Tell Irving thanks for the invite.”

James wonders uncomfortably if Harry would still be going up to the Azoffs if Louis and Niall were in town. There’s no point asking him, though. In addition to it being an entirely academic question, James knows he’d only get a vague nonanswer about how Harry loves the pack and would never regret being part of it. He hasn’t left, not officially. Not like Zayn did, bloody and unmistakeable, the other four smelling of scorch and fever as they tried to rebuild the pack’s toppled scaffolding.

James doesn’t wish that on Louis again. But at least it was definitive. Not like the vague drift away that James worries Harry’s trying to accomplish, or Liam’s taciturn withdrawal into domesticity. Niall’s the only one left to bear the fierce weight of Louis’s love.

***

They film a sketch on the day before the full moon. Afterwards, Harry rides with James from the studio up to Holmby Hills. The ornate streetlights are just coming on, and the sharp scent of the towering box hedges is shot through with the fragrance of spring jasmine. The gate at the Azoffs’ opens when they pull up to it, which only serves to make James wonder how his Range Rover’s been recognized. Harry points him toward an appropriately deferential parking spot in the tree-lined circle drive.

There’s a wolf curled up in the middle of the terraced walkway to the house, sharp eyes watching them as they approach. “Chelsea!” Harry calls, and bends down to give her a vigorous backscratch. She snorts and headbutts him. James refrains, assuming he’d get a sharper reaction if he tried scratching Chelsea Handler’s back.

The front door’s standing open, and Shelli Azoff glides down the wide entrance hall to greet them as they approach. “Harry!” She kisses him on each cheek, Harry preening at the motherly attention. “Jeff and Glynne are out back.”

Harry tips a salute to James and saunters off down the high-ceilinged hallway toward the dining room. Shelli turns to James. “So glad you could join us tonight.”

“It’s my pleasure,” James says. Without Harry, he feels a bit like he’s been thrown to the wolves, literally. “Thank you for having me.”

Shelli tucks her arm through his and steers him deeper into the house. “Let’s get you a drink.”

The sprawling villa is made for a pack, with wide-open passages that won’t spook a wolf and French doors open to the exterior in every room. As they pass through an internal courtyard, a black-clad server appears at Shelli’s elbow and a gin and tonic smoothly makes its way into James’s hand.

The Azoff pack is large, and James recognizes most of the faces circulating through the house and down the terrace around the pool. It’s an even mix of artists -- the big names Irving’s represented over the years -- and others from the business side. James realizes that unless the Gerber kids are running around somewhere, Harry’s the youngest one here by close to a decade. No wonder Harry’s comfortable with the Azoff crowd, James reflects. He’s always happy when he’s surrounded by people competing to parent him.

Kris Jenner joins James and Shelli on the terrace. As the women greet each other, James looks past them to an elaborate spread of capaccio arranged on carved ice blocks. The small square plates and tray of cornichons and mustard suggest it’s offered for humans, but the sheer volume of raw meat means wolves will be finishing it off later.

To James’s relief, Kris stays to talk to him after Shelli melts away to ensnare someone else. It’s no trick to sustain a conversation with Kris. The only tricky part is to extract yourself before you hear more than you ever wanted to.

“Kim and Kendall here tonight?” he asks. They’re the only wolves among Kris’s brood. It’s never certain that the gene will pass down, when only one parent’s a wolf. James admires that Kris doesn’t seem to let it bother her. He’s never seen her show any favoritism between her daughters who are pack and the others who aren’t.

“No, Kendall’s with her friends,” Kris says, gesturing into the distance with her glass of white wine. “Kim and Kanye mostly do their own thing.”

Kanye West, all the cunning and power of an alpha but too volatile to convince anyone to follow him. Marrying into the Azoff pack didn’t help matters; of all the rumblings James has heard around who might succeed Irving someday, Kanye’s name is never in the mix. He asks Kris about her grandchildren instead, filling up the space until Irving Azoff steps out of a French door behind James and straight into their conversation.

“James! Glad you could make it.” Irving gives him an LA handshake and James feels disoriented by the disconnect between his appearance and his scent. A short man with an unapologetically receding hairline, Irving looks like the odd one out at this cocktail party full of famous artists and the expensively maintained team behind them. Breathe in, though, and his scent says not just that Irving’s willing to break a few eggs to make an omelet, but that he’s about to upend the entire henhouse and feast on the chickens.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” James says. “You’ve got a lovely property here.”

