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pluto-art · 4 years ago

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Syncytium - Chapter 1

Title: Syncytium Words: 3,311 Rating: T Summary: Teacher AU. Takes place in a fictional universe in which Professor Ronald Pinkus and Dr. Brian T. Globetrotter (played by Pinky and Brain, respectively) are college professors at an esteemed school for mice that focuses on science and the arts. Mainly told from Brain's point of view; sometimes from Pinky's. He's too egotistical for his own good. Pinky is too happy-go-lucky for his own good. The two clash. High jinks ensue. Dr. Globetrotter gets more than he bargained for. Way more than he bargained for...

Fan fiction link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13712482/1/Syncytium

This was 100% inspired by the drawings I did of Brain and Pinky as professors. It’s planned to be a multi-chapter story, and I already have the major points of the entire story outlined. Here be chapter one. Enjoy.

Syncytium - n. a single cell or cytoplasmic mass containing several nuclei, formed by fusion of cells or by division of nuclei.

\/\/\/\/\/\/

January 17, 1994 - 4:35 AM

Darkness.

All around them was dark, it's impenetrable cloak cut only by the crimson beat of the emergency lights.

No one could see them. No one could hear them. No one even knew they were there. But if they could see them, by way of those steady emergency flashes, they'd make out an aging mouse struggling to carry his blue-eyed comrade to safety, light reflecting off his broken glasses. And if they could hear them, all they'd pick up, aside from a distant alarm, would be a heavy, breathless panting.

Brian paused in his efforts to set down the taller, much lankier mouse on the concrete below, an arm coming 'round to support his friend's head. Heavy lids threatened to close their curtains on a pair of periwinkle eyes, their owner barely managing to stay awake.

"Pinky... Pinky, wake up!"

Nothing.

"Pinky!"

He tapped his cheek sharply.

Slowly, surely, the other mouse awakened.

"Brain...?"

"Yes, Pinky. I'm here. I'm here."

"Brain...," Pinky whispered, a paw coming up to grasp his arm tightly before his head fell back into Brain's palm.

"It's all right," cooed Brian. "It's all right, Pinky. I've got you. Shhh. Shhh. I've got you. Shhhhhh shhh shhh shhh..."

\/\/\/\/\/\/

September 10th, 1993 - 7:30 AM

Darkness.

"Sh sh sh! Quiet! Everyone calm down! Quiet!"

A pencil sharpened. A ruler placed just so on a dated, mahogany table. Half-moon violet glasses were pushed square up against a pair of pink, deadpan eyes by a delicate, nail-bitten finger.

"Good evening, class," droned Dr. Brian T. Globetrotter. "Today we shall be delving into the fascinating subject of cellular mitosis..."

Sunlight, warm and bright and quite the opposite of the teacher it poured the morning's blessing onto, shone through the dark, wooden blinds of the university classroom, the better to illuminate the scene. Rows and rows of mahogany benches, arranged in a stadium format, and each with a polished table set in front of it, could barely be seen thanks to the sheer number of students adorning every bit of space available. It wasn't cramped, per say, but it was filled. Not a seat was left, and not for reason of enthusiasm. The countenance of those in attendance told all: no one was here because they wanted to be, but because they needed to be. Required classes were always the least interesting, and the occasional passed note or whispered joke barely managed to keep the atmosphere animated, provided one was even able to communicate such messages without getting caught. It was common knowledge that this particular professor had no room for flippancy. Detentions were a standard affair. Not being spoken to or called upon was considered a kindness.

Said teacher continued his sunrise spiel, seemingly oblivious to the complete lack of interest permeating the room as he droned on and on about the fascinating life of the cell.

Fascinating, indeed. If he at all harbored any excitement about the subject his profile certainly failed to project it, his demure expression reflected on the faces of practically every student in the room. Only one outlier remained: a golden-furred girl mouse, glasses a little askew, cheek resting against her paw as she sighed dreamily. An equally amber-tinted mouse beside her rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"The intricacies of such a seemingly primitive topic are much more complex and absorbing than might first be assumed, and although I don't expect any of you to give a Heterocephalus Glaber's crotch about an ounce of it, we are henceforth going to engage in the undoubtedly invaluable study regardless."

Somewhere in the back, a student scribbled "Heterocephalus Glaber's crotch" on a page of his journal labeled "The Globular List of Insults", sniggering to his freckled companion.

"Please turn your attention to page seventy-five of your textbooks. We will begin with the genesis of the process, in which a single cell divides into..."

But whatever that cell was going to divide into had to be put on hold, for at that moment the classroom door flung open to reveal a completely new fascination entirely.

"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Judson!" blurted out the newcomer, one foot in the door and the other still sticking outside the classroom, a loaded box of paraphernalia nestled precariously in his arms. "I'll never forget this! I promise to pay you back with a whoooooole bouquet of flowers! Nya-ha-ha-ha!"

In he tumbled, paraphernalia and all, right onto Brian T. Globetrotter's desk, knocking an ink pen, two calculators, and his name sign off the table in the process.

"Whoops! Eheh. Sorry! I'll get that for you!" offered the mouse, hastening to clean up his mess, albeit rather haphazardly.

"Wha-... What are you doing here?! I am in the middle of a very important session!" growled Globetrotter.

"Oh, yes, and I'm sure it's a very lovely session, too! But... if you don't mind my asking...," and he got right up to the other's ear and whispered: "Isn't this, ummm, my room?"

"Wha-? Puh... It most certainly is not! This is my classroom and you're intruding!" Globetrotter spluttered, poking a finger into the newcomer's chest for greater emphasis.

Three rows up, a student typed furiously on his phone: New teacher about to get ROASTED by Mr. B.

"Well, how do you figure that one?" the other mouse questioned.

"Maybe you should read the fine print?!"

And with the starkest finality he could muster, he picked up his name sign and slammed it down in front of the other mouse, turning it so that the name BRIAN T. GLOBETROTTER on the front flashed out proud as anything. The new teacher didn't seem at all perturbed by such harsh behavior. Indeed, he put his face right up to the sign, tipped down his own pair of half-moon glasses, and carefully read each word, muttering them to himself softly.

"Oh! Well, that's different then, isn't it?" he declared, straightening up to smile brightly at his fellow colleague. "But, umm, you might want to change the name there, don't you think? I mean, it says "globe trotter", but I don't see you trotting around any globes. No. Not at all. More like globe sitter. Ha-ha-ha!"

Globetrotter stared at the newcomer, mouth agape. It was all he could do at the moment, taken aback by the sheer audacity of this... figure and the pure chaos he had caused. Half the room was already in hysterics, for his buck-toothed make and slight slur, coupled with a lightly pronounced Cockney accent, made his proclamation of "sitter" sound like a different word entirely.

Everything about this mouse was... off. Compared to Globetrotter he was exceptionally tall and lanky, all the more exacerbated by the fact that Brian was quite a short mouse to begin with; he had to crane his neck to look up at him. His laugh was prominent, and his eyes were an astonishing robin's egg blue. Never in his lifetime had Globetrotter ever seen a mouse with eyes that color; he hazarded to guess they were contacts. He wore a lab coat, but only out of necessity, it seemed, for it clashed with the rest of his outfit: a pink polo-style shirt with some band's logo slapped on the front, striped corduroy pants that sported every color of the rainbow, and what looked to be black and white bowling shoes. It was as if a Goofy cartoon had vomited all over him. The heavy cardboard box he'd unceremoniously deposited on Globetrotter's table seemed to carry all assortment of bits and bobs - a globe, several petri dishes, a bag of chips, a baseball cap, some notepads and pens, a small keyboard, a roll of Gouda, some tape, a framed photograph, a book on Regis Philbin, two VHS tapes of The Honeymooners, and not one... but three Bunsen Burners, as if he had packed them in a feeble attempt to complete the look of someone who was supposedly intelligent. Every eye in the room had turned towards him as he entered, and every eye had stayed on him since. Golden-haired girl had actually dropped her pencil, grabbed her brother by the shirt sleeve, and clutched at her heart, a light whisper of, "Oh my gosh, he's hot...," fluttering past her lips. Her brother facepalmed. To complete the effect, he carried under his arm a pad hosting a number of rather childish stickers, which Globetrotter grabbed from him.

