#how to get appraisal and promotion

[dailyrothko]

No, the Popularity of Abstract Art is Not the Result of a CIA PsyOp

If you are unlucky enough to move around the internet these days and talk about art, you’ll find that many “First commenters” will hit you with what they see as some hard truth about your taste in art. Comments usually start with how modern art is “money laundering” always comically misunderstanding what that means. What they are saying is that, of course, rich people use investments as tax shelters and things like expensive antiques and art appraised at high prices to increase their net worth. Oh my god, I’ve been red-pilled. The rich getting richer? I have never heard of such a thing.

What is conveniently left out of this type of comment is that the same valuation and financial shenanigans occur with baseball cards, wine, vacation homes, guitars, and dozens of other things. It does indeed happen with art, but even the kind that the most conservative internet curator can appreciate. After all, Rembrandts are worth money too, you just don’t see many because he’s not making any more of them. The only appropriate response to these people who are, almost inevitably themselves, the worst artists you have ever seen, is silence. It would cruel to ask about their own art because there’s a danger they might actually enjoy such a truly novel experience.

When you are done shaking your head that you just subjected yourself to an argument about the venality of poor artists plotting to make their work valuable after they died, you can certainly then enjoy the accompanying felicity of the revelation they have saved to knock you off your feet: “Abstract art is a CIA PsyOp”

Here one must get ready either to type a lot or to simply say “Except factually” and go along your merry, abstract-art-loving way. But what are the facts? Unsurprisingly with things involving US government covert operations, the facts are not so clear.

Like everything on the internet, you are unlikely to find factual roots to the arguments about government conspiracies and modern art. The mere idea of it is enough to bring blossom for the “I’m not a sheep” crowd, some of whom believe that a gold toilet owning former president is a morally good, honest hard-working man of the people.

The roots of this contention come from a 1973 article in Artforum magazine, where art critic Max Kozloff wrote about post-war American painting in the context of the Cold War, centering around Irving Sandler’s book, The Triumph of American Painting (1970). Kozloff takes on more than just abstract expressionism in his article but condemns the “Self-congratulatory mood”of Sandler’s book and goes on to suggest the rise of abstract expressionism was a “Benevolent form of propaganda”. Kozoloff treads a difficult line here, asserting that abstraction was genuinely important to American art but that its luminaries, “have acquired their present blue-chip status partly through elements in their work that affirm our most recognizable norms and mores.”

While there were rumblings of agreements around Kozloff’s article of broad concerns, it did not give birth to an actual conspiracy theory at the time. The real public apprehension of this idea seems to mostly come from articles written by historian Frances Stonor Saunders in support of her book, “The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters” (New York, New Press, 2000). (I have not read this 525 page book, only excerpts).

The gist of Ms. Saunders argument is a tantalizing, but mostly unsupported, labyrinthine maze of back door funding and novelistic cloak and dagger deals. According to Saunders, the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an anti-communist cultural organization founded in 1950, was behind the promotion of Abstract art as part of their effort to be opinion makers in the war against communism. In 1966 it was revealed that the CCF was funded by the CIA. Saunders says that the CCF financed a litany of art exhibitions including “The New American Painting” which toured Europe in the late 1950s. Some of this is true, but it’s difficult, if not impossible, to know the specifics.

Noted expert in abstract-expressionism, David Anfam said CIA presence was real. It was “a well-documented fact” that the CIA co-opted Abstract Expressionism in their propaganda war against Russia. “Even The New American Painting [exhibition] had some CIA funding behind it,” he says. But the reasons for this are not quite what the abstract art detractors might be looking for. After all, the CCF also funded the travel expenses for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and promoted Fodor’s travel guides. More than trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, it was meant to showcase the freedom artists in the US. enjoyed. Or as Anfam goes on to say, “It’s a very shrewd and cynical strategy, because it showed that you could do whatever you liked in America.”

For what it’s worth, Saunders’s book was eviscerated in the Summer 2000 issue of Art Forum at the time of its publication. Robert Simon wrote:

“Saunders draws extensively on primary and secondary sources, focusing on the convoluted money trail as it twists through dummy corporations, front men, anonymous donors, and phony fund-raising events aimed at filling the CCF’s coffers. She makes lengthy forays into such topics as McCarthyism, the formation and operation of the CIA, the propaganda work of the Hollywood film industry, and New York cultural politics—from Partisan Review to MoMA to Abstract Expressionism. Yet what seems strangely absent from Saunders’s panoramic history, as if it were a minor detail or something too obvious to require discussion, is the cultural object itself: The complex specifics of the texts, exhibitions, intellectual gatherings, paintings, and performances of the culture war are largely left out of the story.”

Another problem with the book seems to be that Saunders is an historian but not an art historian. For me, I sensed an overtone of superiority in the tale she’s spinning and most assuredly from those that repeat its conclusion. The thinly veiled message of some is that if it were “Real art” it would not have had be part of this government subterfuge. The reality is very different. For one thing, most of us know it is simply not true that you can make people devoted to a type of art for 100 years that they would sensibly hate otherwise. Another issue is that it’s quite obvious none of the artists actually knew about any government interference if there was any. Pollock, Rothko, Gottlieb and Newmann were all either communists or anarchists. Hardly the group one would recruit the help the US government free the world of communism. Additionally, this narrow cold war timeline ignores a huge amount of abstract art that Jackson Pollock haters also revile and consider part of the same hijacking of high (Frankly, Greek, Roman, or Renaissance) culture. If you look at the highly abstract signature work of Piet Mondrian and observe the dates they were painted, you’ll see 1908, 1914, 1916. This is some of the art denigrated as a CIA PsyOP, 35 years before the CIA even thought about it. Modern art didn’t come from nowhere as many would have you believe to discredit its rise. There was Surrealism, Dada, Bauhaus, Russian futurism and a host of other movements that fueled it.

Generally, people like to argue. On the internet, “I don’t like this” is a weak statement that always must be replaced by “This is garbage” or my favorite, “This is fake.”

It’s hardly surprising that the more conservative factions of our society look for any government involvement in our lives to explain why things are not exactly as they wish them to be, given the (highly ironic) conservative government-blaming that blew up after Reagan. In addition, modern fascists have always had a love affair with the classical fantasy of Greece and Rome. Both Mussolini and Hitler used Greece and Rome as “Distant models” to address their uncertain national identity. The Nazis confiscated more than 5,000 works in German museums, presenting 650 of them in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art, 1937) show to demonstrate the perverted nature of modern art. It featured artists including Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee, among others. The fear of art was real. It was the fear of ideas.

To a lot of people on the internet just the mentioning a “CIA program” is enough to get the cogs turning, but as with many things, the reality of CIA programs and government plots is often less than evidence of well planned coup.

The CIA reportedly spent 20 millions dollars on Operation Acoustic Kitty which intended to use cats to spy on the Kremlin and Soviet embassies. Microphones were planted on cats and plans were set in motion to get the cats to surreptitiously record important conversations. However, the CIA soon discovered that they were cats and not agreeable to any kind of regulation of their behavior.

As part of Operation Mongoose the CIA planned to undermine Castro's public image by putting thallium salts in his shoes, which would cause his beard to fall out, while he was on a trip outside Cuba. He was expected to leave his shoes outside his hotel room to be polished, at which point the salts would be administered. The plan was abandoned because Castro canceled the trip.

Regardless of your feelings on this subject or how much you believe abstract art benefited from government dollars, Saunders herself quotes in her book a CIA officer apparently involved in these “Long leash” influence operations. He says, “We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do.” Hardly the Illuminati plot we were promised.

In 2016, Irving Sandler, author of the book that started Kozloff tirading in 1973, told Alastair Sooke of The Daily Telegraph, “There was absolutely no involvement of any government agency. I haven’t seen a single fact that indicates there was this kind of collusion. Surely, by now, something – anything – would have emerged. And isn’t it interesting that the federal government at the time considered Abstract Expressionism a Communist plot to undermine American society?”

This blog post contains information and quotes sourced from The Piper Played to Us All: Orchestrating the Cultural Cold War in the USA, Europe, and Latin America, Russell H. Bartley International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Spring, 2001), pp. 571-619 (49 pages) https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/8/2/article-p127_127.xml?language=en https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/learn/schools/teachers-guides/the-dark-side-of-classicism https://www.artforum.com/features/american-painting-during-the-cold-war-212902/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html https://www.artforum.com/columns/frances-stonor-saunders-162391/ https://www.artforum.com/features/abstract-expressionism-weapon-of-the-cold-war-214234/ Mark Rothko and the Development of American Modernism 1938-1948 Jonathan Harris, Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1988), pp. 40-50 (11 pages)

[taylitruther]

Maggie reflects on it all, after the dust settles from the whole ordeal with Blackpoole and the Davids. Should she have recognized them, her husband’s team of career criminals? She had never seen their faces, true. For her, they had always been names on pages and reports. She wasn’t the one chasing them down, that was her husband.

He was the one that got to gallivant across the world, tracking down stolen IYS insured art based on info she provided him. Tracking art cases Maggie had handpicked because she thought Nate would enjoy the chase.

Some common themes came up, because Nate always seems to enjoy those chases. A lone wolf thief who has a penchant for tricky grabs. A retrieval specialist who never seems to keep the items himself for long so you’ve gotta get him in the act. Even a hacker a few times who seems to try to take just to see if he can. And of course, a grifter who seems to be popping up anywhere and everywhere, especially where IYS art is.

And then Sam got sick, and Maggie took a leave of absence and took care of him while Nate threw himself into the job. He was gone longer, going on riskier missions. And that grifter had kept popping up.

And then her son died, and everything went to shit. She went back to work but her husband lost it, quit his job, became a raging alcoholic. She has to serve him with divorce papers. She wondered if he was going to go chase that grifter, Sophie, with all his newfound free time.

Even now, even after running into him and learning about his team, she doesn’t really know what to think about him and Sophie.

Then she starts to wonder how different their lives would be, if her birth control hadn’t failed. If Sam had never been born in the first place, rather than dying too young. They had always wanted kids, but getting pregnant when she had had put her behind on the organizational ladder, left her husband to be promoted to a position to be a field investigator before her.

Would they have gone across Europe together? Chased these people, who have become her former husband’s new family?

Without Sam’s death Nate probably wouldn’t have changed sides. But now that she’s seen the injustice, she sees why he did. She did, for a while. She even entertained the idea for a moment, just one moment, of joining them. Would she and Nate have seen those injustices, changed sides themselves? Joined a crew?

Would she have that family too?

Maggie Collins takes a long sip of her wine in her empty apartment with her laptop open in front of her. No use wondering about the past. She closes out of Facebook, saddened by looking at the old, happy memories. She drains her wine, and opens up a job application she has bookmarked for a traveling art appraisal job.

There’s really nothing left for her in LA.

[thecreaturecodex]

Briarpatch

"Rose" © Sandra Duchiewicz, accessed at her deviantArt here

[It's been a long while since I posted a unique monster intended for the Age of Monsters campaign. And clearly there's still interest--my precis for that campaign, and the article about how the Mythos deities fit into it, are still getting likes.

Briarpatch is a character whose seeds (hah) have been planted in several other entries, such as Dr. Shiny and the Vermilion Mother. My inspirations came from all over the place. The sexy, spooky plant girl art of Sandra Duchiewicz was always something I wanted to incorporate. There's a growing idea in ecological and archeological circles that plants domesticated humans as much as the other way around. And I wanted to make a version of Poison Ivy who is genuinely evil.]

Briarpatch CR 27 NE Plant

This woman is beautiful, but alien, with chlorotic skin like the surface of a diseased leaf, and flower petals in place of hair. A collar of brambles grows from her neck and extends into long, thorny vines. She has piercing yellow eyes and an appraising expression.

The Elder Goddess Shub-Nugganoth has many epithets, but her most famous is “Black Goat with a Thousand Young”. In truth, her spawn number far more than one thousand. The creatures known simply as dark young are the most common of her progeny, but unique individuals are her offspring as well. One of these is Briarpatch, a green woman laden with occult intelligence and a profound disgust for urbanization. It is Briarpatch’s goal to see cities crumble and mortal civilizations reduced to decentralized subsistence farming once more, and she is going to use plants as her tools to achieve this.

Unlike many evil creatures of a druidic nature, Briarpatch does not disdain farming. Far from it; she believes humanity exists to serve plants, and that by distancing themselves from the soil, they have betrayed their roots. As such, she both exalts farming and farmers while simultaneously using domestic plants as weapons. Sometimes this is as elaborate as encouraging farmers to plant crops that will use more water and resources than the environment can support, forcing governments into subsidies and increasingly desperate acts to avoid famine. Sometimes this is as simple as distributing seeds of man-eating plants mixed in with garden plants or birdseed. Briarpatch’s cult includes a number of neutral farm-folk, who see her as salvation to their local communities, even as the nation-states that collect their taxes suffer as a body with a parasite does. Her cult often refers to her as the Pale Lady, especially among outsiders.

Briarpatch’s domain is the Forest of Veils in eastern Ustalav, and she communes and coordinates with the mythos horrors that live there. She is allied with the Vermillion Mother and Diceid as a coven of divinities obsessed with invasive species and reshaping ecosystems. She and the Vermillion Mother have a sexual relationship, and treat Diceid as something like a nephew or son. Briarpatch has an entitled personality and considers herself Shub-Nugganoth’s favorite child. She is convinced that if she does enough to deform society in the Inner Sea region, her mother will favor her with a promotion and transform her into an emissary Great Old One, similar to the relationship between Yog Sothoth and Tamir at’umr. Whether this ambition is achievable or is merely one of the Pale Lady’s delusions is hard to say.

Briarpatch rarely participates directly in combat, but when she does, she is a terror to behold. Due to her occult origins, she has access to a wider array of spells than a typical green man. She uses these to inflict overwhelming euphoria or grotesque physical transformations. Sometimes both simultaneously. If she actually wants to kill, rather than toy with her victims, she combines powerful area of effect spells with her tendrils and thorns. Briarpatch is acutely aware that she can still be slain permanently, and will retreat from a battle that turns against her to recuperate and plan revenge.

Briarpatch CR 27 Variant eruphyte green man XP 3,276,800 NE Medium plant (augmented, shapechanger) Init +16; Senses darkvision 60 ft., greensight 60 ft., lifesense 60 ft, low-light vision, Perception +30, thoughtsense 60 ft.

