#no wonder he needs Kant helps

[scrumptiousstuffs]

Me everytime Madam Lilly or this motherfucker himself come on my screen

(And Keen - I do not trust him at all)

The Heart Killers EP6

[youryanderedaddy]

Oleander

Summary: Nine months ago you killed a man. Now you're sharing a drink with his brother. Life works in mysterious ways. tw: female reader, implied murder, captivity, dub - con, hate fucking, degradation, cruel reader

Sometimes you wonder if you’re a good person. It’s nice, almost, to lose yourself in meaningless philosophical battles in your own mind - it reminds you of high school, of balding teachers making you read Kant and Plato, raving on and on about dead men that will never come back to agree or disagree with the countless pages they made you write about them. It’s easier now, though - easy to lose yourself in semantics, to water down hundred years of morals and ethics into a simple question. Am I, the way I am, the way I’ve always been, good? 

These thoughts always come back when the liquor hits your system. You can’t believe Devan let you drink with him tonight. He must be getting lonely, you realize. Your hands are too shaky and slippery to hold the glass, and you end up spilling half of it over your chest anyways. Your shirt soaks the liquor quickly, and the sharp smell of sanitizer makes you feel as if you’re running through a cold hospital corridor. If you squint, you can almost imagine the needle poking at your vein to draw fresh blood. 

Devan watches you with odd fascination - as if you’re a child learning how to walk, and takes a sip straight off the bottle. Were you any less drunk, you’d be disgusted, yet now all you think about is how he’s drinking more and more of the bitter medicine, leaving less for you. And you need it. God knows you need it.

“Messy, murderous slut.” He mumbles under his breath, reaching out to you with a disoriented shake of his hand. “You ruined my fucking life, you know?” He manages to take a hold of your elbow. You flinch impulsively but his hold, in all its drunken angst, is unrelenting.

“You ruined your own life.” You intend your answer to be playful, but it comes out venomous. Maybe you both need some sleep - too bad the bottle is still half full. You pour yourself some more. “You’re 27 with no education, job or any support network. Even your parents don’t call you anymore, because, well… what even are you without him?” You let yourself get closer to the man - so close you can see his eyes illuminate in fear. His skin is warm like concrete melting under the sun. Tonight you are cruel. Tonight you are free - even as the tears fall down your freezing cheeks. “Admit it.” You inhale so quietly you barely feel your lungs. “You fucking love it.”

Even as his hand connects to your cheek in an audible slap, you can’t help running your mouth off. You are absolutely intoxicated - and the sting feels like a kiss to your lonely, untouched face. How long has it been since someone held you?

“You fucking love that your brother died, deep down. I mean, it’s the perfect excuse, isn’t it? You finally have a reason to be this fucking miserable.” Your smirk, filling up with glee - just like a child torturing a helpless ladybug on the ground, it’s so wrong yet feels so right. ”Besides being a lousy loser, of course.”

“How fucking dare you!” Devin flips you over with ease, throwing you on the ground. There is a raw, animalistic sadness in his big black orbs bleeding into his rage, and it makes it impossible to be scared. Even as his thick fist wraps itself around your throat, it’s hard not to burst into laughter. All the good hazy feelings take over logic and now the bleak feels like a big joke of nature. “Joe was… He… He was…” Everything, he tries to say, but his voice breaks into a pained howl and his breathing shallows before the word can roll off his colorless tongue. For a passing moment everything stills.

“It’s all your fault.” Your captor hisses weakly, his hand trembling around your warm inviting flesh. “I should have killed you that first day… that first night.” His fingers dance around your throat, carefully avoiding your jugular. “It would have been so easy. You do have a beautiful neck.” His voice lowers. “It wouldn’t be hard to–” He squeezes again - tight, tighter, and you see stars. “Maybe then I’ll finally be at peace.” He’s staring at you, intently, but it’s himself he’s talking to. 

“Oh, please.” You roll your eyes. You can feel a certain fullness in your sides and a dull pain tugging at your collarbone from suffocation - but your mind can’t wrap itself around a single coherent thought other than to hurt him. It’s like the more you hurt him, the more it hurts inside you. “You can’t kill me.” There is no sass in your tone, no mischief - just plain cold acceptance.

Devin stops in his tracks to stare you down as if you’ve lost your goddamn mind. Then he laughs. He laughs so much his hand slips off your throat and you can finally breathe again.

“And what makes you so sure?” He finally collects himself enough to ask, leaning towards you. If anyone were to see you now, they would think you’re two lovers about to elope. “Because…” You avert your face away from his watchful eyes - there’s something about them, a wild flame that makes you sober up quicker than you’d like. “I’m the only person you hate more than yourself. If you kill me, the game is over.” You give him a sad smile. “And you’re all alone again.”

The man grabs your chin, forcing your lips to pucker up like a doll’s. “Like I need a fucked up bitch to keep me company.” He says, yet he keeps moving your head up and down as if he’s inspecting you for damage. As if he cares if you’re bruised, as if his fingers want to feel you for just a second longer. “Then let me go.” You bite back, and you watch his face go dark like a night sky. “No.” The boy - man shrieks, holding onto your arm for dear life. It hurts… but it’s also warm and tight - like an embrace, but not quite. “You deserve to suffer.” He quickly adds, pulling you closer to him. “Then torture me.” You add more fuel. “Do something. Anything.” You sink your teeth into his knees. “For once in your shitty miserable life do so–”

He kisses you. 

You don’t know how to describe the kiss. It’s neither passionate, nor aggressive. It’s desperate, yet it lacks strength. It’s a rushed thing. It’s a memory reminiscent of summer - in a quiet village, after an atom bomb. His lips are the flowers that eventually bloom before they’re stomped by soldier boots. You’re the half - lit match that turns it all to ashes. Your bodies are meant for destruction, and that’s why they fit together perfectly. 

“Let me have you.” He almost pleads once you separate, breathless, on the brink of insanity - as if he isn’t already there. His hands are on both sides of your waist, squeezing so hard it hurts, unstable fingers ready to grab and grope at any shape malleable enough. 

“No.” You wince, but your eyes remain cold and challenging. “Fuck you.” Devin replies, roughly spreading your thighs apart. “Fuck you.” He repeats as he rips into your throat, dragging his teeth against your sweet spot, making you really feel the sharp points tearing into your soft vulnerable skin. The thought of leaving his mark on you makes his stomach turn - and it terrifies him. You try not to look down, but you hear his belt hit the ground and soon his pants follow suit - and then you sense it right against your entrance. Sticky slick whiteness coats your white panties as it drips from the purpling tip so full it might burst by the friction alone.

His hard length rubs along your wet slit and with clenched teeth you anticipate the burn of the stretch, the way he’ll rip your underwear from you, your last protective shield - but it never comes. Yet you see it move in and out, in and out of you rhythmically. You can feel his warm breath on the back of your neck, his rasp groans into your ear, his hands moving your torso back and forth like a carousel. You finally look down. 

He’s fucking your thighs - through your panties, no less. 

“Hold your legs together.” The man barks at you, but his voice is so needy you can’t help giggling even as he manhandles you around like a ragdoll. “T-tighter.” You squeeze your thighs snuggly against his cock - and you hope it hurts him more than it hurts you. You throw your head back, leaning on his shoulder as you jeer gutturally, letting it all out in systematic bursts of laughter that sound more like black cigarette coughs. Or puffs. “God, you’re so pathetic.” You lazily stroke his shaft as it peeks down your stomach, oozing with pre - cum. “I bet your brother would have fucked me like a real man.”

He moves your head to the side with a brute slap, kissing you sloppily anywhere but your mouth - but it still does the trick of shutting you up. “Too bad he’s dead.” He leaves a trail of wet pecks down your throat. Your stomach is sticky. You feel disgusting. “Guess you’re mine now.”

You roll your eyes.

“Dream on.”

[ropebunnykant]

alright, we're on the third and FINAL part of me picking the boat scene to bits. you can find part one here and part two here

where we last left off, kant was going towards jumping in the water but he stopped and then we get this question from bison.

and the thing that gives me chills about this moment, aside from the absolute terror and pain on kant's face, is how softly bison asks this. almost like it's a genuine question. like he's offering help because kant is in a tough spot. but it's not a genuine question because he's trying to help - it's a threat. he's telling kant if he doesn't jump, bison will push him.

however, it's also quite an interesting question when you think about it in the context of love and their relationship. i talked a little bit about the setting choice in comparison to the fadel and style confrontation scene already, but lauren @sunsetsover once again had some wonderful additions which you can find here. basically, the difference in locations represents a lot of things, like openness and their intentions, but it also has to do with wants. bison wants love, has always wanted love, and he wants kant to prove to him that it wasn't all fake - even if right now he believes it was. so the question of if you want to jump or fall, it can also go back to how this all started for kant. he fell for bison, against every one of his intentions and instincts, he fell for him anyways. no matter how much he fought it, no matter how much he tried to stop it, he couldn't stop himself from falling for bison. but now, in a way, he's getting a chance to actually choose it. he's getting a chance to jump into love, to let himself die and prove to bison he did love him.

and he's going to, god he wants to do this one final thing for him, but he looks at the water and all he sees is himself, drowning as a child, crying out for his parents. and you can SEE IT in the last screenshot, you can see that kant is not THERE, he's not looking at the water in front of him, he's seeing the water from when he was a child and was drowning and it's HEARTBREAKING. you have to watch the scene yourself again and look at the sheer terror and heartbreak on his face in those few seconds because got it's just. it's so painful.

but bison doesn't know, or he doesn't care, and he wants kant to jump, so he yells at him, he shouts at him to do it. he's so angry and hurt and he needs to see kant do this.

so kant goes again, but he hesitates again and he looks at bison, like he's begging for him to change his mind. but it only takes a second for him to know, to realize he won't. that he will have to do this. that doesn't have any other choice. that this is the only way to prove himself and to try and make it up to bison, if he even can.

there's a moment of silent communication where bison nods his head towards the water to once again force kant to jump in.

so kant braces himself, pulls every ounce of courage he has left in him, and he climbs up, bison still yelling at him, and he jumps.

i'm gonna link you to a giftset the last few moments of the scene here that jay @kantpattanawat made because i think everything with bison in it is MUCH BETTER seen in motion and i also don't wanna run out of image space again sdkjsfdf

but kant jumps. terrified out of his mind, he jumps. for bison, for himself, because he thinks he deserves it, because he doesn't think he can save himself anyways. because at least this way he can show bison he chooses him. that he does love him. because bison threw his heart into the ocean and kant is going to sink to the bottom with it.

but bison didn't actually think he would. you can even see it on his face, right before kant jumps, that he's questioning if he actually will. and when he does, you can see the panic in his body language because holy shit kant actually jumped. and he shouts after him, like he's an idiot for it, and maybe kant is! but he did it for bison didn't he? because bison asked? and isn't that what bison's always wanted? someone that loves him enough to choose him, to listen to him?

so bison will jump in and he'll still make kant prove himself again, but i think this is the moment bison really forgives him. this is the moment he realizes kant was serious back in the hospital. that maybe it wasn't all lies. this is the moment their love story can really start.

