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laurelier · 3 years ago

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Harry's home remodel list: yellow checkered tiles for the kitchen, ivy plants for the bathroom...

Bc I am, as the saying goes, in a Joni hole.

And because I’m also big on titles? Like, in my own creative sensibility, which sounds just so unbearably pretentious, but whatever this is my space to be that way— I love titles. It’s like, you’ve made this thing, right, and then you’re condensing all that work you’ve done into a little phrase you could just, like. Hold in your hand. A symbol, the core of what you’ve made, or some meaningful comment on it. What an artist chooses to name a piece of art becomes the focal point upon which every theme and word and image in that work is brought to bear— I just, I love titles. And Harry’s House is such a good one— inviting us in to explore the concepts of home, housing, dwelling, what happens at home and what’s a house and— if what we’ve seen so far is any indication, what’s a body, too, what’s a self; but as others (including the Original Artist Herself, ~*love the title~~*) have noted, it’s also referential to Joni Mitchell, which hhhhh that gets me going too, references and intertexuality— of which, so far, it appears H has happily given us a not-insignificant dose, the Matrix lens being such a rich way to see the AIW video. In any case. The title. The title and the Joni track it refers to. Some thoughts on that are under the cut today, so happy H is back so I can be insufferable and long-winded again.

Some VISIONARY artwork by always wonderful personified joy @thestylinsons, imagining Harry’s House in the style of The Hissing of Summer Lawns, this is STILL SO GOOD BABE

As Harry's house was?

Although it's the only complete song of the album we have so far, I don’t quiiiiite think a really close lyrical comparison of As It Was to Harry’s House/Centerpiece is super fruitful atm. But. One idea I did have while I was making my struggle meal microwave baked potato a little while back was— so often we discuss the interplay and difference between Harry the person vs. Harry Styles™ the icon, and since those two entities have the same name, same title, if you will, we can’t really tell exactly how much of either one is being addressed when he says “Harry” in the second verse of AIW— which still makes my stomach flip every time I hear it—; “Harry” remains hazy, undefined. And, like, I think that’s really just an interesting ambiguous moment, mainly, but. “Harry” is also a character in the Joni song that shares a name with the album, and with H being such a huge Joni fan, I’m going to operate under the assumption that that reference is purposeful— which means that today I get to take my silly little magnifying glass and put Joni’s Harry right under it, bop, and add him to the list of possible Harrys in the Harry-soup of that haunting moment when he says his own name.

Harry’s House/Centerpiece itself is a nice lil bit of social commentary. The vibrant images in the first few lines show us pretty quick that we’re dealing with Joni scoffing at capitalistic excess and hollowness— one of the most common themes in her work. The song is placed near the end of one of her more experimental albums— !!! the implications!!— and it begins by following a “he” character, “Harry”, who is heading to a hotel where he’s about to do a bunch of business meetings and the like. It then follows the collapse of his marriage under the stifling requirements of gender roles— I'm not going to include the full lyrics here, but a few things I’m turning over in my brain are:

One: Adam Driver wall punch in marriage story meme

First, the fact that H chose a song about a type of gradual (heterosexual) marital discord and decline that is directly attributable to the suffocating nature of prescribed Western gender roles to associate with an album ostensibly about home and homemaking, self and selfmaking— and which, from what we can see, is likely going to be a somewhat intimate and vulnerable project. Like, holy shit. Specifically, to me, the lyrics—

A helicopter lands on the Pan Am roof Like a dragonfly on a tomb And business men in button downs Press into conference rooms

Battalions of paper-minded males Talking commodities and sales While at home their paper wives And their paper kids Paper the walls to keep their gut reactions hid

—feel particularly weighty, because— there's a way to hear AIW that's convincingly about family dynamics, wives and children, your daddy lives by himself, he just wants to know that you're well, a) of all (those lines kill me, bye) but b), man if all that about corporate grayness and battalions and dragonflies on tombs doesn’t call back to the first few frames of the mv. Harry's walking amongst a bunch of professional-looking people in muted colors, who are chatting and talking and drinking coffee—

—and he soon exits that space by beginning to walk backwards as he sings holding me back, gravity's holding me back— reversing things, doing them differently, going through a door and out of that that buttoned-up, barren environment, being pulled further into himself (?).

God I am so shitty at capturing frames on youtube my lazy ass should really just learn how to goddam gif

Then there's the "paper-minded males", what a phrase— the total flatness of them, minds only on paper, minds only existing on paper, nothing real to them, and if the paper is money, then that adds a whole other dimension, Have a Cigar anyone; if their minds are papered over, then they’re hiding from themselves. They’re not even men, either, they’re males, Males, like, all their individuality has been stripped from them and all that’s left is what is required to be a Male, their successful adherence to the requirements of Maleness is the only thing about them that matters, it’s so soulless. And their paper wives and children, playing the roles that are laid out on paper, a Male, his Wife, his Child, all of them fulfilling the rules set out in advance of the marriage contract but that can't work in reality; everyone cooperating, from childhood on, in the suppression of everything that makes them more than paper. Joni’s poetry is something the fuck else here. And as such, it’s such an exciting referential choice for H to have made— I can’t wait to put it next to the rest of the songs on his album and see what comes up.

Two: the “Centerpiece” medley

Harry’s House/Centerpiece is two songs in one, with Joni sampling a 1958 jazz standard song by Harry (lmao) Edison and Jon Hendricks, “Centerpiece”, right after the lines where Harry starts to daydream in the middle of a meeting about his wife’s body when she was young and attractive. The lyrics to that part, which is very different from the rest of the song and on which I think Joni sounds particularly beautiful, are:

The more I'm with you, pretty baby The more I feel my love increase I'm building all my dreams around you Our happiness will never cease 'Cause nothing's any good without you Baby, you're my centerpiece

We'll find a house and garden somewhere Along a country road a piece A little cottage on the outskirts Where we can really find release 'Cause nothing's any good without you Baby, you're my centerpiece

In Harry’s House/Centerpiece, the placement of this is brilliant because it calls up the naive ideas the couple, or at least the husband, had at the outset of their marriage about how the wife would be his “centerpiece”, and makes the lovey sentiment of the original song sound really sinister: Joni’s Harry is trying and has always tried to turn his wife into a decorative centerpiece to build his life around, not allowing her to be a changing, dynamic person or life partner. A beloved, treasured possession is still a flat and lifeless object. I wonder if, in any way, H is going to engage this idea of expectation and dream, of building your life upon an idea that in reality isn’t anything like what you were told it was, about the certain kind cruelty of trying to make other people fit into your dreams for them— whether someone’s doing that to you, you’re doing it to somebody else, or you’re the one doing it to yourself.

Centerpiece’s mention of a house works in both H and Joni, too— in the middle of Harry’s House (song), it sounds almost like a trap, a house and garden where the wife can stay and remain the same as she ever was for the husband to enjoy; in the context of H’s album, I wonder if the concept of a “house” will fall in step with the genuinely romantic tone of the original jazz standard, or whether he’ll take something more along the lines of Joni’s embattled, complicated notions of home and relationships, and further comment on and explore that. The dark lyrics and bright 80s beat of AIW might suggest the latter, but I guess I just gotta wait two months and see.

Three: Don’t leave Harry a vm he’ll put you in a random song

I also love that there’s an inclusion of talking voices in both songs, in AIW at the beginning and Harry’s House/Centerpiece right after the Centerpiece interlude; both are angry, but Harry’s is a little girl scolding him for not following the routine of saying good night to her (which, in the context of the song, I take as a deviation that like. Could be happening because the narrator isn’t doing so well, or is facing a lot of inner turmoil, maybe) and in Joni’s is the wife chastising the husband because her life is limited and she’s frustrated. Both are disempowered characters, in a way; a child is inherently dependent on others, and in addition to the wife being trapped and objectified in Harry’s House/Centerpiece, The Hissing of Summer Lawns (album’s title track) references a woman who’s locked in a house by a domineering husband also— which, when I consider the way we think about H and women, and how we often read H mentioning women or using women in visuals as referencing gender, well. There’s quite a bit there— maybe a more feminine, or even more childlike or girlish, self being held captive and compromised by a societally required masculine role, and the discomfort and inner turbulence that that engenders (badumtss)? Relationships readable as inner conflict, again (!!!!).

Four: I’ll tell you where you can shove that paper

Similarly, the last lines of Harry’s House/Centerpiece being “To tell him like she did today / Just what he could do with Harry's house / And Harry's take home pay” and the implication that Joni’s Harry is a financially successful senior exec or whatever, at whatever corporate BS he’s devoted his working life to, lead pretty well into Harry’s, like, atmospheric success as an artist— what’s projected onto you and expected of you at that level of visibility, the hollowing greedy Manly Man character that’s shoved onto successful men and against which Harry often directly pushes. To me, this combo feels almost like a self-admonishment: if the wife in Joni’s song is comparable in some way to an inner, more fluid and/or feminine side that the world has led H to keep cooped up doing menial tasks and homemaking, creating ~Harry’s House~, whatever that is— and that he is, as a person perceived as a Man, expected to silence, control— then I wonder if the heaviness and anger that Harry’s House/Centerpiece ends on might extend to H’s album. At the end of the song, the wife tells Harry to fuck off, and the implication is that she’s leaving him, but when I first heard the song what I really registered was the reminder that— she was always the one guiding Harry, telling him what the possibilities for their house, their home, their shared life, could be— and she’s sick of his shallow papered-over ways of seeing her and the world, she’s angry, when she leaves she's going to leave him directionless— and, well. Put next to H's upcoming album and what we know about it, that looks a bit. Difficult and transformative, to me. At the risk of sounding too much like my therapist, we often don’t nurture our inner selves near enough, what we really want, really need, and often that results in a lot of self-resentment and anger, difficulty, and disconnection from ourselves.

I just think this Harry’s House/Centerpiece reference can be seen as such a cool meditation on selfhood: like, the possible combination of self-reproach and self-liberation (here thinking of the Christine and the Queens mv for Doesn't Matter, thank you endlessly again @thestylinsons for showing me this gem). When I think of all the bitter sadness of the ending of Harry’s House/Centerpiece and compare it with the joy at the end of H’s mv and how he hugs the blue character, who I think is pretty convincingly a representation of H’s inner child or inner sentiments; and when I imagine that that blue self could be analogous in some ways to the wife, who releases herself at the end of Harry’s House/Centerpiece, abandons the construction of a restrictive husband’s house and possibly moves to create her own— I really like the direction that leads, the suggestion that Harry’s House (H album) might be an ambivalent space, both something H has designed for himself and, at times, a cage of sorts— a place where there's comfort, predictability, and homeliness, as well as the pain of brutal self-honesty and a need for constant change and growth.

Five: You know it’s not the same as it was!!!!

Because— both songs end up reflecting heavily on the idea of change: it’s not the same as it was, the decay of the couple’s marriage. They're reflective songs, both with characters reminiscing about the past and comparing it to the future: Harry’s House/Centerpiece is mostly told in present tense, then goes back in time for a moment, then ends when the wife starts to look ahead to a new life, or at least starts to take vocal issue with her current one. And in AIW, I take the middle verse, at least, to be, like, a hodgepodge of memories? It's internal but relational, H speaking to a “you” and to, I think, himself also; Harry’s House/Centerpiece is detached, observational, third person mostly, but both are so personal, and both treat themes of shifting selfhood and how that shifts relationships over time, how that shifts everything, how that’s difficult. Importantly, Harry’s House/Centerpiece does this through the wife character— and with the song having been released in 1975, by an artist who has always discussed and sung openly about women and their particular experiences under a patriarchal system— there’s a lot of energy of, like. Resisting regressive and limiting social norms in and around this song and much of Joni’s music, especially as regards gender roles— which is obviously a theme H has treated many, many times in the past, in really exciting ways.

There’s certainly more I could say about Harry’s House/Centerpiece, and we'll see if there's more when the album comes out, but I’m just. Oooooo I’m so excited for what Harry might do with this Joni source material, or at least for the cool interactions that we’ll be able to pull from the two when we’re finally let into the whole of Harry’s House. <3

#rambles #it is literally so early and i am already doing this. what happens when this thing comes out for real

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forsakenoathkeeper · 5 years ago

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I Am Alive (chapter 13/?)

Chapter 13: Shattered Porcelain

Deviant!Connor[RK800] x (fem!)Reader Rated M(18+) for canon-typical violence and gore, medical procedures, and graphic sexual content

Chapters: 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • more coming soon

You can also read on AO3 & thank you for supporting me ♥

Author's notes:

There are a handful of android medical procedures in this chapter. Could be uncomfortable if you're squeamish. I'm not an expert with the lore. So, I tried to have it fit with DBH's android anatomy; but, if I'm being honest, I pretty much made this up as I went along.

Also, this chapter is super cheesy with lots of cameos.

...

The place Connor brought you to was a rundown building that looked like it was an apartment complex once upon a time. The sight left a sinking feeling in your gut, mainly because androids were living in this squabble and there was nothing you could do about it.

You followed behind Connor, who had a death grip on your hand. He was likely more afraid than you were. You placed your free hand on his shoulder to try to urge him to relax. You were ready to tell him as such; however, when you crossed the threshold into the place he called 'Haven', the words died on your tongue.

The floor was bare concrete and the walls were decades behind on a much-needed paint job. The place somehow had electricity, likely from a makeshift generator. At the least, there were some functioning lights; but, they were all covered in dust with dead bugs lining the interior fixtures.

The androids had cleared out the center to make room for the supplies Kamski had wrangled up. They were neatly organized across several crates acting as tables. As soon as you stepped in with Connor, many eyes landed on you, ranging from nervous to distrust.

Their states ranged from pristine to chipped to severely damaged, limbs missing, sauntered poorly to prevent thirium loss. Many of them had stitched together mismatched parts to try to regain some semblance of order. You couldn't imagine what that must have felt like.

You nudged at Connor's forearm until he got the message and let go of your hand. He remained close, his presence looming and protective.

Markus was quick to make himself known. "Thank you for all of this," he said, gesturing to the supplies in the center of the room. "Really I... I don't know how to properly thank you."

"I-it wasn't from me," you said, feeling nervous. "More of a messenger, really."

Your eyes swept the floor, where some androids stared at you with abandon and others were trying not to stare. You swallowed nervously, not knowing where to start, if any of them even wanted you touching them.

Some androids had already taken to the supplies and were patching each other up. Androids might have been more knowledgeable about their own anatomy than humans often were of themselves; but, not all problems were simple.

An android pushed his way through the crowd and approached you with haste.

"It's you," he said, a beaming smile on his face.

You and Connor recognized the android immediately. He had been driving a Cyberlife supply truck that was attacked by protestors. You had pulled him out of the wreckage and saved him.

"When they said a nurse was coming, I was hoping-" he cut himself off, sounding choked up and excited. "If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead," he proclaimed. His words eased the tension that had been building up inside you and left you bubbling with pride. You didn't know what to do but to smile at him.

"C-can you-" he stammered. "We have someone who's very damaged."

"I'll do my best," you replied, trying to mask how nervous you felt. You squeezed at the handle on your shoulder bag, the weight of your tools suddenly feeling much heavier.

The android ducked back into the crowd with haste.

You were shocked when he returned with another android in his arms. It was immediately obvious to you that the android was shut down. He was limp, eyes open and staring ahead blindly, LED on his temple off, a stoic expression on his face.

He was an WR600 model, still wearing his factory default uniform. However, he had a tarp wrapped around his shoulders, wearing it like a poncho.

The artificial skin on his hands and wrists had been scraped down to the android shell beneath. He had a gaping wound on his right forearm that went beyond the shell and exposed the membrane beneath. It was pulsing blue, indicating he was still functioning.

You followed them to a makeshift table, where the android set the WR600 model down carefully. As you maneuvered around to get a better look, the left side of the unconscious WR600's face came into view, and you audibly gasped.

Someone had struck him, hard, multiple times, across the face. His jaw was indented, skin scraped off to expose the pale white shell underneath. The cuts were so deep that the blue membrane beneath was exposed. Cracks split out from the gashes, like shattered porcelain.

The damage had shattered the protective sheathing on his right optical. Thirium had leaked into it, staining the entire eyeball blue. The gashes ran up into his hairline and one ran low enough to split at the corner of his lip.

You had seen androids looking far worse than this before; but, still, you never got over it.

"W-what-" you stammered, silencing yourself when you realized how pointless it was to ask.

It was obvious what had happened.

"Why is he powered off?" you asked hesitantly, looking up at the android who had carried him over to you. Your first assumption was that something was very wrong with him.

"We had to force him offline," the android replied, not looking proud of that. "He was... erratic."

You wondered if he meant the android was erratic when he heard a human was coming, or if he was always like that. Considering the damage, you wouldn't have been surprised if it was the former.

"I - uhm," you stammered nervously. "I need someone to be his guardian - to consent to this, since he can't. Are you close?"

The android looked uneasy, but also touched by your words. "He's not close to anyone."

You swallowed nervously and did your best to keep your gaze off the room and focused more heavily on the WR600. You hadn't worked on an unconscious android since before the revolution. The thought made your stomach churn.

Sensing your frustration, Connor approached you. His concerned face came into view in the corner of your eye.

'You don't have to do this,' is likely what he was going to say.

Not wanting to give him the chance, you said, boldly, "I'm okay, Connor."

He looked uneasy for a moment, LED solid yellow, as he tried to fight himself on this. You being here made him really uncomfortable; but, he knew how much this mattered to you. Part of him also knew that these androids needed this. It wasn't just for repairs, but to give them some hope that humans like you existed in this world.

When Connor stepped away, you rotated over to the powered off WR600.

"What's his name?" you asked as you set your bag down carefully and unzipped the top.

"Ralph," the android who had carried him over answered.

After pulling out some tools, you reached around the back of Ralph's ear to open his access panel. With a heave, you lifted him by the shoulder to gain access to his upper back and easily found the release for his skull.

His appearance was alarming; but, you were more concerned with the high possibility of damaged internal components.

As expected, one of Ralph's processing units was cracked. The good news is that it was a common model, and one that Kamski had supplied dozens of.

You investigated his eye next. As soon as you opened the socket, thirium leaked out and spilt all over the table. It wasn't enough to concern you, and you carefully removed his optical unit. Upon a closer inspection, you were confident it was still operational.

With a free hand, you yanked a clean container out of your bag to set the optical unit it so you could investigate the sheathing. The gold platers on the connector were still intact; but, the sheathing closest to his temple was cracked. Luckily, it could be repaired the same way you intended to repair the dents on his face.

It was less preferable than completely replacing the shell pieces; however, you didn't have access to any of those. He would have very noticeable scars. You hoped, at least, they would be more preferable to an exposed membrane.

For a moment, you set your tools down and scurried along the line of android parts until you located a box containing processors. Ralph's was easy to locate and was the first thing you replaced on him.

With that complete, you pulled more tools from your bag and a small ingot of android skin. You started with the protective sheathing around the eye before slowly, carefully filling in the cracks in his face. You did your best to match the contours of his cheek bones and jawline, suddenly feeling more like a sculptor than an engineer.

Connor tried to give you space while you worked. He was far enough away to not hover, but close enough to get to you quickly, if needed. You were too focused to notice, thankfully.

"Do you remember us?" a soft, feminine voice beckoned to him, startling him out of his trance.

Two female androids stepped into his peripheral. They were WR400 models, one with long, dark blue hair, and the other with very short, light brown, almost red hair.

Connor didn't immediately reply; but, the look in his eyes gave them his answer.

They were the Traci models who had escaped the Eden Sex Club last winter. The last time he saw them, they were running away, hands cupped tightly together. They looked much the same today, hands still tightly intertwined, the same look of adoration on their faces.

"You had a clear shot," the short haired Traci stated. "I know you did, several times; but, you let us go."

"I-" Connor stammered, finding himself at a loss of words.

Back then, he didn't understand their behavior, why he couldn't bring himself to shoot them, even when they had their backs turned, why Hank looked so impressed - proud - when he let them go. He didn't understand how they could find comfort in each other, why they were afraid of losing of each other, of not being able to hold and touch again.

He had changed since then - changed a lot, in fact.

Now, he understood.

"We're grateful," the blue haired Traci said, standing so close to her partner that their shoulders touched. "We're still together because of you."

"I didn't do anything worthy of praise," Connor said lowly, his eyes expressing the turmoil in his thoughts.

"Even if you don't think so, we know what you did," the short haired Traci declared, expression soft on her face.

"You understand, now," the blue haired android stated boldly, briefly turning around to steal a glance at you. It didn't go unnoticed, the way Connor gripped your hand when you entered the building, how he stared at you protectively while you worked.

Strangely, he didn't feel scrutinized by the two female androids. They seemed... happy for him.

He nodded silently, at a loss for what to say to them, and the two ladies departed, leaving him alone in his thoughts.

He thought about what they had endured, having to be used by strangers, by people who didn't think of them as living beings. Up until that moment, when they jumped the fence, they lived a life where they were believed unfeeling. They would return to one and other's arms to try to find solace in what consisted of their lives: play things for humans.

Connor thought about how strong they were, that they could endure that for so long.

He couldn't bear the thought-

If anyone dared tried to touch you, he would-

You were still hunched over the WR600 when Connor wretched himself from his thoughts before they wandered into territory that should probably be alone.

You had opened the android's forearms, trying to determine if any wires were damaged. Feeling inspired, Connor huffed softly and trotted over to you. You were so focused that you didn't see him coming and gasped when his hand came into view.

"G-geez, Connor," you scolded him softly, catching the sight of his freckled face in the corner of your eye.

He reached into the android's exposed wiring, his artificial, human skin, fading away. "I'll stimulate the wires so you can determine which are defective," he explained.