"Shut up!" he snapped at his students, who were still chuckling. They all quieted down at once. "Dr. Ronald Pinkus, Professor of Trozology," Globetrotter read aloud, disgust painting every syllable. "What in the bloody hell is 'Trozology'?"

"Oh, well, it's very simple, really. It's-," Ronald began, but at that moment, a wee mouse popped in, her eyes nearly covered by a pudgy blue tam o' shanter.

"Excuse me? Mr. Pinkus?" she squeaked, thick Scottish accent nearly muffled by the gray scarf swathed about her.

"Please, call me Pinky!" Ronald squeaked back.

The girl smiled and giggled.

"Pinky. Mrs. Judson told me to tell you that you're actually in two ten, not three nineteen."

"Hm? Ohhhhhh!" the one named Pinky exclaimed, peeking at the front of Globetrotter's classroom door. A giant number '319' was painted on its front. "That does explain things, doesn't it?"

"Yes. Now, would you kindly disencumber my desk and plant your quixotic accoutrements elsewhere?" Globetrotter fronted, already pushing Pinky's possessions towards him, and would have thrust it clear off the desk had it not been for Pinky's quick reflexes. He grabbed his loaded box, that ridiculous grin still plastered on his face.

"Thank you, Mr. Brain! And thank you, Ms... errrr...?"

"Flaversham. Olivia Flaversham," piped the girl, beaming from head to toe.

"Thank you, Olivia!"

And he waved at her, as best he could anyway, nearly losing the box as Olivia waved back and skipped off. Shifting his grip so as to take better hold of his possessions, Pinky turned to Globetrotter, panting a little.

"Oh, I'm so sorry for barging in on your class, Mr. Brain. It won't happen again!"

"It's Brian. And see to it that you don't," retorted Globetrotter, flicking stray dust off his precious desk. "You may leave at your earliest convenience, which I hope will be immediately."

"Right-o, Brain!" Pinky saluted, and with that... he trotted off, slipping a little under the weight of the box, and doing his best to close the door behind him with his long, pink tail.

For five whole seconds Globetrotter stared at the closed door, as if attempting to retrieve what little bearings he had left. Despite the poisonous nature of their teacher, many of the students couldn't help but exchange excited mutters, babbling in haste about what had just transpired. Already, Globetrotter, with his exceptional hearing, could catch such questions as, "Did you see how many burners he had?", "Do you think he's single?", and, worst of all, "Is his class full?".

In a rare move, no one was punished for such comments. If anything, for the rest of the class, Globetrotter aimed to be a bit more... amiable than usual, which only fueled the chatter. The session was a long one - three hours, to be exact - and it was with great relief that the bell rang, for if there was anything more "exciting" than cellular mitosis, it was gossip.

"Homework is due on the twenty-first. I want a count of three-thousand words at least and no exceptions!" Globetrotter rattled as the entire class practically flew out of the room in a flurry.

Many paired up with friends; some hitched up their bags and backpacks, running in haste to their next class. Three of the girls, two mice and a shrew, banded together, all a-flutter.

"Oh. My gosh. Did you see that guy? Ugh. My heart is still beating a mile a minute," one of them crooned. It was the golden-furred gal, whiskers shining as she licked her fingers and smoothed them out one-by-one.

"Gosh, Maisy, you're so superficial. One minute it's Globetrotter. Now it's this Pinky guy," mused a mouse to her left, a pair of goggles resting atop her blonde hair. "You need to pick a side."

"I am! I'm picking the cuter of the two," Maisy stated, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"He looked like Pee-wee Herman walked into Dexter's Lab or something..."

"Dexter's Lab is more fun," voiced Tillie the shrew, who adjusted the tightness of the little cloth draped over her head. "What did Globetrotter mean by giving us only five pages of homework? Usually it's at least ten..."

"I have a theory for that," said the goggle-adorned mouse, biting her fingernails.

"Would you stop doing that?" Maisy bit, slapping at the other mouse's wrist playfully. "It's so gross."

"What? They get gnarly. You know I don't wear gloves when I work."

"You should."

Goggle-mouse sighed.

"Anyway, you wanna hear my theory?"

"I do," piped the shrew.

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead," droned Maisy, not at all enthused.

"Okay. So... my theory is that he's jealous. He doesn't want this Pinky guy to suddenly snatch up all his students, so he's trying to be extra nice to us to get us to stay."

Maisy snorted at this.

"As if we could leave. It's a required class."

"Yeah, but we could always drop it and take it next semester at a different time with a different teacher."

"But why would anybody go through the trouble of that?" said Tillie. "We'd all rather get it over with sooner than later."

"Exactly," "Goggles" said as they turned a corner, heading for the cafeteria. "Anyway, I'll see you guys later."

"Where are you going?" Maisy asked.

"It's Wednesday. I have Engineering on Wednesdays. Duh. Bye, guys!"

And off she went.

"Bye, Gadget!" Maisy waved, then said, under her breath, "She's so weird."

"Yeah, but we love her," Tillie said.

"Yeah, I know," smiled Maisy, as they walked into the cafeteria together.

Running past them went little tammie-headed girl. She practically flew past the throng of students milling in and trudging down the hallways, deftly weaving in and out of them like a snake in the grass. It was a wonder she didn't bump into anyone even once.

Down the maze of hallways she flew, finally stopping at a dividing lane to peer down a path at a familiar figure.

"Mr. Pinky!" she called out, desperately trying to catch her breath as she sprinted up to him.

Pinky smiled down at her, one paw resting on a handle on a door labeled 'Professor Ronald Pinkus, PhD Trozology, 210", his other arm still balancing the heavy box.

"I forgot to give you this!" Olivia panted, stretching out a sweaty hand to proffer him a little white note.

He took it, not without some difficulty, and tucked it into his box.

"Thank you, Olivia! Here..."

And he extracted from the box the bag of chips and handed it to her. She took it, puzzled.

"Tuppence for your trouble," he said, winking at her.

"Thank you, Sir! Good-bye!" Olivia waved, practically glowing as she ran back down the hallway, ripping open the bag and popping a chip in her mouth in the process.

Grinning sweetly, Dr. Ronald Pinkus opened the door and stepped inside.

It was dark, and it took a moment for him to find the light. When he finally flipped a switch, it revealed to him his new abode. It wasn't the most spacious area. In fact, as compared to Dr. Brain's (or... was it Brian's?) classroom this one was visibly a tad more... cramped. Only twenty seats lay stacked in a corner, their blue paint a little chipped and their legs a mite bent. They looked more like middle-school chairs than the nicer seats found throughout most of the school. The light was dim - perhaps a little too much so. He'd need to fix that. There was a fairly solid-looking desk, at least, as well as a small waste bin, some pencils, a large chalkboard behind the desk, and one of those roll-around televisions in another corner. By all accounts, this room was trash as compared to the rest of the university, but where anyone else would have turned their nose up at it... Pinky beamed.

Setting his box down upon the desk, he hung his lab attire up on a nearby coat hanger and inhaled, breathing in the smell of old glue, old chalk, and a very slight tinge of old bubblegum. The glue smell tickled his nose and he giggled. He rather liked that scent. It reminded him of something. Something sweet...

