#and we couldn’t afford artificial ones

[selfconsciousfangirl]

I don’t remember being much of a Christmas person before. Life always got in the way, like the time I had to sit a university entrance exam on December 23rd. I was either busy working retail or wrapping up the school year and/or being deeply, clinically depressed. I rarely had the time or energy to put up Christmas decorations. Eventually I stopped doing a Christmas tree and focused on my nativity scene instead, which felt more meaningful to me for a variety of reasons. And then my dad died the week before Christmas and I gave up on the whole thing altogether. It took me a while to feel like doing even that much again, and sometimes I don’t end up doing it until December 24th.

Can’t even remember what was the point I was trying to make. I feel a touch disconnected from the seasonal mood, I guess. My dad was fun to buy presents for and got me truly special things. It’s just not the same without him, that’s just all there is to it. We adapt and choose what makes the most sense

[chronically-ghosted]

i'm empty without you, so come grow within me

AO3 Link | main masterlist | Joel Miller Masterlist

rating: explicit (18+)

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

word count: 9K

summary: with winter approaching, joel takes stock of what he wants and what he has in his life. he wants you, but he's not quite sure he has you, not in a way that only a life in Jackson can afford. joel's an old-fashioned guy, so he's looking for an old-fashioned love . . . if he can only remember how to do it right.

inspired by the songs 'why don't we just dance' by Josh Turner and 'the kind of love we make' by Luke Combs, this fulfills a request from @handsomehelmet for my 1k celebration (creativity struck and now i'm going to make it everyone's problem)

warnings: the nastiest thing i can possibly imagine which is romance and sincerity, some willie nelson lyrics, established situationship, no age of reader specified, body insecurity, feelings of unworthiness/shame, survivor's guilt, blatant disregard for old man knees by eating pussy on the floor, unprotected piv, a teenager bullying fully grown adult to quit being stupid.

a/n: i know everyone gets into a tizzy when Joel doesn’t name what Tess is to him in front of Bill and while there probably was a heaping amount of guilt that accompanied that omission, i wonder if it might be a bit more complicated: he simply couldn’t name one thing because she was all things to him. A friend, a lover, a guide, a support system, a protector, a partner. So he says it the best way he can: “she’s mine.”

come see what else we've done to celebrate 1K followers

By the fourth bag, all you can think about is a warm shower. 

A chance to scrub away the dirt smeared on your arms, your neck, probably your face. You’d brought your own work gloves to bag fresh dirt for the greenhouse, but the longer you work, more sprinkles of dirt find their way down the lip of your gloves. You can feel it against your palms, under your nails. The cold winter air lurks beneath the crack of the door, stifled from invading by the artificial heat provided by the generator just outside, and it stifles you too with its oppressive weight. You’re fairly sure the dirt on your forehead has turned to mud, sweat and damp earth encrusted on your dry skin. 

By the sixth, you doubt your shoulders will ever move again without popping. 

You know Joel’s already do. 

Never a particularly chatty man even in his best moods, the greenhouse had become stuffy with heat and silence, both you and Joel too lost in the work to find the energy to even fake idle chatter. But, knowing this about Joel and a certain degree yourself, silences with him were never a bad thing. That was one of the things you enjoyed most about being with him; you two could do your own things together. Many snowy days were spent with him stretched out on the couch, reading, and you working on writing your sheet music on the floor, his knee hovering over your shoulder with your back to the cushions – spent in total silence, and they are some of the fondest memories you had since coming to Jackson and falling into the third and final piece of the Miller-Williams household. 

Like with the end of the world, you weren’t sure how you got there until everything had fallen into place around you; Joel and his adoptive daughter had been just another group who were taken in by the town of Jackson . . . until they weren’t. Ellie was just another foul-mouthed kid who had seen too much and had too much taken from her . . . until she wasn’t. Joel was your occasional patrol partner and a fellow Willie Nelson fan. . . until he wasn’t.

Until that unmistakable line, one that seemed to be lost on a global scale beneath the blood and the gore and the grief, had been crossed when he asked you out for drinks and the both of you knew the evening wasn’t going to end in a nightcap. 

And then you were partners, even outside of patrol. Partners in re-enforcing a weakened part of Jackson’s outer walls. Partners in cooking, attempting to recreate an enchilada recipe Joel only vaguely remembered from a Tex-Mex hole-in-the-wall fifteen minutes from where he used to live in Austin. Partners when it’s snowing heavily outside and there’s not much to do except to read and, well . . . Joel was a fantastic partner in that.

Joel Miller was a great partner for a lot of things. He worked diligently, quickly and, unless the conversation was started by someone else, silently. 

He, in short, was not someone who was easily distracted.

Which, in combination with your own exhaustion and a desire to scrub the first layer of your skin off with a loofah, is why you feel a flare of annoyance when you look up and see him staring off into the distance. His fingers loosely grip the handle of the shovel, his palm resting over the curved point, Joel’s expression is nearly unreadable, except for the small crevice between his eyebrows. He stands, fixated on the greenhouse wall, as if watching the blurry Christmas lights from the town square, suddenly oblivious to the work you two have been doing for the past hour and a half. 

“Joel.” Nothing. “Joel!” 

You raise your hand to smack him on the leg when, without looking down, he asks:

“When was the last time I took you out?” 

“What?”

His weight shifts, holds the shovel by one hand now. You catch a sliver of frustration in those deep brown eyes as he looks at you. He wears what you and Ellie secretly refer to as his “pouty-mouth”, a classic expression when he isn’t getting his way about something but won’t draw attention to the fact that it annoys him.

“Tell me about the last date I took you on.”

You huff, standing up with a pop in your hips. Your knees are aching from kneeling on the cold winter ground and your skin fluxes between overheating under your jacket and stiffly frozen on your extremities. 

“Joel, c’mon, be serious. We’ve got three more –,”

“I am being serious.” Dumb-founded, you watch as he digs the tip of the shovel into the ground with a hollow chunk. Crosses his arms and continues to frown at you like you just suggested doing away with the Christmas holiday entirely. “We’ll get to this, but I want you to tell me right now what we did on our last date.”

You roll your eyes, humoring him. “Fine, I don’t know what crawled up your ass, but okay. On our last date, we . . . we did . . . you took me to . . .”

It’s your turn to frown. He raises a petulant eyebrow and it’s eerie how many times you’ve seen that exact expression on Ellie. 

“Okay, fine, so it’s been a while. We’ve been busy – we’ve all been busy with the winter season coming. All of Jackson has been out battening down the hatches. What does it matter if we’ve let things slide a bit?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, quiet in his Joel way. He glances out through the blurred greenhouse glass and maybe he was actually staring at the string lights hung over Jackson’s square. Normally, you didn’t mind being unable to dissect his every expression, every sigh, every carefully wielded silence, but when it came to you and his feelings about you – feelings that were always implied in those silences – you wished you had a little window, some hint, as to what rumbled on behind those earth-dark eyes. 

Joel drums his fingers on the handle of the shovel, unease rolling through his body as he shifts his weight. 

“Matters some,” he tells the ground. “With the holidays comin’ around . . . matters for Ellie – her first winter here in Jackson. Matters for Tommy, with that new baby of his . . .”

“Your nephew,” you supply as much as prod. Sometimes the only way to get an honest answer out of him was when he was just a bit pissed off and less guarded. Instead he just nods, gloved hand on his hip, thick jacket widening his already confounding broadness.

“It matters because it’s important. To me. It’s important to me.”

He meets your gaze and you’re struck full force again with that feeling like you drank too much of the Tipsy Bison’s shitty whiskey too fast. Same feeling that couldn’t be drowned even with the Tipsy Bison’s shitty whiskey when you shared a drink with him for the first time. When you managed to laugh when he bet you a whole day of stable cleaning duties that Willie Nelson and Chris Stapleton survived the apocalypse somewhere in a shack in Tennessee. Joel Miller was disarmingly funny when he wanted to be.

And even worse, disarmingly sincere.

You take his gloved hand in yours. You feel the sensation of his fingers threading through yours but not the heat you’ve grown so accustomed to. 

“Alright, then. What do you want to do about it?” You ask quietly, to the upturned collar around his neck, his green flannel peeking out from behind the zipper of his jacket. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s a lot of snow on the ground so that makes our options for date night kinda limited.” You scrunch your nose at him because you like to see the light in his eyes bloom when you do.

He chuckles, a rumbling sound, and he drops his forehead against yours, fingers tightening their grip around yours. Suddenly in your throat, your heart pounds. He’s never this affectionate in public. Maybe it’s those miraculously blurred greenhouse glass walls. 

His breath smells like that peppermint toothpaste that came in last week, infused with the warming-coil smell from the greenhouse. 

“Dunno yet.” He admits. “I’ll think of somethin’.”

“No ideas yet?” You raise your eyebrows against his forehead and he grins, shaking his head.

“Not yet.” 

“Then can I make a suggestion?”

“‘Course.”

“We finish bagging this dirt, then head home for a shower. In a really sexy way, obviously.” 

He huffs, smothering a laugh, and quick as lightning he kisses you on the cheek. But in the same movement, steps away and grabs the shovel again. You don’t have time to react to the fact he just kissed you for the first time outside of the four walls of his house before he’s scooping up dirt. You drop to your knees to pick up the bag again, your legs already weak.

“We both know you’re going to pass out on the couch the second we’re home.”

Your voice is steadier than you feel, as you look up at him. His face is flushed and that worry line between his eyes is gone. 

“You got me pegged, Miller. You got me pegged.”

Two days later, he stands in the middle of his living room, hands on his hips, surveying his handiwork. All of the furniture has been pushed to the far ends of the room, up against the walls or against the staircase out in the hallway. He’s kept the overhead lights off and put the standing lamps in the corners, bathing the room in a despondent glow. He thinks, after a quarter of a century never even entertaining something like this, it might be interpreted as romantic. He hopes you’ll see it that way at least. 

He hears it now, in his head, even though she’s out in the disconnected garage, snug and warm as he could have possibly made it – you worry too much, old man. 

Ellie knows there’s something going on between you two. Hell, the entire town has cottoned onto whatever this is; you’re often seen leaving his house early in the morning, and he’s been seen on occasion strolling up to your house with flowers. It’s not new, it’s not a secret, but it is . . . it just is and that’s about as far as he’s gotten. 

He hasn’t had you over for dinner with Ellie in that very specific way that very much needs to happen, as it often does when there is a new presence added to an established dynamic – as Maria often reminds him. But that almost feels like presenting your head on a silver plate to Ellie to either sniff with disinterest or tear into – both terrifying scenarios, even though they seem unlikely. Ellie does in fact seem to like you very much, as her riding teacher and occasional greenhouse buddy. But would she continue to like you in the context of you being one half of “You and Him” as a pair? Together. As a couple . . . of people who are seeing each other, whatever that means in a world filled with the most aggressive form of fungus imaginable. 

This life in Jackson, this fragile second chance to remember and rekindle his own natural instincts, is too precious to bet on a question like that. 

So he doesn’t ask it. At least not out loud. 

That’s one of the things he likes so much about you: his silences aren’t entirely indecipherable and often are encouraged by your own. Except this silence about this particular thing doesn’t feel like one of your shared, comfortable moments and instead it’s encroaching rapidly into avoidance. 

Standing in that greenhouse and seeing the string lights over the town square reminded him of a long ago Christmas, dancing with his favorite person under a Christmas tree, and how good it made him feel. How special it made him feel. All these years later, safe in a way his body has almost forgotten, there’s an urge he has to share that feeling, to recreate it under entirely different circumstances, with someone new. Someone else. To not try and fight the smile that constantly threatens to buoy up every time he’s around you. 

It’s foreign, that feeling in his chest, but it’s not entirely alien, at least not of late. 

He knows he’s white-knuckling it because he knows firsthand how painfully quick it can all be gone. Taken away. Left and buried by a black river while the world burns.

But he’s worried he’ll crush it with how tightly he holds on. How hard he begs a silent universe for it to last just a little bit longer. 

His knees ache, his left shoulder goes tight when it rains, his body is not what it once was, but his mind is still there, still clear, and he remembers how romance used to feel, where it used to reside in his younger body, and as he stares out at the cleared room, listening to your footsteps overhead as you attempt to follow his vague instructions to “make yourself feel pretty” (because you already were to him, even covered in dirt and sawdust), he thinks this feels like the old world. An old world romance. It’s foreign, that feeling, but for the first time in a long time he doesn’t want to hold it at arm’s length.

“Joel?” You call from the top of the stairs, your voice tentative and cautious. But not cautious like you peeking around a corner to look for clickers. But cautious as in unsure, doubtful. You are a woman made up of a lot of things, with foundations unlike he’d ever seen before, but doubt is not a part of you. You never doubt him. 

“Yeah, baby?” Your nerves make him nervous and he futzes with a lampshade while waiting for you.

“Are you done down there?” 

He has to breathe slowly through the fluttering beneath his breastbone before he can answer. “Yeah, baby, all finished. You can come down now.”

“Okay . . . but you can’t laugh.” Him, laugh at you? There’s the instinct to smother the faint grin that spreads out across his mouth, but he told himself he wasn’t going to fight whatever came across his face tonight. If you see it, then you see it and he’s come to accept that. 

(Maybe even want that.)

He shakes his head, his only pair of nice boots (a thank you from a former rancher when Joel fixed his family’s heater) clicking on the hardwood floor as he stands at the bottom of the stairs. You must be hiding behind the wall because he can’t see you. 

“I’m not gonna laugh, sweetheart. Why d’ya think I’d laugh?” 

Silence faces him at the top of the stairs, and then:

“Because quite frankly I forgot my tits could look like this and I don’t know how to feel about it.” 

The snort that comes out of him is a poor attempt to muffle the chuckle. He thumbs the wood finial at the top of the bannister. 

“Can’t remember ever having any complaints before and I don’t think I’ll have ‘em now, no matter how they look.” 

“Whatever, Miller, you’re just a horn dog.” 

He rolls his eyes, fingers rubbing anxiously together at his side, as if he could tug the fluttering out of his chest. He leans on the other foot, the one with the bad knee, to adjust the slightly uncomfortable tightness in his jeans. A dark swirl in the second step of the stairs has become wildly interesting.

“Baby, just come down here. I’m not gonna laugh. Promise.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” you grumble, still out of sight. “I know where you keep your feral child and I will not hesitate to let her loose on you.”

