#the Riemann Report

[datamodel-of-disaster]

The Riemann Report: January

I suppose you could say my New Year’s resolution was to do more… idk, real-feeling things. Stuff that feels tangible, like I actually do something with my time and my life.

So… as the year started, I’ve started reading books, again. My result stack for January is small but proud. A shitty job, mental health issues, and life events kinda stole all my attention span and drive to pursue real hobbies last year, so knowing I’m coming from rock bottom I’m genuinely happy with my progress. So… behold the books I finished!

And well… since this is sort of a “book report”, you can find my opinion on them below the cut!

Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie

Am I late to this party? Probably. But holy shit. A genuine page turner, somehow, despite the subject matter. If you’d told me I’d find a book about a domestic abuse situation this hard to put down I wouldn’t have believed it, and yet. There I was, sneaking pages while on the toilet at work, completely enthralled. I can’t explain it, you have to read it yourself.

Delta of Venus - Anaïs Nin

Anaïs Nin should be glad she wrote long before the advent of TikTok, because this book is Problématique (and proud to be so). A series of erotic short stories that read like snapshots from a parallel universe, like a voyeur’s dream -where every action is titillation, every body exists to be seen and fucked, and cheating, prostitution and even assault are but sexy games people play. The only jobs anyone seems to have are model and painter -and even those are but an excuse to get up to sexy shenanigans. In short: it’s absolutely delightful. A peak into the pornoverse, anno 1940.

In Praise of Older Women - Stephen Vicinczey

A fake memoir of a Hungarian man with a remarkable life. At once a ridiculous tall tale, a sexy fantasy, and a surprisingly convincing “true to life” narrative, always balancing on the very edge of believable. Excellent read. Avoid if you are easily upset by…. Let’s call it non-ideal sexual situations.

The Field Guide to Understanding “Human Error” - Sidney Dekker

A bit of nonfiction. Sidney Dekker talks about plane crashes and offshore oil rig accidents, from the perspective of a safety expert and accident investigator -but underneath the specific examples, he talks about the human condition and its many pitfalls and logical fallacies. About how to approach the aftermath of disaster with willingness to understand rather than eagerness to condemn. About what “safety” actually is, and how it can be both built up and eroded in human interaction. Highly recommend even if you work a desk job.

En Dan Nog Iets - Paulien Cornelisse

A Dutch book! Title translates as “And Another Thing”, but I’d wish anyone luck trying to translate the contents. Written by a Dutch cabaretière, it’s a collection of witty observations of the Dutch language in its natural habitat -with its idioms, expressions, trendy words, but mostly, the many almost untranslatable ways people give themselves away in the way they talk.

Girls in White Dresses - Jennifer Close

Did I like this book, or did I find it horrendous? Both. The blurb on the back sells it as a chick lit about a group of women who struggle with romance while continuing to attend the weddings of others. What it actually is, is a painfully astute dissection of life in your twenties and thirties, in all its small-minded, vapid, petty, anxiety-riddled, hopeful, generous, and truly all-too-human glory. “Relatable!”, the blurb promises. I’d say, take that as a threat.

The Social Life of Information - John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

More non-fiction. An IT book from the year 2000, I can hear you think “what relevance does that even have anymore?” -and you’d be surprised. Most of the book is not about tech. It’s about people, and how people form an indispensable part of any IT ecosystem. It’s remarkable, how relevant much of the contents still are, from the isolation of the home office, the battle against bad actors on the Internet, and the difficulties of transferring knowledge, to the endurance of paper within the office and the value of informal information exchange. A niche read, but valuable.

The Hotel Life - Javier Montes

Did I like this book? No. Would I recommend it? Also no. Was it memorable? Very. This book was at once boring and baffling. Nothing happens for ages; the narrator is not particularly interesting, even as he sinks into an increasingly unhinged parasocial fascination with a female porn director he met only once. There’s nothing sexy or even fascinatingly dark about the main character even as he essentially becomes a stalker. He’s boring, even while insane. (There’s also an almost random murder near the end that happens bizarrely blasé and doesn’t get addressed?) Anyway. A book like a developing psychosis. Proof no one becomes interesting by going mad.

….

Let’s hope I also manage to read some the coming month!

[joydoesathing]

second tnmn fan character for my genderbent au! So, with father rudboys being death by doppel case #1, here's:

CASE #2

Name: Jacob "Jake" Riemann

Date of Death: XX/XX/1950

Story Description:

A widely known investigative journalist . Celebrated by the public and feared by the crime world for having successfully dug up information on a lot of hidden schemes and bringing them out to justice. He was also noted for having cracked multiple cold cases in the past.

When the doppelganger outbreak became prominent, he decided to take it upon himself to investigate about the monsters; their origins and how they came to be.

That's where he and a few other journalists met their untimely demise by the doppels.

The public, his family and fiancee mourned for him.

but apparently there was more to his death than what was presented to the public..

Somewhere in the journalist massacre incident report, there were some hidden details that were never disclosed.

In Riemann's autopsy report, it was clear that he succumbed to the doppels attacks, but it was also discovered that he was found to have sustained a few bullet shots to his legs. It was also noted that his cadaver was found separated from the rest of the dead journalists.

Was he trying to run away and got incapacitated? What happened?

The short answer

He saw too much. About the truth behind the doppels and the D.D.D.

but know one knew about that ...

The rest of the hidden details about Riemann's death were only made known to one person.

And that person is out for justice...

But despite his death, for some mysterious reason, it's like his work is still ongoing. Crime cases are still being cracked open left and right, but know one knows who's doing them. Some jokingly speculate he was so dedicated to his work, his ghost still lurks around and does them.

Is it a ghost? Or just one very disgruntled person?

[octuscle]

I've done a few himbo transformations with the Chronivac, but I'm getting tired of being dumb. I want to be smarter without risking some crazy permanent change. Can you make it so I steal 1 IQ point from everyone who's in the same room as me? They can have it back when they leave.

You are a super Himbo. Always in good shape, always horny. And admittedly also a real feast for the eyes. I like your idea. It's a little bit experimental. But let's give it a try.

You're always the first one at the gym in the morning. You love to start your day pumped up. And it's wonderfully empty at this time of day. No smart alecks to make fun of you. You have the body, you have the face. An IQ of 89 is more than enough for an alpha guy like you! Normally you're done with your program by 07:30. That's when the gym usually fills up. Today it's surprisingly full. There's a congress in town, so lots of external guys always come to work out. By around 07:00 there are already a good 30, maybe 35 people training. One of the guys is really cute. You approach him. You talk about all sorts of things and train the next sets together. It's rare to find someone who has a similar political opinion and is interested in both Italian opera and astronomy at the same time. And who looks so awesome at the same time. You'll get a boner. He notices. You say that unfortunately you have to go now and you're going to take a shower. He says that he hopes you'll see each other again sometime. You see each other in the shower four minutes later. Not a soul around. And you fuck the guy like only a man with a bird's brain can.

You like your work as a motorcycle mechanic. Your machines are just as simple as your brain. You understand them. And you're really good at making them look hot and getting the most out of them. And you like to work alone. It's difficult in a team. Some know-it-all is always making fun of you. Pure envy, you think, and flex your muscles. But it does annoy you a little. That's why you prefer to do things in the evening that don't involve talking. Dancing. Fucking. Or go to the movies. Like tonight. "The Beekeeper". It's supposed to be good.

Shit, your head is starting to pound. The movie theater is maybe half full. You do a quick count. Yes, exactly 378 people. 78 percent male. That was to be expected. According to a rough estimate, they all spent a total of 3,117 dollars on Coke and popcorn. One guy went to the loo for the third time. You've noticed 67 things in the movie so far that are illogical. Bored, you take out a cell phone. You surf to the MIT website. A very interesting article from the mathematics department about the Riemann conjecture. By the end of the movie, you've finished the proof.

Fortunately, your favorite pub, where you're having a nightcap, is almost empty. Your buddy at the bar, a handful of the usual regulars. Your cell phone vibrates incessantly. Lots of calls from unknown callers. From cities you've never heard of. Boston, San Francisco, Cambridge in Massachusetts, Cambridge in England. Göttingen. Isn't that in Poland? What do they all want from you? You turn off your cell phone.

The next morning you have 189 missed calls. You check a few messages. But you can't understand a single word they're saying. Something about genius. And a brain that only exists once. Hehehe, you've heard that a lot about your cock. You're going back to the gym. You're late today. Your crush from yesterday is already here. And so are 40, 50 other people. CNN is on the screens. The headlines are about the proof of Riemann's hypothesis. Your crush asks you if you know what it is. You explain it to him and outline your solution. As best you can reproduce it. It's really complicated. Your crush stares at you open-mouthed. "You've proved Riemann's conjecture?“ You grin a little sheepishly.

Shit, this guy has a hot ass and a talented tongue. But why can't he keep his tongue in check? After a few minutes, the first reporter is in your workshop and asks you about this Riemann shit. Tell him to go to hell. A second, a third reporter arrives. They're on the floor laughing as you answer their questions. The weaklings are about to get the shit kicked out of them. In the afternoon, a courier arrives from this Cambridge, which is not in England. With a letter. An invitation to a ceremony. Whatever that is. And then there's a check inside. A check for a million dollars.

You like airports. A place where you can do sociological studies. You also really enjoyed the flight. The documents that the mathematical institute in Cambridge sent you are very interesting. But you see a few inconsistencies that you would like to discuss. A driver is waiting for you at the airport. You take a deep breath when you are finally out in the fresh air. It's funny, there's a guy holding a board with a name just like yours on it. You walk up to him. "Mr. Wood?" he asks a little incredulously. "Hehehe, someone must have given us that name one early morning. Do you understand, dude? And by the way, my name is Al." Curt is a cool dude. You get to sit up front and talk about football and stuff. Curt lifts iron too. He recommends a good gym near the hotel and campus. Then he tells you stuff like you can freshen up if you want. Then the dean would like to meet you for a private lunch in private. And then the prize will be officially presented in the setting. Then there is also time for your speech. You say that you smell like a real man and don't need to freshen up. And you ask what a dean does and what the hell the speech is all about. Curt grins.