In the corner of his eye, Connor could see you smile. "That would help a lot. Thank you."

He sent jolts along the lines. Ones that worked properly gave a response, a very subtle twitch of the hand on the powered off android. Ones that didn't gave no response. They were not major, which meant the use of his hands wouldn't be completely severed; but, his movement would be limited, gestures abrupt or sporadic.

Sometime later, with Connor's help, you had replaced seven wires on one hand and four on the other.

You had enough material to at least cover the exposed membrane on his wrists; but, you didn't have enough to fill in gaps where the artificial human skin was lost. At the very least, you could protect the android muscle tissue.

Connor watched you fill in those wounds in silence, knowing he couldn't do much else. When that was done, you retrieved a saline wash from your bag to cleanse Ralph's eye before carefully returning it to the socket.

"Alright," you sighed, patting your hands together. "That's... all I can do for now."

A couple androids gathered around, one reaching for Ralph to prop him up. "Wow. You did all that without a replacement shell?" one of them commented, the awe in their tone making your heart flutter.

The way they admired the WR400 made you feel something sickeningly sweet. The scars on his face were noticeable; but, the fine cracks were filled in well enough to almost be seamless, unless the light hit just right. The fibrous material beneath his android skin was covered fully. His artificial human skin was mostly intact, minus his hands.

All you could hope was that he would like it. The damaged processor could cause speech issues and potential lapses in judgement; however, his behavior, as described by his fellow androids, was likely a developed trait from trauma. You knew you couldn't fix that, only hope that a new processor would aid his recovery.

Connor stepped between you and Ralph as they powered him on. You moved around Connor, trying to push him out of the way. You wanted to see him wake up, wanted to see life blossom into his hazel eyes.

It didn't blossom, per say, but he suddenly jolted forward and twitched, eyes bright and wild, suddenly very much awake. He looked around hastily, annoyance immediately appearing on his face.

"How dare you power Ralph off-!" he whined loudly, pushing against the hands that held him. They let go at his protest, but remained close as a precaution.

Suddenly, Ralph stopped, looking down at his arms. He gasped, rotated his limbs around to examine them. His hands slid over opposing arms, touching the spots you had filled as if he doubted what his optical processor was showing him. His mouth hung agape and his eyes were wide and bright.

"Ralph's hands are-" he stammered, staring at them in wonder and disbelief.

He realized, faintly, that he could see properly again out of his left eye. Ralph's dominant hand rose and he touched his face, eyes shifting away from you and staring into a random direction. He gasped when he felt the scars left behind from the work you had done.

After that, he recognized a firmware update reading on his HUD, and realized one of his processors had been replaced - the very one that he painstakingly ignored for months, his HUD constantly giving him warnings about how the unit was in imminent failure and needed to be replaced.

Suddenly, Ralph looked up and scanned the room hastily. His eyes landed on you and he froze. You were wearing scrubs and had some thirium stained on your hands. It was an obvious conclusion to come to.

"A - a human...?" he asked lowly. "No - no human would help Ralph - me... me..." he uttered, seemingly to himself. He looked down at his hands resting on his lap.

You didn't know what to say to him, if there was anything you could say that he would possibly want to hear. He seemed more confused than anything else.

"She did, Ralph," one of the androids offered softly, their hand falling onto the blonde android's shoulder cautiously.

He looked up at you again, his lips moving slightly in what appeared to be an unconscious, nervous tick. "Humans wouldn't without - without a reason," he uttered.

The android twitched when he saw your hopeful expression shift and sadness reflected in your eyes.

"R-Ralph didn't mean-" he stammered, lowering his head. His hands came up and gripped the sides of his skull, the touch a little rough, but not enough to hurt himself. "-didn't mean to be ungrateful," he choked out.

"It's okay," another android urged him gently.

Ralph avoided looking at you again. He made a movement to stand and the androids huddled around him backed up. He rose to his feet, stealing a glance at you over his shoulder before shuffling away and disappearing into the crowd. It was hard to make clear of his expression; but, to you, it looked like guilt.

You didn't blame him, or hold any contempt, not even for a second. He likely had never been shown the slightest bit of kindness in his short life.

"Thank you," one of the androids said softly, approaching with you a smile. "He may not show it, but..."

"It's okay," you replied, sincerely. "I understand."

Not long after Ralph departed, a TR400 android approached you, asking if you could examine his left eye. After popping the optical unit out and verifying it was undamaged, you noticed one of the connector pins was bent.

"I don't have a replacement connector; but, I have a soldering kit if you trust me?" you asked him. He seemed grateful that you were willing to try more so than anything else.

It took a little while, as you were slow and careful. But, it was worth it to have the optical pop back into place with a soft click and to see the android blink carefully. He looked around, iris shifting subtly in his eyeball as his vision adjusted.

"It's working now," he chirped, the corner of his eyes wrinkling with his smile.

"I'm glad," you replied softly. You meant it, really. It was always a risk to attempt to fix connectors yourself; but, you had some pride in knowing that you were usually successful.

Right as the android left, a WB200 hesitantly approached you, one hand cupped over his opposite elbow in a nervous gesture.

Before he could get too close, Connor startled you when he suddenly grabbed you by the arm and yanked you back, pulling you behind him and stepping into the space between you and the other android. He glared down at the smaller android, who put up his hands defensively.

"Con - what are you-" you squeaked, nearly tripping over your own feet as the android pulled at you.

"Please, wait, I-" the WB200 pleaded, his voice low and frightened. His hair was short and messy and he had a very boyish face that matched his voice. "I'm sorry about what I did, I - I just couldn't let you catch me."

A little annoyed, you pushed at Connor's sides and stepped around him.

"He's dangerous," Connor warned, eyes not yet moving from the other android. You gawked at the detective, recognizing the distrust in his eyes, before moving your gaze to the WB200. He looked afraid of Connor, and it became immediately obvious that they had history.

"I'm sorry - I mean it. If you caught me, I would've been sent back - and - and destroyed - I - I was scared," he insisted.

He had pushed Hank off the roof in order to escape being captured. If Connor hadn't gotten there fast enough, Hank might have fallen to his death. The android had good reason to be afraid. Connor knew that; but, if he was willing to risk a human life-

The detective was taken aback when you nudged past him and approached the android.

"What's wrong?" you asked him softly, ignoring the hole Connor was burning in the back of your head with his stare.

"I - ugh-" the android stammered, startled by your insistence and still intimidated by the detective android. His eyes flickered away from you for a second, giving Connor a worried look. "My - my right leg. I damaged it when I fell."

You stepped back and the WB200 demonstrated. He took a few steps and you could see the awkward way his leg moved. It was clearly unnatural, and shifted in a way that would have caused a human a great deal of pain. The leg also made an unpleasant creaking sound with each step, crying out in protest from the pressure.

"Lay down please," you asked, gesturing to the makeshift table Ralph had been laying on a moment ago. As he did, you explained, "I - I'm sorry, but, you'll have to undress."

"I understand," he replied lowly, struggling to meet your gaze.

He was wearing a scraggly pair of jeans, likely taken from a dumpster, and a hoodie. He peeled his pants down his legs, wearing nothing underneath. WB200's were designed for manual labor, typically farming or light maintenance. You weren't surprised to find he lacked any male anatomy.

Before you had to ask, he opened the access panel covering his knee, which allowed you to look inside at the wiring, artificial muscles and bones.

"The knee joint is out of alignment," you stated, trying to examine his knee without touching him just yet.

"May I?" you asked, holding your hands up to show what you were requesting. He nodded, lips thin and eyes not hiding how nervous he was.

You pulled back the shell loosely covering his knee to take a better look at the artificial muscle that allowed proper leg movement. He had abandoned maintaining a human skin tone on his leg; or, that function had been damaged when he fell. His skin tone ended at his waist and he was factory default white below.

You stepped away from him briefly to locate some pliars.

Connor had stepped back to give you space, but was still watching, now more so out of amazement than worry. You were absolutely fearless. It simultaneously impressed and infuriated him. You also were ignoring him fiercely.

"What's your name?" you asked the WB200 when you returned to the table.

He gave you a look, suggesting he was contemplating not answering.

"...Rupert," he eventually said, swallowing roughly afterward.

"Rupert, we don't have these parts; so, I'm gonna see if I can fix the alignment myself. We'll have to follow at the hip joint afterward to manually reset the alignment. It will likely hurt," you explained carefully.

"I'm not afraid," Rupert blurted boldly.

"That's good," you responded, reaching behind yourself to yank a chair in closer and plop down before digging into his knee.

You were so focused on the joint that you didn't hear the commotion going on around you, not until some music started playing. You paused for a moment, caught off guard by the sudden melody.

You tossed a look over your shoulder and saw that someone had arranged some pieces of equipment to fashion together a radio. "That'll liven the place up," one of the androids proclaimed proudly, admiring her work proudly.

Once, it might have been a funny thought to imagine androids enjoying music. Hearing their excitement over the piano, bass, and gentle drum brought a smile to your face. It was jazz, soft and relaxing, with no vocals. Something so subtle so drastically changed the atmosphere in the room.

"Okay. I think I got the joint back in place," you declared, standing up and smacking the sheathing back into place. Rupert had been hyper focused on you the entire; when you shifted your gaze from his knee to his face, he looked more relaxed than when you had started.

"Can you open your hip?" you requested, standing at his waist. He nodded, lifting his hoodie to his ribs. His skin faded whilst the panel opened. Manual joint alignments required calibrations at the base for most models. Few could do it automatically. Rupert unfortunately was not one of those models.

"Ready?" you asked, gently pushing back the fibrous, artificial muscle to reach the joint panel.

"Yes," he replied immediately.

You pinched the reset key. His leg twitched and Rupert let out a bizarre, staticky sound, clearly one of pain. The alignment seemed to go off fine; but, his power conductors were likely not state of the art, as expected for his model type. The power traveled from his chassis to the joint and gave you a little shock.

You yelped and let go, stepping back. Rupert looked at you, eyes wide with fear..

"Just a little shock," you explained quickly, trying to relax him. "It's normal."

He relaxed and moved his leg around a little. "Wow," he wheezed. "Feels better - much better." With haste, the android pulled his clothes back on and shimmied off the table and onto his feet to test the alignment. He seemed excited as he bounced around on his heels.

"I - thank you - thank you," he stammered out nervously.

You nodded at him with a smile. "Of course, Rupert."

You turned away from him to set your tools back into their proper positions, just so you wouldn't lose them later. As you did, you heard him give Connor parting words.

"I am sorry - I mean it," he said quietly. If the detective android replied, you didn't hear what he said.

Connor was faintly aware of the high possibility that you were irritated with him in that moment; however, that didn't stop him from approaching you and offering a water bottle, bringing it into your peripheral.

You had forgotten that he took the time to pack a backpack with water and food for you. You were prepared to come here with nothing; but, the android had taken the extra step to make sure you had something.

He really made it impossible to be mad at him for two seconds-

"You should take a break," he suggested softly as you chugged the water enthusiastically. You hadn't realized how thirsty you were until that moment. Leave it to Connor to be more attentive to your needs than you.

"I'm fine," you gently retorted.

"You've been going nonstop for almost four hours," Connor insisted.

"I'm fine," you said again, a little firmer than last time.

His hand fell onto your shoulder. "Please?" he requested. Connor stepped around, right in front of you, and offered his hand in a gesture that you recognized, but you had never seen directed at yourself.

Judging by the look on your face, you definitely didn't expect that from the android in that moment. You gawked at him stupidly and Connor looked back hopefully.

The music was quite fitting for that, but, still, you felt nervous.

"I-" you cut yourself off, looking conflicted.

"Am I in the doghouse?" he asked softly, almost uncertain.

Connor couldn't help but crack a grin at the way your eyes lit up and your lips twisted into a smile. You choked on a bubbly laugh at his tease.

"No," you huffed, delivering a gentle smack to his shoulder. "I just - 'm not graceful, at all, and never really..."

You took his hand anyway and the android cupped it and placed his other hand on your waist, pulling you in gently. He took note of the faint blush on your cheeks, blissfully aware that he really liked that look on you.

"I didn't know you liked to dance," you offered quietly as your free hand fell onto his shoulder.

It wasn't so much of a dance as it was two bodies swaying to a melody. But, you were close, close enough that your torso was touching his chassis, and it felt nice, comforting. You didn't really move, but more so followed the sway Connor had set.

"I don't know if I do," Connor said honestly. "I just wanted to, with you."

As always, Connor was full of surprises. Sometimes, you had to scold yourself for thinking that you knew everything about him, only for him to go and prove you very, very wrong.

"I like the music," he added on.

"Yeah," you agreed, breathlessly.

You liked the music. That much was true; but, it was hard to think straight when Connor was so close and looking at you like that.

-like you were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

-like nothing else in this world mattered.

His hand, that had been on your waist, shifted around so that his forearm cupped your lower back. He dipped you back, gently forcing you to arch, and you let out a surprised sound. When he pulled you back up, he looked way too proud for forcing that noise out of you.

"Brat," you huffed against his neck. You were glad he didn't apologize, because he didn't look sorry at all.

You lost track of how long you did that. The world seemed to dissipate in that moment. You weren't in an abandoned apartment complex on the industrial side of town, surrounded by damaged androids.

But, then, Connor leaned down slowly, a gesture you were quite familiar with. He gave you a second to protest or turn away. When you didn't, he carefully slotted his mouth over yours, and you suddenly, very fiercely remembered where you were. Yet, that knowledge didn't stop your eyes from fluttering shut or your heart from hammering away in your chest. If anything, it amplified it.

It was a suave kiss, almost chaste. Still, he had done it in front of all these androids. When you parted and looked up at him, his eyes met yours and they said, 'I just had to'. You couldn't bring yourself to be upset with him, or to care that half of the room was staring.

Some part of his software, that he didn't realize existed, wanted them all to know.

You were his, and he was yours.

Human.

Android.

It didn't matter. You were two living beings, and you were fucking happy, and that was all that mattered.

But, then, a sharp gasp rang out through the crowd and the radio was abruptly shut off. Connor turned his eyes to the source of the sound and realized an android had staggered back and tripped, now on their back on the ground and trying to scurry away. You tried to look over his shoulder to see what the fuss was all about.

"Markus," a masculine voice called out in despair. "How could you let them in here?"

The detective android narrowed his eyes.

It was Robert, a gun in his trembling hand.

#connor x reader #deviant connor x reader #connor smut #rk800 x reader #rk800 smut #connor fanfic #dbh fanfic

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stellar-imagines · 5 years ago

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SCENARIO REQUEST: ❝operation jealousy, backfired.❞

[ Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia ] [ Characters: Bakugou Katsuki ]

「Scenario of Bakugou with Female Reader where you’re not dating yet but Bakugou wants to make you jealous to be nice with other girls, like Uraraka who he can actually tolerate. However his plan backfires because you get closer to other boys instead. In the end, Bakugou admits his plan to you.」

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

You've told your friends how you felt towards Bakugou and to be honest, you couldn't even properly look at him straight in the eye for an entire week and it was because your friends would accidentally spill the beans. By friends you meant Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero and Ashido. It didn't help that you were living under the same roof. And you would sound like some creepy stalker if you admitted that you memorized Bakugou’s daily routine so that you can avoid him at all costs. You had a feeling that he doesn't feel the same because he doesn't treat you that differently from the rest. You can imagine the scenario of you confessing to him and from there, it just goes down hill because you didn't think he felt the same You expected rejection but if you decide to tell him not to say anything to you, maybe it will lessen the pain.

Even though you said you were avoiding Bakugou, it wasn't like you could avoid him completely, there are occasions where you two were forced to speak with one another. Those occasions include when you're both paired up for homework or training and others that you can't simply avoid. Even though you claim to be avoiding the ash blonde, you find yourself unconsciously thinking about him and watching him when no one's paying attention. It didn't take a smart person to know that Bakugou and Uraraka has been close lately.

You busied yourself with training with Ashido and Kirishima to distract yourself but it didn't seem to work as well as you thought. At first it worked, putting your mind into becoming stronger and better than before. But when your classmates began to take note of how Bakugou is now interacting with Uraraka, it started to go downhill from there. Kirishima and Ashido were usually your go to partners when it comes to training but of course, Kirishima was always whisked away by Bakugou who demanded him to be his partner. However, as of lately, the ash blonde willingly pairs up with Uraraka.

"Bakugou and Uraraka seems a bit close recently." Sero finds himself asking the group.

"Do you think they're dating?" Kaminari butted in.

"Guys!" Ashido whisper-yelled at the two clueless boys. The two males flinched visibly before turning their attention to their pink friends. Kirishima gestured over towards you who was longingly staring at Bakugou and Uraraka who were training together. Kaminari looked a bit ashamed while Sero struggled to say something to cheer you up. You noticed their eyes on you when they became quiet and let out a sigh.

"I told you guys already. It's not going to work. If he gets together with Uraraka-chan, then I'll move on easier, knowing that he's happy with someone else." you adjusted stretched your arms and avoided looking at Bakugou and Uraraka for too long, knowing that it will hurt you more than you think.

"Are you sure? I think you—"

"Yes, let's go over there to train now!" Kirishima tried to say something but instead, you grabbed his wrist and tell him to just keep his mouth shut and move over to a more suitable location for training. Kaminari, Sero and Ashido followed suit, deciding to find an open space to train.

Bakugou who was training with Uraraka had stopped to look when he heard all the commotion coming from your side. He hasn't actually talked about his feelings to anyone and so far, he's doing a pretty good job at hiding his attraction towards you. It was obvious to everyone that Bakugou isn't the type to be in a relationship as he was too busy with training to become the number one hero. Of course that was true, even so, falling in love with someone has always been the kind of thing that can't be helped at all. And it wasn't as if Bakugou is immune to falling in love to begin with.

"You always trained alone or with Kirishima-kun. Why did you go out of your way to ask me to train with you?" Uraraka questioned the ash blonde who was in the middle of warm ups. Sure he did ask the girl to train with him and honestly, it was because he wanted to make you feel jealous. Why? It's because he wants to know if you felt the same with him. But just seeing you getting close with Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero made him feel irritated for some reason. Then again, he wasn’t supposed to think that way when he was the pulling schemes to make you jealous. Bakugou just grunted in response, not giving the girl a proper response.

"Midoriya-kun? Do you need some help?" your voice snapped him out of daze and he instantly looked to see the green haired boy talking with your casually. Since when did the two of you get so close with one another? The question wasn't when but it was supposed to be, what the fuck. Bakugou was pissed when he sparred against Uraraka.

Usually it was you and Bakugou together sparring. There are a few reasons why. First being that Bakugou actually acknowledges you as an equal because you were good at hand to hand combat. Second being that you weren't put off by his attitude which was one of the reasons that he fell in love with you. The two of you weren't best friends or anything of the sort just classmates who hung out with the same group of people and occasionally interacted with one another. And along the way, you both caught feelings for the other.

This went on for quite a while, without you noticing Bakugou's motives. Uraraka has her suspicions, after being asked to train together a few times. After the third or fourth training session Bakugou invited the brown haired girl invited to, she decided to ask why.

"Bakugou-kun, why are you doing this?" Uraraka asks when the two walked back from the school gym to the dorms.

"Will you quit asking me? It's freaking annoying." Bakugou grumbled, not sparing the girl a glance. Uraraka frowned slightly and took a few strides, stopping right in front of Bakugou to stop him from advancing. The male stopped abruptly, face showing nothing but irritation. He was ready to bark at the innocent girl to step out of the way but she spoke first.

"Is this all because of [First Name]?" the girl asked.

"Hah? Where the hell did you get that idea from!?" Bakugou barked.

"Because you like her! And I demand you tell me what your objective is!" she exclaimed. Uraraka figured out the ash blonde's crush for you quite easily. The girl had her doubts but never actually seen Bakugou act different around you so it was just an assumption that the guy has a crush on you.

She has witnessed the guy going out his way to buy you your favorite food because you had been whining about it. And seeing his reaction today proved her right all along. Bakugou did a great job at hiding his feelings from you and his close friends but it didn't seem like he was hiding it well from Uraraka. The girl kept on poking at him for answers and he was starting to get really annoyed by it. The walk back to the dorms felt like forever with the brown haired girl's persistent poking. And eventually, he was forced to spill out his idea. Once he actually said it aloud, he felt embarrassed and thought that it was really dumb.

"But fuck, this plan of mine is fucking shitty. What's the point when I get jealous when she's being overly friendly with Shitty Hair and Pikachu?" the male grumbled mostly to himself, not caring if Uraraka heard him.

"Instead of going the roundabout way, why don't you just tell her? There's no need for you to make her jealous or anything like that." the girl advised. The dorms slowly came into view and Uraraka was still scolding Bakugou for making things complicated.

"If she liked you, she would get jealous of us going out together. Maybe she doesn't show it but anyone would feel jealous if you do something like this!" the girl sighed, shaking her head in disagreement. Bakugou didn't seem to care whatever she was blabbering about because he knows the consequences of this plan himself.

“Shut up, I can do whatever I want. Don’t butt into my problems just because I shared it to you. Stay out of it, Round Face.” Bakugou clearly sounded irritated by the girl’s insistent comments on his methods. He loomed over the girl, standing really close as it to intimidate her.

“Oh you two came back together.” At that moment, they both heard the dorm doors open. You stepped out, carrying a bag while looking at the two back and forth. Uraraka read the situation fast, seeing the look of hurt flash and pushed Bakugou away from her. The guy noticed the look on your face and finds himself a little guilty from his actions.

“It’s not what you think, [First Name]!” the girl tried to ease the tension a bit.

