#My brain is in zine mode right now

[woodland-knight]

A Poem to Remember

So today is @komatsujo​‘s birthday, and she wanted to blessed with Rindea stuff! ...so here I am, blessing her with a Rindea ficlet. It’s another short fic and technically a sequel to “A Poetic Letter”, but uh... Happy birthday and I hope you like it???

Word Count: 1803 Words

Additional Notes: I can’t think of a good summary, but there’s a poem in this because I like writing poems and hope you guys like poems too.

“Don’t touch that!”

Ringabel looked at his girlfriend as she leapt out in front of him. Her cheeks were flushed and her expression filled with determination, and she was blocking Ringabel from moving. A moment before, he had gone over to a filing cabinet in order to put some documents away, but for some strange reason, Edea had rushed over and stopped him from doing so. He couldn’t understand why she had, as there didn’t seem to be anything remotely abnormal about the filing cabinet, but there she was, staring him down and blocking it from his view. Confused by her actions, Ringabel furrowed his brow and tilted his head.

“This is where you said to put the files, right?” he asked Edea as he held the documents up to her. During the week, she had ordered him to fill out important documents relating to the Sky Knights, and now that they had been processed and cleared she had told him to put them away. As soon as he started walking over to file them though, it seems she had changed her mind. Still in front of him, Edea bit her lip and stretched her arms out to the side.

“I can’t have you seeing the sensitive material in these files. They contain top secret information,” she said with a bit of force. She sounded a bit nervous, but her face wasn’t showing any signs of her nerves acting up. Ringabel, brow still furrowed, blinked a few times and frowned.

“Then how am I supposed to put the files away if you won’t let me?” Ringabel continued to ask. He had a feeling Edea wasn’t telling him the truth, but she was doing an excellent job at keeping her composure. Ringabel had been Eternia’s general for quite some time now, and all information and data had to pass through him before even reaching Edea. There was no such case in which he wouldn’t be informed about sensitive material, so he had no other choice other than to assume Edea was lying to him. Edea, however, continued to hold her composure and tried to push him away from the cabinet.

“I’ll put them away for you! I should have actually done that in the first place!” she told him as she tried to take the files from Ringabel’s hand. She still sounded nervous, and Ringabel noticed her hands were shaking a bit. He lifted the files out of her reach before she could take them though, looking her straight in the eyes as he did so.

“You’re not getting ahold of these files until you tell me what you’re hiding from me, Edea,” he said as he held the files far above her head. “No sensitive information relating to Eternia ever gets past me, so I know you’re not being truthful with me.”

Edea stared at Ringabel and put her hands on her hips. “I never said that the information related to Eternia,” she pointed out to him. Ringabel realized she had been right, but that still didn’t make him any less curious. She was still hiding something from him, and he wanted to know what.

“Well as your boyfriend, I would still like to know what you don’t want me seeing,” he told her. “Keeping secrets will only add stress to our relationship, so it’s better just to clear things up before it's too late.”

Edea let an annoyed sigh and tried to jump up to grab the papers from Ringabel’s hands. “Just give me the stupid files, Ringabel! It doesn’t matter what’s in there!” she complained as the papers were lifted farther and farther from her reach. Ringabel watched her continuously leap into the air with no success and shook his head when she showed no signs of giving up.

“If it didn’t matter what was in there, you wouldn’t be acting this way, Edea,” he pointed out to her. He could hear Edea grumble something under breath, and he assumed she was cursing him out. A second later, she said something about him being “irrational and childish”, though It seemed pretty obvious to him though that he wasn’t the one acting that way.

“It’s none of your business what’s in there, Ringabel! Now hand them over!” Edea continued to complain. She had stopped jumping, and her fists were clenched with anger. She was taking deep breaths as well, more than likely as an attempt to get herself to stay somewhat calm. Thinking it was safe, Ringabel lowered the files back down, but still kept a strong grip on them so Edea couldn’t take them from his hands.

“I’m not handing these over until you tell me what’s in the file cabinet,” Ringabel reiterated. Edea huffed and glared at him, no doubt trying to intimidate him now, but Ringabel stared back at her with no signs of backing down.

“Why are you so desperate to know what’s in there anyway!?” Edea asked while puffing her chest out. “It’s not like I’m keeping some huge secret from you!”

Ringabel shook his head again. “Any secret you keep from me is a big secret, Edea. Besides, if you don’t tell me now, I’ll just keep bugging you until you finally do. Or perhaps… I’ll sneak a peek when you aren’t looking,” Ringabel suggested to her. Displeased with both the outcomes she was presented with, Edea stomped her foot and finally admitted defeat.

“Ugh, fine! I’ll tell you what’s in there as long as you just give me the documents!” she said while throwing her hands up in the air. Finally satisfied, Ringabel loosened his grip on the papers.

“Deal,” he said as he held the files out to her. Edea snatched the files from his hands and faced the filing cabinet. She seemed hesitant to put the papers away, which was odd seeing how she had been so determined to get them a moment before. Ringabel assumed it was because she didn’t want to admit what she was hiding, so he moved a bit closer to her to try and get her to move a little faster. Finally, she opened the top drawer and took out an envelope.

“...it’s… It’s the poems,” she admitted as she placed the file into the envelope, which then went between two folders. Ringabel watched as she took out an older envelope from the back of the drawer and put it on top of the cabinet.

“The poems?” he asked Edea as she closed the drawer. She was getting flustered again, and she refused to look Ringabel in the eyes.

“Yes, the poems! The ones... The ones you gave to me when you were gone… All twenty-four of them… I keep them in my office in case I want to read them again…” she admitted to him, much to her embarrassment. Ringabel was surprised his poetry was what she had been hiding and wasn’t sure why she had wanted to keep it a secret.

“Edea…” Ringabel said in a way that mimicked a soft laugh. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me that instead of trying to hide it from me? I am the one who wrote them, so I already know what they say! What harm would come from me knowing?”

Edea continued to keep her gaze away from Ringabel. “I didn’t want you making fun of me for it…” she explained to him. It was obvious she was still embarrassed, but she wasn’t acting how she normally did. Usually, she’d get angry and huffy when embarrassed, but this time… This time she was shy and soft. Ringabel gave her a warm smile.

“Me? Make fun of you for it? Edea, I should be flattered that a wonderful woman like yourself would even consider keeping the heartfelt love poems of a lowly man!” he told her in what he felt was an encouraging way. Edea, however, quickly became annoyed with his comments.

“See, you’re doing it now!” she accused while puffing her cheeks out. Ringabel was caught off guard, as he had been truly trying to cheer her up, and stood quietly for a moment before speaking again.

“...come here, Edea,” he requested as he opened his arms out to her. Edea looked at him without saying anything, but he continued to beckon for her to come hug him. Slowly, Edea shuffled over and wrapped her arms around him, though she was still a bit annoyed with him. Ringabel let her rest her head against his chest despite this and wrapped his arms tightly around her in return. “It really makes me happy you’ve kept the poems for so long. I wrote them only for your eyes, so to know you still read them is one of the best feelings to have. I wasn’t trying to tease you; I was only trying to show you how much it meant to me,” he explained to her. He was trying to be as heartfelt as his poems, and it seemed to be having an effect. He could tell Edea was calming down and a little less annoyed with him.

“Sorry for keeping it a secret from you....” she apologized as she stayed close to him. Ringabel enjoyed the closeness and hoped it didn’t end any time soon. He kissed the top of her head and continued to smile.

“All is forgiven, my little peahen,” he said as he began to rock her from side to side. She seemed to have gone back to being soft and shy, as she was quiet when she spoke.

“...hey, Ringabel?” she said in attempts to get his attention. It wasn’t that hard to do though, as they were already as close as they could be. It was weird seeing Edea be this quiet, but he wasn’t going to complain. Though he was fond of her energetic and cheerful nature, it was nice to see other sides of her as well.

“Yes, Edea?” Ringabel asked as he continued to rock her. She was having a bit of a hard time keeping her feet on the ground as he did so, but she managed to keep her balance long enough to look up at him.

“...do you think you can write me another poem?” she quietly asked him. Another smile creeped along Ringabel’s face, and he took a moment to come up with another poem Edea would want to keep…

“A little bird sits and waits, Her beauty catching my eye. And even though she’s loud and fierce, She can also be quite shy.

She tells me all her secrets, Adding to her allure. And her charms are unforgettable, Leaving me to fall in love with her.

So for this bird that I love, These poems I will write. For even when I’m far away, I am still her beloved knight.