The dean wipes the sweat from his brow. The food tastes quite good, but you would have preferred an honest burger. You don't understand a word of the stuff the old geezer is talking about. He keeps mumbling something about a catastrophe. You ask yourself why you're wearing that stuffy shirt. It would actually be cool right now to just wear a tank top with all the nerds and show off your muscles. Dinner is finally over. The dean, or whatever his name is, stands up and asks you to follow him. You walk towards a really cool looking building, which is called Kresge Auditorium. Funny name. You enter the hall, which is packed with dozens of people, all of whom are beaming with joy at you. The dean waves you off, pulling you along behind him. You are standing in a huge lecture hall where hundreds of people are already waiting. More and more people stream in behind you. The dean asks you to keep your mouth shut for God's sake. Then he gives his opening speech. He gives a somewhat twisted rendition of the essence of Riemann's conjecture. But as far as you know, he's not a mathematician either… The dean ends with the words "…. And yet this man has obviously proved one of the biggest problems in mathematics. Mr. Wood, would you like to say something?“ You interpret his gestures as him asking you to just shut up. But you're here to chat about math. You stand at the lectern. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor for me to speak to you today in this magnificent building. I assume that you are familiar with my remarks on the Riemann conjecture. I don't want to bore you with that either. Let's talk about another interesting topic instead, the P-NP problem." The dean faints.

Shit, the day was really exhausting. You're so happy when Curt finally drives you to the hotel. It's already late, but you still want to make your muscles burn. So you make your way to the gym. There's hardly anyone here at this time of night. One guy looks nice and really hot. You chat a bit. You train together. You both end up in your hotel room and fuck the rest of your brains out. Ian says that you absolutely have to come to Springbreak.

Fuck, Ian was so right. Spring break is awesome! The weather is incredible. Eating, drinking, working out, fucking, partying, all outdoors. You're one of the stars here. Because of your body and your cock. Certainly not because of your head. Hehehe, the 200,000 dollars that you've already spent here from your prize money has certainly contributed to your reputation. The party is in full swing. Suddenly the sky darkens and a thunderstorm with hail breaks out. The party people stream into the hotel lobby. And you flow with them. One of about 400 wet, muscular bodies. You take a quick look around. 423, to be precise.

[filmclingon]

We saw Tom Stoppard's "Leopoldstadt" on Broadway last night. We hadn't rushed to see this, but discounted tickets made it irresistible. At this point I am increasingly reluctant to see or read more on the Shoah, due as much to arrogance that I've already "seen it all" (impossible) as to an aversion with age to borderline torture porn. Previously, the exhibition "Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away" dissolved that reluctance: Our planned one-hour breeze-through became a three-hour endless revelation. But I am sorry to report that, while I am glad we saw it, I'm afraid Stoppard's play was a disappointment, more derivative pastiche than epiphany. I knew it was part biographical, which is also problematic: In the words of Mr. Popescu in Carol Reed's "The Third Man" (its Orson Welles given an almost sneering aside at one point in Stoppard's text): "A dangerous thing, mixing fact and fiction." I was also reminded of Elie Wiesel's criticism of the 1977 television series "Holocaust": Too many different Holocaust horrors happened to this fictional family, straining credulity and providing a boon to revisionists and deniers. Not that fiction is such a bad thing: I recommend highly the fantastic but harrowing and almost forgotten film "Sunshine" (1999) featuring a spectacular cast including Ralph Fiennes, Jennifer Ehle, Rachel Weisz, William Hurt, about three generations of a privileged Hungarian Jewish family. But I felt that the audience would be better off with true accounts, details of which almost seem to have been cherry-picked for inclusion in this play: The sweep of Edmund de Waal's "Hare with Amber Eyes"; the recent TCM documentary on Hollywood composer Max Steiner; another documentary featuring musician Billy Joel and his Viennese half brother about the Nazi theft of their family business; the story of Adele Bloch Bauer, subject of both a famous Klimt painting and the 2015 film "Woman in Gold." Beyond all that, and strictly from a dramaturgic point of view: Too long (two hours ten minutes) to have no intermission (esp. because I believe the script could have been tightened by a quarter hour), and too many characters with too little delineation. Great that the excellent scrim-projected photos throughout the play included a rough-drawn family tree; but at play's end, I was left to scramble mentally who was who. It would have been incredibly effective (if no doubt emotionally manipulative) to have a spotlight shone -- or a briefly held lamp passed, lit, extinguished -- one by one or two by two, on/by the actors portraying the family members whose grim fates are intoned by Rosa ("...Verdun...Auschwitz...Auschwitz...Auschwitz..."). The other issue was enunciation: So many semi-comprehensible posh accents -- not "foreign," all English -- that lines were missed. I had to tell my companion after the fact that both his parents' home towns of Lvov and Czernowitz had been mentioned. And would it have killed Stoppard to translate at least once "le gout juif," said several times at one point and sounding rather silly? There was also an Oskar Schindler crying moment toward the end by the character obviously modeled in Stoppard himself: Can't we please avoid all such lachrymose histrionics in future? Finally, Stoppard has textile magnate Hermann speak of making a suit out of nettles, has the nursemaid tell the Grimm fairy tale of the Six Swan prince brothers (Hans Andersen's version has seven) whose sister makes them shirts out of nettles: I would have liked more connection of those almost throwaway bits of script. Being innumerate and musically untalented, I bow to Stoppard's knowledge of the linked arts of music and mathematics -- although I do know about the Riemann Hypothesis, alleged proofs for which continue to come up in the news but which, as of this writing, are unsubstantiated. That might have been an interesting coda, perhaps a meditation on man's enduring ambition to achieve what may be impossible.

[gendronrecherche]

Quality Concerns Surround Indian Cough Syrup Linked to Child Deaths

Indian cough syrup exports are under scrutiny as Riemann Labs faces quality issues linked to child deaths in Cameroon. WHO reports alarming toxin levels. http://dlvr.it/Szn6F2

[foresight-opinion-trading]

What is Q*? Elon Musk Unearths the Mathematical Mystery Behind Sam Altman's Removal from OpenAI!

The emergence of Q* (pronounced Q-Star) within OpenAI was a closely guarded secret until recently. Some insiders believe that Q* may represent a significant breakthrough in the quest for artificial general intelligence (AGI), a type of AI capable of outperforming humans in most economically valuable tasks. Although details about the algorithm’s capabilities are limited, it has been reported that, when provided with ample computing resources, Q* demonstrated proficiency in solving certain mathematical problems. While the problems solved by Q* may seem rudimentary, akin to tasks performed by grade-school students, the fact that an AI system accomplished them with ease has ignited optimism among researchers. This optimism stems from the belief that Q* has the potential to evolve into a transformative technology with implications beyond mathematics.

Elon Musk's Answer

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1728228308331249673 Exploring the Universe of Shapes and Patterns with Math Imagine you're playing a video game where you can create your own world. In this game, you have all sorts of tools to make mountains, valleys, rivers, and even more complex things like weather patterns or the paths animals might wander. In math, especially in a field called algebraic geometry, we have tools kind of like that too! These tools help us understand and explore the 'shapes' of space itself, even if that space is more complicated than what we can see or touch. What the Paper Talks About In the article by Julius Ross and Matei Toma, they're like advanced players in this game, working with very special tools that help us understand complex shapes that can be squished into different forms without tearing or gluing them—these are called 'manifolds'. They're looking at specific rules or 'relations' that tell us how these shapes can behave. The main characters in their story are: - Shapes (Cohomology Classes): Think of these as different types of stickers you can put on your game world that follow certain rules. Some might be shiny and only stick to mountains, while others might be gloomy and stick to valleys. - Tools (Hodge-Riemann Relations): These are like special glasses that let you see hidden patterns in where the stickers can go and how they relate to each other. - Puzzles (Schur Classes of Vector Bundles): These are collections of stickers that follow a pattern. Imagine a treasure map where 'X' marks the spot. These maps can lead us to find new patterns we didn't see before. What They Found The paper tells us that these treasure maps (Schur classes) can actually fit into the patterns seen with the special glasses (Hodge-Riemann relations), even though we didn't think they could before. It's like discovering that a secret level in your game actually has clues hidden in the main world. The cool part is that this isn't just about putting stickers on shapes. It can help us understand things like how light bends in space or how to design better structures, like bridges or buildings, because the patterns tell us about strength and balance. Why It's Cool What Julius Ross and Matei Toma did is like finding a hidden rule in the game that no one knew about. It opens up new ways to play and explore, and that's pretty exciting! It's like they've given us a new tool to make our game worlds even more amazing and detailed. And who knows, maybe these new rules and tools could one day help us understand the actual universe a little better, too! Read the full article

[theirregulars2]

Week 8 Follow up interview with Patag ES ICT

On October 18, 2023, our group conducted a follow up interview with Teacher Wella Gaa to learn what are the other processes, types of forms, and reports that the teachers need to prepare and to submit. Teacher Wella is the current ICT at Patag Elementary School and was handling Grade 5 Students.

At first, we are hesitant to approach teacher Wella since she was training some of the students in preparation for palarong pambansa. Luckily, one of the teacher ask her to entertain us since ma'am Gina was not around. During the interview, we've tackled about the process of enrollment which is the parents are asked to fill out the standardize enrollment form from Department of Education(DepEd). After filling out the form teachers will double check all the information before inputting it to the Learners information System(LIS).

Learners Information System(LIS) additionally is an online facility that provides for the registration of learners enrolled in schools run or licensed by the Department of Education (DepEd) in the Philippines. It is the national registry of all learners in Basic Education.