[magnoliapromenadegalleria]

THOUGHTS & WATCH: THE HEART KILLERS EP 6

-Other mother is so devious, there's no way she'd let Fadel and Bison have a life. She's going to try and put them in the dirt as soon as they aren't useful. But God, she's such a good villain, and her eyebrows are immaculate. #womeninmalefields

-Style is being so scary, please!

-"I'll get over it" Fadel has never gotten over anything ever.

-The garage is messy? You two have done it at a grief support group, and an abandoned farmhouse, let's be so for real right now.

-"You've been in my turf. Let me be in yours" Ugh! This man

-KITTY!

-You're trying to convince me Kant isn't falling deep? All that smiling at his phone was unnecessary.

-"These hitmen hate just as hard as they love" Capt Crunch have you ever heard of just doing things for the plot? And shut up, you sent in a criminal who can't do crime.

-We love an arcade date.

-"The only sport I do is swimming" THE FORESHADOWING IS FORESHADOWING.

-James do you know you have thirty minutes? Thirty, thirty, yes!

-Fadel is smiling. The earth is healing.

-Awww Style helping his dad at the garage is so sweet.

-WHO'S THAT FINE MAN AT THE GARAGE WITH THE CURLY HAIR?!

-Style is such a good son.

-Not the roleplay!

-Style is getting over the whole "the man I have been harassing for weeks and has agreed to be my boyfriend is a hitman" thing fairly quickly. I know that's right!

-"Small and pretty" That's the best way to describe Kant's scary cutie patootie boyfriend.

-"Occupational hazard" okay but which one?!

-"My parents were murdered." You see what you miss when you act a fool at the grief group Style?

-No previous lovers? Hm. I could see if that isn't the case, Style being hurt by the lie. You don't reminisce at the bar you slow-danced with someone.

-Fadel don't like Kant AT ALL, it's hilarious.

-Style said Kant got to go with God on this one because this is too much!

"He scares me. But I like his rough romantic side"- I know that's right Style, love your hitta!

-Style could use the boyfriend card until it's maxxed out, and Fadel would give him an extra line of credit.

-The fact that Fadel essentially says he can't reign Bison in once he's truly loose? Kant is in so much danger, it's delicious!

-Style should not find the undercurrent of Fadel's threat hot, but he does. That is his man, you hear me?!

-You can't convince me Bison doesn't know that something is up, he's too perceptive!

-Bison brought a gun to a stick fight...to be fair he did warn James to leave him be.

-Why would you touch the blood Kant?! You don't need to touch it to know what it is!!!

-"What was the gunshot for?" The plot. Fadel and Capt Crunch have never heard about doing something just because you can.

-The difference between Style and Kant is Style can readily admit that he's half-way down bad for Fadel, while Kant is trying his damndest to resist it. Too late, red threads gotcha b!tch.

-Fadel, you put on the stupid couple shirt, and you like it!

-Of course, Style cropped his shirt.

-I'm taking it off right after" he says like that's not the intent.

-Fadel is going to be so mad once he finds out that he's been deceived by Bison, Style, and Kant, yet the only one in any real danger of getting maimed by either brother is Kant...welp!

-Bison is not dumb. He may not know exactly what's up, but he knows something's up. Afoot if you will.

-Style is lucky he got that 80%

-Kant is so pretty, but baby does not think....You don't want your trigger-happy boyfriend to hurt people, yet you make up a lie that will make him want to hurt people? Not the brightest star in the sky, are we bud?

-Don't worry Fadel, you're going to want to put Kant through a wall in a few episodes. I personally think ep 7 or 8.

-I wonder if there was a part of Kant that didn't want to believe Bison was actually a stone-cold killer until the chalkboard confirmed it.

-Of course they have cameras dodo!

-Kant looks terrified. As he should

-"I love every story on your body" Shut uppppppp! These brothers and their cute lines!

"I'll do that when you're ready. You can judge then." It's so funny because, like, honey. HO.NEY. The trial has already taken place, the jury came back in with their verdict, babe. You're it for Style's crazy-tailed self.

"One day, I'll be your 100%" PERIODT! Manifestation! is key babe!

Previews -The cop that promised to drop Kant's criminal history is seemingly going back on his word??? Le gasp! The unadulterated shock that a man who sent a low level former criminal to infiltrate with a hitman ring against his will and with zero resources is going back on his promises has my falbbers gasted/s

-I don't think Babe is going to get hurt. If anything, I think whatever happens is going to make Kant free fall hard into falling for Bison.

[transmutationisms]

along w ur plato post uve also mentioned disliking marxist syllabi that make you go chronologically just to understand one author (ie greek philo - hegel - marx)

i was planning to go down this route this yr to combine both my long overdue dive into theory and philosophy, and i actually found this to be less overwhelming than immediately diving into say, continental philosophy or critical theory. i wonder then what other route you'd suggest for philosophy? (since for marxist theory youve pretty much alr answered it in a past ask)

are greek philosophers still "useful" to read for beginners or is it much better off to start with contemporaries? is this a case of "we've actually been doing the math curriculum wrong this entire time" or is it just personal preference. help

depends what you're trying to accomplish, but if someone's in my inbox asking how to get started reading theory or philosophy then i think it's a) unhelpful, and b) needlessly deferent to received ideas of 'canonicity', to perpetuate the notion that there's a single correct order in which to read, and it begins with the same 20 ancient greeks writing about geometrical forms and elemental tetravalence. like, it's worth remembering what's missing from a typical global north university's philosophy syllabus: perhaps most obviously, reams of islamicate scholarship and centuries of dialogue between 'western' and 'eastern' writers often suppressed in favour of a 'dark ages' narrative that just sort of jumps up to the 'renaissance'... and there are so many other, egregious, historically unjustifiable lacunae like this.

it's noble enough to want to know where an idea comes from or what its genealogical lineage is, but to try to discover this by reading through a list drawn up by classicists or philosophy departments is dangerously optimistic about the politicking that shapes and perpetuates such lists. even just reading the works that an author is openly citing or arguing with is lacking: what about, say, hegel, whose idea of freedom and enslavement developed partially in response to reading newspaper coverage of the haitian revolution? he didn't exactly announce that in the text! to read the phenomenology of spirit as merely the next intellectual step after kant is deeply distorted; for that matter, kant's own intellectual influences came not only from a supposed philosophical canon but also from the scientific and anthropological discourses underpinning his biological theory of race and defence of racism.

my issue with the "read chronologically" approach isn't that it's bad to follow a topic over a process of historical change. it's that these received lists of 'canonical' thinkers are artefacts of their own social and historical contexts, and are both produced to certain ideological ends, & then appealed to later in order to enforce and even naturalise those ideologies. if what we want is the context to understand what hegel or marx or adorno were really talking about, we need to engage with the texts as historical documents and with the histories as products of imperfect, biased, and ideologically laden human labour.

i'm not here to tell you not to read whatever you were planning to read. for one thing, sometimes the intellectual influence named in the syllabus is a useful one (there are certain questions about marx and marxian ideas that are easier to understand and answer if you have read at least a little bit of hegel). but, in the context of the overwhelming gatekeeping of knowledge, and the hegemonic use of ideas about canonicity and the 'right' way to read 'classics', if someone asks what they need to do in order to read xyz, i'm pretty much never going to default to "start by reading plato". read things that are interesting to you, however old they are; read about their authors; make liberal use of online resources like the SEP if you need a crash-course on certain concepts or jargon. you certainly don't need to be afraid of reading one text to better understand another. i just don't think you need to be beholden to that mode of reading, either, especially not in a context where the common wisdom on whose work belongs in such a genealogy is predicated on centuries of colonial and imperial scholarship and disseminated by institutions structurally positioned to defend the idea of an enlightened and ennobling western intellectual tradition.

in a certain twisted way, these 'standard' (to whom?) or 'traditional' (since when?) reading lists are often presented as the shortcut to the 'correct' understanding of landmark texts or authors—only, this is a 'shortcut' that considers ideas as disembodied from their real contexts, relating only to one another in an intellectual realm and developing in more or less linear fashion often to some teleological end; and, by dint of the sheer amount of material involved, it's also a 'shortcut' that many people will never actually traverse. i don't have an inherent problem with reading chronologically. i just don't automatically defer to these kinds of syllabi, and i think dethroning them could do us all a lot of good.

[accuratepicuresofanthropologists]

Franz Boas

Franz Boas was not the father of American anthropology. But the fact that so many people think he was shows how thoroughly his relentless energy transformed the discipline as we know it today.

Boas around age four

Boas was born in Germany in 1858. He grew up in the shadow of events that happened a decade earlier: The famous ‘Revolutions of 1848’, when people across Europe demanded an end to imperialism, monarchy, and the poverty caused by the Industrial Revolution. Boas grew up in a household of “forty eighters”, and became deeply committed to the ideals of liberty and progress which drove the revolutions. As a young man, Boas received a rigorous education and spent most of his free time outdoors, exploring the natural world. Like his idol Alexander von Humboldt, Boas combined a romantic wonder at nature's rich diversity with a naturalist's love of science, rigor, and classification.

