#five models lost their job because of this panel

[violettierre]

If evil why serving cunt ?

[yergink]

So while I don't see myself ever finishing this fic at this point, I still want to put some of it out there.

Here's some slightly disconnected scraps of my sci-fi fusion ofmd au (mostly inspired by Lethal Company) all consolidated in one place, in case there was interest.

Corporate billed their scavenging positions as an opportunity to enjoy peace and quiet out in the lost frontier of space. Ed couldn’t help but fucking laugh any time he saw one of those pamphlets, because that description couldn’t be farther from reality. 

---

“Q17, eh? You don't see these models in circulation much anymore, what a beauty. You must take good care of her.”

Ed crossed his arms. “Yeah. I make do.”

The man’s grin twitched. “Oh, sorry!” He held out a black-gloved hand. “Stede Bonnet.”

Oddly fucking chipper for a flight inspector. Ed took his hand in a firm, but curt, shake. “Ed Teach.”

---

“I used to fly, but only recreationally.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. There’s no real piloting required on our end, it’s all automated. You just plug in routes, and the ship takes you there.“

Stede frowned. “Well, that sort of takes all the fun out of it.”

Ed blinked at the bluntness of his statement. “Yeah. Yeah, it does," he agreed.

---

“I can’t figure it out,” Ed said into the dark. 

The ship’s whiny fucking air filtration system kept whirring, refusing to allow any silence to follow his words. 

He could hear Stede shuffling in the bunk above him. “Figure what out?” he asked, after a moment. 

They were separated only by a slightly sagging metal panel and one ridiculously thin mattress. Ed’s nose was practically pressed to the underside of the upper bunk. 

It felt like too little distance, in honesty, but somehow, it made him feel less guilty to pry when they were like this. While he didn’t have to meet Stede’s eyes.

“What it is you’re running from,” Ed answered. 

He heard more rustling, and suddenly Stede’s head popped into view, over the side of the opening. He’d moved abruptly enough for Ed to startle, which he did, clanging into his sleep cubby’s metal back wall with a barely repressed, “Fuck—”

“What makes you think I’m running from something?” Stede asked. 

In the dark, he couldn’t really make out what sort of expression Stede wore, and even then, Ed couldn’t hold his gaze. He watched the blinking light on the terminal monitor mounted to the opposite wall instead. “Dunno if you knew, but no one takes this sort of job when their life’s going well, mate. Every scrapper I’ve known’s been running from something.”

Stede hummed. “Every scrapper?”

“What I said.”

“Does that include you?”

Ed paused. The silhouette of Stede’s head cocked to one side. 

There hadn’t been any snark, or malice in his asking, Ed realized. Just genuine curiosity. 

When Ed didn’t answer right away, Stede continued softly, “The scavenger contracts last five years, but you’ve got logs dating back a lot longer.”

---

The factory was a goddamn maze of looping service corridors. Tentatively, and after some discussion, they decided to split up to cover more ground.

Ed was sitting on the ground unscrewing the door off a storage locker, one hand on the radio to guide Stede through the process of taking apart a winch crane he'd excitedly discovered, when the line went dead.

It wouldn’t be enough to cover it, to describe the feeling like being dunked in ice. Static buzzed suddenly from the speaker where there was once life and voice, and Ed may as well have been jettisoned into fucking space.

The task at hand evaporated. He was on his feet in an instant—flashlight, tools, all abandoned on the soot-stained ground.

“Stede,” he said into the transmitter.

No answer. Just more static.

Ed’s heart started fucking racing. The stupid alarm on his visor flashed an irritated red about it.

He'd started running before he realized it. Like that old shitty jukebox on the ship skipping a record forward, he was sprinting without having made the decision to be, absolutely fucking gunning it back up the metal grate stairs and over the creaking catwalk and into the tunnels where he’d seen Stede off.

The plastic ridges of the walkie groaned in protest from how hard Ed was squeezing it. He pressed the button to speak, managed to bite out between exerted breaths, “Stede, pick up the fucking radio, this isn’t a game.”

He meant for it to be angry, but in the end he just sounded scared.

---

“Ed! Hi!” He sounded…delighted. At ease. Like nothing was wrong, like Ed’s blood pressure wasn’t actively soaring on his account. “Sorry we got cut off. One of these pipes burst and I suppose the steam was thick enough to scatter the signal. It’s sorted now!”

“Sorted,” Ed echoed. “Steam pipe. Right.”

He could hear it, listening past his own pulse roaring like gunfire in his ears. The faintest hiss of steam as it flowed through the rusted pipes secured along the tunnel walls.

“Look,” Ed said. “You—stay where you are, alright? I’m gonna come find you. Stay there.”

When the walkie beeped again, there was a half-second of hesitation before Stede said, “Okay, yes, I hear you. Alright.”

Another beep, and a moment of air, like Stede had something more to say. Ed waited.

The line closed again, wordlessly.

So, fine. Safe to say Ed gave a shit. And really, that put it lightly.

[cecilspeaks]

162 - “Alpha”

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Fear makes the heart grow louder. And death makes the heart grow flowers. Welcome to Night Vale.

Amelia Anna Alfaro was always the best at everything. On the day she was born, she was named the healthiest baby at Night Vale General Hospital. The doctors had never seen a healthier baby. “What a healthy baby,” they said from behind a bullet proof two-way mirror, as they operated the robotic arms that carefully held the infant aloft. The doctors high-fived each other, missing slightly. The trick, by the way, is to keep your eye on the other person’s elbow. That or glue high-powered magnets to each person’s hand. And all of the nurses cheered from dozens of feet down the hallway, where they were playing with a standard Tarot deck, common in most neonatal units. This cheering was unrelated to Amelia’s birth. The nurses had drawn the ten of swords, which is everyone’s favorite card. It features a relaxed man receiving acupuncture by a river.

Amelia learned to walk at 4 months, and to talk at 6 months. She read Plato’s “Republic” for the first time at age 4. She taught herself German and began to write sonnets in that language at age 7. At age 10, she won her first engineering competition after designing a concrete canoe that could float even on the most turbulent water. There is no body of water in Night Vale, so she had to prove her work using a software she wrote that generated three-dimensional models to corroborate her advanced mechanical physics formulas. She even won the state spelling bee five years in a row, from ages 9 to 13. Her streak was only broken when the spelling bee was canceled, after the sponsors lost their dictionary.

Amelia was always the best, and her mother knew it. Her mother was proud of her daughter, or rather, her mother was proud of herself for producing such a daughter. Or rather, she was proud of both, in a way that was difficult for them to untangle. Amelia’s mother was named Yvette. Yvette could not afford much for her daughter. She worked long hours to earn the respect of her bosses, which (-) [0:04:32] her promotions and larger paychecks, but Yvette had hit the glass ceiling. She did not want this limitation for her daughter. Her daughter would need to be smarter, more talented, and more driven than she. Yvette wanted Amelia’s value to the world to be so great that no one could deny her success.

Yvette recognized Amelia’s specialness and pushed hard to make her even more special, signing Amelia up for athletics and adult learning classes and piano lessons. Amelia sometimes pushed against this. “Mother, I don’t want to” was met with, “But you will, Amelia.” “Why?” was met with, “Because I said so.” “I hate you for this” was met with, “You will love me for it later.”

Begrudgingly, Amelia fulfilled her mother’s wishes. It wasn’t because she understood her mother’s motivation to secure her child a better life, nor was it because Amelia did not have the stomach to fight back. No, Amelia did it because it all came so easy. She was a black belt, a sharp shooter, an academic decathlon champion. She wrote her first novel at age 12, it was called “A Golden Age for Parachuting”, in which an all-Jewish female parachute team wins Olympic gold in 1936 Berlin in front of Adolf Hitler. In the publisher’s rejection letter, the editor said the novel was “immaculately written, however parachuting stories are out of vogue. Do you have anything about magical baseball players?” Amelia did. It was a novel called “One Last Swing for the Tuesday Boys”, but she had written it in German and did not have time to translate the “Dienstag Jungen” manuscript, because she was currently taking a course on bird husbandry.

Yvette enrolled the teenage Amelia in night classes at the community college, where she took English 113, “Sonnets are for lovers”; structural engineering 212, “Buttress is a funny word”; and meteorology 301, “Clouds y’all, amirite?” She earned all As and scores for college credit before she even graduated high school. None of these challenges were difficult for Amelia. She was the best at everything.

But her life was not perfect. Because of the voices. It was the voices that made life hard for Amelia. From birth, she heard the constant chatter of dozens of people. None of the voices spoke directly to  Amelia, they just talked and talked about their lives, and Amelia was afraid of the voices and what the voices might imply about herself. She found solace in puzzles, crosswords, nonograms, acrostics, cryptics, Sudoku, which I think is the one where you have to catch a bunch of marbles with a lever operated hippopotamus. Her mother hated Amelia’s puzzle vice. If she caught Amelia doing puzzles, Yvette would make Amelia go practice archery or write poetry or at least listen to classical music. Amelia’s favorite was Van Cliburn’s masterful 1961 record of Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto nr 13: Knuckles on the Black Keys”. When she was thinking through the solution of a puzzle, the voices did not speak to her. All was silent. It was her only time of peace. It was the only time her body could rest and curl up comfortably into her own thoughts. Anything that took her away from her logic problems including music, no matter how soothing, invited the voices back into Amelia’s thoughts.

Amelia was accepted to several top colleges across the country, including MIT, Stanford, Rice and The University of What It Is, but she wanted to stay near her home town and her family, so she went to State. Hey, that’s where my brother-in-law went! Go State! [chuckles] Ahem. She was elected the youngest president of the student body ever at age 17, and graduated valedictorian two years later. Her friends, her professors, her mother all knew the world was Amelia’s. She could become poet laureate or a senator or a supreme court justice or a quantum physicist. But she became none of those. This is not to say Amelia was not successful or that she amounted to nothing. It is to say, the semantics of success were her own and no one else’s. Amelia became an air traffic controller. The voices never told Amelia to become an air traffic controller, they were never that specific. The voices did not tell her to do anything, they simply talked about first dates, about  apartment hunting, about their grandmothers’ improved health, about a bad movie they sort of loved. None of the voices talked directly to her, it was simply as though she overheard conversations from lives lived somewhere else. Other people and their quotidian hopes and worries and interests. She tried seeing therapists and psychiatrists. She tried medication to stop the voices, but nothing worked. Eventually she decided they were not harmful voices and that she was not dealing with schizophrenia. She simply heard people talking at all hours about all things, having nothing to do with her. And they never told her to become an air traffic controller. Amelia chose her own career, her own path. Others though the reason was that it was the fist job opportunity to present itself for her. Maybe it was her admiration of aircraft, maybe a moral sense of serving humanity through public safety and comfort. In fact, it was none of these reasons. But it should not be surprising to know that Amelia was very good at air traffic control. She was calm, clear, and efficient. The Night Vale international airport, although when Amelia started it was just a commuter hub, has never had a high volume of plane traffic and almost all of those are departures. There are very few arrivals. My husband Carlos, he’s a scientist and he is also very good at his job, tells me that it’s impossible to have far more departures than arrivals, but I told him, not everything has to make sense all the time.

So, in some ways, air traffic control in Night Vale was easier for Amelia than just about any other class or job or task she’d ever attempted. It appeared from the outside to be far below her capabilities. She held that job for 20 years, even taking over as president of the Night Vale chapter of air traffic controllers’ union. In 2004, she was featured in the cover of “Afformative”, a monthly trade magazine for air traffic controllers. The headline of the article was “You’re cleared for success”. In 2006, she was asked to deliver the keynote speech at the annual Roger Con, a conventional for air traffic controllers and fans of air traffic control. It’s a huge deal, held every year in Orlando. People dress like their favorite airline pilots and wait in long lines for autographs from top flight attendants. There are even panel discussions about everything from the best textiles for seat cushions to secret first class meal offerings. Amelia was the best at what she did. She probably would have been the best poet laureate or senator, but this was the path she chose. She chose this path because of the voices, not from what they said, but what they didn’t say. When Amelia was in the control tower, when she was communicating with captains and co-pilots and navigators, her head was clear. All was silent. It was like those many nights, sneaking a copy of the crossword from the newspaper on the kitchenette and solving it by flashlight under her covers. She became an air traffic controller to be by herself, to become her own person. Her mother was disappointed, but loved her in spite of it. Her professors were let down, but still had many fabulous of their greatest student. Her friends were just happy she was happy.

Things changed on June 15, 2012, when Delta flight 18713 made radio contact. In her tall tower, at her tiny airport, in the middle of a vast desert, in the middle of the American Southwest, an airplane appeared on Amelia’s radar. It was carrying 143 passengers and 6 crew members and was flying from Detroit to Albany over the great lakes of the American Northeast. It appeared briefly, the green dot blinking in and out of existence like the sun glinting off a water ripple. It was almost unnoticeable. But everyone noticed it. Later, Amelia was the only one who admitted to noticing it. The radio transmission was equally brief, a surge of static and only one word, difficult to discern but she heard it. “Alpha” was the single word. The letter A in the Nato alphabet. It was garbled, so maybe it wasn’t that word, maybe it was some more adult variation of “Oh fudge”. Alpha. Oh fudge. It was unclear. Amelia requested identification of the aircraft. She requested further communication, but nothing came. As soon as it had squawked, it had gone silent. But while the radio communication was silent, the voices were not. On June 15, 2012, upon hearing a word that sounded like “alpha”, these myriad conversations returned. No one else in the tower could hear them, but Amelia Anna Alfaro could. And for the first time in her life, she began to speak back to them. Everyone else in the tower could hear that. The voices did not cease. The voices continued for days and days and Amelia tried to talk back with them. As one voice said: “I have an interview on Monday,” Amelia would ask “for what job” or if a voice said, “We went to Palm Springs on vacation,” Amelia would say, “Did you also travel out to the Salton Sea?” But over and over, no response. The voices did not affect the quality of Amelia’s work, but it did affect the perceived quality of her work, and her colleagues became uncomfortable with and distrusting of Amelia.

A month later, Amelia heard that word again from one of the voices. “Alpha”. The same voice that radioed in June. But upon hearing it again, she realizes that they didn’t say “alpha” at all. What they said, coming up.

But first The weather.

[“Skinchanger” by Skeptic skepticdeath.bandcamp.com]

The voices said “Alfaro”. The word had been truncated just as the airplane’s appearance in Night Vale had been truncated. The voice saying the word was the captain of the aircraft, and he had been trying to tell Amelia something. The pilot was trying to tell Amelia that he knew her, had always known her since her birth. He didn’t know how he knew her, just that he did, and he wanted to tell her he had found her. And she should find him. “Where are you,” Amelia asked the captain. “No Where,” the voice said. “Did you land?” Amelia asked. “Yes,” the voice said. “Were there injuries?” Amelia asked. “Minor,” the voice said. “Do you hear the other voices too?” Amelia asked. “Yes,” the captain said. “I’m with them right now. Find us, Amelia.” “Where are you?” Amelia asked again, louder, more scared than before. “No Where,” the voice said, not like the vague concept of in no place but No Where, two words capitalized like the name of a specific place. Amelia felt a tap on her shoulder. It was another air traffic controller. “Uh, boss wants to see you, Amelia,” they said. But Amelia did not go to see the boss. She knew. She knew her time in the tower was done. She grabbed her belongings and walked to the elevator, out across the tarmac to a shuttle to a parking lot and into her car, and no one saw her again. Her friends said she always talked about going back to school to get an advanced degree. Maybe she went to Stanford. Or Rice, or The University of What It Is. Other friends said she had lost all touch with reality, talking to people who were not there, and maybe her mother checked Amelia into the Night Vale asylum.

Yvette says Amelia knew too much, that agents from a vague yet menacing government agency had been to their house and that Amelia must have been taken to a secret location. Representatives from the National Safety and Transportation Bureau in Washington, DC, came to Night Vale two months ago to investigate the disappearance of flight 18713. They are on an undercover mission inside the Night Vale asylum right now, on a tip from Sheriff Sam, to discover more clues into this mystery. Perhaps Amelia is in there too. But I don’t think so. I think she went to find the plane. I think the voices were the passengers on Delta 18713. I think she set out looking for them. Perhaps wandering the desert, the great No Where, to find the people who had been a part of her life since birth.

Amelia. Anna. Alfaro. was always the best at everything. And if anyone will find the plane, she will.

Stay tuned next for our new investment advice show “Billionaire Roulette”.

And as always, Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Love means never having to say “you’re a werewolf”.

[expshared]

this season was kind of whack, but at least we had Eizouken

Heya Camp is just kind of a lazy reminder that Yuru Camp exists, and will continue to exist in the future. You remember these characters?? OK good, just making sure. That said, did I immediately feel the tension release in my entire body when I heard the OST? Duh. Did I sing “it’s coffee time” to the ending not knowing these were the incorrect lyrics? The entire time.

I don’t know what to do with Isekai Quartet because like, objectively, I should hate it. I do not enjoy like 2.5 of the shows involved, and the addition of Shield Hero was not a welcome one. Turns out it doesn’t matter anyway because it was just Isekai Quartet and also Naofumi is Sometimes Scowling in the Background and that’s about as much of him as I want to see anyway. And yet? I do enjoy this Disney Channel Original Crossover. There’s something inherently fun about watching these characters from disparate shows interact with each other, and no matter what the original stakes were in their respective series, they’re all just doing homework and getting part time jobs and that shit’s funny when a big skeleton man is doing it.

After its first episode, Asteroid in Love was kind of a slog. This is your typical seasonal CGDGT show, and apart from that, I really can’t think of anything to say about it. I didn’t learn anything about the Extremely Niche Topic these girls are doing, and it wasn’t even that gay. Disappointing. 

I was really looking forward to Toilet Bound Hanako-kun because I am a big fan of the source material, but I was pretty let down by this adaptation. It seems that they prioritized the art style and the color scheme above everything else, but that essentially just meant the entire project ended up being colored manga panels. I wanted to see them move around! There was not a single moment of animation that justified it being an anime. You might as well have been watching a PowerPoint. I can’t think of anything nice to say. Let’s move on. 

