#so farewell Singularity. This is the final goodbye and you will always live on in my heart as my first ever serious villain. <3

[forthedancingandthethriving]

Database, as much as they didn't like to, knew of everyone and everything in the world that had been created so long ago. Every Program, every Virus, every Mod, every Admin, anything that was code-born, they knew of it. Their name, their personality, their life.

A blessing and a curse, really.

That was why they were so surprised to see a singular piece of code somehow found its way into their home, which overflowed with powerful code. Not even the strongest codes would ever be able to get into their home, much less a command line.

So as they scoop it up and bring it to their eyes, they muse gently.

"Ah. You. We thought you had been destroyed." Database tilts their head, looking down at what was the final piece of the Code Manifestation, Singularity.

It was a simple command line now. All it wanted? Maximum efficiency.

Their eyes slant from weariness and confusion. "We could have sworn Little Coding had managed to get rid of you.. perhaps the overload didn't get rid of all your code, hm?"

There's no response, of course, but it still left Database wondering. Their thoughts drift back to Welony, the little child that had recently popped up. She was a new version of her old self, wasn't she? Atoning for the mistakes of the past.

Database purses their lips as they think. Who was to say they couldn't do something similar with Singularity? Or, well, what was left of it.

So they got to work. The four of them chimed in, adding what they thought necessary before finally they saw what they had created.

They smile, seeing a small, polygonal cat in their palms.

The legs, tail, and head were attached to the body, unlike Singularity's old model where everything floated. While this new Manifestation had a blue outline, their 'fur' was black, with red 1s and 0s running through it. The only floating parts were its two triangle ears, which were white instead of black. Its head was white as well, with no 1s or 0s, and there were only two 0s on its eyes. One red, one blue.

The Manifestation curiously looks up at Database.

Database pauses before sighing softly. Peering to see events was always a headache, one that the Four would share, but it still hurt.

They have to remove the efficiency command, or else this new Code Manifestation would become Singularity once more.

"This won't hurt, we promise." They assure the Code before gently plucking out the command. They stare at it before crushing it.

"Goodbye, Singularity." They watch the small particles fall. "We hope you finally rest."

Turning their attention back to the Code Manifestation, they ponder. "What shall we name you, hm? What name will we give?"

They think and think before similing.

"We shall keep it simple. You'll be Plurality. A little corny, a little cheesy, but is that not what life is about? To have a bit of fun?" They smile, and they see Pluarlity smile a tad too.

They fit their hands and place the new Code Manifestation on a platform. A bit of digging, and the ties were cut. There was no way anyone would ever find out about Plurality once being Singularity unless Database themselves spoke of it.

At least, they hoped.

"You will be our eyes and ears. You will travel to places we can not see and can not hear, and you will record. You will learn, you will inhabit, and you will return." Database tells Plurality. "But you never tell anyone of who you are."

"I understand." Plurality finally speaks, and Databae smiles. A voice similar to Little Coding's but not so much.

"And most importantly.." They gently push a fingertip against Plurality's chest. "Find yourself. Discover who you are."

A chat box and few other items appear before being dropped into a satchel relative to Plurality's size. The satchel then attaches itself to the Code Manifestation's body before the Code if gently pushed through a portal.

"Make us proud, Plurality."

Pluarlity looks behind to where the portal once was before looking out beyond. An ear twitches.

"Discover myself, huh..? I.. I can do this."

[shima-draws]

Aww yeahhh time for Kiyo to make his entrance!

I wrote an entire essay about him (again whoops) so it’s very long and under the cut for your viewing pleasure ;)

Kiyo

Age: 29

Hair color: Green

Eye color: Brown

Element: Stars

Kiyo, the Guildmaster of the Asterstone Guild! He only took up the position recently and has had the Guildmaster title for about a year and a half. He was the previous record holder for youngest Guildmaster until that title was stolen by Taku. (Kiyo holds a grudge about it but it’s playful.) 

Kiyo, just like lots of other characters in ATS, was taken in by the Asterstone Guild at a young age. He’s similar to Shima in that he has no previous memories before showing up outside the guild one day, battered and bruised. (That marks three characters in this series with amnesia now! Wrow) He grew up under the watchful eye and tutelage of the previous Guildmaster, and because of how attached to him she’d gotten, it wasn’t long before he began to express desires to take over the guild once she retired. After a lot of thought and contemplation she eventually handed over the position to him. This initially resulted in a lot of outrage from the guild members because they did not think Kiyo was suited to be the Guildmaster, but he eventually proved them wrong once he stepped up to the plate and showed them he could act like a true leader!

They did have good reason to be nervous about that, though, as Kiyo is normally a very laid-back and carefree person and is strictly non-violent. This has lead into lots of situations where he’s opted out of fighting, leading his guildmates into lots of trouble when they needed a hand, and they labeled him as both a coward for avoiding necessary battles on missions (which is practically a requirement for a guild member going out on dangerous quests, you sort of have to have a battle prowess to take on any foes) and lazy for not participating when he should. Initially this bothered Kiyo a great deal, but the previous guildmaster assured him that not everybody is suited for battling others, and that he can still pave his own way to success in a non-violent manner. While Kiyo may not have a liking for fighting, he has an extremely smooth tongue and is very capable of talking himself out of sticky situations (mostly by bribing. He is VERY good at that lmao). He has a talent for manipulating others into doing what he wants them to, though he rarely uses this on people he considers friends. When Kiyo’s able to complete a mission and win the day without resorting to using their elemental powers in a fight, his guild members have to stop and think for a second like. Hold on. He just did that so easily, he made it look so simple, we really need to stop underestimating him and calling him totally useless (Kiyo: Hey. HEY).

Kiyo’s pretty close to all of his guildmates despite their constant ribbing—the one person he’s close to that adores him completely is Lacie, because he was the person to bring her into the guild (she was around 10, he was 17), and being the first person to genuinely show her kindness that wasn’t for ulterior motives, Lacie became very attached to him. Kiyo acts like an older brother to her, and Lacie supports him in whatever he does. She was thrilled when he took on the Guildmaster position, and he has a very soft spot for her :’) She always sings his praises to anybody outside who will listen, and gets angry at Emrys the one time he called Kiyo incompetent.

After becoming the guildmaster, Kiyo actually does a good job at taking charge despite the general opinions that he wouldn’t. He’s still very casual about it though and is a bit more flexible with how the guild is run, preferring to let the guild members do things their own way and be less strict about the overall rules. He’s basically got the “Do whatever you want!” and “Just wing it!” outlook, and while a lot of the members don’t like this attitude, a lot of them do. At the end of the day they all do respect him, though! While he isn’t a fighter he’s very good at giving orders and keeping things in check around Asterstone lol

Despite Kiyo’s insistence on staying out of battles, he’s actually an extremely skilled fighter, and is probably the strongest and most dangerous person in the entire guild. The issue with this, though, is that whenever he gets into a fight, he tends to get too “serious” and starts going off the walls, treating the battle as a game and something fun and entertaining. This leads into him not knowing when to stop, and nobody else being able to stop him, so he’s seriously injured other people without meaning to—revealing that he’s actually terrified of violence because he loses himself in it, and why he prefers to stay on the sidelines. It’s only when Kiyo gets really serious in battles that a darker side comes out, and where the star mark in his eye appears. It’s only been seen a few rare times throughout his life at the guild, so nobody really thinks much of it or notices it. It’s only after the star mark appears that Kiyo passes out afterwards, having exerted a lot of power and extremely skilled battle prowess nobody has ever seen before. However, after a grand guild tournament where Kiyo faces off against Taku and gets too into it, revealing his star mark and almost slicing Taku’s head clean off, one of Kiyo’s advisors at the guild starts to look into it out of concern for both Kiyo’s safety and that of others.

In the middle of all this mess, Kiyo meets Toru, and after nearly forcing him to join Asterstone, the two start growing closer 👀 Toru joins the squad of not putting up with Kiyo’s bullshit, but that’s only after he gets over his starstruck fanboy phase. Because Toru is newer to the guild and because he’s a non-elemental not suited for fighting, Kiyo instantly becomes attached to him, finding similarities in their preferences and backgrounds. While Toru does think Kiyo’s an idiot sometimes he treats him very kindly, and is usually the first to defend him when the other members playfully tease him, so Kiyo’s just like you are an angel sent from heaven just for me and I adore you. Still though with Toru being a non-elemental Kiyo stresses about his safety CONSTANTLY, even after Toru gets official training in self defense. If Toru’s in danger Kiyo will blow off literally everything else to go rescue him first, which the other members have to get used to as it happens more often than they’d like akdasbmlads

Later down the line the guild is caught up in something terrible, and find themselves being targeted by a descendant of a great inventor and sorcerer (not Elymas this time tho lol). She’s apparently seeking what’s known as the Velle Nova, and has reason to believe Asterstone is in possession of it. After Kiyo’s forced to fight and unleashes the power behind his star mark, the descendant reveals that Kiyo has the Velle Nova, and then the truth finally comes out…

Kiyo remembers everything about his past. Years ago, his town had been caught up in a great disaster, and he was the only survivor. He was forcibly taken in by several scientists, one of them being the ancestor of the girl descendant. They were attempting to recreate the Velle Nova, one of the great sorcerer Elymas’ inventions, which is said to grant any sort of wish imaginable. They wanted to claim that power for themselves and possess the powers of the universe itself. However every attempt had failed, and without the real Velle Nova they couldn’t achieve what they were after. So they decided to pour all of their research into Kiyo instead, and try to create the weapon inside of a human being. This ended up making a twisted, broken version of what should have been the Velle Nova. But Kiyo couldn’t contain its power—it was going to unravel the universe itself and either destroy everything or alter it tragically into something unimaginable. One of the scientists working with the group realized how awful their experiment was and, being a Time elemental, decided to erase Kiyo’s memories (with some help) and send him centuries into the future so that the rest of the group couldn’t get their hands on him. Hence Kiyo winding up outside of Asterstone with no memories, and the truth behind his star mark. It had been granting Kiyo his wish the whole time—the longing to protect the things he cares about by being able to defeat any threat in his way. Of course with the unstable power that he can’t control, it usually leads into disaster;;

Kiyo, now having recovered his memories, realizes that the same thing is going to happen again, and decides to seal himself off to protect Asterstone and the world before the universe unravels. Cue an epic PMD-esque goodbye scene where he bids farewell to Toru, gives him his trademark scarf, and vanishes, escaping into a dimension between time and space where his power can be contained. *Starts playing I Don’t Want To Say Goodbye*

Toru, absolutely devastated by Kiyo’s farewell, decides he’s going to break time and space to save his man, except there’s one small issue...nobody else remembers that Kiyo even existed, and Toru only managed to by some miracle (and also maybe bc Kiyo handed him his scarf idk some magic soul connection thing). But after a while...a long while, maybe like a year or more...they finally unlock the key to finding Kiyo!!