Boas was Jewish, but not because he wanted to be. His parents were wealthy merchants for whom 'progress' meant shedding the ancient superstitions of the past. He didn't have a choice: Germany had given Jews the right to vote and own property, but remained an antisemitic place. Boas was labeled a Jew by others. So he learned to be fearless: In college when he was insulted he demanded a duel. He and his opponent would don goggles to protect their eyes, and then use their sabers to try to slash open each others’ face. “With the damn Jew baiters this winter one could not survive without quarreling and fighting.” He wrote his worried parents, reassuring them. “I remain unmolested since every student here knows that I would not be shy to defend my affairs with the sword.” He was not exaggerating. "He bears the mark of his German university training literally," the Maori anthropologist Te Rangi Hiroa noted, "in a somewhat disfiguring scar across his face". Indeed, one of the first things people noted about Boas were his scars.

Although he was academically gifted, Boas ended up doing a Ph.D. in the unprepossessing university of Kiel. His sister Toni was ill and the Boas family was tight-knit: He went to go live with her. The result was a miserable experience writing a Ph.D. on the color of seawater. His main discovery was that it was incredibly hard to measure the color of sea water. Later on, when he studied how perception is shaped by culture, these insights would come to help him. At the time, he was miserable.

Then love struck: Boas fell head over heels for Marie Krackowizer, a German-American lady whose family of “Forty Eighters” had fled to the US. She loved him too, but they could not be married until he got a job. For that, Boas needed to “habilitate”, a level of education above a Ph.D. He decided on a trip to the arctic, where he would study the influence of geography on Inuit people. He paid for it by writing an account of his travels for a German newspaper, and with a gift of money from the man who would be his principle benefactor in years to come, his uncle Jacobi. His parents insisted that he take along the gardener, Willie, so that he wouldn't be alone.

Boas posing in a German photography studio for an image to share with people demonstrating what his life had been like in Baffinland.

Boas spent a year in Baffinland, an island in the far, far north of Canada. The trip was unbelievably dangerous: Ships had to dock at the edge of the ice and then people would walk across the ice to the island. In the winter it was -40 degrees. Luckily Boas was energetic, focused, and driven by huge energy. He was the sort of person who was disgusted at himself for only working 20 hour days. He did research during the day and read Kant at night. Above all, he came to see Inuit people as people. "The more I see of their customs, the more I realize that we have no right to look down on them," he wrote to Marie in a letter that was spattered with the blood of the raw seal liver he had been eating.

Boas's trip was a success. He habilitated and married his sweetheart Marie. Together they created a loving and warm family. Professional success eluded him, however. Antisemitism made it difficult for him to find a job in Germany, so he moved to the US, where Marie’s family was — there were more opportunities there and Franz was also attracted to America as a land where his political ideals of liberty and freedom were more realized than they were in Germany.

Franz and Marie's wedding portrait.

Unfortunately, Boas found that there were few good jobs for geographers in the US. What people were interested in was Native Americans. Back in 1879 (when Boas was still in school) anthropology as a modern discipline was born in the United States. The goal was to understand the 'natural history of mankind', which in the US meant the origins of Native Americans. Were had they come from and what were they like? Previous answers -- tenuously derived from the Bible -- were clearly inadequate in light of new theories of evolution.

So Boas retooled himself as an anthropologist. He made multiple trips to the Pacific Northwest, a region that he is most closely associated with today. Still, he struggled. He got a dream job as a professor at Clark, a brand new university — only to have the university close down after a few years. He organized anthropological exhibits at the World's Fair at Chicago, hoping it would lead to a permanent position, but it didn’t. It was a dark time for Boas. His third daughter, Hete, was born in Chicago, caught whooping cough, and died in his arms. She was ten months old. Finally, Boas took a job at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and started teaching part time at Columbia. Finally in 1899, at the age of forty, he got a permanent position: He was now a faculty member at Columbia.

"Boas with the George Hunt family. Left to right, standing: David, George, Lalaxs'a, Mary (Ebbetts), Jonathan and Franz Boas. Sitting: Marion and Lucy. From row: Mary and Stanley" from Franz Boas: An Illustrated Biography

At Columbia, Boas was cutting edge. At a time when Harvard and Yale were just beginning to update their medieval curriculums, he had a Ph.D., the new research-focused degree that had made German universities world famous. Boas made history by being the first person in the US to offer a Ph.D. His students included Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, Robert Lowie, Alfred Kroeber, and many others.

Boas was also a tireless organizer, sitting on boards of journals, foundations, and associations. These positions allowed him to control funding and direct it to students. He was also a close friend of the millionaire feminist and activist Elsie Clews Parsons, who herself funded an entire generation of anthropological fieldwork. Boas worked his students very, very hard but also showed them tremendous loyalty. Boas not only lent money to students in times of need, in one case he signed on as a guarantor of a student loan, agreeing to pay it if the student defaulted.

Boas around the time he began working at Columbia.

True to his principles, Boas believed in meritocracy: If you could do the work, that was all that mattered. As a result he trained a generation of female students at a time when many universities didn’t accept female students at all. He also had few illusions about how much a white person could learn spending their summers on a reservation. For him, the best anthropologist was an insider with scientific training. As a result, he mentored scholars like William Jones (a Fox Indian) and Zora Neale Hurston.

 “Elsie [Clews Parsons] and colleagues at. Lounsberry, mid-1920s. On the porch, Elsie (in shadow on left) talks with Pliny Goddard; on the steps are Margaret Mead, Esther Goldfrank, Franz Boas, and Mrs. Nelson”. Via Deacon’s Elsie Clews Parsons. This picture illustrates the close ties Boas had with his students.

In fact, Boas was an uncompromising opponent of racism. Famously, in May 1906, he traveled to Atlanta University at the invitation of W.E.B. Du Bois and gave a speech claiming black people were biologically equal to white people. This was not a small thing in the Jim Crow South. Four months later, 25 black people were killed in Atlanta in a riot against black people that turned into a massacre. Then in 1909 Boas and a team of twenty researchers made 13,000 measurements of the children of immigrants to see whether they inherited their parents’ ’racial’ features. To his own surprise, Boas found that they didn't -- height, weight, and other factors were the result of the environment, not heredity. His students did similar research. Margaret Mead wrote a paper demonstrating the black people in the Midwest (where there was a strong public school system) did better on standardized tests than poor southern whites: schooling, not race, seemed to determine intelligence. Southern politicians repressed the study.

Boas’s relationship with indigenous people was more complicated. He was not a champion for Indigenous rights. He considered Native Americans conquered by the US and on the verge of cultural and biological extinction. His goal was 'salvage': to make a record of a disappearing culture the same way we have a record of Ancient Greece and Rome. He worked with many indigenous informants like George Hunt, who he paid to write letters detailing their customs. This relationship remains an object of scrutiny today: Did Boas exploit Hunt? Was Hunt Boas’s teacher and mentor? How much should someone be paid to write descriptions of salmon fishing in 1900 anyway?

Whatever we think of Boas’s relationship with Indigenous people today, at Columbia no one thought Boas was a friend to white people. He was considered a dangerous radical who had to be canceled. Not only did Boas attack the racial foundations of America, but when the US entered World War I, Boas was became a public enemy for opposing the war. Remember, this was a time when people where lynched for being German in the US. Columbia stopped paying him. They kept him from teaching undergraduates. They took space away from the department, leaving him with just his office. Boas was, essentially, canceled by the right.

What’s more, Boas's life was beset by personal tragedy. In addition to the death of his ten month old daughter in 1894, in 1924 his daughter Trudel died of polio. In 1925 his son Heini was killed in a car accident. Then in 1929 his wide died in a hit and run accident - the driver who hit her was never found. Boas's misery was palpable even before Marie's death. In 1927 he wrote to his son Ernst:

"I have not the light spirit of others and when I do not work, or else am intensely occupied with something else I can think of nothing but Trudel and Heini. They are there when I get up in the morning and when I stop work at night they are there… If I do not work these thoughts would destroy me." [L-Z v2 275]

Franz Boas featured on the cover of the 11 May 1936 cover of Time Magazine. In his old age, Boas's fight against racism became popular in America again as the US prepared to fascism in Europe.

Late in life Boas received the recognition he deserved, becoming a world-renowned scientist. In America, his anti-racist thinking became more and more recognized as America geared up to fight fascism. In Germany, an event was scheduled to give him an honorary degree. The degree was canceled and his books were pulled from the library and burnt by the Nazis. His last great work of activism was to help Jewish and leftist scholars flee the Nazis and get visas to come teach in America.

When Boas retired, he handed Columbia a gift: despite its attempts to derail him, he had created perhaps the greatest department of anthropology in the United States. And yet here failure dogged him. He had hoped his students Alfred Kroeber and Edward Sapir would come to Columbia to continue his work. Instead they stayed at Berkeley and Yale. His successor became Ruth Benedict, but she was then pushed aside by the administration and replaced by first Ralph Linton and then Duncan Strong.

Boas suffered many setbacks in his life, but he also overcame many obstacles. He lived an extraordinary life: Born before the Civil War, he lived to see the Pearl Harbor bombings. He trained the anthropologists who went on to start departments at Yale, Berkeley, Oregon, and many other places. He produced his famous “six foot shelf” — enough books on Kwakwakwakw that is longer than I was tall. After his death, his grandchildren and George Hunt’s grandchildren had a family reunion, and Hunt’s great grandchildren study anthropology in University. Despite his incredible age, Boas did not live to see just how influential he would become. Although he did not know it at the time, he became one of the few people Boas did not quite Although he may not have recognized or admitted it, he had in fact become one of the most important anthropologists in the world, and left an indelible imprint on the discipline for generations to come.

Sources: This was drawn from Rosemary Lévy-Zumwalt's two volume biography of Boas. The quote from . The reference to 1879 as the 'founding' date of anthropology comes from https://www.jstor.org/stable/658142?seq=1 . The Te Rangi Hiroa quote is from Na to Hoa Aroha volume 3. The blood stained letter is from George Stocking's "From physics to ethnology", p. 148

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Heart Killers day, woohoo!

Poor baby Bison, he just wants a break from murdering people so he can make out with a tattoo artist, we've all been there!

Oh Style, you nail the chaotic menace energy but you need to be smarter to humble Fadel.

