#because i will have kids that can actually read tomorrow instead of my usual primary bbys

[seokmattchuus]

I was thinking about Kamden as a dom, I’ve came to the conclusion I’d do anything for him 🙇‍♀️ any word in English and I’d be on my knees in seconds 🫠

No because ohmygod I would do anything for him 😭 His part in Law???? Been in my head nonstop the past couple days. I'm this 🤏 close to making it my ringtone. But anything I think he's too soft to dom I remember him being all aggressive and it. It makes the thoughts start thoughting *swoon*

[intheticklecloset]

Egg Hunt (Haikyuu!!)

Primary Universe

I don’t know why the idea of doing an Easter-themed fic with these two dorks sounded like so much fun, but it did, so here we are! A little belated, but it rather fits with the story, so I think it works out. Enjoy!

2. “Take that back!”

9. “Are you sorry yet?” (this prompt was re-worded slightly to better fit the flow of the story)

~

“Iwa!” Oikawa called from across the locker room. “Have you found your Easter egg yet?”

Iwaizumi stopped what he was doing to stare at his friend. “That chart you put up was for real?” He’d seen the brightly-decorated piece of paper on the door this morning, but thought it had been left over from last week and he just hadn’t noticed. It had been a list of their teammates’ names, followed by a different color for each of them.

“Of course it was for real,” Oikawa replied. “Everyone else found theirs already. You didn’t even try to look for yours?”

“So all those colors were different Easter eggs you hid for them to find?”

“One for each of you. You’re the only one who didn’t tell me they’d found it.”

“Because I didn’t.” Iwa set his gym bag on the floor by the door and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. “I thought it was an April Fool’s prank.”

Oikawa sounded offended. “Excuse me?”

“Come on. An Easter egg hunt? We’re in high school.” Iwa pulled out his phone to check the time. “And we’ve got classes tomorrow, so hurry up so I can get out of here.” As usual, it was his job to lock up after everyone had gone for the night. And no way was he leaving the keys with Oikawa.

“April Fool’s day was last week.”

“And Easter was last weekend. What’s your point?”

“Your egg is still where I left it if you haven’t found it yet.” Oikawa shut his locker, grabbed his bag, and moved to the door. Iwa picked up his bag, too, but his friend stopped him. “Hold on. You can’t leave until you find it. It’s still in here somewhere. You have to at least try. I hid it really well, too.”

Iwa frowned. “I hope to god you didn’t hide an actual egg in here.”

“Of course not. It’s plastic.” Oikawa grinned at him. “There’s even a prize inside. Come on, Iwa.”

“I’m not ten anymore, Toru.” Iwa reached for the door, but Oikawa slammed his palm against it to keep it from opening, staring at his old friend. The ace sighed. “I’m not looking for the egg.”

“But there’s a prize—”

“I don’t care about the prize. I care about going home. It’s late and I’m tired. We have classes in the morning. Let’s go.”

Oikawa pouted. “Hajime, come on. Everyone else did it. Please look for it?”

Iwa groaned. “You are such a child sometimes, I swear.”

“I am not. Take that back.”

“You’re proving my point as we speak.”

“Come on. I worked really hard to make yours extra special, Iwa-chan. Please?”

Part of Iwa hesitated at the term of endearment, but ultimately his fatigue won out. Just the thought of having to look for an egg in this locker room was exhausting. “No.”

Oikawa sighed. “Fine.” He let his gym bag fall to the floor. “You leave me no choice.” Then, in a flash, he shoved Iwa against the wall and dug into his ribs.

“Ack! Hey! Tohohohohoru, you piece of crahahahahahap!” Iwa couldn’t help but burst into giggles, embarrassed by his own sensitivity but unable to do anything about it. He squirmed in his friend’s grasp. “Lehehehehet me go! You’ll ohohohohonly tire me out mohohohohohore!”

“Egg hunt,” Oikawa replied simply, never letting up.

“Nohohohohoho! That’s so juhuhuhuhuvenile!”

“Egg hunt.”

“Tohohohohohoru!”

“Egg. Hunt.”

“No!”

Oikawa sighed again, then used his forearm to pin Iwa’s chest to the wall while his free hand reached down to squeeze at the ace’s thigh. “I’m not stopping until you promise to look for your egg.”

“STAHAHAHAHAHAHAP IT!!” Iwa screeched, unable to stop the flood of laughter bursting out of his mouth. He shoved at Oikawa desperately. “KNOHOHOHOHOCK IT OHOHOHOHOFF YOU JEHEHEHEHEHERK!!”

“You’re so cute,” the setter teased. “Being so ticklish you can’t help but beg me to stop. Which is worse? An Easter egg hunt or being tickled silly? Because I will tickle you silly if you don’t cooperate with me.”

Somehow, despite the subject matter, that threat sent a shiver down Iwa’s spine. He knew Oikawa wouldn’t hesitate to follow through. But he was just so tired, and this tickling wasn’t helping him at all.

“THIHIHIHIHIHIS IS RIDIHIHIHIHICULOUS!!” He laughed, trying to grab a fistful of Oikawa’s hair. “YOU CAHAHAHAHAHAN’T JUST TIHIHIHIHICKLE ME EHEHEHEHEVERY TIME YOU DON’T GEHEHEHEHET WHAT YOU WAHAHAHAHAHANT!!”

“Oh, but I can,” Oikawa replied, smiling sweetly at his thrashing victim. “Quite easily, in fact. I’m doing it right now. Isn’t this fun?”

“FOHOHOHOHOR YOU, MAHAHAHAHAYBE!!”

Oikawa chuckled. “Egg hunt.”

“NOHOHOHOHOHO!!”

“Egg hunt.”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHARE THOHOHOHOSE THE ONLY WOHOHOHOHOHORDS YOU KNOW?!”

Oikawa’s face twisted into a wicked smirk, and suddenly the arm that had been pinning Iwa to the wall was now darting away so the setter could grab both thighs and tickle mercilessly. “You’re hurting my feelings, Iwa-chan. I worked hard on making your egg extra special. I hid it really well. I’ve been so excited for you to find it. Aren’t you even a little sorry? Come on. Egg hunt. Egg hunt. Egg hunt. Egg—“

“FINE ALL RIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIGHT YOU WIN I’LL LOHOHOHOHOHOHOOK FOR THE STUHUHUHUHUHUPID EGG YOU IHIHIHIHIHIHIDIOT!!”

Oikawa let up immediately, his face brightening into his trademark devil-may-care smile. “Fantastic! I can’t wait until you see what the prize is.”

Iwa shoved him away playfully, marching away from the door further into the locker room. “It had better be good.”

For the better part of ten minutes, Iwaizumi looked for the prophesized Easter egg. His color was blue, so he didn’t think it would be that difficult to find in a room full of silver and white and teal – until it was. Oikawa even had to resort to playing hot and cold with him to help him narrow down his searching locations.

Finally, just when Iwa was planning to use his friend’s own methods against him and tickle him into admitting there was no egg, he found it stashed behind a stack of white body towels near the showers. He was surprised to see that it wasn’t even decorated after all of the hype Oikawa had built up. It looked completely ordinary.

“This is it?” he asked, turning to the setter, whose eyes looked excited. “Seriously? You said you made mine extra special. This is just a normal egg.”

“The prize is extra special,” Oikawa clarified. He was beaming. “Open it up.”

Iwa squeezed the egg to pop it open, finding a tiny white “admit one” ticket inside. Confused, he pulled it out and flipped it over, and that’s when he saw it. Written on the back were the words, “Good for one free ‘Tickle Toru’.”

“I’m trying to make up for lost time,” Oikawa admitted, his voice a little quieter now. “Since, you know. I punched you in the face and made you stop tickling me when we were kids.”

Iwa wanted to smirk, but it turned into a genuine smile instead. “You think I need something like this as an excuse to tickle you?”

“It’s a gesture, Hajime. Jeez, read between the lines a little.”

It took the ace a moment to catch on. “Is this your way of asking me to tickle you again?”

“Maybe.”

“Ohh, I see~” Iwa chuckled, snapping the egg back together and chucking it at Oikawa, pocketing the ticket in the meantime. “Well, unfortunately, you made me look for this at a time when I just don’t have the energy to do anything other than go home and crash.”

The setter caught the egg with ease. “If you’d looked for it earlier like everyone else—”

“But I have a proposition for you. How about I keep this little permission slip handy, and I’ll redeem it at a later date. Sound good?”

Oikawa attempted nonchalance and failed miserably. His happiness was far too obvious. “Whatever floats your boat, Iwa-chan.”

“Great.” Iwa picked up his gym bag and pulled open the door. The crisp night air flowed into the warm locker room, giving them a nice, cool breeze to appreciate. “Now move your butt before I lock you in here overnight.”

[jadelotusflower]

September Roundup

So it wasn’t a very productive month, writing wise. I think I wrote less than 1000 words due to various RL issues (a shoulder impingement giving me grief among other things). I can’t entirely blame that, but nor am I going to dwell. It’s my birthday tomorrow, and while I’m having the usual existential crisis about another year slipping by almost unnoticed and without significant accomplishment, I am resolved to return to my novel and get at least the first draft finished by the end of the year. We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I’ve at least been reading more. I’ve also consumed too much film/tv instead of writing, but hey.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood - the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, this was an engrossing read, if perhaps not what people were expecting. While I agree with some of the criticism, I really enjoyed this book.

Like the original novel, it takes the form of primary sources from the rule of Gilead, in Aunt Lydia’s secret chronicle, and “witness testimony” from two young women - one who grew up within Gilead, and the other outside. It’s fairly obvious from the beginning who they are, but I’ll avoid spoilers. Events become a little convenient towards the end, but it’s a great improvement on the tv show’s third season where things just became ludicrously easy and consequence free. I don’t think Atwood will ever write again in this world, but there is still so much to explore and I hope she does.

Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him by Tracy Borman - As far as Tudor biographies go, there’s nothing much new here, but it is an interesting character study of Henry VIII through the men who had the greatest influence on him, especially as a young despot in the making. Through this lens it really does become just so shockingly clear that with a few exceptions, almost everyone of importance in Henry’s life goes through the same cycle of being built up, brought close, and rewarded, but then cast aside or crushed by his unchallenged power and narcissism - and often on very flimsy pretext. 

Top End Wedding - I love a romcom, and this was really charming - it’s now on Netflix so I highly recommend. Starring and co-written by Miranda Tapsell, and directed by Wayne Blair (who also directed The Sapphires - a must see if you haven’t), it’s a film that shows great love to classic American and British romcoms (and the tropes are all there), but also uniquely Australian (Tapsell and Blair are both Indigenous, and care was taken to liaise with the Aboriginal communities where filming took place to ensure that proper approvals were given and and respect paid to the traditional owners). The backdrop of the Northern Territory is just beyond gorgeous, and this just the kind of heartwarming fare needed in these Trying Times (TM).

Bill and Ted Face the Music - As is this! I’ve loved the first two Bill and Ted movies since I was a kid, and was so happy that they’ve finally completed the trilogy. Look, it’s not high art, and you’d be forgiven for thinking this is just another cash grab off the sequel-reboot merry go round, but this was made with such clear love and affection for the originals that I just don’t care.

Here’s the thing: I hate an unnecessarily reboot as much as the next person - I don’t think there’s any point remaking something unless you have something new to say about the material. I also hate the “bleakquel” - where the only idea to follow up the original material is to tear it down just to rebuild it the same but without the heart (looking at you Star Wars). However, I am a sucker for the follow up/sequel just to catch up with those characters you love and see how they’re doing 10, 20, 30 years later. It’s familiar, it’s comforting, and sometimes that’s all it needs to be. Really, that’s all B&T FTM is, but I was perfectly satisfied by it.

Maybe there’s nothing more this film has to say than Be Excellent to Each Other (again), but honestly that’s a message I think we all need right now. There’s of course more to it than that - for the first time, we see a Bill and Ted who have become disillusioned that despite mastering so many different forms of music, they haven’t found The Song that will align the planets and bring out world peace etc, despite their most valiant attempts (That Which Binds Us Through Time: The Chemical, Physical and Biological Nature of Love: An Exploration of the Meaning of Meaning, Part 1 is a neat joke but also a legitimate banger complete with throat singing, a theremin, and bagpipes). And SPOILERS: In the end they discover honestly the only possible answer: that The Song itself doesn’t matter, it’s the world united through music, playing together, that brings everything into balance.

Does all the time travel work within the established rules of the universe? Not really - we see alternate Bill and Teds of the future without any explanation of alternate timelines. Are Samara Weaving (as Thea Preston) and Brigette Lundy-Paine (as Billie Logan) essentially doing impression of Winters and Reeves? Sure, but they are so charming that I don’t care.

Now, there are some obvious holes - covid made reshoots/pickups impossible so the opening “where are they now” montage got nixed, there was clearly more story for Elizabeth and Joanna (”the Princesses”) that is sadly missing, and the ending is very abrupt, but circumstances being what they are I can see why they decided to work with what they had and release the film, which is an antidote to the current, depressing state of the world, and at least in my view, a worthy third and final part of the Bill and Ted trilogy. (But I wouldn’t say no to a time-travel through music history show with Billie and Thea).

Disclosure (dir. Sam Feder) - a fantastic documentary exploring the representation of trans people in film and television, which sadly has often vacillated between lack of representation to misrepresentation, but with hope that things are slowly improving. A really worthwhile watch.

Enola Holmes (dir. Harry Bradbeer) - Twas charming! I hadn’t read (or even heard of) the YA books this is based on, and am uninterested in Stranger Things, but found this very entertaining and Millie Bobby Brown delightful in the title role. There was also a nice balance in the supporting cast, in that they resisted the urge to stack the decks too high in Enola’s favour, or make all the characters around her completely incompetent so she’s only heroic by default. She is clever and accomplished, but also finds that practicing jiu-jitsu is very different to an actual fight against someone trying to kill her.

Fleabag (seasons 1-2) - I never want to be too harsh on movies or tv that have been hyped to the heavens, because expectations are always too high and are rarely met. I liked this show, but did find all the smug asides and looks to camera a little grating in the first season. I enjoyed the second season a lot more, because while Fleabag was still a screw up, she wasn’t stealing money from her date’s wallet level terrible, so there was more of an emotionally satisfying arc (+ Andrew Scott who is always great), and I felt the humour was pitched a bit better. Olivia Coleman was the standout for me (isn’t she always?) as the Godmother, whose smiling, passive-aggressive villainy was masterful and worth watching for that alone.

Lucifer (seasons 1-2) - This show has crossed my tumblr dash for years, but I’m not really fond of crime procedurals. I am fond of mythology so seeing as the whole thing’s now on Netflix I decided to give it a go, and I have to say I am intrigued by the concept of the devil as a wayward son whose punishment for rebelling against God was to spend eternity punishing others, rather than straight-up evil incarnate. So far the procedural side of things is ho hum, but I am enjoying the mythology side, and Tom Ellis is very very handsome. I’m also pleasantly surprised at the number of female characters in the main and supporting cast and their treatment - they are actually allowed to talk and be friends with one another. Can you believe?!?

[whitehotharlots]

It’s impossible to square the circle of #BelieveWomen

Let’s think back a month ago, to what turned out to be a pivotal moment in the 2020 campaign: Elizabeth Warren’s bizarre claim that Bernie told her a woman could not win the presidency.

The dishonesty of the attack on Sanders was so manifest that the takes barely need to be re-enunciated: her campaign was stalling so she lied about Sanders, hoping to re-focus media attention on herself while riding the most cynical aspects of MeToo into a poll bounce. Bernie faced an accusation, and since the only properly woke response to an accusation is immediate and uncritical acceptance, he was going to be dinged no matter what happened afterward. (Only, hilariously, he was not dinged. It was actually Liz whose campaign was ruined by the stunt. And this signals, I hope to god, an end to this bullshit). 

This is all very basic. Good writers have already covered it. You don’t need me to rehash it any further.

I would like to talk, however, about how this highlights larger and more fundamental problems within the #BelieveWomen/#MeToo cinematic universe--problems that must be confronted if the people who seriously believe in the goals of these movements wish to accomplish anything other than securing book deals for a handful of shitty writers. My framing device here will be a concept introduced by Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, in their 20-year-old critique of identity politics. This has to do with the split between hard “identity,” a fixed and firm conceptualization of identity that carries immense rhetorical weight but does not hold up to theoretical scrutiny, and soft “identity,” which views identities as protean and constructed--a more theoretically sound concept that has very little purchase in everyday discourse.

To start with an aside: it’s important to note that the malignant strains of identity politics presently infesting liberalism have been around for decades. It’s just that they didn’t have much utility until the Obama years--when it became clear that the promises of Hope and Change really just meant more means testing, more austerity, mass deportation, the wanton destruction of the planet, and an acceleration of our Forever Wars. The Democratic Party had to shift gears. In response to a crushing defeat in the 2010 midterms, their media apparatus decided to aggressively pursue identitarianism. This came with two benefits: 1) It allowed them to differentiate themselves from Republicans and motivate supporters while still sharing 98% of the GOP’s policy positions (this is where we get the logic about it being, like, so important for kids to see Black Panther); and 2) it provided an easy means of discrediting any material politics (“if we broke up the banks tomorrow, would that create more trans CEOs?”). Very little has changed within cultural studies-based understandings of identity over the last 20 years, as will be demonstrated from our review of Brubaker and Cooper’s piece. 

Brubaker and Cooper posit that

 “Identity,” is both a category of practice and a category of analysis. As a category of practice, it is used by ‘lay’ actors in some (not all!) everyday settings to make sense of themselves, of their activities, of what they share with, and how they differ from, others. It is also used by political entrepreneurs to persuade people to understand themselves, their interests, and their predicaments in a certain way, to persuade certain people that they are (for certain purposes) ‘identical’ with one another and at the same time different from others, and to organize and justify collective action along certain lines. (4-5)

As a category of practice, identity is morally neutral--its goodness or badness depends upon what ends its evocation is utilized toward. The trouble is when this category of practice is spun into a foundation of analysis, at which point the conception of identity becomes reified, made to appear as sort of an inatlertable given.  “We should,” the authors note “avoid unintentionally reproducing or reinforcing such reification by uncritically adopting categories of practice as categories of analysis” (5). 

Now, you may be fine with the notion that identity markers are un-transcendable, that they serve as the primary or perhaps even exclusive determining factor of a person’s being, worth, or moral stature. That’s what’s called an essentialist point of view. There’s trouble, though, because essentialism is (at least nominally) rejected within most bodies of academic thought. The more prevailing frame is called constructivism, which posits (correctly, I feel) that there’s nothing magical or inevitable about identity groupings, that they are instead social constructs and can therefore eventually be transcended even if their present-day effects are very real. This, the authors note, points to the fundamental contradiction of how identity is actually understood:

We often find an uneasy amalgam of constructivist language and essentialist argumentation. This is not a matter of intellectual sloppiness. Rather, it reflects the dual orientation of many academic identitarians as both analysts and protagonists of identity politics. It reflects the tension between the constructivist language that is required by academic correctness and the foundationalist or essentialist message that is required if appeals to ‘identity’ are to be effective in practice. (6)

Basically, “identity” has been formulated in such a way that it can be utilized in a essentialist sense even while its purveyors issue rote denials of its essentialism--like how someone can shamelessly use the #VoteLikeBlackWomen tag while claiming to not regard black women as ideologically monolithic. Or, more generally, by asserting that social problems can only be addressed by listening to Oppressed Group X or Y, (which is done most commonly as a response to left-materialist suggestions for change), as if all members of those groups would understand each issue identically and would suggest the same response. This is a dishonest and incoherent approach to politics, but it prevails because of its utility--that is, because it poses no real threat to existing power structures.

Here we find a rhetorical move that is foundational to contemporary identity politics: leaning on popular but theoretically indefensible understandings of terms and slogans while claiming that we actually understand these terms and slogans in obscure ways that are unpopular and rhetorically weak. Simply put: this is a lie. 

Brubaker and Cooper go on to explain that “weak or soft conceptions of identity are routinely packaged with standard qualifiers indicating that identity is multiple, unstable, in flux, contingent, fragmented, constructed, negotiated, and so on. These qualifiers have become so familiar--indeed obligatory--in recent years that one reads (and writes) them virtually automatically. They risk becoming mere place-holders, gestures signaling a stance rather than words conveying a meaning” (11). And the parallels here to Intersectionality are manifest--like how class is perfunctorily nodded toward but never substantially engaged with, or how what is purported as a means of understanding a multitude of identity positions is, in practice, a victimhood hierarchy that’s used to determine the (in)validity of people’s actions and observations. As long as we keep allowing people to hide within this double-conceptualization, we will continue promulgating an understanding of social problems that contradicts itself so fully that it cannot lead to any actionable analysis. 

This is fairly obvious now, in 2020, with identitarians having taken control over our liberal institutions and failing miserably at enacting any but the most superficial of changes. But in 2000, Brubaker and Cooper pointed out the simple fact that “weak conceptions of identity may be too weak to do useful theoretical work. In their concern to cleanse the term of its theoretically disreputable ‘hard’ connotations, in their insistence that identities are multiple, malleable, fluid, and so on, soft identitarians leave us with a term so infinitely elastic as to be incapable of performing serious analytical work” (11). And so they wondered, naturally, ““What is gained, analytically, by labeling any experience and public representation of any tie, role, network, etc. as an identity” (12)?

I find the answer pretty simple: leaning on an intellectually dishonest understanding of identity allows writers to cosplay as radicals without giving up any comfort, status, or power. Liberal leadership (by which I mean, those with power in academic and media spaces, as well as the center-right mainstream of the contemporary Democratic party) embraces this charade, as they realize it poses no threat of disruption or upheaval. Conservatives (Republicans, and more generally those in power in business and finance sectors, as well as the military), however, despise this, and are ideologically unaware enough that they regard it as an actual threat, and react to it with physical and fiscal violence (mass shootings are domestic terrorism are conspicuous examples, but selective austerity is much more commonplace and causes more harm on the whole). But now, most terrifyingly, a whole generation of young humanists have found themselves inculcated into this belief system but utterly unable to interrogate its foundational contradiction. They don’t realize it’s a grift. 

This is why the left-leaning criticisms of Warren’s’ campaign stunt fell so flat, even when they were being issued by writers with whom I usually agree. Warren was accused of cynically misappropriating the #BelieveWomen mantra. Writers explained that, actually, everyone knows that we shouldn’t seriously believe every claim by every woman, that the hashtag is instead meant to encourage people to simply be more empathetic and less dismissive to women who claim to have suffered abuse. This is the same fundamentally dishonest contradiction we find in the split between hard and soft identities. The hashtag isn’t #BeSomewhatLessIncredulous. It’s #BelieveWomen. It a blunt mantra, a demand so intense and absolute that no one could possibly take it literally--that it sometimes comes packaged with some post-facto qualifiers does not change this; it just makes its purveyors seem dishonest.

Warren’s stunt failed because most people could see through it. We recognize self-contradiction as easily as we recognize cynicism and hypocrisy, and unless someone has an awful lot of charm we tend to react negatively to all of those traits. A movement founded on such a flimsy edifice is never going to attract outsiders and is never going to achieve anything of value. It’ll elevate a small number of people and make everyone else even less likely to engage with social justice going forward. 

[cdelphiki]

Fear Toxin snippet

A/N Okay.  I’m 1/3rd done with the Fear Toxin fic that was due yesterday, and I’m about to go out so I wanted to share with you a bit of what I have.  It’s missing one final read through and polishing that I normally give my stuff before I publish it, so yeah.  And there are still two more scenes coming up, hopefully later tonight but possibly tomorrow.  They are in rough dialogue/summary form right now so it’ll just take me 2ish hours of work to finish.  Just felt bad for having it be so late so thought I’d share something.  