"I didn't say anything at all." you said, walking inside ahead of them. Bakugou shoved his hands into his pockets and decided to go after you after Uraraka forced him to clear things between him and herself so you wouldn't get any weird ideas. It was mainly because he wanted to go through this dumb plan of his that ended up backfiring because he feels jealous at the fact you're spending more time with other boys. He doesn't need Uraraka telling him what to do to begin with.

He managed to catch you before you got into the elevator and it was a good thing that there was no one around. Bakugou grabbed your wrist to stop you from advancing even further. It was forceful but he has a feeling that you wouldn't stop if he called out for you. You quickly rubbed at your eyes, lips quivering slightly. Bakugou felt his heart drop when he realized that his actions had brought you to tears. The sad look on your face was quickly replaced with a look of disappointment and slight anger.

"What do you want?" you asked, a little bit irritated.

"Are you upset?"

"No." you muttered lowly, knowing full well that it's a lie as you avoided his gaze. Bakugou feels a bit guilty when you avoids eye contact. At this point, he was already trying his best to hold a conversation with you. He admits that his idea wasn't a nice one and something a child would do.

"Fuck, it's just a dumb idea of mine which fucking backfired." he grumbles.

"Getting close to Ochako-chan and pissing me off?" you asked. Bakugou finds himself hesitating to admit that himself but thank god you were the one who had to say it out loud. As much as he didn't want to, he nodded to answer your question.

"We aren't dating or anything so you can do whatever you want. I have no right to stop you or anything. You can talk with whoever you want, fall in love with whoever you want." you said. It was true an he has no idea what to say against that. But now that he can actually see your expression. It was one filled with irritation and hurt at the same time. It was quite obvious that you had been affected by his plan.

"Wait, what do you mean backfired?" you suddenly asked, recalling his words.

"Tch, it was supposed to be you on the receiving end but I ended up getting really annoyed when you're being all buddy buddy with Shitty Hair and Pikachu." he clicks his tongue, visibly irritated. Surely, he didn't have to say anything for you to understand what he was trying to get at. The guys doesn't want say it out loud.

"Then why the heck did you do something like that? Have you ever thought about how I would feel?" you asked.

"I have no idea okay!? I just like you and this feeling is so damn annoying because you're always so smiley and all that shit!"

"You like me?" you find yourself muttering sheepishly. A part of you thought that it was unbelievable but judging from the way he was phrasing it, you made that assumption.

"Don't make me say it." he grumbled angrily. You felt your heart race as the bashful look on his face. The twitch of your fingers was a sign that you wanted to hold on to something, preferably Bakugou himself. It was such a rare sight, the 'beast' of Class 1-A, looking embarrassed from indirectly confessing his love to you. There were two things that you were thinking about at this very moment. First was how happy and relieved you were to know that the feeling is mutual, making you want to give him a hug. The other being that you felt like teasing him a bit to make him admit his love for you. And it seemed like you decided on the latter.

"If you don't say it, I won't really believe it." you find yourself smirking behind your hand. The guy looked ready to kill you but you know that he wasn't going to do such a thing.

"Why do you need me to tell you that I like you!? Don't you think that you're so fucking special because I think you're a little cute and pretty!" Bakugou pointed an accusing finger at you. Even though, you wanted him to say that he likes you, it was hard to not get flustered by his words.

"I'm flattered that you think I'm cute and pretty. I think you're cool and handsome." you giggled softly while Bakugou kept his head down to avoid your gaze and more embarrassment.

"....rry." He was muttering something under his breath that you didn't quite catch, making you lean closer.

"What was that? Can you repeat that?" you put your hand behind your ear and scooted closer.

As if on cue, the elevator ding caught your attention. The doors behind you opened, revealing Ashido and Kaminari who was on their way to grab some cold drinks. Bakugou took the chance and grabbed your wrist. You let out a noise of surprise as you were whisked into the elevator unwillingly. Your friends gave you both a look of confusion and attempted to question what was going on but was cut short when Bakugou forcefully closed the elevator and smashed the button of a random floor.

"I said I was sorry! I didn't know that you'd be so fucking upset about it!" he yelled, still embarrassed. You took his words to heart. The guy rarely apologized to anyone, everyone believed that he was so prideful that apologies were something Bakugou don't do. You couldn't find it in you to get mad at him, not when he was looking like he had murdered your cat or something. You let out a hum which made Bakugou look up at you.

"Hmm.....how about you take me out on a date?"

"Hah?"

"Then I'll forgive you." you smiled.

Total: 2538 words Published: 15.05.2020

Thank you for requesting! ｡٩(ˊᗜˋ)و*｡ It’s been more than a week since we last posted. Obviously not angsty enough. Sorry to make you wait for so long. ― author Lou

Thank you for requesting! Two requests that have a similar theme so we combined them. Hope you enjoyed it! ― author Natsuki

Requests are closed for now! Matchups are closed!

Please do not mind the grammar mistakes and typos.

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itshomi · 4 years ago

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Something that has always annoyed me, is the fact that marketing to us is always used and based on assumptions and subjective, biased impulses and preferences, which can be avoided by a profound understanding of the question " is marketing an art or science?" And its usual answer is "it is both art and science", and even more so, the identification of the nature the art and the science aspects of it.

I won't sit here and write about it as if I have enough knowledge and expertise to do so, however, I'd humbly write what's on my mind. To me, marketing is an art that revolves around science, in other words, we can say it is art used based on science, you wonder how? well, first let's start by defining both terms:

- Science:

According to the Cambridge dictionary, science is "the careful study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring, and doing experiments, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities", meaning that for a behaviour to be explained through science it has to be, observed measured, tested, and then described.

The thing is the point at which science ends is where the particular physical world phenomena are ready for description and validation, this definition allows us to assume that science is a tool to be used, and we can see this in many fields such as ( engineering, medicine, pharmacology, mechanics...ETC).

- Art:

Many philosophers such as (Plato, Hegel, and Aristotle) have defined art mainly as the sensuous expression, reflection, and imitation of ideas, and emotions in a subject matter such as (drawing, painting, writing and music) Hence art comes inferior to the described physical phenomena which were obtained by the scientific method.

And so when science attains to a valid description of a specific behavioural or physical phenomenon, art then can be used to express and reflect the description of that phenomenon.

Here's where marketing fits in, as I mentioned I've always understood marketing as an art that is based on science, meaning that marketing mainly revolves around creating and developing those subject matter thought which it can express, and reflect the scientifically described, and measured phenomenon.

Thus, the pursue of marketing can never be complete not just without (Art and science) but furthermore without acknowledging and prioritising their importance to each other and the whole process.

In a simple sense, marketing can never be the process of designing creative brands, logos, colours, songs, copywriting, product packaging..etc, without relation to the appropriate scientific description of some behavioural phenomenon such as the data which should be collected, and analyzed to understand the target audience, business in which the operation takes place, external and internal environments.

For example, which colour to be used in a brand can not be picked according to assumptions, or personal preferences, it must be picked only based on the scientific description of the audience response to the colour, same goes for the tone of voice, music notes, words and copywriting, and product/service use and feel.

It is rarely found the portrait and right combination of the two main aspects (art and science) of marketing. And because the concept of marketing is like an iceberg merely the tip is seen, it tends to be acknowledged as the expressive, reflective matter and discarding the tools used to arrive at those subject matter.

To me whenever the artistic side of marketing is being implemented without basing it on the necessary scientific results and descriptions then it is only an absurd subjective expression of the implementer's preferences.

It has been said that our brain has two sides; a left side that controls the logical functions and systematic thinking, while the right side deals with the arts, intuition, feelings, imagination, and visualisation. Regardless of the accuracy of this fact, I find it very amusing how the concept of marketing has combined both of our brain's functions to understand ourselves on a deeper level and use this understanding to fulfil each other's desires.

#art #science

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mediaeval-muse · 4 years ago

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Book Review

Confessions of the Fox. By Jordy Rosenberg. New York: One World, 2018.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction, queer fiction

Part of a Series? No

Summary: Set in the eighteenth century London underworld, this bawdy, genre-bending novel reimagines the life of thief and jailbreaker Jack Sheppard to tell a profound story about gender, love, and liberation.

Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found. Until now. Reeling from heartbreak, a scholar named Dr. Voth discovers a long-lost manuscript—a gender-defying exposé of Jack and Bess’s adventures. Is Confessions of the Fox an authentic autobiography or a hoax? As Dr. Voth is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess’s tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined—and only a miracle will save them all.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: sexual content (as in sex acts, not the mere presence of lgbt+ people), blood, graphic depiction of top surgery, violence, racism, gender dysphoria

Overview: I didn’t know what I was expecting when I picked up this book, but something about it just hit all the right angles for me. I adore historical fiction that not only aims to imitate the aesthetics of the period, but also focuses on underrepresented identities, such as queer, non-white, and working or poverty class people; thus, it was inevitable that I would find Confessions of the Fox would be so engrossing. I do understand that this book might not be for everyone, as Rosenberg plays with a lot of academic ideas that usually fall in the realm of theory, but personally, I loved that this book wasn’t just about trans identity. While gender and identity and queerness were at the heart of this book, Confessions was also about archives and policing and commodities and so much more - things that were related and engaged the more academic part of my brain, but somewhat complicated for casual reading. Nevertheless, it was ambitious and smartly-constructed, so I’m giving it a high rating, even if I have quibbles here and there.

Writing: As a former academic and lover of history, I very much enjoyed Rosenberg’s approach to genre, form, and writing. It would have been easy to simply write a story using modern aesthetic tastes, but Rosenberg goes out of his way to imitate the prose style of the 18th century. I loved the richness of the vocabulary and the complexity of the sentences, as well as the juxtaposition of the sacred and profane. It was refreshing to read such beautiful prose that the author clearly put a lot of love into, and if you want to be so immersed in a story that you feel like you’re reading a historical document, I think Rosenberg does a wonderful job.

I also really loved the way Rosenberg wrote about trans identity in the 18th century. There are passages, for example, where Jack’s attention wanders while being dead-named, where Jack expresses feelings of confusion or freedom when talking about his physical body, where he talks about the process of coming into being when he heard Bess use his name, etc. I thought these passages were the most beautifully written and impactful, and they stayed with me the most after I finished the book.

These 18th century “confessions” are accompanied by a number of footnotes, written by a character named Dr. Voth in the present day. In these passages, Rosenberg shifts his tone and style, thereby differentiating between past and present without having to constantly remind the reader that Jack and Bess’s story is told through something of a frame. I think the choice to have footnotes instead of chapters where Voth’s POV takes center stage was a good one - it more effectively created parallels between the 18th century story and Voth’s personal story, and reminded the reader that history (especially trans history) evolves as a result of a kind of archival work, collected in pieces by many different people. In that sense, form matched function, which I am always delighted to see in my novels.

That being said, I can’t say I enjoyed Voth’s voice all that much. This criticism is probably a personal preference rather than anything Rosenberg did wrong - I just think Voth’s voice felt a little too conversational, like he was talking to someone instead of writing.

Plot: Most of Rosenberg’s novel follows Jack Sheppard and Bess Khan as they discover Jack’s identity, evade arrest, and disrupt a horrifying commodity trade (so to speak). In my opinion, the plot points surrounding Jack’s personal journey were incredibly well-constructed; I felt that the evolution of Jack’s gender identity, the romance between Jack and Bess, and their evolution as criminals were all very compelling and touched on a number of engrossing themes, from gender to poverty to anti-capitalism. Granted, there were some areas where I think the pacing dragged, but part of me thinks this was due to the 18th century style and genre conventions, more than anything Rosenberg was doing wrong.

In Voth’s footnotes, we also get something of a personal story which includes Voth being coerced into working for an exploitative publishing company at the direction of his university administrator. As we go through the footnotes, Voth recounts conversations he had with these figures while also disclosing details about his failed relationships - with one ex in particular. While I did like the parallels that exist between the manuscript and Voth’s own life, there were some things that challenged my suspension of disbelief. For example, I would never expect an academic to record personal anecdotes and intimate confessions in footnotes for an academic project. Maybe that happens in academic circles outside mine, and I understand it needs to happen for plot reasons (just reading references to critical theory or secondary sources would be boring for most people), so this criticism is coming from a place of being too close to the setting surrounding the text, in a way.

I also think that there were some passages where sexual activity would be mentioned where it was not needed. I do understand, on some level, that sex and sexuality is an important topic in trans studies (and queer studies as a whole), and I don’t want to appear too prudish. However, I think random references to a character masturbating, even if they were making a point, were a bit egregious. I was especially put off by the story of a 15 year old masturbating (in the present-day footnotes), and though I understand the story was illustrating an academic concept and books should acknowledge that (many) teens do have sex drives, it was also a bit much for me, personally.

Characters: Jack, our primary protagonist, is interesting and complex not just because he struggles with his identity as a trans man, but also because he struggles with acting in ways that are not out of self-interest. Though he is a thief and thus acts in self-interest in understandable ways, he eventually uncovers an operation which involves the production of a drug-like substance (or something - that’s the best I can describe it). Bess demands that he destroy all samples so that the substance can’t be reproduced by others, but Jack wants to confiscate the samples for himself to make a huge profit. I liked that this conflict existed, not only because it showed Jack as having other challenges in his life other than his gender identity, but it also spurred character growth and emotional turmoil.

Bess Khan, a prostitute and Jack’s lover, was written in a way that respected sex work and provided commentary on race and policing. I really liked that she had a strong set of principles and desires that were larger than herself, and I liked that she was confident and forceful where Jack could be meek and unsure.

Other rogues were equally loveable and admirable. Jenny, another prostitute, was a nice example of women forming networks of support within the criminal underworld while also showing how white women (even prostitutes) are treated differently than non-white women. Aurie, a black queer man, was also a supportive friend to Jack who is frequently instrumental in his survival. There is also a wide variety of named and unnamed rogues who were non-white and/or queer in some way, providing a rich array of characters that dispels the assumption that 18th century England was homogenously white and straight.

Our main antagonist, Jonathan Wild, is a bit less interesting in that he’s mainly just corrupt. I personally didn’t care for the chapters from his perspective, though I do understand that he functions as an important, symbolic figure that embodies all the things Jack and Bess work against (capitalism, police corruption, etc.).

Voth, our modern day commentator, has his moments, but sometimes, I would waffle back and forth between finding him engaging and finding him pretentious. I understand that he is supposed to be flawed, and I sympathize with a lot of his plights - mainly the pressure from his university and the anxiety he suffers from. But also, I found his voice to be somewhat combative, and if the point was to make a complicated, likeable-sometimes-unlikeable-other-times character, then I think Rosenberg succeeded.

TL;DR: Confessions of the Fox is a beautiful debut novel that engages with trans identity and history, though it does so in a way that may be a bit too academic for some readers. But while it definitely demands much of your attention, Rosenberg ultimately delivers a rich, engrossing story that reaches beyond the historical and textual boundaries of the page and invites the reader to see themselves as part of a vast network that is constantly “making” and “becoming” itself.

#book reviews

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stahlop · 5 years ago

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Making a Memory (3/?)

Once again, a big thanks to my betas @profdanglaisstuff and @thisonesatellite. This chapter was a bitch to write.

And thanks again to @gingerchangeling for her amazing artwork above!

Chapter 1 2

Ao3

The next two days felt like torture for both Hope and Alice. They had been told by the directors that they were lucky to be allowed to go into town and that they’d better behave themselves as they were representing the camp, to which Hope and Alice solemnly nodded. Henry had sent a text through Lori’s phone (another extra dollar to deliver the message) to meet at a coffee house in town at 11:00 to which Hope replied that she and Alice would be there (another dollar to text back).

Hope had told Alice that Henry had confirmed they were sisters but nothing else, citing that this wasn’t something he could tell them over the phone.

“Maybe they both got amnesia and only remembered the last relationship they’d been in and that’s why they think our other parent is different?” Alice had suggested. Hope had thought that could be a possibility but then…

“But what about the fire? Or is that where the amnesia came from?”

“Could be?” Alice said. “Maybe they both got amnesia from the fire and forgot the other and we just went with whichever one saved us.”

“But that doesn’t explain Henry.” Hope said, which was also the fly in the ointment to every theory they came up with. Henry was the outlier. The only thing that didn’t make sense. As far as Hope knew, she and Henry both had the same father and Henry had never said anything different. Why would he lie to her for so many years about having a sister and potentially a different father?

“I definitely think their memories have been altered or erased in some way.” Alice said. “My gut usually tells me if a person is lying, and Papa hasn’t lied to me once about thinking Milah was my Mama.” She frowned at the prospect that her gut could have been wrong about her Papa all these years.

“Is it always right?” Hope asked. “I mean, you told me that it seemed to hate me on sight when we first got here, but it’s calmed down now, right?” Alice nodded. “Wait! Did you say it mainly tells you if someone is lying or not?” Hope asked, realizing what else Alice had said. Alice nodded. “My mom has that same thing. She can tell when someone is lying. I’ve always chalked it up to being able to read people well, but maybe it’s something you’ve inherited from her!” Hope got really excited about that prospect. Another piece of the puzzle being put together.

“What was it like growing up with a brother?” Alice asked, changing the subject. Her whole world had been turned upside down and hearing about things she may have inherited from a mother she never knew existed still felt a little weird.

“It…” Hope paused looking for the right words to describe it. “It was different. He’s 15 years older than me so we weren’t close. I mean, we were close, but not the close that two siblings would have if they were only a few years apart. I know he tried to help out mom with me as best he could. He lived at home during college when he could have lived at the dorms, and he lived at home until I was around 10 before mom kicked him out. He only lives a few blocks from us and he’s been real busy with the book writing lately. But he always makes time for me when I need to get away from mom for a little bit. In fact, he paid for me to go to camp this summer because I’ve wanted to go for forever.”

There was a bit of silence after that. Neither one knowing what to talk about next. They’d exhausted their theories and both of them were a little leery about learning about the other one’s parent without finding out why they’d been separated and potentially lied to for their whole lives.

Hope spent the next day reading through Henry’s novel, as if it might hold potential clues for her, even though it was a work of fiction. Alice spent them drawing pictures of various things, everything from characters in the book to things that had happened around camp. Hope was a little jealous at how good Alice was.

Finally, the day to go into town arrived. Alice and Hope had woken up early and were the first ones on the bus. They’d be getting into town around 10:00 so they’d have a little time to shop around before meeting Henry. They were both so antsy the entire trip there. As they got off the bus, Mrs. Hatfield remarked about how well they were getting along with a knowing look. If she only knew her initial assumption of them being sisters had been spot on, and that was the reason they were getting along, not because of the stupid Get Along Cabin.

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Henry had not been all together surprised when he had received the phone call from Hope. He had been expecting it after all, just not so early. He’d thought he’d have another 4 weeks, once camp had ended to figure out how to explain the situation they had all found themselves in. It wasn’t every day, after all, that one meets their long lost twin sister that they never even knew existed (although Disney would have people believing it, but they messed up most of their retellings of fairy tales, why would this be any different). But here he was, with only two days to figure out what he was going to tell his sisters, one of whom he hadn’t seen since she was two.

He knew the situation was a mess. It had been a mess since the twins were born. It wasn’t as if any of them had wanted this situation to happen, but it had and they’d been living with it for the past, almost twelve years. Well, Henry had, anyway, it wasn’t as if anyone else involved in this knew what the hell was going on besides him.

The whole situation was bittersweet. He had checked up on Killian and Alice over the years, not that they knew that. He’d been discreet. Just happening to be in the same park as them even though it was nowhere near where he lived; jogging near Alice’s school as she grew up to be able to see her during recess. It had pained him to see her playing by herself in a trove of trees near the back of the playground away from everyone else. As she got older, she had the drawing pad, and he was happy that she had something she enjoyed doing. Henry had even gone to a few of her art shows and seen just how much like Killian she was in the drawing department.

It was a lot harder to check up on Killian, as he worked at the docks and it wasn’t like Henry could just hang around the docks for no reason. He’d thought about getting a job there when he was old enough, but his mother would’ve thrown a fit. She would have given him a talking to about wasting the scholarship money he’d been given for his fancy Creative Writing Bachelors to go work, what she would have considered, a dead-end job at the docks. He had to make it part of his morning run, except that when Killian moved into management, he couldn’t get a look at him at all.

Deciding to go into Creative Writing in college was a no-brainer. He knew he needed to get his story out, but he needed to do it in sections. Become one of those writers that had a book series instead of just one book. He wouldn’t have been able to get everything into one book as it was. The problem that he hadn’t anticipated was that no one wanted to publish it. He thought the alternative fairy tale genre would have still been a big seller, but it seemed that book publishers were more into dystopian societies again (a resurgence from when he had been a kid). It had taken him a lot longer to get Once Upon a Time out to the masses than he’d intended. The sequel would just barely be released before Hope and Alice’s fourteenth birthday and that was cutting it really close for what needed to happen.

Henry had done the best he could in helping his mother raise Hope. He knew it was not the life she had imagined when she’d found herself pregnant. He still remembered with distinct clarity when she’d come rushing out of the bathroom waving around the pregnancy test. Explaining to Killian what the two lines meant, and then forcing Henry to go buy her a digital test just to make sure the cheap ones she’d bought over the internet weren’t faulty. They’d been so excited to start their family together. And when they found out they were having twins, well Killian had practically spun Emma around in excitement (a little hard because they didn’t find out about the twins part until she was almost five months along and she was already huge. Alice had apparently been shy even in the womb as she was hiding behind Hope in the ultrasounds; their heartbeats always perfectly in sync with each other). And then...everything happened.

Maybe it would be better if Henry tried to write what he wanted to say down. He’d always done better with an outline, a plan, an operation. Operation Gemini was on!