Quietly, he relieved the poor box of its contents, placing everything in the best places he figured they should go, and set the empty box down in a corner.

"There you go, old box. Sorry for all the trouble!" he apologized. The box said nothing.

He turned back to his desk, smiling at a job well done. The three Bunsen Burners stood proudly on one corner of the desk, looking very professional indeed. The notepads and pens looked quite nice on the desk, along with the roll of tape, and there was even a little shelf under the roll-away tv that he was able to put his Honeymooners tapes on! It was perfect. Well, almost.

From his lab coat, he pulled out a handkerchief, which he carried with him to an empty bathroom across the hall. Wetting it and wringing it out, he stepped back into his classroom, shut the door behind him, and carefully, gently, wiped down the picture frame, a smile kissing his lips as he did so. Four little figures beamed up at him: two older mice, himself as a child, and, curiously, a spool of thread, which he was hugging in the photo. Having cleaned the little glass and frame, Pinky brought it up to his face... and kissed it... before setting it back down on his desk, right there in front, where he could always look at it.

There was only one thing left to attend to: the note that Olivia had given him. He picked it up from the desk, unfolded it, and read:

Mr. Pinky,

My sincere apologies for directing you to the wrong classroom. I hope that old bat didn't give you too much trouble. Please, alert me if you need anything.

- Mrs. Judson

Pinky grinned, chuckling a little as he set the note back down on the table and stepped out from behind the desk.

He sighed happily and looked around the room, gaze glistening.

"I made it, Mum. I made it."

#pinky and the brain #pinky #brain #fan fiction

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theycallme-tunathot · 7 years ago

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sleep. [chapter 1]

Pairing: Wonho x Reader/ ft, Jeon Jungkook, Kim Jisoo, Park Jinyoung, Min Yoongi and a few other idols. Rating: NC-17 or M Synopsis: Wonho is a five-course meal with cocktails afterward. At least that’s what you think. He looks like sin but he’s…strange? It’s all very confusing for a succubus who is only trying to eat just enough to keep herself from starving to death. Your paths would’ve never crossed had her best friend not introduced you and bet Wonho would be the very motivation you needed to start eating again. Wonho is indeed a meal. Warnings: Violence later on, sexual content, mentions of demons and angels Author’s Note: Happy October my lovelies! Here’s my lovely gift to you. I hope you

"Maybe we should reschedule this excursion."

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“Did you get the notes from today’s lecture?”

I rolled my eyes as I threw my bag into the seat farthest from me before settling into the seat across from the laziest son of a bitch I knew.

“You know, you could always just, I don’t know, go to class and get your notes,” I replied, stretching my legs out underneath the table.

My best friend snorted, shoving a whole waffle fry into his mouth as his eyebrows ascended to the heavens. “When Hell freezes over.”

“See, this is why you fail every semester.”

“Says the girl who sits in the front row—in college!”

Raising an eyebrow, I challenged him. “Is there something wrong with sitting at the front of the lecture hall?”

“You’re a nerd. That’s where nerds sit.”

“That’s where you sit so you don’t get distracted by people on Facebook or watching stupid Stranger Things.”

“But lecture is so boring without my Netflix.”

“Not if your grades depend on it.”

The soft brown eyes teased me gently, nudging me to repeat myself but I dropped it. He was already in such a good mood and I didn’t want to add to it by proving him right. Sure, I was a nerd and yes, I saw nothing wrong with it. But the last thing I wanted was for my best friend to gain the upper hand in this exchange. No matter how lax we looked like at the moment, sitting in the student union’s food court, I was scolding him for missing yet another lecture.

And if only passerby’s knew how not normal the two of us were…

They’d never fathom it.

Out of the two of us, he was considered the more relaxed. He was easygoing about many things much to the detriment of his grades, relationships and responsibilities over all. There were so few things he actually cared about enough to put effort into it. Most of the things he did put lots of effort into was beneficial solely to himself. Playing video games, eating, sleeping just among a few of the G-rated things I could list right now.

Running a napkin across his lips before shoving another waffle fry into his mouth, he tilted his head to the right teasingly. “You’re so cute.”

I visibly tensed at that. “You know how much I hate being called cute.”

“But you are!”

“No, I’m not,” I simply stated, putting finality into my voice in the hopes of ending the discussion.

“Please, look at you,” he said, aggressively brandishing a half-eaten waffle fry at me. “You know deep down that none of this matters but you try so hard.”

“Of course it matters,” I mumbled, watching a group of students bustle past the table, all of them laughing loudly. “This is university–”

“And we don’t have to be here.”

“Jungkook, don’t–”

“I’m just telling the truth!” He defended, sitting back in his seat as he put down his waffle fry. His face sobered substantially as he tilted his head to the left. “How many universities have we been to already? Six, seven?”

“Ten,” I mumbled lightly.

“Exactly. We’re only here for one thing, yet you always get sidetracked by it all.”

“I’m not sidetracked,” I argued back, glaring at him.

The tone shifted between the two of us considerably and almost at a neck-breaking speed. We always had this conversation and while Jungkook told the truth, I always felt insulted when he voiced the truth to me. My pride would cower away, wounded and I would have to defend myself.

His eyes narrowed in confusion. “Oh, you’re not? Is that why you’re a shade paler than normal and you look like you haven’t eaten a decent meal in the last month? Or is that because you haven’t actually eaten in the last month?”

My cheeks warmed under his scrutiny and I looked down at the table. Itching along the edges of my phone’s case, I couldn’t bring myself to voice my exact thoughts at the moment. It was hard to forget why the two of us were here. It was the same reason we were at the other ten universities. Although I understood well what our shared goal was, it didn’t make me any less inclined to actually get something out of the free education I was granted. Besides, we had to make our stay last an entire academic school year. How could we do that if I ate just as much as Kookie did?

“I eat,” I mumbled, doing everything in my power to fight back on my best friend calling me out.

Another snort sounded from my friend as he inserted another waffle fry into his mouth. “You look gaunt.”

“I’m not gaunt.”

“Then why don’t I ever see you eating?”

Because I’m uncomfortable.

“I’m working on a meal right now.”

Jungkook’s boyish face held all the skepticism of his true age. For all the years we’d known each other, we hardly aged in the face. But every once in a while, I could catch Jungkook’s real age showing. It was typically when he looked at me like I’ve told that same lie for the last five decades. And to be fair to him, I probably have.

Leaning forward on his elbows, his eyes searched me. “You’re working on one right now?”

I only nodded in response.

“Who?”

I don’t know why I thought saying that I was working on eating would stave off Jungkook’s curiosity. It would only really act as fuel. This was yet another area where Jungkook could sink his efforts into on any given day: other people’s business.

Sighing deeply, I looked away from him for a moment. “Don’t worry about it. Just know I’m in the process of organizing my next meal.”

He leaned in closer, eyes roving over my face to find the lie. His eyes squinted and grew only to squint at me again, scrutinizing every muscle twitch and shift in my gaze.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Oh?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest. I looked down to see he finished off his waffle fries, leaving a lonely Chik-Fil-A sandwich. “Fine, since I’m an asshole, what’s the name?”

“What?”

“What’s the name?”

Panicked and feeling like I had so few options left but to continue on with this lie, I flipped through the names of people in my lectures—at least the people I could remember. The guy that sat next to me and slept for the hour and twenty minutes my World Civilizations lecutre lasted. The girl who showed up every once in a while but always smelled like freshly laundered clothes in my art appreciation class. There was also that one guy in my biology study group—he was nice.

“Chanyeol,” I randomly threw out, remembering another person in my biology study group. He was the de facto leader when Jinyoung wasn’t looking.

“You’re so full of shit, you don’t have a single meal lined up.”

