Pillow Talk Novel

[Griselda Humbarger]

Despiteher usually shy, introverted, and reserved nature, Grace decides to try out for the Pillow Fight Federation (PFF), a locally famous league of fighters with larger-than-life personas like Pain Eyre, Miss Fortune, and champion Kat Atonic. They may battle with pillows, but there is nothing soft about these fighters. The first and only rule to pillow fighting is that the pillow needs to be the first point of contact; after that, everything else goes.

Turns out, no one is laughing when Cinderhella dominates her first match in the ring. And as her alter-ego rises through the ranks of the PFF, gaining traction and online fame (and online trolls), can Grace use the spotlight to become an icon for not just others, but most importantly, for herself?

Pillow Talk is an inclusive, high-octane, outrageously fun graphic novel that aims a punch at the impossibly high standards set for women in sports (and otherwise) and champions the power of finding a team that will, quite literally, fight for you. A knock-out!

Mel Valentine Vargas is a Miami born, Chicago based, Latinx comic creator and illustrator. They work largely with digital media and have a BA in illustration from Columbia College Chicago. Mel loves drawing minorities and art that their younger self needed while growing up, including hispanic main characters, non-binary characters, and bodies of all shapes. Their work is largely inspired by LGBT, POC, and fem experiences, and is focused in graphic storytelling with themes that help highlight minority lifestyles. It is Mel's goal to ensure that their illustrations help people who are not often represented feel a little less alone and a lot more love.

Grace Mendes a.k.a. Cinderhella is a fierce competitor in the PFF, a pillow fight federation that's part roller derby, part professional wrestling. But in this fresh, coming-of-age YA graphic novel, Grace needs to learn to overcome her biggest enemy: herself. For fans of Check, Please and Bloom.

Grace struggles with deep-seated body image issues, so she is especially shocked when she makes the competitive league and is welcomed into the fold of close knit, confident fighters. As her first official fight performing as newly crafted alter-ego/ring persona Cinderhella looms on the horizon, the real battle taking place is between Grace and her growing insecurities. What if people laugh or make fun of her? Why did she think she could pillow fight in the first place when she doesn't look like your "typical" athlete?

For some reason, a lot of people are assuming that the term 'pillow friends' in the WOT refers to homosexual people. I think this is highly unlikely. A lot of Aes Sedai comment on having had pillow friends when they were novices. This very likely merely means that they were best friends. This could even by applied to Moiraine and Siuan.

I can't remember the exact dialougue, but Eladia was talking in KOD to her new keeper, about an Aes Sedai who was a pillowfriend with Eladia and was maybe trying to make the connection again. The Keeper was a little confused that Eladia might want to do so, because she thought that pillowfriends were only for Novices and Accepted to help get them through the rigors of training. Besides she liked Men better.

It was something like that, so it makes it sound like a little more than a close friendship. Why would close friendships have to die out and did it mean after you had become an Aes Sedai you would have no need for close friends?

Not much to comment on. Pillow friends are female friends who have a sexual relationship--at least in the White Tower. Other lands have other names for it. Aside from RJ having confirmed this in the blog...

There is entirely too much pillow friend going on is WOT, if you ask me.To help themselves get through training in White tower, is a lame excuse for becoming homosexual. People just can't do this.They have to born homo to contemplate such acts, no matter how lonely one is.

Personaly I think,that kind of lonelyness isn't something you can overcome with mindless sex. When I say lonely, I mean emptyness of the heart and soul. You need some one to sustain you through some dreadful ordeal or difficult phase of your life.That some one has to be some one you love. In short, soul mate.

I myself is going through a difficult phase in my life and I am lonely, and I never for a second think any kind of sex can or will help me. I seek a soul mate, a woman I can love and be intimate with. And I detest homosexuality. Nothing against them, but I just don't like it. Make me want to vomit.

Until the Ailil/Shalon thing, I had always held the understanding that pillow friends were simply very close friends who sometimes slept together, so that they didnt have to sleep alone. Cried together, screamed at each other when frustration overtook them, and hugged each other to sleep when homesickness set in.

Pillow friends don't just have mindless sex. They love each other deeply - to each other, they're that "some one" that can sustain them through the difficult phase. That kind of deep love can most certainly lead to homosexual acts, and most definitely doesn't mean those involved ARE homosexuals.

I myself know many people who have had homosexual encounters and are not homosexual. They've had *meaningful* relationships that include a physical aspect with people of the same gender - not romantic relationships, but with people they cared for deeply - and they still include getting married to someone of the opposite gender and having children as one of their life's goals.

People who are stressed out and in need of comforting can and do have sex. Look up the words bisexual and bicurious. Like MystErikEry, I know people who have experimented with others of the same sex, and then go on to stick strictly to heterosexual relationships. And vice versa. Maybe RJ did too, and based 'pillow friends' off of real people he knew.

I am not saying it isn't real. I am saying that while some people can or will do it, most of us won't. Look at Elayne and Egwene and Nynave for example. They didn't. The void that Elayne felt, the emptyness or the comfort she seeks could have only come from Rand.

They can't fill my void, I need some one of opposite sex, a female, whome I love(at present there is none, apart from some fictional character like Aviendha and Kahlan)...as deluded as I am, I just can't see how.

That kind of emptyness or void can only be filled with that kind of love. The homosexual being whome they are, I guess they can find that kind of love in same sex, But I can't see how anyone who isn't born homo, make themselves do it.

Though i myself don't really feel the need to have a 'pillow friend' myself regardless of how much stress is piled on me, in order to understand it i think people need to look at the Novices themselves.

They are effectively cut off from their previous lives, and thrown into celibacy at pretty much the height of puberty. Yes, there are guys there too (which they aren't allowed to see without supervision / permission) but for all purposes they're locked in a monastery, doing chores all day while their biological clock is driving them insane.

Then, when giving each other -- nonsexual -- comfort at the end of the day, i can see it happen that sometimes raging hormones take over, and once people are past the initial treshold... Let's just say it's much easier to keep doing something than it is to start doing something you're opposed to (morally or otherwise).

As for Aes Sedai not doing it, let's not forget that it generally takes 50-odd years to get Raised, meaning that most new Aes Sedai would be in their 60's. At that age, even the 'late bloomers' have gotten to terms with their own bodies, or at least gotten used to it at the point of making it manageable, explaining why it's more or less expected to quit being pillow friends after being Raised to the shawl.

So yeah, even though i'm opposed to it from my point of view, i can understand why it's done, and be tolerated by the Aes Sedai. Though unlike actual love (which requires at least some degree of homosexuality), i reckon it's closer to lust (and let's face it, mammals tend to hump anything convenient, as evidenced by humans, dogs, and occasionally ducks).

Look at the prison system. At least in the UK and US, it is well-known for men (and women) in same-sex prisons to take their 'comfort' from other members of the same sex, because it is all that is available. I have seen numerous documentaries where men (and women) who have married lives with children outside of the system have turned to their cellmates and struck up relationships to carry them through their time inside.

That's because we live in a hetero-normative society. There is a strong cultural push against homosexuality in our society, but it is not a common one. Indeed historically speaking homosexuality has been accepted and endorsed by more societies than its been feared and hated by far, and usually more in the form we witness in WoT--as a form of close friendship seperate from the modern idea of it as a substitute for heterosexual marriage.

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