Irving scoffs. “Temporary. Thought we’d be back in our place by the end of last year. Architect’s fucking incompetent.” He rants to James about the renovation gone wrong on his Beverly Hills mansion, and James relaxes into the conversational safe harbor.

When he steps to the side to set his glass down on a patio table, it’s almost immediately whisked away by an efficient server with a low ponytail and a tray of empties. She glides silently toward the kitchen, and doesn’t even flinch when Chelsea brushes past her, tail catching on the edge of the tray.

James wonders how Irving and Shelli find staff they can trust, what it must cost them. James is careful to schedule his own house manager for a day off the morning after a full moon, and wipe up any pawprints himself so his cleaners have no reason to ask questions. His chef only knows that James likes a high-protein diet and steak cooked rare.

He snaps back to attention when he hears Harry’s name. “Glad to hear he’s doing a week with you,” Irving says.

“Well, we’re happy to have him.” James concentrates on breathing steady and slow, willing his scent not to give off any trace of nerves.

“You’ve always been a good friend to Harry.” Irving shifts his highball glass from one hand to the other. “He looks up to you.”

“That’s hard to believe,” James says. Hard to remember Harry as a sixteen-year-old kid who needed anything from James. Somewhere along the way, the whole world started giving Harry whatever he needs, abundantly and enthusiastically.

“He’s doing well,” Irving agrees, as if he’s thinking the same thing. James tries to stifle a flare of irrational possessiveness. He doesn’t need Irving to tell him how Harry’s doing.

Maybe something comes through in his scent, because Irving changes the subject. “You have a pack in LA?”

“No,” James answers quickly, reaching for the lighthearted emigre persona he relies on to dodge whatever ulterior motive is behind questions like this. “Still holding onto that last tie to Buckinghamshire.”

Irving doesn’t oblige him with a laugh or a joke about how you can’t go home again or a comment about the superiority of Los Angeles weather. He just looks at James, silently, and even though James knows it’s meant to unnerve him, it works anyway.

“Door’s always open here,” Irving says, after a pause.

“Thanks,” James says, shoulders down and chin tipped forward just a little, deferential. “I appreciate that.”

“We’d like to consolidate Harry’s supporters.” James didn’t see Irving move, but all of a sudden he seems uncomfortably close. “The next few months are going to be critical. It’ll help to have a good pack behind him.”

James has to stop himself from baring his teeth. Harry has a pack, and it’s not this one. Or maybe there’s something Harry hasn’t told him, or something on the horizon. Irving has a way of making the world conform to his vision.

The moon’s not up yet, but James’s body aches to shift. “Thanks,” he says, again. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“You do that.” Irving tips his glass at someone over James’s shoulder. As he starts to move in that direction, he looks back at James. “LA’s a tough place to be a lone wolf.”

James goes in search of another drink, feeling that he’s more than earned it. While he waits for the bartender to mix him a double, he notices a handful of party guests slipping down a hall that leads away from the central part of the villa. A few minutes later, they reemerge as wolves, padding through the lounge and out the broad sliding doors to the terrace.

Shifting seems like an even better idea than more gin. James explores the hallway and finds a series of spare bedrooms. Each has an assortment of clothing neatly folded on the bed or hanging in the closet, ready for the owners to reclaim when they shift back. How civilized, James thinks. He undresses and leaves his shirt and trousers in a tidy pile on the bed, thinking nostalgically about the boys’ hoodies and high-tops scattered all over his garden back in London. Even with moonrise not quite here, the shift comes easily, as if his body understands that it’s much less complicated to be a wolf than a human in this place.

James slips out the bedroom’s French doors to the side of the house and circles back around to the yard. He emerges just in time to see Harry tossing his skinny jeans and flowered shirt on a lounge by the pool and shifting in full view of the remaining humans. Either Harry hasn’t bothered to pay attention to the pack’s customs, or he’s just well aware that nobody at this party’s going to mind an eyeful of his lean body and lesser-seen tattoos.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Harry’s grown up into a striking wolf. His chest and shoulders have finally caught up with his long limbs and outsized paws, and his puppy fluff has resolved itself into a sleek dark coat. James bounds toward him and Harry yaps and darts off to the edge of the property, waiting for James to follow. They run through the trees and down an empty lot, emerging onto a golf course dotted with wolves. James has heard it before, but never quite believed it: Holmby Hills has enough wolves that they can afford to be a bit brazen about it on a full moon night.