Bofuri is my power fantasy. I want to play a video game so cluelessly I break it into tiny pieces and bumble into being the most powerful player in the world’s nicest MMORPG. Maple turns powercreep into powersprint. What Bofuri lacks in character development or plot, it makes up for in outrageous Maple feats. She holds the entire world in the palm of her hand and she doesn’t even know it. She named her OP pet turtle Syrup and then turned into an alien abomination unknown to the world and went on a killing rampage. This anime was Maple Crossing Online. Love you, Maple. Wreck shit, Maple. 

If My Favorite Idol Got Into Budokan, I Would Die walks a thin line and what separates it from being a slobbering idol otaku engine preaching how Cool it is to Be an Otaku and an Idol Show Watamote is the fact that Eripiyo is a girl. That’s it. If you took her and replaced her with your average Joe Schmoe-san, this show would be insufferably creepy. Every time I was waiting for it to topple over, Jenga-like, it managed to right itself and straddle the tightrope. It’s not a particularly subtle piece of media, nor does it do what I was hoping it would do and engage in any sort of conversation about the obsessive nature of idol otakudom, but you know what it does a good job of doing? Portraying being an idol as a job. Just some adults putting on underground shows and selling the same CD of like two songs over and over again. I was also hoping it would address what happened to Eripiyo, maybe talk about why at the beginning she’s dressed like an office worker and apparently gives that all up to follow this kinda-shitty idol group, why this fanatic escapism is preferable, or even maybe address how gay it is? Not in the cards, though. Honestly Budokan was, despite itself, pretty enjoyable? There are some great background lesbians. Also can we talk about how consistently good the production values were on this show? Why did this have such great dance sequences? Why did this look better than Love “Has More Money Than God” Live? Actually no I take everything back this show was kind of just Idol Otaku Watamote

Hey, let’s talk about the other idol show airing this season: the completely unhinged 22/7. This show is Whack. This show operates on an entire different plane of reality. I know nothing about the actual band, so I came into this blind and oh my god. Hey guys, the plot of 22/7 is that a Wall tells some girls to form an idol unit.  A sentient Wall whose orders absolutely must be followed. Why? Dunno! What happens if you don’t follow its orders? Never elaborated on. (Actually, is this a reference to Pink Floyd? I have no fucking clue.) In any case these eight girls, summoned by a letter from the Wall, are all invited to become an idol group, and then they’re magically an idol group. It’s unclear how they become successful, how they book gigs, who’s keeping the lights on at the agency, how they’re getting paid, who HR is, how their gorilla man agent found this Wall and determined that all its directives Must Be Followed, but shit, man. What follows in 22/7 is a one-member-per-episode serial that quite frankly stumbles far more often than it succeeds. One girl’s grandma died and that’s why she came to Japan. One girl had a traumatizing experience where she got lost in the woods for a week and it broke her family apart and now things just suck forever. These things are equal. One poor girl’s entire episode was about how she didn’t want to put on a bathing suit for a photo shoot and how uncomfortable she felt about it, but in the end she was made to apologize for dragging her feet for so long and takes her photo for a pin up. Yuck. Gross. Bad. The only valid girl is Jun, end of discussion. None of this even holds a candle to the finale-- wherein the girls are directed by the Wall to disband, and, defying an order for the first time, the girls return to their agency and throw shit at the Wall until it breaks down. It’s revealed that the Wall isn’t supernatural-- behind it are tv monitors, photos of the girls as children, records of their activities. A person or people are behind this. Why??? Are they being groomed?? Is the Wall a metaphor for the Industry? I’m so concerned. The girls aren’t, though, because after a little side eyeing, they ascend a staircase and wow! A Stage! Our fans are all here for our reunion tour! And then they’re fine and I guess their idol group is back together or something? Did I mention the stage where they perform? It’s at a zoo. I can’t tell if this is the most scathing condemnation of idol culture I’ve ever watched or just completely oblivious. The characters don’t engage in any sort of thought about what they’re being put through, but they are performing their final song, the lyrics of which are about how life is just too hard to keep on living, at a zoo and I don’t think you can have that sort of thing happen unless you’re trying to make a point. Right??? RIGHT?!? Dance and sing, monkeys.

Smile Down the Runway was another show completely divorced from reality. So you got your main character, Chiyuki, whose thing is that she’s Too Short to Be a Model at her father’s very prestigious modeling agency. Which, like, is valid! Let’s see some variation in the modeling industry. Let’s shake it up. Let’s lead the charge for alternative models with bodies outside of the very narrow requirements of the fashion industry. What’s that, Chiyuki? You have no interest in that? You want to be a Hypermodel? I don’t know what that shit is, I think you made it up. Our other protagonist is Ikuto, the destitute, put upon, bobcut boy with a dying mother and 3 younger siblings who is trying to pursue his dream of becoming a fashion designer. Are you beginning to sense the problem here? There is a fundamental imbalance in the presentation of these characters’ goals and situations. Also? Emotions are at an eleven, always. Characters are always acting as if they’ve just seen someone get murdered in front of their eyes even when it’s like. There’s a messed up seam. They are constantly being mortified, crushed, and having their dreams ripped away. One time, two different assholes offered Ikuto magical mom-fixing blood money when he was struggling to come up with funds to pay off his medical debt at the cost of giving up his spot in the fashion show. Wildin’ 

Haikyuu didn’t exactly come in like a lion, but I’m sure it’ll be more organic upon rewatching. We were laying the groundwork for much of this season so I’m expecting it to payoff later, but the beginning definitely lagged. Every time Haikyuu hints at a women’s volleyball tournament, I want a volleyball anime with girls. Man, those ten minutes we got with Kiyoko? Those were great. 

I don’t have too much to say about Somali and Forest Spirit. Abe’s “Make Children” agenda feels at least a little more like a narrative choice in this anime, and I enjoyed Somali and the Golem’s relationship and their travels were in equal turns harrowing and heartwarming. And I did tear up at the end so you got me there, anime. 

In/Spectre has some balls being an anime. It’s existed as a light novel and a manga and those are both superior mediums for it because let’s put all our cards on the table here-- In/Spectre is a show about talking. Five whole entire episodes take place in a car. The finale is winning an argument in an anonymous 4chan chatroom. That said, I have such a fondness for In/Spectre. I think Kotoko rocks. I think a show willing to do nothing but talk at you for two hours is badass. Sitting through this anime is like watching a podcast. I think the show engages in some great dialogue about human nature and how we prefer stories that are theatrical, narratively-driven, and have a logical cause-and-effect, instead of the truth, which is more often than not grim, and disappointing, and illogical. I like that Kotoko’s only function, in-story and out of it, is to bullshit so hard she invents alternate realities. Anyway In/Spectre is good. 

There’s no praise I can lavish on Eizouken that hasn’t already been said. It’s powerful, it’s strange, it’s energetic, and it’s packaged with such love. It’s repurposed the CGDCT template into something deeply affecting. It’s an anime for people who love animation.  I hope everyone watches Eizouken.

[mehdijeffery-blog]

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[daughterofluthien]

Fictober - Day 8

Fanfiction

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla

Rating: T

Warnings: canonical major injury, depression/ptsd, crisis of faith

Word Count: 1.4K

Prompt 8 - “Can you stay?”

According to the date and time on her chronometer, it had been three standard weeks, five days, 23 hours, and 43 minutes since Kanan and Ezra had returned from Malachor. 

Hera knew the exact time by heart because the Phantom’s computer kept a log. And since the following days for her had been a whirlwind of reports and logistics and demanding that Commander Sato send, at the very least, a med droid and…. Well, it had seemed important at the time, so she had kept a record.

Looking at the date now, she nearly rechecked her calculations because it felt like it should be so much longer. Time was split down the middle now, into Before Malachor and After Malachor; After seemed to hold at least the weight of everything that came before it.

After their return, she had been so wrapped up in next steps and trying to institute some semblance of order and normalcy back into their lives, that it was days before she finally actually noticed Kanan and Ezra themselves. When she slowed down enough to pay attention to something that wasn’t paperwork, she finally understood that nothing was going to be the same.

That was the first night she cried in her bunk. It wasn’t the last.

Now, three weeks after that night, the crew had started to settle into a sort of routine. It wasn’t like before -- would never be like before -- but… It was something.

Ezra was uninjured, but he was sullen and angry more often than not these days. He wouldn’t talk about it, but from what little Kanan had told her, she assumed he felt guilty about what happened to Kanan. She had decided the best thing to do was keep him busy, so she started to send him out of missions and supply runs -- sometimes alone, sometimes with Sabine and Zeb. Each assignment she gave him ended more successfully than the last, and the Alliance brass were so impressed that they were already talking about giving him an official rank.

But as far as Ezra himself was concerned, her plan didn’t seem to be working. Instead of working out his aggression and guilt, he seemed to come back from each mission in a worse mood than the one he had left in. Hera knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t okay, but since he wouldn’t talk about it -- wouldn’t even admit that something was wrong -- she had no idea what she was supposed to do about it.

...She really hated problems that she didn’t have a solution to.

Kanan, however, was different; at least there was something that she could fix there.

Except, there wasn’t. The med droid had been requested and received -- one of the newest models that the Alliance had been able to get their hands on -- and it had done its job well. Bacta had been applied and some minor reconstructive surgery performed, but at the end of it all, the results were conclusive: the structures of the eyes themselves were irreparably damaged.

Kanan would never see again.

That was the night that Hera cried for the second time. She cried because Kanan couldn’t, because the lightsaber strike that blinded him had also apparently seared through his tear ducts, melting them shut. 

That could be repaired with surgery, of course. But right then they weren’t,  and so Hera cried.

As far as his eyes themselves, there were cybernetic implants that could do the trick. But they were expensive, and according to the droid, the surgery was incredibly complex. Hands and legs and the like were easy enough, but the human eye was connected by over a million nerves that all needed to be connected individually. Add to that the complication that it was difficult to tell whether any of Kanan’s nerve endings themselves had been damaged, and it all added up to something that needed to be done in an actual medcenter. And of course, official medcenters were out of the question, and Hera was wary about trusting an unofficial one.

Though, she was fully prepared to make inquiries if that was what Kanan wanted to do. But he had declined the offer, and that was that.

His eyes were healing -- at least as much as they ever would. But she didn’t think that Kanan was.

Hera checked the chronometer again: it was past midnight now, which meant it was four weeks and five minutes After Malachor. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted time to speed up or slow down.

What she was sure of at this particular moment in time was that it was incredibly late, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bunk and go to sleep. So she closed out the report that she was writing on her datapad, and started to make her way to the other side of the ship.

That was when she saw Kanan.

He was at the door to his quarters, and seemed to be having difficulty finding the door controls.

“Down and a little to the left,” she supplied, and winced when he visibly started. She should’ve known to announce herself a little better than that, or at least been a little louder coming down the hall.

(Not that he used to need to be able to see or hear her to know she was coming, but she couldn’t even begin to know why that would be different.)

Kanan followed her directions, and his hand found the panel, which he activated. He sighed, and sounded like someone who was bone-weary. “Thanks. Do you want to come in?”

“Now, how could I resist an invitation like that?” She smiled, and hoped some of her humor came across in her voice.

It must have, because Kanan grinned, and for a moment he looked so much like his old self that her breath caught in her throat. “That’s me: irresistible.” He nodded at the door. “After you.”

She stepped inside and keyed on the lights, then watched as he made his much more careful way inside, one hand out to brush across the wall of the little room until he found his bunk. He sat down heavily.

Hera leaned against the wall, watching him. He looked so tired. “How’re you doing?”

“Well, according to the droid, I’m almost entirely healed. I can even stop using the bacta as long as I keep my eyes covered whenever I go out.” He cocked his head in her direction. “You know we’re going to have to give him back eventually, right? He’s been pretty clear about the fact that there’s not much more he can do.”

“Sato said we could have him for as long as he would be useful. I want to be sure before we send him anyone. And besides, you know that’s not what I meant.”

Kanan sighed. “If you want the truth, I feel like I’m drifting. I’m… unmoored, lost all over again. Like I was back when we met.”

“Back when we met, you really were a drifter,” Hera pointed out. “You were living above a bar.”

“And sometimes I feel like I’m right back there. Back at the beginning, and nothing’s really changed at all.” He paused, apparently thinking about his words before he decided he should just say them. “Hera, I finally thought I had a purpose again; I thought I knew what I was doing. What I was supposed to do. It turns out all I got for my trouble was getting betrayed again.”

“Betrayed? By Maul?” Hera had heard the story of how the apparent former Sith Lord had gained Ezra’s trust, then turned on them all.

Kanan shook his head. “By the Force. I used to think that it was a curse and would bring me nothing but trouble and heartache. Maybe I was right.”

Hera had no idea what to say to that. So she sat down beside him on the bunk instead. “Well, you’ve got one thing you didn’t have back then.”

“What’s that?”

“Me.” She reached out and wrapped her hand around his larger one. “Ever since I agreed to take you on, we haven’t just been a good team; Kanan, we’ve been the best. I know we’re going to get through this, you and me. Together.”

He snorted softly. “You really believe that?”

“I do.” And she said it with so much conviction that he must have believed her, because he seemed to accept it.

They sat like that, hand in hand, for a long moment. Kanan broke the silence first, and when he did he was so quiet that she could barely hear him. “Hera?”

“Yes, love?”

“Can you stay? Tonight, I mean.”

She squeezed his hand and pressed her shoulder against his. He must have needed the physical contact as much as she did, because she could feel him lean into it. “Of course I can,” she replied. “Whatever you need.”

[artelingua]

'We have a once-in-century chance': Naomi Klein on how we can fight the climate crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/14/crisis-talk-green-new-deal-naomi-klein

On a Friday in mid-March, they streamed out of schools in little rivulets, burbling with excitement and defiance at an act of truancy. The little streams emptied on to grand avenues and boulevards, where they combined with other flows of chanting children and teens. Soon the rivulets were rushing rivers: 100,000 bodies in Milan, 40,000 in Paris, 150,000 in Montreal. Cardboard signs bobbed above the surf of humanity: THERE IS NO PLANET B! DON’T BURN OUR FUTURE. THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!

There was no student strike in Mozambique; on 15 March the whole country was bracing for the impact of Cyclone Idai, one of the worst storms in Africa’s history, which drove people to take refuge at the tops of trees as the waters rose and would eventually kill more than 1,000 people. And then, just six weeks later, while it was still clearing the rubble, Mozambique would be hit by Cyclone Kenneth, yet another record-breaking storm.

Wherever in the world they live, this generation has something in common: they are the first for whom climate disruption on a planetary scale is not a future threat, but a lived reality. Oceans are warming 40% faster than the United Nations predicted five years ago. And a sweeping study on the state of the Arctic, published in April 2019 in Environmental Research Letters and led by the renowned glaciologist Jason Box, found that ice in various forms is melting so rapidly that the “Arctic biophysical system is now clearly trending away from its 20th-century state and into an unprecedented state, with implications not only within but also beyond the Arctic.” In May 2019, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services published a report about the startling loss of wildlife around the world, warning that a million species of animals and plants are at risk of extinction. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever,” said the chair, Robert Watson. “We are eroding the very foundations of economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide. We have lost time. We must act now.”

It has been more than three decades since governments and scientists started officially meeting to discuss the need to lower greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the dangers of climate breakdown. In the intervening years, we have heard countless appeals for action that involve “the children,” “the grandchildren,” and “generations to come”. Yet global CO2 emissions have risen by more than 40%, and they continue to rise. The planet has warmed by about 1C since we began burning coal on an industrial scale and average temperatures are on track to rise by as much as four times that amount before the century is up; the last time there was this much CO2 in the atmosphere, humans didn’t exist.

As for those children and grandchildren and generations to come who were invoked so promiscuously? They are no longer mere rhetorical devices. They are now speaking (and screaming, and striking) for them selves. Unlike so many adults in positions of authority, they have not yet been trained to mask the unfathomable stakes of our moment in the language of bureaucracy and overcomplexity. They understand that they are fighting for the fundamental right to live full lives – lives in which they are not, as 13-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor puts it, “running from disasters”.

On that day in March 2019, organisers estimate there were nearly 2,100 youth climate strikes in 125 countries, with 1.6 million young people participating. That’s quite an achievement for a movement that began eight months earlier with a single teenager deciding to go on strike from school in Stockholm, Sweden: Greta Thunberg.

The wave of youth mobilisation that burst on to the scene in March 2019 is not just the result of one girl and her unique way of seeing the world, extraordinary though she is. Thunberg is quick to note that she was inspired by another group of teenagers who rose up against a different kind of failure to protect their futures: the students in Parkland, Florida, who led a national wave of class walkouts demanding tough controls on gun ownership after 17 people were murdered at their school in February 2018.

Nor is Thunberg the first person with tremendous moral clarity to yell “Fire!” in the face of the climate crisis. Such voices have emerged multiple times over the past several decades; indeed, it is something of a ritual at the annual UN summits on climate change. But perhaps because these earlier voices belonged to people from the Philippines, the Marshall Islands and South Sudan, those clarion calls were one-day stories, if that. Thunberg is also quick to point out that the climate strikes themselves were the work of thousands of diverse student leaders, their teachers and supporting organisations, many of whom had been raising the climate alarm for years.

As a manifesto put out by British climate strikers put it: “Greta Thunberg may have been the spark, but we’re the wildfire.”

For a decade and half, ever since reporting from New Orleans with water up to my waist after Hurricane Katrina, I have been trying to figure out what is interfering with humanity’s basic survival instinct – why so many of us aren’t acting as if our house is on fire when it so clearly is. I have written books, made films, delivered countless talks and co-founded an organisation (The Leap) devoted, in one way or another, to exploring this question and trying to help align our collective response to the scale of the climate crisis.

It was clear to me from the start that the dominant theories about how we had landed on this knife edge were entirely insufficient. We were failing to act, it was said, because politicians were trapped in short-term electoral cycles, or because climate change seemed too far off, or because stopping it was too expensive, or because the clean technologies weren’t there yet. There was some truth in all the explanations, but they were also becoming markedly less true over time. The crisis wasn’t far off; it was banging down our doors. The price of solar panels has plummeted and now rivals that of fossil fuels. Clean tech and renewables create far more jobs than coal, oil, and gas. As for the supposedly prohibitive costs, trillions have been marshalled for endless wars, bank bailouts and subsidies for fossil fuels, in the same years that coffers have been virtually empty for climate transition. There had to be more to it.