Defense AC 54, touch 36, flat-footed 41 (+12 Dex, +1 dodge, +13 insight, +12 natural, +6 armor) hp 663 (34d8+510); regeneration 20 (deific or mythic) Fort +34, Ref +23, Will +24 Defensive Abilities wilderness insight; DR 15/epic and slashing; Immune ability damage, ability drain, daze, electricity, petrification, plant traits, stagger; SR 37 Offense Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft. Melee 2 slams +46 (1d8+21/19–20 plus 1d6 acid and absorb magic), 6 vines +46 (2d6+21 plus grab) Ranged 6 thorns +41 (2d6+21/19-20) Space 5 ft., Reach 5 ft. (30 ft. with vines) Special Attacks absorb magic, constrict (2d6+15), grab (Colossal), thoughtspear (17d8, DC 39) Spell-Like Abilities (CL 26th; concentration +37) Constant—pass without trace, speak with plants At will—plant growth, transport via plants 3/day—summon plants 1/day—awaken Druid Spells Prepared (CL 20th; concentration +33) 9th—antipathy (DC 32), extended control plants (DC 32), foresight, greater siege of trees, rival’s weald (DC 33), telekinetic storm (DC 32) 8th—euphoric tranquility (DC 31), horrid wilting (DC 31), mass cure serious wounds, stormbolts (DC 31), sunburst (DC 31) , vinetrap (DC 31) 7th—quickened cure moderate wounds, heal (DC 30), greater scrying, transmute metal to wood, waves of ecstasy (DC 30), waves of exhaustion 6th—antilife shell, greater dispel magic, green caress (x2, DC 30), mass inflict pain (DC 29), primal regression (DC 29) 5th—baleful polymorph (DC 29), cure critical wounds (DC 28), death ward, quickened ray of enfeeblement (DC 24), synapse overload (DC 28), extended thorn body, wall of thorns 4th—arboreal hammer, command plants (DC 27), confusion (DC 27), dispel magic, explosion of rot (DC 27), freedom of movement, strong jaw 3rd—cure moderate wounds (DC 26), excruciating deformation (DC 27), protection from energy, quench (DC 26), spike growth (DC 26), thorny entanglement (DC 27), vampiric touch 2nd—alter self, barkskin, fog cloud, harvest season, resist energy, warp wood (DC 26), wilderness soldiers 1st—cure light wounds (DC 24), entangle (2, DC 25), faerie fire, longstrider, snowball (x2), touch of the sea 0—create water, detect magic, guidance, light

Statistics Str 44, Dex 35, Con 40, Int 35, Wis 36, Cha 33 Base Atk +25; CMB +42 (+46 grapple, +44 sunder); CMD 85 (87 vs. sunder) Feats Combat Reflexes, Craft Staff, Craft Wondrous Item, Defensive Combat Training, Diehard, Dodge, Endurance, Extend Spell, Greater Spell Penetration, Improved Critical (slam), Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Psychic Sensitivity (B), Quicken Spell, Spell Focus (transmutation), Spell Penetration, Stand Still Skills Acrobatics +44 (+48 jumping), Appraise +26, Bluff +40, Climb +54, Disguise +40, Diplomacy +40, Fly +30, Intimidate +43, Knowledge (arcana) +46, Knowledge (geography, history, religion) +41, Knowledge (nature) +46, Linguistics +19, Perception +30, Sense Motive +42, Spellcraft +46, Stealth +44, Survival +42, Swim +35, Use Magic Device +44 Languages Abyssal, Aklo, Common, Daemonic, Druidic, Infernal, Mi-Go, Sylvan, Zern, telepathy 100 ft.; speak with plants SQ bardic knowledge +29, change shape (Colossal or smaller tree [tree shape]), deific, green empathy +45, occult gifts

Ecology Environment any forests Organization unique Treasure staff of heaven and earth, belt of physical perfection +4, headband of mental superiority +4 (Knowledge [arcana], Use Magic Device], amulet of mighty fists +4, wings of flying, bracers of armor +6, ring of the ecclesiarch, ring of mind shielding, rod of empowered spell (normal), deliquescent gloves, 11,000 gp worth of material components and miscellaneous treasure

Special Abilities Absorb Magic (Ex) When Briarpatch strikes a creature with her slam attack, she immediately attempts to absorb one magical effect from the target. Treat this as a targeted dispel magic (CL 20th), with Briarpatch preferring to target effects that prevent his vines’ grapple attempts, like freedom of movement. When Briarpatch absorbs magic in this way, she regains a number of hit points equal to double the level of the spell effect she absorbed. Deific Briarpatch grants divine spells to worshipers. This does not require any specific action on her behalf. Briarpatch grants access to the domains of Evil, Plant, Strength, and Weather and to the subdomains of Decay, Growth, Resolve, and Seasons. Her favored weapon is the sickle. If a druid worshiping Briarpatch chooses to take a domain, the druid must choose the Plant domain, regardless of alignment. Her holy symbol is that of a feminine face made of leaves and rose petals, facing to the left. Green Empathy (Ex) This ability functions as the druid’s wild empathy, save that the green man can only use this ability on plant creatures. A green man’s green empathy check bonus is equal to his HD plus his Charisma modifier (+43 for the typical green man). Occult Gifts (Ex) As the daughter of Shub Nugganoth, Briarpatch has abilities of an occult nature, and blurs the line between plant and aberration. She has the class skills of an aberration, although her total skill ranks are still those of a plant. He gains Psychic Sensitivity as a bonus feat, and adds psychic spells from the Abomination, Pain and Psychedelia psychic disciplines to the list of druid spells she can prepare. Lastly, she gains the benefits of her wilderness insight ability in any environment not subject to a dimensional lock effect, as alien spirits whisper these insights to her as much as natural plant life. In exchange, Briarpatch does not have the green caress aura of a typical green man. Spells Briarpatch can cast spells as a level 20 druid. She does not gain a domain, or other druid abilities such as an animal companion, unless she takes levels in the druid class. Summon Plants (Sp) Three times per day as a swift action, Briarpatch can summon any combination of plant creatures whose total combined CR is 20 or lower. This otherwise works like the summon universal monster rule with a 100% chance of success and counts as a 9th-level spell effect. Thorns (Su) Briarpatch’s thorns are ranged touch attacks with a range increment of 120 feet. A creature damaged by her thorn moves at half speed and can’t take 5-foot steps, fly, or use air walk, either naturally or magically, until the target or another creature pulls out the thorn as a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity. Thoughtspear (Su) Once per hour as a standard action, Briarpatch can direct a blast of disorienting mental energy at a creature within 120 feet. This attack deals 17d8 points of damage, and the target cannot attempt Knowledge skill checks for 1 minute afterwards. A target that succeeds a DC 39 Will save reduces the damage by half and negates the skill disruption. This is a mind-affecting effect and the save DC is Intelligence based. Vines (Ex) Briarpatch can extend up to six thorny vines from her body to attack foes. These act as primary natural melee attacks that deal bludgeoning and piercing damage and have a reach of 30 feet. Wilderness Insight (Ex) Briarpatch gains an insight bonus to her AC and CMD equal to her Wisdom bonus.

[aenais]

Hunger | Kuroo Tetsuro Chapter 2

Part 2 of The Train's Coming (masterlist)

Pairing: businessman!Kuroo x fem!reader

Summary: you're colleagues and you're screwin'. Now, it's finally time for you and Kuroo to present your big business proposal to the board.

Word count: ~1.8k

Tags/Warnings: Smutty near the end, heated makeout, Kuroo's hard-on, FWB, Timeskip!Kuroo, sexual tension, humor, Ikkei and Keishin Ukai make an appearance, so does Bokuto

“Now that is gutsy, Miss L/N,” Director Nekomata said. You cringed slightly, not sure yet how to take that.  

“Gusty!” Washijo bellowed. “They’re trying to poach my job—”

“Tanji,” Director Ukai said, rubbing his wrinkled forehead. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t want to do it like this.” He sighed. “You’re fired.” 

You thought that after almost thirty years as the Head of Sports Promotion at one of the largest companies in the nation, Tanji Washijo would be a bit more well-versed in the art of diplomacy. “Excuse me?!” the man shrieked. You had been wrong. 

“This is outrageous!” he cried. “It’s—it’s egregious!” 

“Alright, old man, pack it up,” Ukai the younger snarled. Seated beside his uncle at the Board of Directors’ table, his only real job at these meetings was to take notes—but you always liked it when he spoke up. He was funny. “What, do you read a damn thesaurus every morning before walking in here?” 

You made the mistake of glancing over at Kuroo. The eye contact almost sent you both cracking up, but you averted your gaze frantically, reigning it in. He clasped a hand tightly over his mouth, furrowing his brows like he was observing the situation in front of him with dire concern. 

“Decades!” Washijo hollered. “Three decades I’ve been a diligent employee at this company, and now this—” he pointed accusingly at Ukai Junior “—delinquent! Thinks he can talk back to me?!”  

“What did you call me?” Keishin leapt to his feet, banging a fist on the table.

“Oh, for God’s sake—security!” Ukai Senior roared. He grabbed his nephew by the collar, yanking him down to his seat. Two burly-looking security guards walked in, and Ikkei turned tiredly to them. “Please. Help Tanji back to his desk,” he said. “And get him, I dunno, a box or something for his belongings.” 

“A box or something—!” 

“Right away, sir,” interjected one of the guards, a broad man with spiky gray-and-black hair. The dude glanced at Kuroo for a second, and suddenly you remembered: that was Kotarou Bokuto, Kuroo’s friend from high school. 

“Preposterous!” Washijo cried. “I thought we were friends, Ikkei! This—this is asinine!”

“Jesus,” Keishin muttered. 

“I won’t forget this! After years of service for this company—!”

“Alright, big guy,” Kotarou said, placing a firm hand on the man’s shoulder. He and the other guard began walking him to the door. Right before he left, he turned furtively to Kuroo, and you caught him whisper, “Good luck with all this, man.”

“Thanks, Ko,” Kuroo mumbled, utterly in shock. 

And so, security marched Tanji Washijo, the former Head of Promotion—kicking and screaming—out the conference room door. For a few moments, the rest of the Board looked on with unease. Someone fiddled with his collar, another tapped his pen nervously against the table. Then, they turned their attention onto you two. The presumptive new Heads of Promotion. They appraised you carefully, sizing you up in that condescending, corporate way. Only Nekomata smiled at you. 

“Excellent work on your proposal, once again!” he said serenely. 

You smiled nervously at the tranquil old man. “Thank you, sir.” 

“Thank you,” Kuroo echoed, and when you glanced over you saw his matching smile—that blinding, charismatic smile. In classic fashion, he’d shaken off his stupor in record speed. Kuroo always lands on his feet, you thought, grinning a little wider as you snuck another look at him. Dear God, he looked good in that jacket. 

“Agreed,” Ukai Senior said. “Mr. Kuroo, Miss L/N, you’ve both shown promising work in all your time here. I’m truly pleased.” Your heart warmed at that—it meant so much coming from him. Ukai was undoubtedly tougher than Nekomata, ten times harder to impress. You thought of all the sleepless nights you and Kuroo had put into this project, and you simmered with pride. It finally felt like it’d all been worth it. 

“We need young blood like you leading this company,” he continued.

Your breath caught. You felt Kuroo’s eyes shift to yours for a second, but you didn’t dare return the look. Not now. 

“I’m completely in favor of instating you both as the next co-Heads of Promotion,” Ukai said. You thought you might die right there on the conference room floor. 

“I’ll second that!” Nekomata announced. 

“I’ll third it,” Ukai Junior agreed. He winked good-naturedly at the two of you. 

“Shut up, Keishin,” said Ikkei. 

“Oh, fuck you, old man.” 

And before you even knew what was happening, the meeting was over. The Board members were all on their feet and milling about the room, buzzing with arbitrary conversation—none of which really registered in your mind. A few people came over to shake your hand or to clap Kuroo on the shoulder, and you let it all happen by default. Your brain was as good as boiled cabbage right now. You were the Head of Promotion. You felt like throwing up. In a good way, though. Definitely in a good way. 

You didn’t know how you wound up back at your old shared cubicle with Kuroo. Nekomata was having you both gather your things to shift them into a shiny new office, so, in a daze, you collected your belongings, unstuck your dozens of post-it notes from around your desk, and were just about to leave the cramped old place behind. Kuroo, however, hesitated by the window. A ghost of a smile flickered on his face as he gazed out that shitty, tiny window, out toward the skyline beyond. The day was almost over, and the city lights were beginning to come alive.  

“I know it’s cliché,” he said, “but I’m really gonna miss this view.” 

“Yeah? Wait till you see the view from our new office.”

“Sure, but…just c’mere for a sec.” Some unidentifiable emotion rippled across his face as he beckoned you over. You complied, puzzled. “Look,” he said, pointing down onto the street. “Over on that side. That’s—”

“Miya’s Noodle Shop!” you realized, laughing. “I never knew you could see it from here. Do you remember—”

“The first time we went to lunch together?” Kuroo said. “‘Course I do.” You looked up at him, catching the way he gazed down at the shop fondly. “Those first few months, I thought I’d never make a friend in this city. Then you came along.”

Oh, man. After everything that’d already happened today, Kuroo had to go ahead and do this—make you all sappy and emotional in a way that was definitely unbecoming of a brand-new manager. You gazed at his peaceful expression, noticing the glazed look behind his eyes: his only indication that he was reeling, too. He, too, was in utter disbelief that you’d finally, finally made it here. And then he went ahead and got all mushy on you, somehow echoing the exact sentiment you’d thought this morning on the train. Life was so lonely before you. 

“You haven’t stopped taking the train since.” You smirked at him, letting an edge of teasing into your voice. “Am I your only friend, Kuroo?” 

He whirled. Jaw tense, brows drawn tight, he leveled you with a piercing stare. His face was dead serious when he replied, “You’re the only one that counts.” 

About two years ago, you threw caution to the wind and accepted a job offer in a new city. Thus began almost two years of a breakneck routine: waking up at ungodly hours, primping yourself up for the day, and dragging yourself to the station, only to wait in silence by the tracks as the train took its sweet time to arrive. Like everything else about your life, the mornings had become all about hustle. You were running to catch the train, running to finish all your assignments, running on precious little to keep yourself awake and alive. It was the nature of the job, unfortunately. You got used to it. 

But after all this time, you had finally realized an integral thing: the work could only satisfy you so much. This promotion was everything you had wanted—you were nothing short of thrilled. Yet you knew that, like any drug, success has a shelf-life. Your body metabolizes that thrill, over and over and over again, until it doesn’t quite hit you the same way anymore. In other words, you had long since realized that there needed to be more to your life than the job. You had to find other ways to make yourself happy, or else risk the danger of burning out once and for all. 

Kuroo made you happy. Really happy. 

He stood there, neat and polished, in his ironed tie and white button-up. His hair was fighting the product he’d put in it this morning, trying to stick out in that characteristic, bedhead way. It was a gorgeously endearing sight. And the way he was looking at you now, earnest and vulnerable, made you want to abandon all common sense. Screw “unbecoming.” You wanted to jump right into his arms.

“That…means a lot,” you finally said. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. For everything. For being here, and being…you.” You swallowed hard, finding it increasingly difficult to keep the emotion out of your voice. “My turn to be cliché. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

Kuroo’s eyes crinkled in a grin—and then, he scanned up and down the hallway. Abruptly, he backed you against the wall, barricading your line of sight with his broad shoulders, and before you could even protest, he cradled your jaw in one palm. 

“Me neither,” he whispered. And Kuroo kissed you. 

It was voltaic. 

Charged with hours worth of pent-up longing, it was slow and deep and devastatingly warm. Heat rushed like liquid lightning through your veins as he worked his lips against you, his other hand coming up to pull your waist into his. You gasped into his mouth, and felt him smile against your own. 

“Fuck,” you whispered, parting from him. He giggled like you’d said something funny. “We shouldn’t do this here,” you said. 

“Says who? We’re their bosses now.” 