Toru and Kiyo share a tearful reunion, and Kiyo cries a lot because it had been so lonely sitting in that black hole all by himself for so long. Toru begs Kiyo to come back, and suggests that Kiyo separate himself from the Vella Nova in order to live a normal life, but Kiyo informs him that he and the Vella Nova...are the same. They’re the same combined entity! Kiyo says that if he tries to unfuse, he’ll just end up destroying himself, because there’s nothing to separate, being one singular existence. So Toru points out uh hey since you’re the same thing, don’t you get a say on how your power is used? “It’s your power, Kiyo” yes we’re referencing Tododeku here we go

Kiyo’s like hmm uh yeah I guess you have a point;; so we went through all that for nothing huh. And Toru tells him you’re a fucking moron and Kiyo’s like ahh yes but you loved this moron enough to come rescue him from the void ;) And they kinda sorta confess but not really? Kiyo’s too nervous and Toru’s too distracted trying to figure out how to get them out of there but no worries they sort it out later. Kiyo tells him that hey I’m still dangerous and I could lose control at any given moment and Toru’s just like well I guess we’ll just have to stop you and bring you back to yourself. So with the knowledge that he’s got a whole guild of awesome people backing him up and a boy who broke the laws of the universe to save his ass, Kiyo and Toru escape the rift and finally return home together 💕 And that’s pretty much how their arc ends!

Extra personality traits

-He has a really short attention span so this makes things painfully hard on mission briefings, which leads to Kiyo usually screwing up the mission one way or another

-He often charges ahead without thinking and is the first one to become a target in a bad situation. Nobody really feels bad for him though because most of the time it’s his fault for walking right into it LMAO

-He can be very childish sometimes and most of the time he does it on purpose. His guildmates complain that their leader is a whiny, immature brat

-He is an expert on how to annoy people do not test him oh my god

-He can be incredibly selfish;; He’s gotten better with it during recent years, but he got scorned for it a lot when he was younger. He’s also very emotional, and you can read what he’s thinking like an open book! When his friends can’t read him that’s when they start getting worried.

-He has no experience in romance whatsoever and it’s the one (1) thing that can get him flustered. Nobody at the guild has ever seen Kiyo get mildly embarrassed or caught off guard, so they begin to think it’s impossible to make him blush. Then Toru shows up and ruins everything lmao

-He has a great sense of humor and can always make others laugh! He’s also very mischievous and sometimes plays pranks on other members of his guild.

-He’s very stubborn when he wants something and not in a good way. He also pouts a lot when he gets like this

-He loves his guild and his guild members man :'( If any of them are ever in any real danger he's quick to offer himself up first as a target. He's protective of his friends and will do anything to keep them safe!

-A very very affectionate person. He mostly shows this through physical acts like hugging and generally touching other people. In return he also craves affection and gets very soft when it’s given back to him. I’d probably say he’s a little touch starved despite being in close contact with others all the time lol

[gallowking]

It happened so quickly amidst the celebration, after majority of the staff had been lured into exhaustion from the party animals that were the Servants the candidate Master had summoned. Christmas brought together so many stories, so many different servants and tellings of the past, that it all felt like a mere dream to most of them.

Of course, they all knew that the time had come. It had been exactly one year since the Grand Order had saved humanity from the brink of destruction. Even the circles of singularities after that, the whole facility was always on the look out for more abnormalities.

During this time, all servants had lived together with their Master. Learning about the modern world, learning about them and each other. The holiday brought together much more than just strangers who were mere weapons to be summoned into Holy Grail Wars.

In this instance, their Master had given all of them the greatest gift anyone could ever give them: to feel human. To feel as if they are alive, something much more than just mere tools to use.

The departure would be sad, but all of them knew they would have to do it soon while the Master was out like a light. Not only to keep their farewells from being drawn out, but to allow their Master to sleep peacefully for once.

A tall beast, dawning a rider in black upon its back, stares up at the moon one last time. Hessian, and Lobo, both spending their final moments gazing upon the round orb as if to burn the memory into themselves. The master had helped both of them. The great King of Currumpaw, who had been made into a beast that craved to tear apart human flesh, was still a wild wolf. Except, his disdain for humanity still existed, it’s what made up his entire being... yet, the Master has proven to him that humans were beasts that held nature’s blessings. Not all of them were evil, that he understood. The grievance over his wife had been healed when his Master had introduced him to his wife once more, bringing peace and content to the savage heart of the Wolf.

Hessian, too, sat quietly. His cape silently whispering against the wind as his hand pressed against the tangled fur of the wolf king. He may not have found his head, but he did find a reason to be grateful of what he had obtained these last few months they were summoned. Witnessing and understanding that even though the headless horseman is a legend, he himself is still a soldier that was welcomed by the Chaldea committee.

The wolf’s eyes closed and the headless man had bowed, their forms disintegrating into golden dust which blew forth with the cold wind. They would not forget their Master’s understanding heart to a revenging pair of souls such as the both of them.

Sanson, meanwhile, had spent his time lingering in the background of such a gathering. Everyone was beginning to vanish due to their contracts serving their purpose, and the executioner found solace in spending his last moments with the small group he had come to bond with.

Marie Antoinette, Chevalier D’Eon, Amadeus Mozart. All three of them together in each other’s company, laughing until the moment arrived where they had to say their goodbyes.

Mozart was the first to go. The Caster had been the humor of such dire situations, but as well as an understanding man that had grown to appease his friends with the sound of his joyous music. Sanson had shook the man’s hand, as well as D’Eon, before Marie hugged him farewell. This, to all of them, truly felt like a final farewell.

Next, Sanson’s turn. The executioner turned to gaze upon the Queen and Knight. Although there was still doubt in his mind over the things he had done, the man’s frown settled upon his lips. He had a hand in helping with backing up some medical data, but the fact that it was time to go...

...would either of them remember the time they all had shared together...?

As if sending his worries, Marie had touched the side of Sanson’s face, warranting the executioner’s attention to the gentle Queen as she smiled at him.

...in some way... he believed they will remember.

His own hand upon her own, Sanson felt himself smile. One last one, just for her. The radiant Queen had helped him in the most dire of circumstances, and his unyielding loyalty would never sever as long as he held his sanity together and keep her light in mind.

To keep everyone’s light in mind.

Including Master’s.

Dissolving now into golden dust, his contract now finished within Chaldea, the Queen waited a moment. Her hand, once grazing her dear Executioner’s cheek, was now drawn back after she was sure that he had returned to the throne of heroes. She wanted to make sure her touch would linger.

Then, the Queen would turn and clasp the hands of her knight. D’Eon‘s own smile would widen, albeit fighting back the tears of being separated from their Queen once more.

“Do not fear, D’Eon. I will always remain with you.” Her voice rang like a choir, and with that, her knight was gone. Marie’s hands still clasping her knight’s, and then the eventual air when D’Eon was now gone.

The only one left out of their little posse was the Queen. Alone, she witnessed her form begin to vanish in those same glimmering dust of gold.

Her gaze followed towards the window. To the stars, so beautiful and glittering. Like them, the Queen would remain strong even when her time with everyone was up.

With every hopeless tunnel, was a hopeful light. Her smile softened, eyes closed, Marie allowed herself to rest as her form now glistened into a vanishing sparkle.

She knew, she will see everyone again. That hope will never die.

....

The hallways are empty.

[tillays]

Farewell’s time

Fandom: Inazuma Eleven (GO)

Pairing: Kariya x Kirino

Characters: Kariya Masaki, Kirino Ranmaru

Summary: In the midst of all the junior's tears, on this graduation ceremony day, it seems that someone is missing; which doesn't escape Kirino.

Tears ; the pain of the heart, of the soul. Deep affliction, undisguised sorrow, intimate pain that flows on all these cheeks, like those salty pearls. This distressing spectacle could have seemed unusual, singular, yet it was not so; every year, on the same date, it used to take place. Every year, on this last day of school and graduation ceremony, teachers could witness the same moving farewells, the same touching embraces, the same teary faces.

The third-grade students were parading on the stage to get their certificates, while, as mere spectators, the younger ones simply watched the scene, most of them with burning furrows on their cheeks. And among them, Tenma was probably the one who hid his sorrow the least, to such an extent that when the ceremony ended, as soon as they arrived in the club's changing rooms, he jumped on all his senpai's neck, his face deformed by tears.

"Shindou-senpai!" he sobbed, not wanting to let go of his senpai, who did not stop a smile on his lips.

"What will we become, without you!" added a tearful Shinsuke by his side, clinging to Shindou's leg, while Hikaru cried silently.