Which is why, over the years, I have set out to probe a different set of barriers – some economic, some ideological, but others related to the deep stories about the right of certain people to dominate land and the people living closest to it, stories that underpin contemporary western culture. And I have investigated the kinds of responses that might succeed in toppling those narratives, ideologies and economic interests, responses that weave seemingly disparate crises (economic, social, ecological and democratic) into a common story of civilisational transformation. Today, this sort of bold vision increasingly goes under the banner of a Green New Deal.

Because, as deep as our crisis runs, something equally deep is also shifting, and with a speed that startles me. Social movements rising up to declare, from below, a people’s emergency. In addition to the wildfire of student strikes, we have seen the rise of Extinction Rebellion, which kicked off a wave of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience, including a mass shutdown of large parts of central London. Within days of its most dramatic actions in April 2019, Wales and Scotland both declared a state of “climate emergency,” and the British parliament, under pressure from opposition parties, quickly followed suit.

Humanity has a once-in-a-century chance to fix an economic model that is failing the majority of people on multiple fronts

In the US, we have seen the meteoric rise of the Sunrise Movement, which burst on to the political stage when it occupied the office of Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in Washington, DC, one week after her party had won back the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. They called on Congress to immediately adopt a rapid decarbonisation framework, one as ambitious in speed and scope as Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal, the sweeping package of policies designed to battle the poverty of the Great Depression and the ecological collapse of the Dust Bowl.

The idea behind the Green New Deal is a simple one: in the process of transforming the infrastructure of our societies at the speed and scale that scientists have called for, humanity has a once-in-a-century chance to fix an economic model that is failing the majority of people on multiple fronts. Because the factors that are destroying our planet are also destroying people’s lives in many other ways, from wage stagnation to gaping inequalities to crumbling services to surging white supremacy to the collapse of our information ecology. Challenging underlying forces is an opportunity to solve several interlocking crises at once.

In tackling the climate crisis, we can create hundreds of millions of goods jobs around the world, invest in the most systematically excluded communities and nations, guarantee healthcare and childcare, and much more. The result of these transformations would be economies built both to protect and to regenerate the planet’s life support systems and to respect and sustain the people who depend on them.

This vision is not new; its origins can be traced to social movements in ecologically ravaged parts of Ecuador and Nigeria, as well as to highly polluted communities of colour in the United States. What is new is that there is now a bloc of politicians in the US, Europe, and elsewhere, some just a decade older than the young climate activists in the streets, ready to translate the urgency of the climate crisis into policy, and to connect the dots among the multiple crises of our times. Most prominent among this new political breed is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, at 29, became the youngest woman ever elected to the US Congress. Introducing a Green New Deal was part of the platform she ran on. Today, with the race to lead the Democratic party in full swing, a majority of leading presidential hopefuls claim to support it, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker. It had been endorsed, meanwhile, by 105 members of the House and Senate.

The idea is spreading around the world, with the political coalition European Spring launching a green new deal for Europe in January 2019 and a broad green new deal coalition of organisations in Canada coming together (the leader of the New Democratic party has adopted the frame, if not its full ambition, as one of his policy planks). The same is true in the UK, where the Labour party is in the middle of negotiations over whether to adopt a green new deal‑style platform.

Those of us who advocate for this kind of transformative platform are sometimes accused of using it to advance a socialist or anticapitalist agenda that predates our focus on the climate crisis. My response is a simple one. For my entire adult life, I have been involved in movements confronting the myriad ways that our current economic systems grinds up people’s lives and landscapes in the ruthless pursuit of profit. No Logo, published 20 years ago, documented the human and ecological costs of corporate globalisation, from the sweatshops of Indonesia to the oil fields of the Niger Delta. I have seen teenage girls treated like machines to make our machines, and mountains and forests turned to trash heaps to get at the oil, coal and metals beneath.

The painful, even lethal, impacts of these practices were impossible to deny; it was simply argued that they were the necessary costs of a system that was creating so much wealth that the benefits would eventually trickle down to improve the lives of nearly everyone on the planet. What has happened instead is that the indifference to life that was expressed in the exploitation of individual workers on factory floors and in the decimation of individual mountains and rivers has instead trickled up to swallow our entire planet, turning fertile lands into salt flats, beautiful islands into rubble, and draining once vibrant reefs of their life and colour.

I freely admit that I do not see the climate crisis as separable from the more localised market-generated crises that I have documented over the years; what is different is the scale and scope of the tragedy, with humanity’s one and only home now hanging in the balance. I have always had a tremendous sense of urgency about the need to shift to a dramatically more humane economic model. But there is a different quality to that urgency now because it just so happens that we are all alive at the last possible moment when changing course can mean saving lives on a truly unimaginable scale.

[maraudergirls]

12 Days Of Falling In Love ( Harry x Hermione )

Merry Christmas @hermione-who ! We love you so much and we hope you enjoy this fic of ours. 

read on ao3 now? 

On the right side of the fence where Santa and His Jolly Elves are singing their carols, a majestic pine tree has been planted in a corner. Plastic reindeers circle it, stiff in their pause that suggests they are probably dancing. The one with a red nose is nudging a pile of kaleidoscopic, sparkling card boxes.

The row of heavily decorated backyards extends itself infinitely, along Puddifoot Street. Some feature three feet tall angels holding out bowls of candies -- that must undoubtedly be real --, other have a miniature, feisty city that takes half of their space. Red, green, and gold colors are everywhere, sprinkled with snow from yesterday night’s fall. There are even some Santas hanging from gutters, or half-stuck in chimneys.

A loud whistling sound calls Hermione back to her kitchen, and she is glad to tear her stare away from the scene.

If asked about herself, Hermione would say there is not much to say.

She works at an elementary school where most of the kids ignore her, except when they need to go to the bathroom and have to raise their hands to get permission. Her fellow professors, which are more experienced -- a professional way to say old as mummies -- tend to avoid her too, except when favors need to be granted.  

She has lost contact with her university friends after moving to the south, and has struggled for a time to find other mates, before abandoning the hope on behalf of her job. Getting up at six and leaving your workplace at seven in the afternoon doesn’t really leave you any time to do anything.

The only reason she actually likes Durmstrang Elementary School is the Christmas break. It starts on December 13th, for no other reason than the institution’s tradition of sending everybody home for the twelve days before Yule.

A thick column of vapor rises from the beak of the kettle, and Hermione pours the boiling water in the color washed teapot with a hum of approval.

Her kitchen, like the rest of the house, is bare, empty of decorations.

She doesn’t hate Christmas.

She has some amazing memories of eggnog evenings with her father, or of opening the Advent Calendar with her mother. Winter was her favorite time, as a child.

She mechanically walks toward her desk, in an angle of the living room, and puts her steaming cup down. Rolling her sleeves up her wrists, she tucks her tongue out, looking for the bookmark she set yesterday. And ends up irritating herself.

With her bad habit of falling asleep on her documents, she never remembers what her bookmark looks like, let along in what book she puts it.

“I know you're here somewhere,” she whispers, turning her Advanced Psychology of the Human Species manual in her hands.

Outside, the wind flirts with the naked branches, swooping over the fresh snow to carry its coolness under the doors and in the little cavities of the houses. The road is quiet, respectful of the concentration that the woman needs to-

Wait.

The road is not quiet.

A light laughter spreads itself over the fences that delimit the perfectly aligned gardens, and reaches Hermione's ears. So used to live in total silence during Christmas break, she's taken aback by the simple sound of it.

Except for the Lupin family, which owns the house right next to hers, nobody has children at home at this time of the year. And, every Christmas break, the Lupins send their Teddy -- who’s enrolled in the same school where Hermione works -- to Center London, to spend the first part of the holidays with his godfather.

Hermione stretches her ear, but the laughter has vanished. Maybe she just daydreamed about it. After all, her last class was only yesterday.

She gets back at fighting with her pile of books.

Studying is her way to get out of reality, to forget the world around. It used to be reading, before. She loved when Aunt Marjorie took the time, at the end of her day, to go through a couple of fairytale chapters with her. She would do se when her parents were too busy to come home before she went to bed. She used to love those moments, those stories.  

But she has grown up. Tales of princes on their white horses and fighter princesses are over for her. Getting her Psychology degree is her main goal at the moment.

She has always dreamed of opening her own studio, to help kids who struggle with familiar issues. She has seen so many. Has been one herself.  

The few people with whom she still has some interactions have told her countless times that, unless she becomes a mother, it will be impossible for her to understand the intricate reasonings of families.

That’s bullshit.

Women do not have to have children to be useful.  

Plus, her classroom has become her field of observation, and she has gotten used to pre-teen mindsets.

Still, one point on which she agrees with those uninvited opinions is that she won’t be very skilled to treat couple problems, even after passing the exam. She absolutely has no experience on the matter.

“About darn time,” she mutters, finally getting a grip on the plastic wrapping that she stuck in the chapter 7 of Psychology of Women .

The title of page 164 reads: The Early Stages of Falling In Love .

A groan escapes her throat.  

Not the topic she wanted to work on today.

She grabs her cup of tea, resigning herself to today’s subject, but chokes on the liquid when a muffled thud echoes from her roof, followed by several others and loud shouting.

Definitely, Teddy hasn’t gone to Center London this year.

Ignoring the noise seems the best to do, but she has to give up after five minutes of trying.

The wooden floor, stiff because of the cool weather, creaks under her steps.

Pushing the curtains aside, she peeks at Puddifoot Street. Behind her empty flower pot, there is a coat of snow on the little alley that links her house to the next one, and some blurry people seem to get great advantage of it.

She had never witnessed Mr. Lupin playing with Teddy during winter. She had assumed that the man with scars like tattoos all over his face suffered from a rare health condition, preventing him from staying outside too long in a cold climate.

Pulling her woolen sleeve to the window, she erases the mist that gathered on the glass panel.

When the transparent surface is finally clean, she leans forward, but only has the time to catch a glimpse of a pair of glasses framing green eyes -- that most certainly don’t belong to Mr. Lupin -- before a loud crash makes her start.

The fragments of the pot that was resting on the window frame two seconds earlier are now decorating the concrete floor that borders the house, the only place not reached by the snow last night.

Shit. Aunt Marjorie’s pot.

With hurried steps, Hermione exits the warmness of her interior. The atmosphere attacks her through her light clothes, stinging her ribs with its icy claws. Wearing only slippers and a pajama under her sweater, she does not dare to kneel down, but her constatation of the disaster is still the same.

She feels a bit dizzy. Not because of the cold.

It was a horrible pot, heck yes. But her and Aunt Marjorie had had a good laugh when they had bought it. And this was what mattered.

She feels like crying, but the dryness of the air doesn’t allow her to.

Her Advanced Psychology of the Human Species manual would probably define her as slightly deranged because she’s mourning a flower pot.

Lost in her illogical reverie, she doesn’t hear the steps behind her, crushing the snow in a prudent cadence. She only gets out of her trance when something heavy falls on her shoulders.

“I’m sorry.”

Hermione turns around, and the jacket that the boy had put on her back falls down. He bends to retrieve it, and shakes it before offering it again to her. “You’ll get one hell of a cold if you stay out here with barely a-”

His voice trails down, and Hermione suddenly remembers that she’s wearing pajamas bottom. She grabs the coat, and wraps herself in the hot leather, blushing madly. It’s a relief to feel the soft texture of faux-fur around on her neck.  

She looks up at the man, about to mutter a ‘thank you’, but his embarrassed expression is a reminder of why she’s outside while it’s below zero.

“You-”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

He tries to scratch his neck, but his muffles make it awkward. Hermione could almost smile, but-  

“Blimey,” the boy whispers, noticing her chattering teeth. “You should get inside and have a hot chocola-”

“Yeah, I’ll do.”

He narrows his eyes a little, as if thinking that she’s not the type of girl that would make herself some hot chocolate.

“I- I was about to make some,” he adds. “And, I want to apologize for-” He gestures toward the reddish bits on the floor. “But make sure you decide quickly, because you’re about to turn into an ice cube.”

Hermione scrutinises him, his face, his green eyes that seem to send sparkles into the fizzy weather. She doesn’t know him. Where’s he from, first of all? He just materialized from thin air. The only thing she knows is that he was having a snowball fight with the Lupin child, two minutes ago.

The wind lifts some snow around them, and the tip of her nose seems to turn an awful blueish color.

Questions for later.

“Ok for the hot chocolate.”

xxx 

It’s weird, isn’t it?

Hermione, the plain-life psychology student and model teacher, drinking a hot Christmas beverage in the house of a stranger. And doing so while wearing pajamas.

“Remind me of your name?”

The guy is leaning backwards on the kitchen counter, cuping his mug with both hands. His glasses’ lenses are whitish, reflecting the cold light of the window. He observes her from behind them.

“I haven’t told you.”

He looks down. “Right.”

She doesn’t remember his, even if he told her.

He had opened the door of the house next to hers, letting her in before him.

Once inside, he had held his hand out, muttered his name and something like “we forgot to present each other properly,” but she had not paid much attention. Hurried steps had scuttled away on the floor above.

He had led her to the kitchen, and started breaking down some cocoa bars, almost suffocating in the awkward silence.

The only bit of conversation was the “here you are,” “thanks,” exchange of courtesy.

The breaking of Aunt Marjorie’s pot hit her hard, but now she forces herself to look at him with less resentful eyes.

She had already noticed his deep green eyes, but her stare trails on his fine traits, brown pigment, and messy hair. Something about his shyness makes him appear skinnier than he actually is: there is no way to ignore his broad shoulders after a second glance.

Common people would describe him as being very cute.

She sees him more as… interesting. 

“It’s Hermione.” 

Both of them look to the door. A frail, blue-haired kid is eyeing carefully from behind the frame. 

“What, buddy?” Interesting guy lays his cup on the table, and kneels down, so Teddy has to look down at him. 

“Her name,”  he points at her face. “Is Hermione.” 

Messy-hair looks up at Hermione with his intense stare. She hasn’t seen him smile yet, but she guesses that he terribly wants to. And finds herself wishing he would. 

For science’s sake, of course. 

“Your secret is revealed, I guess,” he says. 

For some reason, the kid’s presence makes her much less angry. Or is it Green-eyes’ dimple, which he’s finally showing with a wide grin? 

She shrugs, and can’t avoid to reflect his expression. “It was not a secret.” She takes a short sip of the hot drink, turning to Teddy. “So, Lupin, who’s the man who broke my pot?” 

And she nods toward Dimple-smile. 

Teddy’s mouth contracts in a grimace. After looking better at his hair, Hermione notices the purple points. She knew that the Lupins were- quite original, but she would have never guessed that… it would be at this level. 

“I broke the pot, Ms. Granger,” he admits, wrinkling his nose, as if he was gulping down something bitter. “But my godfather likes to take the blame for me.” 

Hermione’s lips part in surprise. She had always assumed that Teddy’s godfather was a 50-years-old greyish man, passionate about bridges, and with an enormous collection of old stamps and creased plaid shirts. Not somebody like Broad-shoulders. 

Not somebody as cu- interesting. 

“He takes the blame for you?” 

Teddy nods, recovering his mischievous expression. “Yeah, a lot. Especially if it’s an excuse to invite a pretty lady to dr-” 

“Do you want some cocoa, buddy?” 

Chocolate-skin, who had been silent until then, quickly rose, before his godson could finish the sentence. But the kid’s laughing eyes are enough for Hermione to get the whole meaning. 

Teddy shakes his head, and sprints out in the corridor. 

“Little pain in the neck,” the godfather whispers, before calling out, “Teddy, you forgot-” 

“Sorry, Ms. Granger!” shouts the kid, already halfway up the stairs. 

Then, he bursts in a wave of giggles, and his steps echo on the floor above.

Interesting-guy turns to Hermione, his face skin a darker shade of brown. 

Coffee, she thinks, is a beautiful shade. 

A cherub ‘awwws’ from a corner of her mind, but she shakes him away very quickly. 

“I guess your secret is uncovered now,” she teases. Her host looks very confused, as if fearing that she’d believed what his godson said. “About always covering up Teddy’s little mistakes.” 

“Oh! Er- yeah.” Relief can really be seen in histhe eyes , Hermione thinks. “Well, what’s the point of being a godfather, if not?” They smile together. “I’m- very sorry for your pot.”

For a second, she had forgotten about it. 

“Don’t worry,” she shrugs it away. “I can’t hide that I was very attached to it, but- it was just an object, right?” 

Green-eyes nods, and offers her an encouraging grin. “Do you want some more chocolate?” 

And, Hermione still wearing pajamas, and Messy-hair melting more nectar of Christmas, they resume their drinking, slowly getting deep in a conversation about anything and everything. 

 “Don’t you like the holiday?” 

Ugh. The question she dreaded. 

“It’s not-” The bottom of her cup, with its little grains of cocoa swimming in a puddle of brownish milk, suddenly seems very interesting. “It’s not that I don’t like it.” 

It’s just too hurtful. 

The man feels that the question makes her uneasy, but how can somebody not like Christmas? Maybe there is something he can do for her. “Your house is the only one empty of decorations on the street, and your sweater,” he points his spoon at the blue wool under his leather jacket, “Is obviously not Christmassy.” 

Even if she knows her old jersey by heart, Hermione still grabs the textile between two fingers, and frowns at it, “I don’t see what you can reproach to my sweater. It’s very good and warm-” 

“But it’s not Christmassy.” His spoon falls back inside his cup, sending drops of the beverage in the air like little fireworks. “Something needs to be done to fix that. And what about your front yard? I brought a lot of light garlands that we can’t use here, we’d overcharge the house. I can help you to-" 

“It’s very nice of you,” she stops him with a sigh, “But I don’t have time for mistletoes or golden ribbons in my living room. Plus, the only other organic form of life that would enjoy them is my cat, and he would throw everything to the floor anyway.” He’s about to reply, but she doesn’t let him. “Where are Teddy’s parents?” 

The green eyes twinkle with a special glint, the one that sparks up when somebody accepts a challenge. This topic’s conversation is over. But just for now. 

“They have gone to France for a few days, visiting Dora’s family. They’ll be back on the 17th.” 

It’s nice to celebrate with someone , thinks Hermione. But the thought is gone as quickly as it had manifested itself. A red light in her mind flashes: SWITCH TOPIC. 