The rolling fairways and the even scent of mown grass are a different experience than the Santa Monica Mountains, where James usually spends his shifts. He runs full tilt down the well-manicured course, overtaking Harry, who stays on his heels as they leave the coalescing pack behind. They weave through scattered stands of trees and leap across flat teeing grounds. James finally pulls up short and tackles Harry into a bunker. They roll over and over together in the sand like a pair of idiots, like six years never went by at all.

***

James leaves Harry at the Azoffs the next morning, heading home in the early dawn hours for a shower and a few hours of sleep. He sees him again at the studio that day, and all the next week, but there’s no chance to really talk there, surrounded by PAs and camera crew and Jeff ever-present in the background. Harry’s residency ends all too quickly, with a transcendent spark-shooting finale that has James half wondering the next morning if he dreamed the entire week.

Then, Harry’s gone. They see each other briefly in London a few weeks later, but it’s more of the same, always surrounded by the band, the crew, a theater full of people. Seeing Harry in person isn’t much different than their text message chain: sporadic outbursts of jokes that make only the two of them laugh, interspersed by long periods of nothing.

After the London show, James doesn’t hear from Harry again until his phone rings at the end of July, right as Dunkirk promo is winding down.

“I’m coming to LA for a bit before tour starts,” Harry says. “Could I stay at yours for a few days?”

“’Course you can, you know you’re always welcome.” As if James would ever tell him no. “You sure you want to be out in Malibu?”

“Yes,” Harry says, with certainty. “Want to get away a little, you know? Sit by the sea, nobody bothering me.”

He arrives at nearly midnight, the lingering traces of London in his scent almost overpowered by the stale coffee smell of air travel. James makes him a mug of tea and – when he almost falls asleep with his face in it – points him toward a guest bedroom.

Upstairs in his own room, James considers for a moment and then leaves the bedroom door slightly ajar. He doesn’t exactly expect Harry to come bounding up onto his bed like old times, but he’s not going to rule it out.

Then, instead of the clicking toenails of a wolf nosing its way through the cracked door, James hears soft knocking against the frame. Just a couple of quick and tentative raps, only loud enough for wolf ears.

“Harry?” James calls from bed. “It’s open.”

There’s just enough light to see that Harry’s shirtless and barefoot, in joggers. The black blotches of his tattoos look like absences in the dark room, like something’s chewed holes in him.

He gestures at the far side of James’s bed. “All right?”

“Sure, yeah,” James says, tugging the covers back for him. Harry takes up less space as a human, but he still radiates warmth as he settles in, turning himself over and back again, the human echo of his wolf tromping a circle into the duvet. He squirms his head down into his pillow, and then scoots closer to push his forehead into the side of James’s shoulder.

James freezes. He doesn’t know what to do with the gesture, somewhere halfway between human and wolf. After a moment he responds in kind, reaching his other hand over to scratch Harry’s head. Harry hums as if he’s pleased.

He’s silent for a few minutes after James finishes a lengthy head-scratch, but his breathing doesn’t slow into sleep. Finally, quietly, he asks, “How are they?”

“You’re not in touch?” James tries not to sound surprised or concerned.

Harry’s voice is half muffled by the pillow and the top of James’s arm. “There’s emails or texts or whatever, but.”

James understands. It’s easy to hide in plain sight in a text message chain. No way for the others to scent the truth, the way you can when your pack is nearby. “They’re good,” he says. “Truly, good. Niall’s coming into his own.”

“Louis?”

“Fatherhood suits him,” James says. “You know Freddie’s a wolf, do you?” Louis hadn’t told James, just brought tiny newborn Freddie over for a visit and let James sniff it out for himself. He’d never seen Louis so proud or so happy.

“Yeah.” James can feel Harry smile against his arm.

“And you’ll have Liam’s boy in the pack as well,” James adds. He knows that much, at least; there’s no doubt with two wolves for parents.

Harry’s quiet. After a moment, James says, softly, “They miss you.”

“Do they?” The question’s more skeptical than hopeful.

“Of course they do.” James has to ask, and there won’t be any better time than right now, with Harry in his bed seeking comfort or reassurance or something James hasn’t figured out yet. “Do you miss them?”

Harry makes an ambivalent kind of a noise. “Yes,” he answers hesitantly, drawing out the word. “I miss them. But I can’t have them around and do what I want to do right now.”