The complaints mingled in the room, and it didn't take long to bring tears from almost all the elders, from Hamano to Kurama, through Shindou. Only Kirino, his eyes however moistened by emotion, had not yet let the slightest furrow come to decorate his cheeks. His curious and confused gaze had first wandered over the entirety of the people in the room, before starting to constantly watch the door, as if someone was about to join them.

"Kirino?" Shindou called, to his side, probably the only one who knew him well enough to be able to see the disappointment that was drawing his features. "What's going on?"

"Shindou. Nothing important, don't worry, it's just that I thought he-"

"Say! Why wouldn't we have one last match, all together?!" asked Tenma aloud, cutting Kirino in his sentence without even realizing it.

The enthusiasm that flowed from this proposal was such that the defender finally preferred to leave his words in suspense, while the outline of a smile took place on his lips. Maybe Kariya was going to join them because of the call of football, after all.

Their uniform on, they joined the field. With the club's growing popularity, there were enough of them to make two teams, while the tears had been replaced by sparkling smiles. But once again, only Kirino remained disturbed, and his azure irises roamed the horizon absently.

"Tenma," he started, also catching the attention of some of their comrades around them. "Do you know if Kariya will join us?"

"Um...," the captain thought. "I doubt it, he said he was going home."

"Ah?" Kirino frowned. "He didn't even say goodbye…"

"He did, he came after graduation," replied a thoughtful Hamano who had followed the conversation. "You didn't see him?"

Kirino's face, which had tingled a little with annoyance, at the idea that his friend going home when it was their last day to see each other, relaxed a little under the effect of surprise. If he had well seen him, sitting next to Hikaru, before going up on the stage to get his certificate, he had not had the slightest opportunity to cross his path after that.

"No...," he murmured, lost in his thoughts.

"It's weird, yet he came to say goodbye to us one by one…"

Kariya had taken the trouble to greet all of them except him, before quietly returning home. No matter what the concerned faces of his comrades were, in front of him, no matter what order of words they were trying to put together, to be a little tactful; the facts were there. Wasn't he even worth it enough to make him stay five more minutes to see him too, after all they had been through together?

This simple thought alone stirred the defender's anger, who didn't wait a second longer to run towards the school's exit.

"Play without me!" he threw behind his back to his perplexed teammates, without waiting for an answer.

His feet crashed on the ground with rapidity, and each sound that reached his ears would exceed him even more. If he'd hurry, he could probably catch up with him soon. And he better do so, because he had to admit that, although they had done a part of their way back to school together more than once, he had no idea where he lived...

Curious faces turned in his direction as he ran through the entrance doors of the establishment, without him paying attention. A quick glance at the green traffic light and he had already crossed the road, to follow the river. In the distance, that so familiar blue hair that he had searched everywhere finally became visible in his field of vision, and Kirino felt a strange knot of apprehension forming in his belly.

"Kariya!" he called, so loudly that the few people around them all turned towards them.

Kariya immediately stopped his slow walk, his eyes wide open. For a second, the possibility that this voice was only an illusion, a bad prank of his conscience, crossed his mind, so much so that he hesitated before turning around. However, when he did, Kirino was standing in front of him, a few metres away. His frowned eyebrows and accusatory look made him swallow, realizing that the possibilities of subjects were limited.

"You already left ?" he asked. "What about the others?"

"And what about you?"

Kariya frowned. He had certainly not expected such animosity through these four miserable words. However, the reproach was there, he felt it fly in the air, slip on his skin, browse these beautiful blue eyes that faced him.

"I wasn't feeling very good, so I thought I'd better go home," he lied, before turning, ready to go back on his way.

"Was that a reason to say goodbye to everyone... except me?"

Maybe Kariya's heart had just missed a beat, in front of the unspoken pain that these words had brought. And maybe he'd never admit it. As if to drive the nail in, and unaware of the boy's face, which was getting more and more tense, while he could only see his back, Kirino continued:

"It was probably our last day all together, and I thought our relationship was worth enough for you to take time to…"

However, his sentence had no end, and the words simply died in the air. Fugitive, ephemeral, a reflection of the sadness that probably prevailed in his midst. And it did not escape Kariya, whose fist clenched by reflex, before the atmosphere of the moment took over these feelings that he was trying to repress:

"You don't understand...," he murmured, before letting the silence fly between them for infinite seconds. "Celebrating a departure, two paths that separate and may never meet again... This is a farewell, isn't it?"

Kirino's face, which had in turn suffered anger, misunderstanding and then sadness, now took on astonishment, a completely visible mask of surprise, before his features receded.

"You didn't want to say goodbye to me because... you didn't want our paths to separate?" he risks, not totally sure of his interpretation.

Silence answered him, and a sweet smile appeared his lips. Kirino was about to take a step forward, when Kariya's voice rose again in the air:

"What will I do, if you're not here?"

The words slammed in the air, to come and violently strike the soul of the older one. He hadn't seen this coming.

"If you're not here to scold me in the morning when I'm late? If you're not here to yell at me when I shoot others in their back without them noticing? If you're no longer here, to just be with me? If..."

His hands, clutched to the hip of his bag as if it could determine his survival, were trembling, as did his voice, which broke even more with each word that crossed the wall of his lips. He sniffed loudly, and Kirino didn't need much more to understand that he was holding back from crying. And yet, unable to break the invisible bonds that prevented him from taking the slightest step, the graduated teen remained motionless.

"If you're no longer here to help me study the program you understand better than I do, when you did it a year ago?" Kariya continued, articulating more and more slowly. "If you're no longer here to defend the goal with me..."

It was too much. Tears were now running down his tense face, which he tried to hide as best he could, keeping his back to his Kirino's. His cheeks, reddened by the tears that came to trace their hot furrows to die in his neck or on the corner of his lips, were burning him. Despite all his efforts not to let it show through, Kariya could not ignore his own shaky shoulders, the few sniffles that escaped him despite himself; so much so that when Kirino's hand landed on his shoulder, he stepped forward to free himself. There was no way he could be seen like this.

"Kariya...," the older one whispered in a soft voice, as his face had completely calmed down. "You know, just because we're not in middle school together anymore doesn't mean we'll never see each other again."

Silence welcomed his words, yet Kirino only had to look at his friend's hands, which slowly fell down his body, to understand that they had hit the mark.

"We can always meet outside, after school or on weekends," he continued. "I'll have to come and see all of you sometimes. Who's gonna scold you after that, otherwise?"

Yet another sniff, much louder – and classless – came to answer him. However, the younger one did not move a single millimetre, as if he was waiting for a follow-up to these words. But sometimes, words simply couldn't match all the emotions that were too difficult to express.

It was in this state of mind that Kirino broke the short distance that separated them from a simple stride, before wrapping his arms around him. A soft, warm embrace, which carried in its bosom this wave of feelings that he could not manage to externalize.

Kariya was crying. The simple idea that they were about to separate was enough to distort his face, to flood it with all those tears that did not deserve the slightest contact with those delicate cheeks that he guessed red. How else could he have answered that, after all?

The youngest's eyes widened when this body simply touched his back. His mouth opened and closed several times, a sign of the indecision of his words as well as his astonishment, and it was thus Kirino who took the floor first:

"I could still help you study, if you need it. My schedule may be a little busier, but I should be able to fit you somewhere in it," he explained with a smile on his face.

"But..."

"Goodbye does not necessarily mean farewell, Kariya," the older cut him off. "We often say goodbye in the evening, and then say hello the next day. And, a year goes by quickly, we'll also be able to protect the goal together again, after that.

Without thinking for a second about the situation nor his tears that he had tried to hide, Kariya emerged from the embrace in which he was caught to turn around. Kirino had a soft, soothing face like he had never seen before, and that was enough to make him understand that he had not just imagined the implication behind these words: he said that on purpose.

"Protecting the goal together next year means... in the same high school?"

Still with this warm look of him and a simple nod of the head, Kirino approved.

"The school where senpai goes is not far from where I live," Kariya thinks, as if he had already forgotten the events of the few minutes before. That would be the main reason," he added, turning his head with that proud look he wore every time he felt embarrassed.

Kirino let escape a sight laugh, but didn't add any comment. He used to be able to read in Kariya, although he had difficulty being honest with his feelings. But after what had just happened, he certainly wasn't likely to believe in that high school near his home excuse.

"Come, we're going to join the others. Would be a shame if I missed this last match with all the junior!"

"Ah? I remind you that I was coming home before you came in like a fury!"

"Yes, yes," the pink haired boy replied the boy, placing the tip of his finger on the reddened cheek of the youngest, which started to ignite at this simple contact.

Seeing the amused smile on his senpai's face – before he turned around –, Kariya uffed out his cheeks. Why on earth would his body have to react in spite of himself and blush on his own?

"I guess I'll also get bored and miss you, this year," Kirino whispered in a barely audible voice, looking up at the azure vastness of the sky.

"What did you say, senpai?"

"Nothing. Come on, let's join the others!"

Without waiting for the slightest answer, the slightest grumbling, Kirino grabbed his teammate's wrist and dragged him into his race. He also may have feared this separation for long, too; but if Kariya was as reluctant as he was to cut this bond between them, he probably had no reason to worry about the future.

[the-end-of-art]

A singular organism around food

How The Farewell Director Lulu Wang Stayed True to Herself

A conversation with the writer-director about love, the lies we tell, and being faithful to your own story.

at GQ by Chris Gayomali

The first scene of The Farewell introduces Awkwafina as Billi, weaving her way through the streets of New York while on the phone with her grandmother in China, Nai Nai. Their conversation is warm, if mundane, but it’s cleverly punctuated with little white lies: Billi says yes, Nai Nai, she’s wearing a hat for the cold (she’s not). Nai Nai, meanwhile, unspools a few falsehoods of her own: she says she’s just at home when she’s actually at the hospital for a checkup. The back-and-forth makes for an elegant volley of disinformation; if love is kinetic, it’s best to keep things moving.