“That doesn’t mean—” Kuroo didn’t let you finish; he slammed his lips back against yours, and immediately this kiss felt different. Messily, desperately, Kuroo slid his tongue into your mouth, gliding it against yours. One of his hands was fisting in your hair, tugging you ever closer. The other was gripping your hip, and you could feel the throbbing heat of him pulsing to life against your thigh. Images from your exchange this morning bubbled back into mind, and you remembered the night you’d promised him—the culmination to all the teasing you’d put him through. 

Not that he was teasing you any less. He began kissing slowly down the side of your neck, and you couldn’t hold back the embarrassing sound that tumbled out of you. Again, Kuroo huffed a laugh into your skin, like all of this was hilarious to him. “Shut up,” you whispered, weaving your fingers into his hair. He didn’t even say anything in response. But he pulled away from you—you fought down the disappointed whine that almost left you at the loss of contact—and his eyes met yours. They smoldered with want. With longing. 

With that all-too-familiar hunger. 

You breathed heavily. “Wanna get out of here?” you murmured. 

And the rest was history.

Part 3 here

Thank you for reading! Follow @aenais for more!

[0vereasy]

Life’s Creation and Love’s Manifestation (Dr ratio x reader)- Chapter 4: Late Appraisal

Summary: Your promotion as one of the heads of the Security Department at Herta’s Station was full of many headaches, one of the biggest being a visiting scholar from the Intelligentsia Guild, and delegate of the IPC, Dr. Ratio.

When you were forced to team up with him to solve several crises emerging at the Station, how will your tense relationship change? And what exactly is the Doctor hiding?

Taglist: @96jnie @boomie-123 @a2tral @ukiyo-ikigai @poemzcheng @kpopmenace143 @tseleven @rains-mae @comet-kun @thatanimewriter @lowlucifer @snailsposts @earthtooz @delightfuldragoncollection @soobinsgirlfriend @lvfel

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A/N: You can probably tell I’m pretty tired by the writing + shorter chapter, but I wanted to get something out. The original draft was longer but I wasn’t happy with the later half, so I thought I would just for with a smaller chapter this time and keep working at the later half for a better finished produce. This mainly serves as a transitional chapter anyway, with more action expected in the next one.

You know that stereotype where fanfic authors literally go through the craziest shit when they’re writing? Well the last few weeks I won my first trial as a law student, got a few good resolution for other clients all at once, ans started getting closer with my crush. So… I’ve been pretty busy as you can see lol. I have a term break in a few weeks, which is likely when the next chapter will come out, and where I will try to pre-write another chapter or two. Thank you all for being patient with the delay!

Chapter 4: Late Appraisal (3.8k+ words)

“I just don’t understand how this even happened!” you watched the short white-haired man pace around Herta’s office, his forehead crinkled in concentration and mouth twisted into a worried frown. You felt your head pulse with each of his footsteps, thumping in beat with the heavy taps of his feet on the tile floor, the ache getting worse with each motion he made. Aeons, you wish they never found you napping in the Seclusion Zone. At least then you could’ve dealt with your hangover in peace and quiet, “How could multiple researchers and a Herta puppet all go missing in one afternoon? Especially with our upgraded security! It just makes no sense.”

“If you let me go look at the security system, I could tell you,” you deadpanned, eyes trailing over to the office door briefly, as if contemplating some way to escape, before flickering back to your boss, “I don’t even get why you called me here, aren’t we wasting time with this meeting when we could be trying to fix things?”

“Wasting time?” Arlan rebutted, stopping his pacing and crossing his arms over his chest. His eyes narrowed as he looked at you, giving you little hope of making your escape from the office, “You know what’s a waste of time? Trying to track you down just to find out you were passed out drunk in the Seclusion Zone! Do you know how much time we wasted just trying to find you?”

“It was literally my day off, Arlan,” you huffed in reply, mirroring his stance by crossing your own arms over your chest, “I don’t have to tell you where I am all the time. Not anymore at least.” You let the implication of the words hang in the air, something that didn’t go over well with your usually mellow boss, who seemed to be getting angrier by the minute. But hey, if he was gonna push your buttons, you weren’t just gonna sit there and take it. 

“We’re in an emergency, Y/N!” he practically shouted at you, “It doesn’t matter if it's your day off! What would’ve you done if it was your day off when the Legion attacked? Stayed in your room and brushed it off?” You felt your body stiffen at his words, arms moving from their crossed state to hang loosely at your sides. You hated this; when you argued, when he used his knowledge of you and what would set you off for his own advantage. It was almost downright cruel. 

“Don’t talk about the Legion attack,” your reply was quick, emotionless as if you were trying to avoid thinking of it yourself, “You know that’s different. A lot different.” At this point, you were willing to run out of the Herta’s Office, meeting be damned. The ache in your head paused for a moment replaced by a dull pain in your chest, mind swirling with thoughts you’d rather forget. You were almost afraid of how you appeared to your boss right now. 

You watched Arlan’s eyes for the shift in emotion, hoping, praying that he was able to see where you were coming from. You saw it for a moment, like a flicker of hope burning within his purple orbs, before he blinked, sending the sympathy away from wherever it came from, “Is it though? For all we know, all of those researchers are dead! Adler could be dead!” You clenched your fist at the mention of the boy, the pounding in your head seeming to grow again. 

“I get it!” you exclaimed, throwing your arms in the air in frustration, “Which is why I wanna look at the security system to see how this happened! But instead were here arguing about stupid shit that doesn’t matter right now!” You watched as he began to pace around Herta’s office again, Herta’s holographic image of herself staring at the both of you, along with the other genius society portraits, as if they all were looking down on this conversation too. You couldn’t blame them. 

“You know why were having this conversation,” Arlan was quieter now, but still stern, “We needed you, and you there was no way to contact you!” He let out a shaky sigh before talking again, “We even started to think you were taken too!” You took a deep breath, attempting to let the anger inside of you simmer down at the genuine tone of his voice. 

“I already know that,” you sighed, “ Screwllum told me it all when he came to wake me up,” you raised an eyebrow, “You should’ve asked him sooner, I mean,” you tugged on your button-down shirt, holding back a wince at how the sudden action made your head pound harder, “You already know our relationship. If anyone knew where I was, it would be him” You released the shirt, begrudgingly moving a hand to hold your head now, unable to pretend that you didn’t feel like shit any longer. Arlan looked at you with an expression you couldn’t quite read; disgust? Pity? You’d honestly rather not know. 

“How much did you drink yesterday?” Arlan asked you, pausing his pacing again to change the subject, his expression still holding anger, but voice quiet, as if he was preparing to hear bad news. You thought about putting up a fuss for a moment, but sighed, preparing yourself to relent on this point, as if the alcohol was holding you back from hiding the extent of your poor state. 

“A bottle of wine,” you said simply, crossing your arms across your chest again. You almost looked stupid, standing in the office in your sweatpants and Screwllum’s shirt, confessing your problems, while Arlan stared back at you in proper uniform, leaving the power imbalance between you two evident visually and audibly,  “And a bit of Vodka,” you left the part about the vodka being in your water bottle unspoken, not prepared to deal his rant on that topic that the two of you had gone through hundreds of times before, though the pitying look on his face told you that he already knew.

“You really have to stop this,” Arlan said, voice losing the anger now, holding nothing but pity. Honestly, you preferred him angry. When Arlan became sentimental and looked at you like you were a lost cause or some sort of fuck up, for some reason nothing in the world felt worse. You didn’t know what it was; the way his lips curved into a frown like no other he ever displayed, or how his big eyes became downturned, a flicker of pain etched onto them and the rest of his features, “You can’t keep doing this to yourself…”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” you stared into his pitying eyes, hand from your head moving back to your side as you forced both your features and stance into neutrality as if that would fight off the emotions that threatened to spill from you.

“You don’t have a choice,” he said firmly, though not unkindly, “You know what I think about your drinking… what Asta thinks,” he let that name hang in the air for a moment, sending a shiver down your spine that made you wince, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by your boss. Arlan sighed, the sternness from before fading away into his usual kind demeanour, “You know I can’t control what you do; you’re an adult. But when your drinking gets in the way of your job; when you pass out somewhere where we can’t find you when we need you, thats when it becomes an issue.”

“Arlan,” you spoke his name, whether in warning for him to stop, or in frustration at the change in track of conversation, you couldn’t say.

“You know the Station is vulnerable after the attack… you know it better than anyone,” he said softly, “So we need you to be at 100% all the time… I know I already extended your hours after the whole incident from a few days ago,” you gritted your teeth at the previous punishment you had received due to your actions on the night that the stupid alcaster face bastard arrived, “but I don’t think that’s enough for what we need from you right now.”

“What are you suggesting?” you huffed, tapping a finger against your thigh impatiently. It clearly wasn’t the first time you received punishment and definitely wouldn’t be the last. At least that was something familiar in your life, you mused - at least something in your life could follow a steady routine. 

“... You can’t drink any alcohol for the rest of the month,” he said firmly, quickly speaking again when he saw you open your mouth in protest, “Okay, maybe not the month… but at least until we get the researchers back and solve the confidence issues… I need you sober right now, Y/N.”

“You know its not that easy to just… stop,” you muttered, eyes moving to look at your feet. Even now, early in the morning, probably a bit over 12 hours from your last drink, you felt jittery, like you needed something to quell your nerves. Without the alcohol, and even with the pounding head, things were too… vivid, real. It was overwhelming to experience the sensations in the world how they were meant to be seen without the dull drag of a foggy blanket taking over your mind. How were you supposed to go a few days like this? 

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, catching your glance as you looked back at him, “I don’t have a choice right now… let's talk more later, go, try to figure out why the security system went down last night.”

You opened your mouth, as if to respond, but allowed it to close again, turning your back to the man, “Whatever… talk to you later… Brother Arlan,” you left Herta’s office before he could respond to your use of his common teasing nickname around the station, not being in the mood to deal with another yelling match today. You unceremoniously slam the door behind you before you practically drag your body towards the elevator. Around you, you could hear the panicked gossip of various researchers, a sound that did nothing to calm the pounded headache that continued to make every movement a hassle. Part of you thought about talking to them - telling them that everything was under control. 

The other part of you recognized that you probably looked like a hot mess right now, and didn’t bother. They already didn’t trust you anyway - you weren’t stupid. If anything, approaching them would probably make things worse than it already was. So, you dragged your body down the stairs, onto the main floor of the master control zone and to the elevator, fully intent on not acknowledging anyone’s existence. 

It was only the sniffles of one specific person that made you do a double-take before you could press the button to call the elevator. Wen Shiling was a few feet behind you, trying to hide her sobs in her sleeve, but failing to do so, her small body physically shaking, evident even from your distance away from her. It was times like these when you wondered how children were even allowed to be researchers on this Station in the first place - it made you wonder how they could handle the stress that even you struggled to deal with. You paused, mind flickering between Wen Shiling and the elevator, sighing when you ultimately decided on the former, trudging your quiet body towards hers.

“Wen Shiling?” you spoke softly, bending down to be closer to her height, the action paining your head. Honestly, with your hangover and usual tone of conversation, you really had no idea how to approach comforting her… or anyone really, “What’s wrong sweetie, are you okay?” you hesitated before reaching a hand out, touching her gently on the shoulder. Her eyes seemed to water as she took in your form, a long sob escaping her lips. She looked from your hand to you, as if contemplated whether she wanted to move away, though she kept herself firmly planted in place. 

“No, I’m mad!” she cried, wiping her teary eyes on her sleeve. She offered you know no other words, too focused on stifling her sobs, which were still obnoxiously loud. You resisted the urge to cover your ears to block out the noise despite her cries doing nothing to soothe your headache. You gently rubbed your hand up and down her back, hoping that it offered some form of comfort to the girl. 

Though she wasn’t clear about the source of her anger, it was clear enough to guess, “You don’t have to worry about Adler, we’ll definitely bring him back soon.” Of course you left out the part where you had no idea where the little boy was or if he was even alive… but you really didn’t want to get into discussing the philosophy of life and death with a eight year old. Your mind flickered to Adler’s stupid book you had borrowed, the one you hadn’t cracked open since the night your… enjoyable evening with Screwllum was interrupted by the damned doctor you had been forced to accommodate. What if you never saw him again… what if he never got to talk to you about the book? You internally shook your head, focusing again on Wen Shiling in front of you. Aeons, if only you could have a drink to take the edge off…

“I don’t want him back… he’s stupid!” she sobbed again. You tried not to cringe at the snot covering the sleeves of her dress, forcing yourself to focus on her words, “He doesn’t talk to me and then disappears…! I don’t even want him here!”

“I’m sure he was just busy,” you attempt to soothe the girl, cursing the Aeons for failing to give you skills in soothing children. Deciding your ability to comfort children was lacking, you decided to only logically thing you could do was change your tone to match your usual personality, “You know, once we get him back I’m sure he’ll be sorry for how he treated you. That’ll serve him right, huh?.”

“He’ll be sorry?” she echoed your words, blinking dumbly up at you. You nodded in encouragement, hoping that you finally found some method to calm her crying. You forced yourself to plaster the a smile on your face, as if everything was fine and you weren’t currently feeling like death from a hangover and dealing with the aftermath of another invasion and your alcohol problem all at the same time. 

“Of course! Im sure we can even make him take an afternoon off his stupid ecology research,” you said with smirk, happy to at least let your genuine thoughts shine through for a moment before the inevitable hours of seriousness ahead, “I heard he’s horrible at board games, we could force him to play one beat him to a pulp.”

Wen Shiling smiled a bit, though her frown returned soon after, “Big sis… Can I ask you something? But you have to tell me the truth.”

Feeling like you were getting the farthest using your typical personality, you let your genuine thoughts ring through in your answer “Sure, I’m not a liar,” you shrugged, crossing your arms over your chest, “what’s up?”

“…” she hesitated for a moment before speaking, “Do you really think Adler is okay? … You think we’ll find him?” You stared at her for a moment, taking in her big brown tearful eyes and the snotty sleeves on her dress, an expression mixed with hopefulness and worry plastered all over her features. You forced a confident smirk on your face, placing your hands on your hips in mock confidence.

“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.” 