James knows. It’s hard to believe he ever advised the boys to tone it down in public, when flaunting their pack bond turned out to be integral to their success. Of course, now that makes it all the harder for Harry to establish himself as anything other than part of the pack. James aches in sympathy, knowing what it’s like to put pack at a remove to accomplish one’s own goals. It’s been so long since he’s felt that way, though. For years he’s had the boys, and now all the other wolves he’s connected with in LA.

“Would you ever…” – James can’t even bring himself to actually say it – “…the Azoffs?”

“No,” Harry says, emphatically. “I don’t miss a pack. I miss my pack.”

“I didn’t know.” James realizes for the first time how much the possibility had worried him. “Irving tried to recruit me. Gave me some line about supporting you.

Harry blows out a frustrated breath, hot against James’s arm. “You aren’t going to, are you?”

“No.” James relaxes down to his toes with the relief of not having to consider it anymore. “I mean, it’s not appealing. But if you did… I’d think about it, I guess.”

“Whatever line he fed you is bullshit,” Harry says. “He wants you as bait. Thinks if you pack up, I will too.”

“How flattering.” Not liking that line of thought, James changes the subject. “You don’t shift at night anymore?”

“Doesn’t feel right, on my own.” Of course, James thinks. Loneliness is easier as a human, with any number of distractions that aren’t available in a wolf’s body.

“Have you shifted since the last full moon?”

Harry thinks for a moment. “Maybe not.”

“Go to sleep,” James says, scratching his head one more time. “We’ll go out early in the morning, run a little ways down the beach.”

“All right.” Harry yawns into the words. He stretches away from James and swings his legs out of bed. James sees a flash of pale skin as Harry sheds his joggers, and then jumps back onto the bed as a wolf. He’s asleep a moment later, sprawled halfway across James’s chest.

#unbeta'd #so concrit willingly accepted before i upload to ao3 #turns out i could write in this verse forever #i had to make myself hard stop at 4K #you should see the stuff i cut out #fic #werewolf carpool karaoke #late late werewolf

[americafuneral10-blog]

What’s more important: Products or Service?

Originally Published on The Foresight Companies

Undoubtedly, caskets and urns are elements of a funeral. But, unless there is some form of spectacular customization, both are containers for human remains. Marketing by the big casket companies shifted focus away from services to their manufactured products, thus attempting to make caskets and urns the centerpiece of a funeral. Unfortunately, while this brilliant marketing was taking place, the price of caskets skyrocketed and prices for services stagnated.

The tragedy is many professionals drank the Kool-Aid. Their own service charges lagged, thus contributing to the now-lackluster funeral home profit margin of around 7 percent.

For those that do not know, there was a time I worked for a big casket company. Thus, I have firsthand knowledge regarding products, contracts, marketing and training by casket manufacturers that also sell urns.

To set yourself on a path toward greater profitability, you must first fully appreciate what I said earlier: Caskets and urns are both containers for human remains. That is it. I am not at all suggesting simple wood, metal, ceramic, or other material does not have some sort of meaning to grieving families; however, the emphasis is on the life lived, not the box displayed.

I acknowledge that the selection of such products is an emotional event, not only for the family, but also for funeral directors. However, the bottom line is a casket or urn is a commodity that is purchased from a funeral service provider, bought online or even made by a family. Does anyone remember a presidential election slogan – “It’s about the economy, stupid?” In our profession, “It’s about the service, period!”

My favorite question when I meet with funeral home owners and directors is, “Why is your firm better than the competition?” Without a doubt, I will most likely hear, “We give better service,” which is the great unquantifiable nonanswer. I usually follow up by asking how many arrangements and services they actually attended – with the only response being a blank stare. At any given funeral home, services can be a multitude of identifiable action points. I’ll share a few that I am privy to and deem giving better service:

Some funeral homes collect enough data from a family about the deceased to allow them to complete the death certificate before the arrangement conference. This is great service because the funeral directors can then spend time working with the family to create a meaningful service rather than focusing on empirical information.

I know of a funeral service provider that, before leaving the funeral home to make a home removal, will call the home (often a hospice nurse) and ask if there is anything that can be picked up on the way for the family, such as diapers, food, or other needed items.

Rather than allow limousines to sit in a garage collecting dust, some funeral homes will send a car for the primary family members to make arrangements.

Assignment of a nonlicensed staff member to act as a concierge of sorts for families.