I love you, my little peahen…”

[pansyfemme]

how do you create your digital collages??? yrs are so cool and i wanna try making some but i dont know where to start

honestly i think the hardest part is collecting enough images?? I find most of my images and clipart on tumblr tbh and then edit them to be transparents but you can get them from a variety of sources! I actually streamlined my process a while ago so I sat down and made like a hundred or more different custom brushes of stickers, glitter and vintage pins- which i have for free on my gumroad if you happen to use csp and i also use this set a lot (and i know gumroad is a shitty company but i have like hundreds of things in my library there that i dont have space for on my computer so im continuing using it for now but im plannimg on taking my brushes down fairly soon.) again, if u use csp, theres of course tons of free brushes you can download- and if not, i think other programs like procreate also have plenty of ppl uploading themed brushes! But generally, i find the most important thing when i’m doing them is just to stack texture. One peice of mine, even after I’ve put down the peices i like most- can have like 5-10 correction layers on top layering textures and colors at different opacities until i get an effect i’m happy with. I would say you should learn layer modes- but in actuality I cannot verbalize what any of them do- i just kinda like get it after using them for a while so just like experiment! You can even find textures made for layering online- I reccomend just searching “free photoshop overlay texture” then choosing one you like. (pixelbuddha is one of my fave sites for this- i highly reccomend them!) but you can also find good ones on like unsplash or texturefabrik but also if you have a scanner- scanning most anything can come up with a cool effect, or even taking a upclose picture of a cool texture can make for a nice overlay! Yeah! and So i also reccomend becoming friends with ur opacity slider on both ur layers and ur brushes! I use a low opacity eraser to soften edges pretty much any time i collage so! But when i’m trying to start a new one, i honestly wish i could tell you my process but a lot of the times its just turning my brain off and making what I feel looks right. I also find bits from zines and such from digital archives, and i like putting bits of text overlayed over something to kinda create like a hidden part of the peice that ppl cant see easily but is important to me! But in general, I suggest, if you plan on doing this more than once, building up a catalog of images and textures you want to use. Just like a folder on ur phone that if you see something cool and want to use it for art- just popping it in there. I hope this helped in some way! as i said, i tend to not have a specific process as much as just experiementing but i have a few things that i reccomend!

[thanksjro]

The Mystery of the Transformer Decoys, Parts 1-3: A Whodunnit Adventure

This isn’t exclusively a Roberts’ publication. There were a lot of folks on this one, actually. Of course the first collaborative effort I cover here has five people on it for the writing alone, not to mention the art credits.

I’ll be going through everything, of course, because it wouldn’t make sense not to, and also because it’ll be interesting to look at how all these young writer’s styles are going to play together.

And you read that right, Pounce and Wingspan are in this. They were in Liars, A-to-D- Pounce was holding the Galvatron puppet- and Eugenesis as minor characters. I’m excited to get a little more of their characterization.

Now, without further ado, let’s get into The Mystery of the Transformer Decoys.

There he is, our main character- Nightbeat! Standing at over 90 feet tall and wearing the largest trenchcoat this side of Alpha Centauri, our boy’s well on his way to the robotic equivalent of lung cancer as he watches Sideswipe breakdance in an attempt to appease this god of detective prowess. Megatron might be looking to kill him, but’s he’s going to have to try a lot harder to bring this big guy down.

We get a little message from our ‘zine organizer and editor, Richard Ahern, on the nature of putting a thing like this together.

Good on you for sticking to it, Ahern.

Part 1 of our story is written by Martin McVay; we open on a scene in the Celestial Spires, where Nightbeat and a co-conspirator are dealing with the spoils of Nightbeat’s most recent case- twenty turbo-fox brains on a rope, glowing with residual Matrix energy. Someone paid Nightbeat to find these things. Right off the bat, we’re getting weird. I dig it.

As the co-conspirator checks the goods for any alarm systems or bombs, Nightbeat stares out the window and muses on the way life is at present, with the war looming in the skies of Cybertron, ever present. He notices a light on in the tower across the way- strange, given that it’s late as shit. Before he can investigate further, Getaway snaps him out of his concentration, having finished with the brain chips.

Yeah, Getaway. Relax, he isn’t a completely morally-bankrupt bastard in this- that’s strictly an IDW thing.

By the time, Nightbeat’s gone back to the window, the light is out.

Part 2, written by Ahern, takes place a few weeks after Part 1, with the high-ranking Autobot who employed Nightbeat breaking out the death threats if he doesn’t get those skulls he paid for. It turns out these skulls have a sort of power to them, the sort that makes one loathe to part with the things once they’re in their possession. Still, Nightbeat is nothing if not a professional, and finally makes his way over to Wingspan’s base of operations.

The exchange is made, and Wingspan invites Nightbeat to take in the view from the roof.  

As Nightbeat leaves, we get the perspective of an onlooker- Pounce- who takes in the scene with glee, having been the one to set up the whole “problem” Nightbeat had been hired to handle, at Wingspan’s behest. He’s less gleeful to find that the guy he hired to tail Nightbeat isn’t terribly good at his job, seeing as he can, well, see him. He may end up having to kill Nightbeat if if he doesn’t get his act together, but that’s life, I guess. He then pulls the skulls from a case and throws them around his neck like a macabre string of Mardi Gras beads.

It was at this point I stopped what I was doing and made a sandwich to make sure my blood sugar hadn’t suddenly dropped, because things got sort of confusing, narrative-wise, and I legitimately couldn’t tell if it was a writing issue or the fact that all I’d eaten in the last 24 hours was a single bowl of shrimp linguini.

Then I came back, tried again, and determined that it was a bit of both.

In the middle of this part, we get some classic magazine advertising action, which helps clear up a bit of the confusion.

There’s a full-page ad for Transformers Junk Files, another ‘zine, this one being a TMUK writing anthology.

On the other page we get a character synopsis for Pounce, Wingspan, and Circuit, who we haven’t met yet in this story. We’ll get to him in a bit.

Turns out Pounce and Wingspan are clone brothers.

Yep. Clone brothers.

(Their robot modes are pretty much identical.)

No, see, here’s the thing: these are actually established characters within the Transformers franchise. The only reason I didn’t catch it on my read-through of Eugenesis is because I was basing my interpretation of the characters on what was presented to me in Liars, A-to-D, where Pounce looks like this:

And there isn’t an ounce of kibble visible to tell me he turns into a friggin’ big cat. I just figured that Liars Pounce and puma Pounce were separate entities. It’s not like these guys are huge players in the cartoons or Marvel comics- they were in a single episode of the original 80’s show.

Regardless, it would seem that Wingspan is not who he presents himself to be to Nightbeat, and that the Decepticons just got their hands on something very mysterious and very powerful.

Part 3, written by Charles Ellis, follows Nightbeat as he muses on Wingspan’s threat.

Well, that’s… ominous.

Things are back to status quo for our good detective, until he’s brought on to solve a murder- excuse me, a cybercide. He arrives on the scene, and the scene is simply doused in mech-fluid.

No, mech-fluid is not at all similar to man-juice. It’s basically blood.

Nightbeat asks just who the hell got offed, and the current consensus seems to be that he was a member of the special branch of Security Forces- robots so deep undercover they practically don’t exist.

Nightbeat takes in the carnage, and quickly formulates a hypothesis based on the damage to the body, the destroyed computer, and the pain chips he’s found on the floor.

In a brief aside, Nightbeat laments on the fact that he has no alt-mode- they’re a distinctly war-centric thing in the Marvel continuity- as he drives down the road in an honest-to-god jalopy. Then he sees Megatron, and that kind of ruins his day.

The plot catches up to Circuit as Nightbeat confronts him, demanding answers, seeing as he’s working with just about every mob in Iacon.

Circuit is an Autobot known for trying to cut a deal with everyone he comes into contact with. Deals that solely benefit him. He doesn’t have an alt, but he does have a pretty sweet ride that turns into an exosuit when needed. If you read IDW’s Robots in Disguise, you’ll remember him as the reporter who shows up repeatedly in the story there.

With a little moolah flashed his way, Circuit lets slip that he heard about someone seeing “Meggy” at a place called Slammer’s. It’s all he’s got, but Nightbeat’s trying to stay optimistic and heads out to investigate.

[bruinhilda]

Me: has a fic first draft that’s *this* close to complete.

Me: stays up to 2am writing six pages of a brand-new fic that occurred to her on the way to work the night before.