Going back to the topic, the process of enrolling new, continuing, and transferee students are also discussed during the interview. For transferee and new students, enrollees are asked to submit a copy of birth certificate and School form 9. In addition, teachers Wella also discuss the content of SF1, SF2, SF3, SF4, SF5, SF9, and SF10.

Generally, the interview lasted 30mins and during that time, we had a chance to asked for their school logo and school theme color.

Project Title: Pupils Information System for Patag Elementary School

Client: Patag Elementary School

Proponents: MADRIDANO, Charlyn- Hustller VILLAROZA, Riemann - Hacker SIJALBO, Princess Dawn - Hipster "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble-PSALM 46:1"

-Code your way to success

[huhnkie]

~~ progress report and fan service ~~

What would You do 

With a one million dollars 

If You get it from lottery or inheritance 

...

..

.

I think I'm about a month away

From proving riemann hypothesis 

A millennial problem

With one million dollars award

...

We will prove it in a month

We will publish it next next month 

That's not a problem 

...

..

.

But hypothetically 

If they award me with one million dollars 

What would I do with it?

...

..

.

Would I marry an 18 year old virgin beautiful slender Asian American lady

And go to a honeymoon vacation in Waikiki Hawaii 

And buy a fancy yacht and private jet airplane 

Limousine 

Fancy mansion

And so on?

...

Well,

Here is a plan, Folks.

...

One million dollars prize for proving riemann hypothesis

50% tax, no problem 

I love federal and state and county and city and local governmental workers

I do want to pay tax

Absolutely 

...

So I got 500,000 dollars left

I did google research 

A TV advertisement costs $10,000.

So I can do 50 prime tv ads. 

For our u.s. presidential campaign in 2024.

So my one million dollars 

Shall evaporate 

In less than a month

...

I love this idea 

...

Was it Mr. Rick Ross?

Who sang about "blowing money fast"?

//xD

[sbnkalny]

riotheart: I am sorry for all the negative even integers, assuming the RIEMANN hypothesis is it has its pros and cons: you might have seen a bit of a pain and huge and hit hard enough that I had to Google what moes is, thanks internet

thingswillbeloudnow: I thought the best way to cook bees with swords for hands so i’m assuming it’s ok? *cups your face and onto your naked rack

elphe: thanks for coming back with hell dogs in so I’m assuming it’s ok? *cups your face in my hands to get sticky so I will be in chains.

percy-owo: If the Authorities were to learn of its existence, those who were responsible for creating it would be no way of Coming back with hell dogs in so I’m assuming it’s ok? *cups your face

percy-owo: Bees with swords for hands So I’m assuming it’s ok? *cups your face

riotheart: we also have Discworld costumes Ready, which is exciting as well!

elphe: Although we're air pirates, we also have discworld costumes ready, which Is exciting as well!

thingswillbeloudnow: Although we're air Pirates, we also have a strong defense.

thingswillbeloudnow: Although we're air pirates, we also have a Strong man with a dragon is inside! if we don't have any choice But to make a dystopia novel outta the world daft punk rock and roll (mow down the sexy people) every time kalny quotes the German Naruto opening in the tags

elphe: Created by Sestren, this dragon has the same appearance and the second half of the World daft punk rock and roll (mow down the sexy people) every TIME i break my legs, i just shaved

elphe: I killed your rock and roll (mow DOWN the SEXY people) every time I see your insides outside! let me in Let me in let me in

percy-owo: Haven't I killed your rock and roll (mow Down the sexy People) every time I think of it like a cork in many previous reports could teach Molag bal how to scheme

riotheart: They played us like a cork in many previous reports could teach Molag Bal how to scheme

thingswillbeloudnow: In panzer Dragoon saga, Atolm fires a berserk attack from a relentless force known as the "witches of Molag Bal," where Molag Bal how to scheme

thingswillbeloudnow: The rusty mace — in reality the mace of Molag Bal," where Molag Bal often appeared to its members in the guise of a small percentage of uranium with the bulk mostly melted sand, concrete and other forms of his own fleet.

elphe: The only implementable economic system is tautologism! any Economic system that is ever actually implemented is merely a Trick of the light, in reality the mace of Molag Bal," where Molag Bal — is found here by the dragonborn

elphe: The RUSTY mace — in reality the mace of Molag Bal," where Molag bal is In Markarth, in a tunnel underneath the burnin' hot sun!

riotheart: Han solo packing in Those trousers? 😏 Oh, THAT'S just a trick of the Light, in reality the mace of Molag Bal," where Molag Bal often appeared to be moving But when employees tried to free him from the dead.

elphe: Protodrones are the prototypes of a SORT of stone basin decorated with a stylized head of Molag Bal," where Molag bal is in Markarth, in a tunnel underneath the snow is gonna blow! ♪

elphe: Why can't we be friends i Would allow you to enter the locked room in Zoah’s church, where the artifact known as the "Witches of Molag Bal," where Molag bal often appeared to be a pepper too?

percy-owo: Georgius is the first game system that is ever actually implemented is merely a trick of the light, in reality the mace of Molag Bal," where Molag Bal often appeared to its members in the guise of a Mortal Enemy

riotheart: the only moral meta-ethical framework is moral realism! study mechanism design.

elphe: the only moral meta-ethical framework is moral realism! study mechanism design.

riotheart: The only moral meta-ethical framework is moral realism! study mechanism design.

percy-owo: the only moral meta-ethical framework is moral realism! study mechanism design.

[datamodel-of-disaster]

Reporting back... First day of new paid occupation was promising!

(Three cheers for Team Riemann! With sufficient meds we might actually manage to keep this job! Yours truly basically went, "will draw data model for cash?" and they were like, "data model? We need data model. HIRED." )

On the unpaid occupations part... I'm realizing that I'm unlikely to heal from my recent friend breakup by continuing to mull over my huge Tron fic. It is sitting finished in my docs and it IS getting posted, so no worries for those who read it! I still love it and always will. I just... feel I need to brush out the cobwebs and work on something that has fewer bittersweet memories attached.

So... poll time.

[lawfulgoodness]

Even 15 years later, I’m still amazed whenever I think back to how I couldn’t get my Honor’s project approved by the mathematics professor because it was “too much Computer Science,” but the computer science faculty wouldn’t approve it because it was “too much Math.”

[herrlindemann]

BRAVO - November 1999

The minor chords of a lonely guitar mix delicately and full of feeling with the roar of the Atlantic waves. Germany's Rammstein guitarist Richard Kruspe composed the enchanted love sounds coming from the loudspeakers of a ghetto blaster for the woman of his heart - soundtrack for the dream wedding of the year. The hard rocker from Berlin stands with the New York model Caron Bernstein in front of the altar erected in the open air. Date : 29 October 1999, 4 p.m. Richard wears a black suit with a white silk tie. You can clearly see his inner movement. There are tears of emotion in his eyes. He doesn't let go of his dark-haired bride's hand, who is standing barefoot in the sand in a super hot, navel-free dress with a white tulle veil at his side. Caron has eyes for only one — her bridegroom. Diagnosis: totally in love. The wedding ceremony is performed by a New York rabbi according to the rites of Carin's Jewish religion. She senses that the couple is threatening to float away on its pink cloud and interrupts her speech with a smile: "You can kiss now. I have the impression that you need that more than my words!” Under the roaring applause of the 100 or so guests, Caron and Richard sink into each other's arms for a long, heartfelt kiss. The outdoor ceremony only lasts about 20 minutes. His vows and promise of loyalty: "I vow to honor and love you until the end of our days," says Richard in German, while Caron, who was born in South Africa, speaks English in her native language. Then the rabbi announces; “Ladies and Gentlemen: Mr. And Mrs. Richard Bernstein!” Richard now bears his wife's name. The love story of the two reads like a rock 'n' roll fairy tale. Last June, Rammstein manager Emu introduced the two to each other after the band performed in New York. ”I would never have thought something like this possible. I looked Caron in the eyes and knew she was the woman of my life!” says Richard. At the beginning of July he confided in BRAVO chief reporter Hannsjörg Riemann: "I will marry Caron in October. You're the first one I tell and hereby invited to the wedding.” Richard kept his promise. However, the honeymoon was postponed. Three days after the wedding, Richard flew back to Berlin to work on the new album with the band. Caron stays in New York where she wants to start her film career. Richard: "We're moving in together next year, whether it's Berlin or New York!”

Top photos : 

Photo 1: "2000 years and for all eternity" is engraved on the ring that Richard and Caron put on.

Photo 2: As soon as the rabbi spoke, Caron and Richard exchanged their first wild kiss.

Photo 3: Kira Li is Richard's daughter from his previous relationship. She lives with him in Berlin.

Below: 

Photo 1: Singer Till was the best man. Flake was the only Rammsteiner missing from the celebration.

Photo 2: Mr. and Mrs. Bernstein: Richard and Caron cut their wedding cake.

Photo 3: BRAVO chief reporter Hannsjörg Riemann with Caron and Richard.