It wasn’t your first time lying to a kid, and you were sure it wouldn’t be the last either. 

~~~~

Your head continued to pound as the elevator descended, countless sounds filling your head. Arlan’s yelling… Wen Shiling’s crying… it all fluttered around your brain like snow, casting an endless stream of emotions on your already overwhelmed brain. Your mind drifted to your water bottle which you knew sat on your desk in your room… would Arlan even know if you took a sip from it… He couldn’t right? How would he? There was no way he could actually expect to accurately record your sobriety, you thought to yourself. No, you just had to be sneaky with it - a few sips here and there to quell your thoughts… thats all you would need… just something to take the edge off. Even the thought of the alcohol seemed to quiet your brain, like a blanket may drive off heat on a cold night. If you were in your right mind, maybe you would realize how worrisome your thoughts truly were… but right now you really didn’t care.

“When an elevator arrives at its destination, you are expected to dismount it,” you blinked back into focus at the familiar irritating voice, eyes falling on to the Doctor. Dressed in his usual clothes, though lacking his alabaster head, he stared at you with a raised eyebrow, as if you were some sort of unusual specimen in his lab. In all honesty, you couldn’t blame him. You hadn’t even realized your elevator had arrived at the floor with everyone’s personal quarters, too caught up in your thoughts to notice, which left you standing blankly forward despite the door already having opened. 

“And when someone doesn’t get out, you’re expected to politely address them, not be a snarky asshole,” you shot back, forcing yourself to leave the elevator. Not ready to end the conversation, but not wanting the elevator to go away, the Doctor stepped inside, pressing the door open button.

“Your insults lack creativity when you are hung over,” he deadpanned, sighing - whether in disappointment or disgust, you didn’t know, “I suppose it doesn’t matter. I was looking for you, you need to come with me.”

You rose an eyebrow at the Doctor, “Uh, kinda in the middle of trying to solve a crisis right now,” you deadpanned, “I’m sure you’ve heard about it… ya know, missing researchers, faulty security system. Don’t really have time for whatever bullshit you’re up to right now.”

“You wound me,” he states, though his face shows no sign of any emotion, “Since when do I act without purpose?” He looked at you with disgust, as if he was shocked at the suggestion, “Of course I am aware of the current predicament and I wish to help you.” 

You cock an eyebrow at him, arms crossed in front of your chest, “And why would you do that exactly? What’s in it for you?” skepticism dripped from your tone, a fact that you knew was all too apparent for the Doctor, who met your gaze defiantly, “Literally all you’ve done since getting here is be a pain in the ass and then almost get me killed - your actions don’t really scream helpful.”

“I seem to recall I was helpful enough in procuring wine for you and allowing you to sleep in my presence,” he smirked cockily, brushing a stray strand of hair from his forehead, “Or do actions such as those not qualify as helpful in your dictionary?”

“The only thing that helped with is getting me chewed out by my boss, so thanks for that I guess, what a help you are,” you rolled your eyes, tempted to walk away, but for some reason forcing yourself to stay put, “I don’t know what the hell was in that wine you gave me, but I swear I’m not usually that… clingy.” You thought you should say more, but chose to stay silent deciding you already made enough of a fool of yourself, “Honestly I don’t even remember most of the shit I did last night.”

“Alcohol interferes with one’s ability to form long term memories, such a fact is really not suprising,” he said matter-of-factly, a cocky smirk coating his features. You barley knew this man, but he seemed to always revel in the ability of making people feel dumb, “Luckily for you, I retained my own memory of the evening, if you wish to recall more.”

“I’d rather not learn more things Arlan can yell at me about, thanks,” you huffed, forcing the conversation back to its original topic, “So really, why do you wanna help me? What’s in it for you?”

“Many things really,” he said casually, finger still firmly pressing the open button on the elevator door, “The satisfaction of helping idiots some a simple problem, the joy of reuniting the researchers with their companions… or the pleasure of building a diplomatic relationship between the IPC and the Space Station as I was directed.”

“Should’ve known of course it was about the diplomacy,” you smirked at him, propping an arm next to the elevator door, “You clearly wouldn’t act kindly on your own accord. Got your own boss who you’re afraid will chew you out like mine?”

The Doctor’s face soured at the mention of a boss, “I’d rather not think of my acquaintances at the IPC, they are not the most fond people to be around.” The scowl on his face made you interested in learning more, but the Doctor was quick to change the subject, “I merely offered my assistance to Miss Asta and she accepted. The mere certitude that doing so will satisfy my companions is simply a bonus.”

“Whatever, I don’t care if Asta got you to help, I have my own work to do,” you brushed him off, turning to move away from the elevator. You were startled when a firm hand grasped your arm, preventing you from leaving. The Doctor’s skin was warm, radiating heat through Screwllum’s dress shirt. His touch mass you freeze in your tracks, glancing over your shoulder at the Doctor. 

“I’m not asking you,” he said plainly, as if disgusted that you hadn’t picked up on that sooner, “You prescene has been requested.” You felt mesmerized for a moment by his presence, the scent of his cologne filling your nose due to your close proximity. His golden eyes seemed to bore into you, as if staring into your soul. It was the first time you really took in how… handsome he looked. Of course you had noticed before… you had eyes of course, but something about how he looked at you now seemed to awaken something within you, something you were desperate to push away, while at the same time wanting to cling on to it. 

Snapping into your senses, you yank your hand from his, crossing it over your chest once more, “Requasted by who?”

“Hmmm what was the word you used for it again?” The Doctor’s hand, now free from holding your wrist, went to his chin in contemplation, “Ah yes, that’s it. A situationship. Screwllum requested your prescene.” With his other hand, he let go of open door button, allowing the door to close behind him, “We’ll see you in the Seclusion Zone.”

[demialwrites]

Sparring

Reader with some kind of position that sees action. Turk? Soldier? Catches a bored Rufus' eye.

Now that's a man I'd like to toy with, you thought when you saw your boss smile. You covered your mouth in embarrassment, as if the words had written themselves across your face. Don't hold your breath, you told yourself, and returned to focusing on your job.

Roughly a week a half later, President Rufus cast you an appraising side glance. "I'm bored. I heard you're good. Let's see. Meet me in the training simulator in an hour."

Luck dropped an opportunity on you. Slightly overwhelmed but determined to make this a worthwhile match, your muscles tensed in your chosen stance. There was no need to be so serious (the bullets wouldn't be real) but you couldn't shake that it would be wise to impress him. If you prooved a worthy opponent, maybe you would get this opportunity again. As you stared at each other, you felt an invisible Tseng prickle your back, judging this endeavour.

"Stop playing around and letting the president slack off," he might say.

Okay, but are you allowed to say no to said president?

Rufus caught you off guard initially with his unusual and calculating style. After thirty seconds of being evasive, you started to see a pattern in his movements. This time, it wasn't enough. He had you on the ground after a minute with a muzzle pointed down at you.

"Not bad," he pronounced, pulling the gun back, "for a first try."

Before you could jump up and demand a second round, he turned and confidently strode out of the simulator.

Just as his words implied, he let you have many more "tries" after that embarrassing defeat. He had a few more tricks up his sleeve but that was surpsingly it. It was how practiced he was and the way he made blasting around look so easy that was the intimidating part. After the initial caution of fighting the actual president wore off, you settled into analyzing and reacting accordingly. Slowly, you became more aggressive than defensive. It was, however, difficult not to rush at him head-on and forcibly remove that smirk of his with your own hands. Just seeing him on the ground once, just once. You would stand over him, stealing that removed smirk and wearing it yourself.

This 'playing' with the president went on for a while. Tseng even took notice and warned you not to hurt your mutual boss too badly. Actually, he wasn't the only one who noticed. The especially exciting recordings of your sparring sessions had begun to circulate Shinra Tower. The rank and file and executives were gossiping alike. Thankfully, you weren't aware. The pressure of an audience would have thrown you off your trajectory to knocking the arrogant man on his ass.

Before too long, you had an idea. Your own trick. You let the next session play out as usual. Then, when he grabbed your shoulder to counter your attack, you turned it around. You ignored the presumptuous and pleased shiver and threw him, hard. He landed with a grunt but was already about to retaliate. Thankfully, you had been practicing with Rude on the side. You pinned the arm holding the shotgun. Just to make doubly sure, you flipped him onto his stomach and pinned both arms behind his back. Firmly, but gently--Tseng could thank you later--you kneeled with your full weight.

A few long seconds passed. "I yield," he said flatly.

You let him go. He got up and dusted himself off.

"Now, that's what I'm looking for." His usual smirk returned. Your confusion prompted him to explain (but not really explain), "You're getting a promotion."

What, you mouthed to yourself.

He left. The next day you got an offer for the position of the president's personal bodyguard.

[the-marshals-wife]

Broke The Mold (Ken x Reader)

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ 𝐑𝐘𝐀𝐍 𝐆𝐎𝐒𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ⋅☆⋅ 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ⋅☆⋅ 𝐀𝐎𝟑 ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

A/N: Ken is a sweetheart and all he wants is to be the best boyfriend he can be. I know this is not my normal content, but the depression has been real lately and the Barbie movie has been a huge comfort to me, especially Ken. This is wholesome fluff for my own indulgence. Premise: Ken followed Barbie's example and became human, learning to live and love in the real world.

Description: Ken x Fem!Reader (both human), cavity-inducing fluff, hurt+comfort flavored | Warnings: absolutely none except kisses | Word count: 1,805

Gif credit: user weirdobarbie

Imagine your boyfriend Ken cheering you up when you're feeling down, and spending a cozy evening together

What was supposed to be an evening of sweet escape was turning into a complete disaster. After getting home later than you'd planned thanks to traffic, and taking an extremely rushed shower, your bathroom looked like a tornado had gone through.

You appraise your reflection in the steamy mirror and despair at the sight. Your dress sleeve is slipped off your shoulder after already putting it back a dozen times. Your right eyeliner wing is smudged from five frustrated attempts at getting them to appear even. Your empty stomach ached from working through your lunch at work so that you'd get to leave on time to get ready, just for these to be the results. After spending so long on trying to repair your makeup, you had yet to even finish your hair.

"I just wanted a break," you lament, vision blurring, "Just one night."

Overwhelmed by the feeling of failure, you sink to the floor. You bring your knees up to your chest and start to cry into your hands, knowing all your effort had just been undone, but too upset to care.

The sound of jingling keys and your apartment door opening reaches your ears, ripping you back to reality.

"Oh Ken," you breathe, guilt washing over you.

He was on time, as always, and you were no where near ready.

Panicked, you consider springing up and hurriedly trying to wash your face, but it's too late for that. It's only a few seconds before he's noticed your absence and is standing outside the bathroom door, knocking on it lightly.

"Babe? Are you in there?"

"I'm here," you call out, quickly wiping your eyes.

"Are you okay?" you hear him ask, concern in his voice.

"Yeah," you reply weakly, "Kinda...not really." You croak out the last word.

There's a pause before he speaks again. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," you say, choking back a sob.

You watch the knob rotate, and take in the sight of your beloved beau, well-dressed and perfectly groomed just as you knew he'd be. His expression of worry turns to fright the instant he sees you on the floor. He drops to his knees without hesitation, looking over you frantically.

"Did you fall?! I warned you about the water, it is SO slippery here. I fall like every day."

You chuckle a bit through the tears. His innocence never fails to warm your heart.

"No, I didn't fall."

He exhales and clutches his chest before narrowing his gaze.

"Is there a spider in the shower?" he questions, glaring at the curtain, "How dare he threaten you. Where is he?"

"There's no spider, babe. I'm okay, I promise," you reassure, touching his arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

He relaxes and turns his softened eyes back to you, "What happened, sweetheart?"

"I was getting ready for our date, and I accidentally knocked my hairbrush into the toilet. And then I ran out of my favorite lip gloss and I couldn't find the new tube I bought. I thought I put it in the drawer, but I couldn't find it and then I messed up my mascara trying to fix my eyeliner and then I go so upset, I started crying and ruined it all," you answer all at once, punctuated by sniffles, "Also I think my boss is mad at me because of a mistake I made yesterday and I don't think I'll get the promotion I wanted. I already thought he didn't like me, but this just made it worse and I've been so stressed about it."

You take a shaky breath and see that he is hanging on your every word.

"I'm sorry, that was a lot. I just...wanted to have some fun tonight and look pretty for our date."

Ken stares at you bewildered. "But you are pretty."

"Right," you scoff and point at yourself. "Have you seen my face?"

"I'm looking right at it, and it's the same pretty face I see all the time. Makeup doesn't change that."

"Ken," you begin to protest, but you stop as he soothingly thumbs away your tears.

"Pretty isn't even a good enough word. I think you're beautiful," he says, wholly sincere.

You gaze into his kind eyes a moment before the emotions overwhelm you. You throw your arms around his neck, nearly knocking you both backward.

"Thank you," you say, clinging to him tightly.

"Of course," he replies, holding you close, "I only told the truth. And don't worry about the promotion. If they can't see how smart and talented and valuable you are, someone else will. It will all work out in the end, you'll see."

You lean back and admire him. "You don't know how sweet you are, do you?"

"Oh, I've heard a thing or two. Mostly from my girlfriend," he smirks.

"I bet she's absolutely smitten with you," you remark.

"Not as much as I am with her," he counters, "Wellll, almost as much. Maybe."

You both laugh, enjoying the moment of levity.

"What do you think my girlfriend would say to staying in tonight and having a date at home instead? Say, pizza and a movie?" he proposes.

You nod excitedly. "That actually sounds amazing."

Ken leans forward and softly kisses your forehead. "Then it will be done, my lady. I'll take care of everything. You just put on your coziest pajamas, and come out whenever you're ready. No rush."

"Okay," you grin.

Ken stands and returns to the doorway to leave, but looks back over his shoulder at you.

"Love you," he mouths the words.

"Love you more," you mouth back.

"No way," he whispers, shaking his head dramatically as he closes the door.

Your heart flutters as you get to your feet and face the mirror. The girl in the reflection is the same as before, from the runny mascara to the half-straightened hair, but now you smile at her. No other guy had ever made you feel good about yourself the way Ken does. If they said anything nice, it had typically felt like a means to an end. But it wasn't that way with Ken. He never pushed you for anything in your relationship, and his patience and affection seemed to have no end. He would do anything for you, and he was happy to do it.

The girl he was originally made to be with was literally the standard of beauty, and you were far from being as perfect as Barbie, but he still treated you as if you were. Not only did you feel special, but you were incredibly grateful to have such a man in your life. Especially on a day like today.

♡

A few minutes later, you emerge from your room, face washed and hair braided up, donning your favorite pair of long, cozy pajamas and your fuzzy bunny slippers. Both were presents from your thoughtful boyfriend for your recent four month anniversary, and you loved them dearly. You walk down the hallway, and as the living room comes into view, you gasp. Ken stands by the couch expectantly, wearing his matching set of pajamas and a big grin on his face.

"Oh my gosh, you had those with you?" you ask, beaming.

"I always have them. In my trunk, anyway. You never know when there's going to be a cuddle emergency," he says, totally serious.

"You're so cute," you say, eagerly walking into his open arms.

"The pizza should be here in a few minutes. Pepperoni and extra cheese, with a side of cinnamon bites, just the way you like it," he says, rubbing your back.

You lay your head upon his chest, his heartbeat a comforting sound in your ear. "You think of everything."

"Anything for my girl," he declares, "You can have any kind of food you can think of delivered here, it's crazy. I bet they can even deliver to the beach."

You look up at him and smile. "Say that again."

He raises an eyebrow, "I bet they can...even deliver to the beach?"

"Not that. The first part," you correct, giving him a knowing look.

His confused expression turns to understanding, "Anything for my girl."

"I love hearing you call me that."

"Then I'll say it a million times more," he says, carefully brushing a loose strand of your hair away from your eyes, "Would my girl like to pick out a movie while we wait?"