Joel nods, grinning faintly, still focused resolutely on the whorl in the floor. “That’s a real big threat from someone who –,”

The words die in his throat.

In fact, he’s quite sure he won’t be capable of speech for a very long time. 

That foreign feeling – that feeling he’s worked for twenty years to suppress – is ignited in his chest. 

You walk, no, maybe you float down the stairs in the most stunning red dress he’s ever seen. It’s definitely not yours – he knows every inch of your closet because he had inspected it studiously when you offered to keep some of his clothes at your place and he was trying very hard to delay putting a handful of his belongings beside a woman’s things in a move that felt heart-stoppingly domestic. 

No, he has never, ever seen you in this dress. 

Come to think of it, he’s never seen you in any dress and you were entirely correct that your tits look wildly different. Fantastically different, but –

“Maria didn’t have any heels that fit me to go with the dress,” you announce airily, your chin up. But your eyes dart over his face as if looking for something you need to find. “But it’s fourteen degrees outside, Joel, and I’m not doing whatever this is in just socks because that’s ridiculous so you’re just going to have to deal with the boots.”

The Boots. The ones you wear while crushing clicker skulls and tending the stables. They still bear damp spots from where you tried to clean the blood and dirt from the leather.

It’s rather incapacitating how arousing he finds this particular combination.

So much so, he doesn’t realize he hasn’t said anything in a full minute until you bark at him, a cold tinge of panic in your voice.

“Joel!” His eyes snap to yours. Of course, you’re fucking beautiful – your eyes seem bigger, cheeks pinker, mouth wet – fucking Christ, where did you get make up? 

“Say something!” Those rosy lips drop down and to his horror, you’re upset. “Please!”

“B-baby, you look . . .” He doesn’t mean to grab your entire ass in one hand; he just wants to feel as much of that velvet on your skin as possible. You stumble into his arms, another something that is so unlike you, as he tugs you forward. Bends his lips to your ear to discover how fast you’re breathing. How fast your pulse races in your neck. The shudder that breaks the rigidity of your body when he brushes his mouth, the short bristles of his beard, against your skin is no surprise; you told him exactly what that sensation does to you in no uncertain terms the first night he ate you out on the table of your kitchen. “You look incredible.”

Your fingers bite into his biceps. Push back out of his arms, despite the obvious warmth in your cheeks. You level his arousal in a single glare. “Joel, I asked you not to tease.” 

Tommy once told him he was a pain in the ass to be around sometimes because he displays every negative emotion as anger and so it’s damn near impossible to figure out whatever it was he was so bent out of shape about.

Sadness as anger.

Shame as anger.

Guilt as anger.

Fear as anger.

With your fingers balled up, it's the tremor in your fists that gives you away. 

He had genuinely intended this to be a quiet night away from the cafeteria, away from the Tipsy Bison, away from anyone else. He wanted you all to himself and in his greed, he didn’t see it until he saw it in your eyes. 

How vulnerable being pretty made you. How vulnerable privacy made you. 

How being vulnerable made you so deeply, deeply afraid. 

Almost as afraid as he was. 

Without a word, he turns to the record player, strategically hidden behind the couch and puts on the carefully selected record. The silent scratches for a moment before –

Your eyes widen as Nelson begins to sing his most beautiful love song (in Joel’s humble opinion). Your shoulders slacken, hands lose their grip, you blink up at him in total bewilderment. You aren’t an indecisive person, you’re quick as a whip, rarely confused – so this befuddled look on your face is kinda cute. 

Tucking that rare look on your face away for another time, Joel wanders to the center of the room, in the heat of the light from the fireplace, his good boots clicking over the wood. He opens his arms, hand out to you.

“Let’s try something new tonight.”

I'll always be with you for as long as you please

For I am the forest but you are the trees

The decision you make is a visible one. 

Your palm is warm, weighted as it slides over his. This time his hand respectably settles on your waist, then on your low back when (to his surprise) you come closer. He’s delighted to watch you smile at him, distantly aware of the stretch of his own on his face. 

Willie strums on his guitar, crooning softly, the sound warm and deep. With the weight of you against his chest, that feeling crackles like the flames over the wood logs in the fireplace. You drop your head, turn your cheek, and just before you come to rest on his shoulder, he sees your smile slide into a smirk.

“New, huh? What’s new look like for a sixty-five-year-old man at the end of the world?” Even with teasing, your voice is soft and sweet, the soft powder of cinnamon. Slowly, as if not to startle either one of you, he leans his chin against your forehead.

“You n’ I’ve been burning both ends, keepin’ the lights on. New to us is having a goddamn break.” His voice is low, meant only for you, and in the tremble of his deep bass, the words elongate in his mouth. He brings your intertwined hands just under his chin and when that goes well, he tightens his grip around your back, drawing you flush against him. It reduces the dancing to more of a sway but Joel can’t find a single thing to complain about. You gently tap the pad of your middle finger in the hollow of his collarbone to the beat of the song.

I'm empty without you so come grow within me

For I am the forest and you are the trees

And the heavens need romance so love never dies

“‘N ‘m only fifty-six, jackass.” 

You grin, twisting in his grasp, rub your nose on his chest to wrap your arms around his neck. He clutches to your back like a key finding its lock. 

You'll be the stars dear and I'll be the sky

And should any of this find us let them all be forewarned

That you are the thunder and I am the storm

“This is nice, Joel,” you murmur in his ear. The backs of his arms are growing warm by the fire. He presses his lips to your exposed shoulder, unsure of what to say, or what not to say, only nodding. He closes his eyes, trying to hold this moment forever in his memory. The soft flare of your waist, the winged-spread of your ribs, beneath his hands brings him back into your arms.

"Yeah?" Quiet, into your skin as if to muffle the question entirely, to muffle the unsure wobble in his voice. "It's good?"

He feels you nod beneath his chin, the smell of fresh soap escaping from the back of your neck, and the clamp around his throat loosens. He breathes, unimpeded for the first time all night, a low exhale taking the tension from his body as the air leaves his lungs.

Relief. A sinking down into the moment, into your arms.

You chuckle with your cheek against his chest and he feels the vibrations down to his stomach.

"Yeah, Joel, you did good. Really good." With the hand he holds in the air, you rub your thumb over the knuckle of his thumb, soothing. It used to bother him you could read the lines of his emotions as well as you read a book, as well as you write your own name, effortlessly, as if you had been given a guide no one ever thought to show him. But now, now that you understand how much this means to him, that you know he needs to be told he made you happy, it's more than relief. It's an unburying – a resuscitation of pieces of himself (seed-like bone fragments) that he thought had long since died in the soil of his ribs. "Thank you. I needed this."

He wants you to see the whole of him. Lift up an antiquated silver plate and show you the dents and scratches in his reflection. When you kiss his cheek gently, the hope floating in his chest flares, a solar explosion with tendrils that reach into the blackness of space and it asks him, what would you do to keep her?

Everything. Anything.

He shuffles closer, feels the warmth of your body lined up against his, the clean scent beneath the edge of your jaw blooming in his nose and throat. The hope hums, pitches dark like the forest floor in the rain, and grows teeth. His want for you digs into his skin and evolves into a needy, unsatisfied thing.

“Where’d you get this dress, hm?” He asks, lips half an inch from your shoulder. It falls and rises, never catching on your skin as he plays with the fabric. He runs his palm up your spine, the velvet coming with him, and watches as the swell of your thighs and the tease of your ass is revealed. Dirty old man. “‘N who do I have to kill to get you to keep it?”

You laugh into his neck. He wonders if you’re intentionally twisting his curls at the base of his neck to send sparks of arousal down his spine or if you are completely unaware of the cause of his insanity. Your hands are littered with scars and calluses and every time you touch him, he could melt through the floorboards.

“They found it in some strip mall and were actually going to strip it down for material. But Aaron at the sewing center owed me a favor and you said wear something nice, so . . .” You thumb the lip of his collar, your fingertips brushing the knot of his spine every time you drag your fingers back and forth. 

And I'll always be with you for as long as you please

For I am the forest and you are the trees

He knows you well enough to know that something lingers in your mind, but even after all this time, even after what he’s seen with you, been through with you, the things he’s done to you – he isn’t quite sure if he has the right to ask. 

Instead, he squeezes you. He means to do it just with his hands, but ends up swallowing you in his arms. 

Your mouth is pressed up against his chest when you finally go on. 

“It just seems silly to keep, Joel.” 

The high he’s been riding on all night falters, since you first walked down those stairs to him. Your eyes are wet when he pulls back and cups you by your cheek. He stops swaying with you.

“Why’s that?” 

There it is, that all too familiar flicker of fear. You can’t look at him, despite his every touch, his every glance pulling you into him, to be near him. 

“Because other people should have it. They should have a chance to . . .” 

You withdraw your head from his hands, his thumb brushing your jaw as you retreat. He might actually lose a piece of himself if you let go now, but instead you clasp his wrists in your fingers. You stare at your hands and his between you, as if this whole thing between you could solidify at your feet, finally real. 

Willie has stopped singing, only that musky drone on an empty track.

“Someone else should have a chance to feel pretty, to feel this way, because it shouldn’t be wasted and I’m afraid – I wonder if –,”

He knows he’s being a bit too rough when he takes your jaw and straightens your gaze to him, but his heart might fly out of his chest before he has a chance to say anything. His stomach turns, not knowing he’s not at the peak of a roller coaster drop, that he’s standing on solid ground, even if it swims under his feet.

“What you feel is not wasted.” A murmur, stern, as steadily and as serious as he possibly can be.

That feeling aches in his chest and you haven’t even gone anywhere. You haven’t left . . . yet. “What this is, is not wasted time. I spent twenty years wasting time, looking for something that wasn’t there, and with you . . . I can’t say I’ve found it –,”

“Why? Why can’t you say you’ve found it?” Your grip around his wrists tightens, eyes hard. “Why can’t you name it, Joel?”

“Can you?” He pulls his hands out of your grip and you let him go. “How can you ask for what you want when you can’t even ask to keep this dress?” 

“Because I don’t deserve it!” It’s not silence that follows; it’s emptiness. You face away from him, pressing the heel of your hand into your brow bone, teeth slightly bared. Your arm bars across your stomach like you are literally holding in your guts. Finally, you lift your head, the few scant tears on your face sparkling in the firelight. “I don’t deserve you, Joel. I don’t deserve any of this. Ellie, the way she . . . I’m here, warm and happy, acting like the fucking world hasn’t ended. Playing house, playing pretend. Pretending like I’m your –,”

You swallow the words caught in your throat, gaze leaping away from him. At your side, your hand trembles again. 

Oh, honey, the shit I’ve done . . . 

With wide, wet eyes, you watch him approach. He doesn’t look at you, instead seeing exactly where he’d like to put his lips on your stomach beneath the fabric. 

“Then what do you want, hm?” There’s a fold in the front of the dress and he runs his fingers along the edge of it. “We can’t fix it. Can’t go back ‘cause there’s nothin' to go back to. I don’t care what you had to do to get here, right here, with me because I’m so fuckin’ glad you are. I’m not pretending, not wasting my time, never was. ‘Cause you’re right.” 

Your hand over his stills his endless roving and then it stays, scarred hand over scarred hand. Your gesture says something to him, something so meaningful he has no idea how to put it into words. He swallows his attempt and instead, slowly, drags both hands over your hips, where they stay. Heavy against the velvet. 

You rest your own against his forearms, neither pulling him in or pushing him back. 

“I was right about what?”

His eyes flick to yours and maybe it’s presumptuous, maybe he really is an old man afraid of his feelings, or maybe living this long – despite everything that ever tried to make it otherwise – living this long has granted him the privilege of knowing with perfect clarity what you’re thinking when you look at him like that. How he wants to whisper it back to you and he decides he will the next time your skin is warm and tacky, body helpless beneath his. 

Your eyes shamelessly track the brush of his tongue against his bottom lip.

“That you’re mine. Just like I’m yours.” 

The hands at his forearms glide up to his chest. The rims of your irises have gone a bit blurred, a bit unstable, and you can’t decide whether to look at his mouth or his eyes.

“Joel?” Suddenly breathy, all begging, pleading.

“Hm?”

“Get me out of this fucking dress.” 

When your lips crash into his, his entire world narrows down to where on his body, yours touches: 

your rough hand cradling his cheek, the other fisting the collar of his shirt. His fingers digging into your skirt, the heat from your thigh nearly driving him to tear straight through the fabric to get to you. Your sweet, perfect mouth smeared against his, lips puffed pink, nose to your cheek. 

That warm, wet cunt he thinks he can feel through his boxers, jeans, the dress and your underwear. 

It’s not enough. 

The cry you let out is some mangled mix of a moan and his name when he licks the soft supple skin behind your ear and nips your earlobe.

“Baby, please – please – bedroom, we have to–,”

He grunts his disapproval at your words, overwhelmed by the scent that makes his mouth water as he stains the column of your throat with wet, humid kisses. 

“Joel, c’mon, honey, just upstairs –,” 

The last flickering tiny speckle of logic in his brain fights with itself; take your right here or haul you over his shoulder – which isn’t great for his back and, quite frankly, he intends to spend most of the night on his knees. 

First option it is. 

You mumble in confusion, eyes shut, chin brushing the thread of gray curls on the top of his head as he purposefully sucks a bright hickey into your collarbone, one hand cupping your breast, the other pushing you backwards. You go willingly, of course. 

Until the backs of your legs hit the couch and there’s nowhere else to go. In the stumble, your dress rides up even higher and those thighs he’s actually lost sleep over appear to him. He drops to his knees, hands like meat hooks as they squeeze your waist, pulling that warm cunt even closer to him over the edge of the couch. You groan when he pushes the skirt up even higher, practically to your tits, as he explores your outer, then inner thighs with soft strokes of the back of his hands. He presses his nose to the crevice between your thigh and hip and inhales. 

“B-baby, the windows,” you swallow thickly, slurring like you’re drunk, grabbing at his shoulders like you’re trying to steady yourself, or turn him towards the windows. “I mean – the curtains, baby, the curtains are –,”

“It’s a fucking blizzard outside,” he explains tersely with his eyes still closed, as if irritated to have a conversation instead of focusing every ounce of concentration he has to the heat and smell beneath your black panties. He drags his teeth over the elastic band around your hips and makes you whine his name for an entirely different reason. 