Well you see Kant, in about a year this man is going to have a whole bunch of cats...

Ha, "pain excites me", casual way to bring up your kinks with your prospective boyfriend.

First in grandma glasses was not something I knew I needed until today.

I know Fadel has his reasons for being such a hard ass, but let Bison pet the kitty dammit!

Lol, this is giving me LITA flashbacks.

Oh, all my boys are such little idiots. But I love them all the same.

I love that Style has a whole collection of sports themed crop tops.

Oh god, Style being so extra is hard to watch, but it is very Petruchio-accurate.

This woman is really selling the "I should have insisted on being paid more for this" energy

I do like that we see Fadel is normally quite polite with everyday people. I know that makes him a little less overall shrew-ish, but it also makes him feel a little more well-rounded to me.

Well, hello Dunk & Khaotung chemistry! Y'all are not helping my "let everyone kiss everyone" feelings.

Also adore that Style is just such a natural wingman.

Haha, the competitive bitchiness over Bison, delightful.

Bison: "Ah yes, men fighting over me, this is the natural order of things"

Kant! You can break someone's foot doing that!

Sir, how dare.

Oh these two are gonna kill me.

Also we're gonna get some filthy fics out of this setting, lol.

Oh god, not Bison showing off his sucking powers.

Ok, that line about the mother is a hint that she's probably not bio mom, but something else, right?

Lol, I already know people will be complaining about the dance scene, but I think it's hilarious. Also anyone who grew up with the American teen movies of the 90s knows random dance scenes sometimes just happen.

Please, Jojo, I'm already dead!

Haha, Fadel so wants to look. I love how Joong is playing this. Tiny little cracks starting to show!

I love how shameless Style is.

I like that Fadel is suspicious, because it is sus. He's not stupid. Also I know part of Style's coolness is that he doesn't know Fadel is an assassin, but I kind of think even if he did, he'd still be like this. Fadel is a strong dude with a hand on his throat. He is just that hard to shake. It's such good character work.

Uh, pushing it a little far there Style. But again, that is his character.

The animosity of one couple and the sweetness of the other are so interesting when you consider how both will be flipping at some point.

Damn, Kant, you need to pay this guy more if he willingly let you drop a bowling ball on his foot.

I mean, Fadel may technically be right about everything, but also where's the lie?

Nevermind, Fadel is not right about everything, definitely not gun safety. Stop waving it around!

I do wonder how much of the brothers' conflict comes down to an introvert/extrovert thing. They should watch Monster Next Door.

Ha, I have never seen a man looked so annoyed to be so turned on before. But holy shit, that scene. The pearl-clutchers are gonna be so mad!

Oh this is so much fun!

[nnnn99999]

After watching thk ep 1 way too many times I have decided how I feel about the characters so far and how I read them so far.

Bison genuinely terrifies me. His expression when he was pushing his murder target's face to his stomach was so intense. He looked so disgusted yet also so pleased. Like he gets high on the power he holds in that moment. He has no control over his life or emotions. He is so trapped by his circumstances and the people around him and he seems to be fighting to escape that control all the time. I am genuinely scared of what he will do when he eventually loses it. He is not naive, he knows how the world works, he knows it too well. But instead of accepting his fate, he chooses to hold onto hope for freedom. He is indulging in fantasy, but he is fully aware of that. He knows what he is doing. He knows Kant is not all that sincere, at least not yet. But he longs for an escape from his own reality so much that he is willing to ignore all the warning signs and pretend that everything is fine. The genuine moments of connection and intimacy between the two is probably the reason Bison is willing to give Kant a chance. He will probably go full psycho when he eventually finds out about Kant's deception. I am very interested to see how this character unfolds over the course of this show.

Coming to Kant, I am still unsure how I feel about him. He is definitely a loving and responsible brother. But he is also deceptive, cunning and manipulative. How much of what he says and shows is real? We are left wondering alongside Bison. But one thing for sure is that he definitely has some genuine fondness for Bison. Had he not been intetested, he would not have taken this whole gig that serioisly. He is sly, but he is also sweet. Very confusing. And I love that about him.

Everyone please leave my man Fadel alone for like 5 minutes and let him have a break. He is tired. He is working two jobs. His younger brother is unhinged. His younger brother's crush is duplicitous. His younger brother's crush's best friend is annoying af but hot, making Fadel question his own sanity because why is he attracted to that insufferable jerk. Just let him take a nap. He needs it. Watching Style break down his sky high walls will be so much fun.

Style is the icon, the diva, the fabulous glue that holds this show together. He is so far removed from the other three that you wonder why is he there again? The other three are hiding dangerous secrets, meanwhile Style is living life like an open book. The other three are literally criminals, meanwhile Style is busy romancing cars. He is annoying and overconfident but also so unapologetically himself that it becomes endearing. He so genuine that you can't help but love him. He is definitely my favorite character so far. I love him the most.

[theredpharaoah]

I could write an entire essay about the janky “morality” of “morality bites” and how it stems from a world of white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, and heavy policing. Cal Greene killed his girlfriend and got off( I wonder why…) and so Phoebe decided to do what the law didn’t do and I do not blame her for that. To me, protecting the Innocent should’ve always included punishing the guilty. And then this whole situation makes no sense considering the later seasons. Matter of fact, most of the stuff that happened in the first couple of seasons don’t make sense when you consider the later seasons. Where tf are the cleaners? And if not them; The Elders and The Angels of Destiny? Good and Evil can’t do their jobs in a world where evil is exposed. And then Chris was sleeping with his charge a day after he met her too? That’s not allowed. Y’all was frothing at the mouth over Piper and Leo, but Patty/Sam and Chris having casual sex wasn’t even addressed. Also the spells for personal gain? And so tf what? They can never go above and beyond in their careers because they have to fight demons and warlocks. Unless The Elders finna cut them a check they need to mind they damn business. Yes, we got mystical duties but we’re in the material world, not frolicking in the damn clouds. Miss me with that “no personal gain” shit. It’s literally just like The Watchers Council and The Slayer. And Leo with this whole “Phoebe has to pay for her crimes” to set everything right shit was pissing me. So what, the entirety of the heavens ascribes to utilitarianism? What if The Charmed ones were more inclined to Kant’s moral philosophy? Y’all gon tell them they wrong? How? Go and ask The Elders that for me Leo. I’ll wait.

And can The Elders please be serious? Them making a man step on his dog’s crap that he’s leaving in their driveway, necessitated traumatizing the sisters? The Elders were hugely abusive. They damn near treated the Charmed Ones like slaves tbh. I just KNOW Grams wasn’t going for that shit. Grams was doing whatever the fuck she wanted, and it seems like almost all of their ancestors did the same. They should’ve just ignored The Elders tbh. And The Elders or Tribunal or whatever being able to take away the sisters’ powers seasons later was bullshit. The fact that they had so much power over the sisters completely undermined the Warren Line lore. It would’ve been a far greater statement if the sisters had to constantly choose to be good, with no one there to threaten consequences if they didn’t. The Elders being introduced as just ancestral spirits or The Mighty Dead of the good side that helped the sisters would’ve been way better. Leo could’ve been a fairy lover or something idk. Or, they could’ve just not made The Elders their bosses. Angel this, Angel that, but they’re supposed to be Wiccan. Make it make sense. Chile, lemme grab a drink.

[white-light-on-my-prism]

What would a starting XI of your favourite players look like? They don't need to be the best at their position just your favs

Okay so... FINALLY. FVCKING FINALLY we've made it. After so many days/probably weeks that I've lost count, we kinda have a team.

Ngahgajagsgj I've put something together with the help of my wonderful discord besties, college friends and... my dad (embarrassing, I know) and I've taken COMPLETE advantage of the fact that there are no criteria whatsoever for the players to qualify in the XI. Also, I'm sort of a post WC footie fan... (brb hiding my face rn; it's not completely true but it's complicated). Bottomline is, my ball knowledge is much less sexo than most of yours' here, so please pardon any faux pas that I might have committed. Fair warning, my reasons for choosing the ones that I have chosen are frankly ridiculous.

In attack we have Leo and Ney. Gosh how I miss Neymessiball! So there's certainly no need to explain why I've put them here together. Alongside them, there's Sunil Chhetri, who has recently secured third place internationally in the list of highest scoring football players for their respective NTs, only behind Leo and CR(iminal activity)7. He's from my country, India, and I'm quite proud🥺

In midfield we have Kante because I like him, Rodri because I love him, Luka because I LOVE him, and Alex because... he's the husband of Perrie Edwards from Little Mix, aka the only footballer I knew existed [other than Leo, Ney and CR(iminal activity)7] before I actively started following football.

The defence trio features Ramos, cause duh, he's Ramos, and Lisandro cause he loves dogs, but also because he's in La Scaloneta and I'm totally normal about them right?? There's Virgil, cause he shares his name with the Roman poet Virgil who wrote the epic 'Aeneid', which I have a complicated mix of feelings about but all of those are quite overwhelming.

I was bursting my skull open trying to decide between Dibu and Bounou as keeper, but then I thought fvck it I already know a keeper personally who's damn good, and imma put her in my XI because it's my XI and I do whatever the hell I want. @ispeakmorelanguagesthanyou come see your name in there bestie I love you🤍🫂.

That was it! @seedlessmuffins I'm so sorry for the late dear, I hope you didn't mind. Take care<3.

[angelholme]

V, V, V — Day 19 : Cave

There is a fair chance you will have realised by now that I don’t have a lot of time for “professional” philosophers. Or, quite honestly, for “amateur” philosophers.

I am, for the most part, with Tom Lehrer on the topic of philosophers — that they spend most of their time giving helpful advice to people who are happier than they are.

And, after watching “The Good Place”, my feelings were somewhat re-enforced, because Chidi Anna Kendrick, for all that he is a good person, really is only a good person by the end and at the start he is an annoying twat who you just want to repeatedly punch with a chainsaw. (He is a professor of moral philosophy, just in case you were wondering).

I like the ideas of philosophies, and so I suppose (indirectly) the “classic philosophers” (Kant, Locke and so on — The Good Place taught me a lot about philosophies but I can’t entirely remember much about the men who created them. Although apparently I can remember they were all men) but mostly it is the philosophies that I remember.

