#malcolm irvine

[pjshermann]

The true “boys will be boys” is when all FOUR of you managed to forget your keys and phones and it’s freezing outside and the best solution you and your friends (Ivy League graduates, may I add) could come up with was launching yourself off the roof ledge to break into your own apartment

[speerlied]

I cant believe Jude St Francis was stuck on that roof in Lispenard Street along with all 3 of his emergency contacts

[theladwhoisweird]

Willem and Jude in JB's point of view:

Who's the frog? Who's the toad? It's still a debate.

[mimibaldstenrotting]

one day when i‘m like 70 i‘ll die and my kids will ask me who tf that man in my will is and I‘ll tell them that my grand fortune is reserved for my real child and first born son, Jude st. francis.

[jemcore]

*spends time with friends* this is just like a little life!

*cooks a meal* this is just like a little life!

*hosts a house party* this is just like a little life!

*goes to college* this is just like a little life!

*has a trauma flashback* this is just like a li

[judeaftersickness]

Chip Kidd for The New York Times Magazine’s “When AIDS Ends” cover, 1996 | How I Wrote My Novel: Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life

"One of the ways I’d always described the book (to my editor and to my agent) was as a piece of ombré cloth: something that began on one end as a bright, light bluish-white, and ended as something so dark it was nearly black. [...] The other piece I returned to was Chip Kidd’s 1996 cover for a New York Times Magazine article by Andrew Sullivan about how combination therapies could mean the cessation of widespread death from AIDS in the United States, particularly among gay men. I remember being fascinated by the article, of course, but also by the cover, which remains one of my all-time-favorite pieces of editorial art: In it, the type starts out as “sick” — blurry, clotty, barely decipherable — and then, as it moves down the page, gets healthier, crisper, brighter, more legible. I wanted A Little Life to do the reverse: to begin healthy (or appear so), and end sick — both the main character, Jude, and the plot itself."

[happyandticklish]

I adored your a little life story!! So sweet. Do you have any head canons for them?

Thank you so much! I have cobbled together a few things for them, because I do, in fact, never stop thinking about them:

Malcolm:

. Not very ticklish, actually, though he does wish he was. He feels like he can neither love nor loathe it as his friends do, which makes him feel like the oddball out sometimes

. Enjoys tickling Sophie and getting to see her laugh. She'll get him back on occasion, and he'll sit there and allow her to tickle him for as long as she wishes because it seems to make her happy (I wish we could have gotten more with them, though I don't think it would have necessarily added to the plot, so I get why we didn't)

. I feel like primarily it's his torso that's ticklish, with his armpits being the worst out of it. Though even then, it's more the anticipation that gets him. Sophie will sometimes hover her fingers over the spot over and over again, wiggling her fingers as she gets closer, just to make him freak out. He gets very giggly and flushed when she does this

. That said, his arms are weirdly sensitive, and he gets all shuddery if someone traces over them

. Usually only tickles Willem on occasion in the group, and only for a little bit. JB has to really provoke him to get him to attack, and as he can usually handle it for a while, this rarely happens

. Sometimes teases JB about trying to get him to tickle him, just to watch his face get all red and blustery

JB:

. The most ticklish out of the group and also the one that hates it the most (or so he claims)

. Gets very angry when tickled, like feral street cat angry, and will thrash and flop around so that it's almost impossible to get ahold of him

. Despite this, he is often the one provoking the tickling, not letting up even if it becomes clear where this is headed for him, which is the main factor clueing his friends in that he might actually enjoy the attention

. His worst spots are his feet and ribs, especially his ribs. Once, Willem managed to get him properly pinned and vibrated his fingers over the area, which got them a very angry noise complaint from their neighbors

. Primarily a ler. He loves fucking with his friends, even if they are not always in the mood to be fucked with. His main victim is Malcom, even though he's not that ticklish, just because he folds so easily. Sometimes he goes after Willem, if he's feeling feisty, though he knows this will end in him getting tickled to death, so he has to be wise about it

. Once drew a painting of Willem getting tickled by Malcom, a soft evening where the other kept teasingly poking his side and causing Willem to let out a stream of soft, silly laughter. Afterwards, JB tore it up and threw it away out of embarrassment

. Once joked about tickling Jude in the very beginning of their friendship, and Willem shut that down so fast that he never brought it up again.