Not looking at him seemed to be the only confirmation he needed before he shook his head and sighed.

“You have a reputation to defend and uphold, you remember that right?”

“How can I forget?” I shot back, glaring at Jungkook.

Of everyone who knew me, Jungkook was the only one who knew about the pressure I was under. He knew how horrible it felt growing up in the shadow of my mother. Because of this, Jungkook knew how hard it was to eat on a regular basis.

“No need for the attitude,” he replied, his glare reflecting my own. “You’re my best friend, I’m trying to look after you. You look gaunt. You know all this,” he motioned to his lonesome chicken sandwich and around the food court, “doesn’t truly nourish us, just the bodies we occupy, yet you’re literally starving your true form.”

I could only nod, feeling like a scolded child. There was a sickening churn in my stomach and almost like Jungkook cracked through a month’s worth of denying my hunger, I could feel the hunger pains. A painful lurch and throb ebbed through my whole body and I sighed. I was starving, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat at the expense of others.

With a sigh, Jungkook ruffled his hair and for a moment I wondered if his fingers were still greasy from the fries. “Meet up with me tonight.”

“I can’t I’ve got–”

The look he gave me made my voice stop cold. Eyes apologetic he nodded.

“Be at the activity center at 6 p.m.”

“What’s happening there?”

“You’re eating and I’m having a little snack. I think I have a solution to your problem.”

What are you wearing? ;)

What started as an inward groan slowly transformed into an audible one. It was one of those special groans, the kind only summoned by the perfect intersection of annoyance and exasperation. My eyes didn't dare break contact with my phone's illuminated screen until it locked again.

"Someone sounds like they're ready for the mitosis lab tomorrow morning," Namjoon said with a shit-eating grin displayed proudly on his face.

"Less than thrilled if I'm being honest."

"Dr. Kang is supposed to actually be here for it too."

"She finally found time to grace us plebian children with her presence," Jinyoung added, a bitter-edged laugh following closely behind. Jinyoung hated biology but I'd wager he hated our professor more. She was always far too busy with research to actually attend our lectures or labs and left us with a surly teacher's assistant who was definitely not getting paid enough to deal with all of us.

"Tell us how you really feel," Namjoon joked.

"Actually, please, don't. I ran out of ibuprofen and the health center is starting to recognize my face and how many packets of ibuprofen I'm taking each week," Chanyeol muttered from beside me.

We were such a weird collection of people.

The only common thread between all of us was our need to pass this biology course. Chanyeol was a music major who was so painfully organized he rivaled early childhood education major Park Jinyoung. They were both meticulous but in their own ways. Jinyoung was manic and bossy while Chanyeol let it be. He was the honey to Jinyoung's vinegar and if it weren't for Chanyeol, most of us would've never joined the study group. Jinyoung tried inviting everyone the first couple of weeks of the semester but after making one of the attendees cry, most of the class was apprehensive about joining. So, behind Jinyoung's back, Chanyeol claimed he had his own study group, handpicking a few people to personally invite. I happened to be one of them.

The referee to Jinyoung and Chanyeol's unique power struggle was psychology major Jisoo. She was tough as nails yet completely funny and enjoyable to be around.

Namjoon was a literature major who wrote poetry. Every once in a while, he was featured at an open mic held at the local coffee shop just off campus. He invited us to come see him last time. While I never would've pinned Namjoon for the slam poetry type, he certainly was heads above the others who braved the crowd and took the stage.

And then there was me, the undeclared major with no semblance of a backstory and the weirdo who sat in the front row.

It was enough to make me stop everything I was doing at any given moment and wonder how our paths crossed.

Before I could get too lost in thought, my phone buzzed in my hand.

Are you seriously leaving me on read?

I didn't reply, but I unlocked my phone only to let the read receipt pop up beneath Jungkook's message.

"Either way we're in for the longest lab ever tomorrow," Jisoo pointed out, pulling out her lab manual and flipping through tomorrow's lesson. "Ten pages—our lab is ten pages."

HELLO

Don't ignore me

Young lady it is 5:45 and I know you've parked your ass in the library for a study sesh.

Don't make me come get you.

Keep ignoring me. Go ahead.

Shoving my phone into my bag, I began packing up my textbook and laptop.

"Heading out early?" Namjoon asked from beside me.

I smiled sheepishly. "I have a thing to do so I have to go. But I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Definitely," he smiled. His dimples became front and center, only accentuating the curve of his cheekbones and his jawline. "Jisoo and I were going to meet up for breakfast before lab. You in?"

"Sure. What time are you guys meeting?"

"7 a.m."

"8:30 a.m."

Jisoo and Namjoon answered at the same time. More curious than anything, a single eyebrow perked up as I looked between them. It wasn't hostile between the two, but it definitely seemed like Jisoo told Namjoon a time when they initially brought up the idea but Namjoon didn't agree.

Giving a tight-lipped smile, Jisoo turned her gaze from Namjoon to me. "To be determined. We'll work it out before heading out of here tonight and text you."

"That sounds good to--"

"Y/N!"

Before I knew what was happening, I heard my name ricocheting off of the walls, piercing through the stillness of the silent floor of the library. My blood ran cold despite the blush beginning to form along my cheeks as I looked ahead in horror.

"Fucking hell," I muttered to myself.

I threw out an apologetic smile to my study group as I grabbed my backpack, not even bothering to zip it up as I speed walked my way to Jungkook who smugly leant against a bookcase, repeating my name somehow louder each time.

By the time I reached him, I went to slap him across the head, feeling satisfaction flood my entire body when I heard the loud smack against his thick skull.

"You're so fucking rude," I complained as I tugged him through the library and toward the stairwell. On any normal occasion I would've taken the elevators but I didn't want to chance waiting a second for an available elevator, not with loudmouth standing next to me on the silent floor of the library.

Once in the confines of the echo-chamber stairwell, I descended the stairs, not even bothering to look back to see if Jungkook was following. As my footsteps tapped loudly against the tiled steps, I heard Jungkook not far behind, laughing and no doubt shaking his head.

Just as I noticed I reached the second floor, Jungkook finally spoke up behind me. "After all these years, one would think you’d be better at hiding from me—or at the very least be good at lying to me."

I blinked in confusion but didn't turn to look at him.

"I don't follow."

"Liar."

"What are you even talking about?"

I glanced momentarily at his stupid, shit-eating grin. For a guy with a baby face, he sure knew how to look like a smug asshole in that indecently charming way. It really was his appeal when he was looking to eat. No matter how big those brown eyes were or how innocent those puckered lips looked, there was a certain air of danger to him. He wasn't guaranteeing you a callback after a fun night and he definitely wasn't promising a second time, but he could confirm he was the closest to heaven a human could get.

"You agreed to meet me at the activity center? Edge of campus, 6 p.m.? For dinner," he prompted, squinting playfully.

He knew I was avoiding him. Just as he knew why I was hesitant to eat on a regular basis, he knew why I was dodging him like the plague.

"My study group meets every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, you know that."

"And I suppose it would kill you more than starving to death to skip a stupid study group."

"It's biology though."

"So?"

I rolled my eyes at him, wondering who I must've pissed off to end up with a best friend like Jungkook. "As if you're actually good at biology."

"It's alarming how often I have to remind you, but I don't have to be good at it. Neither do you," Jungkook said, his voice holding all the ease and bravado of a young man. "We're not here for the degree, we're here to eat and chug along once the buffet shuts down."

The statement was very matter-of-fact. It left no room for interpretation or argument. He was right. It was a result of the curse of being a succubus and an incubus.

