#i would get busy with school and suddenly volumes 8-11 were out and i didn’t get volume 10

[lazyspeedy]

i can feel the noragami sector of my brain come back lmaooo

[snowdice]

Gaps in His Files (Part 12) [Relabeled; Refiled Series]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters:

Main: Logan, Patton

Appear: Remy, Virgil (but only in the epilogue)

Summary:

Logan Berry has learned many things the last 10 years: a lot of math and physics, a bit of humility, and how to be a hero being just a few. Through his education, his experience teaching, and his exploits as the superhero Bluebird, he’s changed in a lot of small and large ways. He has recorded these changes in well-organized documents and files. He’s even had to create two new file designations: a red one for files about his moonlighting at Bluebird, and a light blue one dedicated to his boyfriend, Patton.

When Bluebird is targeted by a memory device and all of those 10 years of progress suddenly disappear, Patton Sanders and Logan’s extensive files are left as his only resource to get those memories back. But what is Patton supposed to do when there are clear gaps in his files? And what does he do when he is one of them?

This is set 25 years before Sometimes Labels Fail though it’s story is completely independent of it and it is not necessary to read that one first.

Notes: Superhero AU, memory loss, past child abuse, past child neglect, unhealthy ideas about ones place in relationships, emotional suppression, self-deprecating thoughts, medical procedures mentioned, very brief unhealthy views of sex

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

This one is very heavy. Patton is spiraling hard and expresses some very unhealthy deep seated views of himself and his role in relationships. So be warned and if you want to wait to read this, feel free. Basically all of the warning in the notes apply in this one except medical procedures.

Patton’s back ached from falling asleep on the floor next to the couch once again the night before. It had been horribly quiet in the apartment in the last 24 hours since Patton returned from the hospital to find Logan gone. He didn’t know what to do.

They’d defaulted back to looking through the files that they’d already pretty much read through at this point and Patton was starting to wonder if there was even any point. They’d looked through the red ones last night and the green ones this morning before rotating back to the blue ones which were now spread all over the coffee table.

Patton had snagged one of the fluffier blankets from the closet and curled up under it, but it didn’t make him feel any better. In fact, he might feel worse because he couldn’t keep insisting that Logan pet it like he normally would.

Logan didn’t even seem to care enough to voice his obvious unhappiness with Patton. His silence just made Patton feel worse and worse and made his thoughts spin and spin. Logan was tapping his fingers against the table thinking about something. Usually Patton would respond to that action with patient fondness, but today it just made him want to curl up into a ball wondering what he was thinking. Patton’s mind kept returning again and again to that place it had been in on and off the last two months except that place was getting darker and darker every time he came back around to it.

Ever since the rejected proposal, Patton had tried to figure out what it was about him Logan didn’t like. He’d tried all sorts of things. He’d tried not inviting himself over to his apartment as much, not being as pushy about Logan taking care of himself, offering sex less, offering sex more, not being as pushy about spending time with him, being more quiet, letting him decide what they did on dates, not talking as much about his job, not depending on him as much when he was stressed, not crying in front of him when he was overwhelmed. He’d tried. He’d tried so many things.

The problem was Logan. Or at least Logan before.

What Logan hated most in life was change and he’d clearly gotten used to how Patton naturally acted over the years. Thus, he kept getting distressed when Patton tried to change something.

When Patton avoided his apartment for over a week, he’d asked if Patton was mad at him and then since Patton had that Saturday off, he’d managed to cajole Patton into spending all day in Logan’s bed napping and cuddling.

The not pushing him to care for himself had only lasted a few hours. Patton knew it had to be annoying, but he couldn’t stop himself from reminding him to eat breakfast and Logan hadn’t seemed mad when he’d started back up. He’d even brushed a kiss across his cheek when Patton handed him a plate of bacon and breakfast potatoes.

He seemed to be able to tell when Patton wanted to have sex with a startling amount of pinpoint accuracy, like he had Patton down to a science. When Patton wanted it, but didn’t start something, he initiated it himself and he looked at him with abject confusion when Patton tried something when he didn’t want it.

He showed up to the hospital to take Patton to lunch in the cafeteria when he didn’t mention meeting up for lunch because he assumed the reason was that Patton was too busy that day. He pushed when Patton didn’t speak much, citing that he was worried something was wrong and he insisted on his input on dates before he’d move forward with any plans.

Patton had kept quiet about his job for three days before Logan had gone and talked to Remy behind his back to ask if something was wrong at work. Under pressure from both of them, he’d spewed out the buildup of stress all over the place. And it was so hard. It was so hard not to cry about it when Logan pressed soft kisses to his cheeks and temples and asked him if he was okay.

But now Logan wasn’t used to Patton and wasn’t set into patterns that he probably didn’t actually like, but just allowed because he wanted to be nice to Patton and was used to it. The problems with Patton were becoming apparent every time Logan side eyed him.

Patton had been hoping that maybe he could figure out from this version what parts of Patton he really did not like. Then Patton could hold more firm about getting rid of those things once Logan got his memories back. He’d definitely appreciate it after an adjustment period. That is if Logan even wanted him after this. He hoped he’d at least give Patton a chance to fix himself.

Patton was good at pretending. He knew how to cut pieces of himself off to get people to love him back. He’d had a lot of practiced. Make sure to do your homework at the dinner table at mom’s house so she knows you’re not being lazy. Cook when you’re at dad’s house so dinner is ready when he gets home from work, but make sure you’ve cleaned up by the time he gets home, so he doesn’t see you cooking. Don’t let grandma cook potatoes; she doesn’t like them and will blame you for them being on the dinner table. Never turn on the television at mom’s house; it rots the brain. Make sure the television is on the sports channel by the time dad gets home. Don’t touch grandma’s remote no matter how loud the volume is. Sit up straight for mom. Don’t cry in front of dad. Be quiet for grandma. Pretend dad doesn’t exist for mom. Call dad’s new girlfriend mom. Don’t try to correct grandma when she calls you by your dead grandfather’s name. Get good grades. Get into a good college. Get a job that pays well. Don’t complain. Don’t get in trouble. Don’t be gay.

Patton knew how to do it all. Logan had never asked it of him. Never, not once had he told Patton that he needed to fix himself or that he had to change for him; he deserved it more than any of them.

“We’ve talked a lot about me,” Logan said surprising Patton out of his churning thoughts especially since he had barely spoken all day. “but what about you?” he asked. “Tell me more about you. Tell me about our relationship. Why do you want to be with me or at least the me with my memories?”

“I…” Patton started. “There are a lot of reasons.”

“Then tell me one.”

Patton bit his lower lip. “You read my papers.”

“Your papers?”

“I’ve written a few research papers and you looked them up and read them and tried to understand them because you wanted to be able to talk to me about something I was interested in. That was the first time in my life that someone looked at me and it felt like they actually wanted to know me. And you kept doing things like that. You remember my coffee order and bring my favorite sandwich to the ER even when you know I’m in surgery and I can’t be there to see you so you just leave it with someone else to give it to me when I’m done. You eat the stupid cafeteria food at the hospital when I only have time for a 30-minute lunch just to spend time with me and after the first time we had sex, you got up early and cooked me an omelet because you didn’t know how to cook anything else. You try to find ways to help me feel better when I’m upset even though it doesn’t come naturally to you and you’re willing to throw popcorn in my mouth from across the room with your powers just because I ask even though you think it’s silly. You once took me on a picnic to a park 5 hours away because I mentioned how much I loved it when a group of us went there on a retreat during medical school even though you don’t like eating outside because of the bugs. And you didn’t even complain��� well, I mean, you did complain, but only enough to make me laugh, not so I thought you really resented being there with me. When we go to parties and I say I want to go home, you pretend to get a migraine so we can leave early and sometimes we end up having sex in the car outside. And even though you complain about how annoying you think Remy is, you know he’s my friend so you still make a point to make an effort with him and hang out with him even when I’m not there. So…” he swallowed. “Yeah.”

“You really love me,” he stated, eyes intent on him and unreadable.

“Every part of me loves you Logan,” Patton said, gripping the soft blanket in his fingers. “You can have whatever pieces you want.”

“Whatever pieces?” he echoed.

Patton forgot for a moment that the man in front of him did not have context, that he didn’t and couldn’t understand what Patton was asking. “Look,” he said. “I know there is something wrong with me. I know there are parts of me that annoy you or make you angry, but if you just tell me what they are I’ll change them.”

“You think I don’t like all of you?” Logan asked.

“Clearly not!” Patton said, standing up suddenly and throwing the blanket off onto the ground. He paused and took a breath, forcing his tone to be calm and clinical, like he did when he got too emotional at work. “Look at this,” he gestured to the piles of files in front of him: blue, green, and red. “This is everything from your personal files to your work files to the files for your alter ego, but where am I? You have the receipt from the first fast food order you bought with your credit card, the invitation from your five-year high school reunion that you didn’t even go to, and your sixth-grade report card. But there is nothing in here about me. Not really. I am not important enough for you to keep. But I can be if you just tell me how. I can be whatever makes you happy. If you love me at all, I will rip myself apart until I’m what you need.”

Logan looked him directly in the eyes. “If I love you, I don’t want that.”

Patton blew up. “Then what do you want, Logan?!” He snapped his mouth closed and looked away, tears that had been building since Logan had lost his memory, since Patton’s marriage proposal had been rejected, since his mom had first called him stupid because he’d gotten a B on a math test in the 5th grade, springing to his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…” he swallowed and stood, a picture of calm. “It has been a stressful couple of days,” he said, flicking a tear off his cheek. “I think I need to go back to my place and rest for a while. I’ll come back tomorrow morning and we can… I don’t know, try aromatherapy or something.”

Before Logan could say anything more, Patton beat a hasty retreat.

Want to read more? Click below!

Part 13

[manggojooz]

Close the Door Now (Part 2): An Epilogue Series to “Take My Hands Now”

pairing: Jungkook x reader

word count: approx. 2,000

genre: romance, slice of life, really tiny bit of fluff at the end

summary: an epilogue focusing more on Jungkook and his parents <3

warnings: none

Take My Hands Now Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6| Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 (final)

Epilogue Previous Parts: Part 1 

Taglist: @competativekook @flamingorosette  @somewhereinthestarss @d-noona @lowkey-kpopstan 

Comments: next chapter will likely be “mature audience only”, anyone in the taglist who is still underage?! let me knowwww plssss

“Umm Mrs Jeon… Here, use this…”, Namjoon utters in his calm voice, handing her a piece of tissue for her to dab away the tears which had welled up. He can’t believe out of all the places on earth Jungkook and you had to recommend Jungkook’s mother to his father’s clinic. And it was the summer vacation no less, where he was obviously going to be helping out and shadowing his father’s counselling practice.  

A piece of paper lay before the refined lady, with an illustration showing two man on each side of a door – one man looked like he was trying his hardest to push the door open, the other man behind the door leaned against it with his back and struggled, using his entire weight, trying to shut it.  

“This is like the conflict you face at home every day...”, Namjoon’s father had an equally soothing voice, “... what do you think will happen if they stay like this for a long time?”  

“Eventually one of them will give up and the other one will win?”, Jungkook’s mother despaired.  

“That I wouldn’t know, whether any of them will give up. But I do know one thing, if they keep staying like this, both of them will become increasingly tired, their arms will hurt, their legs will hurt and they will become more and more exhausted”, Namjoon’s father counselled.  

When the session was wrapping up, Namjoon’s father mentions that “It will be much better if your husband is willing to attend the next counselling session together”.

“Mr Kim, over the years you must have seen so many people facing the same conflict... in the end someone must tire out and give up, right?”, she scorns.  

Namjoon’s father nodded, “You are right, I have seen many of them give up. They walk away eventually. But Mrs Jeon, do you really think the person who walks away gave up because they were weak, they were tired or because they lost?”  

She looked at him, mulling over his words.  

---

“Why would I go for counselling with you? Is this some kind of marriage counselling? Why do you keep doing things that I can never understand?”, Jungkooks’ father snarled.  

“You really don’t know why?”, she stops and he too stops for a heartbeat. “Because I love you... and I want things to change... I-”, she continued.  

Never has he heard words that were more ridiculous. Never has she heard a scoff more demeaning.  

“You love me... that’s why you sleep with other men?”, he mocked her, just like how he always believed her actions were mocking him.  

“I love you... that is why I slept with other men”, she held back her tears. He will never understand, because he doesn’t love her.  

Some of the people who laugh the brightest have the darkest tears. Some of the most social people are the loneliest. So why is it surprising that someone who seem unfaithful can also be the most devoted? We are the ones standing on both sides of the door – the more a part of us tries to close it, the more the other has to push to keep it opened.  

His brow furrows, the lines in his forehead deep and rough, and his lips were tightly shut together. There was no sign of any intention to respond to her, he just sits quietly across from her in the living room.  

"Do you really think the person who walks away gave up because they were weak, they were tired or because they lost?”, this question was called back.

She breaks the long moment of stillness. “Let’s... divorce”, the volume of her voice was so low because she was trying not to hear herself.  

His expression doesn’t change but he slowly lifts his eyes to look at her.  

“What?”, he didn’t want to admit it, but he was shocked, and he thinks he must have misheard her.  