Damian didn’t scream.

That was the first thing Dick noticed.  Aside from his own internal panic of shit shit shit the kid’s been shot, of course.  Even though it was just with a dart of fear toxin and not like, an actual bullet, it got Dick’s heart racing just a little quicker.  

But Damian wasn’t screaming.  Dick had seen each of the other kids on fear toxin, as well as hundreds of random civilians.  There was always screaming.  Crying, shouting, screaming.  And yet, Damian was doing none of that.  

Keeping the kid in his peripherals, Dick finished taking out Scarecrow and tied him up nice and pretty for the GCPD.  It was actually fairly easy, since he, too, was unnerved by Robin’s lack of screaming.  The tiny 10-year-old’s apparent lack of fear.  

“Robin?” Dick asked as he slowly approached.  It was clear Damian was hallucinating.  At least, Dick thought it was.  Since Damian had quit fighting and was standing there, stiffly. He just wasn’t scared.  

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, kneeling down in front of Damian as he did a visual scan of the boy, his hands hovering an inch or so from Damian’s body, afraid to touch him and risk setting him off, “can you hear me?”

In response, all Damian did was take in a deep breath and let it out slowly, through his nose.  A move Dick recognized as one meant to calm one down.  To slow a heart rate and keep panic at bay.  

So perhaps Damian was scared.  Did he know what was happening then?  And was responding accordingly?  Staying calm because he knew none of what he was seeing was real?

Dick had no idea.  

“Hey,” he said gently as he loaded a clean syringe up with a full dose of the anti-toxin, “I’m going to give you some medicine that will make it stop, okay, kid?  Can you hear me?”

Damian didn’t respond, so Dick very carefully grasped onto Damian’s upper arm, testing the waters to see how violent a reaction he’d have to touch.  Considering normal Damian was quick to kick or punch, or as Tim had discovered the one time he ‘accidentally’ ruffled Damian’s hair, bite, Dick was preparing himself to defend against a ruthless, violent attack.

Instead, Damian gasped, almost inaudibly, as he shut his eyes tight.

“It’s okay, D,” he said as he gripped a little tighter, allowing him to stab the syringe right into Damian’s thigh.  Straight through his uniform.

The boy didn’t even flinch.

But then Damian said, with an almost unnoticeable shake to his voice, “I’m sorry.”  If one didn’t know Damian, it would have gone unnoticed.  But Dick did know Damian.  He’d been the primary caretaker…. Well that was probably actually Alfred.  He was the one who got them to sleep and eat and such.  

He’d been the primary emotional caregiver to Damian for nearly six months.  Ever since Bruce died.  

“What for?” he asked in as soothing a tone as the Batman voice would allow, “You’re okay, you did nothing wrong.”

While he let the antitoxin run its course, Dick pulled out his batphone to let Gordon know Scarecrow was ready for pick up.  The entire time, he kept his hand on Damian’s arm, making sure he stayed put.  

The boy didn’t move.  He didn’t try to pull away, even as his body began shaking, every so slightly.

“Robin?” Dick said, pocketing his phone and looking back over at the boy.  

“Please,” Damian whispered.

The hint of desperation in Damian’s voice was enough to make Dick drop the Batman voice all together.  “Please what, bud?” 

“I’m sorry.  Grayson- I- I’m-”

“Shhhhh,” Dick said, running his free hand up and down Damian’s arm, trying his best to sooth the panic he could see rising in the boy.  Why wasn’t the antitoxin working?  It should only take a couple minutes, and Damian only seemed to be getting worse.  

“Its okay.  You’re okay,” Dick started to repeat, as he stood, “Come on, we need to get you home and synthesize a new antitoxin.”

“Grayson, please,” Damian choked out, in a painful sounding aborted sob.  The poor kid was struggling not to cry, now, and that only seemed to make it all worse.  

Dick wanted nothing more than for Damian to go back to not being scared.  

Was he ever not scared?  Or had the fear just become so intense that he could no longer hide it?

He didn’t even want to think about the implications that a 10-year-old could hide his fear so well, he appeared to have none while on fear toxin.

“What is it?” he asked softly, brushing his fingers across Damian’s cheek before stopping to check his pulse.  

“I apologize, I-”

His pulse was racing.  At least 150bpm.  “You’re okay kiddo, you’re okay.  It’s okay.”

Just as a tear escaped out of Damian’s domino and down his cheek, Damian tensed up.  He quickly swiped it away as his entire body went completely rigid, all trace of emotion vanished from his face.  “It was a mistake,” he said stiffly, “I can be better.  I promise.  I will.  Please.”

Dick let go abruptly, pulling Damian in close, squishing his tense little body right into his chest. Because that’s what this kid needed right now.  A hug.  

A hug and probably a lifetime worth of therapy.  But they could all use that, so Dick wasn’t really one to talk there.  

“Don’t send me back,” Damian whispers, both unbothered and unnoticing of his new position being crushed in Dick’s arms.  

“I would never,” Dick whispers back, wishing beyond hope that his words would penetrate whatever hallucination Damian was stuck in.  

When Dick was tripping on fear gas, he’d watch his parents fall to their deaths.  Then watch Bruce.  Then Jason.  And Tim.  And Alfred.  Babs and Wally.  And probably Damian, now, too.   

Tim, as far as Dick could tell, usually saw everyone he loved die.  Everyone important in his life turn their backs on him and leave him all alone.  

Bruce had usually witnessed each of them dying.  Collapsed down onto the ground and cried for each of his children.  

Damian, though.  Damian apparently saw himself getting kicked out by Dick and sent back to the League of Assassins.  He tensed up and waited for the blows to come, for Dick, or whoever Damian was seeing, to take their disappointment in him out on him physically.

His favorite little kid was so used to being hit that he didn’t even try to fight it.  The kid that fought everything.  That screamed and bit and stabbed at everything.  

“Oh, Damian,” he whispered, blinking back the tears that had started to well in his eyes.  Crying right now would not be good.  He needed to get them home.  And with the sound of sirens growing closer, he needed to get them out of there soon.  

Dick stood, only letting go of his grip on Damian enough to scoop him up into his arms and carry him, bridal style, to the Batmobile.  He wrapped his cape around the boy tightly, as if the trembling mess of a child in his arms could be comforted by it. 

Damian didn’t speak again.  In fact, he seemed to completely leave his body.  His heart-rate slowed down as his breathing became steady.  The trembling stopped, and he just laid there, in Dick’s arms, completely limp as Dick continued walking them to the Batmobile.

With a deep breath, Dick tried to get the hand that was clamping down on his heart and making his entire chest seize to let up.  There was nothing he could do about any of this until he got them home and made a new antitoxin.  Until the fear toxin was out of Damian’s body, nothing he said or did would fix anything. 

Once he reached the Batmobile, he opened the passenger door and carefully set Damian down on the seat, detaching his cape as he did so he could leave it wrapped around Damian.  “I love you,” he whispered, as he pushed back Damian’s hair and planted a kiss on his forehead, “We’ll fix this, okay?  Just hang in there, bud.”

[winterromanov]

she’s the sunset (in the west) - thasmin fic (2/?)

Yaz doesn’t make promises lightly. It’s one of her things. A promise should be taken seriously, carried out. If she’s promised to bake a cake for the school summer fair even though she can’t bake for shit, she’s still going to do it, layering the burnt bits in slightly sloppy buttercream. If she’s promised to take her parents to the airport at 3am on a school day, she’ll set an alarm and turn up to work the next morning on with a coffee stapled to her hands.

If she’s promised to find Poppy Smith some friends, she’s one hundred percent going to do that too. She remembers the warmth in Joanna’s eyes at the thought of it—this feels important, like she could actually change something. It might not work. It might be that in less than a year’s time Poppy will move up into year one and nothing will have changed, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t try.

She brainstorms ideas at her tiny kitchen table as soon as she comes through the door. Ryan’s not home yet so she violently clatters all his dirty crockery into the empty sink, dragging her flipchart paper down the stairs (which she saves only for special occasions). An hour later, her whole kitchen wall is covered in bright pink post-it notes, like she’s attempting some spontaneous redecorating.

“What the—“

Yaz almost jumps out of her skin, black marker sliding out of her fingers and onto the floor. She’d been so absorbed in her new project she’d never heard the front door creak open—and that’s quite a feat considering Ryan’s just come in from football practice, the studs of his boots usually clicking on the laminate like a herd of women in stiletto heels.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she exclaims, heartrate slowly easing back to normal. Ryan rolls his eyes.

“I literally didn’t, but okay,” he huffs, refusing to look away from the chaos she’s created. He squints as he expertly manoeuvres his dirty kit from his bag to the washing machine—if only he could do that with the socks he leaves stranded in the hallway, she muses. “What the fuck is duck-duck-goose?”

“You’ve never heard of duck-duck-goose?” Yaz asks, open mouthed. Ryan bemusedly shakes his head. “Did you even go to primary school?”

Ryan shrugs. A grin tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Not if I could help it, no. Mum was a pushover but Nan never believed me when I told her I had the Japanese flu or whatever.”

“I bet she didn’t,” Yaz hums, because Grace never took any of Ryan’s shit. Not even at the end.

The two of them stand in silence for a moment, like every time Ryan mentions the lost women of his family. Yaz has never felt the pain he has. She can see it in his eyes, sometimes, how it lingers like fog. Dense and dirty but fading, eventually. Slowly.

But it’s okay, he has her. He’s always got her.

(It makes her think of Joanna Smith, again. About the dad that’s not around.)

Ryan snaps out of wistful reverie first, grabbing a beer out the fridge and snapping the lid on the kitchen table. Yaz throws him a look. He knows she hates that, which is probably why he does it. “What’s all this for anyway? Because if you’ve volunteered to lead another year six team-building weekend I’m going to be seriously questioning your sanity. Especially after last time.”

“No,” Yaz tuts, as if she’s going to make that same mistake twice, “There’s this kid in my class who is finding it hard to make friends. I’m trying to…think of something to solve that.”

Ryan takes a long sip of beer, studying more of her responses. “So you think a trip to the aquarium will fix it?”

Yaz shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe? Nothing gets five-year-olds talking more than jellyfish. That, and what they’re going to get at the gift shop on the way out.”

“I guess,” Ryan offers, but he doesn’t look too convinced. “Just… some kids don’t want to make friends, Yaz. As long as they don’t seem too unhappy, what’s the harm in it?”

“This kid is four, Ryan. It’s a very important stage in her social growth. If she doesn’t start developing those skills now when she’s little it could be a really big problem later on.”

“That’s a bit dramatic,” Ryan says, “All I’m saying…this is a lot of effort for just one kid. As far as you’re concerned, as long as they can count to ten and know most of the alphabet you’ve done your job. And don’t, uh, stick their fingers into plug sockets or something.”

Yaz just about resists the temptation to go off on just how wrong that is and just how Ryan could possibly understand anything about her job, how it’s never just one kid. Yes, she needs to teach them how to read and write and count. But she also needs to teach teamwork, conflict resolution, gratification. How you can’t hit someone with a building block or steal somebody’s sausage rolls at lunchtime. How you must listen to the people around you and acknowledge that sometimes you can’t win, whether that’s the star of the week accolade or someone’s forgiveness, straightaway. How you must be kind, always, forever.

The day she sees a kid in her class that’s struggling to fit in and she thinks it’s just one kid is the day she’ll walk away from teaching and never look back.

“Are you hungry?” Ryan asks, after a moment, “I haven’t eaten yet. Pizza?”

Yaz’s hand relaxes, flexing from a fist to loose. On an outtake of breath she runs a hand through her hair, before nodding. “Yeah, sure.”

“Cool,” Ryan already has his phone out, scrolling through the options on Dominoes. “Hey, Yaz, if you went through this much effort for a bloke maybe you’d finally get laid.”

It’s meant as a joke but—ha. Yeah. Maybe.

-x-

As it happens, it doesn’t matter how many neatly written post-it notes and mind maps you make. Children will always be ridiculously unpredictable, like they’re wired completely different to every single other person aged eighteen or over. She tries class games, seating plans, even outdoor learning in the summerhouse on the grassy quad near the upper school playground—but nothing will encourage Poppy Smith to talk to the other children, or the other children to talk to her.

Instead, Poppy becomes incredibly attached to Yaz. And that is really, honestly, the last thing she wanted.

“You know, it’s really sunny outside today, Poppy,” Yaz says, as in a new turn of events, Poppy refuses to follow the other children out onto the playground during lunch break. Instead, the little girl stays in her seat, taking her dark blue starry-patterned pack lunch box out of her draw and unpacking it onto the table. “I think some of the other girls were thinking about playing with the new skipping ropes. Wouldn’t you like to play with the skipping ropes?”

Poppy shakes her head decidedly. Silently, she removes a small peanut-butter and banana sandwich from her box and places it in front of her. Yaz watches as she nibbles round the corners first before eating the filling.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to go outside?” Yaz asks, somewhat weakly, because she has a feeling Poppy won’t give in to her hints easily. “It’s so dark in here and I have to mark your handwriting worksheets!”

“I want to stay with you, Miss Khan.”

When two little eyes blink innocently back at her, Yaz finds it very hard to resist. Technically, as long as she’s not on her own, it’s not breaking any rules. It’s just—this is not in the plan. It’s not good to let a kid become too attached. It goes against every instinct she has as a teacher, but she knows if she forces Poppy outside she’ll go back to silently stalking the edge of the playground with her book about space, lost in a world of her own.

If she’s in here—just for today—at least she’s in her company. Talking to someone.

“Okay,” Yaz smiles tightly, “As long as you promise to go outside tomorrow, yeah?”

Poppy nods happily and returns to her sandwich.

-x-

Quite by chance, today just so happens to be the day that Joanna is late. As one-by-one the kids spot their parents or guardians in the playground and head off back home, rain splattering off bright red wellies and raincoats, Poppy stands on her tip-toes and peers into the murky outside. The weather has turned somewhat since lunchtime.

Yaz looks at her watch. Quarter to four. The playground is mostly empty, other than a group of mums nattering by the gates, restless kids hanging off their arms or in pushchairs.

It’s the second time she’s been left waiting for Joanna Smith, Yaz ponders, and wonders if it’ll be the last time. She sighs, looking at the back of Poppy’s head, watching as the little girl’s eyes lock on to everything and everyone walking past the school.

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon, Poppy,” Yaz says, gently smoothing Poppy’s hair. Poppy looks back up at her, eyes wide and concerned.

“What if she’s gone to the moon without me?” Poppy asks quietly. Yaz shakes her head with a smile, crouching down so their faces are level.

“Your mum wouldn’t do that, I promise,” Yaz says, “She’d always wait for you. I’m sure of that.”

Poppy frowns. “My daddy didn’t.”

Oh. Oh. Yaz freezes for a second, like she always does when a kid says something like that. You know—something unbearably sad, something hanging and poignant, one of those things that just slips out because kids don’t hide anything. Kids have sad stories too. They carry tragedies in their reading folders, hidden under exercise books and friendship bracelets and constellations of gold star stickers.

Yaz takes one of Poppy’s tiny hands in her own. Notices the stars she’s etched on her palms in blue biro pen. “Look at me, Poppy. Your mummy isn’t going to leave you behind. Ever.”

(It’s a big, big promise. She doesn’t realise it at the time, but it’s the biggest one she’s ever made—because sometimes, sometimes people don’t come back. Or you don’t go back to them. Maybe it’s the first promise she’s made that she won’t be able to keep. Sometime.)

Poppy’s disgruntled expression shifts into a smile, and Yaz can’t help but grin back. When she stands, still clutching onto Poppy’s hand, she can see through the raindrops on the window a shaky, grey figure running towards the door. Against her better judgement, she can feel her heart do something she doesn’t want to put a name to.

The glass door opens and Joanna emerges from the cold, her anorak dripping rain onto the floor in mad, abstract patterns. She pulls down her hood and her blonde hair is a chaotic mess of drenched natural waves—it reminds Yaz of tides and sea-salt and white-sand beaches, somewhere cluttered and rugged like the Northern coast. The kind of water that leaves you freezing but dazzlingly awake, shivering in clean, white towels with piles of seashells in your pockets.

Joanna blinks and catches eyes with Yaz. Grins. “I’m making a habit of this, aren’t I?”

Poppy replies first, dashing towards her mother excitedly. She grabs Joanna’s legs in a hug and Joanna laughs, ruffling her hair.

“Oh, baby, you’ll get all wet,” Joanna murmurs, before clearly deciding that Poppy is going to get wet going outside anyway. She scoops her up into her arms and kisses Poppy’s cheek messily, Poppy’s hands looping round her neck.

“You didn’t go to the moon without me,” Poppy says matter-of-factly.

“Of course I didn’t,” Joanna answers, before looking confusedly back at Yaz, forehead scrunching. “I would never leave you behind. Never ever.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Yaz reassures, “Your mummy was just late, Poppy. Nothing to worry about.”

Joanna grimaces, shifting to bring Poppy further up her hip. “Yeah��I’m so sorry about that, I…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yaz responds, smiling comfortingly. Joanna seems to take it, smiling back. “No harm done, eh?”

“No, I suppose not,” Joanna’s eyes seem focussed on Yaz’s face for a second or two, and her heart is doing that thing again, that ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum that she’s only ever really felt when Harry Styles winked at her during a One Direction concert fucking years ago.

(Was it really that long ago, huh? Have men really been that disappointing since?)

“Well,” Joanna says, breaking the silence, “I think you deserve a treat, ay, Pop? Ice cream?”

Poppy looks excited but Yaz laughs, glancing at the deluge outside. “You’ve certainly picked the perfect weather for it.”

“Mummy,” Poppy says pointedly, playing with Joanna’s wet hair, “Can Miss Khan come for ice cream with us?”

“Oh, uh—“ Joanna looks at Yaz expectantly, “I mean, of course she can, if you’re allowed…?”

Yaz pauses, because this is not a situation she’s encountered before, and she’s not sure what she’s supposed to do. It’s probably important to keep a professional distance from the kids in her class and their families. She knows she can’t show favouritism, but… this isn’t that, is it? This is just going for ice cream with a woman that she can’t help but want to get to know better. There’s a magnetic quality in Joanna. A one that makes all her wiring stutter and restart.

“You know what,” Yaz answers, after a moment, “That sounds like a lovely idea.”

(Oh, and this is when she discovers that she’ll do anything for a smile from either of the Smith women.)

[bryanfaganlaw]

A divorce in Texas: From temporary orders onward

If you have need a best suitable service your Child Law experience, A divorce in Texas: From temporary orders onward with the great process!

Family Lawyers Houston: In yesterday’s blog post from the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC we covered the initial phases of a divorce in Texas and what you can expect within them. Today we will pick up where we left off by discussing more about the temporary orders phase.

Temporary orders within your Texas divorce

Generally speaking, the temporary orders phase of your divorce occurs after your Petition has been filed and your spouse has had an opportunity to file an Answer. Many counties in Texas require that you and your spouse seek mediation prior to going to see a judge about establishing temporary orders. What exactly is covered in a typical temporary order in Texas?

Temporary orders will ensure that you and your spouse have some ground rules in the areas of your marital residence- as in, who will get to stay in the house and who has to leave. Additionally, temporary orders will decide which one of you will pay what bill and who will be the primary conservator (temporarily at least) of your children. The primary conservator is allowed to determine the primary residence of the kids.

Whichever spouse is not the primary conservator will be awarded visitation time on a regular basis in most situations. Finally, the use of and access to the property will be decided in temporary orders. The actual division of property will occur prior to or during a trial.

Temporary orders tell you what you can and cannot do

It may seem awkward or unnatural to submit yourself to another person’s rules when you are an adult, but essential that is exactly what you are doing when you are involved in a divorce. Your personal theories of how an adult should conduct him or herself and your behaviors become less important and instead you are expected to follow a fairly rigid set of rules set forth by a judge. However, keep in mind that this stage is preparing you for life after your divorce when you will be living under your final decree of divorce until your children reach the age of 18 and all property issues are sorted out.

Basic injunctions are put into place during the temporary orders phase of your case that restricts your ability to do things like harm your spouse physically, harm their property, waste community resources like income or go into debt. As I mentioned a moment ago you and your spouse will also become acclimated to seeing your children based on the orders contained in your parenting plan. Temporary child support will likely be paid from whichever spouse does not live with the children to the primary conservator.

Information gathering during temporary orders: Discovery During the sometimes long period of time in between the filing of your divorce and the conclusion of your case, your attorney and that of your spouse will be assisting each of you in collecting evidence that may be relevant to your case.

The ultimate purpose of collecting this potential evidence is for use in a trial. However, keep in mind that most cases do not go all the way to a trial but instead settle in mediation. What you are collecting this evidence for is to give both you and your spouse equal knowledge of the facts and circumstances of your case. This will allow for more coherent settlement negotiations and in a perfect world will decrease the possibility of your divorce ending up before a judge.

Your spouse and you will likely exchange requests for discovery during this phase of your case. Information, documents, and statements from each of you regarding your children, your property, your finances and a host of other subjects will be hashed out in this section.

If digging through the computer and file cabinets for documents sounds tedious- it’s because it is. You can get a jump on this process by collecting tax returns, bank and retirement statements, etc. before your spouse even asks you for them. Some of the information that the other side seeks will be protected and does not have to be provided. Your attorney will make the decision on what you should respond to in these discovery requests and what does not need to be answered.

My general advice when it comes to responding to discovery requests is to be as helpful and thorough as possible. Don’t think of this as a “partner” activity from high school where you can do 20% of the work while your attorney can do the other 80%. I suppose that your attorney can do 80% of the work, but it’s going to take him or her more time to do it and you will be billed for every minute that your attorney spends asking you questions about documents or responses that you have provided. If you can be thorough and timely in your collecting documents for him or her you can manage costs easier and get past this stage faster.

Even if you do not get asked by your attorney to turn in more documents or better clarify responses to questions asked of you, the opposing attorney will look at incomplete answers or requests for documents as you trying to hide the ball. You will likely be asked to turn in more complete information one time by the opposing attorney before you are asked to attend a court hearing where the attorney will tell the judge that you and your attorney need to be compelled (forced) to turn over relevant information that has not been turned in yet.

Inventory and Appraisement

Family Lawyer in Houston: A document that you are required to file during your divorce is known as an Inventory and Appraisement. This form will list all property that you and your spouse own (separate and community) and the debts that you both are responsible for.

You will be asked to state an estimate of the value of the property and the amount of any debt. The document is treated as an affidavit- a sworn statement was taken under oath. This is required because if you and your spouse do need to seek a trial, this inventory will be entered into evidence and utilized by the judge to decide a host of issues regarding property division, child support, and spousal maintenance.

Settling on final orders

Once you and your spouse have submitted responses to requests for discovery, the next phase of your case is to attend mediation for final orders. Usually, you and your spouse will have been exchanging settlement offers on a host of issues associated with your children and your property throughout the case. Mediation is an opportunity to negotiate via a professional mediator who can assist you both in coming up with creative solutions to the issues that you all are facing.

Mediation is on the whole very effective and results in the settlement I would estimate is close to 85% of divorces. A half day session (four hours) can help you and your spouse hammer out agreements on a divorce that can save you all time and money.

We will begin tomorrow’s blog with a more thorough examination of what final orders mediation actually is, but the spirit of the day should be compromised. Neither you nor your spouse will likely walk out of mediation feeling like you got everything the way you want it in your final orders. That’s ok. In reality- that’s the sign of a good agreement.