There was only one purpose for a succubus or incubus like me or Jungkook: procure souls. In fact, it was such a core purpose, it was instilled into our very livelihood. From our very creation, feeding off of human energy was essential to our survival. Over the formative years, an incubus or succubus learns various ways of feeding themselves. Some chose to lure a meal through aggressive or violent means. It was effective, but one could argue the taste wasn't the same as someone giving their soul over.

Others chose to reinvent the idea of dream-walking. It was a rare artform these days and so few knew how to do it properly. Inserting oneself into a dream was a tricky business and wasn't always the most effective way of procuring the soul or nourishing the succubus or incubus form.

And then there was the old-fashioned way. It was the most basic, instinctual way our kind survived. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't the most favored way of procuring souls and eating, but it was the way Jungkook and I survived. Physical contact and engaging humans always came with a slew of difficulties. Humans weren't always as stupid or distracted as other demons regarded them as. If there was a simple slip in the web Jungkook or I spun, we could be exposed. Exposure was almost certain death in our reality. The other downside—one that proved a deal-breaker to most—was the wear and tear on the host body. The previous two options didn't require a human form and definitely required minimal work. But this approach required not only obtaining a human form but it required upkeep. This meant eating actual human food, being careful with how frequently we had sex and awareness of the human body's weaknesses and any maintenance issues that could arise.

The most effort was required for this method. While most disliked it, there was no denying its effectiveness and the quality of the soul procured. For proof, no incubus or succubus had to look further than my mother. She was living proof that old-fashioned was superior to all the other methods.

"Sorry if I'm not interested in just chugging along once I've had my fill," I provided after a long pause.

My eyes shifted to see Jungkook giving me a smug smile. "What did I tell you? You're cute."

Rolling my eyes, we ascended the stairs, leading to the bridge that connected the east and west sides of campus. As a gust of wind hit my face, I looked away from Jungkook and sighed. "Maybe we should reschedule this excursion."

"It's not an excursion."

"Fine. Let's reschedule this adventure."

"It's not an adventure either."

"Trek?"

"This is a fucking dinner Y/N," Jungkook said, the level of disbelief in his voice only matching the wide-eyed, raised-brow expression on his face. All he was missing was the "what the fuck" tacked onto his statement.

I sighed deeply. "We're going to the gym and I don't even have proper clothes on, let alone proper shoes."

And that's when Jungkook seemed to snap out of his confused and slightly offended expression. Almost as if he forgot something, the brunet grinned as he opened his backpack and began searching. "I knew you'd be ill-prepared and that's why I came fully prepared."

Emerging from his bag, he threw a pair of running shoes at me. One by one, Jungkook threw a pair of socks, a sports bra and a pair of running tights in my general direction. Thankfully I caught all of them.

"How the fuck...?" I trailed off, staring back at him a moment.

"A girl left it behind in my room."

This didn't help me at all. "Wait, did she wear this beforehand?"

"Mhm."

"Then how did she leave?"

Jungkook gave a cackle and that was all the answer I needed. Immediately, I threw the running tights back at him and grimaced. Shaking my head, I ran a hand over my face. "That's so disgusting Kookie."

"What? How?" He asked indignantly, pointing at the shoes and sports bra I was still holding. "It's not like I didn't wash them before folding them and bringing them to you tonight."

"I'm not wearing these."

"You'll thank me if you do though."

"Why?"

"Because I found you a meal to end your protest."

The doubt was so evident across my face as the activity center came into sight. As he threw the tights back at me, I shook my head. "I highly doubt that."

"Oh, but you see, I have," he countered, a high level of confidence and ease rolling off of him. It was enough to make me want to punch him in the face, but I held back. "This guy...even I would fuck him if he went that way. But sadly, he's very straight when it comes to sex."

“You know how p— "

“I do know how annoyingly picky you are, but this doesn’t have to be a four-course-meal-at-some-upscale-restaurant-kind of commitment, okay?” Jungkook cut in, his brown eyes roving over my face as we stood a mere meter from the entrance. “This is to give you a taste of just how hungry you are and what you’re missing going on this hunger strike.”

I inhaled deeply, trying so hard to clear every last thought out of my mind. I was concerned about eating again, considering I’ve had a two-month battle with my conscience since my last meal. For most succubae and incubi, eating wasn’t such a moral conundrum like it was for me. Eating for most of us was no different than the amount of guilt a human would feel at eating a hamburger or fried chicken.

The only real difference between me and that analogy is humans weren’t required to stare the cow in the face before killing it. And that’s really where I found my biggest pitfall being a succubus and choosing this way to nourish myself as opposed to the other methods. I get too connected. I end up developing bonds with the target and before I know it I’m depression binging on souls left and right. The last soul I procured was the hardest. I ended up breaking a few rules Jungkook and I set up to ensure smooth execution and in the end, when I had to kill him, I couldn’t. Kookie swore to keep that a secret but when word somehow traveled to my mom…things became difficult.

With all the skepticism resting there on my vocal chords, I shifted my eyes to the activity center. "I highly doubt that Kookie."

"Hey Kookie!"

"Christina!"

It was safe to say Jungkook was mildly well-known around campus. He went to all the social gatherings, was a dependable alcohol supplier to several frat parties and was known to offer a good time to anyone he caught in his cross hairs. In the three months we'd been in school, I couldn't count how many booty calls he had on lock for when he was ready to eat, but he had quite a few people on speed dial for that sort of thing.

Part of me was wondering if I recognized Christina's face from the apartment I shared with Jungkook.

"You here for another sweat session?" she asked, her voice flirty, verging on salacious.

Jungkook, always the charmer, winked at her. "Why else would I be here on a school night?"

The high-pitch giggle traveled through the main lobby of the activity center. Not far beyond the electronic turnstiles was a large basketball court with bunches of students stretching, running and cheering each other on. A set of stairs sat back further into the activity center, straight ahead from the turnstiles. And then just underneath the staircase, on either side were the men and women's locker rooms.

But the mood stumbled on a sour note the second Christina's gaze landed on me. The girl beside Jungkook.

"Is this your friend?"

Her tone held all the contention that came with her desire for Jungkook. In fact, it was something the ebbed and permeated the whole area. Perhaps unnoticed by humans, but not by either me or my best friend. It was something so tangible we could nibble it into little pieces and consider it an appetizer.

Jungkook turned his head and laughed. "Yeah, practically my sister."

Rolling my eyes, I nudged him in the rib cage, letting my eyes wander over to the gym. I didn't really care how long we stood there in the lobby so long as we could delay this meal for as long as possible. I was more content watching Jungkook disgustingly and shamelessly flirt with this girl than swipe my student ID and walk to the locker room to change.

But it seemed Jungkook was more on-task tonight than I'd seen him in weeks. Leaning over the counter, his fingertips glided over Christina's lanyard as she took a sharp breath in.

"Say, is Wonho in tonight?"

"Now I'm really offended," she shot back, her eyes narrowing playfully at my friend. "Here I am, flirting my ass off, and you got the nerve to bring up a man—Wonho of all men—right in the middle of it."

"You know I wouldn't have interrupted if it wasn't important."

"What do you need with him?"

"It's not for me, it's for my practical sister over there."

I turned my attention back on the two to see Jungkook jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at me and Christina looking up at me before looking at Jungkook. She seemed to be debating something. But whatever she was debating didn't take all that long. "He just got in. What do you need him for?"

She addressed the question to me, but I had no fucking clue how to answer. What could I possibly know what I needed help with when I wasn't even here to work out?

Clearly panicked, I looked at Jungkook who was staring at me with a smug expression.

Fuck you, I mentally hurled at him.

"My friend isn't really much of an exercise person, she's here for the massages the kinesiology program is doing. It's Max out Monday right?"