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The girls were already waiting at a table in the coffee shop when Henry arrived; three hot chocolates set at each place, all with whipped cream and cinnamon Henry noticed. As soon as Hope noticed him, she immediately stood up and ran to give him a fierce hug.

They stood there, hugging at the entrance, for what seemed a long while. Had it really only been two weeks since she’d gone off to camp? It felt almost like a lifetime. Even though Henry had moved out of the apartment, he still came by to see his mom and Hope every day. It was just the kind of family they had. Very close.

Henry had moved them off to the side so as to not block the entranceway, and he felt Hope shuddering in his arms. She was silently crying Henry realized as he stroked soothing circles on her back, something that always calmed her down as a little girl. He looked over to the table and noticed Alice sitting at the table waiting for her world to drastically change and all she looked like she was feeling awkward while she waited for them to finish their emotional reunion.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying.” Hope wailed softly. “I just have so many questions and emotions from discovering that I have a sister, and it has finally hit me now that you’re here, Henry.” He was making this all real. And no matter the answer, no matter what he told her, Hope and Alice had to keep an open mind, because Henry knew the reality of this situation was going to change things forever.

“It’s okay, Hope.” Henry whispered into her hair, something else he’d always done when she was younger. “I promise, everything is going to be okay.” He kissed the top of her head for reassurance. Hope seemed to snap out of it, and she broke away from Henry and dried her eyes on the back of her hands. Henry pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and gave it to her.

“Always a gentleman.” Hope said as they walked over to the table. Alice, who had watched the whole exchange, looked at Henry with wide eyes. Henry wasn’t sure how either of them were going to handle what he was about to tell them, but Alice, despite the wide eyes, seemed overly calm about the whole situation.

“It’s nice to meet you, Henry.” Alice said, putting her hand out for him to shake it as he sat down at the table. Henry could tell she wasn’t quite sure what else to say. He could only imagine how she must feel, having grown up an only child and now she supposedly had a twin sister and an older brother.

“We’ve met before.” Henry said sadly, taking a good look at her while he and Hope took their seats. It was like looking at a punk rock version of Hope and it was a little strange. “But I haven’t seen you since you were two and mom and Killian were still dressing you in matching outfits.” He laughed, remembering how their mother, of all people, liked dressing them the same and Killian absolutely hated it. They’re individuals, Swan, not dress up dolls! Everyone nervously took a sip of their hot chocolate.

“Can we just cut to the chase.” Hope said. Henry chuckled at how much like their mother she was. Besides looking like her, just with a fuller face that he chalked up to still being a child, she had inherited her personality, and was always straight down to business. No pleasantries, no small talk, just get straight to the point.

Operation Gemini hadn’t made it much past the notes phase when Henry tried to figure out how to explain things to them. Giving a speech was not the way to go. This wasn’t a book that he could plot out an outline and hope that everything went the way he wanted it to (at least not yet). And he knew these two girls were much too smart to not ask questions about everything he presented to them. He needed to know what they knew or had hypothesized for themselves before figuring out what and how to tell them about their pasts.

Alice,” Henry said turning to her, “tell me what you’ve been told about your mother.”

“Uh,” Alice had not expected to be put on the spot, “her name was Milah.” Henry nodded in agreement, since he already knew that was who she thought was her mother. “She and Papa were together for about five years before they got married and had me. I’m named for my Papa’s mother. She died in an apartment fire when I was two which is also how Papa lost his hand. We…” Alice’s voice drifted off when Henry took out a notebook and started writing everything she told him down. He wrote at a very alarming rate, and it would look as if the words were magically appearing on the page, or at least, it would look like that to Alice, if she believed.

‘H..how are you doing that?” Alice asked, fascinated. The pen he was using looked like an old fountain pen, the kind that required ink. Alice looked around but she saw no ink. He saw her look closer at the notebook which was an old, leather bound notebook with parchment inside. Henry held his breath. Could she see? Henry looked at Hope who was looking at Henry intently the same way Alice was, but he could tell that all Hope saw was a normal pen and notebook.

Henry looked up at Alice with a quizzical look on his face. “How am I doing what, Alice? What exactly do you see?” From his tone, he hoped that Alice could see he truly wanted an honest answer. She looked hesitant for a moment, took another gulp of her hot chocolate, but then drew a deep breath before telling him exactly what she saw.

“You have an old fashioned fountain pen, but it seems to not need any ink. And it’s putting the words on the parchment for you.” Alice gulped. Henry knew that what she had said would sound crazy to anyone else, but not to him. She looked over at Hope who was looking between Alice and the pen and notebook. She definitely was looking at Alice as if she just said the craziest thing ever. A wide smile crept over Henry’s face and tears sprang to his eyes. He wanted, more than ever, to just wrap Alice up in his arms like he had when she was a baby, and give her the biggest hug imaginable. He put the fountain pen and notebook aside.

“Alice,” Henry said as he took both her hands into his, “I need to ask you something, and please answer honestly. No false modesty for my sake, please.” Alice nodded. “Now, I know Hope hasn’t read my book because she says it’s not her style,” Hope rolled her eyes at this statement, crossed her arms and mumbled “I've read some of it,” Henry gave a small laugh at that and focused back on Alice, “but have you read it?” Alice nodded, unsure of where Henry was going with this. “And tell me, my dear Alice, what did you think of it?” He continued.

Henry watched Alice closely as she tried to figure out where to begin.

“It felt like I was reading about people I’d imagined my whole life. Like they’d been living in my head with no way out and then, bam! There they were on the page in front of me. And then I started drawing. Oh, I’d drawn mostly landscapes, places that were right in front of me, but I’d had these images in my head for so long of people, that about a year before your book came out, I’d started drawing them as well. And then there they were in your book. I have sketches of Snow White and Red from before your book even hit the shelves, and at first it scared me, because Papa has always said I might be psychic, just knowing little things here and there, but there it was for me to see. These people who I’d been imaging. I’d never known their story, and here it was laid out for me in the pages of your book.” She took her hands away from Henry’s and put them in her lap as a few tears, Henry couldn’t tell if they were happy or scared tears, slipped down her cheeks. Henry was still staring at her intently, his smile even wider if that were possible. He watched her put her one of her hands under her hair and rub the back of her neck, just like Killian always did.

“Why did you ask her that?” Hope asked breaking the silence that had enveloped them after Alice had finished her revelation. Alice almost looked embarrassed about Hope asking. She’d just bared her soul about all the thoughts that had been in her head, probably for years, and how Henry’s book had opened the floodgates, and Hope’s only response had been to ask why Henry had asked that particular question? Of course Hope would be the non-believer. Like mother, like daughter.

“That’s actually a very good question, Hope.” Henry said, his smile never fading. He beamed something that he hoped conveyed pride at Alice before looking over at his sister.

“I was going to start out telling you something different. I went over this in so many different ways the past two days, but I think I’m going to have to start with the storybook.” Henry said as he went to grab something out of his satchel. Hope rolled her eyes and scoffed.

“Henry, you cannot tell us we are sisters and then just go off about your fairy tale book. I get that she’s a fan, but there are more important things going on here besides your book.” Hope said, exasperated. Henry paid her no mind. He placed two books on the table. One was a much bigger, much older looking copy of his book, made from what looked like real leather and gold leaf. Like something the publisher might sell as a collector’s edition. The other looked like his current book, only it was white with a picture of an apple tree on it in a golden frame. It also said Once Upon a Time, but not as ornately as the last book. The O was in red while the rest of the letters were in brown. Underneath the title read the words: Emma’s Story.

“Is...is that the new book?” Alice squeaked out. Henry’s smile grew even wider if that was possible.

“It sure is, Alice.” He said quite happily. “And, actually, Hope, these books will tell you everything you need to know about your past.” Both Hope and Alice looked at him. Hope’s expression was one of disbelief. She’d always held their mother’s belief in the practical, everything had a logical explanation, even if lightbulbs tended to pop when one of them were angry, or they’d find random candles lit without any explanation for it when they really needed to relax. Alice’s eyebrows were practically in her hairline for how high she had raised them. Henry could see that she was more open to what he was trying to tell her.

“They’re all true?” Was all that Alice could get out.

“Yes, Alice,” Henry nodded, “they’re all true.” Alice smiled with tears starting to form in her eyes.

Hope looked from Henry to Alice completely confused. He could see she was trying to comprehend what he was trying to tell her, that the fairy tales he had written about were supposed to be real, but her brain did not compute that. Fairy tales weren’t real. They lived in the real world and magical things simply did not happen. And now Hope was getting angry, because Henry still hadn’t provided any explanation to how she and Alice had become separated and why they had been told lies their whole lives about who their parents were.

Henry sighed. “Look,” he said, running his fingers through his hair nervously, “this book here,” he pulled out the larger copy of his book and placed it on the center of the table, careful not to knock over any of their half drunk mugs, “is not just some fiction I made up.” He couldn’t believe he was in this situation where he had to explain this all over again. “Every story in this book actually happened. It’s the story of our grandparents and what they went through to eventually end up in this world.” Alice took in a breath of air while Hope looked at Henry like he was insane.

“Henry,” Hope started, “fairy tales aren’t real. What you’re saying is ludicrous, and you’re beginning to really scare me.”

“So, the Emma at the end of the book,” Alice said in barely a whisper, “she’s your mom? She’s actually the real daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and the savior destined to break the Evil Queen’s curse?” Henry knew it was a lot to take in, he knew it sounded insane, but he could also see that Alice believed every word that Henry was telling her. Hope just stared at both of them with a look that said she felt like she was the only sane person at their table.

“She did break the curse!” he said excitedly. “That’s what’s in this book. How our mother broke the curse and the various things that happened afterwards until she came to the Final Battle. And then….” Henry took a breath trying to stave off the catch that was starting to form in his throat. “We were separated. That’s how this book ends. With our separation.” He grabbed the almost empty mug in front of him and drained the last dregs of hot cocoa that were in there, grimacing at the grainy texture of the chocolate that had coagulated at the bottom. When he looked back at his sisters (he had never been so happy to add that extra ‘s’) he could see that Alice was thoroughly convinced that he spoke the truth, but Hope was still looking at him with a mix of incredulousness and a slight hint of murder. He could see her wanting to object again but cut her off when he continued with what he had to say.

“The final book. The final book of my series has not been written. I have no idea how it will end. Both of you need to help me write it because it’s about us, all of us. You two, me, mom, and Killian. It’s about what happened to us and a terrible danger that we will have to face.” Hope’s face immediately tensed at the word danger; Alice’s face lit up intrigued. He continued. “It won’t be easy. I am putting us all in jeopardy, but I don’t have a choice. This is something that we’ve known about since you two were born and I’m the one who has had to carry the burden of it for the past almost 12 years.” Tears were falling from his eyes and Alice handed him a napkin as Hope had never given him back his handkerchief from earlier. Alice also had tears falling as she had listened to what he had told him. Hope just looked frustrated.

“Henry,” Hope said, breaking in again, “are we ever going to get any answers, or are you just going to parade your books around to Alice and let her fangirl over them. We’ve been here,” she checked her watch,” for an hour and you’ve given us nothing but fairy tales. Not even that, you’ve just given us the books to decipher an answer out of! We have to meet back on the bus to camp in an hour. Are you going to be able to tell us everything we need to know by then?” She gave Henry the look, the look he’d seen too many times on his mother that showed that he wasn’t telling her the whole truth and she was getting tired of it. If she’d been standing, Henry was sure she’d be stomping her foot like the tantrums she used to throw when she was younger.

Henry thought for a minute. There was no way he could tell them everything he needed to in an hour. Hell, would they even be able to function at camp after everything he needed to tell them? Would they even believe him? Alice definitely seemed open to it, but Hope, she was so stubborn. It was like trying to convince their mother all over again. And that’s when he made the decision.

“Look, Alice, do you trust me?” He asked, holding out his hand to her. She didn’t even hesitate, she took his hand and answered yes. “Hope, Alice, you are sisters. I am your half brother. Emma and Killian love each other very much, they just don’t remember, and I need your help to bring our family back together. But to do that, you’re going to have to leave camp and come with me. Can you do that?”

Alice nodded with no hesitation. Henry probably should have been a little more concerned that Alice seemed so willing to leave camp and go off with a perfect stranger who had just told her that he was her brother with no other explanation except that fairy tales were real and she needed to somehow get their family back together, a family that didn’t even know they were broken, but he saw the belief in her eyes and the trust she had toward him and Hope, and he looked past that concern. Besides, he was her brother, just because she didn’t remember him didn’t mean they weren’t blood. Both he and Alice looked over at Hope who was still looking at them like they were the craziest people she had ever met. Henry was about to apologize for ruining her camp experience when she finally spoke.

“Well, I guess you two don’t really leave me a choice. I gotta make sure you crazy, and yes, I mean the literal meaning of crazy, people don’t get into too much trouble. Someone has to make sure that when mom and Alice’s dad, ...our dad, whoever he is, find us that we have a sane person to explain we went willingly and Henry doesn’t get arrested for kidnapping or whatever.” Hope flipped her ponytail behind her shoulder as if she didn’t really care either way if they got in trouble or not, but Henry knew better. He knew she was coming along on this crazy ride to make sure Henry didn’t do something stupid and to be there for Alice.

Henry held out his hand for Hope since he was still holding Alice’s from earlier. She hesitated only a moment before grabbing it. Alice and Hope both gave a slight jolt, something most people would not have noticed or thought they had just had a shiver run through them at the same time, but Henry knew, he knew that was the sign that everything was starting. It was the sign that their family was coming back together.

Tag List: (Let me know if you want to be added or removed)

@profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @mariakov81 @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @superchocovian @lfh1226-linda @ilovemesomekillianjones @cssns @itsfabianadocarmo @xsajx @qualitycoffeethings

#cssns #cssns20 #captain swan supernatural summer #csff #Captain Swan #captain swan ff #gingerchangeling #inspired by the parent trap

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nyerus · 5 years ago

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MDZS vs. The Untamed

Differences between “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” (Mó Dào Zǔ Shī - 魔道祖师) and its live drama adaptation “The Untamed” (Chén Qíng Lìng - 陈情令)

(If you want to skip right to the differences, please see below the cut!)

I’ve recently fallen into the MXTX fandom by crying through TGCF and I’ve been delighted to see that I’m not the only one who’s been newly inducted. I've been seeing so much of the live action adaptation of MDZS, i.e. CQL, on my dash, and I'm so happy about it. After watching it, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a post cataloging the differences between CQL and MDZS for those interested. (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ The goal of this post is for two reasons: First, to help people who are totally new to MDZS and are starting out with CQL as their entry, and then reading the novel (or going to the donghua/manhua). This will hopefully help them get their bearings in regards to the fandom, so that they won't be confused when coming across certain content that isn't in the live drama. Second, this is to help folks who have already read the novel/etc to understand what's different in the live action, so when/if they choose to watch CQL, they aren't caught off-guard by any changes. (I won't get into the manhua/donghua in this post because it's already too long as it is.) Hopefully, this will also help bridge the gap between fans, so that we can have a fun and shared experienced over this incredible world brought to us by MXTX! This post is split into two distinct sections: one without any major spoilers, and one with spoilers. If you want to be as unspoiled as possible and just want to know the big differences between the novel and drama, please read only the first portion. The second //spoiler-filled// portion is divided into other major and minor differences, and is mainly intended for people who have experienced at least one version already. Additionally, if you are completely new to MDZS, there are things which may seem like spoilers to you, but happen in like the first page of the novel/in the summary itself (or in the first 10mins of the first episode), and will not be treated as such. I will do what I can to keep actual spoilers out of the first section….

Before jumping right into it though, I think it’s time to say that many of the differences in CQL are in large part due to the strict censorship laws that China has. Unfortunately, we just have to live with this fact. Thankfully for us, the creators of CQL have earnestly tried their best in keeping the major points and themes of MDZS in tact, and have really stuck to the spirit of the series. Kudos to them and the actors for their hard work!

SPOILER-FREE DIFFERENCES

There is no explicit romance between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in CQL. They are literally called soulmates right in the CQL summary, and there are very obvious romantic undertones to their relationship in the drama—but there is nothing explicit on-screen. Naturally, due to censorship. While the novel has the two in an intimate (and very explicit) relationship where they end up literally married, the show tones this down to something more subtle. It’s still pretty obvious that they’re in love though. (Especially in the 20-episode wangxian special edition.) Also, they always seem to be sharing a room with one bed….

The plot is modified for CQL. In the novel, the plot revolves around Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji following an aggrieved spirit as they uncover the truth of what’s going on. In CQL, this was changed from the dismembered arm of said spirit to a sword, but it serves virtually the same purpose as it does in the novel. The other real major difference with the plot is that something known as “Yin Iron” is what drives a majority of the past’s plot. It has its origins tied to demonic cultivation, which I will explain more below. It doesn’t drastically change the actual plot itself, but does change some motivations, etc. This is not present in the novel.

Wei Wuxian is not the founder of demonic cultivation in the drama. Yes I know this seems whack. After all, the original novel is literally called Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/Founder of Diabolism. But due to censorship laws, they had to change this. Wei Wuxian still uses demonic cultivation, and still invents many things (the compass, the spirit flags, the amulet, etc). He’s still shown as a prodigy—but demonic cultivation is a thing that’s been around long before the story takes place; it’s just that no one uses it except Wei Wuxian. The reason is the existence of the Yin Iron. It was something that was found and revered long ago, and is a source of dark power. Hence, why demonic cultivation already exists, but also why no one follows that path. The necromancy angle is also downplayed in CQL.

Wei Wuxian’s morality is somewhat different. Again, due to censorship restrictions. In the novel, Wei Wuxian is far more of a gray character who does some questionable things. He makes mistakes, there are things which are definitely his fault, and he has many things which he regrets. However in CQL, he is shown more as a victim of circumstance. He’s portrayed as a much more innocent character, who happens to be doing what’s right, and is just continually fucked over. He still does plenty of questionable things, but it’s less so than in the novel. In both versions, he is still Chaotic Good, just the novel emphasizes chaotic, and the drama emphasizes good. Also, CQL doesn’t really portray Wei Wuxian’s breakdown or deteriorating mental health before his death too deeply.

Wei Wuxian’s death in the beginning of the story is different. The novel is much more vague in this regard, and it is more drawn-out. I will return to this point later as well, in regards to spoilers. The live drama has a more… “peaceful” and quick type of death for Wei Wuxian, and given how it’s the very first scene that you see in the show, it may catch novel fans off guard. Still absolutely heart-wrenching though, especially when you see it play out in full later on.

The structure of the live drama’s narrative is different. While MDZS intersperses its main story in the present timeline with flashbacks (as do the donghua and manhua), CQL goes about it differently. After episode 2, CQL takes the viewer all the way to the past and goes through the entire timeline of events which happen leading up to Wei Wuxian’s death as seen in the first few scenes. From episode 3 to episode 33, you are firmly in the past only. Novel readers may find that this causes many things to be revealed quite early on. The change in structure is probably the biggest difference. From episode 33 and onwards, you are back to the present.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship in the present timeline is different to start out with. The novel has Wei Wuxian first operating under the assumption that Lan Wangji doesn’t like him. This eventually turns around, and deepens into a romantic relationship between the two. CQL on the other hand, has present-timeline!Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji having a much more tender relationship from the moment they meet again.

Wei Wuxian’s appearance remains the same after he is resurrected in the drama. While in the novel and other adaptations, Wei Wuxian takes on the appearance of Mo Xuanyu (who happens to look similar to a younger him, luckily enough), this does not happen in the drama. Probably done for convenience’s sake. It is never properly explained other than the fact that along with the soul-summoning spell, Mo Xuanyu did some other things to ensure that Wei Wuxian returned to what looked like his old body. (Some body parts snatching might’ve been involved.) Thus, Wei Wuxian hides his identity by wearing a mask.

Everyone looks the same as they did when they were teenagers. Again, probably just for convenience’s sake. They spend a lot of time in the flashbacks so getting viewers used to one set of faces, and then changing everything would be jarring—and also expensive to swap out actors. So despite a 16 year gap, everyone looks the same with no aging. #cultivatingimmortality

The time gap between Wei Wuxian’s death and resurrection is slightly longer in the drama. It’s 16 years versus 13 years in the novel. Unsure of why the change, as it doesn’t change much apart from serving to make some of the kids older. Some kids’ ages are also slightly altered. It’s not a huge difference and it plays virtually no difference in plot. Also, I can’t confirm it, but everyone seems to start out older as well.

Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang are encountered much earlier in the drama. Before Wei Wuxian’s death, the three of them are encountered in Yueyang before the start of the Sunshot Campaign. The rest of their story plays out after Wei Wuxian’s resurrection.

Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning attend the classes at Cloud Recesses. This gives them a lot more screen time. Elaborated in spoilers below.

Wen Qing’s relationship with Wen Ruohan is more antagonistic from the start. Just like how Wei Wuxian is shown more as a victim of circumstance, so is Wen Qing (and by extension Wen Ning). Elaborated below.

The next section is spoiler-filled. It’s divided into two parts: major and minor differences. Turn back now if you don’t want serious spoilers for either CQL or MDZS!!!

SPOILER-FILLED MAJOR DIFFERENCES

After the dancing statue/Dafan Mountain incident — Wei Wuxian passed out, and wakes up in Cloud Recesses in Lan Wangji’s room. Both of them know™ already. Thus, Wei Wuxian doesn’t even try to pretend that he’s Mo Xuanyu in front of Lan Wangji, but he keeps up the appearance for other people until he’s figured out. This allows the two of them to have a very private relationship with each other.

Also lending to this, Wei Wuxian dies in a much different way in the drama, and dies knowing that Lan Wangji cares deeply about him. Thus why their relationship on his resurrection is so soft. He knew that Lan Wangji protected him and tried to save him until the very end, and is far more affectionate as a result.