The most important aspect of transferring emphasis from caskets and urns to services provided is appropriate pricing. Pricing for services is essential to funeral home profit. Unfortunately, many funeral service providers do not use successful pricing formulas. I know that some funeral home owners make pricing decisions based on their competitors’ pricing.

As my cohort Dan Isard says, “Why are you basing your prices on the competitor you otherwise call the town idiot during the rest of the year?”

I also cannot understand why a vast majority of funeral home owners only change prices once a year, usually around the time that casket prices go up (they never come down). Monitoring profitability is a function of fiducial responsibility by the advisers to funeral home owners, especially accountants. The truth is most accountants, especially local accountants, haven’t a clue about funeral home operations and cannot identify trends that may necessitate pricing changes. If your accountant doesn’t know the difference between a rough box and an alternative container, most likely you’re not getting the benefits of good advice.

Pricing begins with knowing your true operating overhead. Dividing your overhead by your number of calls will give you an approximation of the prices you need to charge to make profit. The services provided, not the type of casket sold, generates recovery of overheads for funeral homes. The most important formula to know is GPL + P&L = EBITDA. Your General Price List pricing has a direct correlation to your profit and loss statement and ultimately the value of your business.

The consideration for pricing of caskets and urns is a relatively simple exercise. I do remember a very successful and wealthy businessman, Thurston Howell III, who said, “Buy low and sell high.” This is applicable to pricing of funeral-related products.

Consumers have exhibited a downward shift of purchasing expensive caskets. There will always be a slim few that buy upper-end caskets for various reasons. However, reality demonstrates that the days of regularly selling at-need bronze, copper and mahogany caskets are a thing of the past. Relying on a high-end casket sale is like playing the lottery: Your number may never come up and you’ve wasted dollars on hope rather than corrective behavior or effort.

If you want to know what your average casket sale is, add up the total number of casket sales. Then add up the total retail cost of those sales. Divide the cost by the number of sales. That’s your average retail sale.

Do the same with your total casket sales and your total wholesale cost, and voila …. that’s your average wholesale (or what you paid) for the caskets. Now, subtract the total of how much you received in revenue from sales by the wholesale cost you paid for the caskets, and that’s your profit per sale.

The net profit from each sale is the beef on the bun. How can you make more money from your casket sales?  If consumer spending on caskets is trending down, do you think just charging more makes a difference?

The fact is that the casket and urn market is oversaturated in the United States meaning more product is available for purchase than need. There are warehouses full of caskets and urns all over America, including caskets from smaller and foreign companies. Interestingly, some large U.S. manufacturers are making low-cost caskets and distributing them through a network of local distributors as well as operating facilities in foreign countries. In addition to offshore or south-of-the-border manufacturing of caskets, the majority of cloth interiors and practically all hardware for caskets are produced outside of the U.S. Certainly, doing so by casket companies makes tremendous sense for cost savings and profit, so why are you paying so much and making so little on your casket sales? What if you considered purchasing a casket at a lesser wholesale cost? In fact, the “bigs” make “off-brand” caskets that are sold through distributers. Interesting, but the same big casket company that you paid all that money to for a display room may be offering “knockoffs” that are just as good in quality, but at a lower cost and distributed through local casket companies. So in many cases, you could charge the family less for the “other casket” and still net more profit from each sale. Who loses in such a transaction?

The pricing of a range of urns works with the same theory. Have you ever noticed from catalog to catalog or at trade shows that the same urns are sold by different vendors? Incidentally, consumers find exactly the same ones available to purchase direct from various websites. Urns selected for display should never have any engraving (of course, I’m certain you know that). Conduct an inventory of your offerings and assess which urns sell the most frequently (if not more than four times per year, get rid of them) and broaden the range with pricing that is attainable for families and profitable for the firm.

I am passionate about the funeral profession and believe the future is extremely bright for those of us who understand this is a business first. There are very few comparable industries from the perspective of relationships because that’s what we believe. From the families that we serve and the people that work alongside us, to the vendors that sell us products and those that serve us as consultants, it is personal.

Generating enough profit to continue serving and fulfilling our community missions is becoming increasingly more difficult. This should challenge us to focus on our business. In doing so, nothing is wrong with examining every aspect of what we buy and whom we rely on for counsel. Relationships in business must be mutually beneficial, if not, it’s time to step back and evaluate. Are you paying a cost with little return and appreciation?  I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts – let’s chat and I’ll listen. •

What’s more important: Products or Service? published first on YouTube