Immediately, my whole body lunged forward and I felt my hands clench into fists. Before I knew it, I punched Jungkook in the neck. The shock of the nose and the adrenaline high that I was currently riding kept my vision pin-pointed on giggling mess of best friend.

"We need to talk," I said, my voice so low and raspy, I was a little afraid that my temper would make me explode...more than I already did.

Jungkook continued laughing, his hand moving to cover the area where I punched him. "You have a water fist. How did you have all that rage and barely hit me like that?"

Meanwhile my hand was tightly clutched around his left wrist, tugging him forcefully from his spot at the reception desk. As I pulled him toward the exit, he only had to jerk his arm back at a minuscule angle and use all his strength to tug me back to him.

That only made me angry and whirl around just to smack him with my open palm. "You're such an idiot."

"Pardon?"

"No, shut the fuck up, I thought I was coming here to work out."

"We just went through this on the bridge—you will be eating tonight."

"Yes, and I assumed it would be over a cardio session."

Jungkook tilted his head to the side, eyebrows furrowed as he stared in confusion. "Why would you think that?"

I mirrored his confused look. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because you threw a pair of running tights in my face."

"Did you seriously think you were getting laid in your weird black jeans and that worn out Joy Division shirt?"

Instead of responding, I chose to let go of Jungkook's wrist and I sighed deeply. My eyes were shut so tight as I tried to work through what I could only describe as a stress migraine that was sitting right behind my right eyeball.

"Please don't make me do this."

My voice was so shaky and held all the vulnerability locked up in me and I hated it. At this, Jungkook's face softened and his expression turned serious. Placing his strong hands around my shoulders, he shook me lightly before giving me a warm, encouraging smile.

"I can't not do this," he countered. "You're my best friend and you're starving. I've never known one of our kind to starve themselves, but I'm pretty sure you can't last much longer if you keep this up."

"I don't think I can do this though."

"You can and you will," he affirmed. "Just...try him out. I'm not saying you've got to devour his soul in one go. At this point, I'm pretty sure your body will respond to mere sexual energy in its most base form. Wonho's good for it, I promise."

The stress migraine was still there, stabbing every nerve ending in my eye, but I ignored it as I looked down at the gym clothes. Jungkook, while we argued almost daily and there were times I wondered how we stayed friends this long, was still someone who knew me best and always tried to look out for me. A part of me was angry about that fact because it made it so hard to stick to my aversion to feeding off of humans.

Looking up at my friend, I gave the longest and loudest exasperated sigh I could muster. "Fine, I'll try this out. But if something's off, I leave, regardless of whether I ate or not."

The caring brunet buddy in front of me only beamed back as he took me into a tight hug. "That's all I'm asking! Now, let's walk back over and wait for Lover Boy."

I'm almost sure we were waiting for nearly half an hour and Wonho was nowhere to be seen. By this point, I'd already changed into the clothes Jungkook brought for me and I was currently leaning my entire back against the edge of the reception desk.

Somehow managing to slink out of Jungkook's charmed clutches, Christina made a quick call to check on where he was, per my request.

In the middle of trying to block out the pointed glares she threw in my direction every once in a while as she went back to her flirting session with my best friend, I heard someone walking down the stairs. As I peeked around the reception desk to see the activity center past the electronic turnstiles, I could hear someone shouting at a man who was racing down the stairs. The pale legs I could see were toned to an extent, even if they were a little small. Lean in many ways. They narrowed into small, bony ankles before I could see his black and white Nike running shoes.

Leaning against the railing, it seemed like the person was talking to someone as he tried to make way for anyone trying to get down the stairs. But luckily for him, he was the only person visible on the stairs at the moment.

There's really no telling how long I stared at those calves before the legs began to descend the stairs once again. My eyes immediately drank in a pair of muscular thighs. While not the biggest thighs I've ever seen, they were still above average in every way, displayed in a pair of bright orange running shorts.

My eyes lingered on his hips. They both looked strong and sturdy and part of me wondered what they felt like. Hips led to a waist that I could barely see due to the loose-fitting shirt he was wearing. But there were some obvious things I could see about his upper body. He was built. With strong shoulders, and biceps that bulged and swelled, there was a moment the air in my lungs stilled. Well-defined pectorals were pressed against the chest area of the shirt only making this situation all the more startling.

Slowly, I scanned up to his neck. More pale skin met me there, but the way the neck muscles even seemed to be defined made it look thick in the most delicious way. For a moment, my brain let me wonder what it would feel like to press my lips against the base of it. For that moment, my brain let me wonder what it would be like if my tongue lapped around and into the small dip just barely visible at the base of his neck, just above his chest. My body asked me to imagine what it would feel like to be pressed so fervently against his hard as marble build as my teeth nibbled and scraped along his Adam’s apple.

When the moment passed, my brain knew I had to at least glimpse at his face. It only seemed fair to at least know what face was attached to a body I'd easily fantasized about in a record three seconds. But that was my mistake. What met me above the neck was something I wasn't prepared for, even after years of doing this and seeing so many body types and people.

His face was...captivating. And not in the cliché way associated with captivating. No, he was alluring. The first thing I noticed were his pink lips. Both full and obnoxiously pink, they seemingly peered back at me, daring me to taste what would never really be mind to taste. There was something so forbidden about them yet they made me want to be closer, they made me want to be bolder than I've ever been. Bow-shaped at the top and curved so delicately at the bottom, my own body gave a violent reaction, one that Jungkook could feel.

I gave the most cursory glance to his nose and eyes before looking away, knowing good and well I couldn't look any longer.

Turning around so my back was to him, my chest rose and fell so rapidly, I couldn't fully understand what was happening. Heart hammering so loud my eardrums beat along to the same nosiy beat, I looked at Jungkook who was grinning wide. He knew I was turned on and he was already considering this a W in his book. Getting me to release and allow my body and mind to have such sexual thoughts was already a step in the direction of what he was aiming for.

But when he looked behind me, the grin only turned shit-eating.

"Wonho!"

I snapped around to see the adam's apple I'd been fantasizing about bob up and down as a laugh sounded in his general area. And suddenly, the body I'd been admiring began to move as a voice bounded out.

"Nochu!"

I jumped at the nickname. Only "close" friends of Jungkook used the nickname and he didn't give everyone the privilege of calling him a close friend. Eyes wide, and my mind beginning to race, everything felt like it was going in slow motion. Jungkook's hand flying to slap me in the arm to get my attention, the motion to follow him through the turnstiles, even swiping my ID felt like some strange dream.

The closer we moved to this fucking buffet of a man, the more I could sense my own hunger. Two-months-worth of hunger began to overflow like my own personal Vesuvius. Everything in my body was telling me to eat, to feed while I still had no personal tie to this Wonho. He was a meal of a man and I shouldn't pass up on an opportunity like this.

"Dude, you missed game night—you owe me big time," Jungkook greeted.

The two guys had their manly exchange of greeting gestures before they separated.

"I told you I wasn't going to make it because of that dinner at my parents' house."

"Lame."

Wonho punched Jungkook in the shoulder and had Jungkook been human, I could tell it would've hurt. But Jungkook did a good job realizing this little fact as he feigned betrayal and pain while rubbing his shoulder.

"I'm fragile."

"Fragile my ass," this Adonis-like man spat back.

"Now, before I fight you, I need to ask: Are you on shift for Max Out Mondays?"

Wonho nodded before he lifted his index finger. "But not for you," he clarified. "Maybe for her though."

And that's when two dark brown eyes pierced right through me. For a second, I couldn't hear a thing going on around me as a gasp audibly left me. My brain was just fast enough to catch the mistake and compensate by coughing, make it seem like I tried yawning but ended up choking on air. As the heat rose in my cheeks, I looked away.