Speaking of his death…. In CQL, Wei Wuxian chooses to basically swan dive off a cliff after seeing the horrors in front of him. It has a very lucid finality to it, and feels as though he has decided that only his death can bring peace, and so he falls back off a cliff—only to be caught momentarily by Lan Wangji. He eventually wrests himself from Lan Wangji’s grasp and falls to his death as Lan Wangji (and Jiang Cheng) watches in horror. The novel is far more vague and hints that he met a more gruesome end.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian essentially make up at the end of the drama—or at least end on decent terms by agreeing to put their past behind them and move on. Wei Wuxian wipes away a stray tear as Jiang Cheng cries in front of him in the temple. After everything is said and done, Jiang Cheng privately and quietly wishes Wei Wuxian well as he leaves with Lan Wangji.

Lan Xichen does not go into seclusion at the end of the drama. Despite his trauma, he’s relatively okay as compared to the novel. The drama doesn’t really comment on this aspect, to be honest.

In CQL, Jiang Yanli attends the classes at Cloud Recesses with her brothers. She is given extra interaction with Jin Zixuan during this. Yanli is in general given way more screen time in CQL. She is present during the destruction of Lotus Pier (she appears with Jiang Fengmian), and escapes with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng to Yiling.

Similarly, Wen Ning and Wen Qing are also present for the classes at Cloud Recesses. This is where they first meet Wei Wuxian (and Jiang Cheng), instead of Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian meeting in Qishan later. This gives all of them a pre-existing relationship before the events at Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng also harbors a tiny crush on Wen Qing for a little bit. #same

Wen Qing is handled with much more suspicion by Wen Ruohan and Wen Chao, and during the Sunshot Campaign, she is even locked up. She’s saved by Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, but goes her separate way until Wei Wuxian encounters her again after becoming the Yiling Patriarch proper.

Mianmian is shown to be a part of the Jin sect in CQL, and is close to Jin Zixuan. She renounces her ties to Lanling Jin after everyone starts hating on Wei Wuxian.

Mianmian is also encountered in episode 1. She and her family replace the random farmer family they meet once they leave Gusu (for the second time) on their way to the Burial Mounds. The timing of this may also be different. This is because there is no real “epilogue” that takes 3 months later, like the final chapter of MDZS.

Mo Xuanyu was not ostracized for the same reasons as in the novel. In the novel, he’s also thought to be insane, but was thrown out because he supposedly “harassed” Meng Yao (i.e. had romantic feelings for him which were found out and he was driven out of Lanling). In CQL, he was thrown out for “harassing” Qin Su, but in actuality was only trying to reveal the truth about her husband, and was thrown out as an excuse to get rid of him before he became troublesome.

During the hunt in Phoenix Mountain, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a heart-to-heart, and establish that they do, in fact, care for one another. (I’m pretty sure they use the word soulmate here, but the subs are like “lifelong confidante” lol.)

The origins of the bunnies is different in CQL, and is tied to Lan Yi—an ancestor of the Lan clan (the one who invented Cord Assassination). Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji find a cave in Gusu during their classmate days, which holds the spirit of Lan Yi. There, she reveals information about the Yin Iron and that she is guarding one piece of it. After all this, Wei Wuxian looks after the bunnies after taking them out of the cave, and as he leaves Cloud Recesses, he leaves them in the care of Lan Wangji.

The Gusu Lan sect is less rekt in CQL, as many of them are able to hide away in the aforementioned cave during the destruction of Cloud Recesses. Su She, then a disciple of Gusu Lan, betrays them by telling Wen Chao that the others are hiding in the cave. He’s summarily kicked out. In the novel, he’s the one that tries to rat out Mianmian when they’re facing the Tortoise of Slaughter. (He is still the one who casts the hundred holes spell on Jin Zixun.)

SPOILER-FILLED MINOR DIFFERENCES

In CQL, after his 33 lashes, Lan Wangji goes into forced seclusion for 3 years first. And then his 13 years of playing Inquiry start. Extra depressing, but it doesn’t change anything else.

The ghost baby that Wang LingJiao sees is replaced with a dismembered eye. Still gory. Don’t really know which one is worse…….. Her death is definitely less gory in CQL, though.

The Stygian Tiger Amulet was made of the strange weapon found in the Tortoise of Slaughter in both the novel and drama, but in CQL, said weapon was actually a fragment of the Yin Iron.

CQL shows a few scenes of Wei Wuxian when he first gets tossed into the Burial Mounds.

Lan Qiren is the head of the Gusu Lan sect, all the way through the story in CQL, including the end. Lan Xichen is never referred to as the sect leader.

Gusu Lan's rules are a little less strict in CQL. And co-ed classmates and cultivators seem to be the norm.

This post is certainly not 100% complete, as it’s just what I managed to pick up as I watched/read and remembered to note down. But if you have questions or comments, please reach out to me and I’ll do my best to answer! I hope this is as accurate as possible, but since I’m flying off memory... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take care, all! Feel free to drop into my DMs and scream with me! ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊˚

#mdzs #the untamed #cql #mo dao zu shi #mdzs live action #long post #nyerus.txt #oh my god i dont know how many mistakes ive made in this #if there are any im so sorry i tried my best #but ive been working on this so long im not even sure whats real anymore #my eyes are glazing over i gotta just yeet this out there

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docfuture · 5 years ago

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Princess, part 12

[This story is a prequel, set in an alternate 2012, several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates are theoretically biweekly. Next chapter is partly done so I’m going to try to get it out early in September.]

Previous: Part 11

Recovery--and a start at change and learning. Flicker thought about the wrap up of her first session, and Stella's comments on paying a bit more attention to the ways other people were already helping. "... and I just suppressed thinking about it at all because the frustration got real bad when I didn't," Flicker had said. "Understandable," said Stella. "Did you consider talking to Armadillo?" "I talked to her about some general stuff, but she's... old." Stella nodded slowly. "I can see how the Database might have given you the impression that sex was invented sometime in the 60s. And Armadillo was already middle-aged by then." "That's not fair. It just that the primary sources were so indirect and coded about it. And left so much out. The Database doesn't..." Flicker frowned, then sped up to check a few things. After a while she slowed back down. "Well, crap," she said. "I learned most of my 20th century history when I was randomly bouncing around the Database reading whatever caught my interest when I was 11 or 12. So I missed stuff. And I didn't go back, and made some implicit assumptions." "You might find a discussion with Armadillo illuminating," said Stella. "Have you considered that Doc might not be the person contributing the most to the collective judgement of your social maturity level that the Database uses to set your default access levels? He seems willing to delegate to people he trusts, and of those, Armadillo clearly has had experience with children." "Oof. No, I hadn't thought of that." Flicker sighed. "Sometimes I wonder about the amount of time I spend mentally running circles around things without looking at what's at the center." "Don't be too harsh on yourself. You blame most of your social difficulties on mental differences, poor references, and lack of practice. But the form of your education mattered, too. You never went to school before your graduate work, and you did most of that remotely. You learned from Doc, the Database, and direct observation--primarily of static scenes because of your speed. And the bulk of educational material in the Database was written by and for typical humans, with all the embedded assumptions that entails." "I really like the Database. And the summaries help." Stella shook her head. "Not always. Not if you don't know what's missing. The Database AI made judgements when you were younger about what was appropriate at the time. This shaped your knowledge map, which was already going to be very different from most humans. So do your Database access restrictions. Information revealed selectively or out of order can harm. And if the Database can't reveal A to you--for, say, privacy reasons--and revealing B without A would cause harm, it will restrict B as well. I'm sure Doc must have warned you about that." "Yeah, but a lot of his restrictions seem arbitrary." "Many will, if done right. Database restrictions can and do cause bias problems, but overriding them is inherently risky. The Database AI has to balance that, and there are no optimal choices, because the whole idea of the Database as an 'objective' knowledge map is a illusion. The Database is biased by what gets recorded. Your access to it is further biased, and what you actually do access is even more biased. But the idea that you are necessarily getting closer to impartial truth when you override a warning is dangerous." "So I can mess myself up with overrides." "You already have. Repeatedly. Information shaping is one of my more powerful tools. Cruder forms of it are in widespread use and getting more effective every day. But perceptions come pre-shaped." Stella had sipped from her cup of coffee before continuing. "For example, you are highly proficient in many math-heavy technical subjects not usually mastered until graduate school, and awkward in areas typically covered by early childhood education or peer group socialization. So when you made your implicit assumptions? Of course you missed things. However." Stella was good at an 'I have a secret to share--eventually' style of speaking that was both mildly annoying and very effective at focusing attention. "Yes?" said Flicker. "Anyone would. You just missed different things. Others might have helped with some of them. But no one could predict them all. Not Doc, not the Database, not me. So do what you can, but don't be too hard on yourself when mistakes happen." "Ah. I'll try to remember that." ***** Flicker tried to follow Stella's initial guidelines, which focused on short term recovery, stabilization, and 'stop making this worse'. Avoiding patrols was the most important and hardest to follow advice. Physical therapy and exercise were tedious, but not difficult. The dietary changes... were trickier. Flicker had lost weight from the accident and the isotope exchanger sessions which she really couldn't afford. And her kind of pseudo-shapeshifter healing depended on adequate body mass. Stella forwarded some funny essays on cuisine and recovery for shapeshifters supposedly written by a French werewolf, and had the Database reset her food and drink related warnings, with an eye to both mental and physical health. She'd also pointed out to Flicker that it only took a few early incidents of plasma in the GI tract while pushing the limits of her entropy dumping to cause lasting aversion to eating much while on call. So when she later started to feel like she was on duty almost all the time, she stopped eating proper meals except with friends. Staying off patrol for now made it possible to change that, but not easy. Theoretically, she could eat like an Olympic athlete in training while exercising appropriately, and recover quite quickly, but that wasn't realistic. She was stubborn, but so were her habits. She couldn't patrol, but she could keep busy by surveying--updating Database geographical and obstacle data--and doing interior construction and finishing work on her house. Back-ordered materials had piled up. Flicker used power tools mainly for precision and delicacy; she had custom hand tools for speed and power, and boxes of regular hammers and screwdrivers to replace the ones she wore out or broke. Superspeed and robotic help let her make rapid progress in the half days she was putting in to it. Common areas and guest rooms were finished, and recreation areas, a wider variety of workshops, and Database node expansion rooms were all taking shape. Making time to talk and eat with friends wasn't sophisticated advice, but it was obviously helpful. She'd had dinner with Jetgirl and her husband yesterday. Good food, carefully non-specific sympathy, then after dinner, 'girl talk' with Jetgirl. Which meant tech geekery--they spent a few hours discussing the instrumentation and results from Speedtest, and Jetgirl's suggestions for some issues Flicker had encountered expanding her robotics workshop. Reliable comfort. The aftereffects from the cybernetic interface withdrawal were finally mostly gone, and Flicker's metabolism and appetite seemed to be responding to her exercises. She was definitely putting on muscle faster than a human could. And she'd mentioned her problem to Stavros, the owner of her favorite Greek restaurant, he'd gotten a look on his face like he'd been personally called upon to save the world, and now she had enough takeout in her fridge to feed a starving pseudo-mythological extradimensional being for a week. Today, a visit with Armadillo. She had promised something interesting. Flicker had once asked Armadillo why she hadn't picked the name Glyptodon instead, because that seemed closer in size and fearsomeness to her appearance. Armadillo had laughed and said she'd never heard of them at the time--the late 40s. The two of them were at Armadillo's house, sitting at a table with an impressive feast. It was not unusual for Armadillo; with super strength, near invulnerability, and half a ton of mass, she ate a lot, and saw no reason not to enjoy it. Armadillo was cheerful and a good friend, as well as effectively family. And at an age of 98, she knew a lot of history, especially the kinds that didn't usually get recorded very well. The main reason Flicker didn't visit more often was an embarrassing one: When she'd been younger she'd had episodes of severe insomnia. But Armadilo knew how to spin a story to help. So when the biological part of Flicker's brain was working, it associated Armadillo's stories strongly with drowsiness. Which didn't mean they were boring. Armadillo was sharing some anecdotes from the late Pre-Net era--the 50s through the 70s--when Luce Cannon, Belle Tinker, and One-eyed Jack had been prominent superheroes. They had set precedents that ended up shaping the way the Database had been assembled. The norms Luce had established as a practical way of preserving relationship privacy and security without centralized infrastructure required narrative indirection and implication in order to discuss certain subjects at all. Armadillo was very good at the style needed. Unfortunately, that and the lack of unrestricted Database references hindered the usual ways Flicker updated her memories, so she was having trouble with details. But there were definitely differences from the way she'd thought about the origins of the Database. "Huh," she said. "I always assumed that Doc decided everything important when he first built the Database, and the rest was just legacy format and historical records." "Not entirely," said Armadillo. "Luce knew all about records and careful access--she built her own intelligence operation, after all--and Belle was already starting to convert some of them to electronic form and building early bots in the fifties. But reliability for anyone but Belle was always a problem, and she didn't have the level of conscientiousness about documentation that Doc did." "Um. Doc isn't always that great about documentation. He gets--" "The Database AI or someone else to do a lot of it. I know. But someone does. Heck, I've done my share. ��Belle was way ahead of her time, but we never found anything but cryptic notebook scribbles for some of her weirder stuff. Left a bit of a mess after she was gone. Doc brought in organization, documentation, robustness, and speed, and then extended it to everything. But the first Database grew out of what he built for Luce not long before she died. And Luce set some access conditions, which Doc won't change without a good reason. So don't blame Doc for all of them." "So the age restrictions are from Luce?" "Some of them, yeah--but they aren't hardcoded, they're more flexible; we knew they'd have to accommodate aliens and extradimensional beings and whatnot. It's really a maturity threshold." Armadillo smiled. "But I have a treat for you." "Oh?" "There are a few things I have personal discretion about. And you've hit a block involving one of them twice now. It's a good example of how we handled a few things back in the day, and might help you understand some of the ambiguity. I can show it to you, but you'll have to put your visor on locked standby or take it off--no unrestricted electronic images of this are allowed." Flicker frowned, but arranged a protocol with the Database and pulled back her hood. Armadillo pushed back a plate, picked up a small case, opened it, and pulled out a large photographic print. "This is a copy of the last known good photograph of Belle Tinker. The original is in my family photo album in one of Doc's vaults." Flicker moved her chair closer to get a better look. It was a group photo, centered on a younger Armadillo. "What's that blacked out area?" "Non-superheroes with living relatives. The photo is from my 60th birthday party in 1974." Given the date, Flicker wasn't surprised that Armadillo was a bit narrower--she'd still been slowly adding mass. But... "Head spikes?" Armadillo laughed. "Yeah, that was my last try at regrowing them. I'd been on a trip to Tokyo the previous year, and there was a translator around during a Kaiju attack. I ended up stopping it by talking to the big fellow about the relative effectiveness of head spikes for challenge bellowing. We had a nice talk, and everyone went home happy. No property damage, even. So I decided to give them another try. But mine were only a little stronger than steel, so they kept breaking off--same kind of problem you have with your hair. I finally gave up in 75? Or maybe 76? But really, I'm the least interesting person in that photo. I'm curious what you think about the others." "Okay," said Flicker. "But that goblet you're drinking out of... Is that a demon skull?" "Yep. The goblet was a birthday present. It would have been rude not to try it out." Armadillo nodded towards a nearby cabinet. "I still have it, but I hardly ever use it anymore. Little call for it, and it's tricky to clean." "Um, okay." Flicker studied the image of the woman with red hair, a lab coat, safety glasses, and an expression of indulgent patience. "Belle has the same kind of 'I could be in my lab working on something cool' face I've seen Doc make. Most of the contemporary sources I found in the Database were really bad at describing her. She'd have been, what, in her late forties? She looks younger than that, fit, and tough, I don't understand what was going on." Armadillo smiled. "There were a few that treated her reasonably--but they tended not to emphasize appearance. Belle did not fit any 'feminine' stereotype back then, there were a number of media bigwigs who really didn't like her, and she didn't humor patronizing reporters. So it was common for them to distort or belittle her intelligence and accomplishments, insult her appearance, attack her character, or just use bad pictures. If they had to write about her at all. That's one reason why the quality of much of what you found about her is poor." Another woman with short dark hair was leaning against the table with a relaxed smile, but a very clear presence. "Did Luce Cannon always look like she was in charge?" asked Flicker. "I mean, it was your party, but..." "She could hide it, but she was keeping an eye on someone who could get overenthusiastic." A girl wearing a black outfit was smiling intently at the camera with a predatory look. She appeared to be around eleven; it was hard for Flicker to judge ages. "Is that a toy sword?" asked Flicker. "It looks awfully realistic." "Nope. That was Katya's first magic sword. She outgrew it; it's in the vaults now." "Magic sword? Wait... Katya? That's Jumping Spider?" "Oh, goodness no; she wouldn't use that name for years. That's Katya the... Hunter, I think? She switched from the Devastator sometime around then. This was only a year after Luce started teaching her." "Did... What... Why is she waving a sword around at your birthday party?" "It was a compromise; she wanted to make a little pyramid out of the other skulls for the picture, but Luce vetoed that as unsanitary. Just as well; Belle said they smelled pretty manky." "Other skulls?" Every time Flicker got a question answered, she immediately had several more--and she couldn't speed up and check the Database because her visor was off. "Besides the one Jack and Belle turned into the goblet for my birthday present. It was Katya's idea, so she got to hunt the demons, and she went a little overboard getting spare skulls. Jack took her to the dimension where they lived--nasty place, but they were immune to poison, which was handy." "...it's a magic goblet." "Oh, yeah, it detoxifies anything in it," said Armadillo. "If I ever want to be absolutely sure I can't be poisoned or I'm worried about contamination, I use it. But it's usually overkill, it makes most non-alcoholic beverages taste kind of funny, and properly cleaning the precipitate chamber is a pain." "Doc never let me hunt demons when I was ten," muttered Flicker as she studied the figure standing next to Belle in the photo. "Mores change, and your adoption process wasn't complete yet. It would have been awkward to explain." "Did One-eyed Jack ever show any sign of aging? It doesn't look like his appearance changed at all in pictures." "Nope," said Armadillo. "At least not from when I first met him in '50 or so until he disappeared in the nineties. White hair, neatly trimmed beard, and the eyepatch. He almost always wore that hooded robe and carried that staff with the magical doodad on the end. Occasionally he'd switch to a really old style suit and a dress cane--he could do an impressive Offended Aristocrat act. But his apparent age never changed. I suspect he was some kind of shapeshifter, and I know he could create illusions, though, so I'm not sure anyone really knows for sure." "Wait. Disappeared? The Database lists him as 'presumed dead' with supporting evidence; someone found his eyepatch and a scrap of robe near a small crater in the Topaz Realm and Doc verified they were genuine." "Yep. Doesn't mean he died. He might have just decided it was time to stop being Jack. Hard to believe someone as careful as him would botch a portal like that, and it seemed awfully pat that it happened somewhere with enough ravenous scavengers to ensure the lack of remains wasn't suspicious. If he was a shapeshifter, there could be someone with his memories who looks quite different running around somewhere. And he had a saying: 'Sometimes you see something coming and all you can do is get out of the way.' I think that's what he did." Armadillo grinned. "But then, I've been accused of being sentimental from time to time." "Okay," said Flicker. "If you're suspicious about Jack, what about Belle? She was declared dead, but all the Database says is that something catastrophic happened to her portal generator late at night and she was gone afterwards. Jack is recorded as testifying that as far as he could tell, she hadn't been murdered or kidnapped, definitely wasn't alive on Earth, and he wasn't able to tell quite what happened with the portal. But Doc said that if she really wanted to burn her bridges, she could have set the portal generator to self destruct, then gone through to somewhere before it blew. He still has the remains of it in the vaults." Armadillo looked out the window. "All true. She seemed kind of withdrawn for a while before that. Well, withdrawn for her--she was always full of more ideas than she had time to try. She'd had a disagreement with Luce and the Volunteer for a couple of years over... I guess you could call it public policy. She made some predictions that turned out to be pretty accurate, and the first part of one of them had just happened--that was '80. It's conceivable she might have just been tired of Earth. But then she was kind of close to Jack, and he was pretty down afterwards--and if she went somewhere else, I don't know why he wouldn't be able to visit. I tried talking to him about it once, and he just shook his head. So I really can't say." "Were they a couple?" asked Flicker. "Database is ambiguous--they at least pretended a few times, but it wasn't clear what was going on. I assume it's okay to ask about that now that they're both gone?" "Heh. It's not forbidden to ask, and they worked well together in the lab when Belle wasn't out causing trouble with Luce. I'll say this; Belle never showed interest in most men--she'd roll her eyes at most of my jokes--and Jack never showed any interest in anyone but Belle. But it could just have been cover; a convenience for both of them." "Oh." Flicker frowned at the last figure--a middle-aged man in nondescript clothing, leaning back in the chair beside Armadillo. His glasses were perched precariously on the end of his nose, his fingers were laced over his chest, and his eyes were closed. "Who is the guy beside you, and why is he asleep?" Armadillo smiled. "Oh, he'd had a long day, then a nice meal, so he just was catching a little nap. He sometimes answered to the name of Chandler Devon." Okay, now I know I'm being tested. Flicker sped up. The name was vaguely familiar--why? She glanced at Luce again, then remembered. Chandler Devon was connected to Luce Cannon in some way, perhaps one of her agents, or possibly romantically linked--but that had been a shaky source. Documentation about him had been really spotty, with large gaps. He'd been a skilled enough amateur geologist to get a few articles published, later in life. But his fondness for volcanoes had apparently done him in--he'd disappeared during the Mount Pinatubo eruption a few years after Luce's death. That made the third nominally dead person in the picture with a missing body. The only person who was definitely dead and buried was Luce--she'd died of cancer in the late 80s. There were several odd things that required explanation about 'Chandler Devon'. Why was he even at Armadillo's party? Had Luce brought him? Why hadn't anyone woken him up for the picture? It was a memorable occasion. Was it a prank? Wait. Armadillo had said she was the least interesting person in the photo. What could possible make him more interesting than her? If he-- Oh. So that's what he looks like when he's asleep. But how did he manage... Luce. Of course. She was the original super spy. Jumping Spider's teacher. If anyone could cover everything he'd need, it would have been her. That explained so much. He'd gone more than fifty years without anyone-- Idiot. Everyone in that picture probably knew. He'd always had a family. A family of choice. They just never, ever gave it away. Even when they disagreed with each other. But still, a few years after Luce died, he decided it was time to stop being Chandler Devon. Could he still maintain cover? Probably; Jumping Spider was 27 by then, and Doc was 17, with the Database up and running. But the Lost Years were about to start, and Doc had seen that coming. No longer worth the trouble, maybe? How much had Luce meant to Chandler Devon? A lot to think about, most of it not even about Belle. But there was etiquette to be observed. And as far as Flicker could tell, it was to indicate obliquely that she'd guessed, but not say anything unambiguous. She could come up with something. She slowed back down--and found herself blinking back tears. "He looks like... someone who works very hard," she managed. "And doesn't get a chance to relax very often. I'm glad no one woke him up." Armadillo nodded slowly. "So was I." She started to put the picture back in the box. "Wait," said Flicker. "Who took the picture? I thought I knew, but now I think I was wrong." Armadillo paused. "Another time, maybe. You probably have enough to cogitate about today already." "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Next: Part 13

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

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things2mustdo · 4 years ago

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I heard a family member make remarks on the ‘victims’ of Hurricane Florence, who knew well in advance the possible horrors which came crawling their way. But were those who decided to stay victims given the warnings? They also espoused, essentially, that rescue teams shouldn’t put their lives at risk for those who remained in harm’s way.