And like most people (I would imagine) my philosophy for life has been derived from a great deal of other philosophies. Some of which I can put names to (utilitarianism, deontology and so on) and some that I probably can’t put names to (although they probably are based on existing ideas. I am not saying I am not a genius the likes of which the world has never seen, but I suspect I probably haven’t come up with a whole new theory of philosophy).

Everyone — whether they realise it or not — has a philosophy in life. Whether it is “seize the day” (terrible advice — just look at what happens when Willow does it, when Buffy does it, when Xander does it….. it ends badly every single time. Do not ever seize the day — you will get attacked by a demon who wants to bring the world to an end), “live every day like it is your last” (better, but it does mean you will almost certainly be wrong every day of your life), “be excellent to one another” (truly outstanding advice) or “life is a bitch and then you die” (maybe the only real advice you will ever get), everyone has a philosophy.

But what about how you approach day to day life? How do you believe in “The Greater Good”? (Which is a version of utilitarianism) Or do you believe that no matter what is at stake, you have to do what is right? (Which I think is deontology, but I might have misunderstood it) If you make a promise to someone do you keep it? Or can you break a promise if you need to?

And just how detailed is your philosophy — if you have hard and fast rules do you have exceptions to them?

I just wonder about these things sometimes — do people who say they live their lives by “a strict set of rules” specifically keep to those rules all the time? Or do they break their rules as they see fit and just don’t tell anyone?

As I said — I get curious about it.

Me?

My philosophy is kind of simple when you get down to it, and despite watching all of the episodes of The Good Place, and taking in everything that Chidi Ariana Grande said in, the entire basis of it comes from an episode of Angel that aired twenty two years ago.

The more detailed version takes bits from certain other theories, but mostly I think that we are very small people in a very big world, so nothing we do matters. And because nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do. If there is no bigger meaning — if we can’t change anything, and I really believe we can’t — then all we can do is make the world better through small acts of kindness.

And the only other rule I have (and this is where it gets kind of self-referential) is that I don’t have any rules that I am not willing to break if circumstances required them to be broken. (I know — it is like saying “Only the Sith deal in absolutes” which is one of the most ridiculous statements you will ever hear).

If you are curious as to how this relates to cave, it is partly in relation to the dog of darkness, but also in relation to perceptions of reality.

But more of that later.

(Well — maybe, but probably not).

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOUR EMPLOYEES AND INVESTORS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ASKING ARE WE THERE YET

I think I've figured out what's going on. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated.1 Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, the harder it is to bait the hook with prestige. And that is almost certainly mistaken. So one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. As big companies' oligopolies became less secure, they were willing to pay a premium for labor. You can see it in old photos. If you're friends with a lot of the worst kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer.

And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. In 1450 it was filled with the kind of turbulent and ambitious people you find now in America. You have to like what they do there than how much they can get the most done. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. Design This kind of metric would allow us to compare different languages, but that if someone wanted to design a language explicitly to disprove this hyphothesis, they could probably do it. This technique can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be doing, not just what you can see the results in any town in America. With this amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. There I found a copy of The Atlantic. Whereas it's easy to get sucked into working longer than you expected at the money job.2 That's ok. I think you have to do all three. But more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.

But what if the person in the next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things.3 They all know about the VCs who rejected Google. The writing of essays used to be.4 You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.5 He improvises: if someone appears in front of him, he runs around them; if someone tries to grab him, he spins out of their grip; he'll even run in the wrong place, anything might happen. The people who've worked for a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. It was supposed to be something else, they ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. By 2012 that number was 18 years. The first thing you need is to be willing to look like a fool.6 Google they have a fair amount of data to go on. John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman.

Many of the big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders.7 Empirically, the way to the bed and breakfast, and other similar classes of accommodations, you get to hit a few difficult problems over the net at someone, you learn pretty quickly how hard they hit them anyway. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake as the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one was the only way to get lots of referrals is to invest in students, not professors. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new.8 Never say we're passionate or our product is great. Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be disappointments early on, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that.9 Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. VCs think they're playing a zero sum game.

I spend most of my time writing essays lately. Almost everyone's initial plan is broken. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. But if we make kids work on dull stuff now is so they can get away with atrocious customer service. In fact, here there was a kid playing basketball? Of course, figuring out what you like.

Go out of your way to bring it up e. The industry term here is conversion. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. At least if you start a startup, people treat you as if you're unemployed.10 But hacking is like writing. Even with us working to make things happen the way they used to, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. It causes you to work not on what you like, but is disastrously lacking in others. I do in the rest of the world. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program.

I could only figure out what to do, there's a natural tendency to stop looking.11 Economies of scale ruled the day.12 One is that this is simply the founders' living expenses.13 I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I think I know what is meant by readability, and I think they're onto something. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.14 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on anything they don't want to want, we consider technological progress good.

Notes

Samuel Johnson said no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Which is precisely my point. If they were regarded as 'just' even after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so new that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but except for money. They don't know enough about the new top story.

The image shows us, they tended to make money. But we invest in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and one of the fake leading the fake leading the fake. In No Logo, Naomi Klein says that 15-20% of the aircraft is.

But because I realized the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. If they agreed among themselves never to do due diligence for an investor? The best technique I've found for dealing with the other.

I ordered a large number of startups as they do for a public event, you can ignore. If you want to help the company, and a few of the Facebook that might produce the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether to go to die.

If you walk into a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3.

Or rather, where w is will and d discipline. But that turned out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest country in the sense of mission.

In Shakespeare's own time, because they can't afford to. The company may not be able to raise their kids in a company in Germany. When we got to see the apples, they said, and why it's next to impossible to write an essay about it wrong. That will in many cases be an open booth.

I'm not saying you should probably be worth trying to tell them exactly what constitutes research in the early 90s when they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. As Jeremy Siegel points out that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. Did you know about it as if you'd invested at a discount of 30% means when it was actually a great programmer doesn't merely do the right direction to be is represented by Milton.

But a lot of the next round. It's hard to say exactly what your body is telling you. In Russia they just kill you, they tend to be very unhealthy. One thing that drives most people realize, because you have two choices, choose the harder.

Though Balzac made a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay talks about programmers, but one by one they die and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Or rather, where it sometimes causes investors to act. Eric Raymond says the best hackers want to trick admissions officers. And no, unfortunately, I mean efforts to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you better be sure you do in proper essays.

The top VCs thus have a better education. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or some vague thing like that. You need to fix. But the question is not much to maintain their percentage.

Kant. Loosely speaking. The real decline seems to them to lose elections. Some types of startups where the recipe is to say incendiary things, they can grow the acquisition offers most successful founders still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they get for free.

World War II to the frightening lies told by older siblings. That's one of the most general truths. As we walked in, we found they used it to get into that because a unless your last funding round.

But this seems an odd idea.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Shiro Kawai, Garry Tan, Chris Small, and Nikhil Nirmel for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[thequeenofsastiel]

Yeah I was wondering if that's what's happening with people who are feeling so protective of Kant, because everything you're saying is exactly why he's my least favorite character. Is he an evil person? No, absolutely not. He's in a fucked up situation and being blackmailed by a cop. But he didn't need to convince Bison to fall in love with him to spy on him. He's basically engineering it so that he's going to send Bison into a horrific death trap with a broken heart, which is very cruel. He also didn't need to pull his best friend into the spying without letting him know of the danger beforehand(the cop didn't tell him to do that). And honestly I don't think Style would have agreed to help. He was clearly very frightened when he did find out. I think the only reason he kept going with it after he found out was because he had already started to fall for Fadel and didn't really want to stop being around him(though that's debatable and I'm open to more interpretations about his motivations). So Kant pulled his innocent best friend who clearly has no fighting skills into a highly dangerous situation without letting said best friend know what he was getting himself into. All of that is very not okay.

That being said, First is adorable. He has one of the sweetest smiles I've ever seen. His character in Not Me was hands down my favorite. I loved him so much that I went out and got the bird tattoos his character had(which incidentally looked a lot more real than any of the fake tattoos on Kant 🤦‍♀️). So I can absolutely understand how love of an actor can bleed into whatever character they currently happen to playing.

[princessphilly]

Because of The Strand

Word Count: 3030

CW: angst, pining, bittersweet, some weight related anxiousness

Tags: @annaloveloki @himbos-on-ice  @whoeverineedtobe @nhlboyshavemyhart88  @lovethepreds @laurenairay @starshine-hockey-girl @cbcrazies @queenreignssupreme @newlibrary @kreiderrider​

Dedicated to @laurenairy, the most positive person in hockeyblr. Lauren is named after you.

Fall

The crisp fall air hinted towards the upcoming change in seasons. Lauren huddled into her trench coat, thankful that she had worn her hair in a ponytail.

Compared to NYC, Pittsburgh was such a small town. Lauren was still confused by the different areas but today, she made sure to spend her off day exploring one place she’s always wanted to visit: The Strand.

Lauren was a voracious book reader and right now, she was teaching herself German. Partly because of work, partly for fun. To help herself learn, Lauren was looking for a couple of novels in German that she would be able to read with a translation dictionary.

But as she made her way through the store, Lauren was captivated by all of the different kinds of books. And like the klutz she was, she bumped into someone while walking around. “Oops, I’m so sorry,” Lauren pleaded, the person’s books dropping to the ground.

“It’s okay,” a deep voice answered as he picked the books up. Then he looked up  with those brown eyes and Lauren finally understood why some people believed in love at first sight.

He wasn’t her usual type: brown eyes, dark brown hair, pale skin. But Lauren could tell he had a kind soul. Stammering, she replied, “I-I’m so-so sorry.”

He grinned, shaking his head. “It’s okay. Is that Kant?”

“Yes it is, in the original German,” Lauren excitedly replied. “I’m teaching myself German and… hold up, you wouldn’t be interested.”

“Actually, I would be. I speak German fluently. By the way, my name is Chris.”

He stuck out his hand and Lauren gingerly took it, shaking it softly. “I’m Lauren and I’m generally not this nerdy.”

“Everyone calls me a nerd,” Chris said with a laugh. 