"That's actually who I'm trying to get in on the Max Out Monday," Jungkook asserted, shifting his eyes to me. He was obviously trying to convey that he knew I was doomed to at least eat a little bit during this session. "She's a nerd and has no time to just relax you know?"

Wonho's gaze landed on me and that's when I noticed how his black hair was parted on the right and the trendy style. As his eyes continued to stare back at me, the plump pink tempters only spread to reveal perfectly white and straight teeth. There wasn't a flaw on this man and I was starting to think there would be a catch somewhere. I just couldn't be sure where.

"Well, what can I do for you?"

"Food," I mindlessly blurted out. My brain was so foggy and hazy that I couldn't even recover fast enough.

One of his jet-black eyebrows arched as he smiled warmly at me, but my best friend cackled in almost villainous way.

Jungkook slung an arm around my shoulder as he addressed Wonho again. "You might need to explain what kind of services are available."

"Oh sure! We've got a few things available. Foot massages are kind of popular at the moment, full leg massages are available as well. Standard massages which would include neck and back—I already have raving reviews on that."

"Do you do full-body massages?"

I choked and instinctively hit Jungkook in the stomach. What the fuck was he doing?

"Um, well technically if you do the leg massage and the standard one, it's like a full-body massage."

"Can she get that one?"

"Sure."

"I was thinking--"

"Sweet, how much do I owe you?" Jungkook asked, cutting me off mid-sentence.

Wonho shrugged, "I'll do it as a favor. You look really tense."

"It's easy to get tense when you’re writing three papers simultaneously," Jungkook replied. "Just...take good care of her, she's like my sister."

I rolled my eyes, but mid-roll, something happened that no one in this exchange could actually take back.

Wonho puffed his chest out, dignity becoming apparent in his stature. "These hands are fined-tuned machines my friend. She’ll be singing a new tune by the time I’m finished."

Right there, I could've sworn I was seconds away from blacking out, my hunger becoming so overpowering my eyes were prickling with tears. But it took every ounce of strength I had left not to pass out right there. Unfortunately, that meant other parts of my willpower that failed and gave up entirely.

My eyes glossed over and suddenly my logical brain was no longer at the controls. A loud sound wrestled its way from the back of my throat, moving my vocal chords at an alarming rate. And soon the sound seeped from lips in the sound of a distinctive moan.

A moan so loud everyone within earshot could hear without so much as straining.

I didn't want to look at Jungkook because I was sure he was more than satisfied with himself and even happier that Wonho was willing to taunt me unknowingly. If only I didn't have to hear his response.

"I think in Y/N speak, that means she's excited to get started," he said.

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makingscipub · 6 years ago

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From epigenetic landscapes to epigenetic pancakes

As somebody interested in metaphor, art and science, I was just starting to read Susan Merrill Squier’s book Epigenetic Landscapes: Drawings as metaphor (2017) (I am grateful to Cath Ennis for sending me this book), when Aleksandra Stelmach alerted me to a blog post entitled “Epigenetic Pancakes”. It was therefore inevitable that I should write a blog post on how we got from science to pseudoscience, from Waddington, famous for his epigenetic landscapes, to woo, and epigenetic pancakes.

I started to write this post as a little joke, but soon began hurtling down an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, past a portmonteau and ending up bumping into Humpty Dumpty! I leave it to serious historians of science to explore that rabbit hole in more detail, map its contours and point out some dangers.

Three epigenetic landscapes

Squier’s book takes inspiration from three drawings of so-called ‘epigenetic landscapes’ to study Conrad Hal Waddington’s (1905-1975) life, which straddled art and science (fascinating stuff), and the ways in which these images inspired later explorations in architecture, medicine, and feminism for example. Waddington was “a British developmental biologist, paleontologist, geneticist, embryologist and philosopher who laid the foundations for systems biology, epigenetics, and evolutionary developmental biology” (Wikipedia).

Epigenetics, as Squier points out, citing Alice in Wonderland, is a portmanteau word bringing together the two words epigenesis and genetics (p. 6). “The two meanings packed into this neologism fused the old Aristotelian expression for emergence, ‘epigenesis,’ with the rising field of genetics. Waddington formulated this new field in his Organisers and Genes (1940) […]. It was also in this work that Waddington presented the first version of his epigenetic landscape, a visual metaphor for the role played by stable pathways […] in the process of [embryological] development.” (Squier, p. 6)

This first epigenetic landscape was “a work of landscape art, commissioned by Waddington from his friend John Piper” (Squier, p. 11). It represented a paradoxical river flowing from and towards mountains and through it the central epigenetic concept of canalisation. In 1942, Waddington defined epigenetics as “the branch of biology which studies the causal interactions between genes and their products, which bring the phenotype into being” (Waddington, 1942).

In 1957 Waddington used the most iconic representation of the epigenetic landscape (the ‘ball on the hill’) in his book The strategy of the genes “to represent the process of cellular decision-making during development. At various points in this dynamic visual metaphor, the cell (represented by a ball) can take specific permitted trajectories, leading to different outcomes or cell fates.” (Goldberg et al., 2007)

The third image, also published in the 1957 book, represents the “underside of the landscape, wherein its surface topography is held in place by an apparatus of guy-wires and pulleys. Waddington meant for the guy-wires to represent the actions of genes, selected over the course of evolution to establish robust species-specific patterns of tissue differentiation. Such a landscape, with contours reinforced by strict genetic controls, would ensure that embryonic development proceeds in a robust and stereotyped fashion.” (Rajagopal and Stanger, 2016)

The second landscape become a ‘meme’, while the other two were largely forgotten. Waddington’s approach to epigenetics was side-lined by various developments in molecular biology and as early as “the 1950’s the term had become, in Lederberg’s view ‘a semantic morass’ (Lederberg, 2001)” (Tronick and Hunter, 2016). It still is a mess and a muddle. Some, like David Haig (2004), are a bit more charitable and show that epigenetics “had at least two semi-independent origins during the 20th century” and thus at least two independent meanings.

If you want to know more about how Waddington’s epigenetic landscapes were used over time, you should read not only Squier’s book, but also a 2013 article she quotes by Jan Baedke. He writes: “Until the late 1960s dozens of ‘landscape approaches’ emerged that applied the visual metaphor of the EL [epigenetic landscape] […] to highly diverse phenomena – in stem cell and evolutionary biology, but also in disciplines outside of biology such as topology, developmental psychology, science, technology, and society (STS) studies and cultural anthropology.” (p. 756)

Waddington and Chinese whispers

Once epigenetics emerged as part of molecular biology, rather than embryology and developmental genetics, Waddington’s metaphorical landscapes began to be transformed, almost through a process of Chinese whispers. John Greally has dissected one example of this, but there are many more. He looked at a 2017 article entitled “Genome-Wide Epigenetic Studies in Chicken: A Review” and then starts a twitter ‘thread’ by saying: “Let me show you how words get put into the mouth of Conrad Hal Waddington. A cautionary epigenetics tale”.

Greally quotes the following definitions of epigenetics from the 2017 article: “Waddington defined an epigenetic trait in the 1950s as ‘a trait with a stably heritable phenotype resulting from changes in a chromosome without alterations in the DNA sequence’. Nowadays, epigenetics is commonly defined as the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of gene expression that are reversible and heritable (by mitosis and potentially meiosis) without alteration of the DNA sequence.” The authors don’t reference Waddington, but only secondary sources!

However, as Greally stresses: “Repeat after me: Waddington’s #epigenetic landscape described how cell fates (epigenesis) could be affected by mutations (genetic). He fused the words epigenesis and genetics to create the word #epigenetic. He was not talking about heritability or memory at all.” And a later tweet in the thread says: Waddington’s #epigenetic landscape was a depiction of gene x *cell fate* (epigenesis), definitely not environment.”