This brought me back to a conversation with a man who has been big on situational awareness in terms of avoiding assailants who aim to pierce your heart and rob you while you lie in a pool of your own blood. He asked this question about what one does when in a dark alley and you see a suspicious character coming your way? My response was something to the extent of whether or not I even had to be in the dark alley? That was his point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHq4dbQBa14

Now, I’m not remotely suggesting rescue teams avoid doing their job, but it did get me back to situational awareness and understanding the justice brought about when you are foolish enough to venture into a dark alley on the wrong side of town, or remaining in Florida when you damn well knew the potential risk involved.

That got me thinking about the recent political violence and acts of domestic terrorism caused by Black Lives Matter and Anti-Fascists. So, in regards to our contemporary state of the political and cultural arena, and what surely awaits us in the next US presidential election, here are some simple, basic tips about situational awareness and being prepared in case civil unrest breaks out.

1. Understand The Baseline Of Your Environment

Political rallies across the US demonstrate the capacity of violence and the willingness to assault in ruthless manners. Both men and women of more right-wing views have been assaulted, been threatened to be raped, have their families killed, get doxxed, have dead animals thrown at their living quarters, had their finances threatened, etc. It’s a goddamn nightmare on the more North Side of America than the South Side, where not everyone has a bamboo stick up their ass.

There are many great articles written on situational awareness. And that’s key: situation. The environment, in a general sense, has a baseline. It’s the basic overall feel and operation of that set area.

For example, you go to the mall. What’d you expect to see, generally speaking? People walking and talking, laughing and usually carrying a bag or two. It would, in this context, be out of the ordinary if an individual, dressed in all black, is quickly walking through a crowd while he has his hoodie on and hands in his pockets. It’s odd behavior. Same for someone moving nervously carrying a bag that does not appear to be bought at a store or, to add to that, he doesn’t have workman apparel. It’s out of the ordinary.

If I’m at a bank and someone walks in, sits in the corner for an unreasonable amount of time without engaging in any transaction and appears to not work there, I’m alert. Are his eyes moving around scanning for cameras, are his lips moving to suggest he’s counting something, is he in apparel which could perhaps more easily conceal a gun?

Same if I’m out sitting while enjoying coffee and an all-black car pulls in and just sits. Whether the engine is on are not does slightly change the degree of the potential threat of the situation. If it’s on, is it a quick getaway for a potential crime? And is it at night where there are fewer people and witnesses?

These are all pretty basic to practice, in my view. So it doesn’t help when everyone’s head is glued to their smartphones. Especially with women. They appear to be much less aware than men who themselves very much have this issue with their smartphones.

2. The Gray Man At Political Rallies

The concept of the Gray Man is simple: blend in. Do not create stimuli around you. Gray is often considered a very bland color. It’s boring, lifeless, moot. This isn’t to suggest wearing gray makes you undetectable, but the concept works well with this color.

Blend in so well to your environment that you essentially appear bland. But if you’re at a political rally, then you know anyone is a potential threat. Wearing a Trump hat or an American flag raises suspicion, creates stimuli from your political adversary, and now you are made. If you’re European-American, wearing a hat over your shaved head is a good idea in terms of lessening your presence because there is still widespread delusion about the reincarnation of literal Nazis.

People involved with BLM, AntiFa and other leftist gangs are already going to make assumptions about your character and will dehumanize you and engage violently. Perhaps lessening that delusion, if even possible, could potentially add to your safety and security, in some respects.

It’s not that one desires to give up their chosen headwear and so on, but weighing the pros and cons should be obvious if you wish to avoid conflict. Which, again, these days is hard to do.

3. Consider Your Neighbors And Conversation

Depending upon your living situation, if you’re in California, talking openly with your neighbors about politics in relations to conservatism, in a positive light, creates quite a stir of stimuli. And, given the next US elections are coming up, you’ve made an impression in their mind. If they believe you are a literal Nazi, you’ve coined a political adversary. If you’re in the deeper South surrounded by red-necks and American-loving Christians, chances are, from my observations, you’ll be less likely to be attacked for your political (or religious) views.

I personally despise having to sometimes lower my voice or take a quick glance around because I’m about to say something that might cause stimuli to a potential assailant. But, in these contemporary times, it’s up to you to decide what’s worth it and what’s not.

Conclusion

These are merely a few things of quality in regards to your safety and security. I’ve been quite observant. It’s not always intentional, but I’ve seen things and made assumptions (or had a strong thought about it) and turned out to be spot on.

Identity your adversary. Weigh in how much of a threat they are to you. Pay attention to who they know or talk to, then extend that person’s conversation partners and then extend it again. Leftist are ruthless, dangerous, hateful devils. And remember, if you ever see anyone wearing the hammer and sickel, then be even more alert.

Read Next: Being Situationally Aware Is A Matter Of Life Or Death

It is 7:30am on the day after Christmas in 2004. The sun is already up in the blue sky of the Andaman sea, and some rare tourists are walking on the main beach of Phi Phi island in Thailand. Most of the tourists are still sleeping, dealing with the usual hangover that comes with the traditional Christmas party.

The locals are busy preparing the long tail boats they use to cruise around the nearby islands. Some Westerners like me, who live here, fill and carry the diving tanks the scuba divers will use to explore the underwater reefs today.

In less than an hour, this idyllic landscape will turn into a dramatic nightmare and many of those people will die, crushed and drowned by the powerful wave of a tsunami coming from the Indian Ocean.

Was there a way to prevent that? Not more than preventing a hurricane in Florida or an earthquake in California. Scientists can predict it, multi-million dollar sensors can detect it, information networks can announce it through various media, but there is no way to prevent it from happening. But we can be more prepared than when I experienced this tsunami in Thailand. Governments and local administrations can invest in infrastructures to mitigate the potential risks and better inform the general public.

And individuals can be better prepared to deal with the consequences of natural events. The people who tragically died on this island were not different from any other people on this planet. As a matter of fact, a vast majority of them were young and relatively fit. They didn’t survive for only a handful of reasons, mainly:

lack of situational awareness

lack of appropriate mindset

lack of physical skills

The situational awareness and appropriate mindset are mainly due to the fact that, when we are on vacation on a tropical island, the last thing we want to think about is the remote possibility of a tragic event of any kind. If the place is nice and sunny, if the locals are friendly and smiling, we quickly feel safe and let our guard down. No pickpockets, no fire, no mugging, no earthquake, no car crash, and therefore no need to pay attention to any precursor sign, no need to keep our valuables and documents with us at all times, no need to have a look at evacuation routes, fire exits, etc. In other words we quickly become complacent when everything looks like paradise.

But this lack of situational awareness and appropriate mindset was only one side of the coin for the many fatalities that occurred that day in Thailand. One of the main culprits was the lack of physical skills. Many people didn’t survive simply because they didn’t have the physical abilities to deal with what happened to them and around them.

Some were not comfortable in the water and couldn’t swim across the strong current that the wave and the obstacles created. The event only lasted a few minutes but the water raised quickly and submerged the lowest part of the island.

Some were not able to hold their breath for a few seconds. When the wave hit the hotels and guesthouses near the beach, most of the rooms were submerged very rapidly, but not for very long. Surprise and panic killed a lot of people in their rooms.

Some were not able to hold on to fixed objects for more than a few seconds. The current was strong and being able to hold on something, or even better to climb onto something, was a good way to increase the chance of surviving.

Some were not able to run away and climb a hill or a stairway. For those who were on the beach and saw the wave coming, the proper action was to sprint and find high ground. Reaching the highest floor of a hotel or one of the nearby hills was a good way to avoid the full force of the tsunami.

Some were not able to push away heavy objects. Entrapment was one of the major risks in this event. Many people drowned because they lacked the necessary strength to move away the objects that the current pushed onto them.

The Western world tends to rely heavily on tools to make our life easier and tools to make it safer. Instead of dealing with the weather, we use tools to make it more bearable (A/C, heater, umbrella, raincoat, sunscreen, etc). Instead of moving in this environment, we rely on tools (a car or an ATV instead of walking and running, a canoe or a boat instead of swimming). We easily blame the lack of protection that can get us injured (“I cannot walk/run without shoes”, “I cannot float without a flotation device”, “I will fall and break my skull if I don’t wear a helmet”, etc).

Tools are fine and make our life more enjoyable most of the time, but what if? What happens when we don’t have them? That’s where skills and physical abilities make plenty of sense. Every one of us, regardless of age, gender and race should be able to do at least the following things:

sprint for at least 100 yards/meters in order to get out of danger (collapsing building, wild fire)

climb over a wall or fence at least shoulder high (to escape an angry pitbull or a group of thugs)

carry for at least 10 yards/meters someone of 3/4 of your size and bodyweight (to save someone from an immediate danger)

swim at least 100 yards/meters without stopping and float at least 10 minutes with no aid or support (to get out of a dangerous zone and wait for a rescue vessel)

walk 5 miles in an hour (to reach a gas station when you run out of gas and you cannot call for help)

perform some basic self-defense techniques (striking, grappling) to react appropriately in a mugging/rapping/life-threatening situation

hold your breath for at least one minute while walking/moving at a slow pace (to escape the toxic fumes of a building on fire)

crawl for at least 30 yards/meters to seek cover (active shooter situation) or rescue someone (a child hidden under a car, or someone trapped under or inside something)

If you think that any of those abilities is way beyond your limits, it’s maybe time to reconsider your priorities in life. Being self-sufficient and prepared doesn’t mean relying on tools—it’s knowing that you can deal with dramatic circumstances to the best of your abilities. Tools come in handy when you have physical limitations (age, injuries, illness) but they shouldn’t be the first line of defense.

Having some regulations that require a floatation device in every hotel room in Thailand will not save any life if the next tsunami in the region happens in South Korea. Use your body and your brain. They are the original tools, and you have them with you all the time!

Read More: How To Improve Your Situational Awareness From One Minute Of Effort Per Day

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mediaeval-muse · 5 years ago

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Book Review

After the Wedding. By Courtney Milan. 2018.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Worth Saga #2

Summary: Adrian Hunter, the son of a duke's daughter and a black abolitionist, is determined to do whatever his family needs—even posing as a valet to gather information. But his mission spirals out of control when he’s accused of dastardly intentions and is forced to marry a woman he’s barely had time to flirt with.

Camilla Worth has always dreamed of getting married, but a marriage where a pistol substitutes for “I do” is not the relationship she hoped for. Her unwilling groom insists they need to seek an annulment, and she’s not cruel enough to ruin a man’s life just because she yearns for one person to care about her.

As Camilla and Adrian work to prove their marriage wasn’t consensual, they become first allies, then friends. But the closer they grow, the more Camilla’s heart aches. If they consummate the marriage, he’ll be stuck with her forever. The only way to show that she cares is to make sure he can walk away for good

***Full review under the cut.***

Trigger/Content Warnings: race-based micro aggression, implicit slut shaming, sexual content, strong language/swearing

Overview: I don’t think I need to say why I picked up another Courtney Milan book at this point, so let’s get on with the review.

Writing: As always, Milan’s prose gives the impression of simplicity and effortlessness. I think she has a good instinct for when to tell versus show, and I like the way she communicates what is happening clearly and thoughtfully. I also think her pacing in this book was pretty close to ideal - she wasn’t afraid to let emotionally heavy moments breathe, and more exciting “action” (if you could call them that) scenes didn’t take up more space than they had to.

Plot: The majority of this plot revolves around Adrian, our hero, trying to “get dirt” on a corrupt bishop while also balancing his duties to his family and seeking an annulment for his forced marriage to Camilla, our heroine. I’ll talk about the romance below, so for now, I’ll focus on the other aspects of the plot. The annulment plot was rather straightforward in that I think Milan clearly communicated what Adrian and Camilla needed to do. I liked that it wasn’t just “abstain from having sex,” but a whole tangle of things, like obtaining character witnesses, referring to themselves as married, the matter of their social standing, etc. As Milan writes in her author’s note, annulments actually weren’t that easy to obtain, and I’m glad this plot made it clear.

The “getting dirt” on the bishop plot was also understandable. Given that the bishop in question was the one who forcibly married the two, it makes sense how the original mission to uncover his corruption would be tangled up in the annulment plot. I didn’t find this storyline quite as compelling, but I understand why it’s there - more to serve as a frame than the actual “meat” of the story itself.

The family business/china business plot mostly seemed to serve as an external pressure on Adrian, and though it started out as just another source of stress, it became more interesting to me when Camilla got involved with both the the plate designs and the camaraderie of the workers. But though I found it personally uninteresting, I do appreciate why it was there - it gave Adrian an enterprise to focus on, and gives the impression that he isn’t just at his uncle’s beck and call. He’s an independent businessman in England who has an eye for art, which goes against a lot of stereotypes or assumption about Black people in 19th century England, I think.

Characters: Adrian, our hero, is youngest son of a white mother (the daughter of a duke) and a Black abolitionist (from America, I think?). He is confident and kind, inspiring others to be their best selves and displaying remarkable understanding when they make mistakes. Adrian also desires to be acknowledged by his maternal uncle, a rival bishop who shows affection in private but treats Adrian like a servant in public. He wants so desperately to be acknowledged that he lets his uncle take advantage of him, and a large part of Adrian’s arc involves him finally getting the courage to draw the line and put a stop to it. I found Adrain to be instantly likable and sweet, and I think his ability to tackle problems, juxtaposed with his hilarious inability to lie, was quite fun to watch.

Camilla, our heroine, is the daughter of a disgraced earl and has been shuffled around from home to home. As a result, she’s lost contact with her siblings, and has serious abandonment issues, but remarkably, she still has the courage to hope that someday, someone will love her enough to stick around. I like how her personal arc mirrored Adrian’s in a way: while Adrian longs to be accepted by his family, Camilla longs to be accepted by anyone. Part of both of their arcs involve valuing themselves, and with Camilla, it’s especially powerful because she has so little support to begin with (as opposed to Adrian, whose brother Grayson is always there to look out for him). Camilla’s internal thoughts had a bit of a tendency to be repetitive, but I do think Milan struck a good balance between voicing Camilla’s insecurities and acting admirably. In other words, Camilla didn’t come across as clingy or desperate to me, in part because she never sought to *make* Adrian stay with her.

I also very much liked the sibling dynamics in the story. Grayson, Adrian’s older brother, is supportive and always shows concern for Adrian’s happiness, and I liked the rapport between them. Camilla’s siblings are fun to read about; Theresa is a forceful personality who is always clashing with their elder sister Judith, but they love each other regardless. I was incredibly happy when they finally found each other, especially since Camilla’s absence was a major point of pain in the first book of this series.

The antagonists were serviceable in that they weren’t especially nuanced, but I felt that the lack of depth worked because the story wasn’t really about the conflict with them. Adrian’s uncle, for example, is perfectly civil; he’s never outright racist, but makes a lot of remarks that show he is ashamed of his Black family, and constantly puts off acknowledging Adrian because of how it would affect his social standing. I think this was a good move on Milan’s part because it didn’t opt to showcase “how bad things were back then” by using racism as a spectacle. Similarly, the corrupt bishop and his accomplice (Camilla’s former employer) were barely characters in the book, but their purpose was mainly to be the catalyst for Adrian and Camilla’s story. Their corrupt dealings revolved thematically around unjustly punishing “fallen women,” so there was an element of feminist justice as well as racial justice to the novel as a whole.

Other: Readers looking for a steamy, sexy romance might be a little disappointed in this book. Milan is not so much concerned with sensual, rapid seduction as she is with a gradual shift from acquaintances to allies to friends to lovers. Adrian and Camilla’s emotional bond is very much at the heart of this love story, and though they are physically attracted to one other, their sexual interest takes a backseat to mutual support. I did enjoy how each enriched the emotional lives of the other: Adrian gave Camilla the confidence to accept that she deserved to be loved, while Camilla’s fierce sense of hope inspired Adrian while also leading him to expect better of his uncle.

I also liked that Milan wrote a mixed race hero and a bisexual heroine without letting those aspects become the defining features of their characters. While we never really forget that Adrian is not white, he’s also not constantly enduring racist remarks or poor treatment. Instead, Milan shows us how Adrian operates in the world by code switching and adopting an air of confidence so that white people will treat him a certain way. But while those things are present, Milan takes great care to show that Adrian is first and foremost a kind person who perhaps gives people too many chances and trusts too easily, which sometimes gets him in trouble, but sometimes endears him to others. Some (probably white) readers might complain about historical accuracy, but honestly, Black people existed in 19th century England and had jobs other than “servant.” And also, who cares about “historical accuracy” in a historical romance - the point is escapism. Get over it.

Perhaps the only thing I can criticize in this regard is that the focus on both living as a Black person in England and the injustices shown towards women (both in society’s treatment of “fallen women” and in the ecclesiastical courts) are topics worth exploring in detail on their own. Because there was so much going on, I felt like neither topic got its due diligence, but maybe not every novel needs a thorough exploration of these themes. Maybe this is just personal preference.

Overall, this was a delightful read, and I liked it better than the first installment in the series. Milan continues to be my favorite romance author, and I look forward to her next book!

#book reviews

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douchebagbrainwaves · 5 years ago

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WHY I'M SMARTER THAN TREVOR

But it worked so well, and we knew that buyers would have a big pool of potential users, at least. Web browser.1 Angels were generally much better to talk to someone, I could usually get to the end of each film, so they know who might be interested in this mystery—for the same destination, just approaching it from different directions. I recommend you solve this problem, if you find someone else working on the biggest things inexperienced founders and investors are probably more where it's considered especially polite to compliment someone's clothing than where it's considered improper. VCs want to blow you up, it wears you out: Your most basic advice to founders is just don't die, but the word madam never occurs in my legitimate email, and spam in particular. Basically at 25 he started running as fast as possible. And what are the universities thinking?

The next best, for startups that aren't charging initially, is active users. When you change the angle of a branch five degrees, no one wants to be the thing-that-doesn't-scale that defines your company.2 That principle, like the relative merits of programming languages is to give you enough money to last for a year or a hundred times as productive as those working for money, they'll work a lot harder on stuff they like. 5-7% of a company like Apple and think, how hard can it be? Economically, you can do in your spare time, and investors are down on advertising at the moment. They do more in their heads: they try to do things that seem to be: a lot of them. The third big lesson we can learn, or at least, there is no one within big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders. When I look back it's like there's a line drawn between third and fourth grade. That's what makes sex and drugs, it would be good to solve?

Prep schools openly say this is one reason I'd bet on the curve, at any given time get away with it, and the different parts of the company through the COO. Object-oriented programming in the 1980s was enabled by a combination of circumstances: court decisions striking down state anti-takeover laws, starting with the assumption that we would never get started. Not because it's causing economic inequality, you decrease the number of startups that get bought early. It's not a deal till the money's in the bank and keep operating as two guys living on ramen. I'm optimistic. They think that there will be ten JetBlues.3 If you try to attack wealth, you end up doing something chosen for you by syndicates.

And you don't want to see the Valley itself, but it goes fast. What Happened to Yahoo August 2010 When I went to.4 What this means in practice. That makes him seem like a winner, they may avoid publishing's problems. After reading a draft, Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell has made a handy calculator you can use them as communication devices.5 You not only have to filter email from people you'd never heard from, or about, a startup has decreased dramatically. Startups are that constrained for talent. But it's harder than it sounds.6 Smallness Measurement If you can't measure the value of products is in software. You don't have to rely on. Hackers just want power.

