TheStarCrowned

Her husband’s job

Her child-care arrangements

How she nurtures her underlings

How she was taken aback by the competitiveness in her field

How she’s such a role model for other women

Still, the virtue of some rules in Aschwanden’s test is difficult to see at first. Take the rule of “no firsts.” In the comments section below her post for Last Word on Nothing, Finkbeiner explained that no sooner had she taken the vow to ignore gender, than she caught herself writing that the astronomer she was profiling was the first to win a certain award. After a reader urged her to stick to her pledge, she removed it.

“The fact that she’s the first woman to do that says a lot more about the prize-giving committee than it does about her,” Finkbeiner explained in our interview. “So if I were going to put that into a story, it would be a story about prejudice in that prize committee.”

are they gone? okay. you are a knight and i am your childhood friend but the key point is we've been in love for years and years and years and every time you come back from a quest i'm there.

and every time, i wipe the blood from your face and bandage your wounds, and you catch my hand and press it harder over the cloth, and it hurts you but it feels good, too, because it's my hand that's doing it, and because of this quiet unspoken thing between us that will never be because of the oaths you've made to others.

and then one day an enemy of yours tracks me down and i am your one weakness, and you came back to the quiet village and i am not there, and the houses are burning, and you raze every inch of ground between us

but it's a trap (obviously it's a trap) and you are caught and i am there, and your enemy vows to destroy your world as you have destroyed his (and this is how i find out that you are not the good person i thought you were) (and how i find out that i don't care, i'll have you anyway, if we survive this thing)

and then while you are restrained your enemy hurts me just to see you scream, and i won't beg even though nothing has ever hurt this bad, and you are raging against your chains, with this look in your eye that's fear, not rage, because for all your vows i am the only thing you love.

and then you get free and you kill him and you toss his body aside like it doesn't even matter (because it doesn't, only i matter, i am the only thing in the world) and you undo my bindings with shaking hands and you say damn my oaths, i will slay a thousand kings if you ask it of me, and i smile finally with blood on my teeth and you kiss me

An abandoned theater in Rochester, New York. Formerly a pornographic theater, then just a facade after the Walgreens next door gutted it to use as a warehouse. The Walgreens with it's shampoo and baby formula and half of the store locked in cages; the contradictions stare into you. You go because it is the nearest pharmacy, close in walking distance for you and your disabled loved ones.

The Walgreens shuts down and it too, is now just a vacant facade, next to a vacant facade. You stare into the large windows meant to advertise it's contents, now only showcasing absence. A wide open space with torn up floors. You think about how perfect the location could be for low income housing, for squatting, for anything other than standing as a constant reminder of the city's failures to her people. The parking lot is empty, save for the occasional cop car, to ensure no one uses the lot or the building for anything at all. The cop ensures the space will stay as useless as himself.

They add letters to the theater's marquee; a reminder and encouragement of surveillance. "If you see something, say something. In progress call 911, over and done call 311." They board up the doors, ensuring that the space will stay in it's intended form: empty, useless, an eyesore that reminds everyone of their place. The freshly boarded up door has been emblazoned with a message from those who lack.

Levi's said yes, actually. Assless chaps and a biker vest. Happy Pride.