You don’t make him stop or wait when he tugs those panties down your hips. In fact, you help, lifting your hips, the irises of your eyes so wide and black, you look halfway out of your mind.

Good.

He gathers the skirt he was once so fond of and stuffs it into the cushions behind you. You watch him as he moves, eyes half-lidded, finger scraping your bottom lip. Around his ribs, your knees dip back and forth, moving targets, like he’s forgotten why he’s here and needs reminding. 

His big paw, the size of which makes you feel indescribably small, catches your knee and stills it, gaze dark and heavy. Do not test me right now. You try not to moan. 

“Can’t believe I’m going to let you fuck me with my boots on,” you whisper airly, watching with delirious fascination as he puts one of your slender legs over his shoulder. His mouth is actually watering at the sight of your damp curls. 

“Not gonna fuck you. Just gonna eat your pussy. You’ll know the difference.”

“Semantically, it’s the sa-a-me thi-ng, Jo-e – ah, Joel!” 

His tongue up inside you turns you into a whiny, high-pitched, feminine mess. He eats like he does everything else: diligently, quickly, and silently. 

Until you bury your fingers in his ash-flecked curls and tug. 

That first deep, loud moan ripples through his body, rolling him up just off his heels, his crotch seeking some kind – any kind – of friction. 

The feel of his mouth humming against your cunt has your eyes rolling back in your head. “Please, oh fuck, please –” 

You are a grown woman. You should not be making these noises. 

You also shouldn’t be using a man’s face to get off . . . but you do it anyway.

“Tha’s it, baby,” he mutters when your hips grind against his face. His nose catches your clit and around him, your thighs wobble. “Use me, fuckin’ use me.” 

His grip around your calf over his shoulder turns rough and he knows he’ll bruise you, but fuck, the thought of you walking around town with a mark in the shape of his hand where everyone can see —

He briefly lifts his grip from your thigh to adjust his iron-hot cock in his jeans. From his view over your cunt, it doesn't seem like you noticed, or even saw him leave your skin. He watches you writhe, try to capture your breath, eyes crammed shut as your hips rock almost without your control. He takes a chance to lick the musky dampness from his upper lip when your cunt rolls back from his face a fraction of an inch — and then he sinks in again.

Call it age or the fact that you both are here at the end of the world, but the first night he ate you out, you told him exactly how and where you like it, unabashed and in control and honestly it’s the hottest thing he can think of in recent memory. 

He would have written it down on the backs of his eyelids if he could. 

He follows it to the letter.

“Joel – Joel, baby, please don’t stop –,” You buck and moan beneath him as he spells out your instructions with his tongue along your cunt. He dots the i’s with a tap of his tongue or a lick on your clit. Just inches above his head, your chest heaves, your fingers locked into his curls, gently pushing him closer to your puffy pussy as if he’d ever waste a drop of what leaks out of you. 

With a flat-tongued brush against your suffering clit, you arch off the couch, your sighs now verging on desperate, high and whinging, because it’s just not fair how good he makes you feel. He can feel your foot curl against the planes of his back, the rubber heel heavy, your mouth open and wet, with your eyes locked on the ceiling as you try to ride out your humming orgasm with a semblance of control.

“Look at me.” 

No other man has ever been able to make you come with just his mouth, you told him once.

And no other man ever will. 

It’s sweet, the way your eyes soften briefly when you lock eyes with him, crouched between your thighs — before your head tips back, lips wrenched apart in a silent scream, and you come, as hard as he has worked for the flush of slick down his chin.

There’s goosebumps on your thighs, he notes. He rubs his thumb against your raised skin and you shudder, head rolling against the back of the couch.

He’s already feeling a slight twinge of shame at the noise his knees will inevitably make when he stands, but for now he’s content watching you glide down from your high, his head against your knee, shoulders still stretching your legs open wide. 

To his delight, you manage to laugh, your hand draping over your eyes. You can see the shine of the dull light all across his lips, his chin, his nose and you have to close your eyes. He should make you lick it off him, but not tonight.

“Top marks, Miller, as usual,” you mumble, “but the threat of voyeurism really deserves the extra credit.” 

He grins. Still waiting for your breath to slow, he wipes his mouth with his palm and slides the leg over his shoulder down in between his own thighs. Propped up on one knee, he begins to unlace your boot. He holds your calf like it’s delicate as he gently drags the boot over your heel. 

He’s just as reverent with the other side. 

And then your boots, the pair, sit at the end of his couch, like they were always meant to be there. 

His heart, easing down from its own thunderous beat, squeezes and that feeling, that strange-not-so-strange feeling, the one that dictates practically every action with you, dribbles into his veins. 

You open one eye. A flutter of lashes, coy and playful, the curve of your mouth guarding a hoard of secrets.

“Now, Joel Miller . . . will you take me to bed?” 

It’s a question. A request. Your eyes, as dark as ever, on his warm his chest, all the way down his spine. You’re asking, politely, for a thing you both know he would never, ever deny you. 

He cannot lose you, he just can’t. 

He stands and, yes, his knees crack and pop, but he regains stability when he toes off his only good pair of cowboy boots. He nods, grinning, and offers you his hand.

The walk, half-run up to his bedroom is something his brain designates as not important enough to store away. 

Instead, it languishes in the way you stretch out on his mattress before him, ass in the air, knees spread over his blankets and arms sliding through crumpled sheets towards the headboard. 

The room is dark, the only light fighting its way through the downpour of snow comes from the lamp posts that dot the street outside. But the veil of snow warps the light and everything in the half-darkness is doused in blue. 

The shadowy, blurred curve of your shoulder, blue. 

The spread of your fingers on his mattress, blue.

The swollen bottom of lip of your mouth —

“Joel.” 

The snow falls so fast and hard, it patters against the windows and the sides of the house. It’s the only thing he can hear over the pounding of his heart and the short breath in his lungs. He stares at you, soaking his blankets in your scent and slick, and you stare right back in utter and total silence. 

You sit in the center of his bed, bare for him beneath the velvet dress that is red like blood, your patchy white socks at complete odds with your smeared make up and the fucked-out look in your eyes. But there’s something else there too. 

Something softer. Gentler. 

You reach out a hand to him and he goes to you, like always. The instant your skin touches his the instinct to fuck you hard until you’re bruised and crying evaporates. He doesn’t think you want that anymore either. 

No, you need — 

“Joel, please come here. I need you.” 

You need him.

The mattress squeaks when he settles one knee and then the other on top of it, his fingers stroking your ear, brushing the tips of your hair, while he kisses you with an ache that is not physically manifested. Instead, it resides —

“I love you,” you whisper. 

You pull back infinitesimally, just enough that your eyes are all he sees. 

A patient silence hangs from the ceiling. The sound of snow falling. Of baited breath. The scratch of your fingers against at his beard —

“I love you too.” You smile and his body is no longer big enough to contain his heart. “I feel like I’ve always loved you. Is that strange?” 

Your gaze traces the same path your fingers take when you think he’s sleeping; it runs over his nose, his forehead, his eyebrows, the plush curve of his lips. Like you can’t believe he’s there with you. Like you can’t believe he’s real. 

That feeling — that feeling he had been fighting because it always was the only thing that would ever really do him in — is love. He loves you. 

He loves you.

And you love him. 

Didn’t think they told stories like this anymore, not in a world like this. So maybe, for once, Joel Miller just got lucky. 

“No. It’s not. Just be sure you mean it.”

He can't tell if the glow in your eyes comes from within you or it beams out of him. “Every word.”

Eventually, he sheds you of his favorite dress of yours, your only dress, and he lays you back, fully bare in the nest of his blankets. In the corner of his bedroom, the heater hisses like the wind from a purple storm, the static crackle of warmth hovering in the air. You watch, with eyes that shine like stars, as he pops apart the pearl-snaps holding his shirt together. 

And then his white undershirt goes next. He used to worry what he looked like, until he found someone else who had done exactly what was necessary to survive. 

When he goes to unzip his pants, you sit up, hair mussed and the hickey he gave you earlier throbbing like a dream. 

“I wanna do it.” 

He lets you unbutton his jeans, slide the zipper down, at the edge of the bed, but your hands are shaking, your breath stunted.

“I’m fumbling like a teenager,” you huff, a small, flustered smile on your face. “It’s like I’m nervous, but what is there to be nervous about —,”

His mouth pressed up against yours creates the most beautiful silence of all. 

How do you want me, you ask him and he thinks, all the time. But he takes you both under the covers and settles in next to you. He positions one leg over his hip and immediately you know exactly what he’s asking for. Quick as a whip, you are. 

There’s a rustle of covers, the bed slats squeaking, and then he’s nearly nose-to-nose with you. You kiss him again, maybe nervous still. 

He disconnects, when you slip between his legs and take his thick, leaking cock in your hand. 

“Baby, wait, do you need — I know it’s a lot — I’m a lot –,”

He can’t fathom why he’s so nervous either. But you chuckle, shake your head, smile at him. 

“Don’t need anything but you.” 

Your leg wraps tighter over his hip, knee up to his ribs, as he sinks inside you. The palm wrapped around the back of your knee grips roughly only once.

This is true silence. The instant where the world goes muted, everything distant and muffled, when he’s first buried deep in your heat. 

Your fingers thread through his curls and suddenly all sound is cranked up to an eleven. Your rapid, stilted breathing, the groan of the bed, your soft smothered moans, or are those his? —

“Fuck me, Joel.” 

Eyes never leaving yours, he does. 

Your fingers dig into his skull, nails biting, hand wrapped around his neck to hold yourself steady as he thrusts up into you. He thumbs your stiff nipple, half of his hand still grasping your ribs. 

You meet him thrust for thrust, a slow steady pace that draws sweat to his hairline and endless gasps from his mouth. But your gaze stays strong, never falters. Your hand slips to his shoulder, to stabilize just a bit more, but then it's on his chest, twisting his chest hair and he thinks he feels that sparkle of sanity, of rationality, any restraint to hold back crack and shatter between the clench of his teeth. 

“Goddamn–,” 

He rolls, taking you under him and demanding a faster pace. You push your hand against the headboard, the bed knocking against the wall in rhythmic, hypnotic thuds. 

He thinks you hiss his name before you bite down his shoulder. 

The sharp shock of pain lights up his brain, channeling the sudden awareness that he liked that so fucking much all the way down his spinal cord where it presses hot against his groin. 

He lifts up onto one elbow, skin sweat hot and sticky as it splits from yours. 

“Tell me what you need to come,” he pants.  

You whine again, your throat dripping sweat, but that’s not an answer. Knowing he has about a half-a-dozen to a dozen good grinds before it puts too much strain on his back, he uses every single one of them to drag you to the knife’s edge. 

“What–,” grind, “do you need –,” grind, “to come?”

The wail you let out nearly makes him come on the spot. Your eyes have that same, out-of-this-world, off-this-planet unfocused gaze, any sort of language impossible. You plead with him in the silence. A silence loaded with damp moans, grit teeth, and skin against skin against skin against skin against skin. Best sound in the world, as far as he was concerned.

You arch until he lifts above you and, taking the hand that was by your head, tuck it down between your legs. You let him grasp around with spread fingers where you are wet, where his cock rocks into your body, watch as that pulls him apart faster with dark eyes, before pressing his thumb against your clit. 

There, you say without words. There is where I need you.

Once, twice, he circles – he can feel the tightness in his back already settling in, his jaw fixed and locked, his body battling the two overwhelming sensations of dull pain and fierce, wild pleasure – and you hit your release and you soak him in it. 

He falls then too, falls just as hard and as fast as you, the chronic pain he holds in his shoulders, his neck, his back, his knee fleetingly gone in the rush of heat that branches out of his body from his groin and it feels divine.

When he lies on top of you, face buried in the curve of your neck, the heat from your humid skin warming up the breath in his lungs, the throb of your body matching his, his mind wiped clean, the thought occurs to him:

It’s not silence he’s found with you, it’s quiet. 

It’s peace.

Eventually, some awareness seeps back into his trembling body and he rolls off of you, but takes the curve of your jaw in his hand as he goes. He can’t settle into the pillows because he can’t stop kissing you, love bites occasionally against your lip, as if where his body fails, he proves his love for you won’t end so easily.

Eventually, you press your fingers into the base of his skull and, like a reset button, he groans and drops onto his back. 

Eventually, the quiet returns. Only soft noises, murmurs of existence outside of this perfect little room, fill the space. 

Eventually, he falls asleep with you curled up next to him. 

He knows you love waking up in bed together, but he also knows you love fresh coffee even more. 

Which is where Ellie finds him the next morning. 

He nearly adds too much ground coffee to the pot because he’s distracted, lost in thought about the way your curves looked in the bright morning light, when the back door slams open and a little creature made of entirely scarves, mittens, and an oversized purple jacket stomps into his kitchen and clomps its snowy shoes on the rug. 

“Joel, we gotta go!” She’s a little breathless, red-cheeked too as she unwinds the scarf around her head and her face is revealed. “We don’t wanna miss it!”

“Miss what?” Joel asks, this time carefully measuring how much water the pot needs. 

His question is not met with her usually buzzy chatter. Instead, she’s stopped undoing her scarf and just stares at him like he’s been beamed down from another planet. 

He realizes all too late that he’s still in PJs at 9AM (basically a sign of another apocalypse), he’s making more coffee than just for himself, and he’s smiling. 

Shit.

“Ellie, um, I –,”

She rolls her eyes. Her scarf is flung off her neck and she starts yanking off her gloves, her plucky attitude back, if not a bit smug.

“Get your girlfriend up too. They’re lighting the big tree in town square in an hour. I know she’d be pissed if she missed it.” 

So definitely caught. Time to be “The Adult” here and put it out on the table. 

“Don’t call her that.” Joel eyes her. Coffee percolating, he grabs a slice of bread and Ellie’s favorite jam. “Makes it sound like we’re fourteen.” 

She frowns at him, classic “pouty-mouth”. 

“I’m fourteen — rude. But seriously, and I say this because I care, get over yourself. Call a spade a spade. You’re dating her, fucking her–,”

“Ellie!” 

"– and you make gross ga-ga eyes at each other when you think I’m not looking."

She slides into the seat at the island in front of him as he pushes the toasted bread with jam across the marble to her. She takes a bite, chews with her mouth open, and shrugs. “That’s a girlfriend, dude.” 

Joel turns back to the eggs that might be burning, his shoulders hunched and fist tight around the spatula. Hate it when the kid is right. 