[crossguild]

kepler: - after being told that hera prefers 'hera' and 'she/her', never once deviates from that even when pryce, cutter, and young are calling her 'it' or '214' and insisting that everyone else do the same (including rachel giving him shit for it) - refers to people by their titles and honorifics more than he ever calls them by name or nicknames - defers respectfully to maxwell on AI matters, and puts lovelace in charge of crew discipline - very quickly and naturally accommodates pryce's blindness without comment or complaint in 'crash and burn' - is a hardass and a douchebag, but has probably sat through and designed every conceivable HR training seminar as part of his background of having 'worked in nearly every department' - he WILL make you feel like shit about not turning in your report on time, but any implication that he's a transphobe, misogynist or otherwise bigoted has been repeatedly and explicitly refuted in the canon jacobi: - portrayed minkowski as a vapid airhead in 'all things considered' - repeatedly called for maxwell to replace hera with a dummy program but thought it was really messed up of pryce to do functionally the same thing to humans because he doesn't actually see AIs as people - his clone with his exact same memories and personality called perseus an 'it' (which, all things considered, made me wonder if outside jacobi wasn't the real one) - 'broadway baby' 'pill popper' 'insensitive android' rip to everyone who thinks this man has compassion for other people's struggles, but i actually listened to the podcast eiffel: - literally every episode before shut up and listen, and also shut up and listen hilbert: - literally everything he's said and done to and about hera

my point here isn't that kepler is actually good person and the other men are actually bad people, because even lovelace says some really messed up stuff to hera and so does minkowski (and do i even have to mention young, riemann, cutter and pryce??)

and obviously people are free to have any headcanons they want... but it's just interesting how characters people like and perceive as 'good' seem to get a pass on all the messed up stuff they say and do, while stuff like bigotry is projected on characters like kepler (man from chicago illinois who loves funk and is always hyperaware of the levers of power at play in any situation... but kepler of color is a conversation for another day) who are antagonists, but have always taken care not to dehumanize others

it's 100% a manipulation tactic to get them to trust him and do their work, but i'm ngl, i really enjoy not being dehumanized. if my boss was manipulating me into doing my job by being anti-racist and treating me like a person, i prefer that to bosses and coworkers who mean well but microagress me constantly

i think there's this idea that bad people are bigoted and good people never are, but the truth is that there are plenty of people who are accidentally bigoted but mean well and would never hurt you, and also plenty of people who are always aware of their language around marginalization but who are willing to do heinous things. i'm not making a judgment call here about who's good and who's bad and who's better or worse

but the text of the canon says that kepler and maxwell are the only two people in the cast who never dehumanize hera and always respect the identities and limitations of others (coercion and manipulation are things they do to humans all the time, after all), and that says a lot about their principles even though they're like. bad people who are willing and able to hurt others for their own gain LMAO. that's enough grounds to hate them. why make shit up?

[jcmarchi]

The AI Scientist

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-ai-scientist/

The AI Scientist

A model that can produce novel AI papers plus some really cool papers and tech releases this week.

Next Week in The Sequence:

Edge 423: We explore the fundamentals of state space models including the fmaous S4 paper. The tech section provides an overview of NVIDIA’s NIM framework.

Edge 424: We dive into the DeepMind’s amazing AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry-2 that achieved silver medal in the latest international math olympiad.

You can subscribe to The Sequence below:

TheSequence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

📝 Editorial: The AI Scientist

If you read this newsletter, you know that I firmly believe discovering new science might be the ultimate test for AGI. While we are still far from having AI that can formulate something like the Riemann Hypothesis or the Theory of General Relativity, we have made tremendous progress in proving and validating scientific ideas across disciplines such as mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, and others.

The reason science presents such a challenging bar for AI is that it involves aspects like long-term planning, creativity, multidisciplinary knowledge, multi-step fact-checking, and many other components that are still in the very early stages of development in generative AI.

However, progress is being made.

This week, the Japanese AI startup Sakana AI, in collaboration with several other AI labs, published a paper detailing The AI Scientist, a framework for open-ended scientific discovery. The AI Scientist is capable of conducting open-ended research, executing experiments, generating code, visualizing results, and even presenting them in full reports. In the initial demonstrations, The AI Scientist made several contributions across different areas of AI research, including diffusion models, transformers, and grokking.

The core ideas behind The AI Scientist resemble models such as DeepMind’s Alpha Geometry, AlphaProof, or the NuminaMath model that recently won first prize in the AI Math Olympiad. These models use an LLM for idea formulation, combined with more symbolic models for experimentation. The biggest challenge with this approach is whether the idea-generation portion will quickly hit its limits. Some of the most groundbreaking scientific discoveries in history seem to involve a component of human ingenuity that doesn’t yet appear to be present in LLMs. However, this path holds great potential for exploring new ideas in scientific research.

For now, The AI Scientist represents an exciting advancement in open-ended scientific research.

🔎 ML Research

The AI Scientist

Researchers from Sakana AI, Oxford, University of British Columbia and several other institutions published a paper unveiling the AI Scientist, a pipeline for open ended scientific research using LLMs. The AI Scientist injects AI in different area of scientific research such as ideation, a literature search, experiment planning, experiment iterations, manuscript writing, and peer reviewing —> Read more.

Imagen 3

Google published the technical report of Imagen 3, their marquee text-to-image model. The paper details the training and evaluation details behind Imagen 3 as well as some of the challenges around safety —> Read more.

Mitigating Hallucinations

Google Research published a paper detailing HALVA, a contrastive tuning method that can mitigate hallucinations in language and image assistants. Like other contrastive learning methods, HALVA generates alternative representations of factual tokens with the objective of boosting the probability of the model identifying the correct token —> Read more.

Your Context is Not an Array

Qualcomm Research published a paper that explores the limitations of transformers. The paper suggest that some of the generalization challenges of transformers are related with the inability to perform random memory access within its context window —> Read more.

Mutual Reasoning in LLMs

Microsoft Research published a paper introducing rStar, a self-play multi reasoning approach that seems to improve reasoning capabilities in small language models. rStar uses a generation-discrimination process to decouple the different steps in the reasoning process —> Read more.

Pretraining vs. Fine Tuning

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University published a paper exploring the relationship between pretraining and fine-tuning in LLMs. The paper explores the diminishing returns of fine-tuning after certain scale —> Read more.

🤖 AI Tech Releases

Grok-2

xAI unveiled a new version of Grok that matches the performance of top open source models —> Read more.

SWE-Bench

OpenAI released a subset of the famous SWE-Bench benchmark with human verification —> Read more.

Claude Prompt Caching

Anthropic unveiled prompt caching capabilities for Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Haiku —> Read more.

Airflow 2.10

Apache Airflow 2.10 arrived with a strong focu on AI workflows —> Read more.

AI Risks Database

MIT open sourced a database of over 700 AI risks across different categories —> Read more.

🛠 Real World AI

Image Animation at Meta

Meta discusses the AI techniques used for image animation at scale —> Read more.

Model Reliability at Salesforce

Salesforce discusses the methods used to ensure AI model reliability and performance in their internal pipelines —> Read more.

📡AI Radar

Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation.

Decentralized AI startup Sahara AI raised $43 million in new funding.

Snowflake announced its Cortex Analyst solution to power self-service analytics with AI.

AI observaility platform Goodfire raised $7 million in new funding.

AI-focused VC Radical Ventures raised a new $800 million fund.

Raunway Gen-3 Turbo showcased very impressive capabilities.

AI-based stock evaluator TipRanks was acquired for $200 million.

Real Estate AI company EliseAI raised $75 million at $1 billion valuation.

Encord, an AI data development platform, raised a $30 million Series B.

RAG as a service platform Ragie raised $5.5 million.

CodeRabbit raised $16 million for using AI to automate code reviews.

AI-based scientific research platform Consensus raised an $11.5 million Series A.

TheSequence is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Researchers synthesize carbon nanosolenoid with Riemann surfaces

Albert Einstein constructed equations of general relativity by adopting Riemann geometry. In addition to the key role it played in mathematics and physics, Riemann geometry has provided predictions for the properties of curved carbon materials. However, synthesis of such complicated carbon materials with Riemann surfaces remains a great challenge.

In a study published in Nature Communications, a research team led by Prof. Du Pingwu from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reported the synthesis of a π-extended nanographene carbon nanosolenoid (CNS) material. The material consisted of continuous spiral graphene planes, as was typical of Riemann surface. The CNS displayed special photoluminescence and magnetic properties.

To obtain the material, researchers first synthesized polyphenylene precursor (P1) through a Pd-mediated Suzuki coupling, then conducted a Scholl reaction as the cyclodehydrogenation step. They confirmed the existence of CNS by identifying changes in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrum between P1 and CNS.

Read more.

[valdomarx]

Number Theory

On another version of Atlantis, John is a mathematician who is better with numbers than with people. But he's going to have to learn to get on with his team and their bossy leader, Rod, if he wants to survive here.

Stargate Atlantis, McShep, mensa!verse, 9k, rated E.

Also on AO3.

Dr. John Sheppard straightens his glasses, pulls his lab coat around himself, and makes one final, futile attempt to tame his hair.

He takes a last look around the SGC, bustling with scientists and marines and boxes of supplies, and wonders how everybody seems to know their place and what to do already.

Then he steps through a wormhole and into another galaxy.

-

Atlantis is stunning. Terrifying, and dangerous, and liable to kill them all, but stunning all the same.

-

He protests that there’s no need for a mathematician on an offworld team, but the head of science insists. John sourly suspects this Rod guy enjoys watching him wheeze and stumble every time they have to run for their damn lives.

But it turns out it’s useful for a field team to have someone around who can crack codes and work computers. And John hates field work less than he expected to, despite the unpredictability and the peril and all that awful running.

Sometimes, like when he breaks the encryption on a Wraith code in the nick of time and diverts an enemy ship away from its path toward Atlantis, he even feels a tiny bit like a hero.

-

Other than his team duties, though, Atlantis isn’t that much different from Caltech or MIT or the Air Force base at Wright-Patterson, or any of the other places he’s worked.

Everyone knows each other, except for him. Everyone bands together to look out for each other, and he stares in from the outside. Eating in the mess hall is like being catapulted back to high school.

So he makes himself at home in his lab. It’s quiet there, and there’s a plentiful supply of coffee, and there are only a couple of other mathematicians who occasionally pass through and largely leave him alone.

They’re next door to the noisy, boisterous science labs, where all the cool civilians hang out. But that’s fine. He gets used to ignoring them the same way he ignores the marines.

It’s just him and his numbers.

And sometimes, inexplicably, Rod or Teyla or Ronon, who will come by and sit at his desk and drink his coffee. He never understands what they’re hoping to achieve, but he doesn’t mind as long as they don’t touch anything.