Lauren watched him as he talked, wonder lighting up her face. This was surreal, she thought. Then Lauren remembered, she had a meeting with her study group in an hour and she was still learning the subway system. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Chris,” she finally said, sure this was a one-time meeting. 

Chris’s easy smile slipped for a moment before he asked, “Can I have your number? You know, in case you ever need a German conversation partner.”

His smile is like Boy Scout perfect, Lauren thought as she grinned. “Sure.”

After exchanging digits, Lauren made her way to the cashier, unaware that Chris was staring after her. 

**

Two days later, Lauren was in the midst of law review when her phone rang, showing an unfamiliar Boston number. At first, Lauren contemplated sending it to voicemail but after a couple seconds, she picked up.

“‘Ello?”

“Hey, is this Lauren?”

“Yes.”

Lauren narrowed her eyes. The voice sounded familiar but she couldn’t place it. Then he said, “This is Chris, we met at The Strand. You’re learning German, right?”

“OH! Yes, hi Chris! How are you?”

Lauren let out a happy sigh. She truly didn’t believe that he was going to call her back but he did. Jamila, Nina, and Karesha kept telling her that she was beautiful and anyone would be lucky to talk to her but it was a struggle for Lauren. 

Nina was the sweet girl next door, Jamila was the bombshell, Karesha was married to her college sweetheart. And she was just the big girl, the one who couldn’t get smaller than a size 16, Lauren unhappily thought. 

“Are you still there?”

Startled, Lauren replied, “Oh yeah, I’m just doing law review.”

“That’s amazing,” Chris exclaimed. “I heard that’s pretty hard to get into.”

Cheeks flushed, Lauren stammered, “Y-y-yeah. I got asked to join after my 1L year.”

“That means you’re really smart.”

Lauren felt her heart start to float despite her best efforts. This was flattery that a girl could get used to.

There was a lull in the conversation then Chris ventured, “My schedule is kinda of busy but if you wanted to get together, I have some time next Thursday, at 1pm? 

Chris waited impatiently for a response. This was wild, calling a girl who had bumped into him at his favorite bookstore. But something about her made him want to investigate. Now that Chris knew she was a law student, he knew that her time was at a premium. Luckily, Lauren responded, “That should work. I’ll let you know by Tuesday. Should I call or text this number?”

“Yes, yeah, you can do that,” Chris babbled. 

He felt like he could hear her smile when she said, “Sounds great! I gotta go though. Bye Chris.”

“Bye Lauren.”

Chris went to bed with a smile on his face.

Winter

“Please tell me you are coming to my game! You have winter break, you should come!”

Lauren giggled as Chris gave her a pleading look. “Um, I’m not really a Rangers fan.”

Chris looked up at the ceiling, his antipasto salad forgotten for the second. “Please don’t tell me you’re a Flyers fan.”

“Hell no, my mom’s from Fort Greene. That would never happen,” Lauren swore before taking a bite or her panini. Her schedule as a 2L was insanely busy, making lunch time meetings the only time she could meet up with Chris. 

Chris asked, “Fort Greene?”

“Brooklyn.”

“Oh.”

Lauren had no problem with Chris not knowing that. Manhattan itself was huge, then when you added the rest of the Five Boroughs, it was a lot to remember. Lauren was pretty sure that the Rangers players pretty much only knew Tribeca, Chelsea, Midtown, Times Square, those areas. Both sides of Lauren’s family were from Brooklyn: mom’s from Fort Greene, dad from Avenue U in Homecrest. Dad’s family pretty much had moved to Pittsburgh over the years, just leaving the boisterous Allen clan in NYC. Lauren was thankful for that; instead of having to pay exorbitant rent in Greenwich Village, she had a room with her Aunt Delores and a walk to either Lafayette Avenue Station for the C or Dekalb Avenue for the B or D trains. It was a lifeline for the first one in the family to go to law school. 

“Anyway, we’re mostly Knicks and Giants fans but my family would root for Rangers over anybody in hockey,” Lauren stated. 

“Interesting.”

There was a lull in the conversation as they both ate. Then Chris ventured, “So, let me guess, you aren’t a hockey fan at all.”

“I understand the game but my experience with it is on TV.”

“Then you should let me give you tickets for a game!”

The puppy dog eyes Chris was giving her was enough to melt the South Pole in Lauren’s opinion. She didn’t get it, she didn’t understand why a hockey player, a potential star, was giving her so much attention. But she couldn’t resist. 

“Okay, I’ll come to one of your games before the spring semester begins.”

Chris shyly smiled and Lauren felt her heart beat extra fast. It’s not that serious, Lauren scolded herself, he’s just a friend. She kept telling herself that through the rest of lunch. 

Yet, as Chris grabbed her hand when she nearly stumbled on the icy sidewalk, Lauren knew she was a goner. A goner over someone who probably saw her as a friend. She was such a fucking fool.

**

Today was Tết Nguyên Đán, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. Lauren anxiously looked at her room, freshly cleaned and ready for the new year. Even though Aunt Delores, Gavin, Rick, and Mia didn’t participate, they allowed Lauren to clean the house the days before the new year as Lauren told them if they swept during the New Year, they would be sweeping away good luck. If she was home, Lauren would be with her parents and younger brothers, but this year, she had  class earlier in the day anyway. But, she dressed for the day, wearing her favorite red dress and gold jewelry. 

The sound of “Set Fire To The Rain” filled her room and Lauren eagerly answered her phone. “Chúc Mừng Năm Mới,” she happily greeted her family on FaceTime. 

Minh and Violet Nguyen grinned at their oldest, the faces of her brothers’ Nick, John, and Eric peeking out. “Chúc Mừng Năm Mới,” they all yelled. 

Lauren grinned as the boys drifted away. Then Minh said, “Vạn sự như ý. How are you?”

“I’m doing well. Much better now that I’ve seen everyone. Năm mới dồi dào sức khỏe, papa.”

Lauren genuinely smiled, tears misting in her eyes. She really missed her family so much. 

“Did you get your mail?”

“Yes, mom. I haven’t opened it yet though. I was waiting for you.”

Pulling out envelopes, Lauren opened them in the eyes of her parents. It was the traditional red envelopes for Tết, filled with lucky money for the new year. Lauren didn’t expect much; her younger brothers were entering their teen years and Nick would be heading to college soon. However, her eyes widened when she saw a check written out for five thousand dollars.

“Mom, Papa!!”

“You’ve been doing so well in law school, Laur, we all decided to pool together something to help you not worry as much about your bills,” Minh explained. 

Lauren felt her eyes swell. This meant that everyone at the temple chipped in something. She had a small altar for her ancestors in her room and Lauren had already given her offering for Tết. But now, she felt the need to give more for this blessing. 

“Thank you so much! Cung hỷ phát tài Chúc Mừng Năm Mới, Mom, Papa!”

Violet said, “We are so proud of you, Lauren. I hope you know that.”

As Lauren nodded, she remembered that she had plans for the night. She was finally going to one of Chris’ games with a classmate, Tania.

“Thank you so much, Mom, Papa, I truly appreciate it so much,” Lauren replied again. This was enough to get her through to the summer. Lauren already had a summer associate position lined up with DLA Piper here in Manhattan. It was just getting there that was now going to be much easier. 

After repeating happy new year greetings, Lauren ended the FaceTime call. Carefully changing out of her outfit, Lauren put on a pair of jeans, a Rangers t-shirt, and a pair of Tims before putting on her North Face. Hustling out of the house, Lauren swiftly walked to the Lafayette Avenue station, getting on the C train to Penn Station. Tania was waiting there. 

“Look at you, already a complete New Yorker with the North Face bubble and Tims,” Tania crowed. 

Lauren smirked; Tania was a fellow law student at NYU, a native New Yorker, and one of the few fellow women of color in the program. Tania also promised to turn Lauren into a true New Yorker by the end of their law program. “It’s cold.”

Tania laughed as they linked arms. They chattered about random celebrity gossip, everything but law school as they entered Madison Square Garden. Lauren had heard of the legendary stadium on top of Penn Station but this was her first time there. Unfortunately, they made it about fifteen minutes before puck drop. “We missed warm ups, Laur.”

“That’s okay, I had to quickly celebrate Tết with my family over FaceTime,” Lauren replied. 

“Cool. Did you go down to Chinatown?”

Lauren playfully rolled her eyes before saying, “I visited some of my cousins who still live in the Bowery. Tết is Vietnamese, not Chinese, Tai.”

“Damn, I fucked up. Sorry,” Taina apologized. 

Lauren waved her off as the anthem singer got ready to sing the national anthem.

The game itself was a rather tight game until the third period. However, after the Rangers got the go-ahead goal, they ended up winning 4-1. Not a big hockey fan, Lauren found herself swept up in the emotions of the game. Expecting to just go home, Lauren was surprised to receive a text from Chris: i saw u. Can u wait for me?

“Ooooh, Laur! I think you should wait for him!”

Lauren cut her eyes at Taina, annoyed that she read her message. Taina continued, “Is this the guy you meet for lunch and practice German with?”

“Yes,” Lauren sullenly replied as she considered what to respond. Her instincts were to say no and go home. Meeting with Chris after one of his games was totally different than lunch. Palms sweating, Lauren felt super nervous. She looked totally different than the usual glam NY WAG type.

Taina gave Lauren a thoughtful look. She liked her friend but Lauren was way too shy and she didn’t need to be. She was absolutely beautiful in Taina’s opinion and even though some of their classmates talked shit about her weight behind her back, Lauren was amazing and any guy who had a chance with her was absolutely lucky. “Don’t start that shit in your mind. Do it, Lauren. And if it’s different because it’s here and not at lunch, then fuck him.”

Lauren bit her lip before nodding. Before she could respond, there was a security guy right in front of them. “Are you Lauren Nguyen?”

“Yes.”

“Can you follow me? Chris is waiting for you.”

Giving Tania a wild-eyed look, Lauren followed the security guard.

**

Chris felt so nervous, more nervous than before his first pro game. It had just been a glimpse, but he saw Lauren in the stands, the first time at one of his games and Chris had wanted to impress her. He didn’t have the best game but the team won. 