He salvages what he can of the eggs, plates them along with two strips of bacon on two plates, and balances a mug of coffee on each. He tries to salvage some of his dignity with a glare. 

“When you’re older, you’ll see some things just don’t need labels.” 

At that, she rolls her eyes again and snatches up the last strip of bacon from the folded, greasy napkins. “Whatever, you dork.”

Argument soundly lost, he gathers up the plates and heads back up stairs. She’s still mumbling to herself as he goes. 

“'Girlfriend', pfft . . . much better than fuck bunny!” She yells to no one in particular.

You hear the entire conversation from bed, the door cracked open enough for the sound to travel. Muffling a giggle, you snag his white shirt from the floor and draw it over your head. You should probably be more embarrassed that Joel got caught in his Walk of Shame, even if it was to his own kitchen to make breakfast. But . . . you’re just not. 

The smile is still on your face when his footfalls approach the door and he sticks his head into the room.

“Sounds like we’re busted,” you smirk. 

Joel almost chuckles. “'Bout as busted as you can be.” He hands you one plate and sits on the end of the bed with his own. He takes a low, slow sip of coffee and you follow him. The eggs are nibbled at and the bacon is perfectly crunchy.

“So . . . girlfriend?” 

He rolls his eyes. “Not you too.” 

“I mean," you slip the plate and coffee onto the bedside table, then hug the sheets around your knees, "I agree with you on the bit about labels. It seems silly. And not wasteful silly. Just . . .”

“Silly.” Joel’s eyes are as dark as his coffee, warmer than it too. “Doesn’t really capture the whole thing, does it?”

An apocalypse and a half later, and a boy’s sweet eyes on you can still make your stomach swoop. 

“No, it doesn’t.” 

“Then what do you wanna say, if people start askin’?”

You bite your lip, eyes up in faux-thought. “Truth be told, I'm kinda partial to fuck bunny. Cute like with a little tail and ears —,"

The groan from Joel and subsequent head shake makes you laugh enough for you to take pity on the old guy. You crawl closer and his eyes slip from your face to where the sheet tucks under your knees. But a hand on his cheek returns his gaze.

"I like what you said last night." Your smile is soft, pleased. "That I’m yours. Like you’re mine.” 

Joel’s warmth bleeds from his whole frame as he leans in close to put his mug on the bedside table, then leans in closer still to you. He drags his nose over your bare, exposed shoulder, in a way that is sweet and sensual all at once. He stops with a kiss on the hinge of your jaw. 

“I like that too. I like saying that you’re mine.”

Ignoring the shiver that rockets up your spine at the low hum of his voice, the flutter of his lips barely against your cheek, you tuck an errant curl around his ear and it immediately springs back up again. You smile and he smiles back, a youthful shine in his eyes.

“Wherever you are, I am too.”  

Listen to: I am the forest by Willie Nelson

[copperbadge]

Every time, you guys. Every time I look into alternatives to Lulu.com for self-publishing I come up with “Wow Lulu really is the best of a bad set of options, huh?” 

Recently, Draft2Digital bought Smashwords in order to bring a print book company under their aegis; they’d formerly only done ebooks. I thought I might investigate them as an alternative to Lulu, which I’ve used for about twelve years now. For ebooks I would venture D2D is probably top of the line. For print books they are....not. 

I’m writing this out half so other folks can see it but half so that in the future I can look this up and remind myself of why I’m still with Lulu. 

TLDR: Not only does Draft2Digital want 60% of my print book royalties where Lulu takes 0%, and $30 for a proof that costs me $11 at Lulu, but I also appear to have solved the problem of why Lulu was making me price my books so goddamn artificially high. Which is like. Honestly the best anti-anxiety drug I’ve experienced this week. 

Basically there are a number of elements that go into self-publishing with a print-on-demand service. For some publishers, there’s a “setup fee” which doesn’t really set anything up, it’s just there to be a fee, everything is done by computer on the back end. Traditionally, Lulu has not charged a setup fee. Smashwords used to charge $50, but Draft2Digital currently waives it. I was heartened by that because the setup fee was keeping me from migrating, since I can afford $50 but I balk at knowing I’m paying them $50 for nothing. 

Next is the cost of printing -- what it costs the company in paper, ink, machinery, labor, etc, to just make a book with no profit. Lulu’s price calculus isn’t super clear and I’ve never bothered looking at what the breakdown is, because they’re pretty up-front -- they tell you in the process of setting the book up how much it’ll cost. In this case, a 140-page 6x9 trade paperback, no frills, which is how all my books are printed, is $5. Draft2Digital doesn’t tell you the flat price anywhere but they do offer the breakdown information; it costs $1.22 flat plus $0.0133 per page. So, for a 140 page book, the at-cost is $3.08. So far so good. 

Now, if you’re going to sell through Lulu, the “at cost” is the minimum price. You won’t make any money but you CAN charge just $5 for a $5 book. Any pricing above that is your cut. So -- let’s price this 140 page trade paperback at $13-$15. That’s a bit high to be honest but let’s just see. At Lulu, your take is roughly $6-$8 based on those prices, because you’re just dropping out the cost of printing from the retail price. 

At Draft2Digital, the same 140-page trade paperback, which remember is quoted as costing roughly $1.20 less to print than Lulu charges, gets you $2.75-$3.50 in royalties per book.

....wait, what? 

So now we need to sidetrack a little but I promise it’s for a reason. One of the motivations for looking into a change to Draft2Digital is that I didn’t like that Lulu was setting higher “minimum prices” than I was accustomed to -- they would tell me the book only cost $5 to print but require me to sell it for $12 or similar, and I couldn’t work out why. I’m an idiot but the penny did finally drop: it’s because when you distribute them outside of Lulu (say, on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or similar) your royalties drop like a stone. $7 in royalties purchased through Lulu comes out to like twenty-five cents purchased through Amazon. So Lulu forces you to price the book at a point where you even GET royalties and don’t end up weirdly owing Amazon money. The “global distribution” is what’s driving that minimum up. 

So in price-quoting a competitor I actually solved the problem with Lulu. 

Which is good, because the fun doesn’t stop there. If you want a proof copy of a book from Lulu, it’s the at-cost of the book, plus tax, plus postage. Buying a proof copy of this book from Lulu would cost me $11. Lulu makes you order a new proof copy every time you make a change, which is shady, but usually I only need to make 1-2 changes across the life of a book, so at most the cost will probably be $35 and for that I’ll get three copies of the book. Draft2Digital doesn’t give you an option. If you want a proof pre-publication, it’s $30 flat. If you want to publish and then buy a copy you can, but you can only make one change to the book every 90 days once it’s published. If you want to make more than one change, it’s $25 every time you upload a new version of the manuscript within that 90 day period.

So Draft2Digital’s books cost less to print but they take a massive cut of your royalties out of the retail cost of the book. If the book costs $3 to print, and I price it at $15, that’s $12 in profit on the book. Of that $12, however, I only receive $4. Draft2Digital literally wants 2/3 of my royalties per book. They want $20 more than Lulu to send me a proof copy. If I need to correct the proof, the correction is free, but I’m assuming the second proof will also cost me $30. Any changes after that, within 90 days, will cost $25 plus $30 for a new proof.

Which means my upfront costs at Lulu are about $35 per published book; to do the same thing at Draft2Digital is between $60 and $105 depending on whether I need to make changes after the second proof copy. And even after that, my royalties at Lulu are just about twice what they would be at Draft2Digital per purchase. 

So, well, Lulu it is. And the problem I was having with Lulu is solved if I decide to just retail through Lulu rather than selling globally. Which...selling globally has done two things that I’m aware of:

1. Fucked up my author page so badly on Amazon that one of my books is still attributed to Kathleen Starbuck, and one of her books is for sale on my author page. 

2. Raised the minimum price I’m allowed to set my books at by like, 40%. 

So I think probably what’s going to happen is going forward my books will be for sale only on Lulu. I can still assign them ISBNs and they still will ship worldwide, and the prices will fall significantly. My deepest apologies to those of you who have paid an artificially inflated price for the last few books; I’m going to fix that going forward, I’m going to go in and try to fix it retroactively in the books that are already on Lulu, and if it’s any consolation at least the cash came to me, and TWO THIRDS OF IT didn’t go to Lulu. 

It’s gonna take me a little time, untangling Lulu’s relationship to other retailers is tricky, but eventually the Shivadh Omnibus and Twelve Points should come down significantly in price, and there ought to be a dollar or two drop for the older books as well. 

This is why it always pays to do the math, even if like me you are dreadful at it. 

[lothli]

III: Cacophaton

He was following me home. I could hear the faint buzzing — not with my ears, but within my brain. The elevated heartbeat, the desperate yearning for everything and nothing. The Long, the man-insect-creature. I tried to lose him.

He continued to follow. To be perfectly honest, shaking him would be near impossible. I needed to confront him.

The streets here were quiet and abandoned. I stopped, and so did he. The buzzing softened.

We stared at each other. He had returned to a more human form, but the faint incongruities remain. He smelled of hemolymph, and the buzzing of insects surrounded him. His eyes were an inky black, with no whites to speak of. They swirled with something unknowable.

He grinned at me before a cacophony of voices spilled out.

"I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I DON'T care, I don't CARE—" "Extra! Extra! Read alllllllll about it!—" "I don't like it here please get me out please get me out please—" "Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not—"

They shrieked, jarringly separate, overlapping, and contradictory. I flinched, backing away instinctively as the barrage continued.

"Do you want to hear a secret? Too bad, too bad! Those are aaaaall mine! But if—" "Step One: Start by pouring the spaghetti into a pot of boiling water. Add a can of motor oil—" "—the rules for distinguishing moths from butterflies are not well established, one very good guiding principle is—" "WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME!?"

My head hurt. Was he even saying anything? Did it matter?

"Stop. Talking." I needed it to stop, but he certainly didn’t obey me.

"What does a caterpillar think when it spins its cocoon? Does it know—" "The modern English word moth comes from Old English moððe—" "It's okay, it's okay. I'm sorry. I can't control it, it's just—" "Non posse à nobis dubitari, quin existamus dum dubitamus—"

I had to remember: he wasn’t human. He was Long and not a hostile one at that. I couldn’t afford to do something hasty. But still, this method of communication was unbearable.

"Please. I cannot understand you when you are like this." Desperately, I tried to bargain with him. He tilted his head a bit, and the endless deluge of voices thins.

"Fine, fine, mortal. Is this good enough?— while moths are notorious for eating clothing, most species do not, and some moth adults do not even —toned it down for you a little. I wouldn't do this if I didn't like — in gi rum imus noc te et con sumi — so. That's about it."

I blinked. It was slightly more comprehensible, but I still struggled to process his words.

"What is it that you want?"

"A little birdy told me that you've been poking around, investigating, cutting up Children. Moths frequently appear to circle artificial lights, although the reason for this behavior (positive phototaxis) is currently unknown. It's not that I don't approve, it's more that — Step Five: Squeeze a dollop of toothpaste into the mixture. Toothpaste — someone as weak as you to do something like that, you feel, understand, get me?"

I was finally starting to understand him. I focused, parsing out that one voice, flitting about, constantly changing, and zeroed in on it. I took a deep breath.

"Okay, okay. So from what I understand, you think I was being reckless by taking on the Children by myself, but you don't disapprove?"

"Right, right, you got it. And hey! You've actually managed to filter out a single, solitary, unique voice, huh? That's quite impressive, spectacular, great!" he grinned, just slightly too wide.

"Your voice. Do you have any control over the rest of them?" The other voices were still droning on and on, and I gritted my teeth.

"Ah, well, you see, this voice is the one that's trying to actually communicate with you. Everything else, all those other words I speak, are merely random things that have floated into my head and come spilling out." He cricked his neck, the sound reminiscent of an insect being crushed. "They're quite wonderful thoughts, of course. I'd really recommend you try out my spaghetti recipe later, at the very least!"

"And why is this voice the only one that can communicate? Why are the other voices there in the first place?"

He laughed, his cackle echoing through the night air like the buzzing of a thousand moth wings.

"Because, you silly human, you foolish mortal, you are only slightly, marginally interesting. Interesting enough to attract my attention, which is an accomplishment, a feat. But certainly not ALL of my attention. No, no, no, not quite, not nearly, not yet."

"What do you want?"

"You have been cutting up Children, butchering them. And that's great! I hate those damn Winter cultists. They're too stagnant for my tastes, you see. Too... uninteresting. But, that said, your methods are, unfortunately, somewhat lacking. You have a tiny little knife, and you try to stand against Long? That won't work unless you're Long yourself! Which you're not. You're just a mortal who’s a little bit sharp, has a little bit of Edge. And that's no good."

I didn’t like where this was going. There was no way he was suggesting...

"No, no, no. I can tell by your face that you're worried about my ulterior motives, or my plans, or something." The Moth Long’s face scrunched up in disgust. "Are you mocking me? Do you not understand Moth? We don't give two whits about that kind of thing. We're all about the now, and the now is that I'm a bit bored, and you're a bit interesting, and so I want to see how you can cut up these Children of Silence. And I think you want that, too."

"What I want is for the cults to be destroyed. Not simply weakened. Destroyed." And him, too. But I wasn’t stupid enough to say that out loud.

"Good! Good! I hate Winter, and I hate stagnation, and I hate the Dead, and I hate the silence! And one of the best way to destroy something is with Edge! You're quite versed in Edge, aren't you? I can see the scars! The scars on your skin, which you refuse to shed." His eyes gleamed, and I shuddered.

"Edge is a tool, nothing more. But if you're offering, I would be a fool to decline."

He grinned, a wide gash across his face.

"I'll offer a helping hand, a hand, a hand cut off from The Son, a hand that doesn't know itself!"

"It's not a literal hand, I hope," I groaned. I wouldn’t put it past him.

"Nope, not a real one, not quite, not yet. Here." He tosses over a worn ball of iron — no, Taenite-iron. It fit comfortably within my palm. "That's the kinda thing I'm talking about. It's sharp, it's strong, it's heavy, and it will cut through almost anything. A bullet used to hunt monsters, of creatures bigger than any mortal. You can keep it around, let it hone your Edge, or use it. Fire it. Pierce someone with it. Make a nice, new scar."

"I thought you said the best way to destroy something is with Edge." A rounded ball didn’t seem very Edge-like to me.