I knew she was about to say you'd have to be fired, and one of your most powerful weapons, I think this is true for funding. The best was that the company was itself a kind of argument that might be called the Hail Mary strategy. They don't have time to work, just like a software company. But it hardly ever is. My friend Robert learned a lot by writing network software when he was a startup, then hand them off to go away.7 Sun. Oxford had a chair of Chinese before it had one of English.

Which means the slowdown that comes from being in America. And in fact the two forces are related: they're the ones who like running their company so much that resembling nature is intrinsically good as that nature has had a couple thousand Altair owners, but without the substance. Ditto for hacking. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley and are quick to take advantage of direct contact with the medium. We were all starting from scratch, that's a really bad sign.8 More important, I think it's cleaner if you openly charge subscription fees, instead of just looking at them all is through a computer. Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, and Robert and Trevor read applications and did interviews with us. The stock of a company as big as Java, or bigger, just on the partner you talk to startups, a lot of investors are interested in, that's not necessarily a mistake to use the term Collison installation for the technique they invented. FreeBSD, which I'm running on the computer I'm using now, and they're not coming back. Court hierarchies are another thing entirely. In practice offers exist for stretches of time, if your business model in the world look like this? Startups don't win by winning lawsuits.

5 spams per 1000 with 0 false positives. When I was in college that there were about 20,000. What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin, and crack have in common is that they get paid by doing or making something people want is not the real test. Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay your expenses while you develop a conscience, torture is amusing.9 Wouldn't that at least someone really loves. Sex, or something just as bad. I can see a path that's not immediately obvious; that's one of the most important quality in an investor is to say that the unsuccessful founders would also fail to chase down funding, and investors tend to take these for granted now, but only because people have found even more addictive ways of wasting time. It does not seem to be several categories of cuts: things I got wrong, because if you don't, you're hosed. So we should expect founders to do it yourself. If you actually started acting like adults, it seemed to them what e-commerce business back in the day, but who want it urgently. 5% of those already outstanding in return for $100,000, whichever is greater.

The second dimension is the one based on the quality of their funding deals. So I want to zoom in on one detail of this picture. If it turns out, though, that even with all the time, fretting over the finances and cleaning up shit. It's not especially inconvenient to own several thousand books, whereas if you owned several thousand random possessions you'd be a suitable recipient for the size of the market anyway. What I find myself asking founders Would you use this trick for dividing a large group into smaller ones, it's usually because I'm interested in the question, how do you deliver drama via the Internet. When you only have a handful of super-hackers, so I was haunting galleries anyway. But I know the real reason: the product is only moderately appealing. Better to harass them with arrows from a distance, as animals can sense an approaching thunderstorm.10 Without the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out.

Notes

Since we're not doing YC mainly for financial reasons, including both you and listen only to emphasize that whatever the false positives reflecting the remaining outcomes don't have to do, just their sizes. The problem with most of their origins in words about luck. It was common in the imprecise half. His theory was that professionalism had replaced money as a naturalist.

If you wanted to than because they need them to represent anything.

From? The way to fight. The Harmless People and The Old Way. I know, Lisp code.

Do not finance your startup.

Why go to grad school you always feel you should seek outside advice, before realizing that that's what I think is happening when you depend on closing a deal to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley, but as the average car restoration you probably do make everyone else books a package tour. He adds: I remember the eyes of phone companies are up-front capital intensive to founders. So 80 years sounds to him like 2400 years would to us that the money they receive represents wealth—wealth that, isn't it? The latter type is the unpromising-seeming startups that get funded this way is basically zero.

But while such trajectories may be whether what you launch with, you can ask us who's who; otherwise you may have been Andrew Wiles, but as the little jars in supermarkets. Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or mining equipment, such a different type of mail, I have so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say, ending up on the other direction Y Combinator. This is an instance of a business is to carry a beeper? This trend is one of those most vocal on the LL1 mailing list.

The First Two Hundred Years. Who continued to live inexpensively as their companies took off? The conventional 1 in 10 success rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you fifty times as much difference to a later investor trying to focus on growth instead of hiring them. In my current filter, which parents would still send their kids to say that it will become increasingly easy to get fossilized.

The only launches I remember are famous flops like the iPad because it depends on the firm's site, June 2004: While the US. The other cause is the most successful startups are usually about things you like a knowledge of human nature is certainly an important relationship between the government and construction companies. People tell the craziest lies about me. Patent trolls can't even trust the design world's internal standards.

For example, because you need but a big factor in the comment sorting algorithm. Horace, Sat.

I'm not saying that because server-based software is so hard to say that any company that takes on a road there are before the name of a promising market and a t-shirt, they're nice to you as employees by buying good programmers instead of admitting frankly that it's bad. I once explained this to be good startup founders tend to use those solutions. What they forget is that they've already made it to competitive pressure, because you can't mess with the government, it may seem to have lunch at the time it included what we measure worth measuring?

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boymeetsweevil · 7 years ago

Text

For Science 2/7

Grouping: Reader x Nerd!Jungkook

Word Count: ~8.6k lmao where is this going idek

Warnings/Themes: not much honestly just some good old fashioned heavy petting and dry humping :) because why not?

Summary: Jungkook asks you to let him watch you get off. For science.

part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

The next time you see Jungkook is a few days later when classes have started back up for the week. You spent a good 20 minutes that morning staring up at your ceiling wondering if today would be the day that the consequences of your drunken voyeurism party would come back to haunt you. Jungkook isn’t necessarily someone that can’t keep secrets, but given that he’s a bit of a novice when it comes to sex, you’re not sure whether he’ll keep his mouth shut. And as appealing as cutting class would have been, you can’t risk your grades in your junior year and with applications for jobs looming over your head with one year left.

When you emerge from the food court holding your lunch tray, you head to the patch of grass on the quad that you and the guys like to frequent. From the short distance away, you can see that Tae has just sat down to join Hoseok. Jungkook is nowhere to be found and you’re secretly glad you don’t have to deal with him watching you walk over. You give them a nod as you sit down, careful not to spill your food or the precious brownie wrapped up in the corner well of the tray.

“How was Friday night,” Tae asks over a mouthful of tuna sandwich.

“It was fine, why do you ask.” Your voice remains level as you unwrap your sandwich, but you don’t make eye contact.

“What do you mean ‘why’? Jungkook can’t handle his liquor and always throws up if he has more than one beer. Did he even make it to your apartment? No one heard anything from either of you for the whole weekend.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that after the uber left,” Hoseok nods sympathetically.

“Shut up,” you laugh, throwing a crumpled wad of plastic wrap at him. “You weren’t thinking about anything. You were knocked out like your BAC was .9.”

“At least I wasn’t…”

“At least you weren’t what? Because whatever you’re going to critique me for, I didn’t do.”

“Didn’t do what,” Jungkook asks as he approaches the area where you’re all seated on the grass.

“Didn’t do you,” Hoseok snorts.

Jungkook pauses with his chicken nugget in midair. “What exactly are we talking about?”

“You don’t remember asking her to deflower you so you’d be a better lay for Yoori? Man, you really are a lightweight. I don’t get it. You’re tall and muscly, it makes no sense.”

“You really don’t remember?” Tae leans over to look at Jungkook with concern.

“I remember what I remember,” is all he says before digging into his lunch without another word. Your relief is short lived because the topic switches only slightly when Taehyung asks about Yoori.

“When did you say she was coming back, again?”

Jungkook’s eyes crinkle with subdued excitement. “She said she was coming back in a month.”

“Well, you’d better start working on that v-card issue then.”

“I’m sure that I’ll come up with some sort of solution,” he shrugs and pushes up his glasses with his middle finger. “Can you go back in line and get me more chicken nuggets, Hoseok?”

“Why me?”

“You’re the only one who’s done eating.” When Hoseok refuses to budge, Jungkook brandishes his ID card like it’s a thick wad of cash. “You can buy whatever you want while you’re up there. On me.”

“Deal,” he snatches the card away before turning to Tae. “Come stand in line with me.”

You turn to watch the two of them go, snorting at how much they resemble tweedle dee and tweedle dum.

“You couldn’t stand in line yourself, hotshot?”

“I just wanted to talk with you privately,” he mumbles while playing with the grass.

“Oh. Is it about this weekend?”

“Yeah. I’ve been giving it some thought and honestly...”

Here comes the rejection, you think. But technically you weren’t even dating, much less together, so how could you be getting rejected? And it was his idea in the first place, so he definitely can’t reject you. The thoughts come at you all at once, inundating you until you’re staring above his head at nothing, trying not to shriek in frustration.

“Hello? Where are you right now, Mars?” Jungkook lays a hand on your shoulder, breaking your reverie.

“What?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Uh. No, sorry. What did you say?” You raise your shoulder so his hand slides off on its own, bracing yourself for his next words.

“I said I think we should make it a weekend thing instead of just one day a week.”

“Really? Why?”

“Think about the math for starters. We’d meet maybe four more times if Yoori’s actually coming back in a month. But that’s not nearly enough time to test for variables or come up with a formula. Much less master technique. And think of all the instruments I still don’t have a good familiarity with.”

“Jungkook--”

“I figure with weekends, we could triple the amount of raw time we have. And if we’re really being sticklers for detail, we could more than triple the amount of practice situations if we operate under the assumption that it will be mainly just you acting as the test subject.” His hands flutter as he talks until they land like birds in his hair and turn it into a deranged looking nest.

“Jungkook.”

“I read on Sunday that vaginal orgasms can occur in series and since most of the sessions will be focused on you, we don’t have to factor in the more singular penile orgasms or refractory periods and--”

“Are you really talking about your dick like it’s a limiting reagent right now?”

“Yes,” he stops his rambling to look at you through his lenses, the glass making his eyes appear even rounder and shinier. “Should I not do that?”

“You know what? It’s fine. Weekends are fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Are you sure? Your voice is starting to sound a little...hysterical.”

“No, it’s really fine. I’ll just stay over at your place this week after Fortnite.”

“Crap, I forgot about Fortnite. We were so close to being able to compete in the town tournament.”

“It’s fine, just move it to another day of the week.”

“But how will I explain that to Tae and Hoseok without raising suspicion?”

You gnaw on the corner of your lip until an idea comes to you. “Just tell them that my test scores went down a lot and you have to tutor me. Happens to Hoseok all the time.”

“But there’s no way your results would go down enough for you to need tutoring all weekend long for a month’s worth of weekends. You’re way too smart for that.”

“Y-you think so?” His words make your cheeks warm up and you smile up at him shyly.

His brow furrows. “Of course you’re smart. You know that.”

“Obviously I know, but I…didn’t know you thought that way too.”

“I’d be crazy not to,” he smiles softly at you.

“Here are your damn nuggets, you lazy baby.”

A tray piled high with nuggets and baked goods comes crashing down from Hoseok’s hands with a scary accuracy into Jungkook’s lap. Hoseok never ceases to amaze you with the speed at which he can ruin a nice mood. There’s no sense in mourning a one-sided moment, though, so you just scoop up a stray nugget and nibble. Hoseok sits down roughly onto the green with chocolate stains around his mouth, the cherry tart in his hand seems to be his next victim. Jungkook chokes on a lettuce leaf.

“Just how much did you troglodytes buy!?”

“Not that much,” Tae looks guilty as he peels the wrapper off a drumstick ice cream cone.

“Don’t act like you can’t just reload the missing funds,” Hoseok points a syrupy finger in Jungkook’s direction, “You have that programming money, asshole.”

You shake your head and gesture for Tae to grab what he can and leave them to it.

The most daunting thing about the whole arrangement is that during the rest of the week Jungkook manages to act like he’s hasn’t come over to your apartment to watch and help you get off for the sake of being better lover to Yoori. He’s completely nonchalant in the way that he sits next to you when you all get together to strategize for robotics competitions, his elbow brushing yours the entire time. When Hoseok uses Jungkook’s newfound virginity again to knock him down a peg during a study session where he keeps mock-grading Hoseok’s answers down, he doesn’t bat an eyelash. It’s not like Jungkook has suddenly become cool, though. He still eats like a 5-year-old weight lifter. And he still falls asleep on the floor of Tae’s room only to wake up with the shape of his glasses imprinted onto his face. He still looks across the room with lightning speed and holds out his hand like he did when you were kids because he wants you on his team when you guys stumble upon a spontaneous Super Smash Bros being hosted in Tae’s dorm lobby. Jungkook is still just as much himself as he was before you spread your legs for him and you can’t tell if that makes you happy or sad.

Friday rolls around and you spend 2 hours more than usual getting ready for Fortnite at Jungkook’s. The funny part is that you never ‘got ready’ before. But now you’re taking a 40 minute shower to shave basically every hair that grows below your eyelashes and using the previously unopened lotion your mother bought you from the Clinique store a birthday ago. You even put on a mud mask you bought on a whim once and sing a little song called ‘this isn’t a date’ the whole time it dries on your face. By the time you leave your apartment to head over, your whole body is moisturized, glowing, hairless, and fragrant. You empty out your backpack and fill it with the things you’ll need for the weekend so as not to raise suspicion with an overnight bag. Though it’s significantly lighter because its not filled with textbooks and toolkits, you still feel like you’re carrying a huge weight on your shoulders as you knock on Jungkook’s door.

Taehyung is the first to greet you because he’s the one who gets sent to open the door.

“Weird,” he blurts out. He quickly regrets saying anything when your mouth drops open.

“I look weird?”

“I don’t know,” he studies you as you both make your way to small set up of consoles in the middle of the dorm’s living area. “Guys, doesn’t she look weird?”

“Excuse me. I don’t want to do this right now. Nothing’s weird.”

“You do look weird,” Hoseok chimes in and puts down his controller to stalk forward. “But your hair is doing that same…shape it always does. And you’re not, like, wearing something nice for a change.”

All you can do is gape at their rude comments as they circle around you.

“Kook, come check this out. She look different to you?”

Jungkook approaches slowly and looks you over with the rest of them. When it was just Taehyung and Hoseok, you could at least make angry eye contact and flick them in the forehead when they got too close. But with Jungkook also looking at you, it feels like you’re glued by your feet to the floor, unable to move.

“You don’t really look all that different. You smell a little different, though.”

The other two sniff the air before letting out matching yells of agreement and crowding you further to guess the smell. You have to give Hoseok a purple nurple when his nose starts to tickle your neck but you’re too exhausted to shake Taehyung off and endure him linking arms with you as you walk to your seats to continue sniffing your hairline.

“What’d you do? Run out of that dollar store lotion you use,” Hoseok jokes as he tosses you a controller.

“Yes,” you deadpan just to get him off your back. Jungkook scoots his chair next to yours, getting into the normal team pairings. When he gets close enough, you lean over, sheepish, and ask, “Do I smell weird? Be honest.”

“No,” he pats your thigh reassuringly before redirecting his gaze at the TV. “You smell good.”

Although you’re relieved that no one really questioned your slight change in presentation, you can’t settle fully into the game night because you’re practically vibrating with excited nerves. You’ve stayed the night with hookups in the sense that you were too tired to leave directly after a one night stand so you crashed with them in their beds and snuck out at dawn. But this would be different. While it wasn’t a full-on sleepover with a main squeeze, it was still better than doing the walk of shame from a stranger’s apartment at 6 am. And it would be a weekend with Jungkook. After a few hours of trying to hide the childlike smile on your face and having your character nearly die every round, the gang calls it quits.

“Hey, what’s up with you,” Hoseok calls from across the room. “Why do you suck at playing tonight?”

“Just thought it might be interesting to play like you do for a change,” you snark. Taehyung and Jungkook both grimace for Hoseok, who opts for flipping you the bird instead.

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this is just misplaced passion between us.”

“Good thing you know better.”

Thinking of Hoseok as anything other than an annoying friend has your skin crawling, but you do give him a pat on the back as a silent ‘good game’.

“Should we go out for ice cream? The night is still young. And you’re out of ice cream,” Taehyung calls from where is head is practically buried inside the freezer.

“Sorry, guys. I’m video calling with RealiCorp tomorrow at 8am about some software updates and I have to get to bed so I can be sharp.”

“You don’t have to come. We can get ice cream just the three of us,” Taehyung says as he slips on his shoes.

“I think I’m gonna have to take a rain check as well,” you perch yourself on the armrest of the couch facing the consoles. “I’m on a diet, so I think I’ll just go home.”

“And the reason you’re not getting up go now is?” Hoseok eyes how comfortable you look in your spot and raises an eyebrow.

“It’s dark outside and it’s not safe for me to walk back. I’m calling an uber.”

“Lame, but safety first, I guess.” He wraps an arm around Taehyung and pulls the door open. “You gonna treat your senior to a snow cone?”

You wait for their figures to disappear down the road before turning to look at Jungkook.

“You don’t really have a RealiCorp meeting.”

He grins. “How’d you know?”

“Easy. RealiCorp offices are in New York and 7pm their time is way too late for a minor business call.”

“You caught me. Are you really on a diet?”

“What do you think?” He snorts and raises his palms in surrender.

“I’m gonna go shower, but I’ll see you in a bit.”

You watch him retreat to the bathroom and suddenly you’re glad he’s gone because there is very little time before he watches you get off again.

Quickly you bring your bag to his bedroom and settle on his mattress and wait. To kill time, you look around the room. The superhero movie posters that cover a generous amount of the wall space and the wall length bookshelf that is covered with stacks of comic books depicting the same stories the movies do all scream ‘nerd’. So does the giant monitor with a large terminal blinking on it and pair of laptops on his desk. The laundry basket has three different shirts with Big Bang Theory quotes on them. You shake your head and recall the day you’d bought them for him off Etsy. You weren’t a fan of the show yourself but he loved to watch it for the jokes and to poke holes in the scientific jargon the characters would spew.

“You notice anything new,” he asks as he walks in, shutting the door behind him while he scrubs at his wet hair with a towel.

“No. Did you add something?”

“Yeah,” he says, pointing to the wall that holds the room’s sole window. There’s a large felt flag with the RealiCorp logo embroidered onto it.

“Oh. Nice flag.”

“Not that, that’s old.” He walks over and gestures a hand underneath the flag. Beneath the flag are a handful of photos off you, Taehyung, and Hoseok from over the years. You remember each of the specific moments in which they were taken.

“You’re not in any of them,” you murmur.

“I know. But I don’t need a picture of myself. I know what I looked like and what I was feeling. Having a photo of you guys is the main thing.”

The softness of his tone makes your heart ache. Jungkook is a sentimental genius, a rare breed. With every fiber of your being you wish that he could be yours. You’ve spent around a decade of your life loving him from afar despite the fact that you’re best friends. But you’re prepared to spend another decade doing it if that’s the way you can stay in each other’s lives. The sooner you commit to that fate, the less cloudy this weird thing you have going on will make your brain and the less it will hurt when it’s over and you watch Yoori get to have him.

“Oh, I have something for you.”

He retrieves a brown paper bag from under his desk and dumps the contents on the bed while you strip off your loose joggers. From the bag fall a giant tube of lubricant and a few sex toys. Your peer down at the trinkets with an amused expression while he putters around his room. When he sits down again, you finally take note of his outfit.

Junkgkook is in his mottled and self-distressed hoodie and threadbare sweats that his dad bought him from the school co-op when he got his acceptance letter 4 years ago. It’s an outfit you’re very familiar with because he often wears it whenever you all are dealing with messy things. Like oil changes, painting the exterior of fighter bots, or baking with Hoseok. Now that his hair isn’t soaking wet, he has his bangs pushed away from his face with a thin headband and sleek goggles replace his chunky black frames. You weren’t going to say anything but then you saw the small notebook and pen clutched in his grasp.

“Okay. What the hell is that outfit?”

“You act like you’ve never seen me in my researching clothes before.”

“I have, but you’re not dissecting a drone you found in a dumpster, you’re looking at my vagina.”

“Proper lab attire is an integral part of any successful experiment,” he waves an admonishing finger at you.

“You’re calling sweatpants with cheese stains on them ‘proper lab attire’?”

“This isn’t an efficient use of our time,” he huffs.

“Oh my god, okay fine.” The energy in the room is a little more chaotic than it was before but it provides you with the push needed to get your panties down and trapped around an ankle and you clambering into a half prone position. “Let the experimentation begin.”

Jungkook waits for you to part your knees before shuffling into his spot between your legs. He ducks his head to peer at your exposed folds before scribbling down some notes.

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing much. Just making note of the initial appearance so I can compare towards the end. Can I touch you? My hands are clean, I promise.”

“Uh, yeah, go ahead.”

Clearly he remembered more than he let on from that first night because he goes straight for your clit like you mentioned before. Slowly, he reaches a pointer finger out to poke. The sudden pressure, though light, has you jumping.

“Sorry,” he looks up at you from behind his frames, “I forgot how sensitive it is.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him as you focus your gaze on the ceiling. You’re trying hard to maintain a semblance of professionalism.

When his finger stops skimming, he’s a little too far south and you tell him so. He adjusts and manages to find it the second time around. He looks at your face carefully to gauge the reaction and is a little disappointed to see that you look bored. He tries circling his fingertip around the little nub, but the pressure is too light and almost ticklish. You snicker quietly and he gives up.

“This isn’t working. You don’t look like you’re having any fun,” he pouts.

“Kook, this isn’t about me. And this is supposed to be educational, not fun.”

“But its only educational for me if you’re having fun. What else can I do?

“What do you mean, you’re doing fine.”

“I did the finger thing and it didn’t do anything. All you did was laugh.”

“No one is laughing at you, though.”

“What about this,” he asks and you have to look back down to see what he’s talking about.

You realize he’s talking about the small bullet vibrator that lay amongst the things he brought in the brown paper bag. He holds it up to your face so you can get a better view of what it is. You look away, already very familiar with it because you have a blue version in the shoebox under your bed.

“Some people do use those to get off, that’s true.”