[the-paris-of-people]

That Cute Couple You See at a Coffee Shop

SURPRISE! (Or not?) I’m your @tgpsecretsanta @alys07! I hope you enjoy this Cheleanor Cinderella Story/College AU I wrote for you! You can read it on AO3 or down in the cut below! 

P.S. special thanks to @chidi-anagonye for editing! <3 

Summary: What happens when Chidi and Eleanor begin messaging each other online, with no idea of who the other really is? 

Words: 5555

I got my latte with almond milk this morning, pinged Chidi’s penpal. A special shoutout to you, bud.

A grin slipped onto Chidi’s lips. He was in the middle of class, his seminar about Middle Eastern civilization, but still he typed back,

I’m jealous. But! at least you’re able to enjoy it without any of my agony and guilt.

Did you just make a joke? She wrote back. Look at you! I’m impressed. Character development.

You taught me well.

“Chidi!” Tahani hissed, catching Chidi in the middle of his lovestruck look at his computer. “Chidi!” She cried again, tapping his desk with her manicured index finger.

“Huh? What?”

“Look, I know you are quite infatuated with this mystery girl, but can you please pay attention for one moment so we can meet with our group project partners?”

“Right! Sorry!” Chidi cleared his throat. As he whipped out his notes from his backpack, Tahani squinted at Chidi’s iMessage. Blushing furiously, Chidi clicked the ‘X’ at the corner of the window. The last thing Tahani needed to see were his ramblings from last night, after he told his mystery friend that he wished they were a couple he had seen at the coffeehouse, studying together, staring into each other’s eyes. He then panicked because he realized how desperate he sounded. To cover for his semi-flirty messages, he typed out a long explanation, spanning paragraphs, but it didn’t work. He was bad at lying, and the worst part was, he wasn’t even drunk. He was just that awkward.

“Ugh,” Tahani sighed, flopping down in the seat next to him dramatically. “Chidi, you obviously like this girl. It’s been three months. Are you ever going to tell her how you feel?”

“First of all,” Chidi shut his laptop. “You should not be reading my messages! Also, no. It wouldn’t be right to disclose my feelings if she doesn’t have all of the information she can possibly can have about me. And! I don’t know if she has a boyfriend, or girlfriend, or if she’s romantically interested in any gender at all! It would be ethically unsound for me to dump that burden on her. And since finals are approaching, and it might distract her, too!”

“I mean that’s technically true, but still-“

“Alright!”  interrupted Eleanor, the de facto leader of their project team, barreling in from the doorway. “Let’s get to work!”

Perfect timing, Chidi thought, letting out a sigh of relief.

“Did you just get to class?” he inquired, eyeing the coffee cup still in hand and scarf around her neck. It didn’t surprise him, Eleanor always came late, but still, it floored Chidi how she strolled in with unabashed confidence. Chidi shriveled away when he arrived even one minute late, how could Eleanor muster the guts to come forty five minutes after class began?

“Long line at Michael’s,” Eleanor explained, setting her cup down and pulling her messy notes onto the desk. As Chidi learned from their midterm presentation, Eleanor wasn’t the best student, but she was the best at organizing their projects of the four of them. Unlike Chidi, she didn’t waver on which details to include and unlike Tahani, she wasn’t concerned with how to woo the teacher for self-validation. And unlike Jason, she actually had… a brain, so she could contribute sometimes.

(To be honest, Chidi didn’t know how Jason got into college at all. Not that he minded having him there, he always offered free snacks at their group meetings, but he wasn’t... the sharpest tool in the shed)

“By the way, I saw Jason nuzzling with Janet by the windows,” Eleanor mentioned. “ So I guess they’re not coming either.”

“Wait, Jason and Janet together?” Tahani asked, flabbergasted. Tahani wasn’t the only one surprised. Jason was a great guy but Janet wasn’t exactly... his type. She was pretty, funny, president of the student body and the Scholars Club. On top of that, she knew everything. He wasn’t exaggerating. She literally knew everything. Sometimes his friend Simone joked she was secretly a robot.  “Since when have they been… dating?”

“I wouldn’t say they’ve been ‘dating’ if you know what I mean,” Eleanor snorted. She flipped through her stack of loose leaf paper and pulled out her project notes, clicking into her planning mode, “Alright, so we have five more days to put together our final presentation, and from what I remember from what we talked about on Tuesday, no one has any weekend finals, so I vote we get together Saturday and Sunday and just bang this shiz out, ya feel me?” Proud of her quick thinking, Eleanor laid back in her seat and propped her feet up on Jason’s vacant chair.

“Oh!” Tahani clucked. “I’m sorry Eleanor! But no can do!”

“I’m sorry?” Eleanor sat back up.

“What Tahani is trying to say is, the Scholars Club has a ball on Saturday of winter finals week,” Chidi filled her in, “And since Tahani and I are on the board, we’re busy planning until Saturday, and then on Sunday, we have to clean up and debrief, so it probably won’t be until Monday that we can work on the presentation.”

“Seriously?” Eleanor threw her head back and groaned.  “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“Well, we’ve been caught up with other finals, Scholars Club events, I’m part of the Plato society…”

“Oh my god, I get it, you ner-” Eleanor paused mid-sentence.

Chidi cocked his head at her. Was she about to say nerds? Huh. He felt like he had heard that phrase from somewhere, but he couldn’t place where…

“-naturally very busy overachievers,” Eleanor covered. She froze for a second before flapping her lips exasperatedly, folding up her notes and shoving them back into her backpack. “I guess we’ll just do it on Monday around my philosophy final, then.”

“I’m sorry, Eleanor,” Tahani patted her hand. “But I promise I’ll come by your dorm tonight to give you that face cream. It will make all your blemishes disappear!”

“Tahani, I never said-”

“Oh, I’m so excited to see your triple, Eleanor!” Tahani interrupted, clapping her hands together. “I bet it’s just so… quaint.”

She shot her one last grin before gathering all her books and striding away, her floral dress billowing behind her. Eleanor’s mouth dropped open at she watched Tahani exit, still wondering what just happened.

“Don’t worry,” Chidi told her. “She gave me face cream last week, too. You don’t need it.”

Eleanor’s eyes sparkled before she coughed and stood up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. For some reason, Chidi found himself liking the way her eyes glimmered under the fluorescent lights, how the ends of her mouth softened, how her cheeks tinted pink. She looked pretty.

Calm down, Chidi, he scolded himself as he shook his head. One crush at a time.

***

I ate a quesadilla for lunch today, Chidi texted mystery girl later that day, at the library with Uzo. And now I have a giant stomach ache.

I’m sorry, philosophy cutie, she instantly replied. I wish you didn’t feel so sick all the time :(

The campus health center is open until 7. She added. Maybe you can make an appointment? She sent him a link to the online appointment maker.

I have to study for my psych final tomorrow, Chidi messaged. But thank you for checking for me. That was really nice of you.

Guess you’re not the only one with character development.  :)

Chidi chuckled to himself. He began crafting a witty response, clicking on the urban dictionary link he bookmarked to match her constant use of casual slang. He felt Uzo peering over his shoulder and turned around.

“Shrimp freak again?” Uzo lifted an eyebrow.

Chidi nodded.

Uzo, his childhood best friend, his roommate, his pseudo-brother, was one of the only people who knew the full story. Of how Chidi wrote under a pen name for the university’s online philosophy zine. Of how one day, “StoneColdSteveAustinfreak” had commented on his post, mocking his rigidity and suggesting he “lighten up.” Chidi responded politely, requesting that she directly contact him for her difference in perspective, and two days later, he received a message from shrimpfreak1014 over his newspaper gmail chat. At the time, he was refining his midterm paper for deontology, checking every now and again for messages. Somehow, he remained embroiled in an argument with her until three A.M.

She irritated Chidi to to end. She was argumentative, and she made fun of his nerdy habits, and her sense of humor was cruder than he liked. But at the same time, Chidi didn’t want to stop talking to her. She was sharp and witty and unlike anyone he’d ever met. She was selfish, but she was trying to be better. She was rude, but she apologized when she went too far. She coined herself as a moral particularist, yet she sometimes cited Kant in her arguments, emphasizing when she did just to tease him.