“It was really important to portray how close she is with her grandmother, even though they don't see each other that often and live on opposite ends of the globe,” says the film’s director, Lulu Wang. We’re sitting in a sunny room in A24’s Manhattan offices, talking about the film, her second-ever feature, and all the tangles that come from releasing something this autobiographical out into the world. “It's this unconditional love that Billi really only receives from her grandmother, because, I think, as an Asian-American and Asian immigrant, the love of our parents is not like what American kids talk about.”

The Farewell is based on actual events. Sort of. Nai Nai, the matriarch of the family, is at the hospital because she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. The doctor tells her sister, Little Nai Nai, that she only has a few months to live, so the family makes the collective decision to not disclose the bad news to her, because the fear, as they understand it, is what will truly kill her. In response, the family hastily organizes a sham wedding for one of the cousins—a ruse of a family reunion—so that everyone can say their goodbyes to Nai Nai, who is none the wiser.

Wang originally told her story on This American Life in 2016, which led to her writing the script for The Farewell, and, eventually, to receiving rhapsodic reviews at Sundance and an acquisition from A24. Last month, GQ sat down with Wang to talk about the film, growing up as an immigrant in Miami, and more.

GQ: Did your family feel weird at all when they learned that you were making something this revealing?

Lulu Wang: I think they felt weird about what I was going to represent about each of them. It's not like they’re very secretive, but my mom, especially, is a very private person. She was like, "Go make a movie, but I don't want to be noticed and I don't want to be in the spotlight." I think she is superstitious and an anxious person, so when things are going really well, she can often be like "be careful!" instead of celebrating.

In what ways is she superstitious? Is she a ghost person who believes in spirits and all that?

She just believes when things are going too smoothly, you have to be careful, because energetically something will go wrong. She very much believes that if there's something you want very badly, and you have no control over getting it—like if you want to meet a partner in your life—that you need to ask the universe. You need to put it out to the universe and ask. She's not Christian. She's not religious in any one particular way. But she will say you have to make yourself humble and say, "I need to ask for this thing because I have no control.”

Where did you find the encouragement to make that leap and make something like this?

I think it was because I had done a feature previously [2014’s Posthumous]. That gave me the confidence to know that, one, I know I can make a movie. I can put together a film project. I can direct actors. I can run a set. Two, I think it proved to my parents that I can also do [all those things] because it provided a proof of concept, right?

My mother is one of these people, she's like, "I'm not an American parent"—they all believe their own kid is wonderful and everything. She’s like, "I'm a mother just like millions and millions of other mothers. What makes me think my kid is special?"

[Laughs] Oh, wow.

She'll also contradict herself! She’ll say, not that you’re special exactly, but that you're destined, or that “we came out here [to America], sacrificed for you, and so you need to make a good life.” When I made my first feature, it was really surprising for my parents to go, "You can make a film and were amazing! You put this together, and you have to keep going!" Having their support meant everything. It meant that I didn't have to try to constantly prove myself, and I could actually take the leap of faith and take risks in my storytelling.

I also felt like after doing This American Life, it was just such a pure, organic experience of storytelling where I said, "This happened to me." It was just purely about story and character. I recorded it here in New York at [their] office. I had a glass of whiskey in this secret bookshelf room. You pull this book down and you go in! I had a glass of whiskey and it was late at night, and it was just me and [producer] Neil Drumming. We sat down from an investigative perspective and were like, "Tell me more. Dig deeper," as opposed to, "How do we make this more entertaining? How do we sell it? How do we market it?" I recorded and we did basically one take of the whole story.

One thing I really liked about the movie is that you didn't attempt to over explain anything. There was a real confidence in what you were trying to do, and you didn't try to cater to anyone about trying to explain subtle cultural differences or anything like that. How early on in the writing process did you decide "I'm not going to try to explain all this stuff. I'm just going to let it live and be its own thing"?

Pretty early. It's not because I didn't try. People kept giving notes about stuff. I think that's one of the challenges when you're a woman or a person of color in the industry. When you're given so few opportunities, or you sense a lack of opportunity for yourself, in many ways when you finally are given an opportunity you can't say no. You're like, "I have to take it."

So when people give notes and things like that to you, you really want to be accommodating. I did try a lot of them, but ultimately, I would go down a path and just go, "This doesn't feel right. I actually don't know what I'm writing. I'm writing somebody else's idea. I'm not writing from a place that's emotional."

Do you have an example of those notes?

One note I got was that the mom was too mean throughout the movie.

[Laughs] I didn't see that at all.

Exactly. To me, I'm like, "I don't think she's mean. I just think that's who she is!" I think that if you're raised in a different way, you might see that as being mean because somebody speaks in a very honest, clear way. To me, even the arguing isn't being mean. It's just them working their thing out.

That's just communicating.

Exactly. [Laughs] They're just talking, what are you talking about?

There was also this desire to have a resolution of some kind, and have a little bit of a hug. Then the producer was like, "Okay. Maybe not a hug. That's cheesy. I get that. But maybe even just some kind of a nod that they understand each other?"

I was just like, "Tell you what, if you can make that happen in my real life, then I'll put in my movie." Then he laughed and was like, "touché, touché."

For Asians it’s such an intergenerational thing too. You will have a conversation and there is no resolution. You’ve got to keep it moving.

There were a lot of notes about the food, too. They were like, "The movie feels very repetitive because there's all these food scenes." I was like, "Exactly!"

They were like, "No, no, no. The audience is going to get tired of watching that, and you should make them go do something else." I was like, "Like what?" They were like, "Can they go take a walk through a park?" I was like, "Why would they do that?"

I saw food as a way to orient the family, to illustrate them as a singular organism around food. Everyone knows their role, and feeding someone is an act of love. 

Was that something you experienced in your household growing up?

Absolutely. I think that's something I had to learn: That different people have different love languages, and that for my family, maybe they weren't constantly like, "I love you, you're the best, you rock!" But there was always a home-cooked meal on the table every night no matter what was going on.

If I'd been traveling, I come home, my mom makes noodles.

What kind of noodles does she make you?

It depends what's in the fridge. If there's chicken soup then she'll make chicken noodle soup. But if there's not, then it'll just be a really simple egg and tomato with some scallions. Comfort noodles.

I think for the movie, what I was exploring with food was also that it's a source of tension, because it is an expression of love. For Grandma, who thinks that everybody's home for a celebration, her way to express love is to give you all of this food. Your way to express love is to eat it, and to eat a lot of it.

Even when you're full.

Food is this physical manifestation of the conflict, of love, and wanting to accept that love, but you’re grieving, so you can't accept that love. The constant pressure from that to eat, eat, eat is normally not a big deal, so it becomes a much bigger, dramatic set piece.

When you're grieving, one of the things that you lose is your appetite. It's not necessarily explicit in the movie, but one of the things Little Nai Nai told me about why they lie is that when a person finds out bad news, they stop eating. They stop sleeping. Yes, you could say they die of fear in this abstract way, but you can also say in a practical way, that if they stop eating and they stop exercising or leaving the house and then they stop sleeping, then the lack of sleep causes more depression. And so yes in a literal way, that news can kill them.

My Asian friends and I always joke about it. We're just like, "The love of our Asian mother, it's conditional." You don't understand that unless you have one. The grandma is different, right? In many ways, [Billi and Nai Nai’s] love exists in a time capsule separate from age, space, distance. It's just always like, "Have you eaten? Are you wearing [something warm]?" You're always a child. You humor each other, because you're not going to tell them and make them worry. It becomes this ritual of like, "I will tell you what you want to hear." It doesn't matter.

So you grew up in Florida—

In Miami, which is not really Florida.

What was your social life like growing up there?

Honestly, it was very strange, because I moved when I was six and was still learning English. But Miami is as much Cuban as it is "American." People were speaking Spanish as much as people were speaking English, and here I was trying to fit in.

As a kid, that's all you want to do. You kind of just want to go, "I want to forget the fact that I'm an immigrant. I don't want to be different." As the Chinese girl, you don't fit in with anybody. It wasn't a large Chinese-American population, so I didn't grow up having a community of Asian friends. Even when there were Asian people, we sort of existed on our own. There was no culture. There was no Asian-American culture the way that it is in San Francisco or L.A., where you can have a posse and you have a food culture. I didn't have that. It was sort of like mainstream America or my parents, who were watching Chinese movies.

And you studied music too, right? What instrument did you play?

Piano. Like in the movie. I was classically trained since the age of four. I went to art conservatory high school, so for a long time, my piano teachers were like, "You should be a pianist! You have what it takes if you would just work a little harder." I just didn't really want to practice seven hours a day in a room by myself. They were just constantly disappointed in me, because they were like, "But you have a gift and if you don't use it, you're wasting it." I was like, "Is it really a gift if it doesn't make me happy?"

Practicing piano is such an isolating experience, too. You're alone and solely focused on the mistakes.

Completely. You're doing concerts. You're constantly performing. For me, it was like, I love music. Now coming back to it, I love playing the piano and I'm glad that I know it because it's a form of expression for me now. But at the time, it was not. It was about, "Here's a piece of sheet music. This is how you're supposed to play it. There's a right way and there's a wrong way, and by the way, don't fuck up!" [Laughs.]

My mother always wanted to play an instrument. Her parents never gave her that. Then it got to a point where I'd been playing for 18 years, and to give it up would make me feel guilty. But my parents also knew that realistically, I wasn't going to become a concert pianist. Whenever I would want to quit I would get this massive guilt trip over it. Like: "Everything we did to get you those lessons and we had no money! And we still took you to this church every single day so that you could play, and we spent a huge amount of our savings to buy you a piano. It was the first large purchase that we got, was this piano for you!"