The Moth Long pretended to make a shocked face. "This is an Edge artifact! I'm hurt. Do you think I'm lying? I'm not. I don't lie, not often, just sometimes, not to you, not yet."

I sighed, eyeing the artifact. On closer inspection, it seemed to be infused with Edge, with a strange sharpness that belied its shape. I pocketed it.

"You're right. I'll take it."

"Excellent. Excellent. I will see you around, then." He stood, and his moth wings burst out from his back. His eyes shone in the dark, and he flew into the sky. He was gone, leaving only a few wayward moths in his wake.

I stared into the night. The first light of dawn was peaking above the buildings. I needed to retreat and rest up. I would have more work to do, and soon.

[bennydwight]

TGAMM Oneshot (Spoilers: S2E3 A Soda to Remember)

Summary: Practically every visit to the Ghost World in the past year had been a result of the Council dragging Scratch under, kicking and screaming the whole way. And now, here he was, seeking them out.

All because of a STUPID soda.

(A oneshot born from a headcanon. As always, ao3 format here)

Scratch hovered, staring at the swirling black portal, and wondered if he might be crazy.

He avoided the Ghost World on principle, too many people he couldn’t just disappear from if he didn’t want to be seen, too many eyes on him, especially now that he wore The Cloak. The food was serviceable at best and the company worse. Plus, practically every visit to the Ghost World in the past year had been a result of the Council dragging him under, kicking and screaming the whole way, so obvious negative connotations there.

And now, here he was, seeking them out.

All because of a stupid old soda.

Most of him was grateful to Molly, and Libby, and Darryl, for risking their safety on their dumb little heist. It showed (in their own obsessive, pushy, annoying way) that they cared for him, and he could appreciate that. But a smaller part regretted the whole ordeal, a pain in the neck that had opened too many doors.

Like this one. To the Ghost World.

Scratch turned away, the portal swirling closed behind him. This was stupid! He shouldn’t even bother making the trip to the Council, all they’d do was stuff him into the robe again and demand he make decisions that weren’t ‘where to hide the caramel ribbon ice cream so Sharon wouldn’t find it’. Lame, unimportant things, and a two minute trip would take two hours, and he had a nap scheduled that he couldn’t afford to miss, and—

A vehicle pulled away outside, the sound drifting in with a breeze that rustled the curtains, and Scratch was slammed into the Memory without warning: curly brown hair, a sunny smile that matched a yellow shirt, artificial strawberry on his tongue. “Every time we drink this soda, we’ll think of each other—”

And just as suddenly, the world crashed down again, leaving him disoriented and annoyed and shaken. He gripped his head in his hands and growled at the dark sensation of loss clawing open his gut, riding out the displaced emotion like a wave of nausea. Why? Why this memory? Why couldn’t he remember something nicer, like a family pet, or a nice meal, or even his own name?

The next portal opened, inches from his nose. Well that was embarrassing, he was making them involuntarily now.

Way too many open doors lately. In his head, in the ether, downstairs whenever Ollie came over. What he wouldn’t give for some closure.

Yeah right. Like he was ever that lucky.

Scratch paced in angry circles, fists flexing at his sides, all the while eyeing the new portal. He moved towards it, backed away. Advance, retreat. He turned his back on the twisting abyss, form tight with stress. No, he wouldn’t go, he’d call it off—

“That way, I’ll never forget you. And you’ll never forget me.”

Spirits below, fine!

He launched himself through the portal before he could change his mind. The Ghost World hit like a smelly, dour slap to the face. Or maybe that was just the vibe of the Council chamber. His four ‘advisors’ sat hunched over their massive curved desk, quill pens in hand, and not a single one of them looked up at his presence. Almost out of habit, Scratch flinched at the empty slot between them, the silhouette of the (former) Chairman looming in negative space before Scratch blinked and the illusion disappeared.

Not foreboding at all.

He waited, hovering over the spot where he was normally summoned. Nada. “A-hem.”

Alistair gestured over his shoulder to that huge, vacuous with his quill. “You know where to be, Scratch.”

Curse these chuckleheads and their rules. “Yeah, no, I’m not ‘Chairmanning’ today,” he fingerquoted. “Taking my two weeks vacation. All year.”

“Then you’re dismissed.”

Oooh no, no one could just dismiss Scratch anymore. “Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to be as far away from you guys as possible, but I got a quick question.”

“Is it about competency,” Bartholomew grinned nastily, “because then it won’t be quick.” The others sniggered loudly at the quip. It wasn’t even that funny! Pete could do better! Fury spiked down Scratch’s arms and back in a ripple of agitated ectoplasm, size swelling briefly as he fought down the urge to adopt a scare form. They’d probably just make some kind of dumb comment about how he could catch up on his scare quota.

There was really no one else in the Ghost World for these questions?

Through gritted teeth, Scratch bit out, “it’s about memories.”

Quills stilled and the Council glanced at each other in that secretive, in-jokey way that made his form bubble. Alistair set down his quill to rest his chin on the bridge of his hands, looking an equal mix of suspicious and smug. “What about memories?”

How to get them back? How to get rid of them forever? Suppression? Answers? All those felt too… personal. “Why do ghosts come here with out memories of their past life?”

Another infuriating round of glances, and Scratch was tempted to put The Cloak on just to yell at them in Scary Chairman Voice when Grimbella said, “All ghosts have memories.”

The world tilted, the metaphorical rug whipped out from his metaphorical feet, and the world dimmed as Scratch’s opacity flickered the slightest bit. All ghosts. A fact. So why didn’t he? “They remember everything?”

“Not exactly,” Lucretia set her quill down in its pot. Had none of them ever heard of pens? “The amount of retained memories change with the ghost, but generally important memories regarding personal identity remain intact.”

He’d intended to come into this conversation casually, but to his humiliation, Scratch burst like a dam. “But why only some memories?” He demanded, floating up to their desk and pacing again. “Why are some more important than others? Who decides? What makes a memory important enough to bring to the afterlife?”

Grimbella answered easily, not one iota of attention paid to his turmoil. “A ghost keeps them based on what they knew in life.”

Oh, if they’d been keeping this from him, he was going to sic the frightmares on them so fast. “What do you mean?”

“The exact details are still being researched,” Alistair admitted with a snooty shrug. “But patterns suggest that a ghost’s memories are most strongly linked to the interpersonal connections that they held in high regard during life.”

“Like you,” Scratch turned on Grimbella, and her cool disinterest brought up another surge of annoyance. “Grunhilda, or whatever. You know your name!” And he got it wrong on purpose out of spite.

A shimmer of satisfaction lit his core as her unflappable brow finally furrowed. “Grimbella,” she corrected icily, and Scratch made a mental note to get her name wrong at every possible opportunity. “It’s true, my family name was very important in my upbringing. Most of my strongest memories are of the pride my parents showed when teaching family history.” She trailed off, wistfully staring into the middle distance with a dreamy look. Gross.

“But names are a low bar,” Bartholomew cut in, casting Grimbella a side-eye. “An interpersonal relationship doesn’t have to be strong for a ghost to remember their name. As long as there was someone to give voice to a name during life, a ghost could remember it after death.”

“Not that you’d know much about that, Scratch,” Alistair pointed out greasily, and the next round of barely contained snickers nearly popped Scratch’s eyes out.

“At least I didn’t get stuck with a name that sounds like it crawled right out of a medieval toilet,” he snapped back.

Up went the quills again, their interest in him noticeably waning. “Don’t get waspish about it,” Alistair’s face hardened. “Some ghosts would kill to be in your position. Not all memories are warm and fuzzy.”

He’d mentioned something about his dad once, hadn’t he? On the list of ‘Things Scratch Cared About’, Alistair’s past was somewhere below ‘amount of carbohydrates in a loaf of garlic bread’, but recent events pulled a twinge of guilt from him.

He’d said he didn’t want to know. That was still true. And it wasn’t. Would he be better or worse if he’d remembered every second of being a lonely, bitter, jaded man in life? He’d still be Scratch either way, right? Except he wouldn’t be, he’d have a human name.

He’d absolutely been Scratch this morning. Now he wasn’t sure. Was anything about him real?

“Scratch?” His head whipped around to Lucretia, half from being torn out of his thoughts and half because he’d never heard her sound so gentle. Almost sympathetic. She still hunched over her book, but pinned him under an unreadable stare. “If it’s any consolation, there have been numerous cases of ghosts discovering more of their memories as their time here lengthens.”

Scratch’s colour shuddered, and he refused to believe it was hopeful. “How?”

“Through intense meditation and unparalleled self-discipline, of course.”

Scratch gagged. “Hard pass.”

Lucretia’s expression clouded back to it’s normal stormy gray. “Then I hope you enjoy your afterlife as a nobody.”

He knew a final dismissal when he heard it (those jerks, still finding a way to snub him even after he became their boss). He wasted no time building a portal back to Molly’s room, and the moment it closed behind him a huge weight lifted from above his head. Hello, Damocles. Ugh, every second he spent in the Ghost World was a second too long.

Something pulled insistently at his mind, and the ripples of his ectoplasm went still. The confusion and uncertainty and sorrow tearing at him as he faced the Council had… just flown away with that weight. He wasn’t a ‘nobody’ in this room, in this house.

He was Scratch McGee.

He had a best friend, and two (three?) good friends. He liked bread and ice cream and comedy, and thought the Crazy Carl movies were overrated, and got into arguments about it. He’d had a sleepover, and ridden a motorcycle, and hadn’t done pottery yet but still kind of wanted to try. He had a family that loved him, and a house, and a town.

Maybe he’d been someone before Scratch. But Scratch had a life too, and it was pretty darn good. A forgotten past didn’t make his present any less real. He had experiences and fun and wants and dreams, like any living person.

Like now, in fact. After dealing with the headache that was the Council, he dreamed of leftover meatloaf and a nap on the couch.

Maybe his past would come up again. Maybe not. But in the meantime, he’d enjoy being Scratch McGee.

 END

[adamwatchesmovies]

Bad Genius (2017)

No matter how difficult your studies might’ve been, they’ll seem like a walk in the park after Bad Genius. The cultural pressures imposed on the young protagonist make you understand why this story about an important test turns into a heist.

Brilliant Lynn (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying) is accepted into a prestigious school. She doesn’t realize that her scholarship covered only the initial application fees, leaving her father to struggle to afford a number of additional payments that weren’t disclosed intially. Out of guilt, Lynn agrees to help some of her friends cheat during their exams, which turns into a highly profitable endeavor. As her clientele grows, so do the stakes, culminating in an elaborate scheme to steal the answers for the STIC.

The culture Bad Genius is based in makes this more than a generic heist film. While there is pressure on everyone to get good grades, the school Lynn attends takes it to another level. After Lynn and Bank (Chanon Santinatornkul) perform well in a TV competition that pits schools against each other, a gigantic banner with their portraits and achievements is hung on the side of the skyscraper-like learning institution for all to see. Talk about pressure. With the corrupt academic officials basically coercing her father into giving them more money, you can see why she succumbs to temptation and decides to help Grace (Eisaya Hosuwan). That leads to Lynn helping Grace and her boyfriend Pat (Teeradon Supapunpinyo) cheat, which leads to loads of people wanting her "help" too. There could’ve been a slight problem with this story. You might care about Lynn but all of her friends are spoiled rich idiots who couldn’t answer a multiple-choice exam if their gift of a brand new car depended on it, so where are the stakes? Thankfully, writers Tanida Hantaweewatana, Vasudhorn Piyaromna and Nattawut Poonpiriya (who also directs) are aware of this potential issue. They team Lynn up with Bank (Chanon Santinatornkul), who also desperately needs the money. He's also from a lower caste, in a country that would never give him or Lynn the chance to move up if it wasn't for this scheme.

Another element that makes Bad Genius unique is that it isn’t all about stealing the STIC answers. At first, the movie is just about Lynn figuring out how she’ll pass her messages to her classmates without the teachers figuring out what’s going on. To anyone who ever read Naruto - or watched the animated series - it’ll remind you of one of the very first chapters, where all of these wild techniques are used to do what is really just a mundane task. The thing is, the tests feel big because of what it means to the people involved.

That's great and the performances are strong. You wouldn’t even know most of the young actors are relatively inexperienced. Then, there’s the direction by Poonpiriya. The film begins with Lynn as she's being confronted about cheating on the STIC. You think the movie is spoiling itself but actually, it’s pulling a fast one on you and when we get to the reveal, it's so good I kind of want any aspiring screenwriters to see this movie just so they can add a new trick to their arsenal.

One aspect of the film that doesn’t quite match the rest is the conclusion. There’s one particular character whose allegiance changes drastically towards the end and while it isn’t completely out of nowhere, it sort of makes you wish the whole film had been done from their point of view. At the very least, you wish they had gotten more screentime so we'd seen more of their journey. There are also a few moments where the tension feels like it’s being ramped up artificially. A cell phone vibrates. Its owner is afraid to pick up because they know the message they've received is incriminating… but the person looking at them doesn’t know that. If they just looked at the phone and casually turned the screen off after two seconds, no one would be the wiser. Their reaction makes you frustrated.

Bad Genius does a terrific job making what should be a no-stakes, boring scene - students taking an exam - into a compelling drama. That alone makes it delightful. While this movie or the true events that inspired it might not get directly remade by Hollywood, it's only a matter of time before someone takes inspiration from it. I say check out Bad Genius before it’s the cool thing to do. (Original Thai with English subtitles, February 4, 2022)

[thetwilightrepublic]

The Twilight Republic: 5

5. The Debt of Silence

Elena’s silver sports car tore through the increasingly chaotic streets of Paris, the engine roaring as she pushed it to its limits. France’s political unrest had erupted in full force, and the capital was a city on edge. Barricades blocked off entire roads, and protesters clashed with military forces in the streets. The constant hum of sirens and the acrid smoke of burning barricades filled the air, making every journey an ordeal. The roads were in a state of paralysis, with rioters cutting off key access points. Traffic snarled in every direction. Even the usually pristine streets of the financial district had descended into chaos, with banks shuttered and the once-gleaming storefronts now looted and abandoned.

Elena’s car swerved to avoid a group of protestors blocking an intersection, and she shot them a glance before pushing the accelerator harder. She needed to get to the airport, but getting there was proving a challenge. Her private hangar—a small, discreet space away from the main terminals—was one of the few areas still functioning in the current crisis. Paris’s major airports were in disarray, with cancellations and delays mounting as strikes took over and protesters disrupted flights in solidarity with the anti-government movement. But her path was set, and with her stolen vehicle carrying her away from the unrest, she had no choice but to press forward.