In settling your case and avoiding a trial you are putting the interests of your family first before your own desires for “justice” or “fairness”. As I tell clients all the time: you can search the rest of your life for fairness when it comes to your relationship with your spouse and you will likely never get it.

Mediation, Settling for Final Orders and trial- tomorrow’s blog post topics

Houston Family Law Lawyer: Stick with us tomorrow as we begin to discuss the final stages of a divorce case in Texas. In the meantime, if you have any questions for the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC please do not hesitate to contact us today. We offer free of charge consultations six days a week with one of our licensed family law attorneys ... Continue Reading

[la-moonlight-lily]

May I?

Summary: She'd been waiting for the one that would make her feel this way. That tenacious, profound, lingering emotion that no words can encompass. And now that she had, it had to be the one person she could not let into her heart. ItaSaku Soulmate A/U (or is it?). Non-Mass.

Rating: T. Subject to change.

1. Misconceptions | 2. Contemplations | 3. Decisions | 4. Resolutions

A/N: This whole thing is dedicated to Nadine25 on ff.net who is the main driving factor and inspiration for me writing again. You should check out her story Unholy Matrimony, it's brilliant, and also to littlebirdrobin on tumblr who has been very motivating and supporting, and her story Pretty Cherry Blossom is also a wonderful read.

"You're staring at her again."

Shisui looked at his cousin with something akin to exasperation, mentally letting out a frustrated groan.

Itachi did not even bother giving him a glance. He groaned out loud this time.

"Itachi," he snapped his fingers in front of his cousin's face, startling the younger male, who discreetly scrambled to regain his composure.

"Itachi," Shisui sighed, running a hand through his hair. "We talked about this."

He stared at his companion, who only lowered his eyes to his hands, both tightly gripping a glass of whiskey, still silent.

Shisui raised his eyes to Itachi's cause of fascination, watching as she rested her head on her blonde friend's shoulder – Yamanaka, was it? – warm, cheerful laughter bubbling from her mouth as they watched Naruto spit his drink in his other little cousin's face, Sasuke torn between cleaning up or pummelling his friend into the ground first.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Itachi raise his glass to his lips and down the rest of his whiskey, taking out his wallet to throw a couple of ryo on the table before standing up.

"Let's go."

The finality in his tone caused Shisui to immediately spring up, filled him with an air of relief. They quickly made their way through the number of shinobi filling the bar, passing by the youngsters' table on the way. There was no way they wouldn't notice them now.

"Shisui-san!" Sakura piped up when they neared the table, sitting up to greet him.

Itachi stiffened, Sasuke glared, and Shisui had to force himself to grin brightly at the girl as if his two cousins weren't just about to jump each other at the throat.

"Why hello there, Sakura-chan!" he leaned against table slightly, standing in front of Itachi. "It's been a while since I saw you around."

"Oh you were going to get a visit from me soon enough." The girl smirked at him, making him sigh inwardly.

"Oh?"

"Someone has to drag you to your monthly check-up, yes?" She was still smiling but her eyes narrowed at him slightly, "the one you're three months late for?"

He huffed out a laugh, rubbed the back of his neck.

"No need to get violent, Sakura-chan. I'll drag myself over to the hospital first thing in the morning."

She looked slightly placated, but shifted her eyes to his cousin, still standing stiff behind him. The dark-haired man rolled his eyes.

"I'll drag him along too," Shisui said with a small laugh, "now can you quit eyeing me with such murderous intent?"

Sakura's eyes brightened with mirth and she let out a small giggle, running his fingers through her soft, pink locks.

"Fine. Only because I'm in too good of a mood to torture you tonight. Would you join us for a dri-"

"No."

Their eyes snapped to the person sitting across from her.

"Sasuke, don't be rude!"

"We were all about to leave anyway."

Shisui watched his cousin and his teammate for a moment. Sasuke pinned the girl with a hard look. She returned it with a dirty one, looking more annoyed with him than Shisui thought she would be. The two blonds at the table shot each other a slightly alarmed look, seemingly understanding of the perhaps not-so-strange situation.

Well, he wasn't about to get between them. He already had one walking mess to deal with.

"It's alright Sakura-chan. Itachi and I were just leaving actually. We had a long day and we'll need our rest if we're getting those check-ups tomorrow." Shisui gave her a small smile and watched as she dragged her eyes back to him, a frown pinching her eyebrows together, giving him a little nod.

"Come on, I'll walk you home." Sasuke said softly, standing up and holding his hand out for her, looking slightly apologetic. Their two companions stood slowly after them.

"Well, I'll see you soon then. Good night, everyone." Shisui didn't wait for them to respond, only heard their murmured goodnights while he stalked to the door, Itachi hot on his heels.

It was a long, silent walk to the Uchiha compound, one Shisui was more than used to by now to feel uncomfortable anymore

She was upset with him, Sasuke could tell. He didn't even mean to be that aggressive. He just didn't want to put a damper on her good mood after they'd worked so damn hard to get her there.

He sighed. It seemed he couldn't get things right with her on this, no matter what he did.

"Sakura-"

"Shut it Sasuke."

Okay, she was definitely more than a little bit upset.

"Sakura, I'm just trying to look out for you-"

"I know, Sasuke," she interrupted again, softer this time. "I know."

She leaned into him slightly as they walked, and he was grateful for it, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry."

"I know," she said again and put her head on his shoulder, felt him sigh again.

"I won't keep him away anymore if that's what you want-"

"I don't want to talk about it Sasuke," his teammate interrupted in a tone that clearly said there was no arguing with her. He didn't mind that much.

"Okay. I'm sorry." He kissed the top of her head and squeezed her shoulders lightly. She appreciated the comfort it provided for a moment.

They kept on walking in awkward silence, until she decided to look up at him.

"How's Hanabi?"

If he was grateful for the diversion, he didn't show it. Instead, he gave her an awkward smile.

"She's alright. Still getting used to the whole situation."

"Is her father still raging about how she's being shackled down to an Uchiha?"

Sasuke chuckled. "He's… coming around, I think. She said he hasn't been shooting as many daggers at them lately as he usually does."

The female under his arm giggled and wrapped an arm around his waist. "The poor man. To have both his daughters become soulmates to someone who is not a Hyuuga must've been more of a shock than he could handle."

"He wasn't that bad with Hinata." Sasuke sighed and Sakura nodded a bit at his words. "He already knew since they were kids that they wouldn't end up with anyone in their clan, their marks never matched. And Naruto and Hinata knew they were soulmates since they were five or something so he'd already made peace with that by the time we discovered our bond." He ran a hand through his messy hair. Made it even messier, if that was possible.

"It's the fact that I'm an Uchiha more than anything that made him fly off his handle. Hanabi said he almost had a heart attack when she told him."

They laughed at the image, both able to clearly imagine Hyuuga Hiashi red-faced and short of breath after shouting for hours and hours about how his daughter couldn't possibly end up with a man in their primary rival clan. A man from its main branch at that.

"I'm sure Hyuuga-sama wasn't the only person who almost had a heart attack at the news," she teased and he grinned devilishly at her.

"My father wasn't too pleased, no. But you know how my mother could be when she decides to work her magic."

Sakura nodded. "Hai hai." She was more than familiar with the leverage Uchiha Mikoto has over her husband. Over her entire Uchiha household, actually. She didn't think any of the three other occupants of the main house dared defy their matriarch's wishes at any point.

"And it's not even like we chose this, you know?" Sasuke continued, "they both know that you end up with whoever has your mark and that's that. The fact that most of the clan members in our case happen to find their soulmates from within the clan is the exception, not the rule. We can't really decide that we'll both live miserably till the end of our days just because our clans can't stand each other."

"No you can't."

Sasuke realised his mistake a moment too late, and scrambled to apologise when he saw her face fall slightly. She pinched his side and smiled teasingly at him before he could, however.

"And how are you feeling about this? Still giving her a verbal beating every time you see her?"

Sasuke scowled, but there was no ill feeling behind it. "It was only the first two times! And it's not my fault that the first words my soulmate was supposed to say to me were an insult!"

"Yeah, she is quite the spitfire, isn't she? Goes well with her name." Sakura grinned up at him and he sighed, poking her side to make her squirm.

"Yes, she's very intense, and so am I, so we tend to clash a lot. But I'm getting used to it. It's only been a month since we knew, but we're making an effort to have calmer discussions whenever we disagree and all. We've been doing well, I think."

They rounded a corner and passed the familiar fruit stand at the beginning of Sakura's street, their pace unconsciously slowing down as they neared her house.

She was silent for a few moments before she spoke again, her tone subdued this time.

"Do you think you could be happy with her?"

Sasuke looked down at her and found her staring ahead, that familiar sadness back in her eyes. He squeezed her closer to him.

"It's too early to tell, but I think we're making progress. She's making an effort and we're opening up to each other a bit. Slowly, but… Yeah… Yeah, I think we could be happy, at some point."

She didn't speak again until they reached her building a minute or two later. She squirmed away from his hold and stood facing him, a warm smile on her face.

He could see her making an effort not to cry.

"I'm happy for you Sasuke," she almost whispered, taking a step towards him and wrapping her arms around his middle, "I really am."

He hugged her tightly, pressing a kiss against her temple. "Thank you. It means a lot."

She gave him one final squeeze and pulled back, walking backwards to the gate. "Good night, Sasuke-kun."

"Good night," he said and watched as she turned around and started climbing the steps to the door.

"Sakura."

She turned around, looked at him with curious eyes.

"He'll come. I promise."

Sakura smiled sadly at her best friend. Willed herself to hold it together.

"I hope so, Sasuke."

With that, she turned around again, taking the steps up to her apartment two at a time.

She managed to hold off the tears until she got to her bedroom.

Or, more accurately, until she started taking her clothes off.

She peeled off her shirt, a crisp black fabric that contrasted sharply against her vibrant pink hair. Throwing it on the bed, Sakura stood in front of her full length mirror and ran her fingers over the tattoo on her right hip bone.

It had been there since she was born, and she couldn't remember the burning feeling it made as it appeared on her skin. It remained too tiny to read on her small body, the letters squashed together in an unintelligible script until she turned nine. It was Ino who finally managed to read the words when they were splashing in the pool at the Yamanaka estate, squealing when she glimpsed the short, clear line visible on her hip.

"Sakura-chan, look! You can see it now!"

Young Sakura had forgotten all about checking her tattoo for a while, too busy trying to keep up with her lessons at the Academy and fending off bullies with Ino. The girls pulled themselves up to sit at the edge of the pool after that, staring at her soulmate mark, written in beautiful, neat handwriting.

May I kiss you?

The girls blushed and squealed childishly, their eyes excited and dreamy at the prospect of a prince charming asking for permission for a kiss. They kept screaming excitedly until Ino's mother came in and yelled at them to tone it down.

They stayed up late that night, curled in bed trying to figure out who Sakura's prince charming might be. They already knew that he must be older since Sakura was born with her soulmate's first words to her already branded on her skin, so he must've been born by the time she was. Excluding half of the boys in their year because they were at least a few months younger, and then half of those that remained because Sakura's already talked to them before and none of them asked to kiss her, the girls kept on throwing in the name of every handsome boy in Konoha, giggling and speculating over Sakura's mystery man.

They kept on guessing until they were well into their teenage years, half of their friends having already met their other halves by then.

"Maybe it's a girl," Naruto said once, promptly getting smacked on the back of his head by a laughing Sakura and Ino.

"What?!" he cried defensively, rubbing his offended head and looking at the girls with an affronted expression, "the handwriting's too pretty for it to be a guy!"

"Oh yeah? And how did you know it was pretty handwriting?!" Sakura mock-growled at him, making him blush and hide his red cheeks from her view. Sakura laughed at him and patted his shoulder.

"Not that I'm not okay with the concept, but I'm not really into girls at the moment."

He blushed even harder at the thought, while the rest of the group snickered at him.

"I personally think he's a man. A very polite and courteous gentleman," Tenten said, taking a sip of her milkshake.

Ino snorted. "Well that excludes half of Konoha."

They laughed again, until Sasuke nudged her lightly with his elbow.

"He could be from another village, you know," he murmured and Sakura nodded in agreement.

"Might not even be a shinobi," Naruto threw in, which made her eyes widen a little.

"Kami, I hope not!" She tucked her hair back behind her ear. "I would like him to at least be on the same page as I am when it comes to that path of life."

The rest of the group agreed, none of them fond of the idea of having to abandon their shinobi lifestyle, before moving on with the conversation to the upcoming jounin exams.

Her friends kept on coming across their lovers one by one, until all who remained were her and Sasuke.

And it was fine. Really. The thought of meeting her soulmate was nice, especially if he was as romantic as the script on her hip says. But she was too distracted by keeping up with the Godaime's lessons and catching up to her teammates to dwell on it much. It would happen when it was supposed to, she told herself.

It was fine until she started noticing the mysterious black eyes following her around. When she was training, when she was healing, even when she was walking through the market with Ino, catching up on the latest gossip.

She would feel the familiar prickle down her spine, and somehow manage to turn her head in the right direction to where his face was.

The first few times this happened, it left her shaken. As a kunoichi, being watched never sat well with her. The fact that it was Uchiha Itachi watching her made it even more unnerving.

He looked at her with an intensity that scared her, the darkness of his irises scanning every inch of her as if she were a puzzle, and he was trying to put her together, figure her out, just by training that fierce gaze on her. And every time she would turn her head and see him fixing her with that look, she would shiver and turn away as quickly as she could without showing signs of unease.

But then one time she caught his eye and he smiled at her. A shy, crooked thing, like he wasn't sure if he was doing it right or not. And Sakura melted.

It was like he was letting her in on a little secret, one that no one knows about him except for her. And instead of turning away from him like before, Sakura took to following him around with her eyes as well, eager to unravel him as he was slowly unravelling her, each secret slowly making itself known in the form of a beautiful expression on his face.

Sakura and Itachi played this game of cat and mouse for a while, each of them making their presence known to the other as frequently and discreetly as they could, their public interactions few and usually without words, preferring to speak through whoever was accompanying them, but then exchanging those warm looks and secret smiles from a distance with those around them being none the wiser.

It was almost as if they were too scared of facing the inevitable, excited but nervous of that wonderful confrontation they'd been aching for. She knew deep in her heart that soon, she would wait no more, that it would no longer just be distant smiles and hurried touches in passing, and she knew that Itachi knew that as well. And it only took a few more weeks before it happened.

The first time Itachi spoke his words to her, Sakura froze, unable to compose herself at the sound of his calm tenor near her ear. For some reason he chose to approach her while Sasuke was there, and her teammate was gaping at the both of them and she was blushing and scrambling for a response, before she stammered an excuse at them and ran off like the idiot that she was.

For the following few days, she could feel two sets of ebony on her at all times, not one. One anxious, the other confused.

It took some courage for Sakura to be able to look at Itachi again, finding him near the Hokage's office as she was heading inside to help her mentor with paperwork, him leaving the office with a mission scroll. They stared each other down for a long minute, her green hues mirroring his intertwined happiness and distress. It was a silent conversation, one they were too good at by now, and one that told them that their compulsion towards each other, while deliciously ferocious, was inevitably doomed. The circumstances were not in their favour.

Sakura could only give him a sad, watery smile and Itachi raised his fingers to her cheek hesitantly, running his knuckles over her smooth skin, then darting away before he could no longer control himself.

She wallowed in self-pity for the whole month Itachi was away, obviously miserable and subdued. Her friends tried unsuccessfully to pry the cause of her sadness out of her, Tsunade screamed at her to regain her focus during surgeries, only to soften and try and comfort her later when she saw the girl strangely on the verge of tears with each little comment she received.

The annoying insistence of her friends continued for two weeks then suddenly stopped, and Sakura could see them shoot her sympathetic, understanding looks and being extra nice to her whenever she would get lost in her own thoughts. She couldn't explain their sudden change of attitude, but then Sasuke knocked on her door one night, holding her favourite ice cream and a box of strawberries and Sakura instantly launched herself at him, soaking his shirt with tears she had been desperately trying to keep at bay since she last saw his brother.

He was weirdly tender with her, something she had rarely, if ever, seen from Sasuke. Held her for as long as she cried while running a comforting hand up and down her back and through her hair, and listened to her patiently as she dug into the tub of ice cream and told him what he had already known for a while, but he let her relieve her heartache anyway. She finally cried herself to sleep and he carried her to her bed, tucking her in snugly under the blankets, and took the long way home to get some air on the way.

He showed up the next morning too, bringing her some cheese croissants and chocolate pastries and making sure she showered and ate, before they set out to their usual team sparring session.

It was perhaps a blessing that Sakura had grown so close to Sasuke, even if it was under such unlucky circumstances and even if he seemed like the least likely person who could be so understanding and supportive and patient with her situation, but he was, and Sakura was grateful for it. Sasuke would always make sure to surprise her with some of her favourite treats, show up on the nights when she was feeling especially dreadful, and nudge her with a smile or give her a small one-armed hug whenever he saw her slip into the darkness of her mind. And it brought her comfort, to know that she was not alone in her heartache.

Itachi returned almost too soon for her to heal, though, and Sakura slipped into a foul mood again. But she couldn't help but respond to his looks and smiles again in due time. Only this time, it felt exciting because it felt forbidden, and they were more compelled to hide their actions not due to strange flirtation, but due to disapproval. And more misery if it goes on, but right then and there, they didn't care about anything except those quick stolen moments that they couldn't go beyond. A quick smile before someone would notice, a touch of their fingers as they passed each other in corridors, the occasional smouldering, intense look that only served to increase their desire to retreat to a dark abandoned corner and not leave until they were both thoroughly sated.

Sasuke knew, though. With him at Sakura's side at least half the day every day, and living with the other party of the problem, he was bound to notice. And he did not approve.

He would scowl at Itachi whenever he caught him trying to catch her attention, and would steer Sakura away from Itachi's way if he sensed him around. Soon, Shisui got involved as well, trying to control Itachi instead, and their scarcely existent moments became even less frequent. Sasuke even became quite standoffish with his brother when Itachi wouldn't abandon his attentions, the relationship between the two becoming more turbulent as Itachi's 'relationship' with Sakura continued.

"You need to stop, Itachi." Sakura heard Sasuke utter harshly after she and Naruto finished having dinner with his family. She was waiting for Sasuke to walk her home while Naruto helped with the dished in the kitchen, and went to check on Sasuke when she started getting impatient.

"Whatever you're doing, you just need to stop it."

"I fail to see how that concerns you, Sasuke."

"It concerns me because it concerns Sakura! You know that this can't happen! You know that you're just hurting her more by making this attachment grow!" She heard Sasuke take in what sounded like a deep, exasperated breath before he continued.

"I can't allow you to hurt her more than she's already hurting. I can't allow you to hurt yourself more than this. You can't encourage her. She already has to endure the fact the someday, she's going to see you with someone else. And you're going to accept her eventually finding someone else as well. And you can't both do that if whatever it is that you're both doing continues."

Sakura almost ran back down to the kitchen. She had to walk slower so they couldn't hear her. And also so she could have time to compose herself before going back to Naruto and Mikoto.

Sasuke couldn't have been more right, and she knew it. It didn't mean that hearing that out loud wasn't still like a kunai to the heart.

It almost ceased after that. She no longer sought Itachi out with her eyes whenever she went, no longer went out of her way to frequent the same places he would so they could spend some time in proximity. And she could tell that he didn't either. It hurt too much for any meeting of their eyes to be longer deliberate, and should they find themselves staring, they would quickly avert their gaze as soon as they realised it, except for a few slips near-misses, like tonight at the bar. The combined efforts of Itachi's brother and cousin helped too.

And here she was, almost a year after that first time she caught him perusing her, standing in front of her mirror and crying pathetically at her stupid tattoo, wondering for the millionth time how she could somehow be so deeply in love with someone who was not her soulmate.

A/N: Well that wasn't very happy... I'm not sure if it's meant to be, either. I'm almost done with the whole thing, so I should be able to update soon (here's to hoping). Next, we see more of Itachi.

[ca-8]

(This is a short story about the Wright Brothers I wrote for chem class! Thought I'd might as well post this so it wouldn't rot in the back of my Google Docs app lol)

A Success Takes Flight

“You won’t win this one, General Orville!” an eleven-year-old boy declared, chasing an even younger boy down the hallway. The younger boy struggled to stifle a giggle as he almost tripped over his feet and darted around the corner. They both held a plastic horse with fake identical soldiers glued onto their backs. Various parts of their yellow and blue coats were scrapped off, but by the grins plastered on their faces, the boys didn’t seem to mind.

    “When I get away, I will, General Wilbur!” a seven-year-old boy retorted, looking back at his older brother. They passed by a window of their house, and the moon shining from the Ohio night sky gazed down at them. They zoomed by their little sister’s room, and the small owner silently looked up at the doorway and returned her attention to the doll in her hands.

    Wilbur increased his speed just a little. He figured his taller stature would easily overpower his younger brother's shorter size, and he would finally win the make-believe battle. The fate for his victory was sealed; however, he didn’t know that it would be from Orville’s own carelessness. 

    They ran into the living room, and while his eyes were on his big brother, Orville’s feet caught onto the edge of the rug that stuck up from its usual position. That grin instantly flew off his face as he collapsed onto the ground. The toy flew from his hand, and the horse was beheaded when it came in contact with the hardwood floor. 

    “Woah, are you okay, Orville?” Wilbur asked, approaching and kneeling down beside him. But his brother’s attention stayed glued onto the broken object. 

    “My toy…” he mumbled. 

    “What is going on here?” Wilbur turned to the doorway and saw his mother rushing to the scene.

    “Orville tripped and his toy broke,” Wilbur said. He heard sniffling behind him, and he saw that his brother’s eyes were starting to well up with tears. 

    “Oh, honey…” their mother mumbled as she kneeled in front of him, cutting off his view from his once beloved toy. “You don’t need to cry. We can always fix it tomorrow, and it will be as good as new, okay?” she said in a soothing voice. Orville sniffed and wiped his eyes, but before he could say anything, the front door flew open.

    “Wow! What smells good in here?” their father’s cheerful voice asked. The boys’ eyes instantly lit up when they saw a little bag in their father’s hand. “Father! Did you get us anything?” they asked in sync, running up to the man.

    The father peered down at his children and chuckled, wiping off dust from his dark coat. “Now, now, boys, settle down.” His eyes went past the boys and onto their mother, then to the mess scattered behind her. “My, what happened here?”

    “Orville broke his toy,” their mother informed. Orville lowered his head.

    “Oh, it’s okay, the one I have is even better,” their father said. “Can we see it now?” Wilbur asked, bouncing on his toes. “I will, but first, I’m starving!”

    The boys hurried to the dinner table and messily swallowed the food after their father’s prayer. Ignoring the disgusted looks they received from their five siblings, they ran from the kitchen and back to the living room. Wilbur encouraged his little brother to clean up the mess on the floor, which he obeyed, and they both waited for their father. Soon, the preacher entered the room.

    “Okay, boys, here ya go!” he said. He put his hand inside the bag and carefully pulled out...some kind of object.

    “What is that?” Orville asked.

    The toy was a model of some sort of vehicle made out of cork with paper wings sprouting from the wings. But what really caught the boys’ attention were the two tiny things sticking out sideways on the other end of the vehicle. “You know, I am not sure. I guess it’s up to you boys what you want it to do,” their father said, handing it to Wilbur. 

Wilbur held the strange toy in his hand with Orville peering over his shoulder. “Can it fly?” he asked, using his finger to gently brush the wings. 

“Does it?” Their father was grinning like he was silently telling them to find out. 