She couldn’t bring herself to repeat it. She shackled him to her side because she loved him, so she didn’t want him to leave her. She shackled him to her side because she hated him, so she didn’t want to be the only one suffering. What is the difference really? It was just two sides of that same door. The conflict was not with him.  

“You probably wouldn’t like it that I am the one initiating it, but that's the only way in which we can force my father to accept it. I don’t think I need to teach you how to negotiate the terms with him...”, she was doing the one thing she vowed to never do. Actually, she was doing the one thing she never believed she had the strength to do.  

He looks at her for a moment and then looks down, his hands clasped together. She stands up to leave and as she turns around, she sees you standing midway on the stairs. 

Jungkook had come home to take some of the things he needed, so he was busy in his room and you had wanted to get some water from the kitchen.  

Even from that distance you could see her eyes, they looked just like Jungkook’s, they were clear and beautiful but they held a dying universe. You didn’t have to touch her to know – she was in pain.  

She gives you a weak smile as she disappears into her bedroom.  

---

You made your way to the bottom of the stairs, your footsteps finally catching the man’s attention.  

“Ah hello, weren’t you the young lady we had dinner with last time? Good to see you again”, he stood up and adjusted his shirt.  

“Nice to meet you again too, Mr Jeon”, you replied pleasantly. You walked up to him and extended a hand.  

“Has your school been preaching the importance of social formalities?”, he jokes lightly while reciprocating your handshake. You held on for seconds longer than what is socially acceptable and his expression turns queer.  

You waited for it to hit you. But it doesn’t. When you finally let go of his hand, you felt a surge of sorrow. Time has so passed, yet he never loved her.  

“I’ll see you around then”, he declares, intending to leave.  

“Mr Jeon, if I told you I can feel someone else’s emotions when I hold their hands, will you think I am crazy?”, you stopped him.  

“That is a very weird question young lady.”

“Y/N, please call me Y/N”, he must have forgotten your name.  

“Alright Y/N... so you are saying you can feel my emotions too?”, he asks candidly.  

“Yes, if I touch your hand. And there is one thing I have been wanting to know, if it isn’t too rude... can I?”, you asked outrightly, holding your right hand out to him a second time.  

He finds this intriguing. “What is it? What are you curious about? I will decide if I wish to participate in this experiment after you tell me what it is.”

You steeled yourself, he was a gentleman but his charisma still sways you a little. “Jungkook... he relies on you a lot, I was just wondering what you feel about him...”, your words trailed off in your nervousness.  

He was curious himself too, what he felt about Jungkook. And he was curious, whether you were really crazy. He puts on his best businessman smile, “Let’s see then”, and he grabs your hand with a firm grip.  

You waited for a few seconds, his eyes never wavered as he looked straight into yours. “I know he is not your son”, you suddenly blurted.  

There was only a minute change in the intensity of his stare, before he lets go of your hand eventually.   

“So, what is it? What do I feel about him?”, he questions you. You did not answer.  

“I’m not sure what I was expecting... but this is a really weird thing to lie about, Y/N. You can’t actually feel someone else’s emotions, can you?”, he laughs, finding the whole situation outlandish but amusing.  

“I did, I lied... I can’t feel your emotions...”, you replied and he snickers, “I can only feel your pain...”

His smile disappears gradually.  

“I don’t know if you are angry, or if you are upset. I don’t know if you like him or if you hate him. But I feel it, when I said that he isn’t your son... you felt it too, right?”, you asked slowly.  

He only allows himself to falter for a beat.  

---

Jungkook walks into the dark meeting room, planning to calm himself down before the marketing department meeting that was due to start in half an hour. He takes out his phone wanting to read your messages of encouragement to him again.  

“Bring your proposal over”, a deep voice suddenly bellows across the room. Jungkook jumps and quickly switches on the lights, only to see his father sitting at the end of the long table.  

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“I’m the CEO of this company, I can be anywhere I want”, his father replies in hostility. Jungkook walks over and hands him the proposal which he had spent almost a week preparing.  

The hasty sounds of paper ruffling filled the tense silence. “You call this a proposal? You didn’t even put in the methodology you used. Shouldn’t that be the basic?”, his father spoke with derisiveness. 

Jungkook was stunned by the sudden criticism.  

“And what is this? This is from one year ago, this benchmark survey... does it even reflect the market today? Any high school graduate can probably churn up a better proposal than this”, the older man shuts the file and throws it back across the table.  

He doesn’t even look at Jungkook a second time before picking up the phone on the table and calling someone.  

“Cancel the marketing meeting at three. If there’s any other appointment waiting for me, fill in the time with that”, he commanded. As he hung up the phone, he mutters to himself, “this is such a waste of time...”

“Dad, I...”, Jungkook stutters.  

“We are in the office. Don’t called me that”, he stands up to walk out of the meeting room.  

---

“Sajang-nim...”, Jungkook creeps into his father’s office after being allowed in by the secretary. He had revamped the whole proposal, and he needed his father’s approval for it.  

The CEO scans the document quickly with his eyes. “You amended this yesterday?”, from the amount of changes made, he knew Jungkook must have spent the entire night working on it.  

“Yeap, I mean yes...” He started turning into a nervous wreck, but he clears his throat before saying, “there’s this part I am not too sure about because I haven’t really studied it before but I tried looking up some case studies...” 

His father flips the document impatiently, “I highlighted it in yellow here... I am just confused about the differences between the calculation methods”, Jungkook whispered.  

“Shouldn’t you have learnt this in university by now? Obviously you aren't even paying attention in class. Did you even attend enough classes to move on to your next semester?” He has never seen his father speak so stoically, it really is striking some fear in him. But almost as if outside of his control, the corner of his lips rose up.  

“Why are you smiling?”, his father glowers at him when he looks up at the absence of Jungkook’s reply to his questions.  

“It’s weird... you were always so nice to me last time but I never really felt like you cared. But now, you are yelling at me and I just feel... happy.”  

---

He ran to meet you at the theatre, you two had planned to go to a watch a play that evening. For once, you were the one waiting for him instead. You knew he didn’t sleep a wink the night before, having to rush the proposal, even cancelling your dinner plans. 

So, you were not entirely surprised when you spied him dozing off halfway into the play. You just let him rest his head on your shoulder and stealthily held his hand as you continued watching the show. He snuggled his face close to the crook of your neck. 

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; The more I give to thee, The more I have, For both are infinite”, Juliet says in the ongoing scene on stage.  

It is infinite, Jungkook’s love for his parents. Although it is tiring, and it may hurt sometimes, he still continues to love them. And thus, he hates himself a little less. You can only hope that the adults learn it too, that their love was also infinite, that they too, were mirrors of everyone else and of themselves.  

[thewritewolf]

Eating Habits Chapter 13: Bliss

The semester is passing by quickly as Adrien and Marinette live happily together, supporting each other in everything they do. 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 (Final)

Enjoy!

Read on Ao3

Her feet aching from the long week of classes fresh out of winter break, Marinette shambled up the stairs and blearily stood in front of the door to her shared home. Her faint hope that it would open on its own extinguished. A few long moments passed before she worked up the energy to open the door, slowly lifting her tired arms as if every centimeter of movement was an absolute chore.

As she stepped into the apartment, she was vaguely aware of the meat and vegetables sitting out on the kitchen counter, but much more important was the mop of blonde hair and the strong back poking out from behind the couch. At the sound of the door closing, Adrien looked behind him with an expression that started off curious before lighting up with a bright smile.

“Bugaboo! Amazing timing as usual, I was just about to get up and-” He was cut off as she plopped onto the couch, resting her head on his lap as she curled up into a more comfortable position, “-and make dinner, but I guess we can sit here for a little while.” Picking up the remote, he turned down the volume of the show on the television. “Wanna talk about it?”

She groaned and reached out her hand, groping around until she found his. Dragging her prize, she dropped his hand onto the back of her head.

Adrien laughed, a sound that was already soothing her aching muscles. His hands began playing with her hair and she sighed in satisfaction. “Poor tired bug. I can’t imagine just sewing and studying all day make you this tuckered out. Did you go to the gym after classes too? I keep telling you that you have to start smaller.”

Marinette was too tired to contribute much to the conversation, but just having him there, listening to him, feeling his touch on her, was doing wonders for her. It was just as heavy a burden she was carrying as last semester. But with him here? It felt so much lighter. She didn’t feel as though she were falling apart at the seams any more.

----------------

Adrien turned off the television and ran his fingers through his hair. His shift at the bakery had ended hours ago, leaving him waiting for Marinette to get back from school. The grumbling of his stomach got louder as he glanced back at the untouched selection of ingredients he’d assembled on the kitchen counter. He didn’t really want to start cooking until she got back.

After all, the time she got home each day was pretty arbitrary. Weeks into the semester and he still struggled to keep track of all her commitments, between student organizations, classes, study groups, and extra design work time. Yet another skill his coddled early years had deprived him of.

He sighed and opened the door to their balcony. The chill of winter was receding fast and the late March night was surprisingly warm. Leaning against the railing, he took a deep breath of the fresh air and stared out into the glimmering lights of the Parisian night.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Adrien jolted, but quickly relaxed when Ladybug landed beside him. His sly smirk was undercut by the soft blush he could already feel spreading across his cheeks. “Yes, you are.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I didn’t know the great hero Ladybug made house calls?”

“She’s been known to make an exception for her favorite civilians.” She smiled teasingly as she closed the distance between them, their faces centimeters apart. “Or at least, the particularly handsome ones.”

“Don’t let Chat Noir hear that,” he whispered into her ear. “I hear he’s the jealous type.” His arms wrapped around her, pulling her flush against him.

“Somehow, I don’t think he’ll mind what I’ve got planned for you tonight,” she said, pressing a chaste kiss against his lips.

“And what do you have planned, hm?”

“You’re about to find out.” Suddenly, she had one arm wrapped around him and with the other pulled out her yo-yo. Before he knew it, he was sailing over Paris and latching onto her. Despite the speed and the heights, he wasn’t afraid. Not just because he’d done this plenty of times as Chat before, but because he had absolute faith in her. She would never let him down - literally, in this case.

Before long, they had landed on the rooftop of a building that stood a story taller than the ones around it. Still holding onto his tiny, superpowered girlfriend, he looked around. His eyes widened when he saw the candlelit dinner with boxed chinese food, a single rose in a vase completing the scene.

His heart melted, but a thought caused him to fall into a giggle fit.

“What’s so funny, oh handsome civilian who is on the fast track to the couch tonight?”

He bit down on his lower lip and looked at her with eyes that glimmered with mirth. “I was just thinking… if I told fourteen year old Adrien that this was happening - that Ladybug made a romantic dinner just for us - I know that either his heart would explode from happiness or he just wouldn’t believe me.”

The annoyance in her eyes melted away, replaced with gentle love. She rocked forward on her toes to press a kiss against his cheek.

“Better believe it, sunshine. You aren’t the only one that knows their way around romance. And I’m definitely not going anywhere.”

He took her hand and held it between his. There were so many things that he wanted to say to her, but he just couldn’t find the words. Instead, he simply whispered, “I know.”

She seemed to understand as she slowly walked away and towards the dinner she had set. She pulled out his seat for him. Laughing, he sat down.

“Such a gentleman!”

She rolled her eyes with a smile and took the seat opposite him. They chatted while they ate, filling each other in on what they’d been doing that day. The food was wonderful and even if he hadn’t seen the logo on the boxes, he would have known it just from the taste. The Chinese restaurant was a favorite of theirs when they went on casual dates. Marinette’s mom was friends with the owners, and they’d all gone as a family plenty of times during the years he’d dated Marinette.

Adrien trailed off in the middle of explaining one customer’s particularly strange order when he heard music filtering up from the building below them. He glanced back at Ladybug, who was smugly watching him.

“...Are we above a symphony’s practice studio?”

“Mhm,” she hummed in confirmation.

Deciding she was being far too smug for her own good, he stood up, offering her his hand as he rose from a bow. “Would you do me the honor of a dance, my lady?”

Her pupils shrunk to pinpricks and she flailed her arms around her face. “Adrien, you know I can’t-”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. His other hand found its familiar spot on her lower back as he held her close to himself. He smiled down at her as she looked up at him, stunned for a moment. He decided in that moment, as he had many times before, that love was a good look on her.

As they settled into their dance, Adrien nuzzled against the top of her head as they twirled in gentle circles across the rooftop. He breathed deep, letting her scent - strawberries and cookies and a hundred other sweet things - fill him and bring peace to his weary spirit.

-----------------

Adrien finished his story and took a sip of his coffee, made exactly how he liked it. The cafe they’d chosen was quickly becoming a favorite and not only because it was right between their current living spaces.

Nino chuckled and shook his head. “Geez, dude. You two are made for each other, no doubt about it.”

“Jealous of our romance, bro?”

“Not a chance. Me and Alya are doing just fine with our chill love. But you two? With your over the top declarations of love? You two got each other to save everyone else from the sickeningly sick vibes and plots.”

“Hm…” Adrien put his chin in his hand, propped up on the table. Tapping his cheek he gave it some thought before nodding. “Definitely jealous then.” Nino scoffed. “Hey, you should have said something sooner! I’m sure Marinette wouldn’t mind if I brought you up to a rooftop for a candlelit dinner. Just so you could see what it’s like.”