And soon, as their chats grew more and more frequent, they became closer. She messaged him during her work breaks, and he talked to her while he worked on his homework late at night, bags sagging under his eyes as he alternated between his essay about Plato to their discussion of Tim Scanlon. They were friends, advisors, maybe even confidantes, their conversations ranging from philosophy to their favorite coffeehouse on campus to their lives outside of university. She told him how she emancipated from her parents at fourteen, how she worked three jobs to pay off her student loans, how she decided to become a better person after a near-death experience getting her stomach pumped. He confided that his grandmother passed away last year and he missed her, he missed the snacks she used to send and the stews she used to serve. Since then, he told her, he had been more anxious than usual, the simplest of decisions causing his palms to sweat and his leg to bounce .

Listen, dude, how about this? She wrote. Since you’ve been my dorky mentor and you’ve helped me a better person and all the junk, why don’t I help you make decisions? I’m good at that stuff, anyway.

You would do that? He asked.

Yeah, man, I owe it to you! She insisted. The next time you freak out over a big decision just come to me.

And so he came to her each time he freaked out, faced with a choice between white or black, right or left, frozen mocha or coffee.

Just get the frozen mocha, she would reply, as if choosing was so easy. You don’t even like the taste of fair trade coffee at the cafe, so why not get something you enjoy?

You’re right, said Chidi, shocked at her ability to choose without qualms. And so they went on, Chidi as her philosophy mentor and shrimpfreak as his decision maker, and Chidi found himself aching for her messages. During the day, his mind began drifting to her: how perfectly she complemented Chidi, how since they started talking, he softened her and she strengthened him. He wonder about her in ways he shouldn’t, about how her eyes were probably bright and fearless, about if her mouth would curl after a quip, about how her skin would feel against his, cuddling in Chidi’s bed-

No, no, no. It was wrong. How could he have a crush on her when-

“Chidi?” Uzo waved a hand in front of his face, snapping him back to reality. “Chidi? Dude, are you freaking out about your crush on shrimp freak again?”

“A little,” Chidi squeaked. “Okay, well a lot,” He admitted. “I can’t handle this anymore, Uzo! I mean I’ve kept this from her for way too long, and I’m the one who’s always maintained a moral code of honesty! And if I do tell her how I feel, it could potentially destroy our relationship and all the progress she’s made! And who am I to destroy progress, Uzo? I don’t have that kind of authority!”

“Listen, you’ve got to calm down, man,” Uzo advised, while Chidi gasped for air. “Look, it seems like this is eating you alive inside…”

“Pretty much everything does!”

“Right, but it seems like you like her a lot, so… why don’t you put yourself out there? ” He punched Chidi lightly on the shoulder. “Ask her to the Scholars Club ball.”

“The Scholars Club ball?”

“The Scholars Club ball.” Uzo nodded. “Just so you have a shot at meeting in person. I mean, it’s been four months and you don’t even know her real name. You can just go as friends, too. No pressure. But this way, you don’t have to worry about her not knowing who you really are, and if you want, you can come clean and tell her about your feelings.”

“Huh. That’s not a bad idea, actually.” Chidi pondered, tilting his head. If they went to the Scholar’s Ball together, they could have a lot of fun. Shrimpfreak could meet Uzo and Tahani and Simone, and they could talk and laugh all through the night. And maybe, just maybe, (just a thought!) they could slow-dance together, too. He even knew how to sell it to her. There were tons of caterers and free cocktail shrimp. He’s sure she would like that.

But there were drawbacks, too, and Chidi had to consider those, too. Maybe he could make a pros and cons list. Or maybe he would use that Magic 8 Ball in the student union to make a decision for him.

“I’ll think about it,” he told Uzo.

“You’re going to stay up all night agonizing about whether to ask her, aren’t you?” Uzo anticipated.

“Yeah, pretty much!”

“I know you too well, buddy,” Uzo laughed.

***

“Eleanor!” Tahani sang outside her door. “I have your face cream!”

“Oh, no,” Eleanor muttered. “Here we go.”

She closed her laptop and ripped down her Stone Cold Steve Austin poster. Eleanor wasn’t sure if Chidi told her about their messages, but wasn’t taking any chances. She scanned her room for any other defining items that might give her away. Luckily, she wasn’t much of a decorator, unlike Becky, who littered her desk with pictures of cats, Spiderman figurines, and frog drawings by her cousin, Jeremy. Yeah, sure, the frog sketches were cute, but the Spiderman figurines? Come on, Becky!

“Hello, Eleanor!” Tahani greeted as Eleanor opened the door, waltzing right into her room without permission.

“Sure, come on in, Tahani. I definitely invited you.” Eleanor grumbled and flopped onto her bed.

“Here’s a bag with some face cream, and some other Korean skincare products I’d thought you might like to try!” Tahani perched herself on the edge of Eleanor’s bed. As she examined the rest of Eleanor’s dorm room, her face scrunched. “Why, this space is awfully… cramped…”

“Because it’s a dorm room,” Eleanor drawled sarcastically. “It’s small? It’s something normal college students usually live in?”

“I mean it’s nothing compared to the spacious single I have in the Scholar’s Club house, and it’s not as quaint as I thought, but I have to admit, it’s quite cute. Aside from the Spiderman figurines on that desk, which are creeping me out…”

“Right? Thank you!” Eleanor threw her hands up in the air emphatically. “I keep telling Becky to turn them to the side so we don’t have to see them!”

“Though I suppose they would creep out the people walking and looking at the dorm windows,” Tahani giggled.

“Haha! You’re right!” Eleanor snickered. “There’s no winning, is there?”

“Not unless you accidentally throw them in the garbage can!” Tahani joked.

“That’s the best idea you’ve ever had, babe!” Eleanor rolled over from laughing so hard. Tahani, who was keeling over with her laughter along with her, suddenly stopped, focusing on the left corner of Eleanor’s room.

Eleanor’s eyes widened. Oh no. She had completely forgotten that she left her work backpack on her desk. It was free of badges and patches and tacky Becky-like decorations… besides the small shrimp keychain on the zipper.

Shit.

“Say Eleanor,” Tahani spun back towards Eleanor. “Shrimp doesn’t happen to be your favorite food, does it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tahani,” Eleanor challenged, shooting Tahani her sharpest eyes. Tahani’s normally light demeanor darkened to match Eleanor’s venomous stare.

“Anyway,” Eleanor swung her legs around her bed and stood up. The faster she could shove Tahani out of the room, the better. “I think it’s time for you to go, Tahani,” She pushed Tahani back towards the door with her feeble muscles. Jeez, she was surprisingly strong. “Buh-bye! See you Monday!”

“Hang on just a second,” Tahani resisted Eleanor’s shove.“You don’t happen to have a poster of Stone Cold Steve Austin, do you?”

“Again,” Eleanor choked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tahani. See you later, okay buh-bye!”

“Oh, really?” Tahani smugly leaned against the doorframe, pointing to the back of the room. “Then why is that Stone Cold Steve Austin poster on the ground?”

Eleanor flicked her eyes back to the back of the room. Her Stone Cold Steve Austin poster was lying face-up. Fuck. She tore the poster down but she forgot to turn it over or hide it under the bed. Damn it, Eleanor!

“Okay, fine, you caught me!” Eleanor caved. She sighed and walked back to her bed. “I’m shrimpfreak1014.”

“Well, since I am very well-connected,” bragged Tahani, shutting the door and joining her on the bed. “I happen to know the identity of the lucky man you’ve been talking with-”

“Please,” Eleanor rolled her eyes. “ I know it’s Chidi. I sit behind him in class and he’s not super discrete about messaging on his laptop.”

“Oh,” Tahani shook herself out of her initial shock before agreeing, “That is true. But if you know who he is, and you both are very close, why don’t you tell him who you are?”  

Because it’s Chidi, she wanted to say. He’s intelligent and patient and kind and he genuinely cares about people. He cares about me. But I don’t even know if he cares about me me. Eleanor me.

And I couldn’t stand losing him if he didn’t.

“Because I don’t even know if he likes me,” she said instead. She avoided Tahani’s gaze as her eyes welled with tears, tucking the strands of hair behind her ears. God, she probably looked like an idiot, getting all soft talking about how much she liked him. “We always bicker while working on projects, and he always gives me a funny look whenever I say something ignorant, and I just… I don’t want him to change his mind if he knows who I really am…”

“Eleanor,” comforted Tahani, rubbing her back in circles. “I’ve known Chidi for a long time, and he doesn’t dislike anyone. Including you. And also…” Tahani hesitated  “You never know how someone will react if you tell them how you feel, so it never hurts to try. Like the time I told Daniel Radcliffe that…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Eleanor cut her off. “I always get it. But…. Thanks, Tahani. I guess. Maybe. I’ll think about it.” She smiled up at her in between sniffles.