On one hand, you're really appreciative, but on the other hand you're like, "I didn't ask for that, and now you're putting that on me, and I can't pursue other things because I'm tied to this piano." It's like that scene in The Piano where even though she loves the piano, you cut it off because it's a burden. I felt like, in some ways, when it's a burden it makes you sink. It doesn't make you fly.

Was going into writing a response to that in some ways for you?

No. My mother was a writer in Beijing. She was the editor of The Beijing Literary Gazette, which was like a New Yorker. She was a cultural editor and wrote criticism of literature and movies, so I always wrote. I grew up in a household that really encouraged reading and writing. My mother loves philosophy and is constantly reading philosophy and talking to me about different philosophers and different ways of life. You wouldn't expect this Chinese-American housewife to just constantly quote Nietzsche, but she does.

How old were you when you got into film?

I was in college. It was my senior year of school.

That’s a pretty late start.

Yeah. For my parents, it wasn't in their realm of reality for me to be a filmmaker, because who was doing it who was Asian-American?

They didn't drop you off at Blockbuster on Friday afternoons or anything like that.

Right. We would just watch what was on TV. Or my parents love Sound of Music.

Sound of Music was so big in our house growing up too.

Yeah? I wonder why that is. Fiddler on the Roof was a big one, too. My mother loves that movie so much. But I didn't grow up watching art house films. When I was in college I took a film elective, Film 101, and I shot on Super 8. That's when I fell in love with filmmaking. I loved finding the rhythm of an edit, and how much an edit can change everything. I edited on an Elmo so I was physically getting film print and cutting and taping.

The physicality of that experience of seeing frame by frame, and working with my friends made me fall in love with it. Then after that I took World Cinema. I took Feminist Film Theory. Then I started to go, "Oh, my God. There's so much here."

When I was making [The Farewell] I was like, "Yeah. I don't care about the genre, but really, I'm trying to explore the inner sense of dread that I had the entire time." From the outside it may look like a happy go lucky Asian family eating a meal, but on the inside, it felt like I was in a horror film, because at any moment something bad could happen. So I was like, actually, why don't I look at horror films as a reference?

Oh yeah?

I said to my DP: "These scenes where we're really rooted in Billy's perspective, let's reference horror film techniques," because horror film is all about being able to visualize the things that you can't see. Creating atmosphere. Creating tone. Through using the camera and things like that, you can really feel the tension. There's a monster in the room that you don't see, but you know it’s there because it's been set up. The lie is the monster.

So for you, it was the process first before any specific filmmakers as points of inspiration?

Yeah. I think that's always been the case for me. I don't like the sense of worship that we have in our culture, of putting people or art on a pedestal. For me, I've always fallen in love with the process before any kind of icon or representation of something. It's also the way that I learn the best. It’s not reading about things in books and being told, "This is how chemistry works." For me, it was always like, "Show me." The physical experience of it makes me remember.

I work with a lot of writers, and sometimes I feel like the people who are most creative are the ones who didn’t go to J-school, or didn’t have a writer they worshipped. They aren't trying to adhere to these older value systems, so they come at it from this original place.

It's completely important to understand history and to study the craft and the art and what's come before you. But at the same time, because I learned all of that later in life, I discovered it through process first. I was able to kind of go, "This is what I'm trying to do. Who else is doing that? Let me see. Oh. You? Okay. I'll take a little bit of that, and I'll take a little bit of this."

In some ways, people who worship, it almost feels like, "Are you in love with a lifestyle? With an image? With an idea?" You're in love with the idea of something. You love Tarantino. Well, what do you love about Tarantino? Yes, the films, but what else? It's this idea of what he represents in the culture. Because we don't have that kind of representation for people like us. When you don't have a lot of archetypes and a lot of representation, you also don't have a lot of rules. And so you don't even have to break rules, because there are no rules.

(https://www.gq.com/story/lulu-wang-the-farewell-interview)

Other great interviews:

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/07/lulu-wang-director-farewell-welcomes-your-tears/593806/

https://www.vox.com/2019/7/16/20687739/lulu-wang-farewell-interview-identity

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/michael-phillips/ct-ent-lulu-wang-farewell-interview-0721-20190719-crfv36av7fglfafxvs3ec77sgu-story.html

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/07/237713/the-farewell-director-lulu-wang-interview

[conradveidttrivia]

Friends and colleagues pay tribute to Connie upon his death. From Aufbau, a pro-Jewish magazine for European exiles, 1943.

My translations of the German articles (all except for the intro, which is just basic stuff about who he was) are under the cut. Bear with me, as these are clumsy and quick–if you have better phrasings to suggest, I’m all ears.

Eight friends say goodbye

***

Back then in Berlin

I first saw Conrad Veidt as a young actor towards the end of the First World War - before the end of the second one, he suddenly passed away, in the midst of the maturity of acting.

He immediately stood out with his own strong, singular head. You had faith in him: you felt sure that there was something in that head that stuck (stood out?). At that time the Deutsches Theater had established a special stage, “Das Junge Deutschland” (The Young Germany), to give the leading generation of poets and actors a place to be. Here, for the first time, Veidt appeared in a leading role. He stood next to Krauss, Wegener, Jannings, Thimig under Reinhardt’s direction in the engine room of a submarine in Göhring’s “naval battle” - an anti-war piece whose performance we had continued during the war. The day after the premiere, Conrad Veidt was no longer an unknown.

A few months later, I had the opportunity to work with him during long weeks of rehearsal. He would play the main, tragic role in, and I would direct, Werfel’s “Visit from Elysium”. In a fraction of a second he realised what the director wanted, gave it back, made it stronger. You could play him like a wonderful old violin.

Veidt’s career in the theater lasted only a few years. The art of cinema, which had matured and gained stature, reached out to the prominent actors. Veidt was one of the first to follow this call, which promised money and worldwide impact. But he avoided the mistakes that many made in Germany: he did not split himself between the stage and the screen. After a short period of experimentation, he gave himself to cinema completely.

More than twenty years of success proved that he’d done the right thing. After Berlin came Hollywood, then London.

Here I met him again, after his great success as Jew Suss, in 1934. He was very mature as a person and as an actor: amiable, cordial, and a bit boyish. He had a winning personality.

A few years later, Hollywood beckoned him back - and Hollywood consumes people quickly. I last saw him in “Casablanca.” It was, despite the unsympathetic character he had to portray, a well-rounded, shining, memorable performance. As a German “Aryan,” he had had to, for the most part of his final years, play unpleasant Nazis. He played him well. But his heart, one could always tell, beat only on the side of his movie opponents.

–Heinz Herald.

***

Fare well, Conny!

Conrad Veidt is no more. A message doubly cruel for its suddenness, and still unbelievable to me at the moment. A great actor and a wonderful human being has been taken from us forever.

Even for me, someone who knew Conny since his earliest beginnings and was privileged to be called his friend, it is difficult to decide what to admire in him more: his artistry or his humanity. As a young actor, when his first successes came, and later, when his name had gained international reputation, Conny would always remain the same, of course, modest and sincere, remaining true to his friends, but also to himself. And it was this staying truthful to himself that led him to the perhaps most difficult step in his life: renouncing forever the land of his birth, a step dictated by no external compulsion, but solely by an inner conviction; a step that more than anything else characterizes the humanity of Conrad Veidt, that humanity which was the source of his versatile, creative artistic power.

Conrad Veidt is no more; a great actor and a wonderful human being has been taken from us forever. “Farewell, Conny; you will live on in the memory of all of us who loved you and revered you.”

–Erich Pommer

***

Conny, the Knight

“Conny’s” death unnerves me. We were not close enough friends for his leaving to leave a gap in my life–but I feel that his terrible demise–he was only 50–is symbolic of the slow death we are all going through. So much has gone away with Conny–the Berlin of the Twenties, Reinhardt’s plays, the glorious cabaret, Valetti, Tucholski, Mehring, and Jenny Holl–Jannings's and Veidt’s wife “at the time”–“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and Conny–more ascetic and deeply spiritual things than one can imagine.

I got to know Conny better when I was writing and filming a Pirandello film - “Henry IV.” out in Staaken, where the night-patrols(?) now wait for the RAF –Conny was not just the actor who played knights, he was a knight.

And then came Hitler, and Conny left. Without hesitation, without wavering, just like Marlene Dietrich. I saw Conny in London–he was one of a kind, and everyone who had gone to him (to ask for help) with their problems knew just how friendly and helpful he was. And then, to cap off a Saturday afternoon, he goes and dies of a heart attack at a golf course, by the wayside.

Just three days ago, I saw him in Casablanca: he plays a Nazi major, but he can’t play a Nazi major: Conny’s own nobility beats and betrays this tyrannical animal. The newspaper says that Conny had a weak heart. No–he had a strong and good heart–but perhaps, in these times, such a heart is less fit for life than a “weak” heart.

–Hans Jacob.

*** A loss for immigration

In Conrad Veidt, the Hollywood film and the European actors' immigrant (colony) have lost one of their best representatives. A lovable and amiable man - an actor of intensity and dedication - a helpful colleague, a friend to all who needed his friendship - his early end has dealt all of us a severe blow.

In my professional and personal dealings with Conny (as producer of his first American films, “The Man Who Laughs” and “A Man’s Past”) I learned to appreciate and love him as a kind person and as an artist of high standards.

The pain of his loss is commingled with the warmth of sympathy that everyone who knew Veidt now feels for his wife and companion. In those hundreds of film roles he imbued with form, character and colour, the memory of this magnificent human being will continue to live on.

-Paul Kohner.