Nino covered his face in his hands, but couldn’t hide the laughter bubbling out of him. “Yeah sure, dude. I’m just saying - you two tend to go crazy with romance, so it works out nice that you ended up with each other.”

“It’s way better than nice, man.” Adrien smiled with what he knew was a dopey grin - knew, but didn’t care. “Being with her - living with her - is a dream come true.”

“I figured it would be. I’m psyched for you guys - both of you are loads better when you’re not by yourselves, so it makes a ton of sense for you to move in.”

“What about you and Alya?”

Nino laughed. “After years of being stuck in crowded apartments with tons of siblings, we’re actually enjoying the space apart. But,” he said, grinning at his coffee, “after seeing what you and M have, I’m starting to like the idea more and more.” He made a dismissive gesture and leaned back in his chair, one arm over the back. “But that’s a while down the road. We’re supes happy with our set up right now.”

“I’m happy for you, man,” Adrien said softly. He took another long sip of drink, letting his mind wander. “Things are looking up, aren’t they?”

“They sure are, my bro.” Nino raised his coffee toward Adrien and they clinked their cups in a toast. “They sure are.” Nino took a quick gulp and leaned forward. “What else has been going down? I bet you’ve got a lotta sappy stories now that you two are together every day, so spill.”

They talked for another hour, exchanging stories about their girlfriends, about working with Jagged Stone, about the crazy customers the bakery had seen. He was glad they had managed to sneak in this time to hang out together, despite how busy both of them were. Adrien would always treasure Nino’s friendship, the first real friend he had made at school - his first, and his best.

----------------

Marinette stretched, reaching her hands far above her head as she worked out the aches from sitting still for so long. The dress in front of her was almost finished, but she needed to take a break before she could continue. If Adrien weren’t working at the bakery for the weekend, he’d have approved.

Her stretch brought her to her feet and then her toes, which then turned into wiggling her hips vaguely in time with the music that was filling the apartment. It felt liberating, dancing in her spotted pajamas in an old black t-shirt she’d stolen from Adrien years ago, hair hanging free. She was making great progress with that commission and she knew it. The dress could wait a few minutes while she had a little fun.

Sure, it was already the middle of April and the spring show was getting closer, but even that didn’t bother her. Speaking of, she was supposed to get a letter soon concerning how many front row tickets she’d be reserving for friends and family. After giving it a moment’s consideration, she opted to just head down to the mail room as she was. Who cares if someone saw her in her pajamas?

The song stayed in her head and she hummed along to it as she quickly went down the stairs. She grabbed the mail and started leafing through it as she returned the way she came. Her eyes widened just as she reached the door, hand hesitating at the door knob when she recognized the writing on one of the letters.

The surprise evaporated under a withering tide of anger. She knew what she’d read if she opened the letter - excuses, protests, and blame directed at Adrien. Of all the limited talents that Gabriel possesed, self-reflection was not among them.

She shoved it roughly in the basket with the rest of his letters, only barely resisting tossing it in the trash. As she changed her playlist to something a little more energetic to help her blow off steam, she decided that Adrien didn’t need to know he had gotten any mail at all today.

And everyone would be happier for it.

[themattress]

Rewatch: My Bride is a Mermaid - Conclusion

The manga Seto No Hanayome was one that relied heavily on visual comedy and Japanese wordplay, as is common with most gag mangas, and it ended up being nigh untranslatable as a result. It’s anime adaptation, however, played to its unique strengths of movement and voice-acting, and the English dub version My Bride is a Mermaid is an excellent translation; I don’t think there was a single bad performance out of the main cast and I honestly prefer most of the dub voice actors’ portrayals to the original Japanese ones. And since it’s a Seiji Kishi anime which means a lot of screaming at top volume, these voice actors are to be praised even more for risking throwing out their vocal cords out of commitment to their work. 

Furthermore, I honestly believe that this 26-episode anime is superior to the manga, and to the four Japanese-exclusive OVA episodes it later got that adapted other manga stories. The anime stopped at the exact equivalent to the end of the manga’s first half, volume 8. The manga would go on until volume 16, and while there were good moments and even a few outright good stories in this second half, it suffered from an influx of new characters that lacked the charm of the ones we already had and were more often than not redundant. 

Satori Sarutobi, Chimp’s little sister, was at first a one-shot character in the manga’s first half, in a chapter that was adapted as one of the OVA episodes. It would have been fine if that was all of her, but in the second half of the manga she suddenly was brought back as a recurring character and part of Nagasumi’s “harem”, which really did not need a little sister type in it (does any anime harem?) The second half of the manga began with the debut of Saturn, which was the basis for another OVA episode. In said OVA, Saturn was toned down into an innocent one-shot character who didn’t mean to scare and attack anyone and only wanted to see her childhood friend Sun again, returning to the sea without incident after she does. But in the actual manga, Saturn was a horrible bitch and a lesbian yandere who was in love with Sun and wanted to sabotage anyone who she saw as in her way, male and female alike. Not only is she a rehash of the “Sun’s childhood friend who is a screwed up person and gay for her” concept we already had with Lunar except done in a far less appealing way, but she then rehashes Gozaburo’s role by becoming a teacher at the school and the most frequent antagonist for a good many chapters following her introduction.

Sugio is literally Kamata’s twin brother and it makes no sense to include him when Kamata could have just been used for whatever roles he plays. Tenchou is the owner of a maid cafe that Akeno is forced to work at to pay off a debt, which draws in most of the other girls to work there too for chapters upon chapters, the first of which was the basis for an OVA episode. He could have been interesting as the straight man to the merpeople antics around him, but he’s kept too much at a distance from them, to the point where his design is altered in the OVA and his role is a mute, stationary one. The last new character who got adapted into an OVA episode is a recurring school delinquent named Emperor, who eventually got an incredibly disturbing chapter where it’s revealed he’s a fully-grown man who got perpetually held back in middle school, and who lusts after Lunar up until the chapter’s end where he gives up and goes home...with his wife and daughter. Yeah, that’s not funny, that’s just uncomfortable. 

We later got Jupiter, a kind of counterpart to Saturn except that she’s in love with Akeno, has an absurdly androgynous design, and is characterized by how utterly useless she is. Her desperate, stalker-y antics to get Akeno to return her affections are more annoying than humorous, and she’s so pathetic as an antagonist that the Last Amazoness is made to be more dangerous! Fuki is later introduced as Maki’s lookalike sister (her redundancy is such that it’s said that she was literally called “Maki #2″ in her childhood), and she serves Maruko Okhotsk, a teenage yakuza boss and creepy religious zealot who is yet another childhood friend of Sun’s who is obsessed with her to an insane degree and who ends up becoming yet another member of Nagasumi’s “harem”. You see what I mean about the redundancy issue?

The only new character I really appreciate is Amano Edomae, Lunar’s mother who sheds new light on Lunar’s childhood and motivations for becoming an idol, and is an interesting character in her own right who compliments her daughter and ex-husband well. Shortly after her introduction we go into the final story arc, which gives us 1/8th Figurine, a pixie-esque mer-noble later revealed to be a goddess who has no personality beyond providing long, drawn-out exposition, and Maki Yuri, a pupil of Akeno’s who recycles the name of a pre-existing character, rehashes Jupiter’s concept as a potential lesbian love interest for Akeno, and basically plays the same role that Akeno did in the anime’s finale since Akeno had developed to the point where she couldn’t play it here meaning a replacement was needed.

The manga’s finale, btw, is nowhere near as impactful as the anime’s, since Yoshio is a very different character here (an out-and-out catfish who was previously just a one-shot from the manga’s first half, who wants Sun so that he can make her the new sea goddess and rule through her), his forces fight the heroes by invading the school rather than the heroes taking the fight to him in his stronghold, the charmless new characters are involved and there are weaker roles for many of the older ones (Kai and Gozaburo especially are worse off), the resolution is anti-climactic (Nagasumi and Sun impale Yoshio with that magic spear that was used on Nagasumi when he was turned into a giant, which purifies the evil in Yoshio’s heart and makes him reform), and all of the humans involved in the battle, Nagasumi included, get their memories of it wiped Mewtwo-style by 1/8th Figurine which means they don’t get to savor the victory. The last chapter is just a random beach day for everyone, and while all the characters are left on the most appropriate note for them, it still feels underwhelming and even kind of forced (Nagasumi asks Sun to marry him here after she saves him from drowning again just like in the first chapter, and it’s revealed that she’d given him CPR back then so Masa wasn’t his first kiss after all...because that really needed to be clarified, right?)

Aside from the events and characterizations of episode 13 and episode 18 being far better portrayed, the only thing that I think the manga truly has over the anime is how Akeno’s story and character develop. I think I came to love Akeno even more on this rewatch than I did the first time around, and it was kind of disappointing that the anime ends before anything more can come out of the reveals in episode 23. The manga actually continues that plotline and by the end Akeno finds out that Masa is her brother and they get to have a formal reconciliation, and Akeno in general feels like an even stronger character who’s grown so much more by the end of the manga when compared to the end of the anime. Which isn’t to say that she and her development in the anime is bad, because it isn’t at all - it just feels notably incomplete. I’d gladly trade all four OVA episodes we got for one long OVA about Akeno; she deserves it.

And now, to wrap things up, my top 10 favorite characters and episodes:

1. Sun Seto 2. Lunar Edomae 3. Mawari Zenigata 4. Akeno Shiranui 5. Gozaburo Seto 6. Nagasumi Michishio 7. Kai Mikawa 8. Masa 9. Ren Seto 10. Papa Edomae

1. Episode 8: Duel* 2. Episode 26: The Place You Go Home To* 3. Episode 19: There's No Business Like Show Business 4. Episode 24: Farewell, My Friend 5. Episode 11: Armageddon 6. Episode 2: The Lord of the Ring 7. Episode 23: The Man Without a Past 8. Episode 17: Cops vs. Thugs 9. Episode 22: Privilege 10. Episode 6: Faibles Femmes   * Honorable mention to episodes 7 and 25, which are the set-up for these ones.

What else is left to say but: Honor Among Thieves is Honor Under the Seas!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

OK, I'LL TELL YOU YOU ABOUT MEN

If you use a threshold, make it through a PhD program in physics at Berkeley to do this is to treat some as more interesting than others. I've mentioned here. But I know the power of the forces that generate them.1 CEOs, movie stars, hedge fund managers, professional athletes. But companies do.2 For years I've been telling founders that the surest route to success is to be actively persecuted. Just as you can and watch what it's doing. And so the kids become one another's opponents. But in both cases the default is something worse.

It feels that way for everyone.3 And anyone who makes the same mistakes probably didn't do it. I can't think of them is that when you look at an incoming mail you find more interesting tokens, meaning those with probabilities far from. It's hard to imagine a topic less interesting than symbolism in Dickens. The most common is to grant patents that shouldn't be granted.4 By conventional standards, Jobs and Wozniak must have had to work in a place where there was infrastructure for startups, big companies are extremely good at denial. But there might be things that appealed particularly to men, or to prevent you from competing with them, but nowadays data about who gets selected is often publicly available to anyone who takes the trouble to attack them from an oblique angle, they'll meet you half-way and maneuver to keep you in their blind spot.5 Instead IBM ended up using all its power in the market to give Microsoft control of the PC standard in their lap. 9198 Url free 0. And yet you can see and fix it in yours; imitate writers you like; if you want to patent an algorithm, you have a big advantage.6

If this paradigm is crowded, just wait for the next Bill Gates.7 There's no manipulation in that. I now had to write in school is that a real essay, you already know most of what you need to learn to watch from a distance. Ideally, no one will return your phone calls. One wrote: While I did enjoy developing for the iPhone, you could presumably get them to switch.8 Chardin decided to skip all that and paint ordinary things as he saw them. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, just as an engraver needs the resistance of an audience, just as they do for standardized tests?9

They found that even when the radiologists missed a cancerous lesion, their eyes had usually paused at the site of it.10 Even the newest apprentice could be a problem. The way you get big returns is not by trying to ensure you get some of the time we were all, students and teachers both, just going through the usual channels to become one yourself, and perhaps whether you want to take money from, if you can arrange that we keep hearing from you, you won't have any artists. Another way of saying: we don't like your type around here.11 For tokens that occur only in the sciences that heresy pays off. Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way you looked?12 Both self-control and experience have this effect: to eliminate the random biases that come from your own circumstances, and tricks played by the artist. Which topics engage people's identity depends on the people rather than ideas. Before that, kids' lives are dominated by their parents, not by other kids.

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, says the Old Testament Proverbs 17:28. And if you feel you have to choose projects that can keep them all busy. I ignored the headers too.13 And practically all startups, even the smallest minorities can achieve a critical mass if they clump together.14 You already know where you're going, and you need some ability to ferret out the unexpected? The huge volume of the spam, which has so far worked in the spammer's favor, would now work against him, like a digital image rendered with more pixels. You plonk down a bunch of startups die. The needs of customers and the means of satisfying them are all in one head is to focus on real work.

Notes

The greatest damage that photography has done to their returns.

If your income tax rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would give you term sheets.

Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell early for us, they have zero ability to change the world of the most surprising things I've learned about VC inattentiveness. The way to do is say you've reformed, and that he be spared. Moving large amounts of money. Google is not to pay employees this way that makes you a question you don't know of any that died from releasing something full of bugs, and suddenly they need to do with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v.

I could pick them, initially, were ways to help a society generally is to write your dissertation in the next round, no one is harder, the government. As Clinton himself discovered to his house, the only way to be their personal IT consultants, building anything they could be adjacent. This is what you do in a difficult position.

There is nothing you can do to get significant numbers of users comes from. In the Daddy Model that it refers to instant ramen, which shoppers used to do the startup after you, they'll have big bags of cumin for the future, and graph theory.

We currently advise startups mostly to ignore competitors. If an investor they already know; but random is pretty bad. I've also heard them called Mini-VCs.

Lecuyer, Christophe, Making Silicon Valley it seemed thinkable to start software companies constrained in a couple predecessors.

It took a shot at destroying Boston's in the life of a severe-looking little box with a neologism. In fairness, I would go farther in saying that good paintings must have been lured into this sort of idea are statistics about fundraising is a meaningful idea for human audiences. It's worth taking extreme measures to avoid sticking. Super-angels gradually to erode.

If he's bad at it he'll work very hard and doesn't get paid much.

The angels had convertible debt is a facebook exclusively for college students. See particularly the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression.

Because it's better and it has to their stems, but they seem like noise.

92. It would probably be a problem later. Which in turn the most successful startups looked when they decide on the summer of 1914 as if the potential users, however, by doing another round that values the company.

So if you're attacked in this article are translated into Common Lisp for, believe it, I'm not saying that if colleges want to.

Or you make money from mediocre investors almost all do, I'll have people nagging me for features. Except text editors and compilers.

[esmiblood90irisglimmer]

Picture of Me (Chapter 5)

Chapter 5: Afraid

Monday, finally arrive and I have still shaken up that my stalker was somewhere around any corner watching me from a distance. I pretend not to let it bother me but in the end, it did since when I blackout I didn’t wake up till two days later. I was so in shock that I slept through Friday and Saturdays like it was nothing. Old Peggy was right by my side as she whimper and did everything she could while trying to wake me up. I felt extremely guilty for causing my young puppy to worry so much for the past two days. Sunday, I didn’t do much except making sure my door was locked along with my windows three times daily. I don’t even feel safe sleeping in my bedroom anymore not without a baseball bat right next to my side. Even the tiny noises disturb me the most especially at night as I kept assuming that my stalker is attempting to break into my apartment once again.

Last night I didn’t sleep until like 4 am despite the fact I need to awake at 7am since school starts around like at 8: 30 am. Though I didn’t want to leave my bed I can’t stay inside my apartment forever. Beside Lafayette and the other would worry about me since they went ballistic when I told them when my apartment was broken in. They spend the night during the weekends in order to make sure none of this happens again until George took over until my locks were replaced. I’m grateful that everybody was concerned about my safety and Old Peggy as well. I just couldn’t bring myself into revealing the truth that I have a stalker. Would they believe me or just brush it off saying that it was my imagination? I especially couldn’t tell Washington since it took me forever into letting me live on my own since Lafayette needed a place to stay. So I gave up my bedroom just for him while I live at the apartment complex not far from the Washington places.

I haven’t visited them since I’m afraid that the creep will eventually hurt them if I ever visited them. Hell, I don’t even visit Hercules nor John place anymore because of my fears that the stalker that would threaten me that he/she would hurt them. Luckily they didn’t find it weird but more like I was being paranoid since my apartment was broken in...by my stalkers that least...that what I knew for sure. Everyone else assumes it was a quick and run robbery in which the only thing was taken was my journal and my photos of me and Lafayette happily playing in the snow when we 11 or 12 at the age. Still, at least I can make sure to keep everybody else.

I was sitting in class while being on the fidgety side since I sit at the back next to a large window frame, which my stalker can easily see me. At least I can wear my hoodie where I can hide my face easily. I just went on my day like it was any other normal days despite the multiple text messages and phone calls but I kept my phone on silent. My friends and I continually goof around the hallways as we annoyed some of the classmates. Soon study hall finally arrive as we did completely nothing except a few missing assignment or play games on our phones. I mostly would play games on my phone but I didn’t want to deal with the text messages nor the miss calls. Luckily, being smart enough to bring my own laptop as I thought about watching a movie on Netflix.

Once I open it my laptop completely went all haywire like it being hacked at the moment. What the fuck?! I never had this type of problem before, I tried pushing some of my keys on my laptop watching suddenly my skype account was automatically logged on. Including the video chat as I saw myself on the video screen as I saw another person all dress in black from head to toes. Wearing dark sunglasses while wearing a black mask to cover his nose and mouth. I felt myself shaking at the moment but no can really tell since I was in the back of the classroom and everybody were just minding their own business. I literally froze at the moment as this person was just staring at me, I could tell that this fucking psychopath was smiling at me.

“Alexander Hamilton....my, my, my, have you grown?” It spoke before noticing that my stalker was a male because of the appearance of his jaw lines despite his entire face being covered. I didn’t say anything but almost attempting to grab my phone in order to dial Washington number but I never got the chance as he spoke.

“Don’t you ever fucking call that Washington person! If you do...I wonder what would happen to his lovely wife” he said while chuckling devilishly that brought shivers down to my spine. I wasn’t sure how anyone couldn’t hear him beside me at the moment. Especially when I have my laptop at the maximum volume. Putting my hands back on the keyboards so he can see them directly with his own eyes. The fucking bastard began chuckling once again.

“What do you want” I whisper while growling beneath my breath so no one else can listen to our conversation. My stalkers didn’t say anything at the moment but just stare at me like he was staring straight into my soul. I felt uncomfortable at the moment...I was eyeing for someone who can understand the uneasy look on my face but so far nothing. Everyone was just minding their own business as unusual being unaware of my situation. I sigh mentality as I knew this cunt was enjoying the frustration and the fear that was playing away from my body.

“Please don’t be afraid, my child. I’m not here to hurt you” my stalker spoke in a gentle tone as if he were not an enemy. I was so angry at this man who made me feel vulnerable for the past two weeks. I glare at him with pure rage and hatred...but I couldn’t raise my voice and so I spoke a low angry whisper voice.

“Not here to hurt me?! Yeah right, you fucking bastard. You have been stalking me for the past two weeks!”

“I didn’t have any other choice, Alexander! Look please try to understand tomorrow night, here at the front doors of your school. But no tricks..cause if you do...Your beloved brother...Lafayette will get it” My stalker spoke before showing me a huge hunting knife and the picture that was stolen from my apartment. This crazy man stabs the picture where Lafayette was at in an aggressive matter. My heart began sinking deeper and deeper as I felt numb from top to bottom. Covering my mouth I prevent myself from screaming or bursting into tears.

“I....I..understand....tomorrow at the front doors at my school..at 9 o'clock” I replied as I stutter a bit while knowing that man was grinning underneath his face mask.

“Good boy. But remember no funny tricks” My stalkers logged off Skype as I felt nothing but numb throughout my entire body. Soon I began the school ringing letting us that the entire school day is finally over. I slam shut my laptop and quickly gathered my stuff as I bolted out of the classroom. I kept on running and running nonstop with tears streaming down my face. Didn’t bother the people that exchange their looks on my appearance. But I brush them off since I just want to get home...just the comfort of my apartment.

I finally arrive at my apartment before my legs began shaking underneath me as I collapse onto the kitchen floor. Tears furiously stream down my cheeks until finally, I began breaking down. I didn’t know if I was crying or screaming or perhaps both. I also have taken every deep breath my chest kept getting tighter and tighter. Trying to get myself uncontrol as I slowly began counting from one to ten in French. It only took about ten or twenty for me to regain my breathing before shaking I walked to my room. Collapsing onto the bed as I cried myself to sleep.

Sorry, if it wasn’t good

[love-takes-work]

Steven Universe Graphic Novel Too Cool for School (2016) - Outline & Review

We finally have a full-length graphic novel for Steven Universe and it's just lovely! It was so much fun to go to school with Steven, and in this longer format, the authors were able to take their time with it and make it feel almost like it could be an episode of the show.

There are things they could have done better, but overall the enjoyment overshadows the disappointments. The characters we know and love were almost always right on with their characterization, and though the background characters new to the story here were pretty one-dimensional (and sometimes caricaturish), I could deal with it getting to see Steven in a new setting. Some of us had wondered about his school situation, since they never do explicitly state in the show that Steven's been educated at all, and this clears that up if it can be considered canon. The art is cute, with the characters' body language feeling appropriate despite the slight lean off the show model (the characters look sort of lumpier and sketchier), and as always the backgrounds are lovely to look at. 

And while I don't quite think the comic will stand on its own for readers who don't watch the show, I think it's fantastic to have a volume like this for those of us who love little in-between snacks. This book contains two full-color stories: The main story is "Too Cool for School," and then there's a little side story at the end called "Yard Sale." I'll examine "Too Cool for School" first and outline what I liked, what I didn't like, and what I thought was notable. What I liked: 1. Steven is so dang melodramatic about no one wanting to entertain him in the beginning. He talks just like this in the show too, infusing everything with drama when he's overwhelmed. It's so Steven. 2. Connie brings Steven to school for show and tell and quickly makes a mess of explaining what Gems are. Her awkwardness was precious. I have personally tried to explain what Gems are to people who ask me about the show and it kinda sometimes goes a little bit like this. And he's so excited and eager to tell the other kids about being a half-Gem and enthusiastically admits he has no idea what exactly he is. He's just cute.

3. Steven starts obsessing over whether the Gems might have seen dinosaurs and it's really nice how the dialogue sounds like what real kids sometimes say. 4. When Connie and Steven get sent to the principal's office, you can just see the weight of Connie's parents' expectations pressing down on her shoulders as she wails about her permanent record. It's very true to her character.

5. Connie's resentment of Steven getting her in trouble evaporates relatively quickly when she sees him all wide-eyed about cafeteria lunch, and it's so perfect that she just can't stay mad at him. It reminds me a bit of their actual dynamic on the show during the episode "Fusion Cuisine." 6. When Connie set out to explain lunch cliques to Steven, I was expecting the sort of trite jocks/nerds/slackers dynamic, but they came up with some pretty unusual groups for the lunchroom. They have social media stars hanging out together, along with some board game enthusiasts, an anti-clique clique, and the Junior Safety Patrol. I figured they'd be portrayed as NERDS but Connie super respects them and isn't dismayed that Steven picks them to sit with (and of course he would; he'd love to be with people who appreciate protecting others!). I'm glad she wasn't like "no Steven they're unpopular," though she's even less popular so it works out. I like their design--I'm not sure what gender a couple of them are being portrayed as (which is nice ambiguity), though I'm sad they don't seem to have names.

7. I just love that Steven's chattering about school during his Gem mission. That's one thing I've always loved about the show: Steven is thrilled to talk about Gem stuff with everyday people, but he's also just as excited about mundane stuff that's new to him. 8. Pearl's comment about how Steven enjoys pummeling children his own age in dodgeball has the Pearl Tone exactly right. The way she humors him has a particular flavor and this nailed it.

9. The bickering between the Gems regarding whether Steven should go to school is just classic. Pearl is in her typical frame of mind--that only Gem education is important and he's already learning what's necessary--while Garnet is firmly on Team Trust Steven, insisting that if he wants to do it then it must be what he needs. And what Garnet says goes, so there. Perf. 10. The very mundane issue of getting a phone call through to contact the Gems when a snail monster started attacking the school was pretty entertaining. 11. I love when Pearl goes full Gem Dork on the principal when she's bragging about how cool her race is. It's accurate to TV Pearl--she loves telling everyone how great Gems are.

12. Steven wants to be called "marsh periwinkle" after a cute snail species. Connie objects but he seems adamant that he deserves this adorable name. YOU BET YOU DESERVE IT STEVEN. YOU ARE A MARSH PERIWINKLE FOR SURE. 13. I think it's cute that Connie feels so honored at being accepted onto the Junior Safety Patrol, and she's happy that some people like her and know her name, but then she finds attention at school overwhelming when everyone's treating her like a hero and happily reclaims her lunch nook in the library. Too many stories like hers have the introvert being saaaaad because she doesn't have friiieeends and then everything is solved when everyone suddenly loves her. But Connie ISN'T happy with that and never wanted it. Respect for introverts is rarely seen in plots like this and I loved seeing Connie withdrawing from the social attention and not being spun as a loser for doing so. What I didn't like: 1. The front cover depicts Steven looking out the classroom window at the Temple. Nothing I've seen in the show suggests a school with that view would be possible, considering where the Temple is. 2. Connie's catching the bus at a stop that is apparently close enough to Steven's house that he happened to run into her. Connie doesn't live in Beach City, so I don't know why she's catching the bus there. She claims her dad's car is busted and that's why she's riding the bus, but then she even continues to ride the bus the following year. Not sure this was actually thought out. 3. I don't like how nobody wanted to hang out with Steven at the beginning but they didn't seem to have a reason. Amethyst literally said she was too bored to do anything and Pearl appeared to be ever so busy with . . . calisthenics? At least Garnet disappeared into her room and she could have been doing something important, but she didn't say what. I wouldn't mind if they volunteered a reason they couldn't pay attention to him right then, but this almost felt mean, and weird. 4. The teacher and the principal talk really cartoonishly (not in a good way); they say stuffy adult things and sometimes speak in ways that sound like a kid wrote what they think grown-ups sound like; they're unreasonable and use unnecessarily complex words in very awkward ways ("None of you are from space! That is highly improbable."). 