“Is Teddy’s hair- bicolor?” 

To her hesitant question, Interesting-guy bursts in a loud laughter. 

“He just dyed it, two days ago, before his parents left.” He shrugs, lessening the importance of the action. “He wanted to look like his favorite character from this- wizarding book. And Dora’s quite young and open minded, you know. She dyed hers too, bubblegum pink.” 

It’s hard for Hermione to imagine her neighbour with a neon mane. “Did Mr. Lupin-?” 

The man has to spit his drink in the sink, coughing and laughing simultaneously. “Oh, that would the best gift I’d received in years. But unfortunately no, he hasn’t dyed his hair too.” 

Hermione would have found his behavior disgusting, in other circumstances, but she smiles. It’s true that imagining Mr. Lupin with green or red hair would let no one impassible.

A draught runs along Puddifoot Street, precipitating snow down from the roofs, shaking the windows, and moving the decorations in the backyards. The 24-carats-smile Santa is now facing the house number 34, also known as the Lupins house.

At Hermione’s home, the bookmark is still laying open on chapter 7 of Psychology of Women.

Chapter 2: Day 2

Her steaming cup of tea is patiently waiting between the pile of books and stack of revision papers, tempting her with its bitter-sweet smell. The street has been really quiet for the whole morning: not a sound, not a laughter to be heard. In other conditions, it would have been the dreamed setting for a day of study.

But Hermione is not really in the mood for sitting down. One of her fingers slides between the curtains, and pulls them apart, just enough for her eyes to fall on the outside.

Naked, sad, upsettingly grey. And empty.

She sighs.

The snow has melt down, leaving behind its characteristic muddy soil. There is not a soul to be seen, it’s still too early for --regular-- school vacations, and too impossible for-

Oh, honestly. What was she waiting for. It’s not as if this kind of distraction could happen everyday. Plus, it was just some civility between neighbours.

Still, what a c- interesting guy, that… What is his name again?

She had heard Teddy going on about his godfather for hours sometimes, at school, and now she can’t even identify him. Ugh. If she was used to complain, she would say it’s because Advanced Personality Psychology occupies too much of the available space in her mind.

She struggles to find bits of memory that could help her putting a name on the messy hair and cute dimple smile.

The dimple smile… It had captured her attention when he had said his name…

No. No. Not the smile. She was angry… And then, it was the chocolate. And she’s just very tired from her week of revisions. This is why she can’t remember his name.

Nothing else.

But when the doorbell rings, her heart jumps to her ears. It takes all her self-control to refrain from swinging the wooden panel open.

“Yes?” The chillness, so contrasting to her cosy inside, burns the point of her nose as her eyes meet a very green stare. “Oh, Harry…”

She remembers his name, actually. Minds can be quite tricky.

Her hands cling to the doorknob without her notice, her body hiding in the introvert security of her home. All she can do is lower her eyes, in a very embarrassed way.

And she can’t even explain why.

The man’s smile falters a little, his eyebrows bow slightly. “Er- Am I- Am I bothering you?”

“What?”

Boy, he could speak louder.

Well, she could be a little less distracted too.

“I-” He hesitates, taking a step back.

This is when she notices that he is hiding something from her vision. And that she has kept him waiting for a good minute in the cold weather.

“Oh, I’m really sorry! I’m such a terrible neighbour. Where do I leave my brain some days?. If I just- You should probably- Oh well, what a mess I am.” Her tone is full of clumsy apologies, which brings his side smile back. “Come inside, it’s freezing here.”

She opens the door widely, and the winter wind hits her comfortable living room meanly, causing a window shutter to slam in some place of the house.

Harry has the common sense to close the door, pushing it with his feet as he gladly steps inside, amused by her sudden awkwardness.

Meanwhile, Hermione is still releasing her little moment of embarrassment with a flow of words. “I just rarely receive visits, you know, and they are mostly from colleagues who bring more material, so I do not have any Christmas cookie in the oven. It must sound horrible to you, but I don’t even have milk to make some hot chocolate. You’ve been so nice to me yesterday, what are you going to think of me now th-”

His hand on her shoulder makes her start.

“Don’t worry,” he whispers, his eyes anchored in hers. “I don’t think anything about you except that you seem very nice.”

His smile is warm like a summer breeze. On the spot where he touches her clothes, her skin seems to be melting under the soft grip.

Her muscles relax.

He doesn’t think she’s a cruel neighbor, so everything’s fine.

“And we can still fix the whole thing about the cookies,” he adds, pointing with his chin toward the kitchen’s open door.

Is he offering to cook with her? It would be a disaster, she can’t even tell a spatula from a spoon. If he let anything of it slip in front of Mrs. Lupin, the whole neighborhood would know about it.

Last thing she wants is to be reputed as an unfamous cooker.

“I- I don’t think it’s- The fact is-” She holds her breath, blushing a little. “I was actually going to study.”

That did sound rude.

Harry’s smile vanishes, his shoulders slump. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to annoy you. I just thought- I don’t even know what I thought.”

He grins sheepishly, hoping that his delusion is not too noticeable. He takes a step back, when he remembers about the secret object behind his back. Bringing his hands forward, he reveals a pretty pottery with chirping birds and butterflies carved on its surface.

“That’s- I know it probably can’t make up for the emotional attachment,” Hermione stares at the earthy vase in amazement: there was a world between Aunt Marjorie’s horrible trinket and the gift that her neighbor was holding out to her. “But, well, we broke yours, yesterday. It only seemed fair to get you another one.”

She feels his eyes on her face, and grabs the pot, her fingers tracing the reliefs. The little bumps tickle her skin.

Harry faintly clears his throat. “I guess that I should go now. Leave you to your studies.”

The dimple on his right cheek attracts her attention. It definitely is a cute dimple, that shakes Hermione from her surprise, only to remember that she was being very disagreeable to him.

“Oh, wait!” She bites her lip. Thinks about her uselessness in a kitchen. He probably assumes that she’s quite skilled, and he’ll be very deceived when he’ll realize the contrary. “This is- This is very thoughtful. Thank you.”

Harry’s eyes recover a bit of their sparkles. “It was Teddy’s idea,” he shrugs.

Something in his fleeing stare makes Hermione smile. You can’t lie to a Psychology student. “Oh, you know, I’ve always considered Teddy an incredible boy,” she smiles. Harry grins, maybe convinced that his little lie worked out. Hermione suddenly feels a wave of sympathy rolling in her chest for the messy haired godfather of his turbulent neighbor. One of those waves that pushes you to consider stuff you’re reluctant to do. “You know, about the studying, it can wait. Cookies are crucial in Christm-”

A phone rings, cutting her sentence midway. The man drops his stare to his jacket pocket, and extracts his flashing device from it.

“Talking about the dev- angel,” he mutters, pressing the green button with a smirk. “Teddy! Did you burn the house down?”

Hermione internally laughs: she has lived too long next to the Lupins to discard this possibility. But any amusement disappears from her traits at Harry’s creased brow and doubtful humming.

“I get it, buddy. I’m coming over.” He hangs up, and she somehow dreads a bad news. “Teddy is not feeling very well. I have to go.”

“Oh.”

“You’ll be able to study.”

He scratches his neck, and Hermione notices the muscles of his arms that stir his clothes. She becomes very conscious of the pot’s weight in her hands.

“Great,” she whispers, then bites her tongue. She had built up some courage for the cooking actually.

“Er- I’ll see you soon, then.”

With a few steps, he is out of the door.

The tea is now cold on the table, but Hermione doesn’t notice it. Not for a good fifteen minutes, during which she watches the ghost of his shadow on the door, and wonders when ‘soon’ will be.

Chapter 3

Hermione highlights a page of her textbook, murmuring the definition softly, hoping she’ll remember it. Memorizing has always been her strong suit, but when said mugging includs learning about a supposed theoretician who was absolutely barmy on several counts, she finds it ridiculous.

When she'll finally get a degree and have some status, she’ll make some serious changes in the psychology field.

 Huffing as her mind goes off track for the second time in a row, Hermione slaps herself. First, she had been thinking about the rare event of Harry stopping by, and now, she was thinking about her superiority over sexist researchers. Her eyes fall on the clock which announces she’s been dreaming for almost an hour.

“Focus. You’ve got this. Now, why do critics view statistical hypothesis testing as-” She’s cut off abruptly as the doorbell rings.

She can’t help it then; she groans. She severely doubts it can be Harry so it must be someone from work. Not expecting anyone, she’s tense as she walks to the door.

Peering through the whole, she lets out a breath of relief as she sees her neighbour, Harry. His eyes are cast upwards like he’s cursing the existence of Olympus, and there’s a hue of pink on his nose.

When she opens the door, it feels like deja-vu. She tucks a curl of hair behind her ear and stares at him expectantly.

"Hi!” He says loudly, wincing immediately. “Good morning.”

“Good morning….Do you want to come in?”

“Yeah. That would be nice.” Harry shoves his shoes and trails after Hermione like a puppy. “I was wondering if you-if you liked the vase.”

It’s obvious that he wanted to ask her something else, but she eases herself on the chair across him. She tucks her feet closer to her body and lets it go. “Oh. I did. Thank you. You didn’t have to, honestly.”

“I did.” He replies immediately. “I’m glad you like it. Teddy helped pick it out. He was very sorry about the whole mess.”

They lapse into an uncomfortable silence. Hermione considers if she should offer him food or perhaps, a drink. When he coughs awkwardly, she snaps her gaze to him

“Er-” Harry begins, and then laughs breathily. “This is so uncomfortable. I’m sorry. Do you want me to leave?”

“No.” Hermione's own surprise is mirrored on Harry’s face. “Your company is appreciated.”

“Right. Yours is too.” Harry stares at the room, face merging into shock. He does a double take, and Hermione almost laughs at the pure dread  he sports. It’s the face of a seer when the stars are aligned in a way she wished hadn’t occurred. “Please tell me there’s a Christmas tree somewhere.”

“I’m afraid not.” She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t lying the other day.”

Harry smiles at her sheepishly. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m used to being a huge fan of the season. I’m surprised other people are not. May I ask you something, though?”

“Shoot.”

“Don’t you miss celebrating the festival?” Harry asks cautiously, already regretting his question, worried that his stress on the issue might irk her.

“Not really.” Hermione shrugs. “I told you yesterday why and I don’t really have the spirit for it. Truth be told, I wish I did. My parents don’t know what a total Grinch I am.”

“It doesn’t need to be like that!” Harry pipes up. “I’ll help you get your Christmas spirit back. It’ll be my gift to you. Please?” he adds when she stills looks unconvinced.

“I don’t know.”

Hermione thinks about the statistics of the opportunity. It would be nice, she reflected, having a Christmas tree up for once. Maybe, the change of decor would help her study more efficiently. She quickly constructs a row of pros and cons in her table, but her decision is made up as she sees that damnable dimples on Harry’s face -- which, honestly, should be illegal.

“You’ll help me, right? I have a Christmas tree on the cupboard and some ornaments so we don’t need to worry about that.”

“I will.” Harry jumps from the seat and shrugs off his coat. “Oh and Hermione? Remember when decorating, we go big or we go home.”

Hermione frowns at him and pouts.

It doesn’t do her any good as Harry continues to laugh, bending over and clutching his sides in a vain attempt to tranquilize the stiches. “Oh my god. You’re just so cute and smol.”

Her height has always been a subject of discussion. Even past twenty, people still refused to believe she was anything but a teenager. Just now, she had tried reaching the top tiers of the tree but, unable to do so thanks to her height, she has resorted to glaring at the branches. And obviously, Harry finds that particularly amusing.   

“I’m 5’2!” Hermione protests fiercely. “That’s a perfectly reasonable height.”

“For a fairy, maybe.”

The man coos when Hermione pouts again and, frustrated, she stretches, trying to reach the tip of the Christmas tree. Arms wrap around her waist and there’s a tug in her stomach - a protest against gravity before she’s suspended in air.  

Letting out a squeak, she cries. “Put me down!”

He laughs and she can feel the warmth of it on her lower back. “Put the ornament up first, Hermione!”

Floundering like a fish, Hermione hastily places the star and Harry sets her down, carefully. Scrambling away from him, she places a hand on her heart and glares at him. “Harry James Potter!”

Rubbing his neck, Harry provides her a sheepish smile. It never is a good sign when a woman called you by your full name - even if they do look as threatening as Tinkerbell. "Sorry. Seemed like you needed some help.”

“It’s fine. You just startled me.” Hermione claims, knowing that she’ll be rid of the feeling of his arms. Have they always been muscled? Now, she is just getting distracted.

After passing a reindeer ornament to her, Harry steps back to marvel their hard work, and she follows his example.

It’s not exactly what she would call a fairy tale Christmas aesthetic, but they did all they could with the limited decorations. And, it does look good in its own way. There are multiple tiers of gold lights that blink every few seconds, complemented with accents of rosy baubles. Wrapped with red ribbons and holly, the tree surely can’t be called naked.

Nothing in the house can, really. A Santa Claus figure stares at them with beady eyes from his perch on the table. The cushions on the lounge got replaced by festive ones - a plump red one with a snowman in the middle articulating the words Meowy Christmas!  Banners strung with leaves and berries hang from the canopy.

A thrill of excitement shots down her spine. For the first time in years, her blood thrums with the joy of Christmas, and she revels in it.

The only hang up here, is that there is a lone stocking against the wall. Hermione mentally decides to buy it a companion. Her budding friendship with Harry implies that she would need a gift for him. Maybe, she could convince him to go shopping with her.

For now, she can imagine she is a princess in Disneyland. The string of lights above her certainly makes her feel like she is set up in a fantasy.

Funnily enough, the only decoration the house lacks, by the end of the morning, is mistletoe branches, and the both young people are careful to maintain that status.

Chapter 4

She swings the door open at exactly ten in the morning. Harry’s hand remains suspended in air, most likely preparing himself to rap the door.

He seems baffled to see her, as if her presence wasn’t expected at her house . It's Pride and Prejudice all over again, she thinks. Except she never disliked him. It was quite the opposite emotion that consumed her body. Even when he broke her pot, she still found him kind and cu- sweet .

“Good morning.”

“Hi.” Harry chimes back, stupidly and winces at the response. “Good morning. You look nice.”

Hermione laughs, a beautiful sound that reverberates through him. “I literally just got up.”

Harry gasps, sidestepping her and shoving his shoes off. “I stick to my point. And, I’m shocked, Hermione. Shocked is an understatement. Do you mean to tell me you just woke up? Eight hours after you were supposed to.”

“It was all for a good reason.” Hermione protests, adamantly. “I read an article where they instruct people to give themselves a rest day once a week. So, I woke up at seven.”

“You said you just got up.”

“From the table.” Hermione clarifies. “I was studying.”

“ Well .”  Harry remarks sarcastically as he makes them a cuppa. Instead of the tea bag that he usually inserts, he sprinks a tablespoon of cocoa powder into their mugs. “That's a first.”

“What are you making?”

“Hot chocolate, Princess.”

Hermione’s eyes grow wide. “What did you just call me?”

“Princess.” Harry repeats, unabashed by her admonishment. “It suits you well. The first time I saw you, I thought your hair looked like Princess curls so.”

Stunned into silence, the most she can do is hum. “You know tea is better than hot chocolate, right? Tea fights cancer, all the while increasing your immunity, cardiovascular health, digestion, mental activity like improved concentration and focus and prolongs longevity. Don’t you agree with me?”

Harry doesn’t seem fazed by her argument. In fact, the mask on his face is akin to smugness. “While all that may be true, hot chocolate contains more antioxidants than coffee and tea . It lowers blood pressure. The antioxidant gallic acid is used to treat internal hemorrhages, prevents kidney disease and diabetes. The flavonoids help your body process nitric oxides which improve blood flow and prevents the formation of clots. Shall I go on?”

Beyond awed at his list, Hermione could only gape. Men like Harry, by their looks, managed to inflict cardiac arrests on a woman like herself simply by a glance . To discover that said man was intelligent as well was the cherry on the cake.

“How do you know all that?” Hermione asks, grasping for something witty to say but fails at it, rather spectacularly and wants to scream for ten hours straight. The approach of her question was blunt enough that it could be considered as offensive which in no way did Hermione mean for it to sound.

Thankfully, Harry waves the comment away. “I’m skilled at my craft, Hermione. A gentleman like me has many skills and talents.”

“Indeed.”

The underlying analysis of his sentence makes her swallow, nervously and makes her hyper aware of their positions. He’s barely a few inches away. Not a very appropriate distance for just a neighbour. Retracing her steps, Hermione misses the look of undisguised dismay that washes over his face.

By the time, she looks back at him, the moment is long gone. Setting their glasses on the countertable, Harry flashes her a dimple. “Better go get changed. Today includes another outdoor activity.”

Wishing she could groan out loud because that sounds far from fun, Hermione nods sluggishly and departs, pulling on some boots. Looping a scarf adorned with gold and red, Hermione makes a half hearted attempted to straighten her hair but when her hair reverts back to its original momentum, she realizes it’s a futile attempt and shuts her door.

“Thank you for the hot chocolate.” Hermione tries to express her gratitude, hoping she hasn’t managed to leave an unimpressed reaction on her neighbour. Judging on past experiences, she wouldn’t put it past her. Conversations in the real world short circuited her speech.

Harry doesn’t reward her with a response, instead bestowing her with a smirk. “Let’s go. Teddy’s thrilled. I’m worried about making him wait for some more time.”

“Teddy’s coming?” Hermione says with excitement, shrugging on her coat. The blue haired child often light up her day with his childish glee. Seeing him, always, causes her lips to tug upwards to form a grin. Perhaps, it was the motherly side of her but children were beacons of lights even on especially heavily exhausted days.

Harry sighs dramatically like a man who opens the fridge, only to woefully discover it empty of his favorite contents. “I knew you liked Teddy more.”

“I like you both equally.” Hermione teases which is a lie if she’s being honest. While Teddy is a light in her life, Harry is soon becoming the sun to her world. Ever since she was a kid, she was the type of person who ran headfirst into relationships. She had fallen too soon and too hard. It hardly surprised her that her actions repeated with Harry but she felt a bit different with him in the room: confident, relaxed and jovial.