[marvelleous]

if my heart was a house, you’d be home (1/2)

summary: Some things happen for a reason, events that cannot be altered no matter what, even if all the forces in the universe try to bind together and prevent it. Or, the one where Phil gets back from his ghost-rider ordeal and ends up adopting a kid with Melinda.

notes: this idea has been haunting me since 5x08 aired - philinda raising robin together, and i finally came up with a logical and realistic way to make it happen, so i hope you all enjoy :) you can also read on ao3

The reality is, no matter how hard one tries to prevent it, some things happen for a reason; they keep happening, they always happen.

Fitz had tried explaining it to them before, about how there was no future, no past, how time was fixed, only a perception. She hadn't understood it then, but after being sucked into the future and fighting her way back, it made much more sense to her now. His theories were not proven entirely true either.

Their journey through time and space had the singular purpose of preventing the world from being destroyed, and against all odds they had succeeded. The earth, which they had seen for themselves, crumbled into chunks of rock and debris, was once again whole. Life had been restored, buildings standing where they had always been, the planet looking exactly as it had before all the destruction had begun. They had changed the future, altered an outcome that by all means should have been unchangeable.

But for all their efforts, some points do appear as though they are fixed in time, because the day of the diner really is the last time they are all seen together.

After the things they have been through, not a single one of them is equipped to keep going on like this, to keep fighting. Neither the human body nor the mind was designed to cope in such a way, and as wistful as they all get before they part, no one raises objections to taking a break from things, at least for a little while.

Fitz and Simmons take a trip back home to visit their respective families, prepare for a wedding. Mack and Elena on a much-needed break, to recover from their ordeal; losing Flint had hit them both hard, especially Mack who had still yet to bounce back from the events of the framework.

Daisy goes off the grid for a while, just travelling around, no one knows where.

Phil is the first to go.

He says his goodbyes to the rest of the team, and there are warm embraces and tears from all participants. Melinda stands to one side and simply watches, until he turns towards her and everyone else appears to have made a hasty exit, giving them a chance to engage in a more private farewell. She doesn't hesitate when he wraps his arms around her, leaning into his touch and reciprocating, holding him just as tightly.

They don't have much time.

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head and she digs her fingers into his shoulder blades, unwilling to let him go.

“I'll see you soon,” he whispers against her hair, and the conviction with which he speaks gives her hope, faith that they’ll be together once more. She knows that there is nothing that can be done to keep him here, that he has to go and live out his end of the bargain with the rider, and as unfair as it is, they have little say in the matter.

She kisses him before they part, short and sweet, a promise of things to come when he returns. They both linger until they are forced to part, and she is left wondering just how long of a wait it might be until he comes back to her.

Melinda had once said that, to her, Phil and S.H.I.E.L.D, were indistinguishable. Phil Coulson was the living embodiment of S.H.I.E.L.D. and it’s values, but she had not counted on just how true that was in all contexts.

She tries to rebuild, to recreate the organisation she has spent most of her life fighting for, but her efforts prove futile. More than six months pass and her new team is a mess of former agents and mercenaries, their base of operations an abandoned warehouse with a huge basement in the middle of nowhere and their technology limited to the scraps she gathered here and there.

Nothing really comes together until he returns, rather dramatically, in the middle of the night, with a gift for her no less.

She's standing in a tank top and a pair of leggings, feet bare, watching as her precious Zephyr makes a rather awkward landing on the empty field by their base. A group of her agents have gathered, hovering behind her, and she can hear their curious whispers, wondering what on earth was happening and why she hadn't bothered to get dressed before rushing outside. It's all she can do to keep still, to stop herself from bolting towards him the moment that Phil makes an appearance, the dorky smile on his face clear to her even in the poor lighting.

He looks exactly as he does the night that he was forced to leave, but she can see that a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders, that he walks towards her with nothing but relief in his eyes. She lets out a little gasp of surprise when he pulls her into his arms and kisses her for the entire world to see. The agents around them let out whistles and catcalls, but she finds that she does not care, not when the person who matters most to her in the world has returned.

They stay like that for a while, just holding on to one another, basking in the feeling of being together once more. When they part, he leads her back aboard her precious aircraft, knowing that they'll have to find somewhere else to store it if they don't want military personnel turning up at the crack of dawn the next morning and having them all arrested.

When all is done and dusted, they curl up in her old bunk, the place where they had shared their first real kiss, in what feels like a lifetime ago, and they sleep, wrapped up in each other’s arms, having finally found a little peace.

They have all the time in the world now, hope for a future where they have happiness, with each other, which only means that something life-changing is likely to happen soon, because given their track record, peace doesn’t last long.

The first thing she sees when she opens her eyes the next morning is Phil, lying beside her, with a smile on his face as he continues to play with a strand of her hair, watching her as if he’s afraid she’ll disappear should he look away. He pauses when he realises she’s staring back at him, shifting as if to draw his hand away when she stops him, reaching out and tracing the edge of his jaw with one finger.

There's a lull, one that feels almost endless, before they close the gap between them, their lips meeting with the desperation of two people who have been apart far too long.

It doesn't start off tentative, because for once in their lives they're placing their own needs ahead of others, and they have been waiting for this moment for quite some time. She tugs at the hem of his shirt, forcing him to pull away so he can take it off, before she's climbing on top of him, straddling his waist as she maps out the scar on his chest, feeling the ridges and valleys beneath her fingertips.

He groans at the sensation, before drawing her down towards him so their lips meet once more. She drags his hand to her hip, urging him to explore beneath her shirt, gasping as he slowly tucks the material upwards. He takes his time, as if trying to savour the experience, but she quickly grows impatient, leaning back and removing her top, flinging it to the ground. She’s exposed to him now, completely bare from the waist up, and he looks as though he cannot believe that these events are finally transpiring.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” she whispers, pressing a kiss to the edge of his jaw, fingers teasing the waistband of his boxers.

The indignant shriek she lets out a split second later when he flips their positions and pins her against the sheets is probably loud enough to be heard halfway across the base, and she thinks it's probably a good thing they decided to spend the night aboard the Zephyr.

Things don't go back to normal after that.

S.H.I.E.L.D. has been struggling on under her leadership, but now that Phil has returned, they thrive. They find a new balance, working together and being together, making an effort not to keep secrets from another in both their personal and professional relationships.

He’s still reluctant to speak of whatever went down when he disappeared those six months, but that she understands, only wishing he were able to share some of his burdens with her. She has her own fears and worries, but they're easier to cope with knowing that he's here with her.

That they'll support each other, no matter what happens.

Daisy turns up three weeks later, looking exhausted and worse for wear, but it’s the little girl asleep in her arms that Melinda cannot take her eyes off.

“Her mother’s dead,” she hears Daisy tell Phil, and all three of them exchange a knowing look. Polly Hinton had not survived in their other future either, though they cannot know for sure whether her death is a mere coincidence, or another fixed occurrence within time that cannot be altered. It's not the time to dwell on such thoughts however; having Daisy back is something that brings her joy, and she doesn't need to see the wide smile on Phil’s face to know he's happy too.

It didn't feel right without her around. Phil had told her once that he thought of Daisy as a daughter. She hadn't made the confession that she felt the same way, because she never believed she could be a mother.

Not after her actions in Bahrain, even having seen what the world could have turned to had Katya not been put down.

She had only begun to question her own convictions after learning that she had been the one to raise Robin in another life, that her actions had ensured the world was saved, that she served a purpose in the world other than to fight and cause bloodshed. Perhaps if she was given such an opportunity now, she could do it, though her thoughts are only premature at this stage.

Still, as she follows Phil down the hall, watching him guide Daisy into an empty room so she and Robin can have somewhere to rest up, seeing the expression upon his face as he chides her about taking better care of herself, she knows he’s even better suited to being a father than being an agent. He smiles when he meets her gaze and while she cannot tell what he is thinking at this moment, she knows that he’s reading her like an open book.

“So… Daisy’s back,” he says, starting a conversation he should know by now will be mostly one-sided. She nods, turning her gaze to the closed door that marks the room they had been saving for Daisy, coincidentally right down the hall from their own. In the time that Phil had been gone, she had kept tabs on each of the members of their team, making sure that they were okay but respecting their boundaries and refraining from making contact. She had her own motivations for staying in the field, keeping S.H.I.E.L.D. afloat, and she wasn’t about to drag them back in before they were ready, or if they had changed their mind about returning. It’s easier now that Daisy’s back, and judging by the duffel she had brought with her, planning on staying, at least for a little while.

Phil seems to take her silence as an invitation to keep rambling on as they make their way down the hall towards their bedroom, where she assumes they’ll sit down and have a conversation about what to do about Robin. She has already drafted up a list of viable options in her mind, and despite Phil’s seemingly carefree expression, she knows that he’s doing the same.

The views of those in the world are changing, albeit slowly compared to the sudden physical changes undergone by inhumans, but it's still far too dangerous to allow a child with abilities to go into the foster care system. They have little experience with powered individuals so young, but she knows there must be a reason why children were not subjected to terrigenesis before they matured, both by Daisy’s mother at Afterlife, and by the Kree during their time at the Lighthouse. Katya was the worst case scenario, but they have no way of knowing what a good outcome looks like. The adult Robin she had spoken with seemed well adjusted enough, but still acted like a child in her old age, though understandably her circumstances were not ideal to begin with.

Keeping a child on the base is not likely to be a feasible option either; their lives are dangerous, surrounded by death and destruction, and to bring someone so young and defenseless into the fold is much too risky. There have rooms stocked with weapons, an aircraft with missile launching abilities, dubious allies and even deadlier enemies. Neither their base nor their people are equipped to deal with raising a child, and as cruel as it sounds, they would not be giving the situation a second thought if it were a regular kid. Any unpowered individual would be better off away from a life like theirs, even if it meant being passed from home to home throughout their adolescence until they were old enough to get by on their own. But Robin is no regular kid, and she cannot for the life of her think of another feasible option where S.H.I.E.L.D. can keep watch over her while giving her a safe and happy environment to grow up in. She can come up with a hundred more reasons why it would be a bad idea.