Wilbur stood up slowly. He moved the two small paper pieces slightly and cocked his head to the left when they both spun around the end. Without much thinking, he flicked one of the pieces, and the two spun quicker than anything he has ever seen. 

“Woah! Let me see!” Orville demanded, jumping up from his spot. Wilbur handed him the toy and his little brother flicked the rotating paper a couple of times. His black irises seemed like they were shimmering with awe. Suddenly, he rose up the toy and threw it across the room. 

“Hey, what’re you-?” Wilbur started, but when his gaze followed the toy, he realized that it was gliding through the air like a dead grasshopper instantly springing back to life. It flew across the room for a second before landing safely on the carpet. 

The Wright brothers were silent. “My, what an interesting toy!” Their father walked over to it and picked it up, examining its unique features. 

“That’s so cool!” Orville exclaimed. “I wanna do it again!” He ran over to his father, and after getting it back, he threw the device a few more times. Meanwhile, Wilbur stood and watched them entertain themselves. He wanted to join them; however, a thought forming in the back of his mind kept his feet cemented to the floor while thinking to himself, ‘I wonder if there’s anything to make us fly like that.’ 

For the next few years, the boys’ source of fun was only that toy. They always found new ways to make it fly faster and farther, like throwing it with the wind on a gusty Friday or climbing on top of the large tree that was not too far from their house and throwing it from there. Though, Orville would be its primary owner because of Wilbur being buried in his studies more and more each day.

But Wilbur was far from annoyed. He enjoyed being occupied in work he knew how to do. It was a way to show off what he knew, and what more he wanted to understand. And later on, school work and the flying wasn’t the only thing that brought a smile on his face.

Despite that, the activity would eventually introduce life-turning despair to him.

A few years later, Wilbur stood at the sides of a large river of frozen water. Many of the boys were holding their hockey sticks and skating along the thick ice. Wilbur's eyes followed the black puck that was passed between them. He had been playing hockey from time to time, but this was the first time he would be playing with this many kids.

"Be careful, Wilbur!" his mother yelled on the hill behind him. Wilbur looked up and gave her and his family an excited smile. His sisters and brothers had books and dolls in their arms. Orville had their flying toy. "Oh don't worry so much, Susan, he will be fine," he heard his father say. 

Wilbur put his gaze back on the field and joined the other boys. Some of them he knew, some of them he didn’t, but it didn’t matter all too much. They accepted him as soon as he quickly took the puck and smacked it to the other side of the frozen lake. 

Playful laughter erupted from the fields the boys had fun. Though, all through that time, Wilbur felt an unsettling feeling in the back of his head. As he chased boys who were trying to show dominance over the puck, he looked over his shoulder. The person behind him caused a shudder to run down his spine.

He was far, but his piercing gaze was almost unbearable. Oliver Crook Haugh stood on the other side of the field, his eyes never leaving Wilbur’s. The stare was as if a lion was stalking a gazelle abandoned by its herd. 

Wilbur shook his head and focused back on the game. He was just probably having a bad day. Yeah, that’s it. The neighborhood bully always had a bad day. Surely he had other prey to pick on, right?

The Wright kid pushed in front of the other boys and held the puck against his stick. He kept a steady pace as he focused on the black, round object, only looking up every few seconds to avoid the other boys coming his way. The end field was so close he could practically see the grass in his sight. He prepared his arm to raise and swing the puck to the imaginary goal. 

But he never did. Instead, a pair of black shoes appeared in front of the puck. Wilbur shot his head up to see Oliver with his stick behind his back, ready to swing. He thought he was aiming for the puck, but a sharp pain that collided with his jaw told him he was wrong. Wilbur felt himself fly back, and the only thing he saw next was a pair of birds flying in the cloudy sky.

It was as if time was moving in slow motion. The birds held their wings out, letting them glide perfectly along the windy air. Wilbur wished he could be one of those birds.

The world turned black when they flew out of his view.

Raindrops crashed into the window. Many slid down to the bottom, and Wilbur silently cheered for some to reach the bottom before the others. It was the only thing he could do that was slightly fun since his parents banned him from ever leaving his room.

“You need to stay here and rest if you want your jaw to get better,” was his mother’s actual words, but to him, it held the same meaning. Especially since she and his father said he wasn’t allowed to play hockey anymore. 

“I can beat up Oliver if you want,” his other brother, Otis, offered. Every Wright child was taught to never raise a hand at anyone, so it surprised but also satisfied Wilbur that Otis would suggest such a thing. However, he had to decline; he didn’t want his brother to get in trouble because of his rage. Besides, who knows what Oliver would do to him?

His other siblings helped him eat and read stories to him, and though he appreciated it, they didn’t ease the pain. Not just the pain of his jaw, but this heavy pressure in his chest. He thought it was just a side effect of being brutally injured, so he ignored it.

One day, Orville silently came into his room and sat on his bed. He glanced at his big brother and mimicked his stare at the window. It was raining again.

Wilbur noticed that he was holding the flying toy. “You should be doing homework,” Wilbur said, forcing his gaze back on the window.

“I got bored. I wanted to go outside but Mother said I would bring dirt in the house.” Wilbur hummed, and the two boys sat in silence.

“Hey, Wilbur?” Orville said after a few moments.

“What?”

“Do you think we can actually fly like our toy?” Wilbur’s eyes trailed back to the small toy. The paper was wrinkling and the cork was covered in dirt, and some parts of it were coming off. Not only that, but the two smaller pieces of papers that stuck out at the end were beginning to rip. It surprised him that he didn’t notice such drastic details until that moment. “I don’t know,” he finally responded. 

“Now that would be fun, doncha think? We’ll be like those annoying birds that wake us up every morning.” Wilbur let out a soft chuckle, and Orville grinned widely. 

“Yeah, I guess we could. Someday.” They faced the window once again.

Wilbur felt ashamed. He was among the oldest of the Wright children, and yet, he just witnessed most of his siblings go off to college. He should be there too, but instead, he was stuck at home, wallowing in self-pity and failure. 

Right after his jaw healed up, his mother fell ill, and Wilbur felt that this was his time to be useful. After all she had done for him and the family, it was the least he could do. At first, his father insisted that he would take the position so his son could catch up on his studies; however, Wilbur knew that his chance of graduating high school was far from his grasp. 

Ever since the incident with Oliver, the heavy, empty feeling never left him, even after most of the injuries were fixed. In fact, it was probably worse. The usual urges to get out of bed, to eat, sleep, and smile were gone in an instant. It wasn’t very long before he realized that feeling took away his need for academic success. Afterwards, he dropped out of school, and taking care of his mother became his primary goal. Though he knew it was impossible, he still had regret lingering through his veins everyday when he thought of his chances for college.

“You don’t have to worry about me so much. You should get back to your studies,” his mother said weakly. Whenever they were in the same room together, she would always take the time to lecture him about his mistake. But he refused to listen.

 Wilbur held the fork up to her mouth and her teeth hesitantly took the food. “Don’t be silly. If I can’t take care of you, who will? Father’s too busy.”

“You could do so much more…”

“I will, but after you get better.” 

A tensed smile fell upon her lips as if she was putting every ounce of effort into showing her love. “You are so selfless, Wilbur,” she said. 

Wilbur returned the gesture and took the empty plate off of her nightstand. “Thank you. Now rest up, Mother.”

Being in the Midwest, the day was unusually peaceful. The cloudless sky showed off the summer sun with pride, the grounds were untouched by merciful mother nature, and the wind was nonexistent. Orville and Wilbur would curse those calm days, and the flying toy would stay in the shadows of Orville’s room.

Wilbur walked in the kitchen and put the dish on the kitchen counter. Just before he could start cleaning it, a soft knock drove him out of his wandering thoughts. The older teen raised an eyebrow before making his way out of the kitchen.

“Orville?” he said when he opened the front door. “Shouldn’t you be filling that empty head of yours?”

His little brother chuckled. “You’re one to talk. I came to talk with Ma.”

“Don’t know if that’s a good idea. You know how she is, if she sees you, you won’t hear the end of it.” He only shrugged. There was something about his face that Wilbur couldn’t help but notice. His eyes shimmered with strange determination. As he entered the house, his pace was fast and those strong-willed irises darted from the furniture with the speed of a cheetah. 

And Orville did the same. The moment the door opened, he was overwhelmed by the apathy his brother radiated. He knew he had changed in some way ever since the accident, but he never thought he would ever feel whiplash in the presence of his brother. When it was over, he wished he was brave enough to make Oliver pay and take his father’s angry lectures as a man rather than simply watch Wilbur become less of himself by the moment. 

But now was not the time to focus on the past.

He entered his mother’s room to see the frail woman on her bed. “Orville?” she said, just above a whisper. He knelt by the bed, putting a hand over hers. Her sharp, cold skin sent shivers down his spine.

“Ma, before you say anything, I want you to hear me out,” he began. Wilbur silently walked in the room and leaned against the doorway. 

“School’s not going well for me. I think I’m going to drop out.”

His mother’s eyes widened slightly. “What? Do you know how-” She erupted into a series of coughs and Orville jumped back. Wilbur pushed passed him, grabbed the glass of water on the nightstand, and poured the cold liquid down her throat. 

Orville waited until silence was the only noise in the room. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, “it’s just not working for me.”

Wilbur turned and glared daggers at him. “You wait here, Mother, Orville and I are going to talk for a minute.”

“Wait…” she gasped out, but the boys have already left the room.

“I thought the biggest idiot in this world was the neighbor who ran in his burning home to save a piece of jewelry. But now… now you’re taking his place!” he yelled as soon as the siblings reached the other side of the house.

“I’m sorry, but it’s all too much! I want to do something more than solve little equations and learn the same history lesson over and over again.”

“So what, you just left? You left an opportunity to make a life worth living?”

“I never left. I still have a future. School is just not it.”

“I swear, if you don’t go back, I’ll drag you back there and make sure you don’t come out!” He was glad Katherine was out with her friend, or else she would replace their mother and lecture them for hours. That was the last thing he needed.

“I’m sorry, Wilbur-”

“Stop with the apologies! If you’re really sorry, you suck it up and go right back into that classroom. We don’t need another worthless child in this family.” Orville fell silent. Wilbur let out a heavy breath and looked away when he realized what he had said. It was almost as if he was talking in the mirror. 

“Wilbur, that’s not true and you know it,” his younger brother said. “Ma wouldn’t be half as healthy if you hadn’t stayed here.”

He sniffed, cursing his body for even thinking about crying. “I stayed here because there’s nowhere else for me to go. If I can’t bother to read a book, what good am I?”

Orville sighed and wrapped his arms around him. The last time they hugged like this was when he was six and Wilbur was eight, and Wilbur comforted him about another toy he broke. They were glad no one else was around; it was embarrassing enough already. 

“I can help with Ma, and after she gets better, we’re gonna start a company and get a lot of money.”

“You idiot. Do you know how much that would cost us? And you don’t know the first thing about starting a company.” Orville pulled away and smiled. “Then you can find a way.” 

Wilbur softly laughed. “Fine.”

For the rest of the year, they did everything they could to help their mother. She didn’t have the strength to scold Orville on his decision anymore, so his father did it for her. He yelled and sometimes threw him out of the house to “make him experience what will happen” (as he would say) if he didn’t go back. Yet, Orville persisted, claiming that he and Wilbur were going to find a way to survive without school.

Meanwhile, Wilbur stayed in the background. For some reason, his father was easier on him. Of course, he had the hour-long lectures, but ever since he began taking care of Susan, they had grown distant. Still, he ignored this, and their relationship continued to be a struggling flame in an active snowstorm. 

And soon, that flame would burn out. 

In 1889, the light of death finally consumed her. 

The Wright brothers sat in the front row of the crowd. The casket containing his mother’s body refused to leave the youngest’s line of sight. The older, however, felt as if his eyes would explode if he took a glimpse. Their father’s words were only echoes.

“God blessed me with an angel, and it seems…” he began, obviously suppressing a sob. Wilbur drowned out the rest of eulogy. Orville was too distracted to listen.

The church was filled with nothing but despair. Katherine and Ida cried so loud that the heavens must have heard them. Lorin hid his face from the crowd. Reuchlin was looking out the window. The brothers didn’t talk to them that day. 

It wasn’t long before the two stood at the grave of their mother. Wilbur shouldn’t be crying because he knew this was coming. Despite repressing those thoughts every day and every night, reality always haunted him. His mother’s illness had no cure, so no matter what he did, he could not prevent the inevitable. 

Orville put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on,” was all he muttered, and he pulled his brother away from the grave. I’m sorry, Ma, he apologized, I’ll make us into men that you’d have to be proud of. A wind of encouragement blew past him, rustling the leaves of the trees next to the grave.

Several years have passed since their mother’s death. Their father fell into a depressive state and urged his children to leave him alone. Thanks to him, Orville was able to convince Wilbur to come live with him in his house. From selling newspapers to designing bikes, they earned enough money to make a living. But, was it really enough?

“I know we enjoy this and all, but is this what we’re only going to do?” Wilbur asked, sitting down on his bed. He and Orville just came back from another day of work. 

“Of course not. This bicycle business is only to get us some money,” Orville’s voice responded from the other side of the tenement. He poked his head into the room, grinning widely. “The real dream is over here.”

Wilbur let out a silent sigh and followed him to the ‘office’, which was just the kitchen covered in papers. The only thing that piqued his interest was what was on them. “I went ahead and made some pictures of what real aircraft will look like. What’d ya’ think?” Orville said.

“When did you make these?” Wilbur asked.

“Not too long ago. I just hid them so I could surprise you!” The older sibling raised an eyebrow. Never thought I’d see a twenty-five-year-old man act like a ten-year-old girl.

“Um, this is interesting and all…” Wilbur slowly walked up to one of the papers and picked it up. The drawing contained a large mechanical vehicle with open seats in the middle while propellers sat in the far end. Large paper-looking wings held up by what he thought were sticks hung at the sides. “...But why?” he finished.

“Why? Didn’t you read the newspaper the other day?” Orville ran out of the room, and a short moment later he came back with a newspaper in his hands. He set it down on the small table and flipped through it until he came to the page he wanted to show his brother. He pointed to one of the headlines:

German Aviator Otto Lilienthal Dies From Aircraft Crash

“A lot of people want to fly, Wilbur,” Orville started, “but they can’t if they don’t do it right.”

Wilbur had heard about aircraft testing and was lucky enough to read about aeronautics in the past. Though he wasn’t entirely focused on it, his love and hope for flight had never died. In fact, the decaying flying toy sat in him and his brother’s room. Even so… “Can we really do it?” he said, quickly skimming the article.

“Hm? Of course we can! All we need is some parts, coffee, and a place to fly. As long as we can put enough back into it, we’ll be richer than the British monarchy. And besides, you basically said it yourself that you didn’t want to make bikes forever.”

That, he couldn’t deny. A few years ago, he did like the idea of designing their own brand of bikes. And yet, inside him, he felt as though something was missing… Maybe this was it? 

“I don’t think I can make this project last long without a wise-guy like you, man,” Orville said. 

What was he talking about? His drawing and notes made enough sense for it to be possible. Not to mention the aircraft’s architecture convinced him that it could have plenty of stability to stay in the air with someone in it, if they had the right equipment. However, there was one thing that was off.

“Balance,” he said. “The aircraft needs to be balanced so it doesn’t get out of control. We’ll need…” He looked at his brother, who had his head tilted at him. “How much money do we have?”

Orville hesitated, then grinned when he realized what he meant. “Enough to test several times over.”

“Well then, let’s get to work.”

‘Dear Samuel Langley,’ Wilbur wrote on the cleanest sheet of paper he could find. Behind him was his brother, counting up the cash they had earned in the past few years. ‘My name is Wilbur Wright. My brother, Orville Wright, and I would be honored to possess some of your works on aeronautics. We have been informed that you worked on Otto Lilienthal’s aircraft, and we ask for your knowledge of its architecture.

Ever since the day of Lilienthal’s death, we plan to give our blood, sweat, and tears to make an aircraft powerful enough to let hundreds of people soar through the skies. However, we know little about the science of flight, and we believe that you could bring us that knowledge. We only ask for a few books. Even one is more than enough. Just anything that can let us work our fingers to the bone.

With your help, a dream of human flight will become reality. Thank you, Wilbur Wright.’

A few weeks later, multiple books appeared on their doorstep, and they immediately took them in. “Holy-! Wilbur, look!” Orville shouted. Wilbur turned his attention from the other books and walked over to him. His eyes widened when he held Lilienthal’s book in his hands. They flipped through the pages, taking in every drawing, entry, and recording of the progress of his aircraft experiences.

 The brothers took turns staying up all night studying each book on what made existing aircraft possible. Soon, they narrowed down to what they needed to do: how to get the wings to stabilize the vehicle while it’s in the air.

They looked for things that could naturally fly to see how they made themselves consistently stable. Once the Wright brothers found it, they took their notebooks and binoculars to the local park. 

“Those birds…” Wilbur said, watching the creatures fly through the sunny sky. “They don’t necessarily put too much work in their wings, don’t they?” The birds have only flapped their wings four to six times, as he noted. They kept their wings still by their sides and just let themselves glide with the wind as their accelerator. 

“Maybe our aircrafts can do that?” Orville suggested. 

They decided to test his theory. With the help of Lilientha’s data and wood to hold up the hundred square foot fabric wings, they built their first-ever glider. Two large rectangular wings stood above and below each other while behind held up by wood. In the middle was a hole that would allow the users’ knees to stick out while their feet held onto the back. Wood horizontally stood in the front of the hole where the user’s chest would be supported. A few weeks later, they were ready to test.

But, Dayton proved to be quite useless as the testing sight. When they sent off their glider, it dropped right to the ground with no effort. The brothers covered their faces in embarrassment. 

“Well, what now?” Orville sighed, resting his head on the kitchen table. 

“Don’t pout like that. We’ll just find us a place that’s more suitable. Now, what place has a lot of wind and is private enough for our experiment?” That night, they were still lost. But when it seemed like they were at an impasse, Wilbur came up with an idea. He researched the windiest states and cities closest to Ohio, and a week later, they were headed to North Carolina, bringing as much equipment as they could carry. When they arrived, they paid for their hotel and rented out a large building with nothing but empty space inside. It was perfect for building numerous aircrafts.

Yet, when they followed Lilientha’s data to the tenth place, something about their glider was off. They decided to make adjustments (using stronger fabric, putting more and less wood under the wings, switching between who was going to be pilot), but it was useless. Nothing worked.

“Maybe they were wrong,” Wilbur said. He scanned Lilithenal’s notes again. “Then what’re we supposed to do? We can’t improve something if it was wrong the whole time,” Orville groaned, leaning against the wall.

“It’s not like you to act dumb, Orville. Of course we can.” Wilbur closed the book. “We just need to take a different route.”

His face glowed instantly, like a lightbulb just turned on in his mind. “Let’s build a wind tunnel,” he suggested, “so we can observe how the wings move with the airflow and measure constant velocity. We can also catch what goes wrong with the current wings.”

His big brother smiled. “There he is. For that, we’ll need a large fan and a room we can look into. And we’ll have to test the wind tunnel first just so we can make sure ours is efficient,” Wilbur explained. “First, let’s find a fan that’s powerful enough to be used against the glider.”

“I know what we need. Wilbur, are you okay with handling the smaller models of the wings?” Orville asked. “Yes. What are you going to do?” his brother asked. 

“Don’t worry, leave it to me.”

Wilbur did as his brother asked. He designed a smaller, but not too small, pair of wings that looked exactly like the ones on the glider. Without warning, Orville kicked the door open and dragged in a large box with a fan attached to the end. Wilbur covered his ears at the sound of the boxes’ legs screeching against the floor. 

“Aha, sorry…” Orville said sheepishly. “But, I got us our wind tunnel!” He went to the side of the box and pulled up a small door, revealing the darkened inside. Inside that darkness was some sort of stand with horizontal sticks on two of its inside ends sitting near the top. “With this little creation, we can measure how the wing moves against the wind and its pressure. We can see how much it lifts and how it drags.” 

“Then what’re we waiting for? Let’s get started,” Wilbur said and handed him the wings. Orville grabbed them and attached it to the top of the stand. After closing the door, he rushed to the fan and turned it on, then led Wilbur to the far end where the side was nothing but glass. They fell in silence, focusing on nothing but the wings. 

The wind pushed against the wings and they quickly flew off and crashed into the glass. If the glass wasn’t there, the wings could have smacked their faces. “...I think we need a different set of wings,” Orville commented. “Thanks, genius, never thought we had to do that,” Wilbur remarked with sarcasm. He got up and turned off the fan, then lifted up the door to grab the wings. 

The second pair, which was longer and curvier, couldn’t produce as much lift as the other pair and the drag caused the wings to move too slow. The third pair, which was a little shorter and straighter, lifted a lot faster than the second, but the drag was too insignificant. They produced more and more wing models until their fingers were numb. Sometimes, they accidentally cut themselves with the steel.

The hours of work and days of testing one hundred eighty-nine (Orville counted) wings, they eventually find the pair. Their long, teardrop shapes lifted perfectly against the wind, and their drag proved to be just as efficient: not too fast and not too fast. They instantly abandoned the other test models and created the gliders’ wings’ final form.

Orville laid in the aircraft and nodded at his brother. Wilbur pushed the aircraft and the glider took off. Just like the models in the wind tunnel, these allowed the wind to lift him in the air, and the drag stayed constant. The only thing he wished they changed was how they could land. About fifteen seconds in, the wind disappeared, and Orville landed right into the sand. 

“Just as I thought,” Wilbur mumbled under his breath, helping him off the ground. “Ugh, what?” his little brother said, wiping the sand off his clothes. 

“We need to make the aircraft more mobile so we don’t end up like Lilithenal,” he answered. He looked over to the glider. And I think I know just how to do that.

“What’s this?” Orville asked the next day when he walked in the large empty building where they made their inventions. In front of his brother were tools and a medium-sized flat rectangle made of the same materials as their glider. 

“You know how I keep saying the aircraft lacks control?” Wilbur asked, and he nodded. “Well, I made us something called an elevator. With this, the one flying in the aircraft can control the wings so the balance won’t be off all the time.”

Orville nodded. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying...And-”

“And because I invented it, I will be the one to test it.” Orville stopped and glared. “What? Don’t give me that look. I’m the big brother anyway, so I get to do things first.”

“And you’re the one calling me childish all the time…”

Once they were finished attaching the elevator to the glider, Wilbur hopped into the glider, his knees poking out of the little hole and stomach resting on the fabric above. With the help of his brother, he was sent into the air. The movement was rocky, but despite it, Wilbur strangely felt at peace. After a few seconds of wind accelerating the glider, the wings began to shift to the left on their own. Wilbur gripped onto the handles of the elevator and slowly shifted them back to the right. The aircraft managed to keep itself in the air for the time being. 

He quickly realized that he was gliding right towards the ground. He took a deep breath and carefully pushed the elevator up. The wings shifted upwards, and he was back in the air. He looked down at Orville, and, while even being in the air, could see his big smile cheering him on. Wilbur formed his own grin and titled the elevator down.

“Wing warping,” Orville suddenly said when Wilbur reached the ground. “What?” he said, breathing heavily.

“While you were shifting the wings, it came to me. Just like birds, you controlled the wings so you can be better adjusted to the air.”

“Why do we have to give it a name?” Wilbur asked.

“Because people might ask what the method is called when we get interviewed. Plus, we invented it, so we have to give it a name. Edison didn’t invent the light just to call it ‘thing that can make light,’ right?”

Wilbur snickered. “Alright fine. Anyway, I think we need to add something to make the aircraft last longer in the air.”