Harry rolls his eyes and tugs her with a hand outside where they find a cross Teddy Lupin, arms folded over his chest and a single eyebrow raised that glared at them. If looks could kill, they would still be very much alive for despite Teddy’s best efforts, he still hadn’t lost his cute and chubby cheeks. It was like a teddy bear insisting he had committed a grave crime.

Hermione coos his name, wrapping the boy in a hug and spinning around. “How’s my favorite boy?”

“Why don’t you ask Harry?” He replies impishly, showcasing his milk teeth.

She taps him on the nose. “You’re my favorite everything. Your uncle prefers the worst drinks like hot chocolate.”

His eyes light up like a Christmas tree. “Hot Chocolate is the bestest best!”

A mock look of disappointment plasters on her face. “I highly regret befriending this family.”

“Nope!” The boy says looking unnaturally gleeful for his age. “You love us.”

Hermione narrows her eyes at the boy and when his smile is a mask of excellent innocence, she switches direction...right in time to hear the shriek of delighted laughter from the boy in her arms as a snowball whipped across her face.

Her eyes shut at the impact but once they open, they are deadly. “Harry. James. Potter. You have three seconds to get the hell away from me or else I will stab you so-”

Teddy giggles and burrows his face into her armpit. Caught off guard, Hermione sets the boy down, blocking his ears with a hand as she mouths a string of latin words to the sniggering man in front of her.

“Is that a challenge?” Harry spreads his arms wide open, ducking down to obtain a fistful of snow. “I doubt you’ll have much success.”

Hermione, for all her remarkability, has never been unable to back down from a challenge. It was her fatal flaw, some would say. Others would take it upon themselves to dare her with strange conquests.

There was only one line she daren’t cross; the education line. People had foolishly took it upon themselves to convince her to give up studying, fail and interfere with faculty . Would you believe the horror of it? Hermione certainly couldn't. It hadn’t mattered then, this quirk of accepting even the wildest and most ridiculous dares. Nothing did, really, when it interfered with studies. A firm believer in the truth that studying was prime and above all, she couldn’t let teenagers come in the way of her goal.

Yet, there were times when she was guilty of attending a party and getting drunk. It happened only once but the experience was vile enough to make A time when she had jumped in the pool from the first floor because someone had riled her up. To be fair, it wasn’t that much of a height but still enough for several jaws to drop.

And, that time when she had sworn off tea for a month . She still got nightmares over that one.

And, so when Harry stood there with an armful of snow, Hermione wasn’t merely considering participating in the fact, she stood analysing strategies and planning her victory dance.

“Teddy.” She says, hushed for this might be a top secret mission. The kite needed for triumph was dancing right in front of her...if she could just maneuver it to her advantage. With years on education that stressed on human behaviour, Hermione has enough confidence in her ability of analyzing people. She knows she can win.

“Do you want to join my team? I’ll buy you pancakes.” She adds smartly for if she knows anything, it���s that a Lupin cannot and will not refuse desserts. It goes against their morals. “I’ll buy you blueberry pancakes. With extra maple syrup.”

Based on the way his smirk decorates her face, Hermione knows she’s succeeded. Masterfully weaving her elaborate bid-pancakes for his cooperation- she’s secured a member who she knows-without a shred of uncertainty- will not betray her.

Teddy shakes her hand, growing serious like a businessman on his first day of work. Hermione exchanged a nod with him and looks at Harry who seems wary that she just had a conversation with his impish nephew.

“Hermione?” He begins, apprehensive, stepping away even though she’s empty handed and he has a weapon of snow. “Are you going to join?”

Careful, precise steps. Nephew and neighbour both descend the steps. After all, you can’t win a war on uneven terrain.

“Harry-” She states nervously, manipulating the timely case of events. He doesn’t know her the mechanism of the way her gears work in her head. She can win. She will win. She is Hermione Granger. The man looks at her captivated, waiting for her next move.

It’s not a very intelligent move for the next second, Hermione yells, “ Run !” to Teddy before she uses his flabbergasted movements to her advantage. Running like the devil’s on her heels and immediately, gasping because her lungs are weak things, she presses herself against a wall, sinking to the ground and capturing a mouthful of snow. Rolling it on her palm, she repeats the process and readies herself for battle.

Harry was so going down.

Blue lips and shaky hands were the result of playing with snow a few hours later. Despite her hands being practically immobile- She couldn’t even bend her fingers- there was nothing more satisfying than running around while screaming bloody murder.

There was a part of her that longed to return to her comforters and pull on her special winter socks - Christmas flea ones that had reindeers painted on them but it soon faded as another snowball pelted and smacked Harry’s face.

Despite his insistence, he was terrible at the game, constantly attacked by his nephew and Hermione. In fact, at the beginning, he just rested on the ground and watched the clouds in an overly dramatic manner.

After they had flung another snowball at his groaning mouth, Harry had resolved to best them-or at least, hit them once- but his efforts proved vain.

She can see his mop of hair behind a car that resembles a blanket of snow and wonders what’s next. In the same trapped position as he is, Hermione can’t risk giving away her cover.

Turmoil takes root in her, obnoxious enough that she only hears the incomer far too tardy. It’s the snapping of a branch that makes the following events appear in a sedated motion. Panic wills her up, instinct causes her to turn, and fate desires the first catalyst to be set into motion.

Harry stumbles thanks to the branch and Hermione tries to steady him which is pointless. Momentum and gravity grips them both and tugs them downwards. Harry, the precious man, tries to save her at the very least but all that he manages to do is elevate the damage. Both of them land on the ice with a sharp crash.

“Ooof.” Hermione grumbles, glaring at him but soon, softening as his eyelashes flicker at her like a giraffe. It’s spectacular that anyone could be so undeniable adorable. He had long eyelashes, she thinks dazed, hardly aware about her surroundings.

Perhaps, she should move her leg, the one that’s locking the boy against her. It’s very ridiculous, absolutely barmy and not at all like her.

“Hermione?” He breathes, a questioning look in his eye and she wonders if sleep deprivation isn’t a hoax after all for his eyes might, might have flickered to her lips for a second.

She steals the moment’s joy, wishing she could capture it and relieve it a thousand times for it feels like something she would want to remember. Her heart is beating unnaturally fast, a trait he’s yet to catch upon him and to think it’s because of him , of a man she hardly knows.

And, it’s then that the Oh settles in. The ‘Oh’ that girls dread to think about for it brings a whole bout of side effects. The Oh that she might find this man desirable .

It was insane.

Positively insane.

And yet.

Yet, she can’t look away from his eyes - emerald, a trapped image of evergreen forests and vivid leaving her breathless and reminiscent about growing pastures that blew in England. She’ never been much of a photographer or painter but the longing to sketch out the shocked expression etched on his face along with his slightly parted lips is salient.

Then, then his mouth opens and she realises what a complete and utter fool she is for this is her neighbour, her friend and she’d just been lying on top of him without his consent having been stunned into dumbness. Scrambling off him, her body rubs against the ice creating friction.

“Oh my God- shit- I wasn’t-I’m a disaster, putain .” Hermione swears, backing away like Harry’s a wild animal who accidentally provoked. “I didn’t mean to- I’m.”

“Um.” Harry states eloquently, brushing off the snow off his pants. “It’s honestly okay. I - It’s my fault.”

“You didn’t sit on me!”

Harry blushes and tucks his lips inwards embarrassed. “I would have done the same thing. God, no ,  that came out wrong. Not that I don’t want to sit on you but also, fuck. I short circuit when I panic and I’m rambling and can we just not talk about this?”

Hermione wishes she could escape the awkward silence that hangs over them like fog. “I-It’s alright. Yeah.”

They stand there for a minute or two, neither able to hold the other’s gaze, infinitely afraid to even think about how the contact might have sparked a tremor in the other. It’s times like this when Hermione has the maddening urge to flee and sink in her bed. Beginning a conversation is hard enough, sustaining it is a whole other story. It’s like looking at a mountain but then, having to climb it.

She’s delved deep in her lame excuses of social interaction when a cheerful giggle splits the air and the pair of them turn, the evolution of instincts dictating their movements and their denseness, apparently because they don’t’ have the common sense to imagine what might happen in a battlefield- a battlefield that has a ten year old kid who’s special expertise is causing havoc.

They don’t have time to run, to scream or run from the monster who’s flinging balls of snow on them at a million miles per second.

At least, Teddy didn’t betray just her. The boy, future spy and man who would write ‘How To Be A Crook’ 101’ turned on both of them.

Spoiler Alert: Harry and Hermione surrender..

Chapter 5

The first thing she does when the steady and loud pounding of her headache registers is swear. Despite the numerous books, self care books in particular that promote positivity especially in the morning, lining her shelf, she finds herself victim of not promoting the principle of a healthy lifestyle.

Her voice comes out as a rasp and she idly bounces the thought of finally singing like Chloe Kohanski and Miley Cyrus, but her throat resists the formation of a few syllables, so she disregards the fantasy.

Burrowing under the covers as tremors rack her frame, she coughs. Once, twice, thrice.

And, then swears once and only once because she doesn’t have the energy to follow it up with another colorful word, much to her dismay.

Her eyes slink shut and the lilac scent of her bedsheets lull her into a soundless lullaby. Rocking with shivers, and with a clenched jaw to ward off another coughing fit, the illusion of peace sent only by the season of winter carries Hermione to slumber.

When she awakes, a few hours later, she wonders if there’s a burglar in her house. There’s a substantially loud racket in her kitchen. The concerning matter is Hermione doesn’t care. Her head is positively swimming which is absolutely dreadful if she wasn’t, in fact, hallucinating.

Groaning as her feet pad across the floor, Hermione indulges in the fantasy of passing a stern dialogue to whoever disrupted her sleep. Perhaps, the intruder was a blessing in disguise as she now, severely, realized she needed to study. Revised, only, eight times, she lacked the self confidence required for passing the test.

“Harry?” She says, stunned, pausing at the foot of the staircase.

For it isn’t a robber nor a murderer but her neighbour, Harry who greets her with his infamous dimple cheeked smile and green eyes. His sleeves are rolled to his forearms, offering a radial view of the brown glistening skin.

“Hi!” He blinks, waving a spoon in her face, an attempt to greet. When he notices her fixed look, his eyes glance down at the silverware in his hand. “I, uh, was making soup.”

Hermione stares at him. “Um.”

An immediate motherly look washes his face and with a tone of horror, Harry fusses, “You’re sick, go back to bed!”

“I’m fine. I need to revise.” Hermione argues, already walking towards the kitchen, grabbing a book on the nearby desk.

The cough that trailed her declaration helped prove her point significantly. “Look, I’m perfectly ha-happy. Why are you making soup?”

Harry rolls his eyes. “It’s my mother’s famous soup. Always helps me when I’m on a cold. I don’t make it as well as she does but the main ingredients should make you feel slightly better, if anything.”

Hermione smiles at him, a touched smile that brightens the room. “Thank you. You’re the sweetest.”

Red blooms on Harry’s neck like roses in a greenhouse. Pride erupts in Hermione’s chest, a fiery little dragon, claiming victory for eliciting a flustered reaction.

Harry mutters his gratitude under his breath. “Get to sleep, yeah? I’ll wake you up when the soup’s done. You can study then.”

“Revise.” Hermione corrects, shuffling on her feet as she ascends the steps. “And, Harry? Thank you .”

“Mione? Fuck , you’re burning up.” Harry whispers and the volume sends another pang of pain through Hermione.

Nausea rises from the pit of her stomach and fills her mouth, drawing an empty gag. Not capable of much thought, she simply hums.

“Can you sit up for a second? The soup’s still warm. Mione?”

There’s one thing that Hermione is known for-her buck head stubbornness. It provided favorable characteristics in debates and very few managed to spar verbally with the prodigy for more than a few minutes. True to his credit, however, after much persuasion, Harry convinces her to sit up.

Blearily blinking up at him for he’s nearly a foot taller than her, she doesn’t protest when the spoonful of soup travels to her mouth, without her volition. Hermione sags against the bed frame, swallowing a few spoons. Tears flicker behind her eyelids like lamps as the heat stings her throat. Forcing herself to digest it, she’s relieved when Harry keeps the bowl on the table, at last.

“Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up later.”

His voice is melodious and warm and she’s tempted to listen to him but with much difficulty, she recounts his earlier promise. “Revise.”

“You can’t even open your eyes.” Harry remarks, a combination of exasperation and amusement. “How do you plan on revising ?”

In response, Hermione gestures for her book. Sighing, Harry stands up and jogs down the stairs before he returns. Firmly pushing her hand down, he scans the pages. The whole book, Advanced Educational Psychology is colored in fluorescent yellow and orange- a fact that makes him grin.

Unlike her textbooks, his pages were covered in doodles- of mythical dragons and yes , puppies- with various texts from his best friend, Ron.

“ Trait emotional intelligence or Trait emotional self efficacy refers to “a constellation or behaviour dispositions and self-perceptions regarding a-”

“You don’t-don’t have to read for me.” Hermione manages, trying to secure her hold on the book.

“S’alright.” Harry continues reading, after throwing her a charming smile. “Can’t have the star Princess exhaust herself, now, can I?”

Hermione’s glad she’s sick for a moment, solely because she can chalk up to the blush that stains her cheek on the fever.

And, Harry continues to read about emotional intelligence. Each word was submerged in that British accent Hermione’s come to love for the reaction it ignited on her skin - rows of goosebumps, adds to the challenge of focusing on the quality of the lesson.

Eventually giving up, she enjoys the way the man in front of her pronounces his r’s and l’s . It was hard to believe that men like this, indeed existed. Men who fed her soup and read her illegible notes. It appeared that some men, outside the fictional world, were pretty great too. Her last thought before she falls asleep is Harry.

Ringing blares through her lucid haze, jolting her from her nap. Hermione rubs her eyes and yawns, a mellow gold light shining and wrapping her form.

There’s another ring and Hermione picks up the phone, stifling another yawn.

“Uncle Harry! How was your first time being on TV?”

“Hello?” Hermione asks groggily, eyes growing as round as saucers when she looks at the phone. She’d assumed it was her phone but that was ridiculous because it wasn’t even her ringtone. In a lapse of judgement, she’d answered Harry’s phone.

Embarrassment and guilt flood through her blood. It soon is diffused by curiosity for Teddy’s words take meaning.

“Aunt Hermione? Is that you?”

“It’s me.”

“Are you and Uncle Harry finally getting married, now?”

Hermione chokes on air and coughs loudly. “What? Where did you get that idea from? Did Harry say anything? Never mind. No. The answer is no .”

“Bummer.” Teddy’s disappointed and childish voice grits through the bungled up connection.

“What do you mean bummer ?”

“Uncle Harry has a cr-”

“Mione?” Harry’s puzzled voice drowns out the rest of Teddy’s sentence which was the real bummer because Hermione was on edge. She’d half a mind to ask Harry to wait just so Teddy could finish but smiling sheepishly, Hermione hands him his phone. “It’s Teddy. Sorry, I answered. Thought it was my phone.”

Harry’s eyes widen. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was sick on the way nausea grips him. Along with his red face. “Did he say anything about me? Did he know you were speaking?”

“Yes.” Hermione replies warily. “Why?”

His face immediately collapses in utter repose which adds to her confusion. “No reason. Hang on a sec’, yeah?..... Hey, bud….. I didn’t! Your Uncle Harry’ll talk to you later, okay? Mione’s sick and she needs the doctor…..I’m an amazing doctor, you rascal….Love you too.”

Hermione stands from the bed, rubbing the weeds of the lasting headaches. Brushing her hair which is a lost cause, she ties it with a band.

“Harry?”  

“Yeah?”

Hermione wrings her hands together, staring him straight in the eye. “Did you have to go somewhere today?”

Harry winces. “Did Teddy say-”

“Can you answer the question? Where were you supposed to go?”

“I-Yes.” Harry draws a long breath and looks up at the ceiling, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “It wasn’t a major thing. Had an interview. They wanted me to cook something for them.”

“Where were you supposed to have the interview?”

“Buzzfeed?”

Hermione rubs her eyes. “Please don’t tell me you passed up Buzzfeed to take care of me?”

Harry looks outraged at any other scenario. “It’s just Buzzfeed .”

“Exactly! Buzzfeed .” Hermione throat protests the loud vocal and she visibly winces. Harry’s at her side in an instant. “You should have gone. I can’t even begin to understand. You’ll regret-”

“I won’t regret anything.” Harry holds her gaze and adds, fiercely. “You’re more important than any of those things.”

Hermione chest heaves as she exhales, shakily. Somehow, Harry had managed to claim title of best friend, crush and person who proclaimed the most romantic words ever said to her in a few days.

Opinions mattered to her which wasn’t very healthy and she’d gotten better at blocking out negative criticism on her teeth, her brains. An excellent feeling from someone she thought of greatly nearly sent her weeping.

Hermione memorizes his face for a heartbeat longer than a friend would, speechless beyond repair.

“Thank you.” She knows the words aren’t adequate enough. Nothing will be.

“S’not a problem.” Harry responds and his words are laced with gentleness as if it’s more than enough.

Perhaps, she was still dreaming. If dreams did indeed, take shape, Harry would live amongst fairytales. He was too good, too kind.   to be true. Maybe, Harry was merely an apparition or a figment of her imagination for there wasn’t a possibility in all the realms of the world that Harry would look at her with such fondness and love.

But he was.

And, fuck , if she wasn’t screwed.

Biting her lip, she takes a step back, missing the disappointment that flashes across Harry’s face for a nanosecond before he masks it away.

“Want to watch a Christmas movie?”

Hermione’s hesitance is not abundant yet present. She had studied and revised. The exams were a couple of months away, though. Surely, she ought to-

“If you want to study, then we can do that.”

It’s the use of we that spurs her choice of an answer. “How about several movies?”

“Home Alone 1 is way better than Home Alone 2.” Harry states, scrolling through his phone. Showing the list of movies on his phone, he asks Hermione, “What are we watching first?”

“The crime is way better in Home Alone 2.” Hermione mimics, weaving a carefully crafted debate. “The pranks are ridiculous, surprisingly funny and they have the best toy story. How do you not like that?”

Harry laughs. “Have I ever told you how intelligent you are? You know how to appeal to my mind but nope, you can’t change my mind. I’m adamant in the belief that Home Alone 1 is unbeatable. Now, choose. Which movie?”