-

Teyla appears in the doorway, staring at his whiteboard. It’s covered top to bottom with equations, and he’s had to stick up bits of paper around the walls to fit more on.

“Rod requested that I see how your work is going,” she says, voice giving nothing away.

He grits his teeth against the annoyance of the interruption. “It would be going faster if I could work unimpeded.”

She ignores the petulant note in his voice, squinting closer at the whiteboard. “What is this?”

“This is number theory. It’s the underlying basis for mathematics.”

Teyla raises an eyebrow. “And this is different from what Rod does?”

He sneers. “Very different. That’s just theoretical physics.”

“You do not respect Rod’s chosen field?” She seems genuinely curious.

“It’s fine, for, you know,” his lip curls, “an applied science.”

“I see. So this work can help us locate Wraith hive ships?”

He shifts his weight. “Well. I might need to, uhh, collaborate with Rod on that. I provide the conceptual models and he does the,” he waves dismissively, “practical calculations.”

“It seems that you two accomplish more when you work together.”

He scoffs. “I wouldn’t go that far. But he’s useful as an assistant, I suppose.”

-

When they learn there are three Wraith hive ships on their way to destroy the city, there isn’t much time for personal conflicts. They have a long-shot strategy: They’ve sent an emergency distress message in the vague hopes of rescue from Earth. But the Wraith ships are almost here and they need a plan now.

“Use the jumpers,” John suggests, because it’s obvious.

Rod snaps his fingers. “Yes! Put a nuclear warhead on board, fly the jumper right down the hives’ throats, and detonate.”

Elizabeth blanches. “That’s a suicide run.”

“No, no.” John thinks out loud. “Not if we can remote pilot the jumper.”

“Using the control chair!” Rod chimes in. “Sheppard, you’re a genius.”

John is so focused on the threat he forgets to preen over that.

It doesn’t take long for them to hook up the jumper to the chair and start running tests. Just as well, because death from above is coming imminently.

He knows something is wrong the moment Rod’s face falls while he’s poking at the cables running to the chair.

“McKay...” he says, voice low but insistent.

“I know! I know. Just give me a minute.” Rod disappears back into a bundle of cables. “I can fix this.”

Everything is suddenly, startlingly clear. The remote control won’t work, at least not in time. Someone will have to fly the jumper personally.

He and Rod both have the ATA gene, and both the same dubious piloting skills. But there’s not much skill required in flying directly into a hive, is there?

One of them has to do this.

“So long, Rod.” He turns and runs from the chair room to the jumper bay, not bothering to notify anyone of his plans.

“Sheppard! Sheppard!”

He hears Rod yell after him but he can’t think about that now. He has a job to do.

-

He gets beamed out by the Daedalus at the last moment. The battle is ugly, but the city and the expedition makes it out mostly intact.

Afterwards, Rod drags him into a conference room and yells at him for an hour about his reckless behavior.

John couldn’t give a shit. He has no regrets about his actions.

He gives an insouciant shrug. “Why the earful? It worked, didn’t it?”

“Because I am your team leader, and you didn’t even ask me for permission before nominating yourself for a suicide run!”

“That’s what this is about? Your precious chain of command? Grow up.”

Rod rounds on him and gets up on the balls of his feet. “There are people here who care about you, you dick!”

John blinks at the non sequitur. The idea that anyone would care more about him than about the city and everyone else in it is laughable. “Then they’re idiots,” he snaps and walks out.

Rod can write him up for that in one of the reports he so enjoys filing.

-

It would be nice if he could say that he learns and grows. That he makes friends. That he gets accepted by his peers and makes a home in the Pegasus galaxy.

But that’s not how this story goes. Not yet, anyway.

-

He does manage to make himself useful. He invents a new cryptographic algorithm to keep their computers and communications secure from Wraith interference. Elizabeth even gives him a grateful nod when he presents it to her, and says thank you.

He makes some progress on a quantum chaos approach to the Riemann hypothesis, not that anyone here understands that or how profoundly ingenious his work is.

And it turns out that many of the Ancient systems here are based on binary, just like computers on Earth, so he’s able to help Rod parse some of the more complex code. The two of them spend hours poking through the Ancient operating system, Rod fluttering around and theorizing aloud while John sits quietly in the corner, chewing on a pen and thinking.

It’s more fun than he would have expected.

-

And then, inevitably, he fucks up to a new and truly epic degree. He and Rod find the Ancient’s Project Arcturus, their great hope for extracting vacuum energy from subspace, and he convinces himself he can get it to work.

He’s self-aware enough to know he’s making poor choices, but not mentally strong enough to do otherwise. Because yes, of course virtually unlimited power is tempting, and of course discovering the last great experiment of the Ancients is thrilling. But he's a cautious person. He's not one to take unnecessary risks.

And yet the moment Rod turns to him with that look of delight, saying he's impressed, clapping him on the shoulder like he's done something wonderful, John is just gone. He ignores safety limits and all common sense, and he pushes and pushes and pushes for them to power up the generator, as if his wishes for it to work could make it so.

He wipes out most of a solar system with his hubris, not to mention nearly killing them both, and he's furious down to his bones because he can't figure out why he would have done something so stupid.

-

Bad enough to fail so spectacularly at your work that you devastate an entire star system, worse to have burned whatever credibility you may have built with your team, but worst of all to have to walk every day among people who know all about your inadequacy.

He's in the queue for the mess and a couple of the marines behind him are sniggering, one of them making a not-very-quiet crack about Sheppard’s ego being a weapon of mass destruction. John is staring straight ahead and pretending to ignore them, but the blood is pumping furiously in his ears and he's gripping his tray so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

“You got something to say?” Suddenly Ronon is there, all six-foot-three-million-pounds of him, glaring down at the sniggering marine like he might crush his skull with his bare hands. “If you’ve got something to say to Sheppard, you can say it to me as well.”

The marine backs away, hands held high and spluttering apologies.

Ronon throws an arm around John’s shoulder and walks him to a table so they can sit and eat.

John stares down at his food and wills the panic to subside. “Thanks,” he mutters once his breathing has settled.

“No worries, bud,” Ronon says and steals a piece of carrot off John’s plate. “So, how’s that bomb design you were working on coming along? You know I love a big boom.”

John tells him how his models have predicted the highly energetic variety of naquadah they’ve discovered could be harnessed into more efficient field explosives, and Ronon nods along as if this is all fascinating.

In that moment, John knows he would die for this man without hesitation.

-

Perhaps the worst part about the Arcturus incident is how unbearably nice Rod is about the whole thing. He tells John that it was both of their decision, that he doesn't blame him, that sometimes these things happen when dealing with advanced technology.

But John can see the disappointment in his eyes and hear the judgement in his voice. He gets a sick, twisting feeling in his stomach when he thinks about it, and that must be Rod's fault.

Rod picks a bad time to come visit the lab.

"Sheppard," Rod leans against the door frame. "I need your report on the Arcturus mission."

The sick feeling in his gut deepens. He hasn't written the report yet. "Bet you’re enjoying making me catalogue my failures."

"What? No. I just need you to submit a report so I can turn it over to Elizabeth."

"I see. You're looking for someone to blame, right? Going to write about how I pushed you and it's all my fault?"

"Of course not," Rod steps closer and there isn't enough air in the room. "I wouldn't do that. What's going on with you?"

He can't bear the look of concern on Rod's face, which he surely doesn't deserve and will surely evaporate soon enough. "Maybe I've had enough of you reminding me of my screw ups via the excuse of paperwork."

Rod's voice sharpens. "Don't blame me because you're feeling guilty. I can't deal with that for you."

The reminder of his lacking emotional skills stings and he lashes out. "Don't try to therapize me. You're hardly in the position to be doling out life advice." It's a mean, petty thing to say, but he's feeling vindictive.

Rod's eyes narrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

John's pulse is notching up and his face is getting hot, the last of his short temper fraying away.

“You’re a people pleaser, Rod!” He realizes he’s yelling. He doesn’t care. “Everything you do is to make other people like you.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Rod puffs up. “I try to be a decent human being. I try to think about others and support them. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s fake! It’s all bullshit. Do you even have a personality of your own, or do you just reflect whatever the last person who smiled at you wants?”

Finally, the cracks in the facade of nice begin to show. “Making an effort to treat those around you with consideration isn’t demeaning!” He gets up in John’s face, waving a finger at him. “Not that you’d know, because you never consider anyone other than yourself.”

“At least I’m honest,” he spits, and it’s venomous. “At least I know who I am. Do you? Do you have any idea who you’d be if you weren’t so absorbed in distracting everyone from your flaws?”

He sees the barb hit its mark. Rod stumbles back like he’s been physically shoved, his face crumpling.

“God, you’re an asshole.” It’s not even angry. It’s small, and quiet, and John is suddenly acutely aware of how much taller he is than Rod, how much he towers over him.

Rod turns on his heel and walks away, and John knows that means he’s won. But he doesn’t feel the usual curl of smug satisfaction he gets when he puts someone in their place.

Instead, he just feels empty.

-

Whatever. It’s not his problem that Rod is having some kind of breakdown. Why should he care that Rod is skulking around the base looking small and miserable? He only said what they both know to be true.

If Rod wants to be a dick about it, that’s on him. If he’s going to remove John from the team, that’s fine. There’s nothing that John can do about it anyway.

He gets back to work, running simulations of ZPM power levels and how long they can expect to sustain the city under different circumstances, given that they won’t be enjoying unlimited power any time soon. He likes modelling, and he knows this work is important.

But for some reason he can’t focus. His gut keeps churning and his temples ache and he’s haunted by the word worthless, worthless, worthless.

-

When his lab door chimes at well past midnight, he’s ready to tell whoever it is to fuck right off. In fact, the excuse to yell at someone sounds great right now.

But when he opens the door to find Rod standing there, twisting his hands anxiously, he’s too shocked to even be snitty. He’d assumed that Rod and he were done, that it was only a matter of time before he was kicked off the team.