The boys were headed out but this time, Chris decided not to go with them. Waiting in the lounge, he rocked impatiently on his feet. He hoped Lauren would meet with him. 

When the door opened, Chris steeled himself in case the answer had been no. Then Lauren tentatively walked in and Chris exhaled a sigh of relief. 

“Nice win.”

“Thanks.”

There was a companionable silence as Lauren and Chris stood in front of each other. Then Chris reached out a hand. “Late dinner? Or do you have a study session or review tomorrow?”

“Nope. We can have a late dinner.”

Lauren smiled at Chris and he felt his heart jump in his throat. He was in too deep. Just one smile from Lauren and Chris was ready to do anything she wanted. He thought to himself, This weekend, I’ll finally ask her out on a real date. 

Spring and Summer

New York City in spring was magical.

Chris looked out from his place, watching the blooming trees. Unlike the promise of spring, his life was much different. 

They had made the playoffs. After a tough seven game series, they had beat the Flyers to make it to the next round. And Chris still hadn’t asked Lauren out.

Every time he had a chance, it slipped away so quickly. First they kept getting interrupted during their lunch dates. Then his schedule changed because of the playoffs. Now, Lauren was starting work as a summer associate. She had said her schedule would be different, slightly less demanding since she was a 2L summer associate going into her 3L year. Chris could hear her throaty giggle as she had said to him, “This is the summer where DLA Piper is going to try to woo us into working for them after next year. It’s going to be hard work but not as much as a regular associate.”

Chris had wanted to romance Lauren, sweep her off her feet. But, as he looked at her Facebook profile, it seemed like he had missed his shot. 

He wasn’t the most violent guy, but Chris wanted to punch the guy who had his arm around her shoulders. Instead, Chris channeled his frustration into his game. 

**

Lauren knew playoffs were a different beast but it sucked that Chris was ignoring her messages. Maybe she had read too much into the sweet guy who practiced German with her during the season. It wasn’t like Lauren had the chance to really think about it as her spring turned quickly into a very busy summer. There was no chance to brood about what could have been as Lauren helped write briefs for a huge real estate contract. 

By the time August had rolled around, Lauren left her summer associate job with a firm offer to join DLA Piper after graduating from NYU Law. To celebrate, Lauren went to her third home, The Strand on Broadway. Knowing exactly what she wanted, Lauren made her way to the German language collection, intending to pick up some novels. 

However, on the way there, she swore she saw a familiar brown haired guy. Pausing for a moment, Lauren waited to see if it was him. When he turned around, it was obviously someone else. 

“It wouldn’t happen twice,” Lauren muttered to herself. That door was closed.

Fall, Eight Years Later

No matter where it was, taking clients to games was always the same. Idle chatter, food, drinks, barely paying attention to the game. 

Lauren sighed as she half-heartedly listened to her colleagues. This was meant to impress her, the newest partner at Fox Rothschild in NY, a transfer from the Pittsburgh office. Over the years, Lauren had become a heavyweight contract lawyer, admitted to practice in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, California, Delaware, and Washington D.C. However, after her divorce, Lauren decided to transfer offices to NYC, the home of Wall Street. This also brought her closer to her main client, NBC Universal. 

“Are you enjoying yourself, Ms. Huang?”

Lauren gave the associate a polite smile. “Yes. It’s been an interesting game.”

The Rangers were currently playing the Penguins and while Lauren still wasn’t a hockey fan, she was rooting for the Pens, just because of Nina. Before she could say anything else, she heard the crack of glass and felt something hard hit her right in the nose before everything went black.

**

“Wow, never thought I would see you again.”

Lauren blinked as she came to. She was laying back on something, a couch or cot. Her brand new St.John suit had splotches of blood on it. 

And right in front of her was Chris, in the flesh.

[mecumpotas]

How each and every one of les amis fell a little for Grantaire: a list

so the other day @cumbercookiebatchs ​ posted something about all of the amis having a crush on grantaire at some point and a few days before that i had talked to @cianaurelien ​ about the same topic so here’s the long ass list I wrote

The first one to fall was Joly. When they met, Joly was a bit smitten because imagine big smiley bear Taire- gah, right? But then Taire introduces Joly to his childhood friend, Bossuet (who found out he was bi thanks to Taire himself) and Joly is completely gone on this man. He’ll always be grateful to Grantaire for the encounter and he loves to tease him on how obsessed he was with his eyes.

The next one is Jehan. Joly brings Taire to a meeting and he’s super nice to everyone. At some point, he starts drawing, and Jehan is very intrigued like oh? you draw? and Taire is all “yeah, want a quick portrait” and Jehan is completely gone. Just. Gone. But then they start becoming friends and somewhere along the way Taire stops being the hot friend and he becomes “my hot big brother Parnasse you should meet him he’s incredible- stop being jealous!”

Courfeyrac does not speak to him until the first time they get drunk together because hot guys are intimidating, okay? And, yes, he gets it, Grantaire is a big bear and he’s friendly as hell and he looks like he gives the best hugs but- “I cant just go talk to him, Ferre! He’s just so- have you seen him and his hands?”

“Yes, Courf, I’ve seen both him and his hands, that’s why I need you to talk to him! Like that, once he rejects you I have my chance to swoop in already knowing what not to say. Don’t look so betrayed, I’ll win thanks to your sacrifice.” That earns him a pillow to the side of the head that makes his glasses almost fly off his nose. In the end, it becomes a bet. Only, “who can flirt harder with Grantaire” ends up becoming “who can flirt harder with the other”.

"I can draw the fliers. Although, if anyone else can draw, I really could use some help.” Feuilly hadn’t taken a pencil in years, but he spoke up so quickly his voice cracked. He spent incredibly long picking out the outfit and deciding how to act and what to say, you know? But then Taire welcomes him with a cup of tea and makes him meet his cats, all named after philosophers he likes, and while he’s saying how much of a little shit Kant is Feuilly wonders how someone can be so nice and hot at the same time.

eponine is a lesbian

Cosette? Cosette is speechless when she meets Grantaire. And she starts flirting, she does, so so so much, but then she witnesses her first Enjolras/Grantaire debate, and she kindly passes the ball onto someone else. Besides, Enjolras’ new friend is so cute with all the freckles and the little, bouncy curls, isn’t he, Chetta?

“Sure. But you’re giving up Grantaire, who looks like that for, well, that? You’re the gayest straight girl I’ve ever seen.”

Marius is straight. He is, really. But Grantaire is too much for his straight heart, too. He’s too enamoured with Cosette to have a life crisis, but a little bit of doubt never leaves his mind, especially when they start going to the beach or running together.

Bahorel flirts shamelessly for months. But then he catches Grantaire sketching Enjolras, and he sees his face when he manages to make Enj laugh for the first time, and his little eyebrows-twitching-with-wonder thing when Enjolras finally says, “I suppose I could have a drink or two, thank you, Grantaire”, and so he kindly goes back to hitting on Feuilly.

Well. What to say. We all know how the last one ends up falling for Grantaire. The only difference? The others got discouraged pretty soon for various reasons. Enjolras? He only gets discouraged once.

Only when Grantaire is staring at him, and then at the ring, and then back at him again, and he’s so silent and his face is unreadable and oh god it’s too soon what have I done what have I done? But then there’s hands on Enjolras’ cheeks and a mouth on his and he can feel tears against his face and falling from his own eyes and yes, yes, of course I’ll marry you, angel. 

It was never in Enjolras’ style to get discouraged before a challenge, anyway. So if anyone could properly fall in love with Taire and manage to get him to love him back, well, it could have only been Enj.

[ginkgomoon]

Gavin’s Mini House In Detail 🏡

During the Mini House special events, I obtained all the furnishing items and had already unlocked all the furniture in the home so I thought for Gavin’s Birthday Week, I would share all of the little secrets it contains! 

Gavin has four sections of the house including-

Living Room

Loft 

Courtyard

Basement

This post also includes MC’s commentary and quotes from special happenings associated with Gavin. Special furnishes will have the coziness points indicated next to its name.

Please enjoy! 

Living Room

Soft Stool 

The white soft stool next to the tea table.

This stool is a must when Gavin watches soccer games.

The leather surface is very soft, and its height is just right for watching TV on.

Want to know the trend of the soccer lottery recently? How about asking about it? 

It seemed to have won all the recent games, and is both happy and lonely.

If his favourite team loses, Gavin will sit here alone. (#sad) 

White Sofa 

With so many pillows, you don’t have to worry about having no support behind you.

Is the white sofa difficult to clean? 

The bolsters are very comfortable.

Curled up on the sofa with soft ginkgo aroma.

“Gavin, do you remember what you told me?”

“I just want to be with you, just like this...”

“You still remembered!” 

“I won’t forget what I’ve told you.” 

“Then... Do you have anything you want to tell me this time?” 

Gavin kissed MC’s forehead gently.

- This special happening (Starry Sky) refers to the Furniture City Date!

White Table 

“Gavin’s Pad is placed here too.”

(It has a photo of MC and she says she will change it into the both of them next time.)

“I can add a snack box, but Gavin doesn’t really eat snacks.”

Hallway Cabinet

“Gavin waters the plants regularly.”

“These are often loose change on the cabinet which we can take before going out.”

“The silver ornament is a souvenir I bought when we went to Disneyland.”

The “Wavy Thing”

“I noticed a little “go for it” written on the most recently scrawled page of the notebook.” 

“I found a magazine that puts people to sleep in a second, which was necessary for insomniacs.”

Zoombot 

The black Zoombot.

Today I’m again busy all over the place saving Zoombot.

It’s a bit stupid and often gets stuck after hitting the furniture.

Makes a buzzing sound when working.

You threaten it: If you hang again, I’ll replace you!  

Music Stand

The music stand bought by Gavin.

On it are sheets of music scores printed by Gavin.

It will sometimes think that the small black table next to it is a bit short.

Sometimes Gavin uses in in the hanging chair to record melodies.

Gavin will print the music scores and put them on it to practice.

Flowers on the Wall 

Each flower is carefully selected by Gavin.

The front wall stores a variety of flowers.

The flowers on the entire flower wall are all preserved fresh flowers. 