As she neared the hangar, Elena’s pulse quickened. The airport itself was a maze of confusion, with the usual silence of private aviation replaced by the tense, frantic energy of escaping and displaced travelers. Security personnel had increased their presence, and military checkpoints were scattered throughout. She felt the weight of the situation pressing down on her, but she couldn’t afford to let it show. This wasn’t her fight anymore—not with France, not with the government, and certainly not with the rebels who were intent on bringing the Republic to its knees.

The hangar loomed ahead, a cold, industrial structure that contrasted sharply with the vibrant chaos of the streets. It was a small oasis of relative calm amidst the storm of civil unrest outside. Elena parked the car in a concealed spot, out of view from the main roads, and stepped out quickly. The roar of the engine still vibrated in her chest, her mind a storm of adrenaline and regret. She adjusted the collar of her black leather jacket, the cool air biting at her skin as she walked toward the hangar. No turning back now. The helicopter she had arranged would be waiting for her inside, its sleek body a silent promise of escape.

As Elena climbed into the aircraft, she didn’t look back, its dark body gleaming under the artificial lights of the hangar. A far cry from the military machines in use by the state, it was her ticket out of the collapsing France.

Her fingers hovered over the controls, and instead of taking them, she picked up the radio receiver. With a steady hand, she dialed a number she had memorized long ago—a contact that could change her life, or perhaps end it.

“Ulf,” she said when the line clicked through. “I’m coming to Berlin, we need to talk.”

There was a moment of silence, and Elena felt the air grow thick with heat as Ulf’s voice crackled back through the speaker.

“You’ve made it this far, Elena. I know what you want. We’ll meet as planned.”

The connection ended abruptly, and Elena placed the receiver down slowly. She knew what was expected. She had known it for years.

The atmosphere in the hangar was heavy with the smell of jet fuel and tension as the rotors churned to life with a menacing hum, but Elena’s mind was focused, and her hands steady. Slicing through the Parisian skyline, the noise of the city faded below as she rose into the air, leaving the chaos of Paris behind. Below her, the city sprawled—a fractured, broken Republic. And above her, the weight of betrayal hung heavily, pulling at her insides.

Berlin was her destination. But the price of her safety felt higher than she was ready to pay.

As the helicopter ascended, Elena’s mind began to race. She had just made her way out of a boiling cauldron. But Berlin wouldn’t offer sanctuary for long. The man waiting for her was one she had known for years—a man she owed more than she cared to admit. And now, as always, there would be a price for that debt. A price that would involve more than just a conversation.

Ulf Kessler was the man she had trusted when there was no one else to turn to. Once an East German intelligence officer, Ulf had shifted loyalties as easily as others shifted their coats. Now, he ran an underground network that spanned Europe, dealing in everything from arms to secrets. The last time they had worked together, it had been on a mission that had gone disastrously wrong. She hadn’t been able to fulfill the task he had given her, and that had cost both of them. He had pulled her from the ashes more than once, and she was indebted to him in ways no amount of money could repay. But it was Ulf’s debt that had come due, not hers. And now, she had to make sure he paid it.

The journey to Berlin passed in a blur of thoughts, the whir of the helicopter blades soothing in their consistency. But as they neared the city, her nerves tightened. Ulf was a man who would never forget a slight, especially not one that had cost him. But he also knew how to use people—how to make them owe him, how to turn them into pawns for his own ends. Elena had been no exception.

As the helicopter neared Berlin’s skyline, the aircraft dipped lower as they approached the roof of a hospital. From the cockpit, Elena saw the glow of the rooftop lighting, illuminating the silhouette of a man standing at the edge. A familiar dread gnawed at her gut, the reality of what she had to do settling in like a weight on her chest.

Ulf’s form was unmistakable even from this distance: tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a tailored black suit that looked oddly out of place against the backdrop of the medical facility. His arms were crossed, his stance confident. He was waiting for her arrival, but not with the open arms she might have expected from an old friend. This didn’t feel like a reunion. It felt like a reckoning.

Ulf had always operated in shadows, manipulating events behind the scenes to his advantage. Their relationship had been a complex one—part professional, part personal. In a world of betrayal and shifting allegiances, trust was rare. But with Ulf, Elena had learned to play the game.

As the helicopter hovered above the rooftop, Elena glanced at the autopilot system. She set it in motion, allowing the aircraft to maintain its altitude while she unstrapped herself from the harness. As the helicopter’s autopilot kicked in, the controls shifted under her hands and she moved to grab the sniper rifle from the seat next to her. It was an old model, simple but effective, and she had used it before. A familiar favourite. As she prepped the weapon, her mind flickered back to the past: the old alliances, the broken trust, the mistakes. She’d let Ulf believe she was still in his corner. But the time had come for betrayal.

Climbing into the back of the craft, she slid open the side door, her eyes narrowing on her target. The rifle felt heavy in her hands, its cold weight grounding her in the finality of the decision she was about to make. There was no more room for mistakes, no more room for hesitation. She was here to deliver justice, and not just for herself.

Her gloved hands steadied the weapon as her fingers tightened around the cold metal, aligning the scope with Ulf’s figure standing on the rooftop below. His back was to her, and for a fleeting moment, Elena wondered if he felt the same rush of inevitability that she did. The tension was suffocating. There was no turning back.

With a steady breath, she squeezed the trigger.

The shot rang out.

The bullet sliced through the air, a perfect shot aimed at the back of Ulf’s head. His body jerked forward, a spray of blood blossoming from his silhouette, and his tall frame crumpled to the cold concrete. The muted echo of the silencer reverberated through the night air, a dark punctuation on the end of a debt long overdue.

Elena’s heart skipped a beat. It had been clean—too clean. She had no time for hesitation, no time to regret. She had done what was necessary. Lowering the rifle slowly, her breath shallowed, her hands trembling ever so slightly. She had done it. Ulf was gone. And in a single moment, everything that had held her to this world—the debts, the loyalties, the past—was severed.

With the task complete, Elena took one look at the lifeless body below and began taking the helicopter toward the landing pad. As the craft descended, her mind raced. She had just crossed another line, and the price for this betrayal would be steep. Her thoughts rushed forward, bracing for the inevitable consequences that would follow. The kill was clean, and Ulf was out of the picture, but there were always consequences when you crossed someone like him. His network was vast, and his associates were not the forgiving type. But Elena was no stranger to confrontation, and she had her own plans to ensure she wouldn’t be a target for long.

She glanced down at the city beneath her as the helicopter dipped lower. Berlin loomed large, its skyline a mixture of modern glass and old brick. It felt like an entire world—one she could still navigate, but not without facing the ghosts of her decisions.

The helicopter landed softly on the hospital rooftop, the rotor blades still spinning as Elena climbed out. She stood there for a moment, staring down at Ulf’s lifeless body, already knowing that her next steps would take her further into the shadows. The stakes had just shifted, and she was now a player with few allies and even fewer options.

Suddenly, a sense of unease crept over her. Something didn’t feel right. She barely had time to process the thought before she saw the shadows stirring. Feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise up, her instincts screamed at her to move, but before she could react, she was surrounded. The figures in the shadows rushed forward—Ulf’s security detail, sharp-eyed and efficient. They quickly overpowered her, seizing her with practiced precision. A guard twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her to her knees as another restrained her wrists with cold, tight cuffs.

From the shadows, Ulf stepped forward, his face inscrutable. His eyes locked with hers, and a dark smile tugged at his lips.

The body she’d shot wasn’t his. It was a decoy.

Ulf’s voice was low, tinged with amusement as he nodded towards the figure next to her, blood pooling at her knees, “You’re not the only expendable one here, Elena.”

Elena’s heart dropped. She had miscalculated. He had been tipped off. Ulf had known what she had planned—this had all been a setup. She wasn’t the one making the moves now. Ulf was in control.

The guards dragged her toward the building, taking her down into the cold, sterile depths of the hospital. The basement doors slammed shut behind her, the sound of finality ringing in the empty space. Ulf’s voice followed her down, the words echoing in her mind.

“Your past has caught up to you, Elena. You’ve been covering your tracks, eliminating your compromising contacts. But you forgot one thing: you’re still mine.”

With that, Elena was swallowed by the darkness, her fate no longer her own. The game had changed, and she was no longer the one pulling the strings.

[Any similarity with places or persons (alive or dead) is purely coincidental]

[generationalracoon]

Enhanced draft 2

In a future world where genetic technology has changed humanity at its core, society looks vastly different from what we know today. Genetic modifications, once celebrated as a way to eliminate diseases and boost immunity, have turned into symbols of social status and power. What started as a way to protect people from illness quickly expanded into a tool for personal enhancement, creating a system where genetics now influence not only health but social hierarchy. The ability to change one’s genes has made the future of human evolution less about natural selection and more about wealth and influence.

At first, genetic enhancements seemed like a major success for humanity, as families everywhere welcomed new ways to reduce risks of disease and increase overall resilience. The potential to improve basic health was something almost everyone wanted, and it gave hope for a world where people could live longer and healthier lives. However, as genetic technology advanced, its benefits became increasingly divided by economic status. While minor improvements were made available to most people, the more valuable modifications—such as immunity to pollution, anti-aging properties, and increased intelligence—were accessible only to the wealthy. These upgrades didn’t just improve survival but became status symbols, showing off a level of “perfection” that regular people couldn’t attain.

The richest members of society could afford to enhance even their physical features, adjusting details like eye color, hair texture, and skin tone, not just based on personal preferences but also to highlight certain cultural traits. This customization allowed the elite to embody a perfect mix of ancestral heritage and modern ideals, creating a new form of physical diversity that felt more like a luxury than a natural trait. These people appeared youthful, resilient, and flawless—a model of what humanity could look like when engineered for strength and beauty.

Unfortunately, this era of “genetic customization” widened social divides, especially affecting those already marginalized. Indigenous and low-income communities were often unable to access advanced enhancements, which quickly became linked to privilege and influence. Instead of creating unity, genetic technology deepened the gap, with wealthy groups using these advantages to gain even more social power. Meanwhile, historically disadvantaged communities—often struggling for their rights and cultural expression—found themselves excluded from this new world of “improved” humans.

The effects of genetic enhancement extended into everyday life, as cities and public spaces adapted to fit the abilities of enhanced individuals. Infrastructure, public systems, workplaces, and even schools were optimized for the physically and mentally “upgraded.” For those without enhancements, living in these environments became challenging. People who were unmodified often found it hard to keep up, with basic systems now designed for individuals who could perform at peak efficiency.

This evolution went beyond looks or abilities; it also changed the way cultures and identities were expressed. Physical traits that once symbolized heritage were now selectively chosen or modified, transforming cultural diversity into something curated rather than naturally passed down. Although these traits represented the ideal mix of different identities, they felt artificial, lacking the depth that naturally inherited diversity provides.

In response, a movement of unmodified individuals grew, forming communities that valued authentic diversity over engineered perfection. They believed that human value should not depend on enhancements but on the uniqueness of every individual. For these people, their unaltered identities became a form of pride, a way to resist the new norm that defined worth by one’s genetic profile.

In this future, the genetically enhanced represent a stylized, almost exaggerated version of human evolution, where identity is manufactured rather than inherited. Although their existence celebrates an ideal blend of histories and cultures, it often fails to represent the true variety of humanity. While the genetically privileged enjoy the benefits of a world designed for them, the unmodified find strength in preserving a natural sense of self, reminding society that true humanity is more than the sum of enhancements—it’s about respecting the beauty of every individual, modified or not.

This how the human form will begin to change according to the factors.

Food: With sustainable, nutrient-rich food sources accessible to all, human physiology would adapt to consistent, optimized diets, potentially enhancing overall health, stamina, and longevity. As food scarcity issues decrease, people may become less prone to malnutrition-related health issues, leading to stronger immune systems, leaner body compositions, and improved cognitive function.

Water: Universal access to clean water would significantly reduce diseases linked to water contamination, resulting in healthier skin, stronger organs, and improved energy levels. Hydration and hygiene would enhance overall physical resilience and contribute to longer lifespans, with bodies adapting to a steady intake of safe, pure water.

Housing: Secure, well-designed housing improves sleep quality and reduces chronic stress, impacting physical health with better posture, fewer stress-induced conditions, and higher energy. Well-ventilated, ergonomic homes foster physical comfort and mental peace, creating bodies that reflect stability and relaxation.

Education: Access to quality education across all communities would enhance cognitive development and mental health, as well-informed people make healthier lifestyle choices. This would support brain development and could lead to generations with stronger cognitive abilities and emotional resilience.

Healthcare: Comprehensive healthcare for all would prevent and treat diseases before they become severe, leading to healthier populations with stronger immune systems and physical stability. Fewer untreated conditions would reduce chronic health issues, allowing humans to live longer, more active lives with improved body functions.

Social Equity: Achieving social equity would relieve marginalized communities of the stress that often leads to poor health. A fair society fosters a sense of safety, which translates to reduced cortisol levels, balanced mental health, and greater physical relaxation, leading to healthier, more resilient bodies.

Gender Equality: With gender equality, opportunities for physical and mental health become more balanced, allowing all genders to benefit from shared resources. Equality fosters self-expression and reduces stress-related health issues, creating an overall population that is healthier and more secure.

Work & Income: Fair wages and balanced work hours allow people to focus on health and well-being, reducing stress-related ailments and promoting physical endurance. Fewer hours spent in labor-intensive jobs would mean healthier postures and mental resilience.

Energy / Electricity: Clean, accessible energy ensures healthier environments, reducing respiratory issues and energy scarcity stress. This fosters physical well-being as people adapt to a life where energy concerns no longer compromise health and comfort.

Peace & Justice: A fair and peaceful society means lower crime rates, yet hidden corruption could breed collective stress. Bodies may develop signs of quiet vigilance—sensitivity and caution—balancing between surface-level peace and underlying mistrust of powerful, unseen organizations.

Transportation: Efficient, sustainable transportation means less exposure to pollutants and lower stress, fostering healthier lungs and reducing chronic fatigue. With accessible transit, bodies adapt to more active lifestyles with reduced commuting strain.