“No problem, friend,” Tahani gave her one last pat on the back before heading back to the door, this time, without Eleanor forcing her out. “Well, I better get going. I have to run a bunch of errands for the ball. But Eleanor,” Tahani lingered in the doorway, rocking back and forth on her feet. “If you ever want to get lunch or something…I’d be happy to put something in my calendar.”

“That would be great, Tahani,” accepted Eleanor, grinning. Sure, Tahani was a snob, and she name-dropped too much. She wore heels even though she didn’t need them, and she was too concerned with her popularity…but she also had a good heart. And she was kind of fun to be around. It was only fair that Eleanor gave her a chance.

“But only if we go to get burgers,” she added. “I’m not much of a fancy girl, and you could use some loosening up.”

“Well, I look forward to the grease.” Tahani bobbed her head, then double-checked, “Is grease something to look forward to?”

“You’ll see, babe,” Eleanor winked at her. “You’ll see.”

***

Chidi paced up and down the shiny, hardwood floor of the Scholars Club house kitchen. He had been at it for an hour and a half. Femi already came down to check if he was okay, and he had already scarfed down three bananas from the ornate ceramic fruit bowl Tahani had made for the kitchen. Okay, he was going to go over the possible outcomes one last time, then he was going to decide on what to do…

Hey, bud, his phone vibrated in his hand, disrupting his train of thought. Haven’t heard from you in awhile. Feeling alright?

Chidi trembled as he reread the message. He couldn’t keep up this charade any longer, otherwise he would just end up freezing her out. Yeah, that’s what normally ended up happening with his friends and ex-girlfriends he couldn’t break secrets to, but he didn’t want this to happen with her. He didn’t want to lose her; he wanted this, finally, to be the one that stuck.

You know what? His mind whipped into shape and settled, He was going to do it. If shrimpfreak had taught him anything, it was how to be more decisive. He yearned so badly to meet her, he yearned for nothing else, but he was letting the tossing and turning of his mind prevent him from going for what he desired.

Hey! He texted. Thanks for checking up on me. I was just thinking how to ask you something. So I’m part of the Scholars Club on campus and we’re having a ball on Saturday night. Do you want to go with me? Just as friends, of course. There’ll be free shrimp!

He held his breath while he waited for her response. Nothing.

He removed another banana from the fruit bowl. Maybe the overload of potassium could somehow carry him through the day.

***

It was only in his final class of the day, creating a study guide for philosophy of neuroscience alongside Simone, when he heard back from shrimpfreak1014:

Sorry man, I have work from 9-5 tomorrow and then I have to finish my group project. :(  

Oh, Chidi responded, swallowing his disappointment. I understand. Good luck with finals! If you end up having time, feel free to come by.  

Yeah, honestly, dude, I’m not really sure if I will. I don’t know if I’m ready to meet yet.

Chidi blinked, pushing down the sickening feeling slithering up his throat.

That’s okay, He reassured, although he was stewing in his own regret. We can just meet when we’re ready. There’s no rush, right?

No response.

Chidi heaved as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“You okay, Chidi?” Simone asked, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Yeah,” He somehow managed to lie through his heaving. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

This was why he couldn’t make decisions.

***

On the day of the ball, Chidi rose with dread.

He was surprised he could get up at all- his muscles fatigued from restless turning, his eyes strained from rereading old messages all night. Uzo calmed him down for a little bit in the morning, promising that shrimp freak just needed some time to process the idea of meeting him in person. Chidi told him he was probably right, but still, he checked his phone a couple more times to see if she had messaged back.

The rest of the day kept him distracted enough; he and the rest of the board met in the living room to begin ball preparations: wrapping carnations around the banisters, confirming arrival times of the caterers, transporting surprise gift bags to the gazebo. He felt normal, for the most part- until he overheard Simone and Vicky talking about their dates.

Chidi’s stomach boiled with agony. He didn’t know why he cared so much- he had been fine with not having a date, with not meeting his secret friend in the near future. Now he couldn’t get it out of his head, and he hated himself for it. Why did he have to go and ruin everything?

As the sun lowered over the Scholars Club house hill, the guests rolled into the living room. Chidi feigned a smile as he tore them in half, trying not to let his misery get the best of them. They had planned this ball for months and at least it was going well: the decorations colorful yet classy, the guests adorned in flowing gowns and fitted suits.

After he finished up registration, Chidi floated throughout the house to different groups, greeting them and asking if they were having a good time. It wasn’t a distraction, he tried to convince himself. It was part of his job as a board member. He wasn’t trying to keep his mind off shrimpfreak at all. He wasn’t even thinking about her.

“Chidi!” beckoned Simone from the kitchen.

Chidi let out a sad smile and moved towards Tahani, Uzo, and Simone. As he approached them, Tahani handed him a plate of shrimp. Chidi thanked her gratefully and popped it in his mouth, humming delightfully at its taste.

“Mmmm.” He turned to Tahani. “You did a great job with all of this. The shrimp is so much better than last year, and people seem to be having a great time.”

“It’s much better than the one Kamilah threw two years ago, isn’t it?”

“Oh, much better,” Chidi reassured, and he meant it. Kamilah’s taste was a little too loud and garish for him, but Tahani struck the tasteful balance between sophisticated and fun.

“Be honest,” Uzo slugged an arm around his shoulder. “How are you holding up, man?”

“Could be better,” He shrugged. “But, I’m not doing horrible. I think… I’m going to go outside for a little bit. Get some fresh air.”

“Oh,” Uzo dropped his arm from his shoulders. “Do you need anything else?”

“I’m okay.”

“Would you like some more shrimp, Chidi?” Tahani extended out another plate.

“I’m good,” Chidi tried to think of an excuse so he didn’t sound lame “I’ll come back in later… maybe… to get some more.”

Skeptically, Simone crossed her arms. “You’re going to go outside and read until you calm down for a bit, aren’t you?”

“I-I-I-I-I, um-” Chidi stuttered, but their gleeful chortles freed him explanation.

“Go ahead, mate,” Simone shooed him off. “Just come back after the dance ends to clean up. We’re going out to iHop after.”

Chidi confirmed their plans one last time before he left for the gazebo. On the way out, he grabbed his copy of Symposium, the one he had purposely left on the living room table in case he wanted to escape. Deftly, he balanced the book with his plate of shrimp as he pushed open the door. He paused on the steps to appreciate how beautiful the night was, the thickness of the black winter sky, the shimmering stars that lay overhead. The gazebo stood brightly against the dark with its fresh white paint, quickly drawing Chidi in with its solitaire.

Ever since he was a freshman, Chidi sought solace in the gazebo. He frequently snuck away when he needed to be by himself, especially after his grandmother passed away. It boasted a sprawling view of the campus and open panels that breathed in fresh air. Yes, the paint was chipping, and the roof crumbled when it rained, but Chidi loved it nonetheless. Last spring, Tahani held a fundraiser for its restoration, and by fall, it had returned to its former glory. The days of Chidi’s secret, safe place slipped away as he found kids, not even from the Scholar’s Club, using it as a gathering spot to down shots. He was surprised no one was out here right now. He hoped it stayed that way.

Chidi closed his eyes, listening to the plucking of the guitar seep out of the house. He was in his favorite place. The music inside was slowing, the shadows were swaying loosely, and he felt, just for once, that he could handle things.

He opened his book and begin to read.

“Hey nerd,” A brash voice echoed from the doorway mid-paragraph. He snapped his head up to see a familiar frame leaning against the entrance. Wait… was that? No… it couldn’t be…

“Are you reading Plato during the ball?” teased Eleanor. She sauntered over and joined him on the bench.

Chidi opened his mouth to ask her more questions, but instead, he broke into a grin. It was Eleanor. Of course it was Eleanor. No one else was as funny and hard-working and brave as she was. He should have known. He had crushes on both shrimpfreak and Eleanor for the same reasons; how could he not have figured it out before?

“Just needed to get away for a little bit.” He shut back his book and slid it to the side. Eleanor was dressed more casually than normal. Her hair was messy, she sported oversized, food-stained sweats, and still, Chidi couldn’t take his eyes off of her. “Did you kn-”

“Yeah, yeah, I knew,” Eleanor scoffed. “You leave your messages open way too much, Chidi.”

“Right,” Chidi couldn’t help but laugh. She was right. Tahani was always telling him that, too.

Eleanor bit her lip and gave him a shy smile.