Hermione squints at the screen. “I don’t know. You’re asking a bisexual to choose something. This is going to take forever. You’re better at Christmas movies. You choose.”  She admits reluctantly. It would be a lie if she confessed his reaction would not deter her.

“Well, love, you’re talking to a fellow bisexual. I want to say everything.”

Hermione grins at him. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

“It would help my ego if you kept saying it.”

“Did you know that the origin of ego is from Latin? It came from literally ‘I’ in the nineteenth century.”

“Mione.” Harry lets out a weak chuckle. “That’s all fascinating but which movie? ”

“Let’s watch all but in alphabetical order. So, stream A Christmas Carol first.”

“This is why we make a good team.”

Hermione hides her smile as she walks towards the kitchen, Harry following behind.

“What are we doing?”

“Popcorn?”

Harry scrunches up his face and pouts. The sentiments are reflected on Hermione’s face.

“How about tea and popcorn?”

A rush of affection for Harry consumes her. There wasn’t an honorable man who disliked tea. “Yes. We could have a sleepover or something. Build a fort, later on?”

“How about now ?”

xx

The fort was an absolute disaster . Every spare linen, including Hermione’s long Russian coats and bedsheets- were thrifted to form a structure that tethered shoddily. They inspect the fort with great pride, however. It wasn’t strong enough to take on a rival army but seemed perfect for the two of them.

Harry crawls in and Hermione looks away, blushing as his butt is shoved in her face. She was not looking . She wasn’t .

Under the canopy of fairy lights that twinkle, Harry threw a blanket of hand knitted wool over Hermione. Mug in hand, they marvel at their creation. One of Hermione’s book cabinets support the fabric, included coincidentally, of course.

They crawl towards a common sofa, wondering if this was a good idea, after all. They felt like adults concluding the observation on the way their backs grumbled. Traitorous. Undependable and painful backs.

“May I read this?” Harry asks, eyes fixed on a shiny book. After admiring the summary, he passes a smile, “Romance and princes are my thing .”

Hermione nods, excitedly like a kid drugged on candy.

“When we got the letter in the post, my mother was ecstatic. She had already decided that all our problems were solved, gone forever.” Harry’s lips twitch upwards. “The big- wish we could have this kind of luck in the real world- BIG HITCH in her brilliant plan was me. I didn’t think I was a particularly disobedient daughter, but this was where I drew the line.”

Hermione lets out a snort when Harry wiggles his eyebrows at her imitating a walrus. “Am I a disobedient daughter, Mione?”

“Read the book, will you?”

So he did. For nearly an hour, Hermione heard, with  great rapture, the inevitable love story between a prince and a commoner. The Selection was one of her favorite series. It had just the right amount of romance and suspense. It was the ninth time she wished she lived in a palace that contained a magnificent library within its walls.

His phone rang and Harry stops abruptly, in the middle of dialogue which was the greatest tragedy. He shuts the book and crawls to the TV.

“What are you doing?” Hermione crosses her arms and stares him down. “Aren’t you going to pick up your phone?”

“Nope.” Harry responds, having an internal battle with the buttons on the TV. “It was an alarm. We’re going to watch a movie now. Like we were supposed to do an hour ago.”

“Can’t we just read?” Hermione whines. “It’s much better.”

“What are we going to do with the popcorn?”

Hermione debates the issue with herself. “Fine. We’re going to read as soon as we finish the movie and that’s that..”

“Whatever you want, Princess. I recommend watching at least five movies, though.” Harry tugs his phone out of his pocket. “It’s very Christmassy.”

Hermione fixes him with a glare. “I’ll watch. As long as you admit Home Alone 2 was better.”

He throws her a wounded look and clutches his heart with a hand. “I feel so hurt . But because I want to watch the movie, I’ll say Home Alone 2….was better than certain other movies-like Home Alone 1. However, know that I will never forget how mean-”

She huffs. “Just play the movie, Mr. Dramatic.”

Swiping at the phone before he places it on the floor, Harry scoots closer to Hermione and leans his head against her shoulder.

“Happy Movie Watching.”

Hermione swallows and hopes it wasn’t as loud as she imagined it to be. “You too.”

If her voice appeared choked, Harry didn’t appear to notice. She resists the need to adjust, wary that her movement might push him away. His head tickles her a little and Hermione bites her lip. Taking a peek at his hair, she looks away, her head swimming with the conscious desire to ruffle it.

Willing herself to exercise some control, Hermione tries to focus on the melody bouncing around them.

“Why does it feel like we’re watching a horror movie instead of a Christmas one?”

“I guess it’s symbolism.” Hermione whispers back. It makes her think about times when she was a child and she’d play pass the whisper. She wonders if Harry and her could be friends as children. She’d like to think so. “At the end of the movie-”

“No spoilers.” Harry interrupts, grabbing the bowl of popcorn and passing it to her.

“Haven’t you watched this yet?”

Harry shakes his head, hair tickling her skin. “Not this film, nope.”

“How can you-” Hermione begins, pulling away from him slightly. “Never mind. You’re in for a treat.”

True to her word, Harry discovered that he was rather ridiculous and wished he had watched the movie earlier. A fond fan of magic, he was beyond delighted and fascinated as Scrooge flew. The elements of magic kindled the inner child in him.

Hermione would probably be set on fire if she said the light in his eyes wasn’t endearing.

As the credits for the third movie flashed, Hermione shut her eyes. Darkness had winnowed in, almost an hour ago but exhaustion only seemed to weigh her down now. Eyes burning, she drops her back on the floor, side eyes memorising the names of the actors.

“Want me to switch it off?” Harry asks, stretching as much as the proximity allows. After confirming the time, he tells her, “It’s almost nine.”

“Night’s young.” Hermione mumbles, face pressed onto the cold layer. “I’m watching.”

His chuckle is warm reminding her of the taste of hot chocolate drunk on a winter’s night. He drops his body next to her with a thump .

“How you’ll see?” She slurs her words together, hazy with warmth.  

“You’re short, Princess.” Harry claims which it a total lie. She’s 5’2, a perfectly admirable height. If the rest of the world comprised of giants, it wasn’t her issue.

“Am not.”  Hermione nestles into him, his warmth practically a soundless lullaby. And, into the arms of Morpheus, she crept.

The next morning she woke up to Harry’s snores and noticed her leg around his waist with his arm wound around her lower back. Psychology dictated their involuntary actions so she didn’t panic.

It was funny to notice how he seeked her warmth. The blanket was draped around her form while Harry remained bare, excluding his cotton shirt. As the blanket suspended on his body, her fingers brushed his skin, inducing electrifying shocks through bone and marrow.

Hermione carefully strived not to think about how she didn’t untangle herself from him despite being awake for minutes.

 liked it so far? read the rest on ao3 

[isleofandroids]

Partners: Part Three (RK900 x Reader)

Fandom Detroit: Become Human

Word Count 1,714

Summary After being paired with the new addition to the DPD, you have to learn how to deal with the post-android events

PART ONE TWO

Tags [if your name is crossed out, that means I wasn’t able to actually tag you] @x6-15 @sherlockspie @yallgotkik @avereality @riridmanngrl @jamiethenerdymonster @not-a-kat

—

Nothing but darkness was what greeted you after finding a way inside. You didn't think you'd ever have to be in such a run down place, even with this job. The only source of light came from small openings through the wooden planks against the two entrances, and cracks in the edges of the ceiling. Glass, rocks and debris littered the entire floor and made no spot safe to step on without caution. There were sounds of fluttering wings and screeches that echoed through the abandoned building, moving from one area to the next with fading volume. The shadows from both you and Conner became giants on the chipped walls, creating more of an eerie feel to the whole situation.

“Your heart rate has increased by five beats a minute.”

“Really? I didn't notice.” You uttered, trying to calm your rapid heart by taking deep, quiet breaths. Anything was better than hearing Conner's statistics about health echo in a deteriorating warehouse.

“If this atmosphere carries an affect on your health, it would be wise to leave the rest of the search for the deviant to me. This will only slow us down.”

“Gee, thanks for the pep talk.” You replied sarcastically, continuing deeper into the abandoned space with cautious steps. The rhythm of your walking was soon the only thing heard from either of you as he kept the identical pace.

The android was already watching you carefully from the moment you entered the building. The subtle babysitting procedure was quite intensified once the sudden change in your chest was discovered. He took note of the incident and the assumption that the environment was the cause, and made another mental note not to allow you to join in on such excavations. As not only did it seem like it would always have a breach in your cardiac state, but it would stall any progress from the missions being completed. And there was not going to be room for error on his watch.

“I am curious as to why you took such a position in law enforcement when the mere appearance of this establishment has your heart beating in a slightly erratic state. Surely any cardiatric issues would deem you unfit for duties out in the field.” You groaned quietly, not bothering to reply so he would get the hint that you wanted and needed the quiet. If he was going to continue on speaking just to criticize your choice of career, you would at least have him do it when you weren't in a situation that could hold any level of danger.

As you ventured deeper into the nearly vacant, concrete room, you came upon a set of ancient looking stairs. The metal of the railing was cold, but the amount of time gone by without proper maintenance built a layer of dark copper rust that left bare scratches against the surface of your palms each time you used it to steady yourself on a weak step. The sound of creaks and decent dents in the material didn’t help settle any doubts on the stability of the staircase. Regardless, however, you continued upward. The surroundings were nothing void of an ominous and dangerous feel, as old machines and broken pieces of large metal or steel objects were scattered across the second level of the building. Tattered work uniforms were bundled into a corner - you lifted one up and observed its appearance. You tossed it back down and lightly kicked the almost oddly shaped pile of worn out clothing, nearly flinching when a rat appeared from under some of the shirts and ran across the dusty ground to a new hiding place. You let out a small breath and shook your head, I shouldn’t let small stuff get to me. That plastic babysitter of mine might force me out of the search.

Conner’s voice was heard from behind after the incident, though with the back and forth way he’d been acting lately a form of communication wasn’t something you wanted to reignite unless necessary. It became a muffled sound once you blocked it from your mind, needing to make yourself focus on the possible rogue android. The only thing you allowed to enter your system about the man beside you was whether he would actually allow an open chance to bring in the deviant without threats or shoot outs being made. The offer itself - no matter how tempting it seemed - wasn’t convincing enough for you to drop everything you thought about. Conner was a force to be reckoned with and an impossible person to reason with, the complete opposite of his counterpart. You only agreed to do take on this case because staying ahead of the newer model by even a few steps would give you a quicker advantage in case he falls back on his word.

The movement of your nose wrinkling wasn’t missed while you slowly paraded around the cement flooring, unusual odors filling your nostrils and causing a displeasing scent to invade one of your five senses. Despite the almost repulse you felt, it carried a scent that stood out above the rest. One that you knew all too well from months of deviant cases and working with the hotheaded machine. While the smell of thirium resembled an echo inside of system of senses, it was impossible for you to follow the exact trail that would eventually lead to the supposed fugitive. With a quiet huff, you glanced back at your partner. “Conner.” He looked away from the old equipment. “I need you to look for any blue blood up that leads further in.”

“Yes, Y/N.” The RK900 gave a subtle nod before walking ahead of you, his inaudible steps still echoing a form of sound that bounced off the walls. You stayed put, waiting for the man to announce any findings the more he surveyed the area. The opportunity was used in observing the rest of the room, trying to catch anything that could have given away the exact location. The situation itself was weird - there weren't any tracks outside, no handprints on the walls or floor inside. There was a significant lack of parts that could've been lost and damaged that would've ended up abandoned somewhere. As well as the well hidden streaks of thirium that was likely to lost during the deviant's escape. The visit to the house before being led to the warehouse wasn't much help; the woman there was very vague and only gave real attention to the price of a replacement android rather than finding the current one. The absence of evidence and trails was beginning to get frustrating. You were so into the extra effort of detective work that you didn't hear your partner calling you. You looked over to see Conner waving his hand in his direction, motioning for you to go over.

You followed the man through a hall off to the side with only one window at the end. The cement ground was especially dirty with excessively accumulated dust and small bugs crawling about the nooks and crannies. Your face scrunched up each time you needed to flick one off of your jacket, so much so that an amused expression flashed across the CyberLife creation's face before disappearing just as quickly. He kept a fraction of a distance ahead as he led you to a large, separate room. It was the emptiest spot in the whole building save for a rusted old elevator built in the center of the back wall. As the two of you approached the contraption, you saw that the shaft itself was gone. You stepped toward the edge of the space and looked down, seeing nothing but darkness below. “Any blue blood?”

Conner stepped up beside you and lifted his chin as he looked up. “There are spots and fingerprints along the cables that lead to an opening for the roof - right where that thin streak of light is coming from.” He tilted his head sightly, “The trail ends there. If we can get to the top and open the door, I will be able to pinpoint the exact location of the deviant.”

You nodded along, humming at the end while you thought about the predicament. Surely there was another entrance that would take you both to the rooftop without any extra force being needed. Nothing in the room gave way to an alternative, nor did the building itself really have anything but old, broken products and equipment. However, you did recall seeing a window beside the doorway that brought you to this room. So with only a simple nod in the other direction, you led the animated detective back the way you came. The bottom panel of the window was cracked, almost as if someone had tried to break it open with a rock or other hard object, but other than that it was still closed and locked. You pulled down one of the sleeves of your jacket so it covered your dominant arm completely, and used your elbow to break through the weakened glass. Clear shards fell far into the grass down below, and you cleared away any loose pieces before turning the outdoor latch. You lifted up the window and swung a leg over to sit at the ledge, using a nearby tree branch to lift yourself up. You turned your head to look after the frozen animatronic. “Come on, Conner.”

“There is a twenty-six percent chance that you will fail, Detective.”

“Which means there's a seventy-four percent chance I won't. So hurry up.”

Conner blinked, the LED on the side of his temple switching into a glowing yellow while he contemplated the success rate of this stunt. The odds calculated to ending in your favor if done right, yet the level of stupidity you carried in that moment was something that irked the robot. Not only were you putting yourself in harms way, but you were doing something with no guarantee that it would provide the wanted deviant in the end. If it heard you, it could run again. And that would've been a huge step back from the present case at hand.

With his normal frown etched onto his human features, he begrudgingly climbed out of the window to join you.

Software Instability ↑↑

[l000ey]

the queen and the jester → r.d

pairing; song mino x rae dara (ft. dong youngbae and mentions of lee chaerin, park bom, min hyorin and kwon jiyong)

summary; Red needs to forget everything and Mino wants to helps her

warning; bad language

note; yes, they fucked but Mino is not the only one Red has had sex with after her breakup with GD.....

2014

People smiled and laughed happily as they talked to their friends or acquaintances while Red was sitting there with a glass of the strongest alcohol she could have found in the bar of the huge hotel where they were celebrating the end of the year party. She sighed and turned to see her best friend when she felt that he was sitting next to she.

"Are you gonna stay like that all night?" The girl shrugged at the question. Taeyang sighed as he looked for Chaerin but she was very busy dancing with Hyorin and Bom, he made a face that showed his displeasure when he saw his leader dancing with that girl he had brought to the party.

He looked at the brunette only to realize that she was also looking at Jiyong and that model devouring in the middle of the dance floor. Dara sighed and drank another swallow from her glass. "I think I'll go home."

"But there is only one hour left for it to be New Year" With his right hand he gave a slight squeeze on her leg, trying to give her encouragement but she ignored it by going back to drink another drink "D, stay. Do not give him the satisfaction of seeing you wrong. "

"I think he's already satisfied enough." She pointed out how the girl intertwined her fingers in the rapper's hair and bit his lips. She let out a bitter laugh and stood up, alarming Youngbae.

"Uh, uh, where are you going?" He got up too when he saw her staggering, helped her sit down again.

"I need a cigarette, maybe two or three." She opened her purse and pulled out a packet of tobacco next to a cigarette lighter. The white-haired man sighed again before snatching the bag, earning a complaint from the best "Yah, give me that."

"No" He said curtly.

"Youngbae, please. I need to get out of here, I want to go home.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and hid her face in his stomach, the singer growled looking for someone to help him with the twenty three years old baby. The only one who seemed to be in his five senses was the rapper of the group of boys who had debuted about a year ago, what was his name? Oh, yes, Mino.

"You" He pointed to the boy, who was sitting at a few tables beyond. The dark haired man frowned and pointed, Youngbae nodded "Come here."

"Yes, hyung?" Mino waved at him but Taeyang stopped him.

"I need your help, have you drunk?" The boy denied and he smiled "Perfect! Well, you're going to help Red get home. "

"Ah, I'm not so drunk." Red, who was watching them still sitting in her place, frowned annoyed. "I do not need a babysitter, Youngbae."

"Oh, believe me you need it." He handed the bag to the young man and helped his friend get up while she complained nonstop. Mino frowned without understanding anything, his sunbae looked sad and did not understand the reasons why she could be but nevertheless remained silent. The older one looked at him. "Help her get home and then come back if you want. If you do, I'll talk to the CEO to give you a solo album. "

Red rolled her eyes at the exaggerations of her best friend, snatched the bag from her hoobae and picked up a cigar ready to be smoked. She looked at the dark haired man "Are we going?"

"Eh, yes." He nodded quickly receiving her bag again and started to walk to get to it but his hyung's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Take care of her. She's not anybody, you know?” He nodded and started running toward the girl who had stopped at the door as soon as she realized he was not following her.

Both walked in silence through the hotel corridors until they reached the elevator. Red sighed as soon as Mino hit the button that would take them down.

“Mino”.

"Yes?" He turned quickly to see if she needed anything. He inspected her with his eyes, curious about his senior, but everything seemed fine with her, so he waited for her to speak.

"Can we go somewhere other than my house, please? I do not want to be there, I need fresh air.” She did not look at it for a second as she spoke, her eyes were lost on the floor of the elevator.

"But Taeyang hyung said that ..."

"I know what your hyung said, but I want to breathe and if you're going to be my babysitter at least does that for me." Her green eyes finally settled on him and all he could do was nod. He was afraid to screw everything and have her thrown him out of the agency. He approached the panel and pressed the button on the sixth floor making the girl look at him confused. "What are you doing?"

"I rented a room because I thought about drinking until I forgot my name so we can go there. You can smoke, there is a terrace. "He explained before leaving the wall and standing in front of the doors.