Political Voice: Access to political representation empowers people, leading to mental and physical well-being from reduced social stress. A community that feels heard is likely to have better mental health, contributing to a more relaxed physical presence.

Air Pollution: Clean air reduces respiratory issues and fosters healthy lung development, with people experiencing improved cardiovascular health and stronger immune systems. Over generations, this leads to a population with better physical stamina and longevity.

Noise Pollution: Reduced noise pollution improves sleep quality and mental health, which supports immune function and lowers stress-related illnesses. With less constant noise, humans would develop calmer, more stable nervous systems.

Non-Human Life: Protecting biodiversity fosters ecosystems that support human health through clean air, balanced climates, and natural resources. Physically, this stability allows humans to thrive without the environmental stressors that lead to health complications.

Chemical Pollution: Reduced exposure to toxic chemicals means lower rates of diseases like cancer and respiratory issues, leading to healthier organs and longevity. Bodies would adapt to a life with fewer toxins, resulting in cleaner physiological processes.

Water Bodies & Supply: Access to clean water bodies reduces illness and fosters physical activities, supporting respiratory health and muscle development. With abundant water resources, humans develop with better hydration and overall health stability.

Waste Management: Effective waste management minimizes environmental toxins, reducing illness and fostering physical resilience. People adapt to cleaner spaces with healthier immune systems and lessened exposure to harmful bacteria.

Land Use & Public Spaces: Well-designed public spaces encourage active lifestyles, supporting physical fitness, improved lung capacity, and stronger muscles. As humans embrace accessible green areas, bodies evolve to reflect an active, outdoor lifestyle.

Ocean Pollution: Reduced ocean pollution leads to healthier marine ecosystems and cleaner food sources, supporting better nutrition and immunity. With cleaner oceans, humans avoid the harmful effects of pollutants in seafood, leading to longer, healthier lives.

Effects of Climate Change: As climate stability improves, people experience fewer weather-related health stresses, resulting in stronger, more resilient bodies. Consistent climate patterns lead to better agricultural health, reducing food scarcity and supporting physical vitality.

Urban Agriculture & Greenification: Access to green spaces and urban agriculture promotes physical activity and improves mental health. As cities grow green, humans become healthier, enjoying fresher air, balanced mental states, and improved physical well-being.

Gender & Sexuality: Inclusive recognition of gender and sexuality reduces stress and promotes mental health, fostering a community where people feel physically secure and accepted. This inclusivity supports healthier body images and mental stability.

Diversity & Inclusion: A society that values diversity allows people to feel seen, reducing stress-related health issues and fostering mental and emotional well-being. This acceptance leads to bodies that reflect health and confidence from a safe, inclusive environment.

Accessibility: Universal accessibility encourages independence and reduces physical stress for people with disabilities, promoting physical and mental health. As spaces become more inclusive, people with disabilities live with greater comfort and adaptability.

Sustainability: A commitment to sustainability ensures a balanced environment that supports long-term health, from air quality to food security. With environmental resources secured, human bodies evolve with fewer toxins, healthier respiratory systems, and an overall vitality that reflects a harmonious balance with the planet.

[oddlysweet]

How are the board members of these companies allowed to live their lives??? There are over 300 million guns on the street. It’s time to put them to good use. How are Elon Musk & Sam Harris allowed to teach the form of life we have yet to invent, how to think? Not enough people are shitting themselves over how close we are to the end of everything.

I’m not talking biosphere non-viability or making good on threats of nuclear holocaust…I’m talking about the exact microsecond one of these companies across the bay manages to fully synthesize a completely artificially generated intelligence. As soon as that happens, every warning, every book, each and every school of thought or moral/ethical value becomes moot. The dystopian nightmare becomes complete.

If the themes explored in Black Mirror disturb you, your hair should be actively greying, or visibly falling off the head like the so many magnitudes more innocent children of Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan & the Congo. If you were born in the 50 states, you were BORN GUILTY.

It’s too late for guillotines, no one can afford wood. We couldn’t show up even 5% for any one of the third parties? Really, that’s what we’re gonna do with all this privilege? Apathetically abstain? The time for violence has long since passed. The knives are at our throats. All you can hope for is to end up a beautiful corpse. As if we haven’t been walking dead for decades.

Gandhi was a misogynist, racist POS. There’s no space to heed anything he pandered. X had it right. “BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!” We all need to start collecting the scalps of the wicked. The “rule of law” is absolutely meaningless when the benevolent government everyone’s so quick to toss the salad of has the monopoly on violence.

This isn’t a society, it’s not even civilized. Its a Ponzi scheme—a cesspool; our economy, a slush fund for suits sociopathic enough to game the systems constructed for our oppression, intent on our despair. It’s always a good time to punch a Nazi, but perhaps it is past time to start killing them. We know the names and addresses of the individuals with too much money, power & influence who are responsible for destroying so many lives, dreams, & goodwill.

We don’t need shams of judicial systems to tell us who is putting malevolent energy out in the world from the top of the pyramid scheme that is our world order. The excuse of ignorance is no longer acceptable. Start at the top, there’s not enough money to keep them all safe. They can no longer be considered human. They are evil incarnate, and the holders of all our reins.

What good has reform and voting done for any of us—but most importantly those who are too young to deserve the fates that await them? Get informed, organized and radicalized now. Before the books are burned and resources on the internet locked away. Before the pogroms reach your neighborhoods, get to know your neighbors. Build community. Learn guerilla warfare tactics and for fuck’s sake study history.

“All of this has happened before—” “—But the question remains, does all of this have to happen again?”

P.s. If you are still mainlining the Kool-Aid, the same people who enacted this current era of the long standing genocide in the Middle East, are the same people who brought down those towers that miserably failed to justify the deaths of millions in that fucked acronym, the GWOT. If you can’t put those bread crumbs together, you should honestly go drink bleach as soon as you can. I’m begging you.

[xinrenresearch]

The Global Black Light Bullet Camera Market: Shedding Light on Security Innovation

The world of surveillance has seen immense technological evolution, especially as security demands have heightened across sectors. One of the stars of this evolution is the black light bullet camera. These unique devices are transforming security, especially for night-time surveillance, and have become essential in industries from retail to residential to government facilities. This article will dive into the black light bullet camera market, exploring its rise, the technologies driving it, and how it's shaping the future of security.

Full report on: https://www.xinrenresearch.com/reports/global-blacklight-bullet-camera-market/

1. The Rise of Black Light Bullet Cameras

Black light bullet cameras offer several advantages over traditional security cameras. Known for their cylindrical design and outdoor-friendly casing, bullet cameras have been a staple in surveillance. The "black light" variety, however, is a newer development. Leveraging advanced infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) technology, these cameras can capture clear images even in low-light or no-light environments.

This night-vision capability makes them indispensable for businesses and homeowners concerned about after-dark security. Demand has surged, especially in sectors with high-security needs like retail, logistics, and even agriculture, where 24/7 monitoring is essential.

2. Key Drivers of Market Growth

Several factors are propelling the global black light bullet camera market forward. These include:

Increasing Security Threats: Rising crime rates and security breaches in both urban and rural areas have led organizations and individuals to adopt advanced surveillance solutions.

Technological Advancements: The development of sophisticated IR and UV technology, combined with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), has allowed for better image clarity, anomaly detection, and real-time alerts.

Growing Demand for Smart Cities: With governments investing in smart city infrastructure, security cameras like black light bullet cameras are becoming an integral part of urban planning.

Affordability and Accessibility: As technology advances, the costs of black light bullet cameras have decreased, making them accessible for small businesses and homeowners.

3. Innovations Shaping the Market

The black light bullet camera market is ripe with innovation, bringing powerful features to security professionals and everyday users. Here are some of the most exciting developments:

Enhanced Night Vision Capabilities: Traditional IR cameras often produce grainy or distorted images at night. Black light cameras, on the other hand, capture high-resolution images, ensuring details are clear and recognizable even in darkness.

AI-Driven Video Analytics: Many black light bullet cameras now come equipped with AI-powered video analytics. These capabilities include motion detection, face recognition, and even behavioral analysis, allowing cameras to distinguish between regular and suspicious activity.

Integration with IoT and Cloud Storage: The Internet of Things (IoT) has connected devices in ways we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago. Now, black light bullet cameras can connect to smartphones and tablets, enabling remote access and cloud-based storage for secure, tamper-proof footage.

Durable, Weatherproof Designs: One of the key features of bullet cameras is their robust, weatherproof casings, designed to withstand outdoor conditions. This ensures cameras can provide reliable security year-round, regardless of weather.

4. Market Segmentation

The black light bullet camera market can be segmented by various factors:

By Application: Residential, commercial, industrial, and government.

By Technology: Wired vs. wireless, AI-enabled vs. non-AI-enabled, and different levels of IR/UV capabilities.

By Region: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa.

Each region has unique demands and growth drivers. North America, for instance, is driven by tech-savvy consumers and widespread adoption of smart home security. In contrast, Asia-Pacific’s growth is fueled by urbanization, increasing disposable incomes, and a focus on infrastructure.

5. Challenges Facing the Market

Despite its potential, the black light bullet camera market faces several challenges:

Privacy Concerns: Increased surveillance can lead to privacy debates, particularly in residential areas where individuals may feel uncomfortable with extensive monitoring.

Technical Limitations in Extreme Conditions: Although black light cameras are durable, some still struggle in extreme weather or remote locations where power and connectivity can be issues.

Cybersecurity Risks: As these cameras are often connected to networks and the cloud, they are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Manufacturers must invest in robust cybersecurity to protect against data breaches.

Cost Sensitivity: While prices have decreased, black light bullet cameras remain a significant investment for small businesses and residential users, particularly for more advanced models.

6. Future Outlook and Opportunities

The black light bullet camera market is poised for continued growth, driven by advancements in AI, affordability, and integration with smart technology. Here are some key trends to watch:

Adoption of 4K and 8K Resolution Cameras: Higher resolution capabilities mean better image quality, which can aid in identifying suspects and observing minute details. This trend is particularly relevant for sectors with high-security needs, like finance and government.

Energy Efficiency and Solar-Powered Options: As the world moves toward sustainable practices, the security industry is also innovating with low-energy options. Solar-powered black light bullet cameras are expected to become popular in remote or eco-conscious regions.

Hybrid Systems with Drones: Combining stationary black light cameras with drones for broader, more flexible surveillance is an emerging trend. Drones can respond to alerts triggered by the camera system, providing an aerial view for enhanced situational awareness.

Focus on Residential Applications: While commercial use dominates, the residential sector is catching up, with more homeowners opting for black light bullet cameras to improve night-time security.

7. Key Players in the Market

Several leading companies dominate the black light bullet camera market:

Hikvision: Known for its high-quality cameras and innovative AI-driven analytics.

Dahua Technology: Offers a range of black light cameras with night-vision technology and robust designs.

Axis Communications: This Swedish firm is a pioneer in networked surveillance and offers high-end black light bullet cameras for various applications.

Sony and Samsung: Though more known for consumer electronics, these companies have entered the security market, bringing high-resolution technology to black light cameras.

8. Conclusion: The Future of Surveillance in a Black Light World

The global black light bullet camera market is set for impressive growth as demand for reliable, high-quality surveillance intensifies. As this technology evolves, we can expect cameras to become smarter, more energy-efficient, and accessible across a broader range of sectors. While challenges like privacy concerns and cybersecurity threats remain, the potential of black light bullet cameras to provide enhanced security, especially in low-light conditions, cannot be overlooked.

Ultimately, black light bullet cameras are more than just a trend; they are becoming a cornerstone of modern surveillance. With the intersection of AI, IoT, and improved night vision capabilities, these cameras are well-positioned to redefine safety and security on a global scale.

In a world where light and dark often blur, black light bullet cameras bring clarity, safety, and peace of mind—day or night.

Whether you’re a business owner, a city planner, or a homeowner, understanding the black light bullet camera market can help you make informed decisions for the future of your security setup. As the saying goes, “Safety never takes a day off”—and with the right black light bullet camera, neither will you.

More on: https://www.xinrenresearch.com/

[bradleymarshall]

I’m in a deep state of mind

Like under the water

Existential

Not depressed

After that movie

38 million civilian deaths and 15 million military deaths in ww2 alone

And every one of them was afraid to die like you and me

Imagine the guilt surviving while all your friends are dead

Life has little worth on the battlefield

Almost redundant to say

Does our pain compare today

For the man who killed himself on the train tracks in Mordialloc where I was born

Maybe he couldn’t afford to eat in our economic crises and couldn’t Bare being hungry or being responsible for his kids

Of course it doesn’t compare to ww2

But it’s still a death

Imagine 10 million military and 10 million civilian deaths in ww1

2000,000 people who were all afraid of the emptiness and blackness after you stop breathing and you’re heart stops beating

It feels fake this fake world we live in where everyone is artificially safe

One catastrophe

And we’re all back to being barbarians again

Raping and murdering each other

[jcmarchi]

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/unlocking-new-science-with-devices-that-control-electric-power-technology-org/

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power - Technology Org

Mo Mirvakili PhD ’17 was in the middle of an experiment as a postdoc at MIT when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Grappling with restricted access to laboratory facilities, he transformed his bathroom into a makeshift lab. Arranging a piece of plywood over the bathtub to support power sources and measurement devices, he conducted a study that was later published in Science Robotics, one of the top journals in the field.

The adversity made for a good story, but the truth is that it didn’t take a global pandemic to force Mirvakili to build the equipment he needed to run his experiments. Even when working in some of the most well-funded labs in the world, he needed to piece together tools to bring his experiments to life.

“My journey reflects a broader truth: With determination and resourcefulness, many of us can achieve remarkable things,” he says. “So many people don’t have access to labs yet have great ideas. We need to make it easier for them to bring their experiments to life.”

That’s the idea behind Seron Electronics, a company Mirvakili founded to democratize scientific experimentation. Seron develops scientific equipment that precisely sources and measures power, characterizes materials, and integrates data into a customizable software platform.

By making sophisticated experiments more accessible, Seron aims to spur a new wave of innovation across fields as diverse as microelectronics, clean energy, optics, and biomedicine.

“Our goal is to become one of the leaders in providing accurate and affordable solutions for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “This vision extends beyond academia to include companies, governments, nonprofits, and even high school students. With Seron’s devices, anyone can conduct high-quality experiments, regardless of their background or resources.”