"Only if my man will help me decide," you giggle.

His eyes grow wider as he puffs out his chest with pride, "It would be my honor. For what my girl wants, my girl gets."

You take his hand and lead him to the couch. Together you sit, fingers interlaced, and begin scrolling through endless lists of titles.

♡

After a few minutes of debating, a list of top picks formed. Ken's choices were all horse movies of course. While you knew he would defer to whatever you wanted, you didn't mind finding out if Black Beauty was still as good as when you were a kid. After all, his unending love of horses was one of your many favorite things about him. Once you settled on your entertainment for the evening, your food arrived shortly thereafter.

Now, with your stomach full and heart even fuller, halfway through the movie, your focus drifts from the TV to your date. With your head resting on his shoulder, and his arm snuggly around your waist, you peer up at him. You expect him to be mesmerized by the screen like usual. Instead, he's gazing down on you, smiling to himself.

"What?" you ask reflexively.

"Just thinking about how lucky I am that you're my girl."

You can feel yourself blushing, somehow still taken aback by his honesty after these many wonderful weeks.

"Not as lucky as I am to be your girl," you say, before flashing a teasing smirk, "Welllll, almost as much. Maybe."

He chuckles at your parroting of his words.

You sit up straighter and turn toward him. "Thank you for tonight," you continue earnestly, "I was a mess, and you made me feel so much better. You always do."

"You're not a mess to me. They broke the mold with you, sweetheart," he smiles, reaching to caress your cheek, "And I came from one, so I would know."

You grin, heart aching with love for him. Becoming more and more lost in his deep baby blues, you lean in closer. He gently cups your face and closes the distance between you until your lips finally meet. The kiss is tender and full of warmth, and you're left breathless when you pull away.

He sighs, completely in awe of you.

"Sublime."

[scullyblues]

Ugh at least have the decency to actually respond to me or at least tag me in 'anonymous' posts when you slag me off and twist my words if you're are going to use such a general tag as x files.

You/your 'anonymous' are conveniently missing the point I made. The point you made was she didn't write it and therefore didn't earn her money. The point I made was she did write parts of it and did other work to create and promote it and that she didn't solely benefit because she arranged donations to charity. I've never said she was perfect (except for maybe in a suit because middle aged women in suits is a whole vibe) or that she is doing it altruistically. I do think it's a brave thing to work on and have her name on given what is going on in the world and I stand by the point she could do something easier and safer to make money.

I don't know why rich people feel the need to continue to make more money in different ways but the side hustle world is the world we live in. They all do it. But when they have done work towards something, which she has done with Want, there shouldn't be a dismissal of the effort. You don't like the project, fine. Critically appraise it, sure. But don't make untrue statements about her not writing/contributing to it. That was what I was commenting about.

I guess I'm feeling spicy because it's been a bad week, normally I just scroll past the stuff I don't agree with but there is something about how you attack her that rubs me the wrong way. It annoys me that I'm annoyed by it. And it annoys me that I don't know why it annoys me. Fun!

But I ask this with genuine curiosity, why do you spend so much time on her when you clearly don't like her? You always appear in these tags and it's nearly always negative towards her ( sometimes truly horribly so). In a world that runs on engagement even on this dumpster app, any engagement counts, good or bad, so why engage with any of her stuff if you don't like her? You cant find it out by accident, she's not that famous, so why spend the effort searching only to then hate on it? Like I understand this one even though your post was maybe worded not great and I'm saying this as someone who has searched for specific things I'm pissed off about. But you show a persistent hate towards her, all the time. When there is someone I don't like I just don't look at their stuff/tags/search for them etc , it does 'their brand' more damage for me to not engage, then negatively engage. I guess I'm just trying to understand the drive of why people do stuff like this. Like what do you get from it? Do you find it fun?

Listen, I don't know you and you don't know me. It's a social network. If you don't like it, you're free to block me. I don't hate Gillian, nor do I know her, but she's a public figure, and I have freedom of expression. I can criticize or praise her.

By the way, at what point did I offend you? I've never responded to your opinions so as not to cause a conflict. You're the one who sought me out.

[decarabiandivorce]

Am i the asshole for staying behind on an uncharted planet

I (23M) have been a new hire at this shipping company for around three months and it has been absolutely horrible. The company has us work outrageous hours and there is only one other employee. A month ago that employee (my mentor) went on a vacation and ever since then the president had me switch over from simply organizing packages to making full deliveries. On my first trip, I was attacked by a group of space bunnies and the company was sent into debt because of it. They told me the route was safe and secure, however, it was clearly not the case. The important cargo was destroyed and the remaining debt is now more than a hundred years' worth of salary. The company is going under and the president is even accusing ME of doing something. I have no clue what he is talking about and am very frightened by the experience.

Now then my mentor (38?M idk) comes back and talks about how he was hit by a meteor and crashed. It took him a whole month to recover his parts and just barely made it back. Before he could even see his family the company's appraisal AI scanned a memento he yoinked from the crash site and now the president thinks its a great idea to send two deliverymen to search for treasures to sell. Why do we even have an appraisal AI I don't even know. So now me and this captain i've know for about two months is being sent towards an uncharted planet.

Then we crash. There was a blizzard and I am sent flying into the snow. I am tired, hungry, and lay down on the ground as I contemplate my life. A long story short we reconvened and it turns out this planet is FULL of hostile life! Creatures as tall as me just waiting to eat us. Holy fuck. My mentor is taking this as a normal occurrence???? He spent a month on this planet??? The hell????

So after fighting off creature after creature-some as tall as space pups while others as tall as buildings, we somehow get enough pokos to pay back the COMPANY'S DEBT. We weren't even paid overtime and I think my mentor GOT A PROMOTION? We barely had enough supplies for one person so I started taking back some of the local creatures to eat. (DM me if you want some of my recipes!) . We wake up as soon as dawn breaks and this planet's day and night system are so unlike my own planet. By the time it's 10 PM its Nighttime! Dawn is around 6 AM!

My mentor has been relatively nice. He gets my silence and for that, I am grateful he doesn't have me talk a lot. Cons: He forgets about me really easily. Usually, he has me just follow him while we explore and at some points, I feel as if I could have just stayed at the ship and slept and would accomplish the same amount of work. It is aggravating to be woken up so early and told to just follow him around.

After another long expedition I am about 10 seconds away from passing out our ship's appraisal AI (who has been so snippy with both of us) blares out that we should return home now. The thing is, after so long of being on this planet I realized that I prefer this planet more than slaving away at that delivery service. The same service that would send me straight first toward a hive of space rabbits for my very first mission. So I lagged behind a bit.

In my lagging behind, my mentor starts up the ship and leaves. At first, I am shocked. He actually did that. Holy fuck he left me on this planet. Sure our suits were upgrades to filter out the oxygen just before we left and I could last for months if not years....it was still shocking to me. I could not help but watch the sky as he blasted away. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise!

I walked for a long time, resting in safe areas to conserve my stamina and eating the creatures I knew were edible. There was a lot of experimentation here and there and I missed the spices of back home. I just knew that a certain creature would taste way better if I added in a couple more condiments! (Remember! DM me for my recipes!)

While exploring one of the caves, a giant spiderlike foe kidnapped me and placed me on it's head. It was so cute! Like riding a weird dog.

It was nice being with the big spider. It gathered some ancient technologies that were perfect for my survival. None of the other creatures seemed to bother the two of us and it was nice to know that there was someone else on this planet that understood us. Still, I was tired and after what felt like days, my suit's forced sleep mode kicked in. I have no clue what happened afterward nor how many days I was asleep but the next thing I knew was that my mentor was right in front of me making sure I was okay.

He says that he came back for me with the help of our boss, but I could see the poko in the president's eyes as the ship went over finances with him.

They killed the spider to 'save' me. The spider went on full attack while I was asleep on it and the appraisal AI thinks I was in control of it despite being unconscious. At least the captain think's I didn't do it...

They then told me that there was no third seat on the ship and that I will be sleeping in the cargo hold until they got every single treasure on this planet. I am pretty sure that's a space OSHA violation but at this point, I have been in so many life-threatening dangers that I gave up counting. At least they don't expect me to help out because I am 'recovering'. They are content to let me stay by the ship and I have been using this time to perfect my recipes with the supplies they got from back home.

[the-tmnt-ficfinder]

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Asks are answered by date received, and in order, unless containing a high amount of fanfics. In that case, fanfic will be read staggered, meaning I'll read one from a high fic count ask, then read one from a low fic count ask, then back again. That way asks don't become static, while I work my way through big ones.

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Fanfic Chapter Ratings Explanations

Mondays, I spin the wheel, and announce which fic I'll be rating a chapter for, and post the results on both an actual post, and on the FicFinder To-Do list.

Then on Sunday of the same week, I'll release the rating for the chapter!!

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Fanfic of the Week: Built to Kill, Sworn to Protect by @arhintess

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Fanfics to be chosen at random to have their individual chapters rated:

Adagio in Green: Panacea (Rottmnt)

At My Worst (Rottmnt)

by touch, by sight (Rottmnt)

Built to Kill, Sworn to Protect (Rottmnt)

Corrupted Upgrade (Rottmnt)

Deja Vu (Rottmnt)

Down With The Stockholm (Rottmnt)

Empathy Amplified (Rottmnt)

firefight (Rottmnt)

how to get very good at juggling (Rottmnt)

I May Be Invisible, But I Still Look Good (Rottmnt)

i waited eight long months (she finally set him free) (Rottmnt X TMNT 2012 Series)

little kid with a big death wish (Rottmnt)

Lost and Found (Family (Rottmnt)

Mama's Boy (Rottmnt)

Paying for the Mistakes I Made (Rottmnt)

Power Up (Rottmnt)

Reciprocity (Mutant Mayhem)

Reputation Precedes (Rottmnt)

So, I guess…we all have issues. (TMNT 2012)

the canary continuity (Rottmnt series)

The Day the World Broke (TMNT Multiverse)

The Lemonade Leak (Rottmnt)

The Neon Void (Rottmnt)

Times Five (Rottmnt)

Turning Purple (Rottmnt)

Under the Table (Tottmnt)

Within Ourselves (TMNT 2012)

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Fanfic posts to fix once embeds work

Adagio in Green: Panacea: Chapter 1: Recall

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Last updated on: 4/28/2025

[ophthalmotropy]

Hi!

Just read your "what's happening in Argentina" post and while I'm not the original asker, I would have a follow up question if it's all right.

How could Milei be popular enough to get elected if previously (and possibly still) the country held so progressive values? Also can the Argentine people do something against these decisions or are you only able to whether the storm so to speak? And lastly can someone from a different country help in any way?

Thank you in advance

Have a great day?

SVH

So, that is a complex question, so please bear with me.

First off, he gained a lot of popularity on social media. This is the stupidest answer, but unfortunately it worked--a large part of his voters consists of young people, mostly men in their 20s but a good number of women too. But this is only a factor, and there are many underlying causes at play.

Peronism is a multifaceted political movement with a complex history that would take me many paragraphs to explain, but it promoted industrialisation and is the reason why workers obtained the rights that protect them during the 20th century (hence the opposition it faces from the wealthy rural sector, which wants to keep the agro-export model as the dominant one)--since then, it has swerved between the far-right and the center-left, and this is all exacerbated by the fact that (1) it's characterised by personalism and (2) Juan Domingo Perón, the late founding figure of the movement, never expressed a philosophy, and many of his actions contradict each other. Whatever the case, almost every relevant movement nowadays is defined either as Peronist or explicitly anti-Peronist. You cannot talk about Argentine politics without discussing Peronism.

One such center-left facet of Peronism is Kirchnerism, which began with the presidency of Néstor Kirchner in 2003. The country had suffered a near-total collapse in late 2001 as a result of the neoliberal policies implemented by right-wing Peronism in the 90s.

Now, I personally (because it's difficult to offer an unbiased perspective on this, the best I can do is disclose my biases) criticise a lot of things about the Kirchnerist administrations, which extended from 2003 to, after Néstor died and his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won the presidency for two consecutive terms, 2015, which I won't get into here. But remembering the tail end of the CFK administration and comparing it to everything that came after and to what I know of pre-2003 times, it would be dishonest if I didn't say that their administration brought a lot of conquests in the realm of social development, public finances, and quality of life. Whatever my qualms regarding the welfare state as a tool of class conciliation and some policies I strongly disagreed with--I cannot downplay the good that was accomplished in that time because I benefitted from it growing up.

This garnered Kirchnerism a level of near-unprecedented vitriol from right-wing media, especially during CFK's back-to-back administrations for reasons I partly attribute to misogyny. It came to a point where The chasm in politics was whether you were Kirchnerist or anti-Kirchnerist ("la grieta", they called it). Lots and LOTS of money were poured into attacking Kirchnerism on the most mainstream TV channels in the country. The corruption allegations may have been legitimate, but--here's my personal appraisal--I don't think whether a specific figure is corrupt matters as much as whether the system encourages corruption (as it DOES and has been culturally normalised since the Menem administration in the 90s, see right-wing Peronism), and the whole thing strikes me as missing the forest for the trees. You don't have to think about the complexities of the currency trade and how they impact finances if you have the TV to tell you that CFK stole money in cash and that she buried it in the Patagonia (they sent machines to try and dig it up a while back. The media circus was insane).

In any case, following the last CFK presidency, we have Mauricio Macri, part of the anti-Peronist side of the chasm and a neoliberal. His greatest impact was taking on a massive, illegal, illegitimate debt with the IMF--which allows it to dictate policies, and as always they involve austerity. His economic policies were disastrous for the working class. And also very importantly, he eliminated the law that regulated the media and was instituted by CFK--its main impact was reducing the monopolistic concentration of power in the hands of Grupo Clarín S.A. (right-wing media).

After that, in late 2019 Alberto Fernández, with CFK as his vice-president, becomes president. His administration was, in my opinion, disastrous, partly but not entirely due to the IMF debt and the pandemic. He also didn't reinstate the Media Law. Between a new economic crisis in the country and the media constantly bombarding people with right-wing propaganda, Milei rose from a nobody to the most likely presidential candidate in like no time.

People were tired of seeing the same faces on the ballots and nothing changing, this is true--but this is not sound logic, in my opinion. For one, Milei was accompanied by people of very old families and interests--his vice-president, Villarruel, was the daughter of a military man involved with the dictators of 1976. Secondly, Milei's neoliberal campaign promises were merely an even more extreme version of things that had literally been tried before--by Macri, by the 90s right-wing Peronist administration, and by the dictators--and hadn't worked. And thirdly, it's telling that their "let's be crazy and try something new" vote is for the far-right. For some reason (sarcasm), nobody ever says "hey, neither side works for me, so I'm going to go out on a limb and vote for the Trotskyists". This ties into a global trend that veered towards the right--with Trump, Bolsonaro, Vox... We're not exempt.

An argument you also heard from his voters was that they didn't think he was going to do what he was promising he would do. As you can see, there's a lot of... political ignorance. And I think many people who voted for him were actually voting out of hatred for "the other side" rather than support for him.