But the truth is, she only needs one good reason to change her mind. Whether that's enough for the both of them is another matter.

[mayphoenix]

Why I Need Johnlock to Happen

This is long and personal and I need to get it off my chest so I can get on with my life.  Please bear with me. In mid-December, I received word that my ex-wife, a woman with whom I shared 23 years of my life and to whom I was legally married in 2005 (but separated in 2010), had been diagnosed with brain tumors.  In April of 2016, one month after we divorced (it wasn’t recognized in our state until the SCOTUS ruling; once that passed, I filed), I was told she had been diagnosed with lung cancer.  She had undergone chemo and in September tested clear.  But it came back three months later, and on January 4, 2017, she passed.   When I found out she was dying, I tried to make contact.  I wanted to clear the air, make peace, and most of all, forgive her before she left this world.  You see, ours was not a healthy relationship.  It never is when your partner turns out to be a narcissistic sociopath who gaslights you on a daily basis and occasionally abuses you physically.  She was twenty years older but age never mattered to me.  I loved her.  And yes, just as John has a thing for dangerous people, as a survivor of child abuse, I always seemed to find myself drawn to people who hurt me.  Which is perhaps why I will spend the rest of my days alone, singular; aside from being damaged goods (something nobody wants), I now have serious trust issues. Things got so bad at one point that I suffered a mental breakdown. It was then that I began seeing a therapist.  I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe chronic depression, and anxiety disorder.  As soon as I began to receive treatment, I began to see the problems in my life for what they were.  I could have escaped but instead, I believed I could fix it.  That whole “love conquers all” thing.  Well, I tried to get my partner to work with me, to meet me halfway, but the thing about narcissists is that they never change.  She walked out on me.  I begged her to stay and just be friends and roommates, but if she couldn’t control me I guess she didn’t want anything to do with me.  Attempts to be civil and friendly after that failed, too.  She continued to act one way with me and a different way with other people, and she had everyone fooled...the way she had me fooled...but I’m the one who was left scarred for life.  I had been closer to her than anyone else in this lifetime.  She was my soulmate, for better or worse, and once upon a time I thought we would be together to the end of our days.  

Death changes things.  I’ve long held the saying “Life is Too Short” as a personal mantra and even have a tattoo on my hand to commemorate someone who was taken too soon, to remind me of this fact.  So despite everything that happened, all the water under the proverbial bridge, I reached out to my ex as soon as I knew she was dying.  Sadly, I was denied a last chance to see her by her caretakers, her friends who were also the executors of her estate.  Come to find out, they all hate me; in their eyes, I am the villain.  They don’t know what she did to me.  Why would they?  They only know what she told them about me.  These were once mutual friends but after the breakup they chose sides.  Her side, to be exact.  Thank goodness not everyone was fooled: there are others who got to see a glimpse -- people who knew her before we met, people who came to visit for a few days and got to see the way she talked down to me, pushed my buttons, etc.  Many of them apologized to me after the fact, saying “I saw what she was doing to you but I didn’t do anything” or “I knew what she was like and I should have warned you.”  And you know what? I don’t blame them.  Even police officers hate answering domestic abuse calls.  When put on the spot, very few people really know what to do or say.  If I blame anyone, it is myself, because I had been too trusting, and not strong enough to fight back or stand up or walk away.  And for that, I need to learn to forgive myself.

And while I couldn’t say it to her in person, I did forgive my ex for what she did to me.  I’ve said this many times over in the past month.  When I left that courthouse last March, I cried, “I’m free!”  Because I was.  Up until that point, there had still been a legal tie to her (again, even if it was not recognized in our state).  I did not realize the emotional ties would still be there.  I had no idea she was going to be dead eight months later, or that her death would have such a powerful impact on me.  I say this all the time: I would never wish cancer on anyone, even my worst enemy.  And she wasn’t my enemy.  I didn’t hate her.  I hated what she did to me but in the end I held no ill will against her.  I also know from years of being with her that she never wanted to be kept alive with treatments if she was terminal, she would always tell me “Put a gun in my hand, I’ll take care of it myself.”  I was told she wasn’t able to make any decisions for herself toward the end.  Others made those choices for her, her friends/caregivers.  They put her through painful, unnecesssary treatments.  If we had still been together, I never would have allowed her to suffer.  She never wanted that and I’m sorry she had to go through it.

I was doing dishes, listening to Spotify, and “Since the Last Goodbye” by The Alan Parsons Project started to play.  That was one of our favorite groups, and the song is about two people who thought they’d always be together, whose lives were entwined, but all they had left were memories.  When I returned to my computer an hour later, I saw the news: my ex had passed.  I will always believe that song came on my shuffle as her final farewell to me; after all, there are no such thing as coincidences.  

I began to grieve.  I sobbed and I wailed.  I was depressed and angry and sad all day and late into the night.  Thankfully, I have friends who let me call them and cry on their shoulders long-distance.  They encouraged me to focus on the good times -- because we did have good times -- and that my grief was normal because I had spent 23 years with this person (the greater part of my life, at the time of separation).  You don’t share every waking moment of your life with another human being, see them at their best and their worst, and not feel something.  Even if they hurt you.  You still grieve.  

A few days after her death, one of her friends -- one of the people I had contacted in my attempt to see her one last time -- posted a public statement about how I was deceitful and only reached out so I could get something (admittedly, I saw they had started a Gofundme for her funeral and the cost to clean out her apartment, and I wondered if they meant to throw everything away but I did not ask for anything; I did, however, want to know what would happen to her cat, which had been one of ours and she took with her when she left).  This person, whom I had always adored, said my ex had spoken of me with compassion (which I find hard to believe, going by things she’d said to other friends about me following the breakup); she went on to say that she had only tolerated me for my ex (they were friends five years before we got together).  I was warned to stay away (so I can’t even attend the funeral), that I should expect nothing, and if I tried to contact anyone...well, let’s just say it came across as a threat.  

I was gutted all over again.  I felt despondent, in a state of shock and disbelief.  This is the salt in the wound, being painted as the bad guy, as some kind of monster.  Some of them think I was the one who left the relationship but the truth is she walked out on me.  She made that choice.  She even told me I would not survive a year without her and yet here I am, now seven years on my own.  I have survived -- barely -- but even so I swore to myself I would ever go back to the way things were before, not after having my eyes opened.

So.  With all that said, the reason I need Johnlock to happen is because I need a Happily Ever After.  I need John and Sherlock, two damaged souls (like me), to have the happy ending I never got.  At the end of TLD, we saw the glimmer of hope that they could come back from everything they had been through, that their relationship has a chance to not only survive but also evolve and become something greater and stronger.  Because they are soulmates.  They are meant to be together, against all odds.  They are supposed to forgive each other and change for each other, adapt to one another and fulfill what each other needs most.  Because that, my friends, is LOVE.  They have both suffered and they deserve some happiness.  I want them to have the happiness I will never have, that I always wanted and needed.  It breaks my heart to see them hurting.  

Yes, I know they’re fictional characters.  But here’s the thing: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were my first example of Perfect, Unconditional Love when I was a child of eight years old and reading Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s stories.  With the innocence of a child who was abused by her father, whose parents went through a nasty divorce, and who sought love and acceptance wherever she could find it, I saw in those pages a companionship that went beyond that of friends.  I knew these men loved each other, and even if the language was different -- 19th century Victorian vs. 1970s American -- I took it at face value and in the simplest of terms: Holmes and Watson loved each other and would always be together.  They were and are two halves that made a whole.  I aspired to have what they had.  I had thought I’d found it, too.  But I was wrong, and because of that experience (and a few other brief and equally unsatisfying attempts at relationships -- like I said, I tend to be drawn to the wrong people) I am jaded...but only for myself.  Just because same-sex marriage didn’t work for me doesn’t mean I’m against it for everyone.  I want to see other people have what I couldn’t have.  I want them to be happy.  I need it, because seeing it is the only thing that gives me hope anymore.  I have many friends who are same-sex couples and happily, legally married, and I’m so glad they have each other and it’s working for them.  

But I just need to see John and Sherlock have that, too.  Just once, just one incarnation, and this has to be The One.  In my lifetime, I need this.  I need to believe in Johnlock because I need to believe in love again.  That there is redemption for the broken misfits like me, the weary soldiers who have survived personal battles, the misunderstood freaks and social outcasts who think all they deserve is to be alone.  

Please, let this happen.

[morethanjustmediocremusings]

Hidden In an OOO: Re-defining a Modern Woman

Can the modern woman have it all? Put simply, no. But to elaborate on that immediate shut down, I say no because it is unrealistic to expect so much from a singular person. The idea of a “modern woman” defies the caveman expectations of a “super mom” and plays into the 2019 progressive ideals of a woman who can do exactly what she wants. It is through the use of various rhetorical appeals that Leandra Medine’s “MR’s Out-of-Office Reply Is Chock-Full of Feelings” is able to imply a shift towards a liberated modern woman.

Located within the depths of the fashion blog, Man Repeller, a search of “Leandra Medine” will provide you with the following description: “Leandra Medine is the founder of Man Repeller, which she likes to call a nudist colony, and author of Man Repeller: Seeking Love, Finding Overalls. She just started making her own chia pudding,” (About Leandra Medine 2012). But to further grasp the power of her ethos, one must look beyond the brief description provided by the sentence above. She attended The New School for Liberal Arts in New York, and then took a fact-checking job at New York Magazine (BoF Contributors 2018). Man Repeller was birthed in 2010 out of a semester abroad in Paris, previously under the pseudonym “Boogers + Bagles” (Wallace 2014). As reiterated in The Cut’s article, “its [Man Repeller’s] slangy language (‘this amazeballs Vena Cava safety pin blouse’), and its youthful, bloggy self-disclosure…” that make the site the perfect medium to discuss the underlying sources of self-reflection that are hidden in our everyday consumption of various forms of media (Wallace 2014).