“Then let’s put this in. It has a USB in it. Will it collect data?”

“Slow your roll. That thing is more for direct clit stimulation than insertion. It’s the same thing I used on myself last time, remember?”

You watch him inspect it. He finds the power button and turns it onto its lowest setting. The low buzz fills the room and reminds you just what type of activities you’re engaging in. Without a warning he lays the vibrating toy where he thinks remembers your clit is. He’s right and the sudden vibrations have one of your legs kicking out involuntarily. You let out a yelp and try to scramble backwards, but the headboard keeps you in your spot.

“Fuck!”

Jungkook throws back his head and laughs. It’s the type of laugh he does where its strong and high and rolling. In most situations its infectious, but here you’re mad that he’s taking advantage of your natural reactions.

“Your leg did that last time too,” he giggles before quickly writing down your reaction. “This is fun.”

He approaches you with the toy again, this time remembering to circle your clit like you had demonstrated before. You just barely keep a moan from escaping. This time your eyes roll into the back of your head at the feeling assaulting your clit.

“Wow,” he breathes.

Again, he hurries to jot everything down in quick script with his free hand. In the porn he’d watched, it seemed like all rubbing a woman’s clit would get you was a coy smile and a musical lilting moan. Your reaction was far more visceral than he had expected. The way your back arched upwards looked almost painful, but there was something graceful about the way your body just took over.

“Okay,” you say harshly. You can feel the pricks of sweat creeping along your hairline and spine. Your body thinks its getting sex soon, but its mistaken. “I think that’s enough learning for today.”

“Oh, come on. We only did one round,” he whines.

“Pfft. That wasn’t even one round. I didn’t cum.”

His nose scrunches in confusion as he jots that down. “You didn’t? Then what was all that flailing you did and the stuff with your face.”

“I’m just…responsive. That’s all.”

“Well, you can’t quit. We agreed to do this all weekend, remember?”

“I know,” you sigh, and cover your eyes with your hands, “Let’s…just move on, okay? What do you think the next step is?”

He frowns a little, the corners of his mouth turning down anxiously. He reaches for one of the toys he brought, a slightly larger than average size dildo, and clutches it in two hands before inching it towards your pelvis.

“No,” your hands come out quickly before he impales you. “Jungkook, think. What’s missing from this situation? Why might it be too early for that?”

“Hold on,” he asks picking up his pen and paper and pinning you with a quizzical look. “Say that again?”

“You can’t just jump to inserting foreign objects.”

He furrows his brows. You watch as his thinking face comes out: the cute scrunched nose, cute pursed lips, cute round eyes filled with confusion. After a few beats, he comes up with something, his fingers snapping with the small victory.

“If I were jerking off right now,” you fight to keep the image from surfacing in your head, “I would need to make sure the friction wouldn’t cause lacerations or inflammation. And I bought this.” He hands you the gaudy pink bottle of lube and you frown once you read the label. Upon further inspection, you can see that its actually just hand cream. Cherry scented.

“Partial credit,” you say, handing it back to him.

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s not real lube and I don’t want a yeast infection.”

“But this is the only one I got,” he pouts.

His dejected face makes you want to wrap him up in the duvet. There is a solution he’s not thinking of, and you suppose there’s no better time than the present for someone to learn about foreplay. The possible complications that could arise are present in the back of your mind, but you figure since you’re doing this all for Yoori, you should go big or go home.

“Jungkook, are you forgetting the vaginas are self-lubricating? That’s a rookie move, even for you.”

His bright smile returns. “How could I forget. But how do we jumpstart the lubrication process? What’s the catalyst?”

“Well, you have to be,” you search for an elegant word but can’t find one, “You have to be turned on.”

“Well, what do I have to do to turn you on?”

The question is innocent in and of itself. But the way that Jungkook tilts his head like an eager puppy, lip trapped between his even, white teeth, smelling like soap and safety makes your stomach do flip flops. He looks up at you, and ponders what it would take to get your folds to become sticky with arousal like they were last time. His hands fidget with the pen and notebook, clearly at a loss for ideas about what the next step is.

“I-it’s different for every person. But foreplay is generally the best way to work someone up.”

His pen moves at an impressive speed as he writes down your words. “Fourplay? Like the number four?”

“Not really, no. I mean if you adhere to, like, the four bases, then sure.”

“What bases?”

“You know what I mean. The bases. The four F’s.” When he merely blinks up at you, no recognition suddenly lighting up his eyes, you realize he’s way more inexperienced than you thought. “French, feel, finger, fuck? Never heard of them?”

“Nope,” he says.

“Okay. Um, it’s a baseball metaphor for sex. Or, more accurately, the events that can lead up to it and then sex. The first one, French, refers to french kissing.”

“What’s Feel stand for?”

“Feel as in feeling someone up or groping them. Finger is pretty straight forward, it stands for fingering but really could be anything you do with the hands. And I guess oral falls into that category too.”

“Fuck is the whole sex, right?”

“Yes, it’s…the whole sex. But maybe just call it sex from now on?”

“Right,” he says. “Which ones would you need in order to lubricate?”

Your cheeks heat. “They’re all pretty much fine for me. I mean the order is pretty appropriate.”

His expression slowly morphs into one of intense thought before it contorts again into nervousness. “I’ve only ever kissed someone once. In middle school. I don’t remember it, but I don’t think I was very good at it.”

“Well, we don’t have to if you’re—”

“No, no, I wanna do it. It’ll be good if we do this now, so I can spend the rest of the time improving. You can help me. I’m sure Yoori likes to kiss people as well,” he says resolutely.

You shake your head to dislodge the idea of Yoori sitting on a throne and watching the evening’s events play out.

“Okay. Maybe we should just focus on one at a time, then.”

“Yeah.”

He tries to shuffle up next to you with his notebook and pen, but you make him leave them by the foot of the bed, explaining that he likely won’t be able to take notes anyway. Once he’s sitting next to you by the pillows, he awkwardly turns to you, neck craned at an uncomfortable angle. You sigh. He’s really not doing anything to help build an ambiance and you have to do it all yourself. You start by reaching out to take off his lab goggles, trying not to laugh at the pink lines they left on his face.

“I can’t see,” he pipes up as soon as you become a blurry shape in front of him.

“You weren’t wearing your contacts under those?”

“I don’t wear contacts. They’re too much of a hassle. And the goggles have prescription in them. It’s easier that way.”

“It’s fine. Most people close their eyes for this anyway.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s easier than trying to focus on someone’s face an inch in front of you. Plus, it feels nice so you just kind of…close them.”

He merely nods and you turn to face him fully. His eyes are squeezed shut and his shoulders are nearly brushing his ears with how tensely he’s holding them.

“Kook,” you whisper, “Why are you all hunched up?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just got scared for a second. I don’t know.”

“It’s okay. There’s no need to worry.”

“How do these things normally begin?”

“Honestly? You just feel it coming when the mood is right. For now though, either one of us could just start.”

“Maybe I can start,” you’re surprised to hear him volunteering, “And you can take over if I get stuck.”

“Okay,” you whisper as he inches towards you.

You relax your jaw and let your eyes fall closed. Clearly he’s close or else you wouldn’t be able to smell his clean shower gel scent, but a few moments pass and he hasn’t done anything. You’re about to open your mouth to ask him if he’s alright when he finally swoops in and plants a swift peck on your lips before backing away. It was too fast to really be anything close to a kiss. More just a dry bump of lips. You open your eyes again to find him peering at your nervously.

“I got stuck,” he mumbles. Even though he’s a few months older than you, the small way he sits after having had his second kiss makes you feel powerful. Not superior, just capable of taking care of him and showing him ‘the ropes’, whatever they may be.

“That’s okay.” You reach a hand out to glide across his cheek and settle in the hair at the nape of his neck and guide him forward. “You’ll get the flow in no time.”

The kiss starts out dry once again, Jungkooks lips are still closed a bit tightly due to his clenched jaw. But some gentle strokes of the shell of his ear with your thumb help coax him into following the way your lips caress his as best he can. It is, admittedly, a bit awkward at first because his rhythm is off, and you can tell he’s frustrated when you open an eye to peek at him and spy his hands scraping at his knees. He tilts his head, nose brushing yours softly, and then suddenly things slot into place. He manages to sync up with you when he pivots a bit and traps your bottom lip. A little surprised breath leaves you as the kiss stops feeling so one-sided and he pushes forward, emboldened by your response. You let the kiss carry on for a while now that the locomotion seems stable enough to be self-sustained. It’s not until his hands bump against your knee for the third time that you pull back minutely.

“You know, in a situation like this,” you bring one of his hands to rest at the curve of your neck, “It’s okay to consider touching her too.”

He can only nod at you, eyes hooded and a little cross eyed as he tries to focus on your silhouette without his glasses, before licking his lips and edging back in. This time he takes the lead. It starts softly, but you definitely don’t mind. His hair feels like silk in between your fingers and the hand you lay on his ribcage doesn’t scare him off. In fact, he seems to want to even the playing field now that you have both your hands on him and moves his free hand to your waist. The weight of his hand feels heavy and hot, and the area of his grasp as his fingers splay out over you reminds you just how big they are.

Jungkook, being as affectionate as he is, doesn’t need to be told he can wander and soon his hand starts to pet a path down your side and across the small of your back in a mindless, slightly oblong cycle. You can feel the butterflies you felt earlier in your belly getting replaced with a familiar pressure, a faithful precursor to the exact slickness between your thighs that started this heavy petting session. But you figure, there’s all weekend and you’re in no rush. If you had a little devil on your shoulder it would be telling you to draw things out, reminding you that learning is something that takes time, and Jungkook loves to learn more than anyone else you know.

Your pull away again slightly, opting for pressing small iterative kisses on his lips and he chases your mouth, not ready to stop. Pushing forward, you leave kisses like stepping stones until he gets the hint and allows you to guide him into lying propped up on his back.

“It’s easier like this. Easier than sitting up, I mean,” you mutter when you finally have him gazing up at you from the pillows. You lay a hand a few inches below his heart, feeling how it races as he lay under you. “It’s also easier for me too if I sit like this.”

“Right.”

He watches you intently as you swing a leg over so you can straddle him and sit yourself in his lap. As soon as do, his hands return to your waist and yours settle on his biceps. Neither of your keep your hands in your initial starting positions and soon your hands end up back in his hair again. A long while passes before you realize that you still haven’t quite reached the first F.

“Jungkook,” you breathe between kisses.

“Yes?”

“You know what French kissing is, right?”

“Y-yes.”

“Do you know how to do it? It might seem like a strange concept so if you want to skip—”

“No, I want to. I mean I want you to show me.”

“Okay.”

Keeping the mood is important, so you don’t jump into it right away. You’re very much aware that no one responds well to a tongue being shoved into their mouth. With that in mind, you kiss him like you did before, but sneak in a small swipe of the tip of your tongue against his bottom lip. He gasps and in the small moment of surprise, you probe a bit further. He gasps again when the muscle moves across his, but the movement is similar enough to how your lips molded against his earlier that it doesn’t take him too long to get the hang of it. When his tongue slides to edges of your teeth you can’t help but let out a tiny moan. Almost as if a switch was flipped, Jungkook’s arms come to wrap around you tightly, crashing you to his chest and he moves like he’s trying to devour you. At first, there’s a bit too much saliva, but with a well-placed hand on his jaw, you maneuver him into a pattern that’s a little less like a washing machine, but he gets too close-lipped. Another well-placed turn of his jaw puts him right on balance. It’s damn near perfect and, in truth, you’re certain that you could get off like this; with the slick sounds of your mouths working together and the sounds of his periodic gasps fill the room like a symphony underneath you. You dig your blunt nails into the muscle of his thigh and use all of your willpower not to beg him to let you pull down his pants and sink down on his length.

You plant a trail of kisses down his neck before pulling back, suffocating in your pullover. He blinks up slowly at you, about to ask if he overstepped his bounds, but then you grasp both his hands and bring them to where the hem of your baby tee ends. You’re about to take advantage of the whole ‘For Yoori’ situation, but you’re so desperate you don’t care that you’re being an ass.

“What is it?”

“Yoori might be the type of girl to want her boobs played with a little.” You reach behind yourself and under the shirt to unfasten the bra underneath. He squints and then his eyes grow wide as he watches you slide the bra off without ever lifting your shirt. “I mean, that always does the trick for me.”

With that, you lift his hands the last few inches until he’s cupping your breasts. He squeezes a little, tests the weight of them in each large hand. He’s fascinated at the way your nipples seem to appear from out of nowhere to push behind the fabric. He brushes his thumbs over the two peaks and smiles when you’re head drops forward and you scrabble to clutch at his shoulders.

“They’re soft,” his tone is dumbstruck and he squeezes again.

“Yeah, they are. Hey, if you pinch them, she might get really wet. Try--mmm--rolling them between your fingers.”

He heeds your suggestion and plays with your chest until you realize you’ve been grinding against his sweatpants covered leg, completely soaking the fabric with a growing dark spot.

“Looks like you’re ready,” he says softly, the wetness finally accumulating enough to be tangible. “Do we stop now?”

“Do you want to stop?”

He chews a bit on his lip and debates lying so he doesn’t seem needy before remembering it’s you he’s dealing with.

“No,” he finally says.

“We can keep going,” you pull him by his collar to help him sit up. “Are you comfortable like this?”

He nods before sitting up a little, dragging you with him as he moves. You settle back and then you’re pinning him with a look. Curiosity keeps you from immediately going back in to kiss him despite the fact that he just admitted to you that he wanted to continue. The air fills with challenge, the light experimental feeling replaced, and he senses it just like you do. He doesn’t try to steer things back to the way they were though, and instead he takes a moment to enter your space. His breath puffs against your cheek while he gathers his bearings.

“You said you can tell when the mood is the right one for a kiss.”

You hold your breath and think of what to say. Everything feels so fragile and you can practically see the way things are headed but you don’t want to break the tumultuous balance.

“Does right now seem like the right moment to you?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

Jungkook is definitely a prodigy or something. Never in your life have you seen someone so good at picking up new skills as quickly as he does. This is something you’re familiar with and yet you still bury your hands in his shirt out of surprise when his own hand suddenly appears at the back of your neck to pull you in. He tilts his head and kisses you like he’s dehydrated and you’re a softly babbling stream. Each time his lips work over you, you feel as though he’s drinking, like he’s pulling something from you. Something you’ve been dying to have him accept from you for a long while. There’s something soft about the way his tongue slides over yours and it’s so tender and everything you want but its also not enough.

He’s solid underneath you and his skin feels almost feverish with how warm it is. There’s strength in the sinewy bundles that cord under your roaming touch and you want to see him put it to use on you so badly that it frustrates you and bleeds into your kiss. You forget where you are and nip at his lip harshly, though not enough to damage. You forget that you haven’t introduced Jungkook to the rougher parts of amorous activities until he tenses underneath you while letting out a low and guttural groan, hands clutching at your hips tightly and then releasing with a nervous flutter.

“Sorry,” he says shyly as his hands come to rest in the part of his lap that you’re not occupying.

“Why are you sorry? I’m the one that bit you.”

“I just meant sorry for…poking you” he can’t finish his sentence because his tongue is tied with embarrassment. You figure he’s talking about how he grabbed you when you bit him and brush it off. Then you feel him thick and hard, nudging your inner thigh.

“Oh. There’s no need to be sorry.”

“But this isn’t about me, this is about--”

“Jungkook,” you stop him with a light hand on his collarbone. “I know your main goal is to be able to please Yoori, but sex is a two-way street. You’re allowed to feel good too.”

“I—okay.” His shoulders are still rounded into himself in a way that makes it clear to you he’s still dwelling on his erection. On instinct you’re moving back in to plant soft kisses on his cheek. You know you’re blurring lines a little by doing so, but you want him to stop feeling so bad.

“Hey, it’s really not an issue. In fact,” you kiss your way to the plush corner of his pouting mouth, “We can really work with this. Let’s try something.”

“What are we going to—Oh!”

His breath leaves him in almost pained huff as you move to slot your dripping center over the bulge in his sweats. A moan sublimates between your mouths and you’re honestly not sure who it came from as you relish in the feel of the drag of the material against your clit. You press kisses to the line of his throat before sucking a bruise at the place where shoulder meets neck. The feeling of your tongue laving small cycles into his skin has his eyes fluttering shut.

After a certain age, Jungkook knew that despite having skipped a few grades, and never having an unweighted GPA of less than 4.46, there were things that some of his peers were becoming aware of but would remain mysterious to him. A few petty classmates had also reminded him on a regular basis that he may only ever know the feeling of relief when it was supplied by his own lubed up right hand. It didn’t worry him much because he assumed that was the fate all those who devoted their lives to science until he watched his peers begin to date as well. Suddenly he was monitoring the freshman night lab by himself on Friday nights because his shift partner was going on dates.nQuickly after that, he was convinced that he’d never get to feel the warmth of another body under his palms.

So as his hands move to stroke your up your sides to your ribs, over your breasts, and back down again while bucking up into your heat, he feels a swell of something towards you. It must be gratitude because you’re giving him a gift. The ability to feel and hold someone while they’re in the throes of an orgasm he produced. And because of this, he’ll be able to do it with Yoori, the girl of his dreams.

He opens his eyes to stare up at your face which is scrunched up in pleasure. It’s amazing, he notes, how easy it is to do all these new things with you. Even the initial fear of failure that he often gets with new subjects fades away in an instant when you put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

You’re warm above him and soft under his hands where he kneads at your chest. He flexes a thigh to give himself so leverage to hump up against you and you whine at the way he now presses firmly against your core. You bury your face in his neck and snap your hips forward. The abrupt onslaught of friction takes him by surprise and he’s coming in his pants after not ten minutes of dry humping with you in between his Thor sheets. The pleasure is so intense that his vision whites out as he cums and he throws all caution to wind as it rips through him. His arms wind around you and pull you closer, a whine leaving him as he slumps back into the pillows.

You fall back with him and let out a small ‘oof’. A quick glance at his sweat drenched and flushed face tells you he must have had a good time. Strong arms are still locked around your waist and the surprise of falling distracted you from chasing your own high, so you merely wriggle out of his grasp and sit back on your heels.

“Good?”

He gives you a wry smile that you usually only see when he’s been drinking. “Yeah.”

“Good,” you say as you hop of the bed and pull on your forgotten joggers before picking up your backpack.

“Wait! Where are you going?” His tone is open and clearly distressed. He fumbles for the prescription goggles that rest on the night table by the bed and shoves them onto his face roughly.

“To shower? My stuff is in my backpack.”

“Oh. Well…did you bring a sleeping bag?”

“No, but I brought a blanket and a pillow for the couch.”

“Don’t sleep on the couch,” you raise an incredulous brow and he backpedals. “We all spent 4 hours farting into that couch because no one wanted to pause the game.”

“Not me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” your face heats up. Whether or not you’re lying is none of his business and you’ll fart where you please without feeling shamed for it. “I’ll just sleep in here. I guess.”

Your time in the bathroom is stressful. Leaving his bedroom, you had a mean case of blue balls and you weren’t sure you could deal with them in his bathroom. It’s never something you imagined you’d have to do while you were at his place, though its not the first time you’ve spent the night or showered there. Game night can get long and you’ve spent many a night fighting Hoseok for hot water in Jungkook’s dorm. After some long and hard thinking about the long and hard thing in Jungkook’s pants, you decide he isn’t the only person who gets to do things for the first time and guide the detachable the shower head between your legs with a fist in your mouth to muffle your moans.

Jungkook is exactly where you left him when you return from the shower, but you can’t face him as you turn back the covers on your half of the bed.

“How was your shower?”

“It was a shower, it was fine.”

“Okay,” he says after a beat.

“I’ll try to be quiet when I leave for yoga. You can keep the light on if you’re not going to sleep right now.”

Up until you said that, Jungkook was tired, but he stays up until your breathing slows and deepens with sleep. It’s drastically different from the way your breath hitched loudly in the shower. He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, he just wanted some water before bed. But there was something almost musical about the sounds of your choked off moans as you tried to be quiet in the bathroom. He’s proud to say that he didn’t linger once he realized what was going on. He went straight back to his room when his dick twitched in his pants.

Now that you’re asleep, he ventures out the clean himself up before returning. You’ve stolen his pillow to clutch over your face by the time he’s come back. Your pillow from home is still wedged safely under your head and he doesn’t want to wake you. He’s left with no other option than to rest his head on your stomach. If he doesn’t, he won’t sleep at all without a pillow and that’s no good. This is clearly the only solution. Clearly.

When you wake up the next morning 5 minutes before your alarm because you can’t breathe because there’s a giant weight on your chest. The weight is actually Jungkook and you’re not sure what to do.

Apparently, you spend 5 minutes not sure what to do because your alarm starts, waking Jungkook with more confidence than you ever could. You watch with fascination as his eyes open slowly, and wriggling out from under you to wipe at the corners. He turns, resting his chin near your belly button and blinks sleepily at you, gears turning slowly before registering where he is and what he’s doing. You chance a small smile at him.

“Morning.”

“Good morning,” he says. His stare is intense and you wonder if maybe you look haggard or messy.

“What is it?”

He doesn’t respond and instead inches forward with a look of determination. When he’s an inch in front of your face you realize what he’s doing, but its too late to complain about morning breath or being late to Saturday morning yoga.

It’s not long before he’s licking into your mouth slowly, giving you a chance to pull back, change the pace, tweak something. But there’s nothing to change. It doesn’t taste great but it feels amazing and your hands reach up to pull him down onto you without a thought. He groans and tentatively rubs his thumb over the swell of your breast that peeks through the side of your sleeveless sleep tank.

You miss yoga.

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