I also have a pet peeve about "adult who doesn't believe in fantastical story takes care to mock magic children who are telling the truth" tropes, especially if they immediately flip into starry-eyed awe when the proof arrives. The principal especially has some circular, repetitive, tortured-sounding scolding, particularly at the end (e.g., "With accidents of this magnitude disciplinary action is our only course of action"). The background kids are sometimes stuck in a sort of cruel hivemind too. Throwing erasers and paperballs at the new kid because he told a weird story about being a superhero seems exaggerated. 5. When Connie and Steven get called into the principal's office, Steven's dad is summoned but you never see the Maheswaran parents. Don't know why that is. I like that Greg points out that he didn't even know Steven was going to school, though. 6. I'm confused about why the second snail monster appeared. When they hunted down the first one, they found its Gem and bubbled it. Then the Gems said it was fine for Steven to take a snail shell from the site, only to find it turning up as a monster later. In other situations, mother monsters sometimes leave behind parasites after they've been defeated, but those parasites don't have Gems. This one did, so it must have been an identical second monster that the Gems didn't know was still there? I don't really understand how that happened. 7. The principal refers to Pearl as the "legal guardian" of Steven. Which she is not in any way. She's an alien from space with no legal standing of her own. 8. I think the principal deciding not to expel Connie because she got a good exam score is bizarre and nonsensical reasoning. It doesn't seem connected to the principal's reasoning about her endangering students by leading them to fight the snail. 9. Pearl protests the concept of "giving a ship a gender" when Steven's teacher talks about the mothership. She seems completely baffled by this, even though Gems don't have actual genders and THEY do this too. (They have called Gem monsters "mothers" if they spawn clones, and they called Rose Quartz Steven's mother even though she is technically not a woman.) I usually like when the Gems are confused about Earth stuff but this doesn't seem like it should confuse Pearl. 10. I fundamentally do not understand the ending of this story. Connie was almost expelled (and nonsensically saved through her exam score), and she was scolded and her friend kicked off the property. And yet when she returns to school in the fall (and has the same teacher), everyone is wearing glasses like hers to celebrate "Connie Day" and she's praised for "saving the school" (even though the building literally fell down) and Steven is also honored by the principal even as his expulsion is upheld. It just felt like a very strange and nonsensical way to end the story. Notable: 1. The Gems are wearing their latest outfits in this comic! Amethyst has her black stars on her knees. BUT! In the frame when they warp away from fighting the snail monster, Garnet's colors have reverted to her first outfit. Just that one frame. Weird. 2. Pearl is oddly not drawn with blue eyes in "Too Cool for School." Her eyes are actually pretty important to her aesthetic, so it was weird to see her with black filled-in eyes in the first story. She has her blue eyes again in the short! (And in the first story, Sour Cream's blue eyes are filled in blue, so I'm not sure why Pearl's aren't.) 3. In a summer shot of the Cool Kids, Sour Cream is wearing his Pants Become Shorts in shorts mode. Nice callback. And Sadie's maybe flirting with a boy in the Big Donut, and Lars looks jealous! 4. There were unfortunately tons of language errors, punctuation glitches, and misspellings--which is a shame because this is a professional publication but it made me feel a little like I was reading a fan creation online. My list: * Connie asks Steven why he's up so early with no question mark. * The teacher says she'll send Steven to the "principals office," no apostrophe. * Connie misspells her own last name in her talk bubble while discussing her future. * Greg asks about signing something and doesn't get a question mark. * Steven's handwritten sign misspells mustard as "mustart" and leaves a word out of "the fizz some lemon lime soda," which is odd for a kid who aced the final exam at the end. * The coach asks the students to "gather round" with no ending punctuation in his talk bubble. * Pearl refers to "chilren" in one talk bubble instead of "children." * Steven asks about show and tell with a period instead of a question mark. * The principal uses the word "unfortunetly." * The principal utters this inexcusable sentence: "There are an order to things Miss Maheswaran that we must obey." * The principal misspells "receive" as "recieve" in one talk bubble. * And she uses the word "undoutably," spelled like that. * Pearl's dialogue has "?!" at the end of a comment that wasn't in any way a question. * Pearl uses the word "spacefairing." The word is actually "spacefaring." * Pearl talks about Gems having "trancended" rigid structures instead of "transcended." * And she uses the wrong its while talking about Steven's space family. * The principal leaves an article out of this sentence: "Steven is never ever ever come to this school again." * Connie manages to spell the Latin name of littoraria irrorata correctly, but then her talk bubble uses the word "reffered" instead of "referred." * Connie asks a question about what makes Steven think he deserves a cute nickname but she leaves off the question mark.

And then there was the second story (which I may like even more than the main story!): the short "Yard Sale," in which Vidalia has a yard sale and Steven buys something special for each of the Gems, but then he lacks money for an old game system he wants to try. After some failed attempts to barter with Vidalia, they promise her babysitting for Onion, and Steven feels this is terrible because nothing is worth that. Stuff I loved: Amethyst has no idea why anyone would want to sell their stuff because she is a huge hoarder and I love her wanting to buy a purple guitar because it has two "thingies." I CAN'T EVEN DEAL WITH GARNET WANTING THE MOM SQUAD SWEATER. IT IS THE CUTEST THING IN THE WORLD.

The mention of Vidalia knowing Amethyst well enough to know she does NOT want anything in that room was hilarious. And we have Pearl offering car repair and Garnet offering to break the car first. Garnet is just an incredibly special kind of funny and I just love it.

[SU Book and Comic Reviews]

[akagamiproject]

Translator: Asahina 

Proofreader: Yuki-chan

Read along with Japanese raw scans here, and/or Chinese cleaned scans here.

A single slash ( / ) symbol means that the dialogue is from another bubble that is still visibly associated to the previous one. Double slashes ( // ) mean that some dialogue is from bubbles completely detached from the previous one, but are still being spoken by the same character. The asterisk ( * ) symbol are for non-auditory or auditory onomatopoeia. Brackets (  [ ]  ) are for the small text that floats around the characters or bubbles. The italicized text is for a character's thoughts. “SFX” basically refers to an action that any character(s) demonstrate. “T/N” are the translator's/proofreader's translation notes so you can understand it better. Any words within parentheses ( ) are mostly any side comments that the proofreader has in addition to the translations.

Page 1

Text: Chapter 1

Page 2

Raji: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, // Who is the girl with the beauty that can captivate everyone’s eyes in this country? / Who is the most appropriate to be my new concubine?

(Way to bring out the creepy vibe on someone no one knows, Akiduki Sorata-sensei.)

Informant: I am not a mirror, Prince Raji. I’m an informer. the informer of the town.

Raji: Shut up!! / You tell me what you see, so “Mirror” suits you well!

[You really can’t read my mood!]

Informant: Okay...well, then. / There is a young girl that I think might suit your taste. // She was born with extremely rare... and beautiful / apple-red hair. her name is Shirayuki*.

T/N: *Literally means “Snow White” in Japanese.

Page 3

Big Text: Akagami no Shirayuki-hime

Text in lower right-hand corner: Chapter 2

Page 4

Shirayuki: What a joke. // No way... A street girl like me being picked as the Prince's concubine because of my hair colour. // I will shame the prince.

Guard: The prince has taken a liking for you, so nothing else matters. / Anyway, you will be formally received at the castle in three days, so dress yourself up. // I will excuse myself for today, then, Shirayuki-dono.

[Nothing else matters, huh...?]

Shirayuki: ...Can’t go against him, huh? / Even though he’s well-known for being stupid, he’s still a prince...

*stand up*

Shirayuki: —There’s no helping it.

[That path that I walk on]

*snip*

[is, so to speak, my own story.]

Page 5

*plop*

Shirayuki: I will leave this country.

Box: I cannot draw with someone else’s brush.

Shirayuki: Ah—... / I should have rested before I entered the forest after all.

[Rustle]

SFX: much / much

Shirayuki: ! // There’s no light. // Excuse me! Is someone in there—?! // ...A vacant house?

[I guess I can’t... just enter.]

Shirayuki: I’ll call it a day...

[Zzz-]

Page 6

[Chirp / Chirp]

Zen: It would be great if this house was a stable, huh? // If something happens, we can run immediately if we have horses.

Mitsuhide: Why don’t you make one as you like? / No one would enter this forest beside the highway, though. / All right,

[You are so cold, jeez-]

*rustle*

SFX: Stuck

Zen: ?!

SFX: Thud

Mitsuhide: ?! / ZEN?!

Akiduki Sorata's Corner:

Box: Introduction

Hello. I’m Akiduki Sorata. Nice to meet you.

You are now reading the first volume of “Akagami no Shirayuki-hime.”

This is my first work. Thanks for reading it!

--BELOW BORDER--

Akiduki Sorata (pen name)

Grew up in Aichi Prefecture reading manga.

Born in March, with blood type AB.

Has made it a rule not to turn on the air-conditioning while watching high school baseball in the summer.

Sometimes.

Page 7

Zen: …!

*shake / shake*

*appears*

Mitsuhide: Aah! Are you okay, Zen?! Did you twist your wrist?! You didn’t hit your head, did you?! // What’s one plus one?!

Zen: Two. / Oh, who are you again?

Mitsuhide: !! / I’m Mitsuhide!

Kiki: Aah! So that’s your name!

(LOL, way to add insult to the injury, Kiki!)

Mitsuhide: What? Even you, too, Kiki?! Don’t tease me like that—

Zen: —So,

*gulp*

Zen: who are you really? // Just what are you doing in this deep part of the forest?

Shirayuki: No, I... Um, I just left home. / I just wanted to go through the path that not many people walked—

*Cha*

Shirayuki: !

*Woosh*

Page 8

*Rustle*

Everyone: !!

Shirayuki: Ah.

Zen: ...You have a strange hair colour, huh?

(You take off a girl's hood with the hilt of your sword and that's all you have to say afterwards? An apology would be nice!)

Shirayuki: That’s right. I’m often told that. // Crap...

Shirayuki: A-Anyway, you hurt your right arm when you fell down just now, right? Zen: ...What is that?

(Common manners. Care to learn about them?)

Shirayuki: I’m a pharmacist, / so I have compress medicine and stuff like that. / [Just go ahead.]

*rustle*

Zen: Medicine? // Hmm. // I don't need those.

Page 9

Zen: As if I can use something that is suddenly offered to me, which I’m not yet sure if it’s poison or not! // I’m not a stupid kid in the forest. / I can’t trust strangers so easily. // In other words, we have no need for you here. // If you understand that, go away.

Shirayuki: … // Well... he’s right. / But... // There are so many people ordering me around. // I’m fed up with this...

*clang*

[Oh?]

Zen: You want to fight me?

*AHWCK*

Zen: ?!

Shirayuki: …!

[Hurts more than she thought it would.]

Page 10

*spread / spread*

Zen: …

*plop*

Shirayuki: —I’m sorry, but // it’s not my hobby to carry poisons around with me.

*drop*

Mitsuhide: A Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! // She got you, Zen!

[Eh?}

[Ku...]

[Kuku*...]

T/N: *Kukuku literally translates to “Hehehe.” It’s meant to be a snicker.

Page 11

Zen: Ha—... / Sorry, then. // I'm counting on you. // It was half your fault to begin with that I screwed up when I landed. // Take responsibility. // You’ll take care of me until my pain goes away, right?

SFX: grabs

Zen: This is just a vacant house where we hang around. / You can stay here however long you want. // Right, Kiki? Mitsuhide?

Mitsuhide: That’s right, but... don’t decide things on your own.

Zen: Okay?

Page 12

[Responsibility...]

Kiki: For now, let's go inside.

Box: After the palace / is the forest...

Shirayuki: Like I said! / Even if I tell you the reason I left home, you wouldn’t find it interesting, Zen.

Zen: Like I said—it’s not interesting if you don’t tell me, Shirayuki. // Don’t be so cold like that. / see, our bandages are also friends.

[Haha, they match, see?]

Zen: … // Come on, smile.

Page 13

Shirayuki: Kiki-san, Mitsuhide-san! / I’m going for a small walk.

*Smile*

[Okay, okay...]

Zen: You only like those two...

(Maybe it's because they didn't tell her she wasn't needed or expose her hair with a sword? Just a thought.)

Shirayuki: —So why did you follow me, Zen?

Zen: It would be a disgrace for a gentleman, like me, to let a girl, who is hurt, wander around the forest alone, / Even though you are so unkind to me.

[Ha—...]

Shirayuki: I study medicinal plants, so I’m already used to mountains and forests. I’m fine.

*tighten*

Zen: Hmm.

Shirayuki: The forest is different from the town. Time and space have their own flow. / It’s also comfortable here.

Zen: Yeah. / I know that.

