Ines and Mischa

Every soap opera needs a mid-season cast shake-up. Josh and Paula ended things after that business at the lake. Tony found out about Jeffrey. Scott packed up and moved back to Los Angeles to pursue his destiny as a tanned construction worker. Tragedy wherever you look.

So: two new people. First, Ines Kuchler—twenty years old, already a known quantity in certain corners of the internet, specifically the corners where people write things that keep nerds awake at night. She once wrote a piece about the sex life of a teenage girl who’d worked out desire before she’d worked out much else, including why she didn’t want certain men putting vegetables anywhere near her. It was the kind of writing that makes you want to offer someone a platform immediately, which is exactly what happened.

Mischa-Sarim Vérollet is the other extreme: twenty-eight, a writer from Bielefeld, moving to Berlin, already with several books behind him. He writes about living—the actual texture of it, the highs and the long grinding lows—with enough precision that Hannah apparently ended up on the floor, literally drooling, moaning his name. That’s a solid reference by any standard.

They’re both chaotic in complementary ways. This journal is better for it.