“Way ahead of you. Come on, I have an idea.”

The brothers headed back to the building. Orville showed Wilbur the damaged flying toy they brought with them. As soon as the older brother saw rudder-like things on its tail, he quickly knew what his brother was saying. They put the toy back and went to work. 

By some miracle, their predictions were right. With the rudders they attached on the back of the glider, the rocky movement he experienced before greatly decreased. He soared through the skies, like a bird hungry for adventure zooming from its mother’s nest. If he was daring enough, he could probably take a nap here. 

But he couldn’t rest yet. They could now add power to the soon-to-be aircraft.

“So what did you two need my help with?” the Wright brother’s friend, Charles Taylor asked. They brought him in from Dayton because of his intellect with machinery. He was quite useful during their construction of original bike brands.

“We need to build an engine powerful enough to support an aircraft, and all of the others being sold couldn’t quite fit the requirements. They were all much too heavy,” Wilbur informed. The brothers walked him to the door of the large building and opened it. Charles flinched at the sight of their large glider. Orville gave him a quick explanation for the situation.

“Hmm, then I guess I’ll have to use aluminum instead of iron...” Charles explained, his eyes darting over to the glider. He gave it an intense stare for a few seconds before saying, “What will it specifically power?” 

“We were thinking about adding propellers to help it lift in the air. Could that work?” Orville suggested. 

“Guess we’ll have to find out. I’ll get some equipment and you boys start on the propellers.” The brothers followed Charles’ instructions, and about an hour later, he came back with boxes of machinery. 

As they helped him bring the boxes in, he asked, “So you two want people to fly because you were bored with bikes?”

“Ahaha, not really…” Orville trailed off, huffing when he put down one of the boxes. “It’s actually a dream we had ever since we were kids.”

“Really? I only heard y’all mention aircraft a few times at the bike shop.”

“We didn’t have much money at the time, so we couldn’t really do anything about it,” Wilbur said.

“Ah, makes sense. Everything’s getting more expensive these days. Alright, I think this is the last box.” Charles sat the box down and put his hands on his hips. “By the way, just because I can make it smaller, it’ll still be a little heavy with all the combustion chambers and crankcase and such. I don’t think it’ll work well with fabric and wood.”

With that, the brothers began manufacturing steel propellers and managed to get stronger wood to support them properly. At the same time, the machinist silently prepared them an engine suitable for powering human flight. As the three men were oblivious to time, hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and those months transformed into a year. Luckily, they used that time to put more weight into the aircraft. Finally, after an eternity of waiting, Charles was finished. 

“There you are, fellas!” he said with a big grin. The smaller engine’s aluminum skin gleamed in the afternoon sunlight that shined through the windows. “All you need to do is put the gasoline in this tank right here-,” he pointed to the small tank on the engine’s right, “-and it should mix with the air that comes from the air intake, assembling the ignition in these cylinders right there-,” he pointed to the four combustion cylinders that hung below the flat surface at the top, “-and go right through the fuel line no problem! Now we just need to find a way to make that fuel go right to the propellers.”

“Thanks, Charles, we dunno what we’d do without you,” Orville. 

“Hey, anytime. By the way, you guys said you needed these?” Charles went towards the back where the boxes sat patiently, waiting to be helpful after days of being untouched. He dug through one of them and pulled out chains and a couple of sprockets. When the brothers wrote to him the first time, they asked him to bring those from the bike shop.

“We figured that those would be needed,” Wilbur said, walking up to him and taking the two objects from his hands. “What for?” Charles asked curiously. 

“You know how we used those to build bikes?” Orville started. “We attached the sprockets to the pedal and wheel, and connected the two with a chain so they could move. So, if we attached the sprocket to the engine to power it up, we can connect that with the chain. Then, we can attach the other end of the chain to the second sprocket that’s attached to the propellers.”

“Oh, I see, like one big bicycle,” Charles said. “Well then, let’s power this baby up.”

Just like in Orville’s explanation, they attached one sprocket to the crankshaft part of the engine, then wrapped a chain around it. With the other sprocket, they attached it to the end of the long pole that connected to the propeller. They did the same actions for the other propeller. 

The next morning, the first heavier-than-air powered vehicle had its first taste of the clouds.

“Ready, Wilbur?” Orville shouted. His big brother laid on his stomach on the pilot’s seat of the aircraft. He looked back to see Charles and his friends (four men and one woman, who were invited to come see the Wright brothers’ success) standing far behind the propellers. His younger brother was behind the engine, ready to activate it. 

“Yes, sir!” he yelled. In the next few seconds, the engine was activated. The back of the aircraft sputtered, like an old man coughing out his struggling lungs, and Wilbur’s heart skipped a beat. He gripped the handles of the elevator. After a long, tense moment, the propellers turned slowly, then faster, and faster, and faster until he couldn’t see the individual blades anymore.

The aircraft bounced and carefully lifted itself off of the ground. Wilbur was suddenly pushed through the air by a gust of wind, and he took flight amongst the clouds. 

It took quick thrusts to the right and left, and at some points, Wilbur thought he was dropping to the ground. He tilted the wings to where they could move against the eastern airflow and moved upwards. Another sputter left the engine, and he heard nothing but the whistling wind and hum of the propellers. 

Was he doing it? Is it working? Everything inside him felt light and fluttery. Wilbur moved his gaze from the ground and looked up at the sky. The sun stared at him from above while the birds stood clear of the flying man. It might have only been a few seconds, but compared to their other tests, this flight was a decade long. 

He let out a soft laugh. It worked, Mother, we did it.

He titled the wings to their left and flew back around. Ant-sized people stared up at him, and one of them was jumping for joy. A sputter erupted from the engine again, and Wilbur decided that it was time to let his wings rest.

He landed the aircraft back on the ground and jumped out of it. “So, what’d you think?” he said to the crowd. Charles had a huge, excited smile on his face while his friends looked stunned. “See, what’d I tell ya? These guys are geniuses!” he said to the small crowd.

“I think we’re about to be the richest men in the world!” Orville shouted. He ran up to the aircraft and hugged it like a father embracing his child. 

“B-But will anyone believe it?” one of Charles’ friends stuttered, staring at the aircraft. “I mean, a flying car, the press will think you’re joking!”

“Oh, they will,” Wilbur stated, crossing his arms. “Once they see this thing fly across the world, they’ll have no choice but to believe it.”

[wvrners-blog]

*snoop dogg vc* greetings, loved ones! let’s take a journey!   ; )

alternatively: hello, my name is lea ( 19 | est | she/her ) and this is the one where i introduce you to my little raindrop droptop gumdrop son, WARNER CHOI !

isn’t that ROSS BUTLER ? wait, that’s just WARNER. you can tell it’s him because of the WINTER GREEN TIC TACS & THE SCENT OF MAISON MARGIELA’S ‘JAZZ CLUB’, TOPPED OFF WITH A HONEY-DIPPED SMILE. he is the TWENTY THREE year old in the CHOI family. people say that he tends to be ALLUSIVE but i’ve seen them be PACIFIC. don’t tell anyone but i heard that he is hiding THAT HE HAS BEEN FORGING PRESCRIPTIONS AND SKIMMING MEDS FROM HIS WORKPLACE FOR BOTH HIMSELF AND HIS FAMILY. 

alright so just to preface: it is currently 12:15am, i have just returned from the gym, and therefore this intro will be an absolute trash amalgamation of headcanons & word vomit! but without further ado! let’s dive in!

warner is still v much a dude i’m figuring out, but a skeletal version of his BACKSTORY goes a little bit like this:

born & raised in sunray, but only for a short while. shortly after beginning preschool at 3 years old, it became clear to the choi parents that warner simply could not conform to a traditionally paced education system. the boy was far too perceptive for his age, to the point where he often shocked his educators and peers with unwarrantedly accurate analyses. ( for example, upon witnessing his preschool teacher discipline another child for the use of ‘vulgar language,’ three-year-old warner declared the following while holding his peanut butter & fluff sandwich with the crusts cut off: “  don’t think you should take anyone else’s words without asking. that’s an invasion of freedom. ” 

so warner spent his actual years of primary education off at a prestigious new york boarding school, cultivating his wits. i imagine this did do some damage to his bond with his siblings/parents, but not from his end. in general, warner is the epitome of warm and inviting. he loves completely, all or nothing, even from afar. but as the years progressed, it became much simpler for him to stay with friends during the holidays rather than fly back across the country for every official recess. so his visits to sunray grew slim, to the point where, by the time he entered high school, he only returned home for a few weeks each summer.

warner had always fostered a passion for science and along with a vivacious curiosity about his surrounding world. it was no shock to his academic mentors when he opted to apply to colleges in pursuit of a biology/pre-med degree. what was surprising was his choice of school -- rather than attend harvard, massachusetts institute of technology, or princeton ( his top three picks, all of which he was accepted to ), warner chose to attend arizona state university. though the choi family didn’t need to save the money, warner felt self-imposed pressure to be closer to his family, to make up for the colossal amount of time he spent away. while attending college, he supplemented his classes and expedited his dual degree by working as an EMT with the ASU emergency medical services. it was through this job that he met chase rutherford, the man who would later become his boyfriend -- and current fiancé.

warner has never been closeted. not really. being away for primary/secondary school and living on-campus at ASU helped him kind of just... exist happily without his parents knowing? but as his visits with the family grew more frequent given his collegiate location in state, it was only natural that eventually his parents put two-and-two together. and while they weren’t exactly unsupportive, there was a certain element of disappointment evident from his father. warner did a pretty adequate job of subduing his response to his father’s reaction, channeling his emotions into furthering himself in the medical field. pushing himself to make his father proud again.

( tw: death, grief ) currently, he works as a pediatric oncological nurse, which might perhaps aid in mending his relationship with his father. if, of course, his father were alive to see it. warner was only promoted to this position about three months ago -- his father died several weeks shy of witnessing his son become anything more than a standard physician’s assistant. knowing this absolutely haunts warner, but he refuses to talk about it. and the same goes for the tragic, sudden nature of his father’s death -- as well as the unsolved nature of the crime.

( tw: drug abuse, addictive behavior ) following his father’s death, the choi family has been in shambles. and with nothing being done to catch the person who stole away their patriarch’s life? it only seems natural that the crew would turn to... external... means of self-medicating. at the first sign of trouble, warner felt compelled to put an end to it, stage an intervention. but he knew what it was like, living in pain, and denying his family the right to feel better. the right not to feel at all. against his better judgment, he began forging painkiller prescriptions for his oncology patients and pocketing them once they were filled. it started as a covert operation for his mother and sister. 

the night of his father’s death when a little like this: “you had so much potential. wasted on such a small place in this world. call me when you have something notable to tell.” warner attempted to protest, to offer something more than himself, but he could only utter a stifled, “but -- you don’t understand --” before a loud bang sounded. a series of loud screeches, gasps, clattering as the other end of the line left his father’s hand. and then the line... went dead.

one afternoon, about a week into his medicinal misappropriation, the last words his father said to him on the night of his death wouldn’t relinquish their hold. the usual remedies didn’t work: deep breaths warranted no result. distracting himself with his work proved immaterial. there was no escape. so warner dipped into the bottle of pills he’d intended to hand over to his mother later that night. and he finally understood why she couldn’t possibly go without.

a valium here and there turned into a routine occurrence. a little something to get through work. a small dose to make the estate settlement more bearable. something to subdue the nightmares. everything became a valid reason for some supplementation by negation. maybe if he could shut off his mind, maybe if he could calm his nerves, maybe if he got high enough, it could all just... vanish. but sadly, that’s not how this kind of thing works. but no one’s really been able to tell warner that, since he’s kept this entire ordeal neatly tucked just below the surface. no one but his family knows -- because they’re all on the same derailing train.

some general notes about his PERSONALITY & QUIRKS :

he loves working with kids, and honestly, no better person could be chosen to work one-on-one every day with children diagnosed with terminal illnesses. warner has a certain serenity to his presence; he walks into a room and any remnants of strife vacate the premises. tension clears, like the atmosphere after fresh rain.

dude’s gotta wear scrubs at the hospital, but his personal sense of style consists mostly of fitted shirts, blazers, tailored pants, and wonderful statement shoes. this man knows how to dress.

the great british baking show is his latest inspiration. is he trying to make cupcakes right now? maybe. is he accidentally using baking powder instead of baking soda? uhm. oh. whoops.

honestly how did he survive going to school on the east coast? this dude is... such sunshine? so arizona? sees the best in everyone, refuses to be unkind even to the assholes of this universe. his version of an ill-wish goes a little something like: “y’know, i really hope they freak out about losing their keys only to then find them in their pocket.”

america runs on dunkin’ and warner runs on caffeine !! definitely more of a tea than a coffee fella, but he’ll take whatever he can get before/during/after a crazy shift.

winter green tic tacs have been his favorite thing since the third grade. hey. did you know if you chomp on them really hard in the dark with your mouth open, they’ll flash? no! seriously! you don’t believe me? hold on -- grab the lights. he’s done that to everyone he’s ever met/will continue to meet.

will NOT talk about his own feelings !!  he is an expert side-stepper, and he’ll find a way to swerve and avoid being the topic of discussion by spinning the concerns back onto you. call him on it, or don’t. he’ll still try to deflect.

lowkey sings? but only in the shower, in the car, or to people who ask nicely. or get him drunk. either or.

oh my god, he’s a tall & muscular guy -- 6′3 to be exact -- but he is such a lightweight. two glasses of wine have him all giggly and snuggly. one shot of tequila turns him into an epic flirt.

warner spends a lot of his free time doing crosswords, playing sudoku, and reading academic journals. human encyclopedia at your service. need some fun facts for your next group setting? look no further -- warner has an arsenal of extra knowledge at the ready.

um?? so in love with chase??? it’s like. someone will say his name, or so much as mention something remotely related to him, and warner will turn into the mushiest, gushiest little sap. you’re wearing a white t-shirt, huh? that reminds him of the one time chase wore a white t-shirt -- and now he’s grinning and blushing like a fool.

alright it’s late and this got rambly, but yes!! pls plot with me? i promise i’m nice and i can offer you hypothetical cookies!! i probably won’t be on the dash until tomorrow night because i have some plans ( hooray social life?? emphasis on the question marks there ).

so yeah, shoot me an message on here or hit that mfing like and i’ll come to you! i am so heckin hyped to write with all of you! x

[hermosilla-ignacio95]

03 - 09 - 2020 There's a hidden epidemic of racism in UK schools – but it's finally coming to light

the two biggest stories this year are coronavirus and Black Lives Matter, and one of the places they meet is on a cul-de-sac in Romford, Essex, silent on a weekday afternoon apart from the thrum of lawnmowers. Inside one of those tidy houses lives Intisar Chowdhury, with his wide grin and big glasses and life story that you partly know.

He’s the son of Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, the hospital doctor who even while sick with coronavirus wrote an open letter to Boris Johnson pleading for more masks and gowns for NHS colleagues. When he died three weeks later, 18-year-old Intisar was thrust into the headlines. This was early in the course of the pandemic, when each evening brought news of hundreds more Covid-19 deaths. As the adults in power tore lumps out of each other, a grieving teenager spoke with poise about the government’s lack of consideration for black and Asian carers. Of the more than 30 doctors the British Medical Association knows to have died in this pandemic, around 90% came from ethnic minorities, it says.

When we met earlier this month, Intisar showed podcast producer Mythili Rao and me the garden where his parents threw parties, the conservatory where his dad’s tablas sit silent. He has had more life pushed into the past few weeks than most schoolboys should have to live over 18 years. He could, maybe should, have taken a rest. Instead he is doing something extraordinary.

Outraged by the police killing of George Floyd, he wants to use whatever attention he has gained to battle racism. Along with his friend Clara, he appealed last month for other teenagers to recount the racism they face at school. As the call-out spread across social media, dozens of stories flooded in, from Lincolnshire to Surrey to Kent. Assembled into a dossier and reported exclusively by the Guardian, they comprise a horrific indicator of the abuse and even assaults dished out to black and Asian children by their peers and sometimes teachers in English schools.

And they crack some of the orthodoxies around race. Those big-name commentators fretting they could be silenced by “cancel culture” would do well to listen to these children who usually have no voice. Those who affect to believe that the Black Lives Matter movement is all about rusty statues or that the UK is a “post-racial” utopia should read the accounts from black schoolboys told by teachers to stop hanging out together “because we looked threatening in a gang”, or the Muslims warned by staff not “to congregate in large groups” – supposedly to prevent terrorist radicalisation.

Then there’s Appy, a black girl who goes to her Midlands grammar with natural hair, only to be told by senior staff it’s against “governmental regulations”. She is frogmarched to a storeroom, given a roll of navy blue fabric and ordered to sew her own headscarf.

In a different classroom, a teacher interrupts his presentation with a slide from a Ribena ad ­­– a cartoon of a fat, purple blackcurrant with outsized facial features. He spends the next five minutes calling the only two black students in class, “the Ribena boys”. When one of them writes “the entire class laughed”, you feel the heat of his shame.

Doctor who pleaded for more hospital PPE dies of coronavirusRead more

We entrust our children to teachers, telling them that doing well in education helps you do well at life, believing that classrooms teach tomorrow’s adults to live together. But what many kids learn is that there isn’t the same tolerance for them as for others, whether on the syllabus or in the playground. Nor do their teachers necessarily get it: while 25% of pupils at English schools are from ethnic minorities, 93% of heads are white British.

This dossier doesn’t pretend to be science. It is a self-selected sample of students telling their side of the story, although no school we put allegations to denied them. As a gauge of the scope or scale of racism in schools, this collection is useless ­­– but so is everything else. Academics at the University of Manchester note that the only record is those incidents that schools log with police as hate crimes. What this collection gives instead is rare indeed: a record by minority-ethnic students of their daily humiliations, the sort of thing that teens don’t tell their parents, out of guilt or a sense of isolation.

I remember that feeling. I started school at my mother’s primary in Hackney, east London, until she fell badly ill and I was moved to my local primary in Edmonton, north London. It was topsy-turvy: from holding my mum’s hand to being handed to a childminder, from multicultural inner London to (then) white-working class outer suburb. As almost the only Indian-origin kid at the new school, I went out on that first break into the playground to find what seemed like every single boy in the school hanging off the fence and chanting “rubber lips, nigger lips” ­– and worse. I was friendless, helpless. This continued day after day, so I went to a teacher who shrugged that they’d eventually get bored. Again, the helplessness.

It actually stopped on day four, thanks to a spelling test where I got top marks. From then on, all the boys with skinhead brothers wanted to copy my answers. So: good marks equalled not getting your head kicked in. It was my introduction to what meritocracy meant for the likes of me.

That was back in the 1980s, and I’d assumed things had got better. In many places I’m sure they have, but to read this dossier is to see why in a poll published by ITV last week, 62% of black Britons agreed that the education system had a culture of racism. It is also to see just how school communities can punish their non-white children.

Black girls are still policed for their physical appearance; Asian kids are laughed at for having strict parents. In the whiter areas or the better schools, there is often a sense that the minority-ethnic children are lucky just to be there. Naomi told me about starting primary in Chelmsford, Essex, and being the only black girl in her class. Kids called her “poo”, said she smelled and laughed at her hair. “I felt very, very ugly,” she said. One bully physically assaulted her.

Raised a Christian, she would ask God “what I did wrong for me to be black … Like, my whole life is a mistake”. She was six and this was 2010, just two years before the Olympics ceremony celebrated multicultural Britain.

For Naomi, as for me, being the target of racist abuse was an intimate shame, something that followed us home from the school gate and made us wonder what was wrong with us. Yet to see so many similar stories gathered together at first provokes sadness, then anger, but finally a strange optimism. Because in their collected weight, these testimonies show that it wasn’t our fault at all. The responsibility always lay with our tormentors and the society that enabled them. And for an 18-year-old boy to achieve that, in the depths of his own grief, is a remarkable feat.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/22/racism-uk-schools-teenager

[dinoswrites]

director's cut: solas and aevalle's kiss, when it's snowing and he says "i miss YOU" (u know the one)

OKAY fun fact about this scene, I had a… very different picture of how it was gonna go in my head.

Like, okay, so Solas was gonna be dancing with Evie? Maybe with like a few spirits he conjured or whatever, and then she was gonna go to bed, and it would look like everyone was settling in for the night - and then he would turn to Lavellan, and extend his hand, and it would be just like the winter palace al over again. And they would dance, and then the kiss was gonna happen that way, and I think it was overall more gentle and less… desperate. 

But then I actually started writing the scene, and as usual my brain was like “NO THIS IS BETTER” and I ran with it.

This is why I don’t write ahead–i end up scrapping more than i keep.

SO ANYWAY LET’S DO THIS.

That’s about when it starts to snow.

Her Mamae looks up first—maybe noticing something in the air, or maybe something fell on her nose. But not long after she does, Evie sees little white flakes, dancing in the air. Illuminated by the fire, bright white against the darkness surrounding their little camp.

Mamae starts to smile, as it begins to snow in earnest. Watching it fall from the sky. Slow, meandering, directionless. There’s not a breath of wind in the trees—only the crackle of the fire, fading low in the pit.

This is my favourite kind of snow, hands down. Like I complain about it like everyone else, I gripe when I have to scrape my car off after work (and brag about my underground parking) but yesterday morning it was so still and quiet, and I was having a peaceful little breakfast just chillin, looking out my 13′ windows and watching big, fluffy clumps of snowflakes meander their way down from the sky to the ground, and… it’s pretty. I may not have snow tires on my car yet and I’m a little worried about to drive to work tomorrow, but the snow is very pretty.

Solas is watching her watch the snow. His expression soft, and fond.

Do you ever just… write something, and immediately go “ouch my stupid heart” because here it is.

Before you go all “aww he loves her how sweet” this dumbass has just completed orb #2 and is here hanging out with the bae and their kid (who he still hasn’t told he’s her father) instead of like. I dunno. Ending the world?????

“This always brings me back,” she says, her voice low. “We don’t get much snow here. Nothing like Ferelden, when we do. Probably a good thing—it was so damn cold.”

He hums in agreement. Still looking only at her, while she looks at the sky above.

Yes, Solas, we get it, you’re in love. REMEMBER THOUGH:

*three weeks ago*

Solas: Yes the Orb is complete.

Agent: Excellent! Should we begin the ritual to end this world now? I can have everyone–

Solas: Did I say, complete, complete? I meant - I mean, look at this thing, it’s obviously…

Agent: …….

Solas: … I’m gonna go hang out with totally-not-my-kid bye.

Her Mamae rubs her arms. Solas shifts a little closer.

SOLAS YOU ARE A COLOSSAL DISASTER WHAT ARE YOU DOING

“But—I forget sometimes, how cold it was. And I miss it. I miss the sun on the slopes of the Frostbacks. The crunch of it under my boots—I hated those boots, but they were warm.” She shakes her head, and Solas chuckles a little, low and deep. “I miss snowball fights with Sera. Those soft blankets the horses used to wear. The tavern full of people—it got so hot in there sometimes they didn’t even have fires going. Even—I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I even miss when we had to go and dig those ridiculous Orlesian carriages out of the snow when they got stuck. I miss—”

She looks at Solas then, finally, finally noticing that he’s looking at her. That they’re closer than Evie’s seen them sit, ever.

It’s so quiet. Evie holds her breath.

While Solas is considering snogging the living daylights out of his vhenan, his agents are plotting to get the ball rolling on this whole Tearing-Down-The-Veil thing on their own

(pun absolutely intended)

Solas says, so quietly that Evie almost doesn’t hear it, “I miss you.”

