Jane Hollander is an icon, a true trailblazer and force of nature in the fashion industry. After being blackballed for being a lesbian early on in her modelling career, she made an unprecedented comeback and launched the most successful fashion magazine to date.
Liliya Rozanova had always admired her. She couldn’t imagine what she had to face as an Asian woman in the industry, let alone one that had been outed and publicly humiliated by a powerful photographer like Thierault, then to re-enter the industry? She was truly something else, certainly more than worthy of the awards she had received.
(If Liliya also jerked off to her early campaigns and her recent interviews outlining her creative process ok the other side of the camera, so what? Jane was a powerful, talented and stunning woman, it was only rational.)
When she had the chance to work directly with her on a groundbreaking campaign on body diversity, centring trans bodies, she jumped at the chance. She typically hated doing ‘diversity’ campaigns because most magazines seemed to do them to tick a box, but it wasn’t like that with Jane’s magazine. The models were always diverse, year round, and while they obviously spotlighted certain communities in correspondence with the appropriate month, those models appeared outside of their ‘expected’ times. She’d modelled for Jane’s magazine, but this time, they were doing boudoir photography of trans bodies, and Jane had said that she’d be more involved than typical campaigns.
She knew that she should be cautious of meeting her heroes, as the saying went, but fuck did she want to meet this one in particular.
I loved Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey SO MUCH overall, but I do feel like Jeronicus should have taken responsibility for his part in the events leading up to Gustafson's theft.
All Gustafson wanted was someone to listen to him, even for a minute. Jeronicus saw Gustafson's worth, true, but he never bothered to let Gustafson know he saw him as anything other than a servant. For that matter, he treated Don Juan the same way, totally ignoring his concerns. Jeronicus was so caught up in his own genius that he brushed aside anything not immediately useful to him, and if he'd paid just a little bit of attention to Gutafson and Don Juan, he'd have realized how they felt and set things right before they even fell apart in the first place. That doesn't justify stealing from him, obviously, but he never even acknowledged that it happened, or that it was wrong.
And yes, I know it's just a kid's movie. But precisely because it's a kid's movie, it's even more important that it sends the right messages to its young audience.
aHHHH MY BIRTHDAY IS THE TUESDAY BEFORE YOURS mwuaha, Kaiba lovers and december babies in synch-
1) Happy birthday my fellow December baby! :D
2) Please accept this small gift! (Whoops. Actually it got long on me. Why does everything get long on me?)
When you arrive at work, there’s already a flood of flowers decorating your desk. The arrangement doesn’t just have your favorite flowers but is accented by white roses and vines of tiny flowers. Everything is perfectly arranged on your desk as if the florist had created the arrangement for the space.
Knowing Seto Kaiba, that’s probably true.
About ten minutes before it’s time for your lunch, you get a delivery of food from your favorite restaurant. There’s no note, but you know who is responsible.
Then, at the end of the day, when you make it home from work, you find a dress sitting out on your bed. The dress is midnight blue with silver stars falling down from the bodice and a skirt that brushes the floor. It’s the sky at night and comes with a note asking you to be ready at 7.
You’re not sure why you feel pleased and a bit surprised. The flowers alone had been beautiful. The lunch had been divine with all your favorite foods. And now dinner?
He knows how to make a girl feel special.
You get ready for dinner. The dress gives you an idea of what to expect as you fix your hair and pick out shoes. Once you’re done, you hope that you look nice.
He arrives at 7. When you answer the door, he’s wearing a suit. He raises an eyebrow as he looks you over. There’s a moment of silence.
“You look nice,” you say, but it’s an understatement. The suit allows you to admire his shoulders and chest.
He smirks. “I knew that dress would look good on you.”
You understand the compliment, no matter how indirect. He thinks you look good, and you can feel your cheeks stretch as you grin.
He puts his hand on your door, stopping you from closing it. “You might need a jacket.”
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.” His mouth turns up on one side. He’s pleased with himself.
You let him keep his secrets as you dig out a jacket that won’t ruin the look of your dress. You don’t have anything that fits the dress well, but you find a jacket that will work.
Then you follow him outside to his car. “I didn’t know you knew how to drive,” you tease as he opens the passenger door of a small two-seater.
“I know how to do everything.” He helps you into the car as you try to think of a response for his cocky statement. He shuts the door and goes around to the driver’s side so he can slide into his own seat.
He starts up the car, and you watch as he switches gears. “Stick shift? Well I suppose your ability in racing games doesn’t mean much IRL.”
He takes the bait, shooting you a glare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh IRL means in real-”
“I know what IRL means.” He accelerates, cutting around a few cars, and you wonder if you should be surprised that his driving is aggressive. “Beating me at a game on your ancient console with a small controller doesn’t mean anything.”
You smirk. He’s so easy to rile up. You place your hand on top of his. He might have a point. Your controller wasn’t made for his man hands. “Just try not to crash into anything.”
When you arrive, he parallel parks his car in a small space as if he has something to prove. It’s a space you would never try to squeeze a car into, but he doesn’t need to know that, and you don’t drive real cars anyway.
You get out of the car and look around. “Where to?”
He takes your hand and pulls you in the right direction without a word. Walking hand-in-hand with your boyfriend, you enjoy the sight of downtown Domino at night. Kaiba stops in front of a building that looks more like a business, and you assume he must be joking. “This place looks closed.”
“The restaurant is on the roof.” He leads you to the front doors. The lobby inside is lit up, but there’s nobody around as the two of you walk over to the elevators. He presses the ‘up’ button and one of the elevators opens with a ding.
Inside he presses a button at the very top labelled “R”.
“I rented the restaurant out for the evening, but I brought in my own chef.”
“The food is that bad here?” you joke.
He shrugs. “I wouldn’t know, but today didn’t seem like the right day to find out.”
The elevator opens, revealing a rooftop terrace. The entire rooftop is covered with a spiderweb of tiny white lights, and there are plants all around.
A woman steps forward to greet the two of you. “Hello Mr. Kaiba. May I escort you to your table?”
There’s only one table, but he inclines his head and follows her to it.
She holds out the chair for you, and then flips the cups on the table so they’re no longer upside down. There’s a bottle of water on the table, and she unscrews the top before filling the glasses. Then she places the bottle back down on the table. “I’ll let the chef know that you’re here.”
You watch as she walks over to a small set of stairs and disappears, leaving the two of you alone.
“This place is beautiful.”
“Good.” He reaches out to grab your hand and holds your hand on top of the table for a moment. “Do you want your present now or later?”
“Seto!” You glare at him, but the glare is more playful than serious. “I told you not to get me anything!”
“So you want your present later?”
You dither for a moment, but then curiosity wins out. “Well, if you insist...”
His smirk is almost a smile now. “We can wait.”
“No, no!” Now he’s just being mean. “Now I want to know!”
“Well, I know you said not to give you anything for your birthday,” he says as he pulls a box out of his pocket. He holds the box out toward you and opens it to reveal a ring with a massive sapphire. “But I couldn’t ask you to marry me empty handed.”
You just stare at him, as he takes the ring out of the box and then takes your hand. He hesitates with the ring near your ring finger. “Is that a no?” he asks.
“Yes!” you cry out. “I mean, yes, I’ll marry you!”
He slides the ring onto your finger. It’s a perfect fit of course, and he entwines his fingers with yours, letting your hands rest on the table.
It’s only later that you realize he managed to get away without actually asking you to marry him. Smug jerk.