He scooted closer to her.

“Um, I created a rough outline of the project!” She cried. She began fiddling with her fingers. “It’s almost done, we just have to add more details in the slides.”

“You worked on the project?” Chidi felt himself warm towards her. He knew how much she hated schoolwork. “Without us there?”

“Yeah,” Eleanor shifted in her seat. “I mean, you and Tahani and Jason are all my friends. I just figured it would make things easier for all of us, since I had the time.”

“That was really nice of you, Eleanor,” His voice fell quietly at the end of his sentence. Eleanor glanced down at her shoes, failing to hide her blush. Chidi wanted to hold her so badly, but he kept talking,

“So, you emancipated from your parents when you were fourteen?”

“Yup. That’s why I work three jobs. I’m surprised you never noticed. I’ve been on shift when you ordered your frozen mochas at the coffeehouse.”

“And you like shrimp?”

“More than I love life itself. And I’m ready to wolf down this unlimited free shrimp! If I’m still allowed to, that is.”

Chidi ducked his head down and chuckled to himself. He couldn’t wait to talk with her the rest of the night.  

“I can’t believe you came,” he said happily. “I’m really happy you did.”

“You are?” Eleanor’s eyes shone.

“Of course I am,” He lifted her hand and stroked her palm with his thumb. Eleanor wove her fingers in his and squeezed his hands, leaning her forehead against his.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. He could feel her shaking against him. “I said no because I freaked out, not because I didn’t want to see you.”

“I understand,” Chidi empathized. “I freak out all the time.”

“That couldn’t be more true,” Eleanor agreed endearingly.

They moved in closer to each other.

“Eleanor?” Chidi licked his lips nervously. He didn’t know why he was about to ask what he was about to ask, but he really wanted to. “Can I- can I kiss you?”

Eleanor beamed up at him.

“Go ahead, bud.”

Chidi sprang his lips onto Eleanor’s, moving his mouth passionately against hers. Eleanor drew back at first, startled, but then she sank into the kiss, her mouth curving against Chidi’s in a smile. Chidi removed his hand from hers and wrapped them around her back, sliding one down to her waist and the other up her back. As Eleanor laid her hands on his stomach and let them travel up to his shoulders, Chidi reveled in having her fingers against his chest. This, he realized, thoughts unlocking as they kissed and kissed, is what he always dreamed of. It was always Eleanor he heard when reading her messages. It was always Eleanor he imagined kissing. It was always Eleanor he longed to be near, and now he finally was: her tiny little body pressed against his, her mouth moving with trademark feistiness he admired and loved.

They kissed until their lips grew weary, reluctantly pulling apart as they clung to each other still. Eleanor gazed up at him, her eyes full, and it struck Chidi that he’d never seen her so happy. Guess they both made each other that way.

Chidi kissed her forehead as she snuggled herself his chest. He felt ready to make million decisions right then, with Eleanor in his arms in his favorite place, the brisk air gusting all around them.  

“Hey, shrimpfreak.” He bumbled as the music spilled back into the gazebo, “Do you- do you maybe want to dance? Um, with me?”

Eleanor laughed, tugging Chidi up onto his feet.

“Come on, Kantafficado.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Show me how it’s done.”

[littlestarlost]

I’m gonna preface this by saying that I know that fanfic production doesn’t have deadlines (with the exception of zines), and that I know no one is expecting anything of me. But I had a nervous breakdown on Sunday night; while I’m fine now, in no danger to myself, I’ve also been doing this thing lately where I try to be conscious of my limits and try to stop before I go past them. And today my imagination just...ran out of battery. Click. Off.

It’s not forever. I know it’s not. In this moment it feels like I need to resist it, to bear down harder, to push through or else I’ll lose it all completely. But I am writing this post to mark it, to note it, to say that I chose in this moment to accept that my brain can’t function this way right now, and that even though I’m back at work and no longer in crisis mode, I still need time for those anxiety-flooded neurons to rebound. And that really truly is okay.

[irkimatsu]

Hrm... I’ve been overthinking about my relationship with writing and audience for over a week now, shortly after I posted “My Best Friend”, and something from a few days ago drove the spike in further. It’s not... depression, exactly, but... it’s kinda weird to deal with. But I’ve also been struggling on how to express it without looking like I’m blaming other people or begging for attention...

Rambling under the cut.

I spent weeks on “My Best Friend”, constantly editing it until the last minute to make it perfect. I still had issues with it when I posted it, but I always still have issues with things when I post them, and part of creating is learning when to let it go. I was so excited to finally be able to post it, after waiting three weeks between submitting it and being able to publish it - that excitement is actually part of what stopped me from leaving Tumblr entirely back when I was panicking over privacy issues. I poured so much blood into that fic and just couldn’t let it go to waste, and besides, posting writing that I worked so hard on reminded me of why I’m involved in social media in the first place. I have to write, I have to share my ideas. I’ll suffer creative backlog until I explode and die otherwise.

I finally posted the fic, and it didn’t do so well, especially compared to other clean fics I’ve written before, and those fics weren’t super popular either. I did get some nice comments in reblogs and Tweets, and I appreciate them deeply! ...but it stopped getting kudos after the first day. No one commented on AO3. Even though I posted it in the public tags, it didn’t get much-if-any attention from anyone who didn’t already follow me. From a reception standpoint, it flopped hard.

I spent a week overthinking it, wondering where it went wrong. Was it too long? Were people uncomfortable with me making it accessible to shippers, or submitting it to a shipping Zine? (I didn’t write it with a romantic ship in mind, but given that it was meant for that shipping Zine, I didn’t feel right slapping “NOT MEANT AS SHIP” all over it - that would have felt like pissing all over the community that allowed me to submit to their Zine even though I only see the pair in a platonic light.) Was it just not that good? What had I lost since the days of “I Promise” and “Don’t Worry”?

A few days later, I got a request on my NSFW blog. I took a few days to think about how I wanted to approach it, then wrote a 2000 word response in a single three-hour sitting. I’m proud of it for what it was, but it wasn’t a high effort piece like “My Best Friend” was. I posted that one in the public tags as well, because I do want more exposure for that blog - it used to be a lot more active, even without me tagging, and I want to breathe new life into it now that summer break is on the horizon. I expected it to mostly flop, though, since it was a pretty rough scenario that I figured people would be more squicked by than interested in; and besides, “My Best Friend” had just flopped, so maybe people in the public tags just don’t read fanfiction.

It was a lot more successful, though. Not sudden TUMBLR FAME or anything, but it got more notes than “My Best Friend” even without my friends and I reblogging it multiple times, even though I figured it’d get buried by people only browsing those tags in Safe Mode. It got a lot of likes and even a few reblogs from unfamiliar names, and even brought in a few new followers who went through and liked my other smut pieces as well.

And that just scraped the wound open further... what, exactly, did I do to make a passion project fail, but something I threw together so quickly do comparatively better? Am I really that much better at writing smut than at writing clean, even with the gap in effort between the two pieces? Or the worse conclusion that my brain came to... am I not that great at actual writing in the first place, and people are just more forgiving when it comes to smut? Who cares about writing quality when you’ve found the only person in the fandom who likes to write at length about nasty and obscure kinks, right? Where else are you gonna get it, so you’ve gotta take whatever you can find, right? I still get daily kudos on smut fics that were similarly written in one sitting, some of them pushing two years old. Have I really not improved in two years? Have I somehow gotten worse?

I want both sides of my writing to be successful, but... I don’t want to become bitter toward my smut side, if I end up feeling like I have to be perverted for my writing to be worth anything, because I don’t have any other merit...

...it’s just confusing. And I don’t know what I want. I sure don’t want people to lie about my writing quality - if “My Best Friend” really wasn’t that great to a lot of people, then it wasn’t, that’s fine, I can deal with that. I don’t want to pressure people, I don’t want false praise, I don’t want undue attention.

So what is this wrong feeling when it comes to my writing and its reception, and how do I fix it...?

[acehotel]

INTERVIEW: Martine Syms

Martine Syms, an artist, publisher and writer from Los Angeles, spent a few nights at Ace Hotel New York for Ace AIR . While she was here, she produced a compilation film of canonical vines. 

It would be fair to assume that Martine Syms wears a lot of hats — she co-founded and ran the project space Golden Age in Chicago, founded Dominica Press in Los Angeles, and has extensively exhibited and published work in video, photography, writing, editing, design and performance. As a multi-disciplinary artist, Syms conceives and creates language as form, color as signifier, essay as performance — her mind is radically observant and her spirit mischievous and wise. And so funny. 

