#laperlina

Wow. Meet-cutes are relics. Everyone — everyone knows that. They hang meet-cutes up on the rack that his button down shirt had once hung from, on the rack beside the one that held his cap toes, these polished shoes what he had worn when he'd willingly sunk into Maruchan hell for his 1982 Buick Riviera. Meet-cutes are dying on the vine, withering to the pestilence of streamlined consumerism in much the same way jazz is or his dwindling patience for NYC's animal population. Seb's nose wrinkles up. Yes, the NYC animal population. He's beginning to think that cohort includes the likes of girls in miniskirts who drink sugar over coffee. Anyway, meet-cutes are an endangered species, extinction critical, and obsoletion hangs over it like the fragrances in a Macy's. It is sinking into obscurity, into absolute irrelevance, mogged by its more controversial but no less stunning cousin, the meet-ugly — and oh my.

Is it ugly.

Seb smiles tightly. He's pretty by virtue of being a stuggling artist, the one whose tastefully slicked hair has loosened marginally from its pomade embrace because of the heat, but that smile isn't. That smile is pure LA derision. You know the sort. It's the smile that sells you a chai latte for $10 and has the gall to tell you to have a nice day when you're down a Hamilton with rent due tomorrow. And he doesn't care. In fact, the smile says I'm considering upping the rent next month to cover my rent, and I don't believe in class solidarity. We aren't even on the same planet no less the same tax bracket. His partner in jazz retreats, wise not to wrangle with two hissing cats just as Seb swivels like a jackknife to meet her.

"A jazz person? Really? And you're a — a what? A Coachella person? Is that hankerchief of yours—" her skirt "—Bloomingdale?" My word! He's got it, hasn't he?! "Okay. I get it. You're headed the wrong way. Airport was three stops ago. If you get off and follow your nose to where it smells like you, it'll take you there. You should know it. Smells like daddy's money." Quite right. He means to say, of course, that she smells like an over commercialized, high-vanity, downright affront to class and culture hodgepodge. The death of identity. She probably listens to Ariana Grande. Seb folds his arms defensively, nigh on barricading his chest, and looks so devastatingly put upon that the Stock Market's very foundations begin to tremble. His eyes rake over her, judgmental, and for a spell, the value of the dollar plummets. "You're not from around here, are you?" he sniffs, taking in her very naked thighs and her very naked contempt.

MEME / accepting / @laperlina

🪤 : what pattern do they keep falling back into?

pre-rehab, substances; post-rehab, still sometimes substances.

mostly he's just so avoidant. he has a wild tolerance for discomfort when it's self-inflicted, but as soon as it starts coming from some outside source he literally can't handle it. it's especially noticeable in relationships (platonic and otherwise)

🧠 : what do they assume people think about them?

that he's baseline attractive, he can sometimes be a good hang, he actually is a really good friend even if he's just an asshole all the time.

🪶 : are they gentle with people they desire?

Muse talking about the mun

“ horror, probably. i do not dislike horror as a concept, and i understand why she writes it. i think she is very interested in what people become when something terrible strips the polite language away. survival, devotion, fear, grief, the body remembering what the mind tries to make useful. those things matter to her. i understand that. i just—i do not particularly enjoy being the one strapped to the table while she explores them. medical horror, especially. institutional horror. anything involving laboratories, containment, files, restraints, men in clean rooms deciding what my pain means for national security. she writes it well, unfortunately, which is precisely the problem. ”

“ i also think she enjoys tragedy a little too much for someone who insists she loves me. ”

“ romance is also... complicated. i do not dislike it—i dislike being seen in it. there is a difference. she likes writing the part where someone notices how badly i want to be cared for, and i would prefer everyone move past that with dignity. no one ever does. ”

“ so, yes: horror, tragedy, and romance, when it gets a bit too honest—anything where the problem is that i am loved and expected to survive because of it. she enjoys those very much. ”

Muse talking about the mun

“ i would call it comfort-driven with occasional flashes of strange little drama. she has a vision. i think that is the kindest and most dangerous thing to say about it. not because it is bad, mind you, but because it means she knows what she wants things to feel like before she knows how to make them behave on her body. comfortable, mostly. soft. odd in ways she pretends are accidental. deliberately stylized when she has the energy for it, though energy is usually the part that ruins the plan. ”

“ over the years, i think she has leaned more toward comfort. big shirts, sweaters, long sleeves, things she can disappear into a little. which i understand. the older you get, the less patience you have for being uncomfortable for an audience that may not even deserve the effort. though some of it is probably because she does not go out much anymore. ”

“ i think the thing holding her back is not taste. she has taste. she has preferences. she knows the difference between clothing she likes and clothing that feels like her. i think she just struggles to be deliberate about it. she would probably be happier with what she wore if she gave herself more permission to plan the outcome instead of hoping the feeling survives whatever she can find clean and comfortable that day. ”

“So I walked the collection up to the desk, and the blighter looked entirely appalled! He then proceeded to tell me that I had mistaken which volumes he had wanted, when I’d made sure to check twice and thrice with him that what he’d requested was correct! It wasn’t an easy find, either. Do you know how many existing copies there are of “Bites, Blights and Bloodsport” alone? Not enough to afford being picky!” The mage huffed, before stifling his chatter on the overly sweetened drink in his hand. Somehow, he’d been convinced to leave the so-called “hermit hovel” that was his bookstore and apartment, and god had he needed it. Even now he couldn’t help but bring up work if it filled the silence. He was perhaps, boring his lovely companion that had dragged him along to death, what with the way she fiddled with the buttons of his cardigan. 

She makes him nervous. She's a little thing, spined and curious, not quite fragile. To Lemuel, she resembles a sea urchin even as she casts zealous demands in bright curling syllables. He's not quite been good with children and he attributes his shortcomings with never having been a child himself. He can only reply in his own accented Russian. "Right away, little miss." "What else, little miss?"

He can be a star employee, or so he thinks, until he tips the play produce display and velcroed vegetable halves fall to the floor.

Send a romantic candidate to my muse and see their reaction!

Well now, she was certainly getting creative in her endeavors. Though he couldn’t bash her for getting smart with him. She knew he checked his emails- was rather required to, as much as this was his own self-run business (it was simply procedure)- and she knew he would give her a response. He had grown fond of their conversations, after all.

Setting the printer paper aside (and with a roll of his eyes), he responded to her email.

“You know, I feel as if you’ve all but cornered me with this question. Nothing new I suppose. But isn’t it better to elicit a more genuine response out of me then hold me at digital knifepoint?”