Black Table and Seat 

Looking at it closely, it is the song that Gavin played last time. (Music score sheet on table.) 

It is also very comfortable with the little black seat cushion next to it.

The soft black cushion stuffed with cotton.

My exclusive seat for Gavin’s recital.

I bought it with Gavin when we were shopping at the furniture market.

Hanging Chair/Rose Hanging Chair (Coziness 88)

A great napping spot.

Here in the Leisure Time special happening, MC and Gavin talk about the swing they had in high school. MC is surprised that Gavin knew about the view of the sunset when being on it. He says he “passed by” sometimes. MC notes how the ginkgo leaves danced in the wind. He says, “they were gifts from another person”.

Heart-Shaped Chair (Coziness 28)

A cute small stool and a convenient storage box.

Gavin’s expression was a bit subtle while he sat on it first.

Alternating blue and pink hearts, as it’s a Valentine’s Day limited edition.

Surfboard Cabinet (Coziness 42)

It’s a new surfboard. Bring it next time we travel.

There are also other surfboards. Guess where they are? 

It says fly on the surfboard, like I can leap through waves with it.

(THEIR CUTE SHOES ARE NEXT TO IT AHHH)

Blue Lamp

A lamp that always blows bubbles from the bottom to top.

It’s beautiful and dreamlike when switched on at night.

Black Table on the Left 

“This looks like the score that Gavin played on the beach last time. I suddenly feel a bit nostalgic.”  - This refers to the Slightly Drunken Date!

“I found a picture of an asleep Gavin. He was sleeping soundly.”

Claw Machine and Carpet 

A dream-like claw machine. Gavin will add new dolls in it.

The inserted game coins can be taken out from the back of the machine and then reused.

A small black carpet in front of the claw machine.

I bought it together with the large carpet.

Red Bunny, White Bunny, Pink Bunny, Red Bunny, Grey Bunny.

Motorcycles 

The blue motorcycle sometimes want to compete with the opposite motorcycle.

The colour of the motorcycle displayed is sky blue. 

Maybe its name will be “Azure”? (because Gavin uses colours to individually name items.) 

Spring Landscape Display 

The landscape has been embedded into the window, like beautiful paintings.

Maybe there is a new world inside.

I can't help stopping to enjoy the view each time I pass.

Is designed for a wider view, improving your mood even when you're tired.

Winter Landscape Display (Coziness 61)

A corresponding landscape should be changed into winter.

Such heavy snow! Frozen river! Unfortunately, they are all fake. 

You can enjoy the red maple leaves and snow even at home, isn’t it wonderful?

Loft 

Painting

This is a word map that covers the entire wall.

Looking at it, Gavin and I have already been to so many places.

If you want to travel, you can find the destination on it in advance.

I'm willing to create memories with him in many more places.

Chandelier

The current iron style design is really cool.

Shines warm yellow when turned on, warming our hearts.

Display Cabinet  

It should have been a wine cabinet, but Gavin doesn’t drink, so it became a display cabinet.

The ‘little things’ between me and Gavin are displayed inside.

It looks empty now, but it will slowly be filled up in the future.

Black Tea Table

A black low table in front of the sofa.

I occasionally work here.

The star and moon deco piece is very beautiful, I picked it with Gavin.

You can put fruits and snacks on it while reading.

The wood texture had a matted quality with the black coat of paint.

Art 

Looks cold but is artistic.

Seems useless, but also seems cool.

Greenery

A corner with blooming flowers all seasons, is warm and restful to the eye.

Outside the window is a huge ginkgo tree, and the fallen leaves are like brocade.

I feel like it’s always spring with all these flowers around.

It compliments the scenery outside the window. (They have a ginkgo tree right outside their home!) 

Cabinet 

Photo framed have karmas from the Starry Date and the Romantic Date!

Decorative Cabinet/Snowman Closet (Coziness 49)

The two little snowmen stared at each other throughout the winter. (Cute little reference to the CN Recovery ASMR.)

It looks like a window at first glance, but it’s actually a cabinet if you look carefully.

And you could open it. Didn’t see that coming right? 

Starry Sky Wall (Coziness 52)

Today’s wish… I hope that Gavin…

I will accompany you to see the meteor rain which falls on this Earth.

Every moment a wish is realised, there will be a meteor streaking across the sky.

Dandelion Lamp (Coziness 43)

The lamp looks exactly like the grapefruit during Mid-Autumn Festival.

Like a burning sparkler, shining brightly.

Six light sources, not too dazzling nor too dark.

Festive Decoration Table (Coziness 57)

Although there are two cups of drinks, we can still drink from the same cup.

The sofa in the corner always makes people feel safe. 

Although we are only two people, I still chose two long couches.

The letter under the ginkgo biloba leaf, writes a love poem.

All the shopping bags represent his most flawless love.

The wide view allows you to see the scenery in the yard.

The soft white mat was added afterwards.

But it’s always hot under the sunlight, so the curtain is often pulled down.

Basement

Security Camera 

You are in a monitored area, please mind your actions.

Bulletproof Glass 

It’s not a normal screen, it’s bulletproof.

It's not often that one gets to see such a cool and HARD-CORE transparent screen.

Anyways, curious what’s in this wall.

Sci-fi glass wall in the movies.

The engraved badge is Gavin’s silent pride.

1-2-3... still shorter than it!

Gingko Tree

Seasons slip by soundlessly.

No matter how small their wishes are, they will become seeds and eventually bloom in gold.

All life’s little joys turned into gold.

It guards the serene life here quietly over in the corner.

(Gavin makes ginkgo bookmarks with them for MC. CRIES.)

Corner Resting Area 

These action figures are actually pretty fun!

The puzzle is all grown up. It should be able to piece itself back together. (LOL)

(Puzzle) Maybe finish it while Gavin’s gone? 

(Table) It sometimes thinks the table is a bit short.

(Chair) It looks hard but it’s actually comfortable to sit on.

Very spacious, but looks a bit empty.

Some decorations should be displayed here.

Sitting on a blanket is also very comfortable. You can also lean on the small pillow. 

(Carpet) This is a carpet. You can’t tell, right? 

The advanced smart carpet that is warm in winter and cool in summer is awesome.

(The book on the table is called ‘Kritik Der Urteilskraft’- The Critique of Judgement by famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant. It follows after the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason- the First and Second Critiques, respectively. The Critique of Judgment constitutes a discussion of the place of Judgment itself, which must overlap both the “understanding” and “reason”.)

“You need to take better care of your health.”

“Who was the one working overnight over the proposal the other day?”

“Alright, we’re birds of a feather, so... so both of us should look after ourselves for each other!” 

“Rest assured, I will. After all, it’s different now. I have you by my side.”  -Harmonous Compa Special Happening

Gavin’s Workspace

Accompany Gavin though every sleepless night.

This seems… No, I’m seeing things.

All folders are neatly organised and arranged.

A spacious table, with files and reports spread all over when busy.

I no need to worry about waking up from naps due to cold late at night.

I was reminded of some criminal investigation shows I have watched. Come on, Officer Gavin!

If this complicated case is made into a movie, it will be an exhilarating one. 

(Computer) A customised large-screen UHD model customised for work purpose.

(Computer) Work exclusive computer, only connected to intranet.

(Computer) The three auxiliary monitors can help keep the data safe.

(Chair) If you want to protect your waist, you should first have a comfortable cushion.

(Chair) if you work long hours, be sure to work in a comfortable chair.

(Board Area) What does it say? Ermm… Cats have nine lives? 

“Found a girl crookedly drawn next to a work record when he reached a bottleneck.” 

Airplane

This airplane model was assembled by Gavin himself.

The computer says-  Agent B-7

Team Operator S.T.R.I.K.E

Location Tracker 

S.P.Y Camera 

U4V Commando

Gunship Operation 

Motorcycle Repair Area 

Every vehicle is so cool in its own way! 

Hello, you are... Little… Erm… Let me think… 

With the strength to lift mountains and the spirit to take on the world! Ha! 

The robot arm is actually a simple robot.

For your safety, please don’t linger below it

(Motorcycle) I would like to greet my seniors.

Electronic Control Pad

Responsible for controlling the rising, descending and switches of the entire area.

On Spring Festival, it will say: Happy New Year, Sir!”

Sooner or later, fully automated smart management will be achieved.

Radio Office 

It’s an important communication device, and the only disadvantage is that it’s a bit heavy.

It’s actually a satellite phone, and it can receive signals everywhere.

Looks like the palm phone in the 90s. Oh no, I’ve exposed myself.

It looks like an electrocardiogram.

Don’t know how to use this weird device.

A thick laptop that it’s properly shut when not in use.

A cool eagle logo is printed on it.

Gavin used it only for special tasks and it will not be brought out.

LMAO MC DOESN’T HAVE ACCESS-

Courtyard 

Corner Seating Area 

A courtyard in sunny or snowy days are interested in their own ways.

Sometimes the unfrequented bolsters will envy the knee pillow.

It's’ wonderful when two people are sitting here reading, even if they don’t talk.

Standing barefoot on the soft lawn is very comfortable.

There's nothing nicer than basking ourselves when its sunny.

Binoculars

The white binoculars which you can see things several miles away.

You can use it to watch the stars when it’s not too cloudy.

But star-watching is clearer mid-air.

Seems to be the same binoculars as those in the scenic area.

The binoculars in the scenic area require coins, but this one doesn't.

Outdoor Lounge Chairs 

The new furniture I asked Gavin to buy.

Can enjoy the sunlight spa comfortably when relaxing. 

Closing my eyes, I feel like I’m lying on a beach.

The soft breeze and warm sunshine. This is life. 

Lying on it and looking at the blue sky and white clouds, your mind goes blank easily.

The blue and white clouds-

Leisure Table/Romantic Table (Coziness 52)

Lace tablecloth… I can’t imagine that it was chosen by Gavin.

The elaborately prepared dinner and roses, just for today.

A large sunshade on the balcony. (Black large umbrella.)

Bird Nest (Coziness 37) 

Once it was a pair of binoculars, now it’s a bird’s nest.

I bought it just because it was cute, but I’ll consider having pets in the future.

Birds flying by can also have a free meal here.