. In truth, if there was a way to get tickled without being teased, he would probably allow it to happen much more often

Willem:

. He's pretty ticklish, but he's also so okay with how ticklish he is that you would never know he is

. Doesn't get nervous about being tickled or embarrassed, though he doesn't necessarily try to put himself in that position

. Usually if he is getting tickled it's by girlfriends over the years, or occasionally Malcolm or JB. With any of his girlfriends, he just allows it to happen and will occasionally fight back if the mood strikes him. But he doesn't feel any need to tickle anyone back

. I don't know man, I just feel like his relationship to tickling would be so normal

. He will fucking destroy JB though if he's being a little shit, but this is more off principle than anything else. Doesn't tolerate JB tickling him, as the other plays dirty and goes for the kill right away, so that always ends in the two of them tussling

. Malcolm will tickle him sometimes, usually if he's teasing him or if Willem is being obtuse about something. But this is clearly so good humored that he doesn't mind allowing it

. He's pretty ticklish all over, but his thighs and butt are the worst. You can pry Willem having a ticklish butt out of my cold, dead hands. It took him a while to realize that Jude would never touch him there because Willem was always flinching, which led to perhaps the most embarrassing confession of the other man's life.

. Though his feelings on tickling are pretty ambivalent, he enjoys being tickled by Jude. It's clear that Jude wants to do it, and it's such an easy way to make him happy and to cause him to smile that Willem would allow himself to be tickled for an eternity if possible

. In the beginning of their relationship, he did think about tickling Jude quite a bit, and still does. It's usually a passing thought, and not one that he would ever act on. But the thought of Jude, beautiful Jude, grinning and squirming under his hands, allowing himself to be that vulnerable, is such an appealing mental image that sometimes he has to pinch himself to get it out of his head. He never tells Jude about this, though, not ever wanting the man to worry that we would act on it

Jude:

. So, obviously, I believe Jude has a complicated relationship with tickling

. I think tickling is such an intimate, personal thing that requires being helpless, giving up control, and allowing someone else to touch you, three things he really struggles with

. I don't think he has much experience with tickling, but definitely any he has in negative, and as such, he struggles to understand it as a lighthearted activity

. Sometimes, in passing, he'll wish he could like it, as others seem to find it so fun and it's clearly a bonding activity, but I don't think it's something he ever wants for himself

. Though this knowledge is foreign to him, I think he's fairly ticklish all over. His feet are the worst of it. Willem would offer to give him foot massages in the beginning, and he only endured one before kicking away and apologizing a bunch before suggesting maybe a back massage again

. His neck is also pretty sensitive, but as Willem doesn't kiss him there that much for other reasons, it doesn't come up that often. Though he does get annoyed if his hair grows too long, as it starts tickling and irritating the area

. Does really enjoy tickling Willem, something he feels very conflicted about. He feels guilty about being able to do something to Willem that the other is forbidden to do to him, but Willem always assures him that it's fine and that he's okay with it

. He doesn't tease that much, and stays pretty silent throughout, quietly admiring Willem's laughter and squirming. Though this psyches Willem out far more than teasing does, and he has to force himself not to try to hide his face or stifle his reactions

. Outside of Willem, the subject of tickling tends to make him pretty uncomfortable and he prefers not to stick around if it's going on

[twinkpeaked]

(i wanna preface this by saying i love jude and willem as much as the next person if not more)

but i still wonder about jude’s sexuality as he did.

in his pursuit of a romantic relationship where he went with caleb the reason he did it was because “i’ve always been with men so i just assumed” according to him (forcibly with men might i add) and when willem told him about his friends asking wether he was gay or not and he didn’t know even jude couldn’t tell him and that’s after him being with caleb and he still had no idea what he was. and in his dream of a life where those stuff didn’t happen to him he imagines a beautiful house with a lovely wife and his kids running to him.

and to think what happened to him messed him up so much to the point he didn’t know what he was attracted to, he stopped experiencing anything sexual at college (which even then was at random) for the ptsd to be this bad that he stopped at a very young age. and i don’t think this is talked about enough because of the abuse he suffered everyone just seemed to look over this part thinking he was better off either way so he wouldn’t be hurt but he still wanted it. he still wondered. he still went to extremes to be normal and wanted to experience this huge thing that everyone in his adult life kept talking about. and to answer my own question, nobody would no, not even him.