Page 14

Shirayuki: You were honest just now, huh?

Zen: !

Shirayuki: OUCH?!

Zen: Ah— / Your hair got stuck in the tree... somehow, there’s only one bundle of long hair?

Shirayuki: Eh?

[Ouch, ouch.]

Shirayuki: Ah, I cut my hair when I left home, so that must be why... / Sorry, Zen, but can you cut it for me? / [I can’t untangle it...]

Zen: What? // …!

*grin*

Page 15

Zen: No, no! By no means would I cut a girl’s hair! // What does cutting off your long hair have to do with leaving home? / If you don’t tell me the reason, I cannot help you...

Shirayuki: ...You are so...

(There's a new barbershop open for business; Zen's Hair Salon! He'll cut your hair if you tell him a secret. What a deal!)

Zen: A rich guy told you to be his concubine?!!

Shirayuki: He’s a famous guy who knows the ins and outs of the Red light district* by heart. People saw that he grew up eating gold coins**.

T/N: *Area where prostitutes (can we use that word?) and other questionable characters reside.

**Grew up in privilege and wealth; basically, very spoiled.

Shirayuki: He said that he thinks red hair is rare, / so he wants to have me.

*speechless*

Shirayuki: If I let him do that, // I would be like an apple that he buys from a fruit store.

Zen: Shira...

Shirayuki: —That’s why

Page 16

Shirayuki: I thought he’d get tired of looking at a piece of it, / so I bunched my hair and left it behind.

Zen: [Pu!] / That’s great! / HaHAhahaHAHAHAHAha!

(Zen can laugh for a long time, can't he?)

Shirayuki:  Ahahaha, it’s not a laughing matter, though.

Zen: No, no. / You made the right decision.  // Let him experience being cut off by a low-ranked girl.

Shirayuki: ?

Zen: People say that red / is the colour of fate, right?

Page 17

Zen: Now you may think it's only troublesome, // but it might connect you with something unexpectedly good.

Shirayuki: Th--... / That’s an awesome way of thinking...

Zen: Oh, yeah? Respect me now?

Mitsuhide: ...Looks like Shirayuki is not a bad person after all, huh, Kiki?

Kiki: On the contrary, it seems like Zen is quite taken with her.

Mitsuhide: It would be a disaster for Shirayuki / if she’s caught.

Page 18

Messenger: This is a present from Tanbarun!

Zen: Tanbarun~~~? // What? something from the neighbouring country to this deep in the forest...

*thud*

Shirayuki: EH?!

Zen: Shirayuki?

Shirayuki: …! // That’s... / the ribbon that I used to tie the hair that I cut...

Zen: What?!

[?]

Page 19

Zen: Can I... look inside the basket?

Shirayuki: What? / Ah, sure... // Apples—...

Zen: In short, / the sender of this was worried about you having to leave home to travel so far away, // so he will come to pick you up at your town at the border of Tanbarun... // ...A pretty spiteful gentleman, huh?

Shirayuki: He’s good with words.

Zen: What are you laughing about?! // Is he so high-ranked that you had to cross the country border to run away?!

Page 20

Shirayuki: … / the person who wants me as his concubine...

Zen: …

Shirayuki: —... / is Tanbarun's... // First Prince.

Zen: !

*bam*

Zen: That stupid prince called Raji?!

Shirayuki: Wow... even people from the neighbouring country know him... // ...That’s who I’m dealing with. / Well, // I might have been followed after I crossed the country border.

Page 21

Zen: He thinks that anything he wants / belongs to him.

[I expect no less from him.]

Shirayuki: … // He wouldn’t think that he can put me in a basket, would he....?

Zen: Eh...

Page 22

Top of the page says “Akagami No Shirayuki-hime [1].”

Shirayuki: Just kidding...

*gets up*

*slowly*

Shirayuki: Zen?

Page 23

**bites*

Shirayuki: Ze—...

Mitsuhide: What bad manners—you shouldn’t do that, Zen.

[You’ve got to hold the apple yourself.]

SFX: Cough // Cough

Zen: Wh—.... / What are you looking at...? / I didn’t call you. Mind your own business!!

Mitsuhide: Uwah! / Don't hurt my feelings!

Zen: — —

Mitsuhide: Uwah—

Shirayuki: … // Zen.

*gets up*

Zen: What?

Page 24

Shirayuki: … / I said something stupid. // Sorry.

(Haha, the look on Zen's face in panel two! I bet he didn't expect her to apologise to him like that!)

*stagger*

Zen: …?! // ...Shirayuki, / Don’t... eat that apple.

Shirayuki: Eh?

Zen: Kiki, Mitsuhide... / sorry... // Don't get / mad...

Mitsuhide: Zen?

*stagger*

Zen: …!

SFX: Thud

Everyone: ZEN!!

Page 25

Mitsuhide: What’s wrong, Zen? / Hey!! // Zen!!

[“Don't / eat that apple.”]

[Eh...?]

*creak*

Mitsuhide: ! // Who's that?!

Guard: —I’m a messenger. // ...Good grief. / So it wasn’t Shirayuki-dono* who ate the apples?

T/N: *“Dono” is a term of great respect and reverence. It’s often translated as “Lord” or “Lady” in English translations.

Page 26

[Hmm.]

Guard; Oh well...?

Shirayuki: ..You... / came to my house before...

Mitsuhide: What’s the meaning of this...?

Guard: —Shirayuki-dono, // Those are poisoned apples. // Please do not worry. / there is someone who has the antidote. // ...You will go / with me, won’t you?

Page 27

Guard: Prince Raji, / I have brought her here.

Raji: So she’s come! All right, you can get out.

*turns around*

Raji: Oh, so this is you! // I see... this is amazing. / Your red hair is real. // Come this way, Shirayuki-dono.

*close*

Shirayuki: ...Can I have the antidote for my friend, Prince Raji?

Raji: That’s for later! because of a sneaky thief, I don’t have much time for you.

Shirayuki: Wha—...

*Katan*

Raji: This is such a dreadful thing... / It seems that I have become a laughing stock for everyone in the suburbs as well as in the palace for letting you run away from my courtship, Shirayuki-dono.

[Puu*..]

T/N: *”Puu” is the SFX for “puff” in Japanese. He's basically puffing out his cheeks in annoyance.

Raji: Really... thanks to this, my reputation might drop very low!

Page 28

Shirayuki: Your reputation is already too low to drop down anymore to begin with. // ...And?

Raji: If I admit your crime, it would mean admitting that the rumour is true. / —Therefore, to redeem my reputation, // say that you want to become my concubine. // Even though you’re only a street girl, I don’t want to embarrass you. / so I, who have been emotionally wounded, will accept you.

Shirayuki: ...Auditory Hallucination?! // Don't joke.

Raji: Aah! / It was a coincidence, // ...but I was truly lucky to have all the ingredients for the poison.

Page 29

Raji: Do you want to / go visit your friend once, Shirayuki-dono?

*drop*

Raji: —But // It would be a pity to let the girl who can entertain my eyes so much // go somewhere far away.

*roll*

[“They say red / is the colour of fate.”]

Page 30

[“It might connect you / to something unexpectedly good.”]

[He // said those words / to me.]

SFX: smack

Raji: ?! / What are you...?

Shirayuki: Oh my,, that's impolite. / Prince Raji, // ...Please // take me with you as you please.

Page 31

Zen: I OPPOSE!!

*wham*

Everyone: ?!

[Eek!]

Zen: Will you please // stop spouting nonsense that will dirty her ears?

Shirayuki: Zen...

Raji: W-Who are you? / What are the guards...?

Page 32

Mitsuhide: It’s okay, it’s okay. // We're guarding.

Raji: !!

Shirayuki: Zen...!!

Zen: Hey, Shirayuki. / Tie this for me.

[It was unfastened.]

Shirayuki: Eh? / B-But before that, your body...

(That look that Zen gives her just gives me the wrong idea. xD)

Raji: !

[Ah!]

Raji: That’s right. / So you’re the guy who ate the poison! // Oh no, what misfortune! / I planned to make Shirayuki-dono unable to move so that I could take her here.

Zen: ...So you’re the one who sent the apples.

[Hmph.]

Raji: Show more respect to me. / Our social statuses are different, you know.

Zen: ...That’s impolite, / Raji-dono.

Page 33

Zen: All right, this is troublesome, but let me introduce myself. / This is the first time you’ve met me.

*Clang*

Zen: I’m Zen, the Second Prince of the Clarines Kingdom.

Shirayuki: … / Second... Prince?! // Ze-... Zen... Get a hold of yourself!

[Do you know me?!]

Zen: I’m still sober, Shirayuki. // Just in case, / I got myself a little bit accustomed to poisons...

Page 34

[He looks pale...]

Zen: ...But I never thought / that I would be poisoned by a prince of a neighbouring kingdom, / Raji-dono.

*approaches*

Raji: …

*turns around*

Mitsuhide: He’s the real thing. / Right, buddy?

Guard: H-... / He’s telling the truth! he has the crest on his belongings...

Raji: ...Fu*. / Is there any evidence that I... that I** poisoned the apples?!

*flustered*

Zen: There should still be some around, right? / For example, something left in your residence? // You wouldn’t mind an official search, right?

Raji: Th-...!! / That's …

Zen: Then should I deal with you myself, stupid prince?

T/N: *”Fu” can translate into a variety of sounds, but in this context, it’s a sarcastic chuckle, since Raji doesn’t really believe Zen.

**At first, he used a slightly more informal way of addressing himself. Raji kinda meant to imtimidate Zen with his royal title.

Page 35

Zen: If you don’t want me to reveal your foolish behaviour this time to the public—swear  // never to involve yourself with Shirayuki again, // and never to call her name again.

Raji: ..Why even her name...?

Zen: Shall I make you swear with my sword?

Raji: I GOT IT! I SWEAR! I JUST SWORE!

Zen: —Shirayuki! / You have tons of things you want to tell him, right?

[Eh!]

Zen: If you want to tell him off, now’s the time.

[Go ahead.]

Shirayuki: —...Okay.

*bends down*

*Picks up*

Page 36

Shirayuki: Here you go, Prince Raji.

SFX: Shove

Shirayuki: This is my gift for visiting you.

[It fell.]

[2 cm]

Shirayuki: —Also, // hurry up / and give Zen the antidote! // —Thank you.

Page 37

Zen: What’s that, Shirayuki? //

[Why are you sitting up straight?]

Shirayuki: You helped me... // but I'm sorry. // I... / was only poison to you.

[Ha / ha / ha]

Zen: Am I... supposed to laugh there? / Is it because the poisoned apple I ate and you are both red?

Shirayuki: ...It’s kind of different.

Page 38

Kiki: It’s okay, Shirayuki. It’s not something that you have to apologise about. / Zen ate the apple himself.

[Kiki-san...]

Kiki: But you really had us worried, Zen! / Mitsuhide even said that if you died, he would die as well, and he got all teary.

Zen: I got it, I got it! / Sorry about that. // Next time, I will have him peel fruits for me before I eat them...

Mitsuhide: That’s not the point!!

Zen: —...Shirayuki,

*kneels down*

Zen: Do you still remember / what I said in the forest? // To me, / being with you now / is fate, and I’m happy about it, okay?

Page 39

Zen: You met us in the forest that you entered. / We got involved, / and we protected each other. // Will it all end now, // or will it / continue to connect us? // It is up to you to decide.

Shirayuki: ...No... / that.... / is that something that I can decide?

Zen: Of course! / I also decide my fate // Decide / and whether you walk on that road or not totally depends on you.

Page 40

Mitsuhide: …. / Zen, you....

[He sounds so grand.]

[Yeah.]

Zen: What?

Shirayuki: That's really a great way of thinking.

*clang*

Zen: It’s not a way of thinking. / It’s a way of living. // —What’s your answer, // Shirayuki?

[That is, / so to speak, my own story.]

Page 41

Shirayuki: I will—

[If I had a wish, I would wish / that the sound of the turning pages of my story after this encounter / would resound like the sound of footsteps.]

Mitsuhide: He’s just showing off, though. / His immediate fate would be returning to the castle and getting people mad at him, Shirayuki.

[Hoh—]

[He snuck out of the castle for a few days again...]

Kiki: And we will suffer the same fate. / Wonderful, wonderful.

~Akagami no Shirayuki-hime Chapter 1 // END~

[mullersturtleneck]

Sticking With the Schuylers (18A)

Hello again! I had to split this into 2 parts because I couldn’t even handle how long it got, and I figured I’d leave the actual dramatics for “Part B”. I feel like it’s...it’s hard to describe my feelings about B, I’ll just say that.

Also thank you for putting up with my drawn-out chapters (I always feel like ‘the side of Ham that wrote the other 51′ when it takes me chapters and chapters to get from point A to point B. But I also love character studies and what makes people tick so that’s my lame reasoning behind it. Either way, I hope you enjoy!

In this part, the pre-brunch ritual is thrown off and it makes Angelica uneasy...