Hi Martine, are you in New York right now?

I am, I’ll be going to upstate New York soon which will be my last summer there. It’s a weird place. I like the forced pause. It’s such a different time, the relationship with time there is like desert time — you know when you’re in the desert and you’re gone for two days and it feels like you’ve been there for a week? A single day is endless.

Yes! Desert time is its own time. So the summer program [at Bard College] must feel like an entire academic year. Tell me about your current solo MoMA exhibition.

I would want to call the show after the film, Incense Sweater & Ice, which is a record through the area of Los Angeles that I grew up in. I was thinking about the idea of the production of identity, about image production, and that relationship to mass production. I was manufacturing in Altadena so I was looking at what other goods have been manufactured there.

I watched the trailer for Incense Sweater & Ice and it made me laugh out loud at the same time that it made me think and feel deeply. Your use of humor has an uncanny ability to slip critical thinking in as a kind of participation — like a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down — do you approach humor as a method to inject truth?

Definitely. What I like about humor is its ability to contain opposites — the tragic and the joyous. It can have such tonal shifts because contrast is so much a part of what makes something funny: something not fitting, being out of place, being the wrong size — any kind of contrast is a big driver. But, usually, you have both at the same time and that’s what I like about it. It’s a much more complicated feeling than just pure sadness or pure happiness.

Myself, I’m a deeply ambivalent person. I’m always trying to ask in my work, “what does ambivalence look like formally?” No one likes to cop to being ambivalent, even though, obviously, people are. I don’t want to be wishy washy; I think ambivalence can obscure power and can obscure your place, but I think you can be very specific about that ambivalence. What does it look like, what does it sound like? If you were to aestheticize it, what is that? Humor, for me, is one way of doing that because it can be more complicated. You can love something that you also hate or are repulsed by. The voice of Queen White [in the trailer] is taken from a few different people but it’s a voice always inside my great aunt, my aunts, my grandma, always telling me how I should behave or be.

Obviously, I have a lot of feelings about it but many times I was irritated by it. But I also find that there’s another story there that I can understand now, especially as I’ve gotten older, but there’s also a side of them that I think is really funny. I enjoy playing with that voice because I knew it so well. You do an impression of someone in your family, like a parent, and you really know that voice. And when they do an impression of me, they really know me too.

It just lands so seamlessly. And what you were saying about your ambivalence, you’re often somewhere in the middle of abstraction and representation. When I’m engaging with your work, there is a sense that you are playing, opening up a space for mischief and your own secret desire, how you’re playing in between how you’re representing and what you’re representing. And always on its own terms.

The work that I make is just a form of thinking. Thinking through ideas, thinking through objects and images, but it’s all being processed in my brain. A lot of it is the language — the verbal and visual language that’s created in my shows — is having jokes with myself. Some things just make me laugh a lot but I don’t know if anyone else is going to appreciate these little jokes that I put in there. But the one person that does is really going to appreciate it and believe it.

I love what you just said, that your work is a form of thinking. You’re an artist, you make video work, you’re a writer, you’re a designer, a publisher, an editor, you used to run an art space/bookstore. Working in so many mediums all at once makes sense if you’re operating from a place where “work is a form of thinking” — we never think singularly, in one dimension, we think in words, forms, colors, emotion, history. While this interdisciplinary work can be seen as a practice, it seems closer to autobiography, in a sense. Do you feel like that there are intersections? How do all the things you do pull and play across mediums or inform each other? The way things look and read and the objectness of things versus the implication of meaning or sentimentality — your work encompasses it so well on all levels.

I like to do things that I haven’t done before and for a while that led me toward trying different approaches. I grew up in a very autonomous, independent culture starting with music and then art classes. When I was 17, I worked at three places. One was at Ooga Booga, a bookstore and art gallery; second was at Echo Park Film Center, which is a microcinema film co-op and classes (and I did everything, I programmed screenings, I taught classes, I took classes, and I was part of the administration and later became a board member). Ooga Booga same thing: I worked at the shop, but I also bought things for the shop and organized shows there. And then the last place was The Smell, an all ages music venue in downtown LA. I worked the door, booked shows and played in a band that played shows there. And that way of operating, being involved in so many different things and knowing so many people who had labels and published just made it the natural way to be. I got into graphic design through music, making flyers, making zines. This kind of all encompassing way of working was really natural and immediate to me.

It was only when I left Los Angeles that I understood that I was part of a really unique upbringing. I found these places when I was really young and it was happenstance in a way, it was a particular time and place. It’s what prompted me to open Golden Age because, when I moved to Chicago, I couldn’t get in anywhere because there wasn’t an all-ages scene! All the shows were 18+ — I mean, I had a fake ID, but I never used it in LA. In Chicago, suddenly, I couldn't get in any shows. Oh wait! I thought everywhere was like how I’d grown up! That’s what made me immediately want to open a space like the ones I grew up in. I created that multidisciplinary life for myself because I was around so many people that were already doing that. So that’s just how I learned to do things and it’s very natural to me. It doesn’t feel like I’m switching modes. 

But as I’ve gotten older, a friend of mine told me about the artist Lawrence Halprin who had these artist rsvp cycles. I did a talk at the Walker a couple years ago about my work being cyclical, moving between these different spaces, disciplines, and modes of activity and that they could go in any order. Something could start as a performance and end as a film, or begin as an essay and end as an exhibition. A friend of mine, after a performance I did in Miami which I thought went really badly, told me about the rsvp cycles where “r” is resources, “s” is score, “v” is valuation, “p” is performance...basically you can move in any direction between these things and it’s more like scoring. More recently, I’ve been thinking about the way I make films as scored rather than scripted. There’s a situation I want to make happen and I’m interested in what happens in that and it’s how I’m thinking about exhibitions too.

I was a huge fan of Golden Age when I found out about it because I was really invested in a space making a public out of a publication. Was it an organic move from opening that space to making your own publications?

Yes. When Golden Age ended I was ready to be done with that project. It was a lot of work but, as you know, it takes a lot out of you. I also wanted more time to focus on my own work — I was also working other jobs, so I wasn’t making a lot of my own work. I wondered what I liked most about Golden Age, what I would miss. I had started our publishing program there and a big part of my role was doing books with artists and artist commissions, so I felt like “I’m good at getting things done.” For a while, that was why people thought of me as kind of an administrator because I’m good at production. But I realized that that’s the only part I really want to keep. I don’t care about having a store. I really liked helping people realize their own projects so I decided to keep the publishing and get rid of everything else — I started that right away.

I moved back to Los Angeles after closing Golden Age and I just started publishing. The first books were with Lauren Anderson, Diamond Stingily, David Hartt (which had been a book I had been working on with Golden Age), and then it went from there. And it’s really casual, which is something I wanted. With Golden Age, I was really concerned with being “professional,” I think it had to do with how young I was, it was really important for me to be taken seriously. I wanted everything to be so by-the-book and top notch. And that was insanely exhausting for a young person, I was 19 when I started Golden Age and was only 24 when it ended. I was kinda like, “I just want this to be fun. No deadlines.” 

I was designing everything, editing it with the artists — in some cases printing it. It was more fun when there was no schedule we were adhering to. I approached people whose work I was interested in...I didn’t even know those people, like Hannah Black. I didn’t know her. I just loved her voice and I wanted to hear more from her. I was working full time as a designer until just recently, so I had disposable income and I wanted to support people. This is from growing up in an independent culture — you have to support your peers for them to do the work they want to do. That’s always been another key factor for me. I just started publishing people’s work; it’s slowed down a little bit when I quit my job, but it’s still happening.

I love it. The reverence for others’ work and your “no deadline” attitude comes off on the website as well, I love the language there. And looking through your catalog online, you’re doing books, zines, newsprint editions, and it seems like the material and form is beholden to the content, which I really appreciate.

I think everyone has that fantasy when they start publishing, that everything is going to look the same. That was also my plan. I get why you do it for economic reasons, but at the end of the day, it’s always about the collaboration. So when someone starts talking to me about their book idea, I know that I start thinking material, how we can make it feel like an entire idea. We’ll see, I might have to start streamlining.

Hannah Black’s Dark Pool Party is a stunning book, so tactile and well designed. How did you come up with the choices made in that book, and how did it even become a book — it started as a performance, right?