In any case, the primaries and October showed an odd three-way election where the most popular candidates were Milei, Massa (a candidate for the Peronist coalition, famous for being a traitor and whose main draw was openly "at least he's not Milei"; he was even Minister of Economy at the time, so you can imagine his administration didn't earn him many supporters--he was called the Minister of Inflation by some media outlets), and Patricia Bullrich (one of Macri's friends who, as a fun fact, made campaign spots specifically saying one of her campaign promises was to "destroy Kirchnerism forever"). After Bullrich came in third and a runoff between Milei and Massa was announced, Bullrich, Macri, and their party predictably allied themselves with Milei despite the vitriol both sides had spouted at each other before the elections (IMO this alliance was planned from the start). Ergo, Milei won the runoff, and we find ourselves in this situation.

As for what Argentines can do about it, the main forces of resistance have always been on the streets. Despite Bullrich's (now Milei's Minister of Security) anti-protest protocols, there has been a record number of massive protests since Milei took power. In fact, his Omnibus Bill was defeated in Congress thanks to popular resistance (although now it's back in discussion). Things are looking very tough, but there are things that can be done.

To wrap it up, and to answer your last question, the currency exchange rate means that dollars are worth a lot of money here. Supporting small Argentine creators by buying from them if you're USAmerican is a way to greatly aid individuals in making it to their next paycheck. I think a list was compiled by some Tumblr users after Milei won the elections, so if anyone reading this has it on hand feel free to add it to the post.

Thank you for your interest and I hope that was at least decently explicative!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Leor Sapir

Published: Jan 22, 2024

Every time I recommend "The Myth of 'Reliable Research'" to medical professionals, they tell me it's a superb article, research at its finest.

They're not wrong.

The foundation for sex trait modification in minors ("gender-affirming care") is a Dutch study, published in two papers (2011 and 2014), and widely cited even today, even by transgender advocacy groups like WPATH, as the gold standard of research in this area. 

"The Myth of 'Reliable Research'" provides a critical appraisal of the Dutch study. It explains the serious methodological problems that led health authorities abroad to find--in systematic evidence reviews--that this research is highly unreliable. 

"Three methodological biases undermine the research: (1) subject selection assured that only the most successful cases were included in the results; (2) the finding that 'resolution of gender dysphoria' was due to the reversal of the questionnaire employed; (3) concomitant psychotherapy made it impossible to separate the effects of this intervention from those of hormones and surgery." 

The article discusses how an "innovative clinical practice" (essentially, an experiment) "escaped the lab" and was quickly adopted in a number of Western countries as "settled science." 

Though not discussed in the article, a key issue is why European health authorities have been better able to detect this problem of "runaway diffusion" and change course. As I've argued, the reasons have to do with a mixture of decentralization in American healthcare, complex private-public interactions, profit motives, professional incentives, and broader political polarization. 

After reviewing the flaws of the Dutch study, "The Myth of 'Reliable Research'" goes on to discuss subsequent research and the problem of "spin," which is when researchers misrepresent their findings (often in the abstract, perhaps anticipating that lazy, ideologically-aligned, or subscription-less journalists will often not read past that paragraph, but sometimes in the study's conclusion). 

The three examples of "spin" in research are:

* Carmichael et al. 2021: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0243894 (note that there was a follow-up to this study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2023.2281986)

* Costa et al. 2015: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jsm.13034

* Tordoff et al. 2022: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2789423 (the authors rightly call the spin of this article "dramatic")

For more on how journalists promote bad science see here: https://unherd.com/2023/04/the-media-is-spreading-bad-trans-science/

Medical historians and others who write about how Western societies got embroiled in one of the biggest medical scandals in modern history will undoubtedly cite "The Myth of 'Reliable Research'" as an important moment in the scientific debate, a moment when it was no longer possible for clinician-advocates to insist that the "science is settled" and that anyone who is skeptical is motivated by prejudice or ignorance. 

And the proof is in the pudding. Pro-medicalization activists, including clinicians, now admit that the quality of evidence--which in EBM means the confidence we can have in the estimate of effect of some intervention--is "very low." They insist, however, that many other pediatric interventions are also based on low quality evidence. 

The pivot is unsuccessful for reasons I can't get into here. There are exceptional circumstances where EBM allows for recommendations for treatment based on low-quality evidence, and this is not one of them. 

But let's not lose sight of the concession here, which is that "gender-affirming care" is an ongoing medical experiment, and two decades of research have failed to produce reliable findings that these risky and harmful interventions are "medically necessary." 

If you follow the gender medicine debate and haven't read "The Myth of 'Reliable Research,'" consider it a massive gap in your knowledge.

Here is the open-access article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2022.2150346

For precision: "innovative clinical practice" is not technically an experiment; in general, experiments--ideally, RCTs--are needed to figure out whether, when, and on whom ICPs are beneficial. But in the Dutch case, the ICP was launched more or less in the context of a (very poorly done) experiment. 

[ Archived: https://archive.md/CAsIP ]

[naradivision]

With the COVID numbers slowly rising again (unfortunately), that's got me thinking of a question I wanted to ask...

If COVID took place in the HypMic universe, how would your OC's handle it? Would they slowly go insane from being trapped indoors? Would they develop an unhealthy drinking/smoking habit? Or would they be perfectly fine?

It’s sad to say Yuuya would be the most affected in the group. Although he has loads of hobbies that can enjoy at home, he is still an outdoor person who craves human interactions at heart (That’s why he loves part-time jobs and tends to have many different ones every week). He doesn’t have any problem with online schooling, but to be alone for a great amount of time will distress him greatly even if he does understand the circumstance and make sure to properly follow the safety regulations. Besides, he is the type to be worried about the well-being of other people in general, so this pandemic would definitely give him a lot of internal struggles. Therefore, he is likely to cope with this by being more active on online platforms such as Zoom, PROFILE, or etc. But as soon as he manages to adjust himself (with some help from his friends, his teammates, and his furry roommate) …he too, would be able to find peace at home from some small projects like working on his music tracks and trying out new DIY ideas. 

And for Asahi; despite his childlike personality, he is surprisingly handling things well during the pandemic. Even so, it isn’t to say that he won’t be bothered by too many regulations and the lower influx of customers at his family store. Since he has a family business to run and has two elderly people at high risk of developing serious symptoms at home, he has to get busier and be more cautious about many things. Aside from that, the difficulties are going to make him discover his own forte —Other people may not be aware about this, but Asahi is crazily good at marketing… You can see that he has already done a lot of promoting stuff via the birthday events of other divisions. Along with his own creativity to boot, he will soon take this opportunity to try many more methods to help promoting his store. Maybe he will try online marketing, maybe he’ll learn to use social media for his own benefits, maybe he’ll just get more invested in his hobbies (making handicrafts, embroideries), Asahi in his productive mode with lots of free time is something unstoppable. By the way, he is concerned about his friends too! He is probably the first one to reach out and find a way to brighten them up without knowing.

Lastly, Saigo-san… He is the least affected from quarantine and all sorts of regulations. And to be utmost honest, the idea of social-distancing rather sounds like a blessing to him. He used to work at home from the very beginning so he has no problem with it. Getting less paid because of the reduction of clients? Nah, that won’t be a problem since he already has a lot saved up from the past and he also has another way of income (he plays stocks). He just gets a job as the property appraiser because he is bored and that’s all. Moreover, he dislikes getting outside of his mansion unless it’s neccessary. The most appealing things for him to do during the pandemic are reading something from his mansion’s library, keeping up to date with the worldwide circumstances, and maybe doing some research on something that piques his interest. He may even use this chance to find out more about other rival divisions in order to plan things ahead for his team. 

Thanks for the ask :)

[fathomlessbabbling]

Smile, a Charak RPF fic, Chapter 5.

This is a work of RPF. If you are uncomfortable with this kind of fiction, I encourage you not to read.

A03 link here

The rest of the night went by without issue as Tarak, Ram, and their now good friend Tomas showed them a wonderful restaurant and a nice place to relax with a few drinks. Tarak’s admission to himself in the changing room was enough to ease his mind of the fear he had harbored in his chest over the last few days. The more Tarak pondered about it, this worry that weighed so heavily on him had truly been with him for much longer but only presented itself when RRR wrapped filming, and the Awards tour had finished. Tarak was in a better place mentally to put that aside and enjoy his night with his new friend and his… crush? He was still trying to think of how to identify Ram now that he admitted that the connection he felt was deeper than the ‘best friend’ title could signify.

Tarak raised his glass of bourbon on the rocks in a toast. “Let us cheers our newfound wonderful friend Tomas. Long may he know that haters gonna hate, hate, hate-” As much as Tarak wanted to finish singing the Taylor Swift song with his toast, Tomas’s groan made him let out a deep husky laugh.

“Ugh. Why do you do this to me? That song drives me nuts!” Tomas whined with a smile on his face and his head in his hands.

“Welcome to being friends with Tarak. This is the man who, when we were on stage promoting RRR, reached over and pinched me in the side as I was complimenting him on his professionalism! ” Ram proclaimed with a large grin on his face. He sat with his arm over the back of Tarak’s chair and giggled as Tarak recalled the memory and laughed even harder.

“I remember that! Jakanna just laughed and said it was like working with children!” Tarak continued to snicker to himself.

“I can definitely see why,” Tomas quipped as he joined in the laughter.

As the laughter died down, Tarak actually held his glass up for a toast, “Seriously, though. Thank you, Tomas, for being wonderful, showing us clowns around town, and helping us on a fantastic first day in beautiful Los Angeles.”

Ram clinked his glass of vodka soda against Tarak’s, “I’ll happily drink to that.”

Tomas sheepishly smiled and joined in the toast, “Here’s to two of the most fun people I’ve ever had the pleasure of showing around the neighborhood.”

The three men sipped their drinks in celebration. Ram slowly rose from his seat as they continued their conversation, “I have to go use the facilities. Don’t get too drunk while I’m gone.”

Tarak held up his glass that was once filled with bourbon but now barely had any left, “I don’t know if I can keep that promise, baby.”

Tomas almost spat his drink out. “What did you just say?”

Tarak felt a wide grin spread across his face, and his cheeks flush, “Baby. I call him baby.” He then immediately started to laugh at how that must sound.

Ram tried his best to hold his giggles back as he spoke. “And I call him baby back. Baby one and baby two.”

Once again, the three laughed before Ram finally started moving towards the bathroom, leaving Tarak and Tomas alone at the table. As the laughter died down a little, Tomas looked to Tarak with an appraising look.

“How are you doing? Since our talk earlier, that is?” Tomas asked with genuine care in his tone of voice.

Tarak took a moment to think, but his smile didn’t fade as he nodded. “I’m doing much better, I think. It is strange to admit to yourself that you may love outside the norms you were taught as a child. It may take time to grasp it fully, but I am happy,” Tarak smiled wider, “I am happy to have been able to understand something about myself that I thought was a defect or something similar. In truth, I am just glad to have this connection to Charan.”

Tomas’ eyes squinted as he smiled, raising his glass to Tarak. “To understanding ourselves.”

Tarak nodded, clinked his glass against Tomas’, and sipped the bourbon, enjoying the heat after he swallowed. “We should probably cut ourselves off. We have to be up early for that lunch tomorrow.”

Tomas nodded, “Not a bad plan. I’ll take care of the bill,”

Before Tomas could protest, Tarak waved down the server who had brought them their drinks and presented his card for payment. “Thank you so much for everything. I will close out all three of our tabs.”

Tomas’ face went from shock to a faux grumpy face that made Tarak laugh.

“Rude.” Tarak laughed as that was the only word to come out of Tomas.

The black SUV pulled up to the hotel doors, and Tomas looked into the backseat at Ram and Tarak, both having the sway of someone with a nice alcohol buzz. Before speaking, he inwardly thanked himself for only having one drink because this sight was entertaining.

“Alright, gentleman. We have reached our destination. I will be back tomorrow morning at eleven to pick you guys up so you can meet with Kevin. Go get some good sleep!”

Tarak leaned forward and squeezed Tomas’ shoulder, “Thank you for a wonderful day, Tomas. Go home to your Mateo! Tell him Tarak says hello!” He then climbed out of the SUV as Ram also said his goodbyes.

As the two of them watched the SUV pull away, they both waved with a twinkle in their eyes as the drinks they had earlier hit a little harder than they had planned. The two men turned and looked at each other and couldn’t help but stand and giggle for a moment before making their way inside the gaudy lobby of their hotel towards the elevators. As they walked, Tarak reached over and pinched Ram in the side just as they passed by some other hotel guests, which made his friend jump and contort at the tickling touch right in front of them.

“I’m so sorry. My friend is a child,” Ram said in a low voice as he glared at Tarak with a smile on his face, the hotel guests giving Ram a look before stepping away.

Tarak walked a little faster to the open elevator, hoping to avoid Ram’s revenge. This escape plan was futile as once he stepped inside, Ram entered right behind him. Tarak instinctually covered the sides of his ribs to protect himself from pinches while giggling like a schoolboy. Ram hit the button for their floor and glared at his friend.

“It was too tempting! You would have done the same!” Tarak said in a higher pitch, waiting for Ram to strike as the doors to the elevator closed.

Ram smiled and laughed at the truth that Tarak spoke. “You are right. If I could, I would pinch you while you meet with Steven Spielberg.”

Tarak’s expression turned to one of overdramatic shock, “Betrayer!” he spoke before giggling some more.

The two of them continued to snicker at their almost drunken buffoonery as the elevator arrived on their floor. As they walked, Tarak slung an arm over Ram’s shoulders and felt his friend put an arm around his waist as they approached their room. Tarak fiddled with the keycard to unlock the door as Ram found his time to strike. Just as Tarak opened the door, he felt the pinch he had hoped would have been forgotten in the elevator ride and immediately shifted his body to avoid the tickle while laughing and stepping inside. He whirled around with a smile on his face as he held his hands in a defensive posture while Ram stalked towards him almost like a hunter, a goofy expression on his face.

The door behind them closed, and Ram leaped at Tarak to continue tormenting his sensitive ribs, but Tarak’s strength was too much for him as his wrists were caught and held in place. The two men giggled as they play wrestled with each other, Tarak’s strength and history of winning these fights proving an advantage as after a few moments, he managed to pin Ram down to one of the beds, luckily Ram’s, with his arms above his head. Tarak straddled his friend's waist, still giggling as he secured his win. “Do you give up?” he asked with a husky, out-of-breath voice.

Ram struggled under his grip, but eventually, the wiggling subsided. Ram looked up at Tarak with an expression of defeat. “Alright. You win,” he murmured dejectedly.

Tarak eased his grip on Ram’s wrists, allowing them to move freely. Ram placed them on each of Tarak’s quads. Something about that touch slowly caused the smile on Tarak’s face to change. He was still seated on his friend, both arms on each side of Ram’s head for support. It took a moment to realize that neither of them had moved or spoken for a long while. They remained in that position, simply looking into each other’s eyes.

This moment seemed to stretch time and space for Tarak. A million different thoughts flew through his mind, all about how beautiful Ram really was and how he didn’t want to admit it in the past. There was nothing outside of himself and Ram in this position that mattered. Tarak wanted nothing more than to lean down and kiss Ram, but he realized he hadn’t breathed in a while and felt himself inhale shakily.

“Are… you alright?” Ram asked quietly, his eyes not leaving Tarak’s as his expression also changed. Something about his eyes made his gaze deepen.

“Y-Yeah. Yes. I’m alright.” Tarak answered, his throat feeling dry. He blinked and shook off the thoughts in his head, not wanting to possibly ruin what he cared so deeply for. Tarak lifted himself off Ram and sat on the edge of his own bed a mere foot away. “Sorry for lingering. The bourbon had me a little dizzy.”