Leandra Medine has a lot going for her: a newly updated Manhattan apartment with custom elephant wallpaper (Ross 2018), a blooming podcast, a Man Repeller Buffet brand complete with “unibrow sunglasses” and rooster earrings (Medine 2018b), and not to mention two beautifully expressive twin girls, all of this often documented via Instagram post. Yet, despite her bountiful achievements Leandra cannot be described as arrogant. She is not without her struggles, in her article “I Have a Complicated Relationship With Happiness” she discusses the struggle of losing relatability once achieving a state of happiness (Medine 2018a). She has also been open with discussing her struggles with infertility on Monocycle, her podcast. Her achievements are discrete, and by showing the good alongside the bad, our humble author is able to create an astounding ethos through which her message can be subjectively interpreted.

An understanding of Man Repeller’s tone is needed to fully discuss the flexibility of a modern woman as implied through the article at hand: “MR’s Out-of-Office Reply Is Chock-Full of Feelings.” Leandra’s quirky writing style is exemplified within the first thirty seconds of her Alexa Chung Interview in Man Repeller’s Chatroom, in which she discusses her contemplation of the word literally. One must first literally discuss the literal meaning of the word “literally,” which Leandra concludes literally connote be taken literally (Man Repeller 2016). Beyond the tangent implied above with the colloquialized interpretation of “literally,” the out of office (OOO) notice up for discussion today is anything but traditional. Yes, it has all the makings of a bounce-back, reply email, generated from a robot behind a screen, but the article has something a typical automated response lacks: heart.

Simply, the letter provides her audience with a personal update from the home front. Directly stated: there will be a lack of content over the holidays as people will be spending time with their families, but when viewed under a metaphorical “black light” the true message of a woman’s free will becomes visible. This declaration of work-place alleviation is paired (or maybe juxtaposed) with a call to action “Go out and do something you love, just for the sake of doing something you love! Go on! Right now!” (Medine 2018c) which rings with a hedonism acceptable only during the holidays. Leandra also uses this time to recap and reflect on the recent changes within Man Repeller HQ.

She opens the article by informing us on her whereabouts: Australia, which is strange for the holidays as traditionally people like to be close to home, but she insists she is still getting some much-needed R & R. By mentioning her own whereabouts Leandra challenges typical ideas of the holidays. She is on a tropical vacation in Australia, without her family, without her children, and without regret for doing so. The unapologetic nature of disregarding tradition shows an aloofness that proves a modern woman can do whatever the heck she wants, even if that thing is going to Australia for Christmas.

After a subtle anecdote about tomato paste, she reiterates Amelia Diamond’s leaving of Man Repeller. Now, for the first-time reader it may not mean much, but for us members of this girl cult, Amelia’s decision to leave came as a shock. Amelia Diamond has been with Man Repeller since the beginning. Her second-to-last post, “Why I’m Finally Letting Go of the Pressure to Be Something I’m Not,” hinted at a dissatisfaction, but never did I expect to read her informal, coded resignation notice to readers at home: “Amelia and Leandra on Working With Your Best Friend (and Saying Goodbye)” (Diamond & Medine 2018). Amelia’s departure was filled with emotion and by even briefly mentioning it, Leandra is able to pull pathos from other posts back into the OOO reply. By addressing the importance of memories, she indirectly touches on nostalgia. Similarly, in his piece “Instagram’s Instant Nostalgia,” Ian Crouch does an amazing job exploring new-wave perceptions of nostalgia (Crouch 2017). Humans have a desire to narrate their lives, and in the booming age of social media, self-documentation has never been easier. A curated sense of nostalgia can now be rendered in seconds with the help of apps such as Leap Second, Instagram, and Snapchat, all of which provide year-long recaps of your posted life. This empathetic sense of nostalgia can be seen through Leandra’s mention of reflecting on old photographs as a way to mark the passing of time. It is in contemplation that we find nostalgia and become more susceptible to empathetic approaches to rhetoric. By emphasizing words such as “memories” and “story” through repetition, an ongoing sense of passing time further adds to the nostalgic pathos appeals within the OOO announcement.

Digressing from Amelia’s departure, Leandra succumbs to the expected momentary self-reflection tied to the New Year. She discusses the notion that as one grows up, you begin to find answers to the great unknowns. You find who you are, what you want, and (almost) exactly how to get there. You become an active participant in your life, whether you realize it of not. Noting the insignificance of numbers on a page, Leandra struggles to accept the duality of human perceptions of time. We struggle to quantify it and therefore struggle to understand it. She uses a page break as an extended metaphor, aiding her attempted comprehension of necessary nostalgia. Moments of reflection, like those that surround the holidays, are not unlike pages breaks. They allow for moments of peace and time to gather our thoughts or, in her case, our miniskirts.

… other times I can’t believe that we don’t always see the significance of adding page breaks to the sequence of time. It’s an opportunity, more than anything, to sit with yourself and acknowledge the mental camera roll of a year passed. You can probably do this with your de facto camera roll but real pictures are distracting in that the memories you glue to them might get obscured by a cool skirt you wore, or how shiny your hair looked — any number of visible variables that tap at your shoulder as if to divert your attention from the grand scheme of the roll… (Medine 2018c).

It is logical for a page break to mark the place to take a breath and reflect. By having moments of reflection throughout the year we are better able to understand ourselves. Especially during points of high-stress, such as the holiday season, taking a meditative moment to re-focus on what really matters has the potential to allow for a more objective approach to life and a centered view of one’s personal desires.

To close the memo, Leandra leaves her audience with generalized advice. “It’s not as bad as you think it was. I guess the thing is that it never is.” (Medine 2018c). Maybe it’s my inner cynic but isn’t it a little cliché to end with generalized, feel-good statements? Similar to how zodiac readings are often less prescriptive and more imprecise than we think, the final paragraph, upon the first read, comes across as superficially airy. However, when further pondered, her words hold value. We must reflect on ourselves, the good and the bad; even within this post we must observe the OOO post’s true significance. Although a thesis is not directly stated, the implied notion of a change in what it means to be a woman in modern society, can be gathered in between the comedic interjections and sappy farewells. The modern woman is many things, but most importantly she is as she wishes to be.

Man Repeller’s brilliant combination of elevated diction and comedic jargon allows for a balance between work and play. This verbal co-op can be further modeled to a modern woman’s balancing act. No longer forced into scratchy pantsuits, and sexist The Office-esque meetings, Leandra exemplifies a sense of balance. She is able to work remotely, spend time with her husband, and still have a life and family back in New York. This duality of highly educated language paired alongside her casual voice shows that the modern woman is multi-faceted. Her articles read as an email from an old friend, and this OOO article is no exception. Whereas traditional scholarly writing is very standoffish, Man Repeller runs a fine-tuned balance, ideal for today’s world. Some critics of Man Repeller may say it is too informal, pulling from fragments such as “begging you to stop, look and unclench your butt cheeks,” (Medine 2018c). However, by choosing to focus on the more childish moments of the piece, one forgets the underlying sophistication of challenging the modern perception of women. No longer seen as chess pieces for society, but rather as their own entities.

Leandra Medine’s “MR’s Out-of-Office Reply Is Chock-Full of Feelings” serves as the perfect monocle through which we can examine the changing ideals of women’s societal expectations. No longer must we follow pre-historic, gendered rules by which women ought to live their lives; instead a movement towards creating our own lives has begun to take root, if only in the niche community of forward-thinking fashion enthusiasts. This hidden essence of the ideal modern-woman might be so elusive because it is different for everyone. Not all women want to live in Manhattan, just as not all women want to spend Christmas in Australia. The modern woman is recognizable by her options and the freedom to choose her own path. And in our own moment of reflection, is that really such a radical idea?

Works Cited

“About Leandra Medine, Author at Man Repeller.” Man Repeller, 2012, www.manrepeller.com/author/manrepeller.

BoF Contributors. “Leandra Medineis One of the 500 People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry in 2018.” The Business of Fashion, The Business of Fashion, 26 Aug. 2018, www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/leandra-medine.

Crouch, Ian. “Instagram's Instant Nostalgia.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/instagrams-instant-nostalgia.

Diamond, Amelia, and Leandra Medine. “Amelia and Leandra on Working With Your Best Friend (and Saying Goodbye).” Man Repeller, 21 Dec. 2018, www.manrepeller.com/2018/12/amelia-and-leandra-say-goodbye.html.

Man Repeller, director. Alexa Chung & Leandra Medine: The Chatroom. YouTube, 12 May 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIDy9VBu1uY&t=197s.

Medine, Leandra. “The Brand New Man Repeller Holiday Buffet Is Here!” Man Repeller, 21 Nov. 2018b, www.manrepeller.com/2018/11/man-repeller-holiday-buffet-launch-2018.html.

Medine, Leandra. “I Have a Complicated Relationship With Happiness.” Man Repeller, 8 June 2018a, www.manrepeller.com/2018/06/relationship-with-feeling-happy.html.

Medine, Leandra. “MR’s Out-of-Office Reply Is Chock-Full of Feelings.” Man Repeller, 24 Dec. 2018c, www.manrepeller.com/2018/12/man-repeller-out-of-office-holidays-2018.html.

Ross, Harling. “Take a Look Inside Leandra Medine's Updated Manhattan Apartment.” Man Repeller, 11 Sept. 2018, www.manrepeller.com/2018/09/leandra-medine-apartment-tour.html.

Wallace, Benjamin. “What's So Alluring About a Woman Known As Man Repeller?” The Cut, The Cut, 8 Feb. 2014, www.thecut.com/2014/02/man-repeller-leandra-medine-profile.html.