Her text is. I knew her work from Rhizome and I was into it, I followed her on twitter and I thought shee was just so brilliant. I read her essays on New Inquiry and reached out to her to do a bigger book because she had just tweeted about wanting to do a book. That’s how we started working together. I told her what I tell everybody, “Just give it to me!” Hah, “just give me what you’re thinking about and we can take it from there.” I worked with designer Erica Beck, we had worked together before and Erica is very precise and responsive, so we were looking at the text and wanted the text and the ideas of body and intimacy. I always think about the book as an intimate space. I worked with an editor who I worked with a couple times and I was working with Hannah to choose the selection and flow. It was very organic and easy. I like things to feel that way.

Can you talk about how text is involved in your own work? It’s a huge part of your visual work and it makes language material. It almost seems like your language becomes conscious of itself when it’s presented as artwork, it makes language into object and vice versa.

I’m really interested in the relationship between image and language. Images can be read, and language is formal and is an image. They have forms and color, and you can manipulate them in the same way that you could other material. A lot of times, with sculptural objects, I’m thinking of producing a phrase. People often ask me why I use the color purple and a lot of that is just to produce the effect of people saying the color purple.

Oh my god.

There’s more to it than that, but that was my initial intention as far as what I wanted the viewer to do. I like the text that incorporates into the work, especially the super graphics I’ve been working with over the last year or two, how it becomes part of the space, how it becomes architectural. Involving the viewer’s body, there’s a kind of phenomenological experience of reading it in your head, reading it out loud. How this letter is the same size as you or smaller than you, the relationship to the body, those are all a part of what I want in an exhibition.

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 22: ALA 2019

I have just returned from ALA. I am very exhausted and a little dazed and just want to turn off my brain. A few hopefully short notes first.

It was a LOT. Even though I literally just walked in my door ten minutes ago I already feel kind of like it didn’t happen, in a weird way. I was talking to J (who gave me a ride to/from the bus drop off point) and she said she felt the same way, like if someone told her ‘actually it didn’t happen, you did something else on Saturday’ she would believe it. A bit like a fairy tale where the only way the protagonist knows that a fantastical adventure was real is by some memento he has with him upon waking. Except my memento is a half dozen books, several pins, bookmarks, pens, calendars, and posters.

I would describe the ALA Exhibition center as basically a very big bookstore and/or school book fair, except that instead of the books just sitting there for you to look at and potentially buy, they’re being aggressively pushed into your hands for free. They’re also interspersed with various other things, including library furniture, tech, zines, jewelry, research innovations, and on and on. There are tons of people, including tons of people hawking books or author signings, and of course, authors. Everyone wants your attention so there’s lots of, again, free stuff, as well as stuff to do, like spin wheels for prizes or make scarves twirl around in a wind tunnel. There was also a full-sized robot that talked and a robot scanner (I want one) and I think a place for children to build robots. We had to explain many, many times that we worked in a law library and thus had no need for children’s books (I’m not sure if there was actually a high proportion of children’s book publishers, if there seemed to be a lot because they were especially shiny/colorful/aggressive, or if there seemed to be a lot because we started on the left side of the center and moved right, going faster and less energetically as we progressed, and they happened to be concentrated in the section we were most thorough in exploring--but for whatever reason there seemed to be many of them). Even the law-relevant stuff wasn’t really relevant as we had no authority to buy things. Though J and I did advocate for some colorful new Demco carts. (Our supervisor: we have lots of carts! J and I, who use them most: they’re the wrong shape and they squeak and they’re old.)

The law library people mostly stayed as a group, but not entirely. Like we weren’t all at the same booths at the same time, but we tried not to go more than one aisle ahead of each other or get left more than one aisle behind. At least until the end, when L and S were ready to finish and J and I decided to check out the zines (which were awesome--I’m glad we went, especially because those tables were staffed by people more our age.). I also picked up a necklace from a booth we’d seen coming in, because I love necklaces, and I still wanted it at the end of the day so it seemed a fair purchase. It’s a silver cassette player charm.

The challenge of the day, in addition to not being overwhelmed by ALL THE STUFF AND ALL THE PEOPLE AND ALL THE MOVEMENT ALL THE TIME was finding things you did want and grabbing them while avoiding being given too many free things you did not want. I admit I was not anticipating the second problem. I knew there was free stuff but I didn’t realize I’d have to be savvy about not getting stuck with too much. I’d say I was partially successful on both fronts. I didn’t get the ALA bag I wanted because the opportunity to snag it came too early, before I’d quite learned the rules--specifically, that you really should grab just about anything you see lying around because unlike the real world, it is MUCH more likely to be free than for sale--and the Baker and Taylor bags with the cats were already gone by the time I got to their booth. On the other side of things, I ended up with a couple books I could probably do without. They’re signed specifically to me, so I’ll probably have to keep them for eternity lol. Of the total haul, I’d say two look legit interesting, another looks potentially promising but I’m uncertain, one looks kind of bad, and the last (which was the first one I got signed, before I realized that free signed books were going to be thrown at me a lot) is a complete mystery. It’s a non-fiction self-help-y book, which isn’t generally my jam but IDK the author was cute and a millenial and like maybe it’ll be surprisingly good? Of the four of us I would say I showed the most restraint, which I’m proud of.

I also ended up with two calendars, one from NASA which is badass, and one for children’s books that was thrust upon me; a couple pens (I love free pens! haven’t bought a pen in like 4 years!); an eraser that is too cute to use; fewer pins than I thought (not that I use pins for anything... my favorite is 60s themed and says ‘bitchin books’ on it); a feminism poster for B; a NASA poster for myself; a NASA bag that I like and another bag I do not much like; several random bookmarks; a little inktober book about a witch and a pumpkin monster; and of course my necklace.

Is it weird I just listed off my bounty all in a row? NO because this is THE MAIN POINT of the ALA Exhibition Hall I am 100% convinced.

The trips to and from DC were semi-brutal, going there more than coming back because I had to get up so fucking early (5:30!! and the bus was late so we didn’t even leave until 7:15) and every time I semi-fell asleep, I’d wake up with a jolt and a hit of motion-sickness type nausea, which was sooo fun, whereas I actually slept through big chunks of the return. I was on my feet and walking most of the day but it wasn’t that hard. And since I didn’t collect an absolutely excessive number of books, I wasn‘t carrying as much as other people and didn’t find that aspect hard. (We all four brought backpacks, which was a good idea I’d almost discounted because I wasn’t sure if it was, like, real advice?? IT WAS THOUGH NEVER GO TO ALA WITH A SHOULDER BAG.) I did get sort of overwhelmed, as I said. Though even that, it was like... I was fine if I was concentrating on something. I just couldn’t deal with being in the middle of things, uncertain where to go.

We had lunch at a restaurant associated with the hotel attached to the conference center, which was not really my favorite idea, but I think people with heavier bags were unkeen to leave the building, and one person was against going to the Aramark restaurant-area right outside the convention hall, which basically left this sit-down restaurant with slightly inflated prices and minimal options and kind of a long wait time. I inhaled my food so fast that I feel sick thinking about it, and didn’t think it was that good. If I’d been by myself I probably would have grabbed fast food from the window next to the convention hall, but whether this would have been a better or worse thing to do, I’m not sure.

That was a while ago and I haven’t eaten since. I’m not really hungry now but I am starting to lose whatever energy I had when I came in the door and I am also cold... which means I might be hungry and/or under-caffeinated and/or about to enter post-excitement Letdown Mode, or all three. All food seems disgusting to me right now, though, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that.

From now until I go to work on Monday I am Officially Relaxing.

[artisticflutter]

Here’s another weekly update!

Hello~!

Sorry, I’m here again! I was gone this weekend again at FanimeCon, but now it’s over and I had like Post-Con Crash all day yesterday. Still, I have work to do this week so here’s what’s going on!

First of all, I have errands to run, but I also have a commission post to make. It’ll be more formal and on tumblr this time so we don’t have any problems. It’ll be coming up after this post actually.

Next, I’ll be finishing my Chat Noir Zine piece today hopefully! There’s just a little left to do and I’ll give like a smaaalll sneak peek. If you wanna see the full piece, think about getting a copy here! @meowraculouschatnoirzine! Or... wait until we’re allowed to post the final pieces online, but nothing wrong with a physical copy right??

Last, I will be finishing Cocoon. I was working at it while at con and there’s a little left before it’s done and can be beta read. I expect it to be done on time, but again, if it comes up Thursday, it was because my brain was in Con Mode this week.

Anyway, that’s the update for now. Commission post in a bit!