Mamae kisses him.

On the lips!

So.

So I think Lavellan has spent a lot of time since Solas found out about Evie giving Solas space, and waiting for him to initiate.

Because… well. She wants him to be involved, I guess. Not just along for the ride. For him to let himself have what he wants, instead of just backing up and being like “this is what I have to do.”

And in the initial version of the scene, Solas was going to swept up by the dancing and the memories, and he was going to initiate.

But… Well. Look at him. He’s a hot mess. The orb is done, he could have ended everything three weeks ago, but instead of that he’s run off to hang out with the people he’ll miss the most at the end of the world.

It’s implied in the next chapter that Solas does not believe Evie would survive the destruction of the Veil. Keep that in mind - he is now in a position where he must actually choose between the people he loves, his child, and his goals. I think he’s crippled in this decision both by his emotions, and by the sheer hypocrisy of it - countless children died when the Veil went up. Why should the fact that he has one now change that? But it does. She changes everything, all over again.

Solas’s resolve is crumbling - has been since the moment he turned around and saw a little girl, kidnapped and battered, his vhenan��s features and his eyes. But he’s always too wrapped up in duty, in what he must do, too busy standing tall to let himself bend a little.

Not without a nudge.

And then she pulls away, and says, “Fuck,” which makes Evie’s eyebrows shoot up, but then Solas leans in and kisses her back, so hard they nearly fall over the log they’re sitting on.

Typical Solas move: stand there and panic until she kisses you, then say “fuck it” and take her up against a wall.

Or… in the woods. You know. Wherever.

That’s about when Cole covers Evie’s eyes with his hand.

“Hey!” she hisses, fumbling to get it off her face. “I wanna see!”

“No you don’t,” Cole tells her.

In which your beta gets so wrapped up in the feels that she forgets the POV character is an eight year old for a solid five minutes and is demanding to know why we can’t see the sin.

… Also she nags me a lot to write the sin.

She hears Mamae hiss, “Not here,” and Solas murmur something that sounds kind of like he’s agreeing with her but also like a growl, and then she hears Mamae stifle a laugh.

When Evie finally gets Cole to move his hand, all she gets is a glimpse of Solas and her mother, slipping into the trees.

Cole closes the door. Evie pulls her furs closer around herself as she stands and goes back to her bedroll.

“Was that good?” she asks, as Cole tucks her in again.

He’s smiling a little. “Yes,” he says, softly.

There’s a couple (teeny tiny) hints throughout the fic that Cole is running a long, long game of trying to get Solas to not blow up the world.

He asks Evie to chase frogs long after she’s outgrown it - this is a sequel to Aravel, where Dream Child runs in covered in mud and holding a frog. I never confirm it in fic, but Cole is the one who started Evie on that. And yes he uses it to teach her a little magic (mostly his special brand of being unnoticed, which Evie later uses to get through the barrier around camp), but his primary reason is to hit Solas below the belt with the feels.

(As an aside: the  link between Cole teaching magic and chasing frogs to a little girl first appears in my fics in Whetstone, long before Aravel.)

(Edit: Whetstone is an oldie, so if you decide to read it, it’s definitely not at the same level as Little Arrow or Black Coral. But also it has possibly the best and most excellently executed plot twist I’ve ever pulled of in my life, so you should read it just for that.)

It’s Cole’s way of saying “You can have what you want, Solas.” He’s just learned that with Solas, he has to help… subtly. Like those conga line of weird fetch quests he must do on his own in Skyhold, like, “okay i need cats to be silly to make the cook happy, but how do i get cats to where the catnip is….”

I think Cole was under very specific instructions to not lead Solas here under any circumstances. And I bet he pouted about it a lot. And he was working on a way of getting around them - again, conga line of fetch quests - when Solas’s agents helpfully kidnapped Evie on their own. Not his preferred way of getting Solas’s attention, but it worked without him having to break any rules, so that’s a win???? Maybe????

(Petition for Bioware to make a game that is nothing but Cole’s hijinks helping people. We were robbed of a cutscene of him fighting off a rat for Cassandra’s locket. ROBBED.)

[batterymonster2021]

Your brain on video games | Daphne Bavelier

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/your-brain-on-video-games-daphne-bavelier-2/

Your brain on video games | Daphne Bavelier

Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast i am a mind scientist, and as a mind scientist, i am absolutely interested in how the brain learns, and i am mainly considering a possibility of constructing our brains smarter, better and faster. This is in this context i’ll let you know about video games. When we say video video games, most of you feel about kids. It’s actual. Ninety percent of children do play video video games.However let’s be frank. When the youngsters are in mattress, who is in front of the PlayStation? Most of you. The usual age of a gamer is 33 years historic, not eight years old, and in fact, if we seem on the projected demographics of video game play, the video game players of tomorrow are older adults. (Laughter) So video is pervasive for the duration of our society. It’s evidently here to stay. It has an effective impact on our daily life. Remember these records launched via Activision. After one month of free up of the sport "name Of duty: Black Ops," it had been performed for sixty eight,000 years international, proper? Would any of you complain if this was once the case about doing linear algebra? So what we are asking within the lab is, how will we leverage that energy? Now I want to step back a bit of.I know most of you’ve had the experience of coming back residence and discovering your kids taking part in these types of games. (shooting noises) the secret is to get after your enemy zombie unhealthy guys before they get to you, right? And i am virtually sure most of you’ve got proposal, "Oh, come on, cannot you do something more clever than taking pictures at zombies?" i might such as you to position this kind of knee-jerk reaction within the context of what you possibly can have concept for those who had determined your lady enjoying sudoku or your boy reading Shakespeare. Proper? Most mom and dad would in finding that best. Well, i’m now not going to inform you that taking part in video video games days in and days out is absolutely good in your wellbeing.It can be now not, and binging is under no circumstances good. But i’ll argue that in affordable doses, absolutely the very recreation I showed you at the establishing, these action-packed shooter video games have rather powerful effects and constructive results on many special elements of our habits. There is no longer one week that goes with out some primary headlines in the media about whether video video games are just right or bad for you, right? You are all bombarded with that. I’d like to put this kind of Friday night bar dialogue apart and get you to truly step into the lab. What we do in the lab is honestly measure straight, in a quantitative trend, what is the impact of video video games on the brain. And so i’m going to take a number of examples from our work. One first saying that i’m certain you all have heard is the truth that too much screen time makes your eyesight worse.That is a assertion about imaginative and prescient. There is also imaginative and prescient scientists amongst you. We without a doubt be aware of easy methods to test that statement. We will step into the lab and measure how just right your imaginative and prescient is. Good, guess what? Individuals that don’t play a number of action video games, that don’t absolutely spend quite a lot of time in entrance of monitors, have typical, or what we call corrective-to-traditional vision. That is ok. The trouble is what occurs with these guys that surely indulge into playing video games like five hours per week, 10 hours per week, 15 hours per week. By using that announcement, their imaginative and prescient will have to be really unhealthy, proper? Wager what? Their vision is quite, quite good. It is higher than those that do not play. And it’s better in two one-of-a-kind approaches. The primary approach is that they are surely in a position to resolve small detail within the context of muddle, and although that means being competent to read the fine print on a prescription as a substitute than making use of magnifier glasses, that you may certainly do it with just your eyesight.The opposite direction that they are better is virtually being competent to get to the bottom of exclusive levels of grey. Assume you’re driving in a fog. That makes a difference between seeing the car in entrance of you and heading off the accident, or getting into an accident. So we’re really leveraging that work to strengthen games for sufferers with low vision, and to have an have an impact on on retraining their brain to look higher. Evidently, in relation to motion video video games, monitor time doesn’t make your eyesight worse. Yet another pronouncing that i am definite you might have all heard around: Video games lead to awareness problems and bigger distractability. K, we all know methods to measure awareness in the lab. I’m simply going to give you an illustration of how we do so. I’ll ask you to take part, so you’re going to ought to surely play the game with me. I’m going to show you colored words. I need you to shout out the color of the ink. Right? So that is the primary instance. Orange, excellent. Green. Audience: red.Daphne Bavelier: crimson. DB: Yellow. Audience: Yellow. DB: pink. Audience: Yellow. DB: Yellow. K, you get my factor, right? (Laughter) you are getting better, but it’s difficult. Why is it hard? Since I offered a clash between the phrase itself and its color. How just right your concentration is determines absolutely how fast you unravel that conflict, so the younger guys here on the high of their game most of the time, like, did a little better than a few of us which are older. What we are able to exhibit is that while you do that type of project with men and women that play a variety of action games, they certainly get to the bottom of the conflict rapid. So clearly playing those action video games would not lead to concentration problems. Truely, those action online game gamers have many other advantages in terms of concentration, and one aspect of awareness which can be expanded for the simpler is our capability to monitor objects round on this planet. This is anything we use always. When you’re driving, you are tracking, preserving track of the automobiles round you. You’re also preserving track of the pedestrian, the jogging canine, and that is how one can definitely be secure using, proper? Within the lab, we get persons to return to the lab, sit down in front of a computer reveal, and we provide them little tasks that i am going to get you to do again.You’re going to peer yellow completely satisfied faces and some unhappy blue faces. These are kids within the schoolyard in Geneva in the course of a recess throughout the winter. Most youngsters are completely happy. It can be clearly recess. But a couple of children are unhappy and blue since they’ve forgotten their coat. Every body begins to maneuver around, and your venture is to preserve track of who had a coat at the opening and who didn’t. So i’m just going to show you an example the place there is just one sad child. It is easy considering that that you may simply monitor it along with your eyes.You can track, you could track, after which when it stops, and there is a question mark, and i ask you, did this child have a coat or now not? Was once it yellow at the start or blue? I hear a couple of yellow. Just right. So most of you will have a brain. (Laughter) i’m now going to ask you to do the undertaking, but now with a bit tougher mission. There are going to be three of them which might be blue. Don’t move your eyes. Please don’t move your eyes. Keep your eyes fixated and develop, pull your awareness. That is the only way that you can simply do it. If you move your eyes, you are doomed.Yellow or blue? Audience: Yellow.DB: good. So your normal usual young adult can have a span of about three or four objects of awareness. That is what we simply did. Your action online game participant has a span of about six to seven objects of awareness, which is what’s proven on this video right here. That is for you guys, motion online game avid gamers. Just a little more difficult, right? (Laughter) Yellow or blue? Blue. Now we have some humans which might be severe out there. Yeah. (Laughter) good. So in the equal means that we simply see the results of video games on people’s habits, we will use mind imaging and seem at the influence of video video games on the brain, and we do in finding many alterations, however the predominant alterations are truely to the mind networks that manage awareness.So one section is the parietal cortex which could be very good recognized to manage the orientation of concentration. The opposite one is the frontal lobe, which controls how we preserve awareness, and a different one is the anterior cingulate, which controls how we allocate and control awareness and resolve clash. Now, once we do brain imaging, we discover that all three of those networks are actually far more effective in individuals that play action video games. This genuinely leads me to a instead counterintuitive discovering within the literature about science and the mind. You all find out about multitasking. You all were faulty of multitasking when you are using and you decide upon up your cell. Bad notion. Very dangerous suggestion. Why? Because as your attention shifts to your cellphone telephone, you might be really shedding the capacity to react swiftly to the automobile braking in front of you, and so you are much more likely to get engaged right into a auto accident.Now, we can measure that sort of potential within the lab. We certainly do not ask humans to force round and notice what number of vehicle accidents they have. That might be a little bit high priced proposition. But we design tasks on the laptop the place we can measure, to millisecond accuracy, how excellent they’re at switching from one venture to one more. Once we do that, we definitely to find that individuals that play numerous motion video games are particularly, fairly good. They change fairly speedy, very rapidly. They pay an awfully small fee. Now i would like you to remember that outcome, and put it within the context of one more team of science users, a gaggle which is without a doubt a lot revered with the aid of society, which are individuals that interact in multimedia-tasking.What’s multimedia-tasking? It can be the truth that most of us, most of our kids, are engaged with being attentive to song at the same time as they’re doing search on the net while as they’re chatting on facebook with their associates. That is a multimedia-tasker. There used to be a first learn done through colleagues at Stanford and that we replicated that showed that these individuals that establish as being excessive multimedia-taskers are obviously abysmal at multitasking. After we measure them within the lab, they’re quite unhealthy. Proper? So a majority of these outcome really makes two foremost points. The first one is that now not all media are created equal.You cannot compare the influence of multimedia-tasking and the effect of enjoying motion games. They’ve entirely different results on distinctive elements of cognition, belief and attention. Even within video games, i’m telling you proper now about these motion-packed video video games. Unique video video games have one more outcome in your brains. So we simply ought to step into the lab and really measure what is the influence of each video game. The opposite lesson is that basic knowledge incorporates no weight. I confirmed that to you already, like we checked out the fact that regardless of quite a few monitor time, those motion gamers have numerous very good imaginative and prescient, etc.Right here, what used to be really hanging is that these undergraduates that virtually file accomplishing quite a few high multimedia-tasking are convinced they aced the experiment. So that you exhibit them their information, you exhibit them they are unhealthy they usually’re like, "no longer possible." you already know, they’ve this type of gut feeling that, relatively, they’re doing fairly, quite excellent. That’s yet another argument for why we need to step into the lab and rather measure the have an effect on of technology on the brain. Now in a sense, once we suppose in regards to the outcome of video games on the mind, it’s very similar to the result of wine on the wellbeing. There are some very bad makes use of of wine. There are some very terrible makes use of of video video games. However when consumed in affordable doses, and on the correct age, wine may also be excellent for wellness. There are certainly special molecules which have been identified in crimson wine as leading to larger lifestyles expectancy.So it can be the equal approach, like these motion video games have a number of components that are surely relatively strong for brain plasticity, finding out, awareness, vision, and so forth., and so we’d like and we’re engaged on working out what are those lively ingredients in order that we can fairly then leverage them to supply higher games, either for education or for rehabilitation of patients. Now when you consider that we’re occupied with having an have an effect on for schooling or rehabilitation of patients, we’re really not that concerned about how those of you that choose to play video games for many hours on end perform. I am much more excited about taking any of you and showing that by means of forcing you to play an motion recreation, i can honestly trade your imaginative and prescient for the better, whether you want to play that motion game or not, correct? That is the point of rehabilitation or education. Many of the youngsters don’t go to tuition saying, "great, two hours of math!" So that’s relatively the crux of the research, and to try this, we have got to go yet another step.And one more step is to do coaching studies. So let me illustrate that step with a venture which is called mental rotation. Intellectual rotation is a assignment the place i’ll ask you, and again you’re going to do the project, to look at this form. Gain knowledge of it, it is a goal form, and i’m going to gift to you four special shapes. Such a four one of a kind shapes is in reality a turned around variant of this shape. I would like you to tell me which one: the first one, 2d one, 1/3 one or fourth one? Ok, i will help you. Fourth one.A further. Get these brains working. Come on. That is our goal shape. 0.33. Just right! That is hard, right? Like, the rationale that I asked you to try this is in view that you fairly suppose your brain cringing, correct? It doesn’t particularly consider like playing mindless action video games. Well, what we do in these coaching reports is, people come to the lab, they do tasks like this one, we then drive them to play 10 hours of motion games. They do not play 10 hours of action games in a row. They do allotted follow, so little pictures of 40 minutes a number of days over a interval of two weeks. Then, as soon as they are executed with the learning, they arrive again just a few days later and they are verified once more on a identical style of mental rotation assignment.So that is work from a colleague in Toronto. What they confirmed is that, in the beginning, , subjects participate in the place they are expected to perform given their age. After two weeks of coaching on motion video video games, they honestly perform higher, and the improvement remains to be there 5 months after having finished the educational. That is fairly, particularly predominant. Why? For the reason that I informed you we want to use these games for schooling or for rehabilitation. We have got to have results which are going to be lengthy-lasting. Now, at this factor, a quantity of you’re frequently wondering good, what are you ready for, to position available on the market a recreation that would be good for the concentration of my grandmother and that she would definitely revel in, or a sport that will be great to rehabilitate the imaginative and prescient of my grandson who has amblyopia, for instance? Good, we’re engaged on it, however here is a assignment.There are mind scientists like me which might be establishing to realise what are the great constituents in video games to advertise positive effects, and that’s what i will call the broccoli part of the equation. There is an leisure application enterprise which is tremendously deft at coming up with appealing merchandise that you cannot face up to. That is the chocolate side of the equation. The hassle is we have to put the two collectively, and it is a little bit like with meals.Who quite wants to consume chocolate-blanketed broccoli? None of you. (Laughter) and you typically have had that feeling, right, selecting up an schooling recreation and form of feeling, hmm, , it is no longer particularly enjoyable, it is no longer rather engaging. So what we need is particularly a new brand of chocolate, a company of chocolate that is irresistible, that you simply rather wish to play, but that has the entire ingredients, the good components which might be extracted from the broccoli that you simply cannot recognize however are nonetheless working for your brains. And we’re engaged on it, but it surely takes brain scientists to return and to occasion, people that work within the leisure program industry, and publishers, so these aren’t individuals that ordinarily meet every day, but it’s clearly achievable, and we are on the correct monitor. I’d like to leave you with that notion, and thanks to your attention.(Applause) (Applause) .

[lilycaerulean]

Collapse & Rebirth: Chapter 1

“I want you to call me as soon as you land, okay?” My mother’s hair has always had a red tone to it that you could only see in the sun, no matter how close you looked in the dark. I could still remember it—almost like it was playing like a movie in my head. The smell of her natural scent, her warm eyes, her bright smile. She was always there with me when I would check in for my flights to spend my summers with John.

-

“You gonna be okay, kid?” John had his bag in his hand, but I didn’t look up beyond that. I was laying on the couch and I hadn’t move since the funeral was over—that was 2 days ago. John sighed when I didn’t answer him. He walked to the front door, his footsteps loud, echoing inside my head. My grandmother was waiting for him quietly at the door. “He’ll be fine, John.” She reassured him, curling her small hands around his shoulders before hugging him. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”

I heard his steps through the floor as I curled further into myself. It was going to rain, and I tried not laugh at the sky. My mother always loved the rain, she would drag me with her outside to let it drench our clothes.

I always got why my father fell for my Mom, but I never got why she fell for him.

“Mieczysław...” My grandmothers’ hands were so fragile and I rolled over to cup them in mine. They were so much like hers. “Your pain and mine are mirror images and I want you to heed my words, Miecio. Your father and you need each other in this time. He needs you, just as much as you need him. Don't push him away in your grief.” She reached up and I didn't realize I was crying until she touched my face. “I love you, Miecio.” My chest felt as if there were rocks in my lungs and I could only take in small breaths. I buried my face in her hands; she smelled of vanilla.

She was always right.

-

Hundreds of people milled around the airport, none of them paying attention to some lanky kid with headphones on. It’s been almost 2 weeks since John left and here I was. It was a high of 85 in Phoenix, Arizona and if I was to be completely honest I was sure as hell not going to miss the heat. “Call me when you land, Miecio.” She was fixing my clothes and I tried not to roll my eyes. “I'll be fine, Baba. I'll call you. Would you— “I’m just trying to fix— “I’m fine.” I sighed and fixed my jacket. Baba smiled softly, her eyes clear, but sad.

“To the moon and back.” She whispered, her hand over my heart. It felt like my heart wanted to jump out of my chest and I'm sure she read it in my face because she walked away, smiling and into her cab. I shoved at the memories as I stalked my way towards bag check. I didn't talk any more than I needed to the entire plane ride to my soon to be forever home.

Beacon Hills is a rainy little city with a small town feel to it. A definite change from a city as big as Phoenix. John, my Dad, is Sheriff Stilinski to the good people of Beacon Hills and the primary reason behind my immediate search for a means of transportation. Nothing slows traffic down like a cop car, let alone a sheriff’s cruiser.

When I landed in Port Angeles it was raining and as gloomy as my mood. I'm sure I had a small rain cloud and everything. John was waiting in his cruiser for me, but immediately got out to greet me. “Hey. How were the flights?” He rushed to put my bags in the car, as I slipped into the passenger seat. I shook out my hair and shrugged out of my damp jacket. Most of my clothes were equipped for harsh, hot Arizona summers—not rainy winters of Beacon Hills.

The whole ride to Beacon Hills were filled with polite small conversations, mostly about how most of my stuff was already set up in my room, and how long I've let my hair grow.

“I’ve found a great car for you. Good mileage, and runs great.” If I had to guess where I got my knack for ways around the truth I wouldn't be surprised at the answer. I squinted my eyes at him and asked, “What kind of car is it?”

My Dad smiled and kept his eyes on the road. “Well, it’s not a car, actually. It’s a jeep. It runs real great, you remember Melissa McCall, right? The one down at the hospital?” I nodded my head even though I couldn’t. “Bought it off her. Her son was the one to fix it up—he’s studying to be a mechanic…” I let his words roll over me as I stared out the window, but I couldn’t but feeling like I was missing something. Like I had forgotten something back in Phoenix—and I had. I left my mother. I left my entire world back there, but this time I wasn’t going back. I wasn’t going back to her bright smiles. Or to her crazy stories about mythology or about how the stars were her friends. Or the ones who walked with the moon. I would never be able to hear her voice again and that made my entire body ache.

Sometime during the ride, I guess I drifted asleep and I woke to my Dad shaking me awake. “We’re here, bud.” It seemed liked he’d taken upon himself to take down all my bags, and I had nowhere else to put my hands, so I stuffed them in my pockets.

The house looked like it always had, worn and lived in. It was like a picture, a moment caught in time. My room hadn’t changed much, aside from my things that had been mailed in advance. The desk was new, and so was the bed set. The twin, exchanged for a bigger queen sized bed. The curtains were exchanged to match the bed comforter, but all my childhood trophies, and drawings still decorated the walls. Even the rocking chair my granddad made was where it usually sat.

“The sale’s lady picked out the bed set, and curtains. Got you a new desk lamp, and I cleared some shelves off for your stuff in the bathroom.” My Dad had his hands placed on his hips, and he had changed out of his police uniform, made himself look more like my Dad instead of Sheriff Stilinski. Made him more soft, and less official.

“Thanks.” I smiled at the bed. It looked really comfortable.

“If you want I can get you some bookshelves to put all your books. We can head into town later.” I nodded, distracted. “Well…I’ll leave you to it.” He smiled and left. One of the best things about John is he didn’t hover. At least for now, anyways.

The house was quiet aside from his footsteps, and I plopped down on the edge of my bed. It was comfy.

If someone were to ask what the hell I was doing in Beacon Hills with my Dad bumbling around downstairs after my entire world shifted, I would not have a solid reasoning.

-

“Just call me if you need anything. Doesn’t matter what it is, I’ll answer.” John had already made breakfast for me when I finally built up the courage to make my way out of our shared bathroom. I couldn’t decide what kind of clothing would keep me dry throughout the day so I opted for my favorite flannel and jeans, I threw on a plain tee underneath and left it open.

“Thanks. I’ll see you later.” John left first, and I still had about an hour before school started from what John told me, but I didn’t want to be in the house alone any longer. The silence more troubling then the lack of John’s presence.

Beacon Hills High School had a frightening 558, now 559, students total, when we had almost 800 students in my junior class alone back home.

The school wasn’t that hard to find even without directions. It was more like a collection of buildings with covered walkways to keep dry under. It felt more like a camp, then a campus. Where was the feel of being at an institution? The fences?

Instead of fences, the school was caged in by forest, and shrubs. I couldn’t see the size of it.