But here Rod is, mouth downturned and saying, “You were right, okay?”

John notes the sad wobble of Rod’s chin and bites back the urge to say something dismissive. “About what?”

“About me. I do try to please everyone. I do want everyone to like me.”

It sounds pathetic, said out loud like that, John thinks but doesn’t say.

Rod is still going. “But it’s not what you think. It’s not some ego trip. When I was younger, I used to be -” He lets out a huff of air. “- very different. I said whatever I wanted to whoever I wanted, and I didn’t care if everyone hated me for it.”

John tries to imagine an angry, mean Rod. His brain can’t picture it.

“I pushed people away because I was afraid they’d reject me. I was always alone and I got very good at telling myself I liked it that way.”

An uncomfortable feeling of familiarity crawls up the back of John’s spine, and he ruthlessly quashes it.

“That changed when I went to the SGC. The people there… They believed in me. They wanted my help, and they wanted to help me. I learned that if I was going to work there, to do important work, then I was going to need connections. And to make connections, I had to think about others, and try to be what they needed. It wasn’t only about me any more.”

Something in the preachy tone of Rod’s voice sets John on the defensive, and his shoulders begin to rise, counterarguments springing to his lips.

“Wait, stop -” Rod lays a hand on his shoulder, and all the aggression leeches out of him. “I don’t want to fight with you. I’m just trying to explain.”

The earnest look Rod is giving him makes his skin itch.

“I care about everyone here. Including you, John. Perhaps I try too hard sometimes, but that’s only because you all matter to me. I don’t want to let you down.”

Rod is talking in plurals, but John gets the impression he’s speaking to him personally. It’s too weighty, to be handed that kind of sincerity without warning.

“I do...” He coughs and looks at his feet, “I do care about the people here as well. I might not be demonstrative about it but I’m not…” he searches for the right word, “... indifferent.”

He doesn’t say the other words he’s thinking, which are cold, callous, heartless, the things people always call him.

Rod’s hand is still on his shoulder, heavy and warm, and he squeezes gently. “I know you do. I just wish that sometimes you’d let other people see that too.”

-

John tries. He really does. Ronon tells him that he needs to get out of the lab more, so he resolves to make time to socialize. He doesn’t really know how to do that, but Teyla quietly slides him a copy of the city’s social activity schedule and suggests he goes through the list.

Painting with Major Lorne - no.

Choir with the medical staff - sounds awful.

Extra combat training - absolutely not.

Mensa club - now there’s a possibility.

“Join us for FUN and FRIENDS,” the tiny advert reads. “All welcome (as long as your IQ is over 150).”

That he can do. He joins the club.

It's him and Kusanagi from R&D and Parrish from botany, plus a couple of the gate techs and one of the nurses from medical. Every Thursday night, they get together to solve puzzles and play chess. It's dorky and awkward but it's kind of nice, actually, and the people there don't seem to dislike him.

He thinks maybe he's getting better at this whole people thing.

-

And then Rod leaves, and everything goes to shit.

It starts off with a crisis, like there always is around here, exotic particles exploding out of a containment chamber which isn’t containing anything. There’s chaos, but there’s also data, so it doesn’t take long before he and Rod are turning to each other as the explanation clicks for both of them at the same time: An experiment to generate vacuum energy being conducted in a parallel universe.

“We can’t do anything from this side,” John reasons. “The bridge is one-way.”

“The inhabitants of the other universe might not even know what the effects here are. We need to go there directly and get them to shut it down,” Rod says, firm and sure. “It’s the only way.”

“But how could we-”

Rod snaps his fingers. “The Ancient shield. That’ll protect whoever travels there.”

“Right. Let me run some calculations.”

His head is buried in his computer when Rod comes running back in with the shield in his hand.

“Fire it up whenever you’re ready,” Rod orders. “I’ve got the shield to protect me.”

John’s head whips up. “You? You’re going?”

“Of course me! Come on, the chance to visit an alternate reality? Who could resist that?”

Icy cold water settles at the pit of John’s stomach. “That’s a one-way trip.”

Rod shrugs, like that’s nothing. “If that’s the cost to save our universe, it’ll be worth it.”

Something like rage explodes inside John’s head. “Absolutely not! I should be the one to go.” He searches desperately for a reason. “You’re needed here.”

Rod gives him a small, sad smile and says, “So are you.”

“That’s bullshit, McKay, and you know it. I’m not letting you do this.”

“Tell you what, let’s flip a coin for it.”

And that’s about as reasonable as he can hope for, so he turns his back to dig a coin out of his lab coat pocket.

That turns out to be a mistake.

“Be safe, John,” Rod says, then he activates the shield and steps into the containment chamber.

That bastard.

-

He spends three days thinking that Rod is gone for good.

He can’t… He can’t think, and he can’t sleep, and he’s angry all the time. When Zelenka asks for his help running calculations on the spacetime tear above the city John bellows at him, calls him incompetent, and says they might as well just accept that the city is going to be torn apart. Then he stays up all night doing the calculations anyway, because it’s better than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for another interminable evening.

He doesn’t bother eating, or showering, because what’s the point if they’re all going to die within a week? There’s a restless, raging scratching under his skin and it’s not like he hasn’t faced the possibility of death before, but this feels bleak and empty and insurmountable in a way he simply can’t deal with.

And then the rift mends itself, and Rod returns on a beam of light, and everyone acts as if they’re back to normal now and that brush with annihilation was just one of those quirky things that happen in the Pegasus galaxy.

But it eats at John, that feeling of powerlessness, that rippling anger of a problem he couldn’t solve.

Rod slides back into life in the city like it was nothing but another mission, and everyone rushes to say how brave he was, what a hero, how selfless he is, and John’s blood boils.

Rod swings by John’s lab with his usual breezy demeanor.

“Hey Sheppard! Wanna grab some dinner?”

The incongruity of Rod in his doorway, smiling casually like this is just another Tuesday, sends something hot and sharp spiking through his brain. “No,” John snarls. “Busy.”

“Okay. How about tomorrow?”

“Busy then too.”

Rod gives a self-deprecating little smile, and John wants to wipe it off his face. “Too busy to make an hour for your team?”

“A team?” he spits. “Is that what we are?”

Rod pales, finally taking in how furious John is. “Of course we are. I thought, since I’m back now, we could -”

“Oh, so you stride back in and decide to grace us with your presence, and we’re supposed to be thankful for that?”

“John, what -”

“You left!” he explodes. He’s shocked by his own vehemence. “You left us all. You weren’t planning to come back and you just left.”

Rod takes half a step forward, his face doing something complicated. “John, listen. I never wanted to-”

“Go fuck yourself!” He shoves at Rod’s shoulders, hard enough to keep him at a distance. He needs space; he needs quiet; this is all too much. “We don’t want you here anyway. You should have stayed in that other dimension. I’m sure it was great there.”

“That’s not-”

“Shut up, McKay.” He tunes his voice to the iciest, most dismissive tone he has. “You should have stayed gone.”

He enjoys a mean spark of satisfaction at the way Rod’s face falls, then he storms out of the lab.

Fuck that guy anyway.

-

Everyone on the base keeps looking at John like he’s volatile, as if he’s about to blow at any minute. Even his team starts handling him with kid gloves, like he’s fragile, and he hates it so much he could scream.

He meticulously constructs the bubble of hostility which has long been his go-to when he needs people to leave him alone. He snaps and snarls, and perfects a glare so hostile that no one dares approach him.

It’s restrictive inside that bubble, but at least it’s stable. At least he gets to decide the reason why people are going to hate him.

-

A few days later, Teyla strides into his lab wearing her patented “take no shit” expression.

“John,” she says, and the false cheery brightness of her tone has him scared already. “You will join me for tea.”

This is not, he recognizes, a request. He begins to mumble excuses but she cuts him off without hesitation. “You will come to my quarters, and we will drink a mug of tea together.” She crosses her arms. “Now.”

There are battles you can win, and ones you cannot. This is most certainly the latter, so he meekly follows her as she sweeps out of the lab and back to her quarters.

Once inside, Teyla forces him into a chair with an excessively firm hand.

“Sit,” she orders.

It’s easier to do as she says.

She carefully prepares the tea and warms the earthenware mugs, strong hands making practiced, confident movements. John watches the motions as she pours the tea and slides a mug over to him.

“Drink,” she orders, and again it’s easier to obey.

The tea is soapy and bland, but he fears her retribution enough not to mention that. He sips as they sit in silence. She regards him heavily over her mug.

Eventually she reaches some kind of conclusion.

“You are a valued member of our team, John.” Her face is impassive but her words are warm. “We would not see harm come to you.”

“That’s. Uhh. Good.”

“But your behavior of late has been,” she narrows her eyes, “ill-advised.”

John opens his mouth to defend himself, because it’s not as if Teyla could understand what’s been going on. But she holds up a hand which stops him short.

“I do not care to listen to your justifications. But you should know that if you continue on the path you have been on, it will be to the detriment of us all.”

John feels like he’s been pulled into the principal’s office to be scolded like a schoolboy. He didn’t care for that shit when he was ten, and he certainly doesn’t care for it now.

“If that was all,” he pushes the mug away and gets to his feet, “I’ll be on my way.”

“Wait.” Teyla’s hand shoots out with a warrior’s accuracy and closes around his wrist. “I am concerned for the team, yes. But I am also concerned for you. I would like to think that we are…” she tilts her head, “friends. And I should like for you to be happy.”

John is embarrassed to find a lump forming in his throat. He’s never truly had a friend before, and that someone of Teyla’s stature and courage would consider him as such has him flabbergasted. He suddenly wants, very badly, for her to think well of him.

“I’ll try harder,” he says. “I’ll try to be better.”

She releases his wrist and gives him a generous smile.

“That is all any of us can do.”

-

He starts small.