1  2  3  4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   I   13  14   15   16   17

Loud disco music blares through the closed door. The third door from the staircase; twenty-six steps from the stairs, straight across the hall from the bathroom. It’s the second-largest bedroom in the Schuyler mansion only to their parents’ master bedroom, and lately it’s become more of a dressing room. Peggy is the beneficiary of it all, a senior in high school with her sister’s bedrooms empty while they’re away. She doesn’t use them, per say, but the youngest Schuyler liked to think she’d be crazy to deny herself the opportunity of two ‘walk-in closets.’

               And although she often claims Eliza’s style is too preppy, and Angelica’s too business, there’s often an Instagram photo or a moment on Skype that brings the two older sisters barreling to her door. Eliza will ask for her clothing back. Angelica will demand. But the best part of having her older sister’s bedrooms out of use for the better portion of the year is when they do come…Angelica’s room, because it is the largest, has been transformed more into a ‘ready room.’ It’s the latest addition to the ritual of Sunday brunch, the girls arriving at the first signs of morning with coffee and duffle bags stuffed full of supplies.

               First they’d sit around the breakfast nook, Laurie the chef having prepared an array of pastries the night before, knowing of the serious light which Sunday morning brunch was painted in this family. The girls would chat, catching up in a more filtered light. Laurie was a gossip; they’d discovered that truth when she’d told both Paul, the driver and Elena, the housekeeper, about Angelica’s first time. (Luckily the story hadn’t gotten back to their father, but oh boy did Angelica ream her out for that one).

Peggy also often used this ritual as a regular addition to her continually-updated Instagram story; clothing strewn over every surface, the three huddled close and leaning over Angelica’s vanity, the occasional 3-part harmony to a Beyoncé classic…it was a ritual that had become loved by America nearly as much as it was by the sisters.  

Today is no different. Peggy Schuyler rolls out of bed (7 am is unreasonably early for a Sunday, she always argued) to a barrage of social media notifications; people getting ready for the weekly update on the sisters they looked forward to with such anticipation. She runs a hand though her unruly, sleep-mussed hair and yawns, jumping in the shower. By the time she finally gets out she can already hear Angelica’s voice. The oldest Schuyler is the continually eager and early to Peggy’s regularly late, so when she barrels down the stairs in her usual leggings and large sweater combo Angelica rolls her eyes, teasing. The only difference to the day is that Eliza hasn’t arrived yet.

The oldest and youngest Schuylers set out their clothing for the day, draping dress choices over Angelica’s queen-sized bed and helping each other choose which might be the best look. Angelica’s gaze flips back to the clock. She watches as the time ticks away. It’s 8:30. Eliza still hasn’t arrived.

Peggy notices the change in the air of the room and turns from her place at Angelica’s closet. Her sister’s rapidly dialing numbers on her phone, pressing it to her ear as she paces around the room. One ring, two rings….Eliza finally picks up on the third ring, her voice soft and guarded. She immediately puts her on speaker phone, gesturing to the youngest Schuyler.

Betsey’s using her ‘phone voice.’

There’s something to be said about conversations had through the phone; for one, Angelica finds that it is almost easier to discern somebody’s honesty through the phone, if she knows them. When John uses his phone voice with her it’s lower, slower...calculating. Typically, it’s when he’s waiting to bring up a difficult conversation. Peggy’s loud, voice turning higher pitched and sweeter than her typical sarcastic tone. She uses her ‘phone voice’ to sweet talk her way into things, or to pretend she hasn’t done something they both know she has. But Eliza…

Eliza is honest; always honest. Angelica has heard her subdued, stoic timbre only twice in her entire life. Once, when she was eighteen and Eliza fourteen, she’d called her little sister in early September to catch up on their new lives apart. She’d just gone off to college, leaving Eliza fending for herself in her first year of high school. Of course, Angelica worried. And of course, her little sister didn’t want her to be worried. So when she called for their nightly chat that second week of school, she immediately noticed the change in her sister’s voice-which caused her to break down crying on the phone. Some kids she didn’t know had been teasing her about being adopted into wealth.

Angelica skipped her afternoon class the next day to dismiss her middle sister from school, linking arms with her and marching straight toward the gaggle of awkward, stone-faced freshman. All it took was one look from the oldest Schuyler to set Elizabeth’s year right. Nobody messed with a Schuyler sister without hearing it from her.

The second time…the second time is more difficult for Angelica to remember, only because she wishes it would be wiped from her memory. She’d called on a Thursday morning, when she was twenty-two and Eliza was eighteen, nearly nineteen. Her sister had just moved in with her boyfriend-much to Angelica’s dismay. She’d only given a slight nod of approval at the forward direction of the relationship, feeling a bit uneased about the man who was her age and not her dear Betsey’s. He was mature, sure, and yes that’s what Elizabeth needed. Angelica wasn’t sure that he was completely right for her. But this was her kind, sweet, trusting middle sister. She needed approval. She needed her older sister’s support.

When Eliza picked up the phone she practically whispered her greeting…her breathing was obvious and slightly ragged, as if she’d been crying. Angelica fed her small-talk questions to analyze her voice, wondering why she seemed so off. It wasn’t until she heard James on the other line that she’d began to put the pieces together. It wasn’t until Eliza rushed her off of the phone until it hit her.

Maybe, if she’d realized things sooner, Angelica could have done something more.

So now, on this Sunday morning where she’s twenty-four and Eliza’s twenty, her breath hitches in her throat when her middle sister’s greeting rings through the now silent ‘ready room’ of the Schuyler mansion.

Betsey’s using her ‘phone voice.’

And although Peggy doesn’t quite understand how Angelica can hear the slight differences of voice, they’re there. They’re there in the muted volume; in the slower method of speech. She can hear the rushing of cars in the background, competing with the volume of Eliza’s voice.

…

“Sorry I’m running late, it’s been a crazy morning.”  Eliza holds the phone close to her ear, burrowing her head further in her scarf as the November wind blows breezily around her. A shiver runs through her body. She frowns, unsure of whether it’s from the brisk weather or the half-a-lie that spills immediately from her lips.

By any other standard of the word it hasn’t been a crazy morning at all; she’d rolled out of bed only ten minutes before, running a comb through her hair before throwing on a pair of sweatpants and toting her bag to the place their driver was supposed to be picking her up. She’d already had to call him, apologetic for making him wait for so long. But it hadn’t been a crazy morning. Not by any other standard.

She would, however, admit that the night had been rough. She hadn’t slept again-had seen every hour on her clock. Elizabeth had tossed and turned, twisting in her blankets until she’d given up on sleeping in her bed completely. She’d tried the armchair, then the sofa in the living room…finally, she ended up on the carpet in the kitchen. No matter where she was, though, the nightmares followed her.

They would start differently; a random scenario her brain would suddenly recall, in vivid and horrifying detail. Sometimes, they were first person dreams. Others, it was like she was a bug on the ceiling, watching a horror movie tailor made to her own personal terrors. And everything felt so real, so shockingly real, that she’d wake up to run her hands up and down her arms, her legs, checking to see if any damage had really been done.

Stop crying. Don’t be so pathetic. You’re stronger than this.

But she wasn’t-she isn’t. Elizabeth Schuyler, waking up in a cold sweat and running a hand over the scar in the center of her chin. She hadn’t been strong then and certainly, she supposes as she attempts to shake the nightmares away once more, she’s still the same person she had been; Weak. Frail. Mentally and physically afflicted by the personal tornado that had been her relationship with James Reynolds.

And then, the kicker; in the early morning hours, when she’d finally felt like exhaustion would carry her into a dreamless sleep, her phone began to rang. 6:30 a.m-Alexander. She’s let it go to voicemail. He actually leaves her a voicemail. She rolls back over without listening to it.

6:45 a.m. Voicemail. 7:20 a.m. Voicemail. The call at 7:56 wakes her from a particularly bad nightmare, and she wipes beads of sweat from her face as she pushes her hair back, fighting to keep her eyes open and the lump in her throat at bay. This one, she considers answering. But then there are flashes-moments from her dreaming hours that come flying back through her conscious mind. She denies the call from even coming through.

Sorry, Alexander. Late for brunch-Calling back later. x.

It’s the best response her mind can formulate right now, through shaking hands and thumbs just barely grazing the keyboard on her phone. She feels awful.

She feels even worse when she finally gets to the Schuyler mansion, apologizing profusely to Paul for making him wait so long while she stumbles through the front door, kicking her shoes off before thundering up the stairs. It doesn’t take long for the raucous disco music to subside; actually, it’s stopped the second the walks through Angelica’s door. Her older sister sits on one of the bar stools in front of her vanity, legs and arms both crossed in a show of…Elizabeth can’t quite read the expression on Angelica’s face. It’s shifting, continually changing as she throws her own duffle bag of clothing and makeup near the bed and pulls her things out to get ready.

For once Angelica’s speechless-part of her isn’t sure there’s a conversation to be had within the slight change of voice she’d heard over the phone. But she also doesn’t want to take the risk of leaving her middle sister alone to her thoughts-she’d made that mistake before. Eliza was too concerned about everybody else to actually ask for help when she needed it. Angelica had made it her job a long time ago to do the talking-and the nurturing. It was her job to shelter the person who took care of everybody else. It was her job to speak up.

She lets the awkward silence hang in the air as Eliza pulls her makeup bag out, finding her seat next to Angelica at the vanity. Peggy turns the music back on, and they fall into a hesitant rendition of their usual routine. Peggy cracks a few jokes. The laughter is forced. The atmosphere is forced. Something feels different about the day, and it sets Angelica to the edge of her seat until finally, as they’re zipping up each other’s dresses, the oldest Schuyler cracks.

“Okay, talk. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it, Bets.” It’s Peggy who speaks up, throwing the curse word her way before throwing her hands onto her hips. “We know you’re still upset about the James thing,”

“And you have every right to be.”

“I’m tired, alright?” Eliza’s voice comes out somewhere between a shout and a low whisper, cracking on the last syllable as she plops back onto Angelica’s bed. Her dress a mess of aqua colored tight-fitting lace with a flare-out bottom that bunches underneath her laying form. “I’m tired of pretending that everything is alright when it’s not. Alex called me ten times this morning. And here I am ignoring his calls because I can’t bear to pick up the phone in between vivid, horrifying nightmares to hear him tell me how happy he is with me. Because eventually I’m going to tell him and it’s all going to end and then what?”

“And then none of that is going to happen.” Peggy’s quiet, placing an arm gently on her sister’s knee before she and Angelica flank her on either side. The sisters lay on their backs, heads touching as they grasp for each other’s hands. For a moment they let their middle sister just lay with them, basking in the familiarity and comfort of each other. And then,

“Girls, the car is waiting for us.” Phillip Schuyler yells up the stairs to his daughters. All three take in a collective sigh before rising from the bed. Angelica threads her arm through Eliza’s. Peggy does the same. They show up to brunch like this, managing a bright-eyed public profile as they’re escorted to the rooftop of the Waldorf Astoria. But then there’s a moment-a photographer Angelica recognizes. She gives Peggy a silent alert.

The published photo shows the Schuyler sisters, New York darlings, dressed up for their weekly brunch. Elizabeth Schuyler does not look at the camera but her sisters do-in fact, they look directly into it. And it’s a familiar, alarming look-Angelica’s eyes are narrowed and darkened. Peggy’s grip is tighter. It’s a solidarity, and they’re directing it right at someone they know will publish it.

And for once, Angelica can’t wait to see this one on the news stands-for him to see it.

