Sarah sat grumpily at the dining table, slowly swallowing down corn flakes as the hustle and bustle of the kitchen went on around her. Grace and Randy were cooking bacon on the stove, chatting mindlessly about whether or not sunscreen would prevent a proper tan. Holly was still asleep on the couch out in the foyer, and Justin and Bianca were looking through reviews of local attractions on the latter’s phone. Nathan had yet to get out of bed, and Jessica had apparently left before Sarah h

 Rustic, beautiful, perfect. These words were all that rushed through Jessica’s head as she stepped foot into the adorable little beach house that would set the scene for what was going to be the most important week of her life. The sea air filled her lungs with a sense of adventure – this was a whole new world! Freed from the conservative, prudish chains of her past, she brimmed with excitement that this cozy little shack would be the cocoon inside which she would evolve into a beautif

“Holy shit.” “I know, right?” “How fucking long did that take you?” Lily spun around, her humongous ponytail trailing in an arc around her as she debuted her latest masterpiece – a canon accurate Megaera cosplay, with every detail accounted for down to the shining gold spikes on her shoulder pads. She’d even painted her skin blue. “I literally started it the day you told me you were coming as Zagreus,” she said, posing smugly with one hand on her hip. “Which

Spencer gently pushed the bathroom door open, peeking inside to see if the coast was clear. The floors in here were just as sticky as they had been out on the dance floor, though he doubted it was the result of a hundred spilled vodka redbulls. The wall behind the urinals was plastered in stickers for local bands, rendered invisible beneath the phone numbers, profanity and general vandalism of the Underclub’s degenerate customer base. Luckily those customers were nowhere to be found. Spenc

Nicely done, you! You got yourself out to the gym and got a pump on, even though your work day was kinda shit. That’s discipline, right there. The decision to add a dedicated core day might be a little unorthodox, but I’m sure I won’t be the last one to tell you it’s really starting to make a difference. Those abs are POPPING! Look at the way that grey shirt clings to them in the fluorescent light… it’s not gay to admire your own torso in the gym mirror, righ

    

It was the kind of day that passes very quickly. The sun was out, the birds were chirping, and in the event space of a hotel in downtown Minneapolis, Kara – or

Karachu

, as her Twitch followers knew her – was clutching out the last few splits of a fairly decent Lands

Of

    

You can’t

imagine how hard this all must be for somebody so awkward. There’s a certain spiral of self-destructive thinking and intense self-analysis that most don’t really begin until they’re older, out in the world, able to look back on their lives with genuine distance and separation

that removes the clouded context of the teenage mind. Theodore