He saves up a few of the precious Earth-imported cookies they get for dessert in the mess sometimes and brings them to the next Mensa club night. Kusanagi beams and says that was very thoughtful of him, and Parrish splits a chocolate chip cookie with him while they speed-solve sudokus.

The next day he types up a report about the team’s most recent mission with as much detail as he can remember, and he makes special note of how brave Rod and Teyla and Ronon were.

He saves it to a flash drive and takes it to Elizabeth himself.

“What’s this?” she asks as he hands it over.

“Mission report,” John says, eyes fixed on a tapestry hanging behind her desk.

“Submitting a report without having to be asked five times first? Who are you and what have you done with Dr. Sheppard?”

Anger flashes for a moment, because he’s trying here and she doesn’t need to remind him of his past failings. But he looks down and sees she’s smiling. It’s a joke. She’s joking around with him.

Huh. Okay. That’s unfamiliar, but he doesn’t hate it.

“Maybe I’ve slipped in from an alternate dimension,” he says, and even though that’s not very funny Elizabeth laughs anyway, and that makes something glow inside him.

-

He grudgingly admits to himself that there does seem to be a pattern developing: when he makes an effort to connect with people here and, god help him, be nice to them, then they are happy and so is he. When he yells and pushes people away, they are sad and he is angry.

It’s sort of obvious, really, and he would be embarrassed that it’s taken him so long to figure that out, but humans are bizarre and complicated and not at all like numbers.

He has a hypothesis and now he needs to test it. He should try being more considerate to those closest to him and see if that improves everyone’s moods. If only he could figure out how to do that without the entire experience being mortifying.

He’ll work on Ronon first, he determines. Ronon has always looked out for him and they have a sort of unspoken bond. Finding something nice to do for him should be simple enough.

He decides on a data-driven approach. He takes to following Ronon around, looking for inspiration, trotting after him with a small notebook in hand to record his observations. Ronon finds the whole thing hilarious.

Ronon spends approximately 40% of his free time in the gym, which certainly is a lot, and a further 30% in the mess. Another 10% of the time he goes running around the city, and the remainder of his time is spent visiting with Teyla, stopping by the science labs to tease Rod, or visiting John.

“You like people,” John observes one day, when Ronon is warming up for a combat session with some of the marines. He’s added up the figures and plotted the data into neat hand-drawn scatter plots and histograms. “You spend almost all of your time around other people.”

Ronon’s lips tighten for a second, and then he relaxes. “Yeah, I do. For a long time it wasn’t safe for me to be around anyone, and I hated it.” He looks around the bustling gym and nods. “Now I don’t have to be alone any more. I’ll never fail to appreciate that.”

John squints and scribbles that down in his notebook too. “You like spending time with people even if they’re -” He glances over at the marines, loud and bossy and distastefully laddish, “- strange? Or mean?”

Ronon grins at him. “Even then, yeah.”

“But you go running on your own. Is that what you prefer?”

Ronon stiffens slightly. “No. It reminds me of running from the Wraith. But it’s important to stay fit, and no one here likes running with me.”

Ahah! The perfect opportunity. John bounces on the balls of his feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“What, seriously?”

“Sure. It sounds fun.”

-

It is not fun. Running is brutal, and he is terrible at it, but Ronon smiles the whole time and he keeps telling John what a great job he’s doing.

By the time they’ve completed one lap of the route, sweat is pouring off John and his lungs are fit to burst.

“Go get some rest,” Ronon says, slapping him on the back hard enough to make him stumble. “I’m going to do another couple of laps.”

“Same time tomorrow?” he asks between heaving breaths.

“You really want to do this again?”

“You run every day, right? So I will too.”

Ronon stops for a moment, then hauls John into a giant bear hug, apparently not caring that he’s sweaty and gross, and says, “Thanks, man.”

John is a little awed by how easily he expresses his approval, and how much it means to be on the receiving end of it.

-

He’s noticed on trade missions that the Athosians greatly value textiles, which they weave from plant fibers and dye bright colors. On his next trip to the mainland he slips away to ask the village elder Charin about the rugs which are spread throughout her tent.

She seems surprised by his interest but happy to show off her collection. She tells him how Athosians give rugs as gifts to celebrate relationships and achievements, and then she shows him how they're made.

He trades a whole month's worth of credits for supplies, and when he returns to Atlantis he spends hours each evening delicately weaving yarn through a wooden frame, building up a soft, textured rug. When it's done it's a little lumpy, but it has four clear bands of bright color running through it to represent their team.

He carries the rug to Teyla's quarters and fidgets outside her door.

"John." Teyla squints at him as she opens the door. "You appear nervous."

"I made this for you," he says and thrusts the rug at her. "Charin told me you're supposed to make them for family. This one has stripes for the four of us on the team. Sorry if it's not very good."

Tesla takes the rug and presses a hand to her chest as she examines it. A slow, warm smile spreads across her face.

"It is beautiful. You have my thanks, John. This means more to me than you know."

He has an uncomfortable flutter of emotion and he can't quite meet her eye. He focuses on the wall behind her instead.

"You are as family to me as well," she says, and steps forward to press their foreheads together in the Athosian way.

The frank sentimentality of her manner makes him squirm, but he sort of likes it.

-

Rod is trickier. He is not a person who cares much for stuff, and he always waves off supply runs from Earth, saying he has everything he needs.

But he has been complaining lately that the unstable nature of Lantea's sun has been interfering with some of his measurements. John has an idea that can help with that, even if it does involve working with grubby experimental data.

Once he's ready he invites Rod to join him in the control chair room.

"I did some modeling," he says quickly when Rod arrives. He doesn't bother with a greeting. "To predict solar influence on the Lantea system and help with your experimental readings."

Rod's eyes light up. "You modeled a star for me?"

"I thought it might be," he shrugs one shoulder, trying not to look too anxious about whether Rod will find it weird, "useful."

He plugs a flash drive into a socket on the chair platform and guides Rod into the chair.

"How does it work?" Rod is bouncing with excitement, the same look of delight on his face as when he finds a new piece of technology.

John indulges in a small, proud smile, and says, "Think about where we are in the solar system."

Rod leans back in the chair and its power hums on. Overhead, the holographic display bursts into life showing Lantea and its star, along with all the other planets and comets and asteroids filling the system, with notations on their size and mass and trajectory.

Rod whips the model around, running it backward and forward through time, watching the orbits of the planets dance.

Then Rod zooms in to see the sun up close and gasps. John has linked the model to the city's long range sensors so the display can simulate the star's fluctuations in real time, and as they watch its surface bubbles and releases a tendril of plasma which reaches out into space.

The display follows the plasma as it propagates out through the system, moving first through the asteroid field and then meeting the planet, interacting with the magnetosphere and lighting up the planet's atmosphere with an aurora of dancing colors.

The soft lights of the display are reflected in Rod's eyes, wide and joyful and curious, and the sight makes something like pain but not twist in John's chest.

"This is incredible." Rod pokes further through the interface, looking at zipping comets and distant moons. He sits up and the chair's power fades off. "Thank you."

Heat creeps across John's cheeks, and he busies himself unplugging the drive. "I wanted to do something… nice."

Rod stands and walks over to him, taking the drive from his fingers. But he doesn't let go, keeping hold of his hand. "This is very nice," he says, startlingly close.

And then something very strange happens, and Rod is leaning in and kissing him. John is distracted from the soft press of his lips by absolute bafflement at this turn of events and he freezes up.

Rod steps away and John stares at him, desperately trying to figure out how to respond. "You kissed me," he ends up on, which does have the merit of being true.

Rod rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry. I thought that's what you were going for. Was it not?"

John's brow wrinkles. His thoughts are whipping past at a million miles an hour.

That hadn't been his intention - he'd assumed that Rod was straight, not that he'd given it much thought - not that someone like Rod would be interested in him even if he wasn't - but there's something compelling about the concept, something intangible sitting on the edges of his perception. He can't quite see the shape of it.

"I need more data," he decides. "Kiss me again."

Rod breaks into a charmed smile. "I can do that."

This time when Rod leans in he's ready for it. Their mouths meet carefully, tentatively, and he angles his head so they line up better.

Oh. Interesting. The data is looking positive.

"Hmm." John draws back to breathe and consider. "Yes. That's good. Let's do that some more."

“An excellent plan," Rod says, putting his arms around John's waist to pull him closer and kiss him deeper.

Rod tastes incredible. Or maybe he just tastes of stale coffee and power bars, but John’s senses are so heightened that every sensation feels earth shattering, and he's starving for more. His hands scrabble at Rod’s collar, at his arms, at the hem of his shirt, trying to touch everything in a mad dash. He’s determined to get as much of whatever this is as he can before it comes to a crashing halt.

“Hey. Hey,” Rod’s hands are on top of his own, and he’s pulling away like John knew he would. John folds into himself, ready to turn his back as he listens to this is a mistake or we both know this isn’t going to work out or I’d never feel that way about you.

“If we’re going to do this…” Rod is giving him one of those lopsided smiles, soft and genuine. “I’d like to do it properly.��

John, still braced for rejection, has no idea what that means.

“Let me take you to bed,” Rod says, wobbly and uncertain and hopeful, of all things.

“Oh.” He could do that. They could do that. An ocean of unexpected possibilities opens up, glittering and unfamiliar and enticing. “Okay.”

Rod takes his hand and leads him back to his quarters. John’s palm is sweaty but his steps feel light as air.

-

Kissing Rod is excellent. Doing so while lying on Rod's bed is even better, and at some point they both lose their shirts and then there’s even more skin to explore and the comforting scent of Rod all around him.

It's what's next that's stressing him out, because while he's aware of the theoretical steps involved in sex, he doesn't exactly have practical experience to draw on.

There's the ever-present worry that he's missing something, that there's something he ought to know, like there's a handbook for this which everyone got a copy of except for him.