Ram let out a small groan as Tarak’s weight was removed, and he could sit up. Tarak noticed a little grin on his friend’s face as he found a more comfortable sitting position. Tarak caught Ram’s gaze and instinctively looked away, feeling a blush start to form on his cheeks.

“You and your bourbon are a perfect recipe for chaos,” Ram snickered.

Tarak found his smile and laughed in response, “What can I say? It’s my poison of choice. Unless you were making coffee,”

Both men giggled momentarily, and a comfortable silence fell between them. Tarak found his gaze magnetized to the warmness of Ram’s eyes. After allowing the moment to remain, Tarak eventually rose from his seat on his bed. “We should probably get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.” Tarak spoke in a low, shuddered voice.

Ram nodded, looking like there was something he wanted to say before choosing to leave it unsaid. The two men took turns stepping into the bathroom to change into proper pajamas instead of just underwear. As they did, Tarak felt something hanging in the air between them, a strange energy that made his heart flutter even more when he caught Ram glancing in his direction as he prepared his bed for a good night’s sleep.

Both men climbed into their beds, and Tarak turned off the lamp that was on the wall. As darkness filled the room and both men got comfortable, Tarak’s eyes hovered over the dark shape of his best friend in the other bed. He strained his eyes as he tried to determine what position Ram was sleeping in, then lightly shook the curiosity off. Don’t be creepy, Tarak. He thought to himself. As a few moments of trying to find sleep passed, he eventually turned back to look in Ram’s direction, his eyes adjusting enough to see his head poking out from under the covers. In a moment of something between weakness and boldness, Tarak called out quietly from his bed.

“Are you still awake?” Tarak whispered,

There was slight movement before he heard a whisper back, “Yes. What is it?”

Once again, Tarak found himself in a predicament where he only wanted to confess his feelings, climb out of bed, and lie next to Ram. He was so tempted, finding that the voice of reason in his brain was apparently having trouble reporting in until the last moment as Tarak replied.

“I think… You are going to do wonderfully tomorrow. Kevin is going to love you,” Tarak clutched his eyes shut in defeat.

Tarak then heard some movement from Ram’s side of the room before his voice broke through,

“I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without you here, Tarak.” Ram’s velvety voice spoke out from the mass of blankets that was a bed.

Tarak took a moment and absorbed each word, smiling deeply and closing his eyes to the feeling. He would do anything for the man in the other bed to be happy and successful. Tarak knew he wanted to say more, to reveal what was in his heart, but he was thankful for the words that reached his ears.

“Good night, baby one,” he heard Ram say in a sleepy voice, making the sweet feeling in his chest more palpable.

“Good night, baby two.”

***

Both men had awoken extra early to make sure they would be ready in time for Tomas to pick them up. Ram managed to awaken at eight and immediately jumped in the shower to ready himself. Tarak noted that Ram took a little longer as he assumed some meticulous beard grooming was happening. Eventually, Ram did step out of the shower wearing the bathrobe from the day before, now freshly cleaned. Before he could let himself be distracted again by the beautiful man, Tarak retreated into the bathroom to diligently clean himself and prepare. He quickly disrobed and jumped into the shower, deciding it would be best for a cold shower this morning to help him fully awaken. The coldness of the water thankfully further prevented any thoughts of Ram. After feeling clean enough, he stepped out and continued his morning routine.

Unlike his friend, however, Tarak had little patience for making sure his beard was as immaculate. His face was mere inches from the mirror's glass, and he moved his head in every possible direction to ensure his beard was even and not crooked. As he moved, Tarak released more than one grumpy curse in Telugu. After several minutes of making the tiniest adjustments to his beard, Tarak heard Ram’s voice on the other side of the door.

“I can hear you from out here. Do you need help?”

Tarak growled, “No. I can do this myself. We should have gone to a barber yesterday,”

He heard a muffled chuckle and instinctively glared at the dark wood of the door, “Come on, Tarak. I can assist you. I don’t want you to take all day.”

Tarak grumbled as he reached for the door handle, then looked down and realized he was still completely naked from the shower. He quickly grabbed the bathrobe and secured it before finally opening the door.

Of course, he already looks positively radiant. Tarak grumpily thought to himself. All he has to do is wake up, comb his hair a little, and he is ready to meet the bloody Queen of England. Ram stood in the doorway wearing the outfit he had bought from the shop the day before. Even though Tarak chose to suffer through a cold shower, there was a feeling of heat in the pit of his stomach as he took in the sight of his beautiful Ram.

Ram paused momentarily, moving Tarak’s head in a few directions while examining his beard. After an appraising look on his face, Ram stepped into the bathroom and took the razor. Methodically, he lifted Tarak’s head and gently touched up the lower part of his friend’s beard. With each touch, Tarak’s nerves threatened to jolt in excitement; the hands of Ram softly dragging across his neck almost drove him mad. All he could think was what the feeling of Ram’s lips on his neck would feel like if his hands were this soft. As he stood with his head craned to look at the ceiling, he slowly clutched his eyes shut in an attempt to will his lower extremities to behave. Finally, Ram lowered Tarak’s face and inspected the beard lines on his cheeks. Tarak had experienced this closeness with Ram before while shooting a particular scene in RRR where the character of Bheem was being groomed to attend the party at Jenny’s invitation. However, instead of a look of naive curiosity on Tarak’s face, it was a look of restraint as Ram’s hands caressed his cheek.

Finding it far too difficult to continue this torture, Tarak eventually spoke up. “I really only needed help with my neck. Thank you for all of your assistance, baby.” His voice was breathy, and he mentally kicked himself for sounding like a child.

“Are you sure? There is one spot I can fix-” Ram tried to continue,

“Oh! I can see it. I’ll take care of it.” Tarak quickly asserted that he could handle the rest.

Ram shrugged with a smile and stepped out of the bathroom, checking his watch. “We have about an hour before Tomas gets here. If you are ready by then, take all the time you need.”

Tarak felt himself melt a little at that smile once again, nodding as he closed the door to the bathroom. He glanced down at the tent in his bathrobe that would have slowly parted if Ram had not left when he did. After Ram’s touching, his thoughts were of wrapping him up in a tight bear hug and pinning him to the door. Tarak groaned quietly as he willed his arousal to calm, doing his best to push such thoughts from his mind. Instead, Tarak focused on the small part of his beard that Ram had pointed out, trying to mimic Ram’s attention to detail as he evened it out. Confident that his beard was well groomed, Tarak stepped out of the bathroom to finish preparing for lunch.

***

The two men were at the main entrance ten minutes before the scheduled meeting time, and, to their pleasant surprise, Tomas was already there waiting for them. The three hopped into the familiar large SUV and felt the excitement build as the vehicle pulled away from the hotel doors and onto the street. Some small talk was exchanged, but Tomas could tell that his two backseat guests were nervous. As the SUV pulled up in front of a beautiful modern restaurant with ‘Cecconi’s’ labeled above the large open double doors. The two men in the backseat stared out the window at the building as if they were staring at the gates to Mount Olympus.

With the car parked, Tomas turned around in his seat to lock eyes with the two men, a comforting expression on his face.

“You are going to do fine. Just breathe and be yourselves. Kevin is a very nice guy. Plus, this is just a casual lunch. The business talk will probably be in a couple days,” Tomas spoke gently, realizing that maybe fifty percent of what he said was heard by the two men, making him chuckle.

Tarak turned to Ram with an excited expression. “You ready, Charan?”

Ram took a moment to take in a deep breath, nodding in reply to his friend.

Before they stepped out of the car, Tarak placed a soft hand on Ram’s thigh and lightly squeezed. “You were born for this, baby.” He spoke sweetly and smiled when Ram’s nerves visibly relaxed. Tomas smiled and looked at Tarak’s eyes, noting that particular sight.

The two men stepped out of the black SUV and approached the door, seeing a hostess standing behind a small beautiful wooden desk. She looked up and smiled at the two men, “Welcome to Cecconi’s! Kevin just arrived a moment ago. Let me lead you to your table.” she spoke sweetly and very professionally, which made Tarak smile and nod. Ram looked like he felt more than a little stiff.

They were led through the interior of the restaurant and past several tables. As they walked, Ram whispered to Tarak and gestured to a table on the other side of the room, “I think that is Jake Gyllenhaal.” Ram’s perception made Tarak giggle as he glanced in that direction, inwardly confirming that it was, in fact, Jake Gyllenhaal. I wonder how many other celebrities come here for lunch. Tarak thought to himself as they walked.

The hostess led them to the patio, where they saw the man they had come to meet sitting at one of the tables. Unlike some of the other guests, Kevin was wearing a simple blue polo and a baseball cap with jeans. Kevin glanced up as the hostess approached with Tarak and Ram and rose with his hand out,

“Wonderful to see you both! You guys made it!” Kevin said with a smile.

Ram and Tarak both shook Kevin’s hand, Ram speaking up first.

“It's wonderful to meet you, sir. This place looks wonderful! The food smells great,” Ram smiled that charming smile, but there was a minor shake to his voice,

“Thank you so much for inviting us,” Tarak said with a bright smile as the three men sat at the table.

“Of course! This is one of my favorite spots to get lunch. Their green eggs are my favorite,” Kevin said with a smile.

The polite conversation followed with all three men enjoying their lunch. Tarak noticed that Ram still seemed a little nervous as time passed. Knowing he needed to do something to ease his friend’s mind, Tarak slowly moved his foot under the table to lightly press against Ram’s. Since he couldn’t hold his hand, he would try and communicate the same calming feeling with his foot. As he smiled at Kevin’s current story of his time in LA and his favorite spots, he stole a quick moment to glance at Ram and give a comforting smile. As he did, he saw Ram’s eyes lock with his, and a smile spread across his face as he tuned back into what Kevin was saying. A moment later, Tarak felt Ram’s foot push against his own, almost an unspoken gesture of thanks.

Kevin eventually shifted the conversation away from the small talk as he used his napkin to clean off excess crumbs from his face from his toast. “So, I know that we are going to meet in a couple more days to discuss particulars, but I wanted to let you know the role we had in mind for you,” Kevin said, looking at Ram.

Ram leaned in slightly, his expression shifting to business mode, “Absolutely. I’d love to know more.”

Kevin smirked and continued, “We are going to be working towards a relaunch of the X-Men to fit into the greater MCU, and we are looking to fill out our cast. We want to include a particular character from the comics named Indra. He is one of the students at the academy. This would start as a minor role that would eventually grow with future films.”

Ram smiled and nodded respectfully, allowing Kevin to explain further. Tarak couldn’t help but take in the sight of Ram speaking with Kevin, a mammoth producer in Hollywood. It warmed Tarak’s chest to witness the moment that Ram’s career would change and grow. He looked on almost like a proud parent or spouse.

Kevin glanced at his watch and let out a sigh, “Ugh. I’m so sorry. I’m going to have to cut this a little short. One of our trailers got leaked, so we must officially prepare to show it at the upcoming comic convention next month.”

Ram nodded, “Oh, I completely understand! A producer’s job is never done, right?” Ram joked,

“Haha! You aren’t kidding for sure.” Kevin stood again, offering his hand to the two men, “It was wonderful meeting the two of you. I promise we will have more time to discuss everything in a few days.”

Ram eagerly shook Kevin’s hand, “The pleasure was all ours, Kevin. Thank you so much,”

Tarak also shook Kevin’s hand with a grin on his face. He then signaled one of the servers as they passed by the table. “I am going to take care of the check for the three of us.”

Kevin’s eyes widened as he smiled, “Oh, you didn’t have to do that!”

Tarak shook his head with a smile, “It is my treat. You showed us yet another wonderful place to visit for some delicious food. It’s the least I could do.”

Mr. Feige smiled and had an appraising look for a moment, “Well, thank you, Tarak. I gotta run. I will let Tomas know when we have a meeting set in stone,” Kevin said as he stepped away from the table and waved to the two men.

Once he was out of sight, Ram sat back down at the table and sighed as though he had an unbearable weight on his shoulders.

Tarak sat back down as well, looking to Ram with a worried expression, “What’s wrong? You did great!” he said in a comforting voice.

“I was so nervous the entire lunch. I don’t know if I was participating in the conversation as I should have been. I couldn’t tell you what we discussed before he started talking about the role.” Ram finally uttered. He held his head with one of his hands and stared at the white tablecloth.

Tarak sighed with a smile and reached over to lightly take Ram’s chin in his hand, turning it so he could look directly into Ram’s worried eyes. “I promise. You did wonderfully. He even specifically brought up the role he is considering you for. He wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t serious about his consideration for you,”

A moment passed where Ram’s eyes still held onto some of the worries, but Tarak was pleased to see a light smile play across his face. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Tarak.” his voice was low and sweet, making Tarak’s eyes squint.

I don’t know that there are words to explain how beautiful you are. I don’t know if there are enough stars in the sky to match how many ways you make me happy. There is no need to dream as long as I am with you. So many possible responses to Ram’s confession entered Tarak’s mind. He wanted to admit them all. To sit and say each one until night fell. There wouldn’t be one wasted moment.

Instead, Tarak chose to lightly cup Ram’s cheek and smile a little wider, almost hoping that this small gesture would satisfy his desire to pour everything in his heart out for Ram to see. After letting his hand linger and feeling the need to pull it back for fear of onlookers, his breath hitched as Ram placed his hand on top of Tarak’s. That little act made Tarak’s mind race. They had done this a million times before; it was their normal behavior. But after the last few days, it made Tarak’s heart dance in his chest.

In this moment, as Tarak took in the sight and feeling of Ram’s cheek in his hand, a terrible and dangerous thought entered his mind. What if? When this question came to the forefront of his thoughts, Tarak felt heat spread throughout his body, his nerves slowly numbing. What if Ram felt the same way toward me? Tarak repeated in his mind as he tried his best to memorize the feeling of the pristine beard of his best friend in his hands, the texture of his soft skin, and the eyes of Ram staring right back at him with that sweet smile.

Tarak felt his expression shift, his smile changing as it did the night before, and his breath shuddering for just a moment. Everything in his body wanted to pursue this hypothetical scenario to whatever conclusion there would be. Just as Tarak’s mouth opened slowly to take that step and ask the question that could ruin everything, he and Ram felt their phones vibrate in their pockets. Tarak slowly retrieved his hand as his wits returned to check his phone to see Tomas's message to him and Ram.

T: Where are you guys? Kevin left a couple minutes ago.

Tarak smiled as his mind began working correctly once again. He quickly typed that they were leaving before looking up at Ram.

“You ready to celebrate the start of the next chapter of your career?” Tarak asked with an excited tone,

Ram nodded, and the both of them rose from their seats and walked towards the exit. As they walked, Tarak inwardly thanked the heavens for not allowing him to be foolish enough to take such a risk with his beloved friendship with Ram. Yet even as he was thankful, much of his heart hurt with yearning. With each step, his limbs regained feeling, and he felt himself settle back into reality as they approached the familiar vehicle their guide sat in.

The two men climbed inside, and Tomas looked back excitedly. “Well? How did it go??”

Tarak spoke before Ram could underplay his performance, “It went wonderfully. Kevin divulged a little insider information on what Ram was being considered for.”

Ram waved off Tarak’s compliments. “I worry that I was a little overly nervous, but I do also think it went pretty well.”

Tomas smiled brightly, “Fantastic news! I’m always glad to hear it!”

Tarak smiled. “I think we should celebrate. What do you recommend, Tomas? It’s the middle of the day, and the weather is beautiful.”

Tomas smirked a devilish smile, clearly already having something in mind. “What would you guys say to a beach day? Mateo has been bugging me about catching some sun and unplugging for a while. I don’t have any other appointments or talent to cart around town anyway,” He said in a playful tone.

Ram’s eyes lit up, “I love the beach!”

Tarak laughed, “Mateo has the right attitude! In fact, bring him along! I want to meet this Mateo!”

Tomas’ eyebrows shot up, “Really?”

Ram shrugged, “Why not? The more, the merrier.”

Tomas laughed and shook his head, “You two are definitely the nicest talent I have taken care of since I started this job,” Tomas said as the vehicle pulled onto the street.