Feeling the need for constant power

Mirvakili earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, followed by a PhD in mechanical engineering under MIT Professor Ian Hunter, which involved developing a class of high-performance thermal artificial muscles, including nylon artificial muscles. During that time, Mirvakili needed to precisely control the amount of energy that flowed through his experimental setups, but he couldn’t find anything online that would solve his problem.

“I had access to all sorts of high-end equipment in our lab and the department,” Mirvakili recalls. “It’s all the latest, state-of-the-art stuff. But I had to bundle all these outside tools together for my work.”

After completing his PhD, Mirvakili joined Institute Professor Bob Langer’s lab as a postdoc, where he worked directly with Langer on a totally different problem in biomedical engineering. In Langer’s famously prolific lab, he saw researchers struggling to control temperatures at the microscale for a device that was encapsulating drugs.

Mirvakili realized the researchers were ultimately struggling with the same set of problems: the need to precisely control electric current, voltage, and power. Those are also problems Mirvakili has seen in his more recent research into energy storage and solar cells. After speaking with researchers at conferences from around the world to confirm the need was widespread, he started Seron Electronics.

Seron calls the first version of its products the SE Programmable Power Platforms. The platforms allow users to source and measure precisely defined quantities of electrical voltage, current, power, and charge through a desktop application with minimal signal interference, or noise.

The equipment can be used to study things like semiconductor devices, actuators, and energy storage devices, or to precisely charge batteries without damaging their performance.

The equipment can also be used to study material performance because it can measure how materials react to precise electrical stimulation at a high resolution, and for quality control because it can test chips and flag problems.

The use cases are varied, but Seron’s overarching goal is to enable more innovation faster.

“Because our system is so intuitive, you reduce the time to get results,” Mirvakili says. “You can set it up in less than five minutes. It’s plug-and-play. Researchers tell us it speeds things up a lot.”

New frontiers

In a recent paper Mirvakili coauthored with MIT research affiliate Ehsan Haghighat, Seron’s equipment provided constant power to a thermal artificial muscle that integrated machine learning to give it a sort of muscle memory. In another study Mirvakili was not involved in, a nonprofit research organization used Seron’s equipment to identify a new, sustainable sensor material they are in the process of commercializing.

Many uses of the machines have come as a surprise to Seron’s team, and they expect to see a new wave of applications when they release a cheaper, portable version of Seron’s machines this summer. That could include the development of new bedside monitors for patients that can detect diseases, or remote sensors for field work.

Mirvakili thinks part of the beauty of Seron’s devices is that people in the company don’t have to dream up the experiments themselves. Instead, they can focus on providing powerful scientific tools and let the research community decide on the best ways to use them.

“Because of the size and the cost of this new device, it will really open up the possibilities for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “Anyone who has a good idea should be able to turn that idea into reality with our equipment and solutions. In my mind, the applications are really unimaginable and endless.”

Written by Zach Winn

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[sunaleisocial]

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/unlocking-new-science-with-devices-that-control-electric-power/

Unlocking new science with devices that control electric power

Mo Mirvakili PhD ’17 was in the middle of an experiment as a postdoc at MIT when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Grappling with restricted access to laboratory facilities, he decided to transform his bathroom into a makeshift lab. Arranging a piece of plywood over the bathtub to support power sources and measurement devices, he conducted a study that was later published in Science Robotics, one of the top journals in the field.

The adversity made for a good story, but the truth is that it didn’t take a global pandemic to force Mirvakili to build the equipment he needed to run his experiments. Even when working in some of the most well-funded labs in the world, he needed to piece together tools to bring his experiments to life.

“My journey reflects a broader truth: With determination and resourcefulness, many of us can achieve remarkable things,” he says. “There are so many people who don’t have access to labs yet have great ideas. We need to make it easier for them to bring their experiments to life.”

That’s the idea behind Seron Electronics, a company Mirvakili founded to democratize scientific experimentation. Seron develops scientific equipment that precisely sources and measures power, characterizes materials, and integrates data into a customizable software platform.

By making sophisticated experiments more accessible, Seron aims to spur a new wave of innovation across fields as diverse as microelectronics, clean energy, optics, and biomedicine.

“Our goal is to become one of the leaders in providing accurate and affordable solutions for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “This vision extends beyond academia to include companies, governments, nonprofits, and even high school students. With Seron’s devices, anyone can conduct high-quality experiments, regardless of their background or resources.”

Feeling the need for constant power

Mirvakili earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, followed by a PhD in mechanical engineering under MIT Professor Ian Hunter, which involved developing a class of high-performance thermal artificial muscles, including nylon artificial muscles. During that time, Mirvakili needed to precisely control the amount of energy that flowed through his experimental setups, but he couldn’t find anything online that would solve his problem.

“I had access to all sorts of high-end equipment in our lab and the department,” Mirvakili recalls. “It’s all the latest, state-of-the-art stuff. But I had to bundle all these outside tools together for my work.”

After completing his PhD, Mirvakili joined Institute Professor Bob Langer’s lab as a postdoc, where he worked directly with Langer on a totally different problem in biomedical engineering. In Langer’s famously prolific lab, he saw researchers struggling to control temperatures at the microscale for a device that was encapsulating drugs.

Mirvakili realized the researchers were ultimately struggling with the same set of problems: the need to precisely control electric current, voltage, and power. Those are also problems Mirvakili has seen in his more recent research into energy storage and solar cells. After speaking with researchers at conferences from around the world to confirm the need was widespread, he started Seron Electronics.

Seron calls the first version of its products the SE Programmable Power Platforms. The platforms allow users to source and measure precisely defined quantities of electrical voltage, current, power, and charge through a desktop application with minimal signal interference, or noise.

The equipment can be used to study things like semiconductor devices, actuators, and energy storage devices, or to precisely charge batteries without damaging their performance.

The equipment can also be used to study material performance because it can measure how materials react to precise electrical stimulation at a high resolution, and for quality control because it can test chips and flag problems.

The use cases are varied, but Seron’s overarching goal is to enable more innovation faster.

“Because our system is so intuitive, you reduce the time to get results,” Mirvakili says. “You can set it up in less than five minutes. It’s plug-and-play. Researchers tell us it speeds things up a lot.”

New frontiers

In a recent paper Mirvakili coauthored with MIT research affiliate Ehsan Haghighat, Seron’s equipment provided constant power to a thermal artificial muscle that integrated machine learning to give it a sort of muscle memory. In another study Mirvakili was not involved in, a nonprofit research organization used Seron’s equipment to identify a new, sustainable sensor material they are in the process of commercializing.

Many uses of the machines have come as a surprise to Seron’s team, and they expect to see a new wave of applications when they release a cheaper, portable version of Seron’s machines this summer. That could include the development of new bedside monitors for patients that can detect diseases, or remote sensors for field work.

Mirvakili thinks part of the beauty of Seron’s devices is that people in the company don’t have to dream up the experiments themselves. Instead, they can focus on providing powerful scientific tools and let the research community decide on the best ways to use them.

“Because of the size and the cost of this new device, it will really open up the possibilities for researchers,” Mirvakili says. “Anyone who has a good idea should be able to turn that idea into reality with our equipment and solutions. In my mind, the applications are really unimaginable and endless.”

[nicklloydnow]

“As Erik Loomis retells the story, mission commander Jerry Carr, science pilot Ed Gibson and pilot William Pogue were in the midst of what would become a record 84-day mission, the last before the spacecraft was to be decommissioned, when they rebelled against NASA’s remorseless work schedule.

They knew before going up that the pace would be punishing -- 84 days of 16 hours each without a break, filled with minute-by-minute scheduling for observations of the sun and Comet Kohoutek, medical tests, photographing of the Earth below, and four spacewalks.

Other astronauts on the ground team, including the commanders of the previous two Skylab missions, advised NASA that the plans were unreasonable. None of the three astronauts on the Skylab 4 mission had been in space before, but NASA hadn’t factored in any time for them to become acclimated to conditions aloft. They were plainly overscheduled. In fact, Pogue almost immediately came down with debilitating nausea.

(…)

Almost instantly the crew fell behind schedule, and with no give in the workload, couldn’t catch up. After a month, Gibson was grousing that the mission resembled “a 33-day fire drill.” Carr informed ground control, “We would never work 16 hours a day for 84 straight days on the ground, and we should not be expected to do it here in space.”

The crew gained the reputation of “complainers,” and their exchanges with Houston lost their civility. Finally, a couple of days after Christmas, Carr wired a manifesto earthward: “We need more time to rest. We need a schedule that is not so packed. We don’t want to exercise after a meal. We need to get things under control.”

Houston’s response was chilly: The crew had to meet its schedule. On Dec. 28, the crew staged its strike. (In some accounts, it’s called a “mutiny,” which is surely too harsh.) Carr turned off the radio link with the ground and crew members spent a full day relaxing, taking things at their own pace and pursuing projects of their own.

The ground crew, stuck at the far end of a dead radio hookup, had no choice but to fume impotently. When Skylab came back online, NASA was much more amenable to discussion. Houston agreed to afford the crew full rest and meal breaks, and replace its minute-by-minute schedules with a list of tasks to be completed, leaving it to the crew to manage its own time.

(…)

But the one-day strike did force a lasting reconsideration of crew management upon NASA, contends Samir Chopra of Brooklyn College. NASA treated the crew as expendable instruments of its schedule, but Skylab 4 showed that when push came to shove the astronauts had all the control in their own hands.

Once in space, they were no longer replaceable robots and had to be treated as responsible partners if the mission was to be completed successfully. “Highly trained military types and scientists fully convinced of the value of their work are likely to push back when placed in an artificially controlled, too-tightly-regulated environment,” Chopra observed. “The lessons here are not just for manned space flight, but for any workplace environment that approximates its conditions, whether in space or on Earth.”

Loomis concludes, however, that the lessons of Skylab 4 have limited application. It’s not common for employees to have the control over management that the crew could exercise merely by turning off their radio, threatening work valued a millions of dollars a day. There wasn’t much to be learned even by 1970s labor activists from the strike in space.

“It’s hard to make new demands of employers when those employers are just going to move the jobs to Mexico, as was happening throughout the 1970s,” Loomis writes. Union organizing was heading into a dark age then, the Skylab strike notwithstanding, thanks to “the rise of conservatism and the growth of the powerful corporate lobby with the open intent of crushing the American labor movement,” he adds. We’re still living with the consequences.”

[pacific-silkscapes]

Using Artificial Plants, Trees, and Silk Floral Arrangements during Home Renovation

silk orchid arrangement in a residential home Home renovation is all about revamping the space according to your taste and aesthetics while still maintaining functionality. One of the significant aspects when it comes to revamping is decorating, and it transforms the visuals of a place with ease. Plants and flowers serve as a refreshing, lively element in any decoration, however, keeping live plants can be quite demanding at times, especially for those who have little to no experience in gardening, and they require a lot of maintenance. With the help of the latest technological advancements, we have managed to create artificial plants and trees, silk floral arrangements, and faux succulents that are as good as the real ones. Nowadays, artificial plants and flowers have become increasingly popular, allowing people the opportunity to add greenery to their homes without worrying about the hassles and expenses of live plants. Incorporating artificial plants during residential remodeling will guarantee that your home is full of life and vibrancy. Here are some reasons why artificial plants might be a good fit for your home renovation project: - Maintenance-free: Artificial trees, silk floral arrangements, and faux succulents don't require any maintenance or care, making sure they stay vibrant and full of life all year round. This makes them a perfect fit for people who may be too busy to look after live plants or those who have pets that like to chew on plants. - Versatility: Artificial plants can be used in any part of the house, whether it be the living room, bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen. They can be used for various purposes, including adding some greenery to indoor spaces, hiding unsightly corners, or decorating empty walls. - Realistic Looks: Modern-day Artificial plants and custom trees display almost realistic and lifelike features, from the texture and quality of leaves to the petals, allowing you to bring nature inside without any inconvenience. The guest couldn't even tell the difference! - Affordability: Artificial plants and trees are affordable and readily available compared to live plants, which can be quite expensive or hard to come by. - Sustainable: Artificial plants are an ideal solution for those who care about the environment but don't want to compromise on home aesthetics. Incorporating artificial plants into your home's interior design means that you can contribute to the environment's preservation. In conclusion, artificial plants and trees, silk floral arrangements, and faux succulents can provide the same aesthetic experience as real plants, without any of the worries or hassles associated with live plants. They offer unique solutions to the challenges of living with and caring for plants in our homes. With their portability, realistic looks, versatility, and hassle-free maintenance, artificial plants indeed are an excellent addition to any residential renovation project. For more information regarding remodeling, contact RL Remodeling. For help with artificial plants, trees, and green walls, feel free to contact Pacific Silkscapes. Read the full article

[luckystorein22]

Is all real maple syrup the same?

When it comes to maple syrup, many people assume that all products are created equal. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The quality and taste of real maple syrup can vary widely based on factors such as grade, production method, and source. But is it possible to find real maple syrup that’s high-quality and affordable? Lucky for you, the answer is yes!

First, it’s important to understand what sets real maple syrup apart from the artificial varieties commonly found in grocery stores. Real maple syrup is made from the sap of maple trees, which is boiled down to create a thick, sweet liquid. The flavor and color of the syrup depending on the grade, which is determined by factors such as the time of year the sap is harvested and the processing methods used.

At Lucky Store, we offer a variety of real maple syrups that are both delicious and affordable. One of our best-sellers is the Golden Delicate Maple Syrup, which has a light, sweet flavor that’s perfect for drizzling over pancakes, waffles, or oatmeal. This syrup is made from 100% pure maple sap and has a Grade A rating, which means it’s the highest quality available.

If you prefer a darker, more robust maple flavor, our Amber Rich Maple Syrup may be more your style. This syrup has a more pronounced flavor than the Golden Delicate but still maintains a smooth, velvety texture. It’s also made from 100% pure maple sap and has a Grade A rating.

For those looking for a budget-friendly option, our Grade B Maple Syrup is a great choice. While it’s not as refined as the Grade A options, it still has a rich, full flavor that’s perfect for baking or cooking. And because it’s a lower grade, it’s available at a lower price point, making it an excellent choice for those looking to save some money.

So, is all real maple syrup the same? Definitely not! But with Lucky Store’s selection of high-quality, affordable options, you can enjoy the delicious taste of real maple syrup without breaking the bank. Try our Golden Delicate, Amber Rich, or Grade B Maple Syrups today and taste the difference for yourself!