"Wow, I did not even think about asking for a room. Very clever, Song” The boy smiled at the words of the eldest and offered his hand to help her out of the elevator. They walked hand in hand to the room where Mino had to let her go to open the door. He let her pass first in a gentlemanly act. Red smiled to see the room, it was beautiful "You can go back to the party if you want, I will smoke a while and then I will go to my house. Do not miss the fun because of me. "

Mino laughed leaving the bag on one of the bedside tables after closing the door "It was not a fun party. It was pretty boring, I would say. I'll stay and when you want to leave I'll take you home. I promised hyung that I would take care of you."

"Well, thanks." She smiled at him, running the curtains so she could have access to the terrace. She turned around and looked at him still smiling. "And stop talking to me in a formal way, we've known each other for many years, I think we're close enough to talk to me like that."

He followed her to the terrace. "You're older than me and everyone knows you do not like honorific so I had to be respectful in some way." He watched her take off her heels and throw them away from her. He laughed thinking about how cute she was doing that pout looked when he saw the wonderful views of the Seoul night that the room had.

"Thank you for bringing me here." She looked at him, ignoring the fact that she had caught him looking at her and smiled at him and then looked again at the illuminated city. "It's just what I needed."

He followed her example and sat in the other chair. "I'm glad I was helpful."

Silence filtered again between the two, the only thing you could hear was the cigarette burn and music away from the party a couple of floors above. Dara sighed letting out the smoke, her sigh caught the attention of the rapper, who turned his head to look at her.

"C-can I ask you something?"

The brunette laughed "You've done it but yes, go ahead."

"Why are you so down? It's been a while since I've noticed it. You almost never smile and if you do it is a fake smile, you just drink and smoke and spend most of your time in your studio or at home "He looked at her worried" Is everything all right? "

Just as he said, she forced a smile, feeling her eyes watering so she looked away from him. Mino did not stop looking at her for a moment so, despite her effort to keep the tears out of sight, he saw her cry. He got up and knelt by her side while rubbing her arm trying to comfort her.

"Hey, it's fine. You can cry if you want. "He trailed his other hand down her back and hugged her while she hid her face in his chest. A few minutes later she stopped sobbing but both continued in the same position "Do you want to tell me what happened?".

"Jiyong and I have broken up and the son of a bitch has brought a slut to the party. He was eating her mouth in front of me!” She exclaimed and shrugged closer to the warm body of the boy" I know we're not together anymore and he's free to do whatever he wants but I do not know...show some respect at least? "

"He should have waited a little longer to take someone to an event at the company." The black-haired agreed, she nodded away from his arms causing a cold to immediately spread through his skin.

"Exact. Thank you.” She accepted the handkerchief for which Mino had entered the room and carefully cleaned her face but could not continue because the boy took it from her hands and began to clean it.

"Let me do it" he murmured and began to spread the silk over her skin carefully, with too much care, as if she were the most precious and weak thing that he could have in his hands and that he should take care of. "I think hyung is stupid, not only for today but for leaving you. He's crazy about leaving a queen like you without a king. "

Dara moved slightly away from his touch leaving his cleaning job in half. She looked into his eyes and frowned thinking about why the hell she should have fallen in love with Jiyong instead of Mino. Without realizing her lips were already glued to his and her body was sitting on his lap.

She moaned when his tongue entered her mouth. She quickly brought her hands to his hair, that hair so well combed and cut that since she had seen it had made her want to run her fingers through it and ruffle it. The fireworks began to explode in front of them and the shouts of happiness of their record companions sounded in the distance. 2015 had already arrived.

Mino broke the kiss by separating from her, very little but for them it felt like being millions of miles away from each other. He looked at her confused.

"Help me to forget him, please" She whispered and he, even knowing that this would bring consequences, nodded before returning to stick his lips with hers and get up with her in his arms. He walked with a determined step towards the room where he approached the bed and placed her gently on top of it.

Mino pulled away to take off his shoes while Dara unzipped her dress. He came quickly to her after he had discarded his jacket and kissed her again before helping her to get rid of that dress that looked very expensive although he did not regret to see that under the dress there was a fine lingerie. He bit his lower lip with such force that it seemed that at any moment he would bleed, the brunnette took him from his tie and pulled him closer to her. He joined her lips again while she unbuttoned his shirt. Mino's mind kept telling him that this was probably a dream and that he enjoyed it because he would never experience such a real dream again.

"Mino" She sighed his name when his lips took hold of the skin of her neck, he growled happy to hear his name leave her lips and continued sucking her smooth and soft skin. He spent minutes on each part of her body, did not leave a corner without kissing while whispering how beautiful she was making her sigh happily.

He pulled away from the skin of her stomach and looked at her, eyes closed and moaning for him. He smiled and went down to kiss her on the lips this time.

"Mino” She whispered again when the kiss broke.

"Yes?" He pulled their sweaty foreheads together as his hands danced around the curves of her body.

The look she gave him said too many things, said he would help her, that she needed love, that she missed her family, that she felt...empty but she did not say anything of that.

"Mino, fuck me." She said instead.

Hours later the boy looked at her back where that stupid tattoo rested while she slept soundly after her attempt to forget Kwon Jiyong. Mino grimaced without stop looking at the tattoo, that tattoo that was famous throughout Asia, that tattoo that symbolized the eternal love that the king and queen swore to have before all but that in the end it would only be a scar on the skin of the queen that would remember her for life to the king.

And Mino did not like that because he knew that this, what had just happened and for what she asked so much, would be nothing more than a secret story that would be between them and that soon she would run into the arms of the king as soon as he was, realized how stupid he is and asked for forgiveness. And then there would be him, the funny but lonely jester who loves the queen in secret like many others.

He sighed and turned around, ready to say goodbye to the beautiful but tragic night that had just passed in front of him.

[berniesrevolution]

The first Netroots Nation conference in a Trump-era election year opened with not one, not two, but five keynote speakers of color, all of whom underlined the potential of a “multiracial coalition” of voters made up of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and progressive whites. Their prescription for taking back the House in the November mid-terms was not winning back Trump voters, but expanding the electorate. “Our swing voter is not red to blue,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old Bronx Democrat who upset Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley in a June primary, told an audience of progressive activists on Saturday. “It's non-voter to voter.”

The line was met with huge applause from the audience at Netroots Nation, the annual gathering for progressive candidates, activists, and organizers. Where as last year’s conference attendees saw a gubernatorial candidate’s speech interrupted with shouts of “trust black women,” this year’s felt like a very intentional tribute to people of color, especially  women.  The conference offered more than 20  training sessions and panels specifically addressing how to reach those voters, as well as the millions of eligible Americans who aren’t registered to vote. The majority of panelists and presenters, according to Netroots organizers, were people of color.

Democrats have been grappling with key questions about coalition building since the 2016 election: Should they prioritize winning back the voters they lost to Trump? Should they attempt to woo the white voters gradually fleeing the party? Progressives this weekend said, emphatically, no. It’s a genuine attempt to remake the Democratic Party at a time when racial and class tensions are the highest they’ve been since the 1960s—and it’s also put them on a collision course with party leaders and other Democrats.

“I think Trump’s win scared the shit out of everybody,” said Anoa Changa, a progressive activist and host of the podcast The Way with Anoa. “I think it’s been a wakeup call for a lot of people that we have to invest. We can’t just do the traditional model where we only talk to super-voters.”

That doesn’t mean ignoring whites and Trump voters, she says. Instead, “it’s rejecting the notion that our way to victory is having a centrist, moderate right-leaning strategy that feels like we could peel off Romney Republicans, versus investing in communities of color, marginalized groups and progressive white people,” Changa said. “There is this notion that...we can’t address the issues of race, systemic oppression because we don’t want to piss these voters off. We have to find a way to do both.”

A key voting group that progressives want to mobilize consists of more than four million voters who supported President Barack Obama in 2012 didn’t vote in 2016. More than 50 percent of them  were people of color, and almost one-quarter were under age 30, according to data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. “If 2016 had happened with the same voter turnout patterns as 2012 then [Hillary] Clinton would have won,” said Brian Schaffner, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who helped conduct the survey. “Clearly turnout can influence outcomes.”

But it’s bigger than the Obama voters. Roughly 59 percent of black Americans and 48 percent of Hispanic Americans voted in 2016, compared to 65 percent of whites. If progressives could just close this gap, they argue, Democrats would win more often. They aim to do that by mobilizing already registered voters—and by registering new ones: Roughly 30 percent of the citizen voting-age population is unregistered, and those Americans are more likely to be young people and people of color. These are the people activists call the “New American Majority.”

The Democratic Party so far has leaned into economic messaging as a way to win in 2018: After the 2016 election, they unveiled “A Better Deal” aimed at appealing to moderates and weary Trump supporters. They’ve been backing Conor-Lamb type candidates who, through their backgrounds and focus on jobs and wages, are able to come off as more independent. In 2016,  Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York  told The New York Times last week, “there was a blind spot that we had as Democrats with respect to engaging with the American people around the economic anxiety that they continue experience.”

But progressives are adamant that the only way to win in November and beyond has to be about more than economics, and that the right message—the one that will appeal to progressive whites, as well as turning out more people of color to the polls—invokes both race and class equally. Two Netroots trainings on developing a “Race-Class Narrative” were completely filled this weekend, with activists and organizers participating in mock-canvassing sessions in which they practiced delivering lines that contained both racial and economic messages. “The status quo has been not to talk about race, and there’s a myth out there is that if you talk about race you’ll lose,” said Causten Rodriguez-Wollerman, one of the leaders of the training, and a strategist with the public-policy organization Demos. “You cannot build a multiracial coalition by being silent on race.”

(Continue Reading)

[sumus-blog]

World’s Best Automobile Companies

The automobile sector has escalated over the years into a seasoned and well-established trade. The Innovations and production of the vehicles have helped the automotive trade to bloom into a profitable market. Automobile firms have contributed considerably to the event of the world’s economy by making new job opportunities. On the opposite hand, it conjointly plays a crucial role within the market as a result of this trade incorporates a ton of taxes and earnings with a giant interchange. many automobile-producing firms within the world manufacture vehicles in massive quantities to realize higher revenues.

Hence, the car sector is one of the foremost vital sectors within the economy of the globe. during this business, billions of bucks are generated on an Associate in Nursing annual basis throughout the world.

01. Tesla, Inc.

Tesla’s capitalization is around $1.134 Trillion

It was supported within the year 2003 by a bunch of engineers (Martin Eberhard and brandy Tarpenning) and Serbian Yankee artificer Nikola Tesla.

Although the electrical manufacturer Tesla has lost $9 billion in market price since might 2018, it didn’t move up or down within the list of world rankings of the largest automobile corporations.

Tesla is maintaining its position because the eighth-most valuable maker worldwide. Tesla’s engineer and technology businessperson CEO Elon Musk, although good and daring moves within the market, has conjointly established associate erratic and unreliable approach to its success.

02. Toyota Motors

Toyota Motor Corporation includes a market capitalization of $249.10 Billion

Toyota Motor endowed $1 million each hour for the analysis and development of their company. With its headquarter in Aichi, Japan, the corporate has big to become the world’s fifth-largest firm in terms of revenue. the corporate operates through quite fifty overseas producing plants cover thirty countries and regions of the planet. This covers all the broad regions of the planet together with North America, geographic region, Africa, Asia-Oceania, and Europe. the corporate has reached seventy-five years since origination terribly recently.

it's virtually fourfold larger business than Tesla. Toyota was named once its founder, Toyoda.

They have received a reward for being the vehicle to last the longest. Toyota visited America in 1957 and it's created over three hundred, 000 jobs within the u. s. alone.

Famous Models: The bestselling vehicle until the late is the Toyota whorl by the Toyota Motor Corporation.

03. Volkswagen

VW(Volkswagen) encompasses a market capitalization of $112.91 Billion

Volkswagen oversubscribed over ten million vehicles within the year 2017 and it had been based in 1937. The cluster consists of 2 divisions in business: the automotive divisions and therefore the money services divisions within the market. The automotive divisions of Volkswagen additional comprising of traveler cars, significant industrial vehicles, and therefore the Power Engineering business areas in automation.

The vision of Volkswagen traveler cars is “Moving folks and driving them forward with ease”. The cluster encompasses a name for owning huge automotive names like Volkswagen traveler Cars, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, etc. within the year 2017, the corporate achieved a brand new record by delivering overall one.07 crores vehicles worldwide in such a big amount of nations. With its worker strength of around half-dozen,42,300, the cluster is one in every of the most important employers within the automotive non-public sector and one in every of the world’s prime automotive brands across the world.

04. BYD

BYD contains a capitalization of $94.91 Billion

With its company headquarters in Shenzhen, Build Your Dreams may be a Chinese manufacturer of vehicles, buses, powered bicycles, star panels, forklifts, reversible batteries, trucks, etc. BYD has absolutely fledged to become a serious manufacturer of vehicles most notably mobile-phone batteries.

05. Daimler AG

Daimler silver encompasses a capitalization of $85.59 Billion

Daimler shares are steadily slumped for over four years. Over that point, the stock has lost over five-hundredths of its worth. On the opposite hand, this caused Daimler silver to slide a spot within the rankings, as 2018 formed up to be its straight record year.

The company encompasses a sturdy presence through Mercedes-Benz traveler vehicles, Daimler Trucks, Vans, Buses, and money Services the corporate has its international presence in multiple domains. the corporate Daimler AG’s

Mercedes-Benz is additionally a specialist in all-terrain simple machine drive brands. Daimler additionally performed passing well within the electrical cars section as a complete of 136,000 electrical sensible models were oversubscribed worldwide. Mercedes-Benz Cars by them additionally sets Associate in Nursing new series of records of skyrocketing its unit sales monthly for over four years. Hereby, it's one in the world’s prime ten automobile corporations with its fifth position within the prime automobile brands list.

[zarafoodrecipe]

How Alessandro Michele made Gucci relevant again

"A way to live." That phrase, that concept, keeps coming up with Michele, and it's a key to his transformation of Gucci from a label that had drifted far from the conversation to one at the centre of it. He isn't just selling robes, slippers, handbags, things, though he certainly wants customers to buy those, which they've done in numbers that have returned Gucci to peak cultural relevance and extraordinary financial success. He's selling a sensibility: eccentric, eclectic, inclusive. And he's doing it with every mode of communication at his disposal.

The Gucci bomber jacket inspired by Harlem designer Dapper Dan. Credit:Getty Images There are, for example, the collaborators he chooses and the celebrities he pulls into his orbit. His reaction to the graffiti artist Trevor Andrew, aka Gucci Ghost, who in late 2013 and 2014 scrawled the label's signatures all over Brooklyn and Manhattan, wasn't a copyright infringement suit or a cease-and-desist order. It was a formal invitation accepted to make clothes together (for Gucci's autumn 2016 collection). Michele's response to an outcry last year that he had copied from the legendary 1980s Harlem designer Dapper Dan a famous bomber jacket panelled in dark brown mink fur, with voluminous monogram-printed balloon sleeves was to say yes, he did, proudly and in tribute. Then, to prove his respect, Michele teamed with Dap for a joint line of apparel and set him up to work on it in an impeccably restored corner brownstone in Harlem whose lowest level, just beyond an ornate gate, is an atelier with a wall of blood-red drapes facing the street. "I didn't believe it, you know, until Cinderella saw the carriage the carriage with all the horses," Dap tells me when I drop by. "I thought, 'Wow, I guess I'm going to the ball.' When Michele introduced Gucci Bloom, the first new fragrance under his watch, he assembled unconventional ambassadors: Dakota Johnson, best known for being trussed and teased in the Fifty Shades of Grey movies; the young Canadian photographer and video director Petra Collins; and Hari Nef, a transgender actress and model. The Michele message, which never falters, is that the world of luxury is infinitely elastic, that Gucci is a palazzo with room for everybody and that the way to live is together, in harmony, in all of its overstuffed rooms. What to wear? Michele has on a pair of white leather sandals studded with dozens of crystals, sweat socks, frayed jeans and a bulky plaid shirt in baffling tension with the silk scarf above it. He's a fop. He's a lumberjack. He's a hipster. He's also a Christmas tree, ornamented to a fare-thee-well. He loves jewels, typically wears multiple bracelets and necklaces and has bulbous rings one shaped like a fox, another like a wolf on all his fingers except for his thumbs. He's his own Manhattan, his own mosaic. He's messy and mesmerising. Just like his ready-to-wear designs, which jumble elements, patterns, time periods and allusions that were seldom if ever jumbled before: pussy bows on men's shirts, babushkas atop power suits, sneakers under gowns, stripes with plaids, the old-fashioned meeting the space age. He's unrestrained with colour, promiscuous with layers and gaga for floral patterns, animal imagery and corporate logos. Where Tom Ford's Gucci spanning a decade, beginning in 1994 was minimalist, emphasising glamour, Michele's is hectic, emphasising irreverence. I sometimes wonder if he was put on this earth to liberate fashion writers from the adjective "sleek" and acquaint them with "magpie". "Beauty doesn't have limits," he tells me. "It doesn't have rules." When he took over at Gucci, he says, "fashion was talking about something that didn't exist anymore, this kind of posh world of beautiful legs and beautiful hair. I was just talking about humanity. I was trying to find a new energy in the street, not in the jet set." You still need a certain budget for Gucci. But you don't need a certain bearing or taste. "It was a revolutionary act to come in and do what he did with this company," Leto tells me, calling Michele "the Steve Jobs of fashion". Elton John, who was the muse for Michele's Spring 2018 women's and men's collection and his collaborator for a capsule collection in September last year, likens his exuberance to Gianni Versace's. After Versace's death, John thought he'd never gravitate to a famous designer's apparel again. "I didn't think there would be anyone out there worth it," he says. But when he began his farewell tour in September, he did so with a wardrobe by Michele, who creates "clothes with humour", John tells me, adding: "He's making clothes for basketball stars, for US National Football League stars, for people who feel they're not being judged for what size they are. That's important. Most designers make clothes for anorexic stickpins. He's making clothes that everybody can enjoy." John socialises with Michele, knows him well and says Michele's personality also distinguishes him from others in his industry. "Fashion is known for people being divas and being grand," John says, "and I can think of a lot of fashion designers I wouldn't want to spend five minutes with, probably 90 per cent of them. And he's just very down-to-earth."