I followed a line of cars to the main parking lot, but continued so I could park in front of a building with a sign that read ‘FRONT OFFICE’. I quickly turned off my jeep and reached into the back to grab my jacket and bag. Here we go, I thought climbing out of the cab, the cold air immediately clinging to my clothes. I was sure my nose would be bright red in no time, and I tried to rush quickly, but trying not to fall. Ice didn’t really help with the uncoordinated.

The main office was brightly lit and I squinted my eyes against the harsh light. A woman with dull red hair sat at the front desk, her eyes curious and I tried not to groan. “Can I help you with something, sweetie?” Her voice was light, and I tried not to grimace at the nickname.

“I’m Stiles—Stilinski?” My voice cracked and I tried to cough to cover it up. “I’m new.” Her immediate awareness didn’t go unnoticed, and I shifted from one foot to the other.

“Of course. Sheriff Stilinski’s son.” Her smile reminded me of a cat. She had long red nails to match her hair, as I watched her shuffle through some papers. After almost a minute, she finally plucked out a paper with my schedule, and dragged her eyes over it. “Hmm.” She hummed impressed, and I tried not to reach over the desk, and snatch the paper out of her hands and run back to the safety of my jeep. “An honors student. You’ll be a great addition to this school. This is your schedule, and this”—she slid a paper over to me— “is a pass you need to get signed by all your teachers and return to me by the end of the day. Got it?” She smiled, and I kept an eye on her nails.

“Yes, ma’am.” I slipped all the paperwork into my bag and stepped back.

“Great. Have a nice day.” As soon as I was out of the office, I heaved a loud sigh and ran a hand through my hair, tugging on it. Only 7 more hours to go.

-

My first class of the day was in a building with a large black ‘3’ on its side. It was still pretty vacant of students and no curious eyes to follow my every move. The teacher was a pretty, slim lady with dark brown hair.

“Oh, hello. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow. My name is Ms. Blake. It’s nice to meet you.” She stuck out her hand and I stared at it before shaking it. “It’s nice to meet you too. I’m— “Miecy— “Just Stiles.” I cut her off and I ignored the twisted feeling in my stomach and smiled tightly. She smiled back and I had a nagging feeling in the back of my head. “Alright, Stiles. I have a seat by the window saved for you.” Her movements were graceful and I half smiled. “Hope to have a great rest of the year with you.”  

I nodded and sauntered off to the seat she pointed at. No one else was here yet, so I kept my eyes on the reading list she handed me. The list was neither surprising or difficult, all things I read before I was in the 6th grade.

The bell was a loud nasally sound that shocked me out of my daydream. Kids started to pile into the room and I avoided all the staring eyes. I pulled out my phone to play flow free when the scraping of the chair next to me grabbed my attention. A boy with deep olive skin, and a crooked jaw smiled at me.

“My name’s Scott.” His eyes were dark brown and he seemed like he couldn’t keep still. “You’re the Sheriff’s kid, right?” If I had to guess this is probably the most interesting thing to happen in this town. I nodded slowly, and shoved my phone in my pocket.

“Yeah. My name’s Stiles.” I didn’t want to call the dude a puppy, but his head even did the tilt and I smirked. “I know, but my real name is a mess.” I answered his unspoken question.

“Yeah, yeah. Nice to meet you, man. How’s the jeep running?”  He stuck out his hand and I shook it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see everyone near us was leaning slightly in our direction and I tried to ignore them.

“Runs great. Thanks.” He nodded.

“Do you know what your next class is? I can show you the direction if you want.” Definitely overly helpful.

“I have AP Government with”—He snorted and I looked at him confused. “You have Coach Finstock. I have that class next too. He makes the Lacrosse team take it so he can keep an eye on us.”

The rest of the class was filled with Scott talking about how Coach Finstock will only answer to Coach and nothing else. And that he’ll most likely ask Scott to ask me to join the team. Scott was surprisingly pleasant to talk too and that was saying something because Stiles hated everyone.

Scott talked about everything and invited me to sit with his group for lunch.

“There’s a lot of us, but you can sit by me.” We were walking down the hall to Finstock’s room and I’m sure the kids behind us were close enough they could hear everything we were saying. Maybe I was just being paranoid.

A red-haired girl from English was walking opposite of us for a while and I could feel her staring. I tried not to notice. “Already made friends with the new student, Scott.” Her voice was like a sharp whip, her shoulders back and her head held high. “As to be expected from you.” She smiled, and I realized it was fond and I squinted my eyes at her.

“Lydia. This is Stiles. Stiles, Lydia.” Scott had stopped at his locker, and was leaning up against it. He had opened and pulled out another textbook. She stuck out her hand first, perfect manicure.

“Hi.” I smiled crookedly. Her hand was extremely soft, and I noticed her hair was more strawberry blond then red.

“You’re not what I was expecting. I thought more tan skin, maybe some blond hair.” Her eyes looked me up and down and I tried not flinch.

“Well, sorry to disappoint. I guess that’s why they kicked me out.” I shrugged. “Not tan enough.” Scott had the decency to laugh and she smiled.

-

“Alright you, halfwits. Shut up and sit down.” Coach Finstock marched into his class loudly, and Scott was sitting next to me again. He was a stocky man, with wide crazy eyes. I felt as if he could smell fear.

“As I’m sure you all have managed to notice, we have a new student!” His voice was boisterious and I felt everyone turned towards me. “And as much as I’m sure you are dying to know about the fresh meat, I just don’t have time for that!” He clapped his hands together and I looked over at Scott, curious. He shook his head at me, smiling. “Now, who would like to volunteer to read first?” He smiled widely. The class let out a collective groan and he laughed.

The rest of my classes went by with braver souls than others. Most of them asked about the weather, and I remained short and provided brief answers. I had Lydia for AP Calculus and Latin IV, along with a short Asian girl who’s name I had already forgotten.

As the day progressed I noticed I had a lot of the same people for most of my classes and Lydia was surprised I had most of her classes.

“Do you know what your rank was back in your other school?” Lydia was walking me to the cafeteria along with, Kira, I remembered her name.

“Uh, well I left before they were going to rank us, but I was the 1st by the end of my sophomore year...I believe.” I trailed off as I saw the look in her eyes. As if I had challenged her to a duel. Kira snickered and I looked at her confused and slightly frightened.

“Guess you finally have some competition, Lydia.” I squinted my eyes at Kira as a boy slipped his arm around Lydia’s waist.

His face was all sharp features and flat planes. He was smirking and I felt like I was going to choke on his cologne. “New kid?” He nodded towards me and I tried not to sneer at him.

“Jackson, this is Stiles. Stiles, my jockhead boyfriend.” I half expected for him to stick out his hand, but all he did was nod in acknowledgement. Real character, I scoffed.

“Stiles!” I turned my attention away from them to Scott waving us over as if I could miss him flailing about like his ass was on fire.

The cafeteria wasn’t even half of my old cafeteria, like maybe a quarter and a half. Even with its small size it was still filled mediocrely, with an exception of Scott’s table. Every seat was almost filled aside for one next him which he pulled out for me.

“Hey, man. How’re your classes going so far?” I slumped down into the chair he saved and tried not to acknowledge everyone looking at us. Scott had his tray full of different things and Kira handed him a small, plastic wrapped bowl. I furrowed my brows at the sheer amount of food he was planning on eating, and looked up at Kira.

She simply shrugged and smiled, “He eats a lot.”

“Hey, so, let me introduce you to everyone, dude.” Scott turned and pointed at a boy with soft eyes, and deep dimples. “This is Danny,” Danny smiled and waved from down the table. “That’s Allison—” a girl with dark hair and sharp eyes smiled softly, “—Liam, Mason,” two boys who looked the youngest out of everyone smiled, “—Brett, and that’s Greenburg.” The very last 2 people waved and I smiled tightly trying to quickly file everyone’s name and face, so I wouldn’t mess up the next time I saw them.

“Hey, I’m Stiles.” Everyone smiled and continued talking individually.

“You hungry?” Scott asked, and offered up a half of a sandwich. I shook my head.

“No, it’s okay. You can enjoy that; I’ll get something from the line.” I laughed. I’m sure the sandwich was bleeding mayo. I shuddered and turned straight into a solid wall, or at least I thought it was when it an ‘oof’ sound and I let out a manly squeal.

I looked up to see that I had bumped into a wall, but one with legs and a look that could kill me where I stood. “Oh man, I’m really sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I didn’t see you, well I should’ve seen you—I mean look at you—n-not that I mean you’re big—not that you aren’t!” I flinched when a hand landed on my shoulder, a hand that belonged to my life saver. I visibly sighed and leaned back to Scott who still had his hand on my shoulder. I looked back towards the human wall, and it seemed as his shoulders were more tense then they were before Scott walked up.

I looked back at Scott and all remnants of friendliness were gone, replaced with stoic anger, or at least it looked like he was ready to defend something. “Boyd.” Scott nodded at the human wall—Boyd.

Boyd didn’t make any noise besides a small nod and Scott still had his hand on my shoulder. It felt like I could literally cut the tension and like I always do, I just ignore until it goes away.

“Well, it seems y’all have a lot to talk about,” Boyd looked over at me amused and I smiled. “I’m going to go get my lunch. Sorry for bumping into you, again.” I shrugged Scott’s hand off my shoulder and towards the line.

The food that was prepared looked like it was actual food to be consumed and I tried not groan at the smell. I grabbed chicken tenders, mac and cheese, and mash potatoes. They also have brownies which I couldn’t help myself with.

Scott was already seated back at his seat as I tried to search where Boyd had gone. When I finally found them, it was in a table far off from everyone else, pushed up against the wall with the windows.

It looked like he was talking to someone, but Scott grabbed around my shoulders. What is with the constant touching, I thought.

“Hey, so we were thinking you could come afterschool and watch us practice.” Scott smiled and Danny nodded.

“Sure. Is it for football or something?” I picked apart my bread, as I tried to look over where Boyd had sat. Everyone started to laugh and I looked at Scott confused.

“No, we don’t play football. The sport here is Lacrosse.” Scott patted me on the back and I shook my head. I’m a baseball fan anyways.

“Sure, I’ll go.” I agreed, I didn’t want to go back to an empty house anyways.

The rest of lunch pasted with more people coming by the table, most of which I assumed were a part of the team, but also to see who the new kid was. I ate slowly as I listened to everyone who was talking to me.

The bell rang and the room broke. “What class do you have next?” Scott asked, Lydia, Jackson, and Kira were also waiting for me to answer.

“Uh…” I trailed as I finally saw Boyd and who he was sitting with. There was a tall lanky guy with curly hair and a sly smirk, a girl with bright blonde hair and the reddest lipstick I’d ever seen—a sharp smile to go with, and another girl with long brown hair. She was staring at the curly haired boy like if she couldn’t believe what he was saying and shoved at his shoulder. He stumbled back, laughing and I smiled at their playfulness.

“Stiles?” The last member of their table was already halfway out the door when I finally dragged my eyes back to Scott. I blinked my eyes a couple times and rubbed the back of my neck.

“Sorry, I got distracted. I have Bio with Harris.” Jackson laughed and Scott grimaced. “What?” I asked as Scott dragged me out the cafeteria.

-

The hallways after lunch were crowded and I had to cough to get someone off my locker. I stared at the paper with my lock numbers on it. Scott was busy across the hall with someone from the team as I tried to open the stupid thing. I looked down the hall to find Boyd and his group leaning up against their lockers.

They were oblivious to everyone around, and they weren’t staring at the new kid. Not that I’m saying they should be, but it’s refreshing. Everyone since I’ve got here, has been staring at me, or trying to talk to me and I like that they don’t even care that there’s a new kid.

“Hey, Scott.” I’m leaning against my locker having given up on opening my locker. “Who are they?” I ask, curiosity always has been my main driving point. Scott looked down the hall to where I nodded at and pressed his lips together.

He sighed and turned towards me, turning his back towards them and I stood closer to him. “That’s Boyd, who you met earlier, Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes, and Cora Hale. Their last member is Derek Hale.” I looked down the hall and tried to put a name to a face. A guy who wasn’t their earlier looked over at us, first to Scott’s back and then to mine.

It was a quick look, as if we had called him by name—an involuntary response. His eyes were bright, a mosaic of colors and I felt my face grow hot. I quickly looked back at Scott, embarrassed. “They all live on the preserve with Mrs. and Mr. Hale.”

“All of them?” Scott nodded.

“Mrs. Hale adopted Isaac when he was a freshman after his Dad died. And Erica and Boyd when they were younger. I think before the fire.” Scott shifted and I looked down the hall again.

“What fire?” Derek was no longer looking at us, but his shoulders were tense and I could see that he was talking. His dark hair looked almost raven black, his eyes framed with thick eyebrows. His face reminded me that of David sculpted by Michelangelo—strong brow bone, sharp jaw and eyes that made my stomach drop. His stare was intense and I couldn’t bring myself to look away.

“It was a fire 3 years ago. Nobody got hurt, but they never caught who did it.”

“Arson?” I choked. Who could want to hurt them so much that they wanted to burn them alive?

“Yeah. Craziest thing to happen in this town.”  

-

Scott couldn’t walk me to class because he had to run to the other side of campus so he wouldn’t be late, so Danny offered to take me there since he had his class too.

“How you liking things so far?” Danny asked politely.

“Everyone’s really nice.” He laughed and I smiled. I like Danny’s laugh.

“Fair warning that Mr. Harris is kind of a dick, but he’ll probably go easy on you since it’s your first day.”

The classroom was filled with the same black-topped tables back home, and every table was filled. Except one.

“Hey, Mr. Harris. This is Stiles.” Danny smiled and walked off to his seat.

“Oh right, the Sheriff’s kid.” Mr. Harris sneered and I crossed my arms in front of me. “I’m sure you think this class will be easy, but let me just tell you now. I will not tolerate slackers in class. Or cheaters.” He punctuated all his words and looked down at me as if he was any taller than I. My skin felt hot as I gritted my teeth together and tried not to say something I would regret. “I only have one more seat, so sit. I do hope you catch on faster than most.” He dismissed me without another one and I curled my lip, biting down on my bottom. Fucking asshole.

I kept my hands clenched in my jacket pockets as I passed in front of a small fan that sat atop his desk. I looked over at the only seat available next to the boy from earlier in the seat next to it. Derek Hale was sitting in his chair as rigid as a board and I tripped over on my way from the pure hostility in his eyes pointed at me.

I couldn’t look away from his stare as I sat. His back was pressed against the wall as far as he could away from me. I stared at him confused, and looked down at my notebook as the teacher started talking. The topic was on cell division; something that I had already gone over in my other school, but I took notes anyways. I could feel my irritation nag at me as I looked at him through my peripheral vision.

I was chewing on my lip throughout the entire class—Derek never moving, sitting as far as he could away from me while staring at me with an animalistic anger, and me trying not to snap at him. The class felt like the longest hour of my life.

When the bell finally rang, Derek was the first one out of the class before anyone could move. I scoffed at his rudeness and I slammed my book closed, irritated. Danny stood in front me as I stared at the door Derek basically ran out of.

He looked at me with raised eyebrows, “Did you stab him with a pencil or something?”

“No.” I snapped and breathed out harshly. “I didn’t do anything to him and he was acting like I’d spit on his grandmother’s grave or something. What the hell is his problem?” I scoffed as I gathered my things.

Danny patted me on my shoulder, and I let out a long breath. “I don’t know, but don’t worry about it. He’s a weird guy.”

Tell me about it, I thought as Danny lead me towards the gym.

-

Gym was held outside for today even though it was wet from the rain, and almost winter time. Danny lead me into the locker room where guys were changing into lacrosse gear.

“Mahealani! Get your ass in gear and get dressed!” A voice yelled next to my ear, and I jumped back to see Coach Finstock.

“Yes, Coach!” Danny yelled back as he disappeared.

“New kid.” Coach Finstock said much lower, but still loud. “You don’t have to dress out today, but I expect you to bring clothes for tomorrow. Got it?” He asked, his whistle in one hand. I quickly nodded and he looked me up and down.

“You in any sports back home, son?” He asked, and I tried not to laugh. Just like Scott said.

“I was in swimming and track, sir.” He nodded, rubbing at his chin. “You’ve met McCall, yes?” I nodded. “He’s the Co-Captain of the Lacrosse team. You would be a great addition to a great team.” He smiled suggestively and I nodded.

“I’ll think about it.”

-

The air made my nose cold and I shoved my hands into my pockets. The air was biting as I sat on the bleachers looking down at the players. It looked like I was put into the athletics period with the rest of the team and I waved over at Scott who smiled back.

Jackson, Danny, Liam, Brett, Greenburg and Mason were all down on the field practicing while I leaned back and watched them. I caught sight of golden brown curls running around in the mix of boys and I sat straighter. Isaac Lahey was running drills and I tried to look uninterested. He was fast even for someone as lean as he. Boyd wasn’t far off, easily keeping up with him. I looked around and not even lying to myself for who I was looking for. I ignored the disappointed feeling in my stomach and I sighed.

I was grateful that it had stopped raining and I tried to keep myself warm. My mind kept drifting back to Derek and his rigid anger. His eyes held so much hate and I couldn’t come up with a legit reason as to how I had somehow offended him.

This is something I would go to my Mom for…

I closed my eyes against the setting sun and let the noise of the boys on the field fade as I focused on the wind.

-

“Why are we outside, Mom? The doctor said you had to— “Oh hush, and come lay with me.” She had managed to get out of her bed and put on a thick jacket before waking me up to lay outside with her.

I huffed as I lay down with her. It was winter, but it would never snow. Something my mother said she would never forget. “Would you like to tell me why we are laying down on the ground in the middle of the night, Mom?”

She had a scarf wrapped around her neck—one I had brought a couple Christmases ago, but never gotten the chance to wear.

“You see that constellation?” She said after a while. She was pointing to my right and I strained to see where she was pointing at.

I finally focused on the area she mentioned and smiled. “The Lupus constellation?”

“Good, you remembered.” She smiled and I shook my head. “Do you remember the story behind it?”

“Yeah, it was something about a sacrifice and centaurs— “No, no, no. That’s not it.” She waved her hand in front of my face.

“The story is that there was a King called Lycaon, of Arcadia. He was a cocky king and didn’t believe in the power of the gods. So, he invited the King of all the Gods, Zeus, to his kingdom for dinner. Lycaon was ignorant and wanted to test Zeus to see if he really was a god, as he claimed. He served Zeus one of his many sons, Nyctimus. Zeus knew immediately, of course. He became enraged and Lycaon fled, but Zeus caught him. He struck Lycaon and all of his sons with lightning turning them into wolves, and reviving Nyctimus. But Zeus decided to throw Lycaon into the sky. A warning and a sign.”

Mom was breathing deeply, dragging her breaths. “Do you believe they still exist?” I asked, quietly.

“I do.”

-

I felt a single tear slip down my face and I quickly wiped it away.

The bell rang in the distance and I looked down to the field. Scott was running up the bleachers, stopping in front of me. “Hey, are you still gonna stay for practice?”

His head titled to the side and I nodded, sniffling. “Yeah, let me just go turn in this slip to the office and I’ll come back around here.”

“Cool, cool. See you in a bit.”

The office was far from the field and I was breathing harder by the time I got to the door.

When I walked through the door into the warm office, I almost turned around and walked back out. No, it was cold out and I’m sure my fingers were about to fall off.

“—anything? Chemistry, physics?” His voice was a low grumble, but much lighter than what I imagined. My brain finally caught up with his question and I scoffed. Is this guy serious?

It seemed like he was trying to get out of sixth hour Biology and I felt the irritation come back. The door finally closed, and his shoulders grew tense. He looked behind him and I felt my lip curl. “Never mind, then.” He mutters, his voice sounding like it was punched out of him. “I can see that it’s not possible. Thank you for your help.” With that he turned on his heel and stalked his way out of the office. Even though we didn’t touch I still scoffed and turned to look at his retreating form.

I walked up to the desk, quickly. “How was your day, sweetie?” I smiled, politely.

“Fine.” I knew even she didn’t believe me.

I left the office quickly to see if I could find and demand what the hell his problem was. I jogged quickly to the parking lot just in time to see a black Camaro peel out of the lot.

What a fucking dickhead!

“Stiles?” I turned and saw Kira standing at the bottom of the stairs, confused. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Do you think you could do me a favor?” She smiled at me and nodded.

“Anything.”

-

The house was empty when I finally managed to open the door. Not like I expected anyone to be home.

“Hey, kid. How’d your day go?” I closed the door with my foot, as I tried to keep my phone between my shoulder and ear.

“It was interesting.” I looked through the fridge for something to eat, and found nothing. “You need to go shopping, Dad.”

My Dad hummed through the phone, “I can give you the card and you can get whatever you want and get whatever we need.” He suggested, and I agreed.

“How were the kids? Make any friends?” I thought back to Derek and I tamped down on the anger that bubbled in my stomach.

I breathed in deep before answering, “Well, everyone’s really welcoming.”

“Aw, hell. What happened?” I laughed and shook my head.

“It—doesn’t even matter.” I filled a glass up with water, and took a drink. “I made friends with Scott McCall.” I changed the subject and my Dad didn’t question it. For now.

When night finally came, I laid on my bed staring at my ceiling replaying the day again and again.

My mind couldn’t come up with a reason for someone to hate me so quickly and I groaned loudly, tugging at my hair harshly.

I tried to sleep, but I kept seeing his eyes behind my eyelids.

I finally fell asleep; the same question going through my head.

What the hell was his problem?

[unavenged-robin]

Juxtaposition

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Juxtaposition (n) the state of being close together or side by side.

Or the one where Jason reminds Tim that sometimes Damian takes jokes all too seriously.

Characters: Tim Drake & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne Additional Tags: Swearing, Minor Violence, Dysfunctional Family, be warned I like to make Jason suffer, Timeline What Timeline, Not Canon Compliant, and dont even let me start on that whole amnesia thing

He had planned the details of this operation for two weeks straight, with great care and no little caution for his normal standards, and up until half an hour ago he was actually pretty damn pleased with himself for the results of his hard work. That’s why, if someone asked him right now how could he screw it all up so badly, Jason honestly wouldn’t know what to say to them (apart from fuck off, that is).

So, he’s trapped in a corner, he’s bleeding and he’s angry, and he’s so ready to kill anything that even looks at him the wrong way, let alone shoot at him like the thugs in front of him have been trying to do for the last half an hour, and of course - of course - that’s the moment when things get even worse.

He doesn’t see Damian. He doesn’t hear him either. Shit, he wouldn’t even know it’s Damian - what with the kid not wearing his Robin costume but just normal baggy teenager clothes - if not for the fact that there aren’t so many kids around Gotham who would willingly jumps in the middle of fights they so obviously have no business to do with. (There are a few others besides Damian, yes, but they’re all taller than this kid is) (and on top of that, Damian is kind of, you know, Jason’s brother).

So he’s trapped in a corner, he’s bleeding and he’s angry, and he also gets to watch a fucking kid - his fucking kid brother - jumping in the middle of his fight with no weapons, no kevlar protection and probably - because he knows him well enough at this point - not even the hint of a plan on his mind.

His adrenaline levels rise, instinct kicks in, and Jason gets back on his feet without even thinking about it. He starts shooting bullets, curses and swears indiscriminately at everything that moves - and let’s be honest, that should’ve been the preferred course of action all along, screw the planning thing, it never works anyway.

He’s going to kill Damian. Save his short ass first and then beat it black and blue. Tie him to his bed and let him watch while he burns everything the brat owns, clothes, knives, videogames, art supplies and carefully hidden toys (because Dick had spilled the bean about those, yeah). Take his pets away from him and give them to the local zoo.