***

The SUV stopped by the hotel, so Tarak and Ram could change into proper beach clothing, finding their swimsuits and a tank top to wear with their sandals. They also brought a small bag with a couple of water bottles, sunglasses, and some sunscreen, just in case. They then quickly stopped by Tomas’ apartment and watched as Tomas stepped out wearing his own beach clothes with his Mateo. Mateo was a taller man with a thicker build and had long hair kept in a bun. He walked alongside Tomas while holding his hand. Before he stepped into the car, Mateo pulled Tomas into a fleeting yet passionate kiss. Tomas then opened the trunk to place a small cooler and a couple of beach blankets inside.

As Mateo settled in the passenger seat, he gave a slightly nervous wave to the two men in the backseat. “Hey there! I’m the husband!”

Tarak chuckled at the greeting, “Hello, the husband! I am the Tarak, and this is the Ram!”

Ram rolled his eyes at Tarak’s joke and smiled, “Wonderful to meet you, Mateo. Tomas has said so much about you.”

Tomas smiled as he closed his door, turning the car on. “Don’t worry, I only told them terrible things about you.”

Mateo made a face, “You would,” he said in a tone that made all the men laugh.

It didn’t take long before the SUV was parked at a small parking lot next to the beach. Tomas opened the trunk to retrieve their supplies. The four men walked along the beach and laughed as they continued their small talk, finding a suitable spot to set up their blankets under one of the large umbrellas and a couple of beach chairs available.

Ram had put on his sunglasses and handed Tarak his pair, “So, how did you two meet?”

Mateo smiled at Tomas and explained, “We met at a coffee shop. He sort of cut me in line for coffee and-”

“Hey now! You cut me in line. If you’re going to tell the story, tell it right.” Tomas grumbled, smiling to himself.

Mateo laughed, “We cut each other in line and managed to make small talk. We pretty much hit it off right away. After a few days of idle chat, I asked him for dinner. Little did I know how picky he was.” Mateo glanced in Tomas’ direction once again, expecting a snarky response.

“I took Matt Damon to that restaurant, and he got food poisoning from it! I was wary! So sue me!”

Tarak laughed at the two and how adorable they were but found all attention diminished from them as Ram removed his tank top, and the beautiful, sculpted muscles of his chest and back were in plain view for all to see. He looks like he should be on the cover of a magazine. Or a romance novel. Tarak thought to himself, stunned in place by the sight.

“Hey, Tarak! How about a bottle of water? It’s extra hot out, I wouldn’t want you to be thirsty,” Tomas said rather loudly to break Tarak out of his trance, tossing him a cold bottle of water from their cooler. Ram retrieved one of their own water bottles from their bag.

Tarak thankfully smirked, shaking his head from the spell Ram’s beautiful body had him under. He took a drink and also removed his own shirt, stretching a bit as his own chest and back were exposed. His muscles still ached from the other day's workout, but not as painfully. He quickly sprayed the sunscreen over his furry chest and arms to be on the safe side. Then, he turned away from Ram to set up one of the blankets on the sand.

As Tarak fought against the wind to have the blanket settle without being blown away, he heard Ram speak behind him,

“I’m going to go and get into the water for a bit.”

Tarak noted a strange inflection in his voice and turned to see Ram already on his way to the water’s edge. He then heard Mateo and Tomas snickering and glanced in their direction, his eyes narrowing.

“And what’s so entertaining?” Tarak inquired, his eyes still narrowed in a faux grumpy face.

Tomas took an extra moment to respond as he shook his head. “You two are hilarious and cute. That’s all,”

Mateo nodded, “It’s true. I’ve known you two for twenty minutes, and I think you guys are adorable together.”

Tarak felt his cheeks flush, “Together- Oh no. No, we’re not…” Tarak slowly silenced himself as Mateo’s expression didn’t change. His eyes then looked to Tomas irritated, “You told him, didn’t you?”

Tomas opened his mouth to explain, but no words came, and he hung his head. “I’m sorry, Tarak. I only told him so I could get another perspective involved to help you if needed. Please forgive me.”

Mateo sat up a little from his blanket, “It was my fault. I asked how the day went yesterday, and I kinda poked and prodded for a full rundown of the situation. My lips are sealed. I promise.”

Tarak wanted to be upset but nodded. He could tell that the two of them meant well and genuinely cared. As he finally laid back on his blanket, he felt the dam of thoughts of the last several hours about to burst.

“I need to figure out how to control myself. It’s like I’m an animal starving for food around him. Whenever he shows a bit of platonic sweetness toward me, I want to pounce. Its happened multiple times since we arrived here. We have only been here for a couple of days! How am I going to be able to get through this without ruining everything?” Tarak grumbled. Both Mateo and Tomas nodded in understanding but shared a look between the two of them. Tarak caught this exchange, and again he felt his eyes narrow. “What now?” he asked in a grumpy voice.

Mateo looked at Tomas and took a long drink from his water bottle.

Tomas sighed before he looked at Tarak with a genuine smile on his face, “Okay. Tell me more about these interactions.”

Tarak spent the next few minutes divulging, with some explicit details about his physical reactions missing, the several encounters he had with Ram that had his mind spiraling. With each one, the eyebrows of both Mateo and Tomas rose higher and higher.

“You were on top of him, and he gave no intention of pushing you off?” Mateo asked with a slightly incredulous tone to his voice.

“No. We just stared at each other for a few moments.” Tarak replied.

“Wait, let's go back to yesterday morning. He saw you in your boxers, and you said his behavior changed a little. Changed how?” Tomas asked.

Tarak’s head wobbled as he tried to think of how to explain. “He looked like he was flustered. He blushed a little and looked away.”

Mateo and Tomas shared a look and were about to continue speaking when they saw Ram approaching and opened their cooler to present a bottle of margarita mix and tequila, quickly changing the subject.

Ram wandered back with clear signs he did more than just dip his feet in the water as droplets were running down most of his body, his swimsuit clinging a little to his form. Tarak quickly distracted himself by accepting one of the margaritas and taking a big gulp, choosing to instead stare out at the horizon. The drink's coolness combated the sun's heat rather well, as Tarak felt a chill run down his back.

“How’s the water?” Tomas asked,

“Surprisingly warm. It was nice to step into the waves.” Ram said, a strange smirk on his face as he lay on one of the available blankets.

Tarak saw Tomas nudge Mateo a bit with his elbow. A moment later, Mateo started conversing with Ram about his workout habits, mentioning that he really liked lifting weights. As Ram was distracted by Mateo’s mention of healthy habits, Tarak felt his phone vibrate. It was a text from Tomas.

T: Do not react to this message. Why haven’t you pounced, exactly?

Tarak put on his best poker face and feverishly typed a reply.

NTR: What do you mean? These interactions are no different than before I started having these thoughts.

Tomas’ response came quickly.

T: That’s my point, Tarak. What if these moments happened before this because Ram has been feeling the same way about you that you do for him? What if he is waiting for you to say something?

Tarak felt his heartbeat quicken, unsure what to send back.

T: Mateo and I saw him check you out when you took your shirt off, almost exactly how you checked him out a second beforehand.

Tarak had to read that message several times before it sunk in. Before he could respond, Tomas sent one final message.

T: Just think about it. Maybe by talking about it with him, things may work out differently than you think. Now relax and enjoy a couple of drinks.

Tarak slowly put his phone away, suddenly hyper-aware of his position in relation to Ram on the beach. His eyes looked over in Tomas’ direction. Tomas took a long drink from his margarita while looking directly back at Tarak, signaling to do the same. Tarak savored another taste of the cold drink as his mind whirled in his head. That question he had at the restaurant returned with a vengeance in his mind.

What if?

After much internal debate, Tarak came to a decision. His heart began beating a mile a minute, but he was resolved on the next action to take.

Tonight. I will talk to him tonight.

@vijayasena @kaagazkefool @stars-in-the-distance

[reasoningdaily]

Scientific American: People in the U.S. Think They Are Better Than They Actually Are. People in Asia Don't

How competent are you, compared with your colleagues? When psychologists approach teams of coworkers with variations of this question, an interesting pattern emerges. If people have a truly realistic perspective of their abilities, then their self-assessments should generally fall around the middle. Instead psychologists have repeatedly found that people’s self-assessments are inflated. In fact, superstars and underperformers alike tend to think they are better than they truly are.

This effect is one example of a positive illusion: a cognitive bias that makes you feel more competent, more blessed, more fortunate and better than you are. Positive illusions seem intuitive and reasonable to many people. Some scholars argue that these illusions are fundamental to our species’ survival. To get by in life, they reason, you must remain optimistic, work hard, succeed, live long and leave offspring behind.

[Read more about the better-than-average bias]

Of course, some people don’t experience positive illusions and have a more realistic self-assessment. Unfortunately, such self-appraisals could make them feel more inadequate when comparing themselves with many others who have a very positive self-assessment. These comparisons may be an important cause of imposter syndrome—the suspicion that one is not deserving of one’s achievements. In other words, imposter syndrome may be the dark side of the societal norm toward positive selves.

But there is an important caveat to this discussion: the available evidence is based almost exclusively on a small fraction of humanity called Westerners. If positive illusions were truly essential to our species, we would expect them to be universal. But my work—and that of other research teams—suggests otherwise.

In the early 1990s my colleagues and I started our “Culture and the Self” project, exploring how the sense of the self might vary across cultures. We found no strong evidence for the better-than-average effect or other positive illusions in East Asia. In Japan, for example, when university students were asked what proportion of their peers were better than them in various traits and abilities, the average estimate fell around 50 percent.

In our newest area of research—cultural neuroscience—we find that the neural pathways that support positive illusions are absent in certain communities. In other words, a pattern that most psychologists have seen as a human universal is instead a product of culture.

The vast majority of the psychological database comes from so-called WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) societies. Most scientists in psychology and other academic fields have a WEIRD cultural background. Therefore, the common view that positive illusions are a human universal is based on heavily skewed research.

To go beyond the limits of this WEIRD cultural perspective, my colleagues and I have directly compared responses from Westerners and East Asians to questions asking about the self. In one study published last year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, both American and Taiwanese participants judged how good or bad they would feel when facing success or failure. Americans reported they would feel better about success than they would feel bad about failure. Meanwhile Taiwanese participants did not show this positive illusion: if anything, they reported they would feel worse about failure than they would feel good about success. This response from Taiwanese participants may reflect another psychological tendency called the negativity bias, in which negative events typically have much stronger emotional impacts than positive ones.

We then went a step further from past research by monitoring people’s brain waves as they made these judgments. Specifically, we looked at the magnitude of the “alpha wave”—a pattern of activity that appears when a person’s mind wanders and engages in internally directed thoughts. We observed the alpha effect when Americans thought about themselves within a fraction of a second after learning that something good happened to them. This early attention predicted the magnitude of their positive illusions. Taiwanese participants did not show this pattern when thinking about either success or failure happening to the self, nor did they show evidence of holding positive illusions, as mentioned above.

In East Asia, modesty is culturally valued. For that reason, some Western psychologists have tried to explain the absence of positive illusions by arguing that East Asians disguise their true feelings to avoid appearing too self-focused. But our data show that this explanation is inaccurate. We saw no added brain activity, for instance, that would correlate with effortful concealment of one’s true feelings among the Taiwanese people who participated in our study.

On the contrary, Westerners take an additional step to boost their good feeling when something good happens to them. They spontaneously maximize good feelings about the self through an automatic neural response. It occurs within a fraction of a second, without apparent effort, let alone any deliberation or conscious strategizing. Such a response might seem natural and inevitable, but it is not. Instead the response is cultural, having formed through years of socialization. The brain is extensively trained to produce this response because it supports attitudes that help a person fit into their individualistic culture, valuing self-promotion and initiative. East Asians show no such spontaneous or automatic response. They would seem to be more accepting of various events as those events happen to them. Other work we have done has found that while self-esteem predicts health in the West, it does not have the same consequences in East Asian societies.

When considering these results, it’s important to flag that findings about a whole culture or community are nuanced. Within a given group, there can be a high degree of variation from one person to the next. As previously mentioned, some people in the West experience imposter syndrome, which could be especially problematic, given this culture’s strong normative emphasis on feeling positive about the self. This example demonstrates why we cannot assume every Westerner or East Asian will follow a set pattern. But in broad terms, when we see these kinds of trends in our research, we have an opportunity to learn more about how culture shapes the brain and behavior.

We think the cultural variation in positive illusions is one example of a broader cultural difference in how the self is construed. Western societies generally regard the self as independent. Consequently, people in these societies are motivated to feel good about themselves. They work hard to identify their competence and uniqueness. In many cultures outside the West, however, people regard their selves as interdependent and embedded in social relationships. They feel protected and secure when connected to a larger social community. From that cultural perspective, there is no need to feel particularly good about one’s independent, individual self.

These differences set the stage for all manner of misunderstandings. From the Western perspective, East Asians might appear excessively polite in their attention to social ties or could seem disengaged or even depressed or maladjusted in their ambivalence toward self-promotion and initiative. Our data, however, show that East Asians respond to events naturally and realistically, without extra thought. From the East Asian perspective, the Western tendency to boost good feelings about oneself could come across as futile, unnecessary or even childish because it shows how the person is failing to appreciate the relational nature of the self. But our data suggest that Americans boost their positive selves because it helps them adapt to their culture. Altogether, by adopting the cultural neuroscience approach, we may keep our cultural preconceptions and biases at bay, thereby making our science less ethnocentric.

Stepping back, this work underscores the power of culture. Humans are the only animals that have survived by creating and taking advantage of various conventions, practices, meanings and social institutions. The evolution of these things, summarily called “culture,” has accelerated, especially over the past 10,000 years, forging several major cultural zones today. These zones vary greatly, and the cultural variation in positive illusion is a single instance, albeit an important one, of a more general process by which our culture shapes our ways of thinking, feeling and acting. We know what our culture is. Yet we don't appreciate its mind-shaping power enough.

[leam1983]

I don't know that anyone wants to replace trees, but there's plenty of urban areas, especially in high-density zones, where the space available for foliage was unfortunately stripped bare. As far as urban development is concerned, it might be sometimes easier to put up something like this, as opposed to spend years trying to re-zone enough ground for a comparatively small patch of land to be fertilized, seeded and covered in juvenile trees that'll take years to reach their full potential - if they even do at all, considering their relative lack of space.

My source is my own father, who was a Real Estate appraiser for Montreal, before his retirement. He knows quite well how laughably complex it can be for a city to turn a few square feet of concrete into an area fit for greenery.

The vagaries and woes of urban development... There's always a will to do things in generally smarter means, but that will butts up against store owners who have Eminent Domain over a few inches of that contested patch of ground, against urban promoters who'd have to revise years' worth of blueprints, and against politicians who have clear electoral goals to reach, which sometimes run against sensible projects.

I get it - I'd really love it if we could tear up some concrete and asphalt and re-seed entire sidewalks guerrilla style, but then you'll be stuck with taxpayers whose chief concern is out of which pockets these ad-hoc community gardens will come...