Michele with Elton John and Johns partner David Furnish at a Gucci launch in London. Hes just very down-to-earth, John says of the designer.Credit:Getty Images Jared Leto, Elton John: this wasn't Michele's crowd before 2015, because for most of his career first at the Italian knitwear brand Les Copains, then at Fendi, then at Gucci, where he designed bags for Tom Ford before rising to become an associate designer to Ford's successor, Frida Giannini he was only modestly known outside the companies he worked for. That changed in a blink, in one of the most unexpected and consequential fashion stories of the last quarter-century. Ford's Gucci was a sensation, its air of hedonism and hypersexuality in perfect sync with the prosperity and libido that defined Bill Clinton's US presidency, but during the Giannini years, from 2005 through 2014, the label lost its mooring and its lustre. It didn't turn heads. It didn't prompt talk. Above all, it didn't communicate anything specific about its time. Michele's Gucci, in contrast, is engaged in a consistently spirited and occasionally profound conversation with the zeitgeist, drawing from it, adding to it and revolutionising fashion in the process. Young consumers plant their flags and sculpt their images on social media, so Gucci, under Michele, does too. They expand and even explode the old parameters around gender, sexual identity, race and nationality, and Michele takes that journey with them, even leads them on it, giving them a uniform for it, a visual vocabulary with which to express it. The emotional genius of what he has done is to affirm their searching. The commercial genius is to create totems for it and, in the process, democratise what we historically called "luxury goods", a phrase too haute and hoary for the party he's throwing. Franois-Henri Pinault, the chairman and CEO of Kering, the luxury conglomerate that owns Gucci, says before Michele took the reins, the problem at Gucci wasn't really sales, which remained respectable. "The perception of Gucci as a fashion authority, as one of the trendsetters, was declining," he says. He fired both Giannini and the company's CEO, who was also her romantic partner and the father of her child, and started over, bringing in the Italian businessman Marco Bizzarri as a new CEO and charging him with finding Giannini's replacement in all likelihood, a fashion nova from another label. When Bizzarri met Michele, then 42, for coffee one day in late December 2014, he was just trying to learn more about the company. Michele, he tells me, "certainly wasn't on the list of candidates". But they talked and talked about the more joyful culture that the company needed, about history and art and life, about how fashion is so much more than merchandise. The conversation spanned three hours, and when Bizzarri contacted him almost immediately afterwards to ask for more time to talk, Michele realised that he had joined the roster. Bizzarri then laid down a challenge that became fashion legend. Gucci was about to present its new autumn 2015 menswear collection, and Giannini had essentially finished it. What if they scratched it and swapped in a collection by Michele? He had a week: five days for the clothes (36 looks in all) and two days for the staging of the runway show, every last detail of which, from the models to the seating arrangement, Michele subsequently changed. "It was a way for me to see if Alessandro was willing to take risks," Bizzarri recalls, "because considering the kind of turnaround that I had in mind, I needed a person who was willing, like me, to take big risks and maybe make big mistakes. If he was going to tell me no, then I didn't want to be with someone who was risk-averse." Michele was emboldened partly by his knowledge of the size and skill of the design team at Gucci. But mostly, he just didn't think about the insanity of what he was trying to pull off. "Somebody gave me the chance to do something beautiful, and when you are working on something beautiful, you don't feel the pressure," he says. "I work to create something that is in my brain, and I don't feel like I have to impress people outside." The result, unveiled in mid-January 2015, was where the pussy bows came in, along with other necklines and fillips usually associated with womenswear. He used both female and male models, so interchangeable in their looks that they became a grand, genderless blur. They wore berets, spectacles, scarves. Androgyny cosied up to cheeky intellectualism, and in a slightly off-kilter palette: an announcement of his willingness to play with colour more daringly than his forebears at Gucci had. These weren't his boldest hues, which would come later, but they were surprising, under-appreciated ones: the gunmetal end of the blue spectrum, the rustier shades of brown, each sometimes throwing a pure, vivid red into more brilliant relief. At the show's end, instead of taking a solo bow, Michele brought his whole team on-stage with him, which was another declaration that a new day had dawned. Only then did the nerves kick in. "I'm not shy in my private life, but I'm really shy when I have to go out in front of a lot of people," he says. "I'm more than shy. I'm terrified." But the applause, he remembers, "was like the biggest hug I've ever felt in my lifetime." Some fashion insiders muttered privately that Gucci had gone mad. But both Pinault and Bizzarri were impressed by Michele's instinct to transplant his own quirks and obsessions into the brand. It gave his designs authenticity and palpable emotion. "He's one of those guys who, despite the size of the brand, despite the power of the brand, says, 'This is my personal creative universe, and I will work with that and the icons and symbols of the brand to create something new,' " Pinault explains. "And he was right." The success that Gucci has had with that approach was a factor in Pinault's decision earlier this year to appoint the unknown 32-year-old British designer Daniel Lee as the new creative director of Bottega Veneta, which Kering also owns. "I asked him about his own personal aesthetic," Pinault says, referring to Lee, "and then tried to find if there was any compatibility between the designer and the brand." The gender fluidity of Michele's work was what drew the lion's share of attention at first. "I was very surprised," he says, because it wasn't a considered provocation or political statement. "I thought that it was such a normal thing." It was happening in the world; it needed to happen in fashion: "This is not a time when fashion can stay inside a box." Popular culture certainly wasn't staying inside that box; just a year earlier, the pioneering television dramedy Transparent had debuted to enormous interest and huge acclaim, and less than six months later, Caitlyn Jenner would appear on the cover of Vanity Fair. The LGBT consonant cluster was being elongated, litigated and traded in for more flexible banners like queer and genderqueer, and "binary" was suddenly a dirty word. Fashion hadn't fully reckoned with that. Michele did intuitively, intelligently and expansively.

Alessandro Michele with his team on the runway after his first Gucci show. Credit:Getty Images That was hardly all that distinguished him. Both the clothes and the voluminous notes that he distributes at the shows betray an erudition and a roving, restless mind that have a lot do with his deep roots in Rome. He grew up in the heart of the city, to parents who revered the arts and had the resources to enjoy them and expose him and his sister to them. His mother was an assistant to an Italian movie executive, and thus steeped in the world of cinema, while his father, a technician for the airline Alitalia, was a sculptor in his spare time. "I walked through these antique ruins from the very first day of my life," he tells me when I visit him there in June. We sit on a green velvet sofa under a dazzling coffered ceiling in his office in a palazzo that was built in the early 16th century according to plans by Raphael. It's now Gucci's design headquarters. Rome is overflowing with the archetypes and iconography of various epochs, layering them, cluttering them, bringing them into collision. When you step out of Gucci's Renaissance digs and glance to the right, you can see a bridge over the Tiber lined with baroque sculptures designed by Bernini and, on the far side, the cylindrical hulk of Castel Sant'Angelo, built in the second century by the Roman emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for his family. All of this visibly informs Michele's perspective and style. "I spent time with my dad not in the park, not playing sports, but just going to museums," he tells me. "So I spent time in front of these beautiful statues and all these faces and bodies." "Rome is in Alessandro's veins," says Elisabetta Proietti, who taught him when he was a student at the Accademia Costume & Moda, a three-year school with a single program in both fashion and costume design just a few short cobbled blocks from the Gucci headquarters. Proietti is continually struck by the impact that the school's dual focus had on his work. To produce costumes, she says, you must be fluent in the gradations of the past, and Michele's collections for Gucci are indeed like glorious excavations the fashion equivalent of archaeological digs (here the Elizabethan, there the Victorian, a nod to tsarist Russia, a wink at Ziggy Stardust) narrated in a century-hopping, decade-scrambling vocabulary of flowing caftans and boxy jumpsuits, floral and animal prints and brocades. His fascination with yesteryear is even more intense than his and other designers' more common flirtations with the present pop culture. And it's coupled with his insatiable appetite for reading, roving, learning. "He's interested in everything," Proietti says. "He's extremely, extremely curious." Hari Nef recalls that when she first met Michele, at his request, over dinner in West Hollywood at the Chateau Marmont, she had recently graduated from Columbia University, "this program where I had been required to read Virginia Woolf and the Greek tragedies and Homer and Aeschylus. These were all fresh in my head, bouncing around." Michele was game. They bounced around in his head, too. "Frankly," Nef tells me, "these were nerdy topics I was rarely able to engage with people in the fashion industry about." The "fashion industry" isn't something Michele cares to dwell on or in. Among the reasons he favours Rome, he says, is he's unlikely to bump into the designers, journalists, publicists and celebrities who define that demi-monde. His thoughts aren't contaminated by what is deemed trendy. "I want the separation," he says. "I need the separation. I'm not really inspired from fashion. I started from other points of view." His longtime romantic partner, Giovanni Attili, is a professor of urban planning whose scholarship has focused on such subjects as the Haida Nation, an Indigenous tribe in British Columbia. Michele and Attili don't steal away to Tuscany or the Amalfi Coast for breathers. Instead, their holiday home teeters literally atop a gorgeous, ludicrous butte of sorts called Civita di Bagnoregio in central Italy. The village has a year-round population of about a dozen, largely because the earth under it is crumbling and the structures require constant maintenance. "I love the house because it's like it's falling down every year," Michele says. "You don't know how long it will be there. And you don't care. It's a reflection of our life, you know?" On the inside of his left bicep, he has a tattoo of Attili's nickname, Vanni, while his own, Lallo, is tattooed in the same writing and place on his right arm. They're a matching set. The couple met 13 years ago, over the internet, in a funny way. Michele had just gotten a new laptop, and a friend was showing him how the Facebook precursor Myspace functioned, insisting that he sign up.

Models carried replicas of their heads at Guccis autumn 2018 fashion show in Milan.Credit:Getty Images "I was aghast at these kinds of things," he says, but he played along, connecting with one of his friend's 700 acquaintances Attili because of his profile picture. "It was just the view of a beautiful landscape in Canada," Michele recalls. As the two exchanged messages, Michele remarked that he had no idea what Attili looked like. Attili, amused, pointed out that his face was right there, in that landscape. "I didn't realise," Michele says, "that if you clicked on the picture and made it larger, there was a little guy inside. I didn't know I had the possibility to get inside that picture. I was really bad." Which is strange, because one of the hallmarks of Gucci under Michele is how clever it is about social media and what a commanding presence it has there. Michele has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram, where he posts a hypnotic array of pictures that underscore how readily his designs, with their embroidered symbols and explicit pop culture references, translate into viral images. That's integral to the traction that Gucci has found with young consumers. "If you're constantly documenting yourself, you want to be wearing things that are a little over-the-top or statement-oriented," says Phillip Picardi, who was until recently the head of Teen Vogue. Michele makes that possible. "He's managed to do maximalism in a very chic way, and that's perfect for your Instagram grid or your Instagram story." The adolescent protagonist of the critically acclaimed independent movie Eighth Grade, released in July in the United States, ends each of her YouTube videos by saying, "Gucci." It's her equivalent of "cool". In Rome, I watch Michele work with about a dozen colleagues on his spring 2019 menswear collection. Boxes upon boxes of jewellery crowd the tables where they sit. A kaleidoscope of fabric swatches dangles from the walls, and there's an easel of potential T-shirt designs that reveal a current fixation on Dolly Parton, her 1973 song Jolene and the movie The Bride of Frankenstein. I have no idea how they all hang together but then I don't think that I'm supposed to. Four male models charting varying degrees of androgyny wander in and out, quickly changing clothes. Some of their shorts have billows and pleats that evoke skirts. A shiny long-sleeved shirt and an even shinier jacket look as if they're made from hot-pink and turquoise plastic. The wispiest of the models, his long hair gathered in a bun, appears in a pale mauve shirt with traditionally feminine construction, burgundy slacks with wide hips and, over them, a white jockstrap. As Michele fusses with sleeve lengths and frets over colour combinations, Bjrk's Utopia album plays in the background. (Naturally, he designed her outfit for the video of the album's first single, The Gate.) The word I hear him use most often suggests the playful attitude that he brings to bear on everything he designs. It's not bello, or "beautiful". It's carino "cute". At one point, I ask him which of his collections he was most pleased with which one expressed exactly what he wanted it to. He cites the collection with the dragon, his autumn 2018 womens- and menswear show. It was titled Cyborg, and the dragon wasn't the half of it. Several models carried replicas of their own heads. Others had masks obscuring their faces. The clothes kept pace with that eccentricity: royal blue turbans, a multitiered black pagoda hat and colourful patterned head scarves. Rhinestones galore. The plainest suit and the palest jacket had Major League Baseball insignia, just because; a ruby sweater with sleeves that looked like enormous, fuzzy dust mops had "Paramount Pictures", with the iconic mountaintop image, across its chest. He says that he was contemplating the nature of identity today: how everything from the poses you strike on social media to the accessibility of cosmetic surgery allows you to hide, expose or wholly transform yourself. "It's like a laboratory, you know?" he says. "Your life can be like a laboratory. In the past, the idea of being human was what the earth and nature gave to you." That's not so anymore. He calls this era "post-human", explaining that "you can really manipulate everything. It's pretty scary, but it's also pretty interesting. You can lead different lives. You can decide to be different things." And fashion must reflect that, too. By Michele's reckoning, it can no longer be a leash, tethering you to someone else's ideal. It has to be a licence, setting you free and giving you the tools to figure out your own. "Fashion now is like an old lady that is dying on a bed," he said in Harper's Bazaar last year. "I think we can let this old lady die." I ask him if that makes what he is doing post-fashion. He ponders that for a few seconds, letting it sink in. "Probably it's true," he says, "because in a way, it's like, I don't care about fashion. I'm trying to say that fashion is a platform. The way you look is the way you live." No stranger can decree that. It comes together incrementally and sometimes haphazardly, in a fitful and imperfect process of discovery, the way every story and every city does. Why pretend otherwise? Why not just celebrate it? Most Viewed in Lifestyle Loading https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/how-alessandro-michele-made-gucci-relevant-again-20181126-p50id1.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

[andrewjaaeremy]

They need to see you plain, a long-faced lad in an old black cloak.

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[genxsoftofficial]

New Delhi: Life of Karuna Srivastava has been stitched around radio. Be it listening her favourite songs or programme or making a programme for the people, all have been the soul of her life since the beginning.

She, in her seventies, resides at White Rose Apartments in Sector 13, Dwarka with her family, cherishing the memories of her 35 years of illustrious career with All India Radio holding various important positions.

She started her journey in 1976 formally and it continued till 2008 when she retired as ADG (Additional Director General). Karuna says, “Life is radio and radio is life for me. What I am today is due to radio.”

In her twenties, Karuna joined AIR Delhi leaving her government job in Ministry of Defense  Archive Section because she had a passion to ultimately join radio.

She recalls, “It was a good job and I was enjoying in section of war history archive there. But I wanted to join radio. I saw an advertisement in newspaper that AIR had vacancy through UPSC. I applied for that and you can imagine my intensity to join as I was the topper out of 143 candidates appeared in exam. I started my career and joined in music section in June 1976. My work was basically to contact classical singers and line up them for programmes etc. So this was the beginning of my journey with AIR.”

Meeting with dream

Karuna has many memorable moments in her life during radio days. She always remember those memories and live the moment. One of the memories is the meeting with her dream and it was meeting with her role model Lata Mangeshkar. In Karuna’s words, it was climax of her life. She shares with a thrill and a smile on face, “Radio gave me three chance to meet Lata Mangeshkar. Once on the occasion of 50th anniversary of independence, there was a program at the Parliament. Lata Ji had to perform. I was incharge there from AIR. That day I welcomed her and stood aside her. It was like a dream come true. She was in white silk saree. I feel that moment very often.”

Karuna's journey in radio made her meet the giants of their own fields like Shyam Benegal, Lata Mangeshkar, Bheem Sen Joshi, Smita Patil, Raj Babbar, Harivansh Rai Bacchan, Debu Chaudhry, Amjad Ali Khan, Bismillah Khan, Anuradha Poudwal, Kavita Krishnamurti, Bappi Lahiri, Girija Devi, Jagjit Singh and many more.

She still after her retirement in 2008 is on the panel of AIR as an expert and often go to check the audition and contribute in other required works for AIR.

Moments

Being in radio, Karuna got many chance to earn glory, make great friends and get blessings of veteran artists and laureates of India. When she was looking after Yuwavani, she had friends like Raj Babbar and his wife Nadira Babbar. “We used to invite youths from Delhi University and it was the time when we used to interact more after program or before program. We all were of same age so there was a connect. In that period, Raj Babbar used to visit us and also her wife Nadira. With the time, Nadira became my good friend.”

Eight hours recording with Harivansh Rai Bacchan and letters

When she was handling the programmes with veteran writers and music artists, she got used to contacting them for recording. It was a program in which the AIR was doing long recording of artists and writers. In that, Karuna recorded famous poet and father of Amitabh Bacchan, Harivansh Rai Bacchan. Karuna used to interact with him and his wife Teji Bacchan. She has a memory associated with Harivansh Rai Bacchan, “He was a fatherly figure for me and he treated me like a daughter. He used to write me letters too. I had his five hand written letters on inland. His writing  was beautiful. Unfortunately, I lost those letters. They were kept in a box with my own writing works. Somehow moisture entered in that and they got corrupted. It was a great loss for me.”

Interaction with Smita Patil

During her days in Yuwavani, Karuna got a chance to interact with Smita Patil. Smita was invited by AIR as she was on a program in Delhi. Karuna shares, “There was an excitement in us to meet her. Before that we went to Regal to watch her movie Bhoomika. She was a lady with grace. A young, simple girl with dark complexion. Humble in talking.”

Received award on behalf of Bismillah Khan

Karuna was holding charge of Station Director in Lucknow. In 2003, there was a function organised by AIR to honour the artists. In that, Ustad Bismillah Khan had to be honoured but he was not present. On his behalf, Karuna received the award. “I was Station Director, so CEO Prasar Bharti asked me to go on stage and receive the award. It was a big moment that I was given a responsibility to get the honour of such a legend and hand over to him in the same way. I did that. I went to Banaras to give his award and award money. He was very happy seeing me visiting him personally. He blessed me patting my back. I could feel that warmth still in my life.”