His mind only stops rambling when he notices one of the snipers he was trying to distract turning his attention and his rifle away from him and towards Damian, and a thought - no, not even a thought, but an unavoidable certainty - freezes him to the bones.

Damian is going to die. Again.

And since Jason wasn’t there the first time, now he gets a front row ticket to the show. The best tickets you could get, ladies and gentleman!, a voice inside of his head starts screaming, a voice that sounds sickeningly similar to the Joker’s. And if you’re very very lucky, you’ll be even getting some of the blood on your faces! That’s how close you get to be! Isn’t this what family is for? Ah ah ah.

Jason’s panicking. He knows that. But knowing isn’t helping, and the split of time he was given to actually do something about it is already running out.

Meanwhile Damian delivers a mid-air kick to one of the thug's face, jumping closer to the sniper’s position and stepping even more clearly in his line of fire. Jason’s out of batarangs and the angle would be wrong anyway. Same goes for shooting first, no way he’s gonna hit the guy and that would probably just prompt him to shoot right back at Damian. So Jason does the only thing he can think of and dives for his brother, but he doesn’t have enough momentum, and the bullet goes off while he’s still too far away to shield the kid.

Jason’s heart skip a beat. Damian merely flips on his side and rolls on the ground. The bullet doesn’t even brushes him. He probably saw the sniper too, Jason realizes while he shifts on his feet to charge at the shooter without losing a beat. He’s going to kill him anyway. The thug first, Damian later.

He avoids two bullets fired at him in quick succession, then lands a good round of punches on the guy’s face. He’ll probably survive, but he’s gonna need a lot of reconstructive surgery to look as a human being again. Behind him Damian keeps drawing shouts and cries of pain, so Jason knows he’s doing okay. Still, his pulse doesn’t slow down. He can still taste the aftertaste of the fear in the back of his throat. He’s not gonna sleep well tonight. Or tomorrow. Or any night soon, probably.

Yes, Damian’s most definitely dead. Again.

-

Even with the newfound energy and Damian’s help, it takes them almost an hour to clear the docks, tie up everyone who’s still moving and retrieve the crates of weapons that were Red Hood’s primary purpose for this escapade.

Once everything’s done and the police’s sirens are on their way, Damian turns towards him with a smirk. It’s the first time that night Jason gets a good look at his face and he notices that he’s wearing the Robin domino mask. He’s unscathed, not even a scratch or a rim of sweat on his forehead. He actually looks quite content, and ready to start all over again.

“Well, that was easy. Is this how you usually spend your weekends, Hood? Being a living target practice for half-witted goons?”, he taunts.

Jason barely register he’s even speaking. He loads the last crate on his van and secures it with a lock, then gets up on his feet and takes off his helmet in one swift movement. When he finally turns to look at his brother, quickly and without even the hint of a warning, he grabs him by his wrist, pulling him toward himself. He peels the domino mask from his face and throws it away before Damian has even the time to understand what’s happening to him.

“What the fuck were you thinking?”, he growls in his face, all the adrenaline of the night still pumping his blood, loading his voice with a low key promise of violence and pain, and Damian’s so startled by his reaction he actually tries to take a step back, eyes widening in alarm. “What the fuck are you even doing here without your costume? Are you fucking suicidal?”

“Release me!”, Damian shouts back once the surprise fades away. He struggles uselessly against him, and for some reason that only serves to fuel Jason’s fury. He catches the flailing fist the kid’s trying to hit him with and uses his grip on him to shake him like he’s nothing more than a ragdoll until he actually hears the rattling of his teeth.

“I said. What the fuck. Were you thinking”, he asks again, voice like a thunder, fear and anger numbing him to everything else.

“I saved your sorry ass, you simple-minded ruffian!”, Damian screams.

“You almost got yourself killed again, you fucking minikin!”, Jason screams back.

Damian does his best interpretation of a feral growl and tries to headbutt him in the stomach. Jason shifts just in time and his hipbone promises him revenge in the form of a big, fat bruise. Jason can almost feel it blooming on his skin already. He loses his balance for the split of a second and Damian, relentless as ever, takes the opportunity to bite his hand too. Jason snarls, blocks a direct kick to his knee, and having finally had enough, he straightens up in his full height.

And Damian may be a high skilled assassin baby with the equivalent of twenty years or more of hard training on his little shoulders, but he’s also a tiny eleven years old kid, and Jason is the size of a mountain compared to him. So when he grabs him by the collar of his shirt and lifts him up in the air to slam him against the nearest wall, Damian can’t do anything else but yelping in pain and looking completely stunned for a moment, just like any other regular kid would.

Then again, this is Damian, so the moment passes and he quickly resumes his fight by jerking into his grip and digging all of his ten nails into the skin of Jason’s wrist, while also loading a kick that will do no favor to his ribs - that if Damian actually gets to land it, of course. But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t because, again, Damian may be angry, but Jason is angrier. Furious. And for a white hot moment he wants nothing more than to stop defending himself and actually hit the kid back. He wants to beat him until he's crying and fucking apologizing for this entire mess. Which… would be unfair, considering that most of this mess is definitely Jason’s fault.

He closes his eyes. Breathes. Counts to five. Opens his eyes again.

“Damian”, he calls, more calmly.

Damian keeps squirming, still trying to kick him. Jason counts to five again.

“Damian, that was a show of monumental stupidity and you are smart enough to know it”, half a praise, half an insult. That was Dick’s advice on how to deal with the kid (except Dick may have said scolding instead of insult. But whatever).

Anyway, it works - of course it does - and the kid actually looks up at him. Jason doesn’t let go of his shirt but shifts his grip so that he’s not leaning all his weight on the kid’s chest anymore and Damian can take a deep breath too. They look at each other for a long, uncomfortable minute, then Damian finally caves in.

“You needed the help”, he reproaches Jason, who’s not hypocrite enough to deny it.

“I could’ve used Robin’s help, maybe, not Damian Wayne’s.”

“Tt. I had my mask on, there’s no way any of them could identify-”

“Not the goddamn point, kid.”

Damian pouts and looks down at his feet dangling well above the ground. He looks… deflated. Like he’s actually offended at Jason for getting angry at him.

“Put me down”, he orders, kicking him lightly in the stomach.

Jason eyes him for a moment before complying. Damian straightens up and adjusts his clothes with as much dignity as he can muster - which is still a lot, all things considered. Jason gives him some space while he recovers the green domino mask and pockets it.

“Now, do you want to tell me what the hell are you doing around Gotham in your civvies? And no smartass answers, you stepped on the limit of my patience two years ago.”

Damian doesn't look at him. He’s still pouting and the tip of one of his sneakers is aggressively pounding the ground, and if Jason didn’t know any better, he would say that the kid’s fidgeting.

“I was taking a walk”, comes the grudgingly answer.

Jason’s mouth twitches and he has to remind himself that swatting kids is a bad thing to do, even when you are the Red Hood and the kid is Damian.

“...you were taking a walk. In the middle of the night. On Gotham’s docks.”

Damian scowls at him.

“It’s not like I can go home”, he sputters, and oh. Oh.

Jason runs a hand over his face. He never thought about that. Fuck Bruce. Fuck Dick, too.

“Please tell me you haven’t been roaming around Gotham’s streets since that shit with Bruce went down.”

Damian looks at him like he’s a crazy person.

“Of course not, Todd. Do I look like a street rat to you?”

Jason wisely decides not to answer that.

“Okay, look, if you need a place to stay-”, he’s not sure about what he’s going to say next because his plan for the night didn’t include adopting homeless little brothers. Then again, there were obviously a lot of things that his initial plan for the night didn’t included at all.

“I have a place to stay”, Damian interrupts him. “It doesn’t matter. He's going to send me back anyway.”

Jason blinks, taken aback by that.

“Who's going to send you where?”

“Drake.”

“What?”

“He's going to send me back to Grandfather. He’s my legal guardian now, so it is in his power to do so, since Father can’t stop him.”

Jason blinks at him again, but Damian’s only reaction is crossing his arm over his chest and sheepishly look at his shoes, like he’s embarrassed to have confided that much to Jason. Which means that he actually believes in what he just said.

“Tell me you are kidding”, Jason pleads, but he already knows Damian’s not kidding at all. It’s all in his posture, in the way he’s angrily chewing his bottom lip and avoiding Jason’s eyes. And suddenly Jason has a sneaky suspicion that Damian had seek him out on purpose tonight, and that helping him deal with a bunch of thugs was his… Damian-esque way to ask Jason to help him back with this crazy deportation theory thing with Tim.

“Oh for the love of-”, he sighs, kneeling in front of the kid. “Okay smurf, just tell me the story from the beginning, yeah?”

-

It’s 3.00 AM, Tim Drake is wearing the top half of his best suit over his pajama's trousers and he's not even ashamed of it. He doesn't mind having a conference in the middle of the night to accommodate a client calling from the other side of the world, and he's not hypocritical enough to mourn the loss of sleep that he wouldn't be having anyway, but it's been a long, long week, and he's tired. So tired that he barely reacts when his front door opens with a bang and Jason Todd bursts into his living room, tugging along with him a reluctant Damian Wayne by his hand.

“As for the results of the second semester-”, Tim's saying, and then he glances up from his laptop to stare at the two figures standing in the doorframe. Jason’s in his costume, Damian is not, but they both look tired and ruffled, like after a patrol gone wrong. He looks at Jason's face, then at Damian's, then at the way Jason's holding Damian's hand. He closes the ledger in front of him and smiles politely at the computer's screen.

“-They are not ready yet, but I'll inform you as soon as the numbers come in. Thank you”, he finishes, closing the laptop. Bit rude, but as previously stated, Tim's tired. He looks back at his brothers, who – quite surprisingly, to be honest – have yet to spoke a single word.

“So... what happened?”, he asks, bracing himself for the answer. He doesn't know what else could happen, what with Dick gone and the whole Bruce's amnesia affair and the demon brat now living with him, but he learnt long ago to not underestimate the amount of shit his life can manage to throw at him at the same moment. Besides, this is Jason and Damian holding hands. That's an alarm bell of its own.

Jason gives him a hard stare. He’s standing tall and angry, and looks like he wants to punch someone (probably Tim). Which is not his worst mood, because at least he doesn’t look like he wants to kill someone (again, probably Tim). Maybe the situation’s not so bad. Maybe.

“Kiddo here crashed my operation”, Jason starts slowly, shaking Damian by his hand.

“I did not-”, Damian tries to interject, but Jason doesn’t pay him any attention.

“Almost got both of us killed.”

Damian looks up at him angrily and Tim knows that the grip of his little hand must be bone-crushing by now, even if Jason looks totally unbothered by it.

“Your incompetency at doing your job is not my problem, Todd. Beside it was you who-”

Again, Jason completely ignores him.

“I was going to give him a piece of my mind about that, but turns out this entire mess it's actually your fault”, he concludes, still looking at Tim.

Damian doesn't add anything to that. Which is surprising. And honestly worrying.

Tim just sighs, fingers rubbing his temples. He looks again back and forth between his two brothers and for a moment he finds himself at loss of words.

“How- how it is my fault?”

Jason raises an eyebrow, and Damian suddenly finds a very interesting spot on the floor to stare at.

“Apparently you told him you were going to send him back.”

Tim tilts his head to the side.

“I told him…”, he slowly repeats. “What? Back where?”

“To Ra's”, Jason quietly growls. And if looks could kill, right now Tim would be dying in a very horrible way. But it's Jason the attempting eye-murderer. Damian's still busy studying the pattern of his floor tiles.

Tim doesn't understand. Yes, he and Damian had an argument today, one that ended with the littlest Wayne stomping out of his apartment in a cloud of holy rage, but that was hardly news to anyone. And yes, there were insults and threats thrown back and forth between the two of them, but again, no news there - if anything their squabbles were getting kinda repetitive and boring. So no, he doesn’t understand. Not right away.

“I never told him-”, he starts, then something clicks and he pauses, sighs again, and barely refrains himself from banging his head into the desk. “Oh my god- it was a joke. I told him that if he didn't behave I would send him back to where he came from- and I didn’t mean Ra’s. I actually meant, you know, Hell. But it was a joke! Like, telling your siblings that they've been found in a trash-can and adopted out of pity joke? Or that you'll sell them to the circus joke?”

That's enough to spark Damian's anger. Tim tones out his snarky remarks at being the only blood son because he’s heard them quite enough, thank you very much. But for all the insults and angry shouts, there’s still something off about Damian. Something that says he’s defensive, and insecure and… scared. The idea that Damian - Jesus, Damian - could be scared of him is… Tim doesn’t have a word for it. It’s just not something that makes sense.

He looks up at Jason again, almost gaping.

“It was a joke, Jason”, he repeats weakly.

“Good thing that you remembered that the kid here has a good sense of humor then”, Jason retorts. And well, he’s not wrong.

Tim looks back at Damian’s scowling face. He wants to remind the brat that when he needed a place to stay he had took him in without batting an eye and despite their conflicting relationship, but he doesn’t know how to say it without making it sound like Damian owns him for that, which is not the point Tim wants to make.

“I fought Ra’s when he tried to take your body”, he reminds him then, because it’s the only thing he can came up with at the moment.

“Father made you do it”, the kid promptly snarls back.

“No, he-”, Tim starts, then bits his lips. “No, I would’ve done it anyway.”

Damian doesn’t answer, but he has this look of mighty disbelief plastered all over his face, and Tim instantly knows that there’s no convincing this kid. And maybe he’s right anyway, because back then Tim had been in a very dark place and yeah, Damian was not exactly on the list of his good actions. But that was then, and this is now, and things have changed. They may not be friends yet, but he can’t think of Damian as anything else but his younger brother (and an annoyance, of course, but that kind of goes with the word).

Yet it's pretty clear that with Bruce and Dick gone, Damian thinks he doesn't have a family anymore. And well, it's not like he doesn't have his own right reasons to think so. But.

“This is so stupid”, Tim mutters, closing his eyes and hiding his face behind his hands. He wants a coffee. He wants to sleep. He wants to never tell a joke again in his life.

When he reopens his eyes Jason and Damian are still standing in front of him, looking as much tired and angry as he feels. Tim sucks in a breath, realizing that he’s going to have to apologize, and even if he kind of see the point of it, he still doesn’t like it.

Jason's not going to help him either, that's pretty much clear. Even if he's not butting in, he's still standing beside Damian, and he has still not let go of the kid, even if the back of his hand is a battlefield of scratches and- yes, those are definitely bite marks. Jason knows how to make statements without a single word being spoken, and in any other situations Tim would probably laugh at the ridiculousness of all of this.

He stands up and walks around the desk to kneel in front of Damian, close enough to touch him but also leaving enough room between the two of them to shield himself from an eventual attack. Caution is one of the first things you learn when you’re around Damian Wayne.

“Look, I know things are complicated right now. And I know that complicated is the understatement of the century”, he quickly adds when both Damian and Jason click their tongues at him - and oh my god, is that a family thing now? “But they had been complicated before, and honestly, I don’t think they’re ever going to be not complicated, because we are who we are and all of that, but. But you’ve been around enough to know how this works now. We take the hit, we regroup and we go on. And we always, always, protect our own.”

Or at least what’s left of them, he adds mentally. And it’s not the best speech of his relatively brief and not really brilliant older brother’s career, but Damian’s frown lightens a bit, and the kid doesn’t look so angry and hurt anymore.

“No one will send you anywhere, Damian. I’m sorry if I said something that made you think so, it wasn’t in my intentions”, Tim adds anyway, just to be crystal clear about the entire affair, since Damian’s not one for subtleties. “And if Ra’s ever tries to take you back, we’ll kick his ass again, Bruce or not Bruce. Okay?”

Damian just clicks his tongue again.

“Tt. Like I would require your assistance”, he retorts. Then he seems to realize that holding his older brother’s hand while saying so kind of ruins the aesthetic of it, so he gives Jason an annoyed tug, and this time his brother allows him to free his hand. He doesn’t spare him a teasing smile and a quick hair ruffle, though.

“Well, you have it anyway, smurf”, he adds, butting into their discussion for the first time. “Besides, Timbo wasn’t talking about just the two of us, you know?”

“Yeah”, Tim cuts in. “Steph and Cass would love to take a swing at Ra’s, and Barbara always had some sort of personal grudge against him. Oh, and Alfred will probably put on the cape and the cowl himself- and let me tell you, he's going to be ten times more terrifying than Bruce or Dick ever were.”

Jason laughs, loud and clear. Damian scrunches up his nose in that funny way he does when he's trying not to smile.

“Pennyworth would make a worthy protector and a mighty opponent”, he concedes, and now it’s Tim’s turn to hide a smile.

“Glad we can agree on something.”

“Tt.”

Jason yawns and stretches his back, producing an annoying sound of crackling bones first and then a wince.

“Alright nerds. Now that the crisis has been resolved, and before I ground your ass and kick yours”, he says, pointing at Damian and then at Tim respectively. “I need food, alcohol, disinfectant and a forceps. In this exact order. I forgot I was bleeding out and after all this sweet talking about family and whatnot I think I’d definitely feel guilty if I died again.”

[samuelpboswell]

6 Unconventional Social Channels for B2B Marketing

This just in: B2B doesn’t have to be boring! People who are on B2B buying committees like to be entertained just as much as everyone else. They use the same social media sites as B2C consumers do, too.  Sorry to drop so many knowledge bombs in one paragraph. Take a minute to let it all sink in. Okay, so maybe self-isolation is making me more snarky than usual. I’m glad that we don’t have to constantly explain why B2B marketing not only can be, but must be relatable and creative. But there’s one mental obstacle most of us are still struggling with: The idea that social media marketing (outside of LinkedIn) is mostly for our B2C colleagues. We’ve accepted that we should have a Twitter account or a Facebook page, but that’s where a lot of organizations draw the line. I get it. I’m over 40. The social apps the kids are on these days are confusing and frightening. Back in MY day, Tik Tok was a Ke$ha song, and I didn’t like it, because I was already too old to listen to Ke$ha.  But the kids these days are rapidly becoming the adults of tomorrow. Millennials are all over 20. Gen Zers are exiting college and entering the work force. They’re the next wave of B2B decision makers, and we need to reach them on relevant channels. Let’s take a look at some of the apps that B2B marketers may be overlooking, and evaluate whether they’re worth a shot.

Slam Dunk: Instagram

Many folks who read this will think, “Instagram is a lesser-known channel? What?” But the rest will think, “Instagram has B2B marketing on it? What?” So it’s worth an inclusion.  Instagram has 1 billion accounts, with 500 million daily active users. Of these, 200 million visit at least one business page daily. There are many B2B businesses that are killing it with their Instagram pages. For inspiration, check out General Electric, and my favorite, Life at IBM. While IBM has a main corporate page, this spinoff is focused on what employees do in their off time. It’s an amazing way to humanize the brand. If you’re already on Instagram but haven’t started making Stories yet, it’s worth giving it a shot. Stories are rapidly becoming the primary way people consume content on Instagram. Creating these mini-movies is surprisingly simple, but the creator tools are also robust enough to make eye-catching content on the fly.

Proceed with Caution: Reddit

Ten years ago, Reddit was the bratty new kid on the block. Their primary goal was to promote uncensored, self-moderated content channels. That led to plenty of creativity and community-building, but also a dark side that most brands wouldn’t want to be associated with. Recently, Reddit has rebranded as a safer place for brands to come and play. They’ve removed hateful and offensive content and are focused on more family-friendly fare. That said, there are still plenty of not-safe-for-work-or-life sub-communities (subreddits). But the site has a massive untapped audience that is generally receptive to relevant marketing.  Reddit is unique in social networks in that you don’t post content on your personal page to generate a following. Instead, you post in specific sub-communities organized by topic. Each post lives or dies by upvotes and downvotes. You’re essentially starting from scratch with every post. If your target audience is on Reddit, it’s worth testing the waters with a few sponsored posts. Just keep it transparent, honest and genuine: There’s a whole subreddit devoted to mocking tone-deaf marketing.

Comeback Kid: Snapchat

Snapchat was the next big thing in social media… until it wasn’t. Instagram cloned the platform’s most popular features, usage declined, and not many folks invested in their content-enabling glasses. Even though they were brightly-colored and fun. But don’t write off Snapchat just yet. After a controversial redesign and a few missteps, the site is seeing growth again. It’s estimated that 62% of 18-29-year-olds use the app daily, for over 210 million daily active users. A few years back, we highlighted B2B businesses that were rocking it on Snapchat. Our advice hasn’t changed much for 2020: Keep it light, keep it spontaneous, and show your followers the behind-the-scenes, human side of your company.

Brand New Throwback: Twitch

Here’s a radical new idea for content: What if your content was only available on one channel, and viewers had to tune into that channel live to watch it? And what if after you were done, the content went away unless you or the viewer decided to record it? It may sound a lot like broadcast television, but (with the addition of some social and interactive elements) that’s essentially what Twitch is doing. The streaming platform began as a way for gamers to connect with an audience as they livestreamed gameplay videos. But the platform was useful for all kinds of creative streaming, from painting to sculpture to hilarious lectures about imaginary creatures. Is your audience on Twitch? The demographics skew heavily in the 18-34 demographic, squarely at the intersection of Millennial and Gen Z. Though the site skews heavily male right now (82% of users identify as male), those numbers are changing as the content moves away from its gamer roots. Brand content is sparse on Twitch now, but the platform offers compelling tools that make it easy to livestream and interact with viewers. It’s worth investigating the possibility of running podcasts or webinars on the platform, taking full advantage of Twitch’s infrastructure and interactivity.

Up-and-Comer: Tik Tok

Okay, I’m as frightened as you are, but we’ll get through it. In the early 2010s, there was an app called Vine that focused on short, mostly funny video. The site launched thousands of memes around the world, but ultimately imploded. Now TikTok is filling the void. It’s an app designed to make it easy to create and share short video, it’s exclusively mobile, and it’s beginning to expand past its young-gen-Z audience. In less than two years, TikTok has expanded its user base 5.5x in the U.S. It currently has 26.5 million active users in the states, and 500 million worldwide, and those numbers are steadily growing.   Where does B2B fit in on TikTok? It’s still early days for even B2C marketers on the platform, so the rules are still being written. We do know that TikTok users are looking for short, low-fi videos that entertain. Be prepared to show off your brand’s lighter side. For inspiration, check out the Washington Post’s page. They’ve developed a quirky personality that’s a stark contrast to their more staid journalistic side. But with over 21 million likes, what they’re doing is clearly resonating with fans.

@washingtonpost????????????????????????????? Bebe - V.A.

Next Big Thing (?): Facebook VR

As I mentioned before, I’m over 40. Which means I’ve seen VR touted as the “next big thing” for 30 years now. Remember the cutting-edge VR in the 1992 cinematic masterpice Lawnmower Man? [caption id="attachment_28313" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Some of us will never forget.[/caption] But it seems like the tech is finally catching up to the hype. And now Facebook is launching a new VR social media site, just in time to engage folks who are going stir-crazy in self isolation.  Will Horizons be the future of social media? It’s too soon to tell whether this will be a leap forward or a dead end. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on for marketers as the site enters beta testing. Facebook’s built-in audience and bottomless pockets could make social VR an actual reality.

Branch Out Your B2B

B2B marketers should be exploring any channel where their audience is. While it’s easy to feel like the more younger-skewing platforms are optional, we ignore them at our peril. Adopting — and adapting our brand persona to — these channels is a necessary step to engage the next (and current!) generation of B2B buyers. On these channels, as in any other, the keys are authenticity, empathy, understanding what the audience wants on the channel, and respecting their desires. Follow @toprankmarketing on Instagram for our own behind-the-scenes shenanigans.

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