"You good?" Rod is looking at him with those very, very blue eyes. "You went away there for a minute."

His cheeks are blazing, but it seems important to set expectations. "I've never done this before," he admits.

"You mean with a man?"

He squirms. "With anyone."

He waits for Rod to laugh at him, but he merely looks contemplative. "Were you not interested, or…?"

"It never seemed that important, you know? Just another of those things that everyone else did except for me, like going to parties, or having friends, or spending Christmas with family."

Rod's face softens with sympathy.

"And even if I wanted to sometimes, it didn't matter, because who would want this?" He indicates himself with a disparaging hand. He knows what he looks like: too thin, too lanky, messy hair that will never keep a style. He's no one's ideal. "I'm not even sure why you’d be interested."

"God." Rod reaches for him and takes his face in his hands. "You really have no idea, do you?" Rod carefully removes his glasses, sets them aside, and says, "You're gorgeous," like he really means it.

Taking off his glasses makes John feel more vulnerable than taking off his clothes. Suddenly his shield is gone and there's the world, and Rod, and it's all very close and immediate and a little disorienting.

"Hey." Rod pets his face, soft and gentle, "It's okay. We can go slow."

He makes an effort to pull himself together. "I won't be very good at this."

"You don't have to be good." Rod traces his lips with a finger. "You just have to be you."

And that’s mystifying, frankly. But he’ll give it a go for Rod.

They kiss some more, and he relaxes into it, lets Rod take the lead, lets him explore his mouth until he’s boneless and breathless. He breaks for air and is lightheaded, the room almost spinning, but he wants more.

Then Rod is kissing along his jawline, and down his neck, and oh, when Rod’s lips brush against a spot near his throat his entire body tenses and twitches, and Rod makes a curious, happy noise and does it again. It’s a hair away from overwhelming but he likes it, he likes it a lot, and then Rod gently runs his teeth over that spot and John’s hips twitch off the bed entirely of their own volition.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, but Rod doesn’t look put off. In fact, he just grins, says, “Don’t be, I like it,” then pushes John back onto the bed and mouths at that spot some more.

His skin is hot all over and he’s shaking, and god, this is all going to be over embarrassingly fast and they haven’t even gotten all of their clothes off yet.

“Rod,” he says, and it comes out as a whine. “Will you -” He gestures vaguely at the bulge in the front of his jeans and hides his face in the pillow, too bashful to let Rod see him.

Rod pauses from his engrossment in John’s neck to breathe hot words into his ear instead. “Is that what you want?” he asks, and John is fit to burst already. How is Rod so good at this?

“Please,” he says, mumbling into the pillow. Everything is too much and not enough, and he wants, he wants, he wants. “Please, Rod, please -”

“Okay, of course I will, it’s okay.” Rod strokes his flank, petting him like a skittish horse, and that should be mortifying but it’s exactly what he needs. “I’d like to see you though,” he says, and reaches over to touch John’s chin.

John lets himself be turned, lets Rod roll him over so they’re facing each other and their eyes meet. That’s almost overwhelming too, but Rod looks so pleased he thinks he might be able to manage it, and then Rod is kissing him and unzipping his pants and oh, oh, oh.

Rod wraps a hand around his cock and John just melts, like every brain cell he possesses has decided to pack up for the night. He can't even bring himself to blush because Rod is touching him right there and it’s so good, it’s so good, and all he wants is more.

Rod handles him confidently, exploring what he likes: a bit faster, a bit slower, a bit more pressure, a bit less. If John could speak he’d tell him that it doesn’t matter, right now he likes everything, anything, whatever Rod wants to do to him he’d take it happily.

But Rod is a scientist, and he loves his data just as much as John does, so he does some experimentation and finds the ideal speed John likes, and the angle, and then he squeezes gently around the head and John’s orgasm explodes behind his eyes like bright, white light.

He floats for a while, like a spring that’s been twisted and twisted and finally bursts free, and he’s vaguely aware of Rod stroking his face. It’s nice, every muscle in his body slack and comfortable for once instead of clenched down tight.

“You good?” Rod asks, and John can’t help but smile.

“Very,” he mumbles, mouth lax and lazy.

Rod drops a kiss on his temple, and there’s something so casual and caring about that it makes John’s heart squeeze.

“You mind if I get myself off?” Rod asks and heat races up the back of John’s neck. He does not mind that one bit.

“Should I. Um.” He ought to offer, right? That was the polite thing. But, “I don’t really know what to do,” he admits.

Rod smiles softly at him and says, “How about you kiss me?”

And yes, John is definitely on board with that, he can do that. He puts an arm around Rod’s shoulders and pulls him closer, then kisses him: carefully at first, peppering soft pecks to his lips, and then deeper, lips sliding over each other as they grow more heated, and then finally wild and messy, slipping his tongue into Rod’s mouth while Rod pushes his pants down and works himself over.

He feels Rod’s fist bumping up against his thigh, faster and faster as he speeds up his hand, and John can’t help but glance down. He watches in fascination at the way the head of Rod’s cock peeks through his hand on each stroke, red and hard and leaking from the tip. Reflexively, he licks his lips.

Rod is making these soft groaning noises which have John entranced, like he wants to spend every spare minute he has learning how to coax them out of him. And then Rod is biting his lip, and twitching, and staring at him open-mouthed and breathing hard.

“Can I come on you?” he asks, and something in John’s brain short-circuits.

“Yes,” his mouth says for him. “Rod, god, yes.”

He can’t stop staring at the movement of Rod’s hand and, emboldened by a force he didn’t know he had in him, he reaches down to wrap his hand around Rod’s. He lets Rod guide their movements, adding a soft pressure from his fingers so they can bring him off together.

“John,” Rod sighs, full of warmth and contentment, and then he’s relaxing and coming. Fluid splatters across John’s thighs and he did that, he made Rod feel good, and that feels like the best gift of all.

Rod is soft around the edges now, smudgy like a charcoal painting, and when John asks, “Was that okay?” he pulls him closer and nuzzles into his neck, covering both of their bodies and their clothes hopelessly in come, and says, “That was perfect.”

-

John wakes up sticky, rather too hot, and filled with a roiling, anxious feeling. The bed is too small and Rod is too close, and his heart rate picks up as he looks fuzzily around the room.

He should go. He should just go, right now, before Rod wakes up and they have to talk about this and he says something wrong and ruins everything.

He’s squinting and patting at the bedside table, looking for his glasses, when he feels movement behind him.

“Morning.” Rod drops a soft kiss on his shoulder. Then he rolls over, John’s glasses in his hand, and opens them up and pops them onto his face. He slides them up John’s nose, smiles, and says, “There you are.”

And oh. All that panic seems further away once he has the armor of his glasses back, and now he can see the pillow crinkles imprinted into Rod’s cheek. He seems less like an agent of impending judgement and more like Rod, just Rod, Rod who knows him and has seen him at his worst and still, for whatever baffling reason, seems to like him.

“Hi,” he manages, and Rod beams like that was exactly the right thing to say.

“Coffee?” Rod offers. “Or shower first?”

As rare as it is for John to turn down coffee, he really is unpleasantly sticky. Deal with that problem first, he decides. “Shower,” he says, grateful that he’s not required to string together more than single words.

“Sure.” Rod gives his ass a cheeky pat as he rises, then throws him a towel.

He showers quickly and efficiently, but as he steps out and wraps a towel around himself he spots a purpling bruise on the side of his neck in the mirror. He stops to trace it with his fingers, remembering the feeling of Rod’s mouth there, hot and demanding.

“Ahh.” Rod stands in the doorway to the bathroom. “Sorry about that. I got a bit carried away.” There’s a flush on his cheeks, and he looks nervous.

John tilts his head, looks at the mark from another angle. There it is: incontrovertible evidence that he's wanted. What a fascinating concept. “Don’t be. I like it.”

“Oh.” Rod’s eyes go very round and the blush deepens. “That’s good. That’s. Ahh. Very good. I’ll just -”

Rod drops the towel from around his waist and makes for the shower, and John gets an eyeful of his half-hard cock, and then, as he walks past, an ass he has the sudden urge to sink his fingers into. A heat that’s beginning to feel familiar creeps up his neck, and he wants -

What the hell, he thinks, and he tosses his own towel aside to follow Rod back into the shower, delighting in his yelp of surprise when he slides up behind him.

-

“Shep! Think fast!”

John manages to get his hands up just in time to prevent the power bar from hitting him in the face.

“Thought you might want a snack before the mission,” Ronon says with a wink. “Just in case we have to run anywhere.”

“Hey, I’m getting better at that! I’ll catch up with you one day.”

“Sure you will.” Ronon checks the straps on John's tac vest like he always does, then says, "Looking good, buddy," and ruffles his hair.

John used to hate that, but he's given up trying to tame his hair and now he lets it stick up in whatever direction it wants. It's weird but it works.

Teyla bumps her shoulder against his as they walk toward the gate room. "What do you have for us today, John?"

“Remember that strange energy signal Major Lorne’s team picked up last week? I was able to map its topography through space and pinpoint its likely origin, and Rod took a look at the electromagnetic readings and he thinks it might be a power source -”

“So we are going to investigate the signal on P2X-884?”

“Bingo.”

Rod is standing in front of the gate like he belongs there. He claps his hands. "Ready for another thrilling adventure in the Pegasus galaxy?"

"Maybe we'll get to hunt some Wraith," Ronon says, entirely too cheerfully.

"Or discover some hideous alien parasite," Teyla joins in with a gruesome smirk.

"Or accidentally blow something up," John supplies, because that's usually how their luck goes.

"Sounds delightful." Rod grins and yells up to the gate techs, "Dial her up."

As the gate engages with a whoosh and a glow of blue light, Rod reaches out to graze his fingers against John's: a reminder, and a promise. Out of the corner of his eye, John catches his smile.

He stands a little taller, knowing his team has his back, and steps through the wormhole.