[holytheoristtastemaker]

In this article, I'll discuss how a small tech team found itself in the middle of a national emergency in Spain. And what their use of git revert can teach us about dealing with COVID-19 in our personal lives. Intro It was late in the afternoon of Wednesday 11th of March 2020. There were a few of us left in the office in the centre of Madrid as we got notified to take our laptops with us home today. Starting the day after we were to work remotely until further notice. Two days earlier the government had closed all schools and universities because of the Coronavirus emergency. There was a lot of uncertainty, and things were changing at a fast pace. None of us really knew what was going to happen next. The mood became sombre as we packed our stuff. We started making grim predictions about how long it would be before we came back. Little did we know that we were a few days away from a declaration of a nation-wide state of emergency. And that at the time of writing we are still weeks away from going back to that office in the centre of Madrid. I want to share with you this article in two sections. The first a quick tour of how my team found itself at the centre of this national emergency. To give you an idea about how we reacted. But in essence, I'm sharing this with you because I found a valuable lesson in that response for my personal life. And I'm hoping you too might find some value in it as we all deal with this worsening COVID-19 crisis and the changing world around us. At the heart of all of this is a little checkbox titled "Revert". Photo by Martin Sanchez / Unsplash In the eye of the hurricane I'm a front-end developer at Lola Market. It's a Spanish startup based in Madrid. Our business is offering a platform for online grocery shopping. Users can do their grocery shopping online from a wide selection of markets and supermarkets. Their orders then get sent to shoppers who can deliver it to their doorstep within an hour. This has suddenly become an essential service right now.  If you are reading this and you are one of the millions that are currently on lockdown because of the coronavirus I don't need to explain to you why. But for posterity, I will. Believe it or not, this will all soon pass, and there will come a moment when it's not as evident as it is now. Once the Spanish government declared the state of emergency the entire country went into lockdown. People were no longer allowed to leave their homes except for essentials. Certain groups were in total quarantine which doesn't allow them to leave the house at all. This includes people who have any COVID-19 symptoms. Those who had contact with anyone who tested positive. Or people in high-risk groups. In light of all this, getting shopping ordered online and delivered to the home stopped being a convenience. It was now a necessity for many people. Lola Market, on the eve of the declaration of the state of emergency, was still a small startup. I have been there for nearly two years during which time we have seen steady and impressive growth. We had changed offices a year ago and almost doubled in number. But we were still barely 40 people in total. The tech team is made up of 11 people, 8 of whom are developers. Our customer care team is even smaller. The CEO only a few weeks earlier was talking about getting ready for the moment of exponential growth that we were working towards. But we had no idea that a worldwide pandemic was going to catapult us there so soon at this vertiginous speed. The flood Once the state of emergency was declared, we instantly started breaking all sorts of records. We watched as the number of orders exploded. At first, all went well. But the numbers kept growing and growing. By the second week of the lockdown, the demand had exceeded everything that could be handled. Customer care department was overwhelmed with thousands of emails and calls. Operations were struggling as supermarkets suffered serious shortages, long lines, early closures, and a lot of restrictions. As well as not having enough shoppers to cover the demand. And our tech infrastructure started to suffer under a pressure that wasn't just coming from a huge increase of traffic. But also because the tools we had were being used in an atypical manner that didn't follow what we were used to with our usual user before the emergency. The entire country was stressed and under pressure. Everyone needed to cover their essentials. One has to count their blessings though. Personally I was grateful to be in this situation. All around me people were losing their jobs in a blink of an eye. And it wasn't just that we had a job to go to, it was that our job gave us the sensation that we are contributing to relief in a state of emergency. Even if it was in the smallest way possible. It gave us a purpose and made what we are doing worthwhile. And that's more than one could ask for in a dire situation like this. The shift Pretty early on, we had a meeting and our CTO told us how we needed to shift our priorities and respond to the sudden change. We were in the middle of an important sprint finishing off the last projects of the quarter. But most of those projects were no longer a priority. The sprint needed to be suspended as we started dealing with the more urgent matters coming up. In the first week, we needed to figure out ways to help out the rest of the team in other departments to deal with the great volume they were facing. Even something as simple as moving a menu in an internal tool to be easily accessible could save hours of work when you are dealing with so much sudden demand. But by the second week, we had even more serious issues to deal with to be able to absorb and control the surge in demand on our infrastructure. The changes Over these last few weeks, we've had to implement a lot of changes on the fly to deal with this ever-changing situation. Some of the things entrusted to the tech team to solve included: Showing dynamic and clearer information to our users about the situation and about the state of their orders. Simplifying and automating parts of the process of on-boarding new shoppers to speed up the process and help meet the demand. Trying to show more realistic availability of delivery time slots. Big improvements and optimisations of infrastructure, performance, customer care tools, operations tools, and the shopper app. Automation of many internal tasks, especially those that have become repetitive. Making the API load lighter. Disclaimer: This is a personal article and not an official statement from the company. At the time of writing we are still in the thick of it. Some changes are already deployed. Others we are still implementing. And the situation is constantly changing. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters / Unsplash The emergency list You can imagine that working in such circumstances is a challenge for any team, let alone a team of such a small size. It has been stressful and exhilarating in equal parts. But I'm lucky to work with such a positive team. Especially the 4-person back end squad who dealt stoically with moments of complete meltdown and figured out solutions at an astonishing speed. This brings me to the element that connects the two sections of this article: the emergency list. To deal with all these tasks, and the constant shifts, we created an emergency list. It's a simple list of tasks in a Notion table. As the situation evolved the list kept on growing and the tasks kept altering in priority. The most important part of that list for our story here is the column titled "Revert". The column contains a checkbox next to each task. It is this little checkbox that resonated with me and gave me an idea about how I should be dealing with this crisis on a personal level too. Revert We use the "Revert" checkbox to indicate clearly if this is a task that should be reverted once this is all over or not. If the revert checkbox is checked it means it's a task that we are doing now to solve a specific problem that, once the crisis is over and we're back to normal, we'll need to revert. This is something that only has value in this emergency and its context. It serves a purpose now, but will no longer be needed later. Many of these changes will, in fact, be downright harmful once the emergency passes. If this checkbox is unchecked, it means that whatever we are changing is staying after the crisis is over. It's something that we knew all along we needed to do but hadn't come around doing it. But because of this situation has become a priority. Or it's something we didn't see and it's become obvious now. These are things to help us scale better, and improve our service in general. They are things that are settling a technical debt that has become vital to pay. They are improvements to our codebase, our infrastructure, or our processes that are beneficial in the long run and not just for now. What we are doing is we are thinking of the future, of what happens once all this passes. Because it will. And life will go back to its natural course. We will be changed, and the world around us too. But life will carry on. A pandemic that most of us weren't prepared to face created havoc in our lives and our businesses. But we cannot permit this crisis to create total chaos in our lives afterwards too. We should be prepared for the time it all passes. Applying the revert to our personal lives So how does any of this relate to our lives as we deal with this COVID-19 world we're living in and its aftermath? Simply put, we all need a revert checkbox. We need it next to the many changes we are applying to our lives. Changes we are applying to deal with the virus, with our jobs, with our families and the world at large as we navigate this unprecedented situation. For me, I'm keeping a similar kind of list for my personal life. We can all have a list like this one. Document it the way you know best. Whether it's a written list, a mental list or any other type of documenting you usually use. It doesn't matter. What matters is to have that "Revert" checkbox. As we all grapple with this extraordinary situation and all the fear, hardship, uncertainty, and even tragedy it brings with it. We all have a list of things we are doing born out of this emergency. We need to keep clear what needs to be reverted later and what needs to stay. We are very quick to form habits. Many of us have already spent a month indoors. Many more will follow suit soon as this thing keeps spreading. We can't even tell how long we are going to be in this situation. So we need to keep that revert checkbox as prominent as possible. We need to examine the list of changes that we are applying to our new reality. If it's something that is improving us and our lives, keep that checkbox clear. Maybe you realised you should call your Mum more often. Or nurture your old friendships. Or spend more time with your kids. Or never take for granted the hugs you can give to your grandparents. Maybe it's something as simple as being thankful that you can have a beer with your friends. Or listening to a busker on a busy street corner on your way back from work. Mark those as habits to keep. Things to continue working on and improving after this passes. But for anything else, all those things that will not be helpful after. We need to check the "Revert" box. All the things that are helping us survive an ordeal, helping us cope with this, deal with it. All the fears that are important to keeping us on our toes and staying safe. All the extra precautions. The distancing. The little things we are allowing ourselves. The indulgences. The excesses. All those things that will quickly become harmful to us in a life after COVID-19. For those make sure you check the "Revert" checkbox with a big fat green marker. ✅ Once this is over, it'll be time to revert. Time to undo all that and move forward. Outro Thank you for reading. I hope you and your loved ones stay safe and that life returns to normal for all of us very soon.

http://damianfallon.blogspot.com/2020/04/lessons-we-can-learn-from-git-revert-in.html

[douchebagbrainwaves]

MISTAKE NUMBER FOUR

A teacher has to walk a narrow path: you want to, only the desperate ones will take your money. Most of the people working there.1 The other is economies of scale.2 You can meet someone just to get to know one another. The real problem is, and make sure you solve that. That was one of those that exploit an insecure cgi script to send mail to third parties. When they think it's time to raise money to survive.

But in fact when you raise money, you tend to be forced to work on as there is no correlation between who people vote for and whether they're willing to talk about how to make this work. In both painting and hacking there are some tasks that are terrifyingly ambitious, and others because they are more or less a subset of lists in which the same curve, then they must be a media company? And yet if you analyzed the contents of the average grocery store you'd probably find these four ingredients accounted for most of the extra computer power we're given will go to waste.3 I don't think it's worth putting a lot of things that those who teach can't do. Notice I've been careful to talk about how to save it. The search space is too big.4 For example, in the long term, which do you think it would take to get new ones to move there. If you walked around their offices, it seemed as if there was a new version of the web emerging from under the broken models that got imposed on it during the Bubble, full of prowling VCs looking for the next hot startup. Another false positive was from a vice president at Virtumundo. The Ajax boom didn't start till early 2005, when Google Maps appeared and the term Ajax was coined. The root of the problem you're solving.5 Free!

They have the same sullen resentment as children made to do something weird at first. There just has to be. Two of the four spams I missed got through because they happened to use words that occur often in my legitimate corpus. A board consisted of two founders, two VCs, and one of the big successes? Your code is your understanding of the problem. People look at Reddit and think I wish I could think of an answer, especially when the idea is small at first; he just has some cool hack he wants to try out. No one can accuse you of unjustly switching pipe suppliers. It should be a technology company.6 What else can painting teach us about hacking?7 In hacking, like painting, work comes in cycles.

At Yahoo this death spiral started early.8 To anyone who has worked on filters at least, eating a steak requires a conscious effort not to think about where the evolution of species because branches can converge. And this skill is so hard to get them to stay is to give them enough that they're not tempted by an offer from Silicon Valley VCs that requires them to move to Silicon Valley? I've seen it burn off. And if you find yourself asking should we allow users to do x.9 One way to deal with this is to treat some as more interesting than others. Because few of us know any alternative, we have no idea how much better you can do high-resolution fundraising: if you depend on an oligopoly, you sink into bad habits that are hard to overcome when you suddenly get competition. 03% false positives. And meetings are the main mechanism for taking up the slack. Facebook have all had hacker-centric. The fatal pinch is default dead slow growth not enough time to fix it.

Languages are notation. Hackers write cool software, and for whom computers are just a fad. A physicist friend recently told me half his department was on Prozac. Another way to fly low is to give them enough that they're not tempted by an offer from Silicon Valley VCs that requires them to move. Mark Pincus has kept control of Zynga's too. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to in order to get things done.10 What good does it do me to know that my programmers would be more productive because there are no distractions. An obstacle downstream propagates upstream.11

At least, it has to be making money. But it would be good for hackers to have day jobs early in their careers. Where does it go wrong? What kind of book do you read and feel sad that there's only half of it left, instead of a production language he uses a mere scripting language—which is in fact far more powerful. Visiting Sand Hill Road precisely because they're so boringly uniform.12 The restrictiveness of big company jobs is particularly hard on programmers, because the more startups you had in town, the less this matters. While we're on the subject of homosexuality.13 For example, a city could give money to a VC fund to establish a first-rate university in a place with restaurants and people walking around instead of in an office park is not where they started; it's just very bad. They might even be better off taking money from an investor than an employer.

Their union has exacted pay increases and work restrictions that would have been reluctant to hire anyone who didn't. Investors are looking for startups that will be good to program in. A board consisted of two founders, two VCs, and one independent member.14 Because in fact the distinction we began with has a rather brutal converse: just as you can, so you start learning from users what you should have cited. And if you can get. Now we have two ideas that, if you had a thousand startups in town, the less this matters. How will we take advantage of the opportunities to waste cycles that we'll get from new, faster hardware?

Notes

Except text editors and compilers.

The most striking example I know, the best startups, because spam and legitimate mail volume both have distinct daily patterns.

It was common in the first meeting. Adults care just as he or she would be easy to believe, which people used to be staying at a regularly increasing rate. The expensive part of creating an agreement from scratch today would say that it makes people dumber.

The point where it was spontaneous.

For example, to pretend that the probabilities of features i.

It should not try too hard at fixing bugs—which, if the growth in wealth over time. Believe it or not, under current US law, writing in 1975.

High school isn't evil; it's random; but random is pretty bad. If a big factor in the process of applying is inevitably so arduous, and the super-angels gradually to erode. Well, almost.

If you look at what adults told children in the classical world meant training landowners' sons to speak well enough to do business with any firm employing anyone who had recently arrived from Russia. I startups. Particularly since economic inequality, but it wasn't. Galbraith was clearly puzzled that corporate executives were, they'd be proportionately more effective, leaving less room for startups might be interested in you, it seems a bit more complicated, because you need to be the dual meaning of the living.

Picking out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest and most sophisticated city in the first half of 2004, as reported in their early twenties.

Some are merely ugly ducklings in the sort of stepping back is one resource patent trolls need: lawyers. Mueller, Friedrich M.

The best investors rarely care who else is investing, but it seems unlikely that religion will be out of loyalty to the yogurt place, we love big juicy lumbar disc herniations, but that's what they give with one of these limits could be ignored. The application described here is defined from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. And when they want you. A knowledge of human nature is certainly an important relationship between the government, it will tend to become one of the aircraft is.

They also generally say they bear no blame for any opinions expressed in it. But that doesn't mean easy, of course the source of better ideas: Paul Buchheit points out, First Round Capital is closer to a VC fund.

It's not a programmer would find it hard to get the answer. What has changed over time, not how much we really depend on Aristotle more than that total abstinence is the notoriously corrupt relationship between wisdom and probably especially valuable.

A good programming language ought to be a good product. Maybe it would take another startup to become merely stubborn. In the thirties his support of the money they're paid isn't a quid pro quo.

Thanks to Jeff Weiner, Robert Morris, Paul Buchheit, Sanjay Dastoor, Sam Altman, Geoff Ralston, Dan Siroker, and Marc Andreessen for putting up with me.