Interestingly, environment and heritability have become the focus of interest in fields like ‘environmental epigenetics’, ‘Developmental Origins of Health and Disease’, and in STS. Some researchers are especially fascinated by transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. This is, as Kevin Mitchell explains, the rather misguided idea that “molecular memories of our ancestors’ experiences affect our own behaviour and physiology.” Transgenerational epigenetic inheritance has been demonstrated in some plants and animals, but never in humans. Despite this, there are many speculations about its potential impacts on policy and healthcare.

So, how were both heritability and environment gradually foregrounded in epigenetics? Here we have to look at research carried out by David L. Nanny and Robin Holliday.

As Greally points out: ”It was later that DL Nanney used the word #epigenetic (having been told by a Greek scholar that his preferred word paragenetic was not appropriate) to refer to cellular memory, the condition of persistent homeostasis after an exposure. We took the ball from Nanney and ran with it, even turning #epigenetics into transgenerational cellular memory, and eventually back-translated epi (above/upon) genetics (DNA sequence) to refer to all transcriptional regulation.” (For a more formal history of this transformation of ‘epigenetics’, see Lappalainen and Greally, 2017)

This back-translation of epigenetics almost gets us to the pancakes…but there is a bit more history to get through.

Holliday’s contribution to epigenetics is discussed in a paper (“What do you mean, ‘Epigenetic’?”) to which Greally links in the thread: “The addition of heritability to Waddington’s original definition by Holliday was a significant change. While Waddington’s definition does not preclude the inheritance of expression states [indeed Waddington (1942a) did briefly discuss heritability in his paper “The Epigenotype”], this aspect was not a fundamental part of his concept of epigenetics. Despite the more thorough discussion of heritable expression states by Nanney and others, this was the first definition to make heritability a necessary part of epigenetics.” Haig (2004) suspects that Hollidays 1987 article “The inheritance of epigenetic defects “was the critical paper that lit the fuse for the explosion in use of ‘epigenetic’ in the 1990s”.

Nowadays, epigenetics is everywhere, from molecular biology to STS, and with this appropriation of epigenetics come various interpretations and extrapolations. It has become the study of gene expression and gene regulation and its most popular metaphor is no longer the epigenetic landscape but the epigenetic switch. It is often defined in this way: “Epigenetics, as a simplified definition, is the study of biological mechanisms that will switch genes on and off.” Now we have almost come to the pancakes. One more step.

From epigenetic whispers to epigenetic wind

Over time, between the 1940s and now, epigenetics was linked ever more closely to the external environment and it also acquired an often transgenerational memory, so to speak. Many, especially social science commentators, saw this new type of inheritance and ‘memory’ as ‘deflating’ “the role of genes as causally privileged determinants of phenotypes” (Meloni and Testa, 2014: 434), as opening ways to overcoming old-fashioned reductionist, gene-centric and determinist genetics (Squier, 2017), and as freeing people from “the mainstream view of biology as an unchangeable form of secular destiny” (Meloni, 2014).

Using Squier’s book on Waddington’s landscapes as inspiration, Meloni speculates that “a hidden genetic potential can be reactivated by environmental exposures” (stressing however that this becomes increasingly difficult at ‘each bifurcation’ in the landscape) (Meloni, 2018).

In recent years, epigenetics has expanded to embrace the study of environmental, psychological, and even nutritional exposures. There is now a whole new field of ‘environmental epigenetics’ and another, rather niche one, of ‘nutritional epigenetics’. This new addition to the ever-expanding epigenetic family has been surveyed by one of the most prominent social scientists dealing with epigenetics, Hannah Landacker, in an article entitled “Food as exposure: Nutritional epigenetics and the new metabolism”.

Landecker reproduces an image of Waddington’s epigenetic landscape that has been slightly modified by the nutritional epigeneticist Roger Waterland. We see a human-faced cloud blowing at the ball at the top of the slope and the legend underneath the figure explains that this represents “nutrition as the wind that additionally influences cells during development, adding a contemporary variation to the classic [Waddington] diagram”.

Overall, epigenetics seemed to open doors to flexibility and plasticity. As Landecker points out: “the great hope of epigenetics is the essential plasticity of the body: if the body is open to environment, then it is open to environmental intervention”. Even advertisers of alternative health products and heath advice got in on the game and proclaimed “Genoplasticity: Maximise your Being”!.

And this is where the pancakes come in!

From epigenetic landscapes to epigenetic woo

Nutritional epigenetics is (probably) a respected scientific subfield of epigenetics. However, nutritional advice, especially by alternative healthcare providers, has also been infiltrated by epigenetics and not in a good way.

For example (and there are many more), in 2014 a book appeared with the title Epigenetics: The Death of the Genetic Theory of Disease Transmission. Here we read: “This nexus between nutrition and so-called genetic disease has been observed in both humans and primates, and it is the central theme of Epigenetics… Epigenetics is of vital importance to anyone who wants real knowledge about how the human body functions, and it provides a path for better health. Epigenetics dispels the dogma and misinformation propagated by medical institutions and doctors resistant to change. Epigenetics is the beginning of a new era of well-being on this planet.”

Just as some natural and many social scientists use epigenetics to challenge old genetic and genomic dogmas, so alternative health providers use epigenetics to challenge conventional medicine.

And so we finally come to the pancakes. The blog post entitled “Epigenetic pancakes” appeared on a blog maintained by a nutritionist and states: “This week on the blog we’re diving into a really awesomely inspiring topic: Epigenetics. What on earth does this have to do with pancakes? Well- the pancakes you choose to eat might just have an affect on how your genes choose to express themselves.”

Using a well-known metaphor she goes on to say: “What few of us realize is that we can change, or alter the genetic cards we’ve been dealt. We may have a certain set of cards in our hand, but we have the ability to re-regulate the DNA sequence to alter its expression. That is what epigenetic is about. Epigenetics is the ability to alter the expression of our genes by epi or outer influencing factors.” Epi is the magic word!

She has three lessons for us:

“1. The type of pancakes you eat could very well determine whether you get that hereditary disease as well as the health of your unborn children. 2. You can totally blame your parents for the gene card you’ve been dealt and the work you have to do to work against it, but you absolutely CAN NOT EVER shrug your shoulders as you eat your Big Mac and say “kidney stones, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, glaucoma, and heart attacks run in my family- it’s inevitable so I might as well enjoy this cow cocktail of a burger”. 3. We have absolutely every reason to do all we can to redefine our own genetic expression to help ensure the genetic switches responsible for diseases of degeneration and decay don’t get turned on and hopefully, don’t get passed on.”

This is the dream of gaining control over our genes through epigenetics – through life-style choices, nutrition, mediation, and so on. But, as many scientists and bloggers have pointed out: “All such claims are nonsense. All such claims are nonsense. All such claims are nonsense.”

From portmanteau to Humpty Dumpty

When epigenetic landscapes gradually turn into epigenetic pancakes, we are not only dealing with metaphorical transformation and creativity, but with Kafkaesque metamorphosis. How did we get there? I think this is partly due to not distinguishing metaphor from reality. Waddington’s metaphorical landscapes were supposed to make us think in new ways about biology, especially embryo development and genetics. They did that in spades. However, their creative potential became distorted over time, leading to a situation where epigenetics is not only what Alice in Wonderland called a portmanteau word, but also what she might have called a Humpty Dumpty word.

As Edith Heard, a renowned specialist working in the field of epigenetics, said recently, epigenetics has become “une discipline en plein boom depuis le début des années 2000 et qui fait couler beaucoup d’encre de par les espoirs, mais aussi les fantasmes, qu’elle suscite”.

Beware of paddlers of epigenetic fantasies!

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