#the caption is so appropriate for this but is actually in reference to me disappearing for 2 years lmaooo

[cosmicginger]

I’m still alive but at what cost

[argentvive]

Lyra and Will’s Chemical Wedding - Part 2

To recap - In Chapter 35 of TAS Will and Lyra come across a stream:  

They dipped their hot faces in the water and swallowed gratefully, and then they followed the stream downward, seeing it gather in miniature whirlpools and pour over tiny ledges of stone, and all the time get fuller and wider.

This is a reference to Plate 3 from Splendor Solis.

The Latin caption on the Knight’s shield helpfully tells us what is going on:

EX DUABUS AQUI UNAM FACITE, QUI QUAERITIS SOLE ET LUNA FACERE ET DATE BIBERE INIMICO VINO. ET VIDEBITIS CUM MORTUUM. DEINDE DE AQUA TERRA FACITE, ET LAPIDEM MULTIPLICASTIS

In other words, from two waters make one, from Sol and Luna, and make earth out of water and you will multiply the [Philosopher’s] Stone.

So this is not just foreshadowing that Lyra (Luna, the white water) and Will (Sol, the red water) will join together, but in that process they will create--and multiply--the Philosopher’s Stone.  

Lyra notices that the amount of water in the stream is multiplying:

"How does it do that?" Lyra marveled. "There's no more water coming into it from anywhere else, but there's so much more of it here than up there."

Will, watching the shadows out of the corner of his eye, saw them slip ahead, leaping over the ferns to disappear into the bushes farther down. He pointed silently.

"It just goes slower," he said. "It doesn't flow as fast as the spring comes out, so it gathers in these pools...They've gone in there," he whispered, indicating a little group of trees at the foot of the slope.

Multiplication and projection are the final stages of the Great Work.  So the reader is alerted not just to a coming Chemical Wedding, but the final, permanent, elevated Chemical Wedding that creates the Philosopher’s Stone. 

Lyra and Will decide to follow the stream down into the valley.  

The undergrowth got thicker as they went down the valley; the stream went into tunnels of green and emerged in dappled clearings, only to tumble over a lip of stone and bury itself in the green again, and they had to follow it as much by hearing as by sight.

At the foot of the hill, it ran into the little wood of silver-barked trees.....

Will and Lyra followed the stream into the wood, walking carefully, saying little, until they were in the very center.

There was a little clearing in the middle of the grove, which was floored with soft grass and moss-covered rocks. The branches laced across overhead, almost shutting out the sky and letting through little moving spangles and sequins of sunlight, so that everything was dappled with gold and silver.

...They were completely alone.

They took off their shoes and socks and sat down on the mossy rocks at the edge of the stream, dipping their feet in the cold water and feeling the shock of it invigorate their blood.

They don’t have a bath--a common symbol for the Chemical Wedding--but they do the next best thing--they dip their feet into the stream.  They’ve found an ideal place for a Chemical Wedding, a clearing in a grove of trees, so essentially under the Philosophical Tree.  Compare this famous Emblem of the stag and the unicorn in Lambsprinck--in a clearing, in a grove of trees, with a stream in the background.  (The unicorn represents Spirit; the stag stands for Soul.)

But first, Lyra and Will must eat. 

"I'm hungry," Will said.

"Me too," said Lyra, though she was also feeling more than that, something subdued and pressing and half-happy and half-painful, so that she wasn't quite sure what it was.

They unfolded the cloth and ate some bread and cheese. For some reason their hands were slow and clumsy, and they hardly tasted the food, although the bread was floury and crisp from the hot baking-stones, and the cheese was flaky and salty and very fresh.

Then Lyra took one of those little red fruits. With a fast-beating heart, she turned to him and said, "Will..."

And she lifted the fruit gently to his mouth.

@torrefaction-of-silver kindly posted the image of these fruits in their comment on Part 1.  The fruits are round--and red, as we know.  I believe they symbolize the Philosopher’s Stone.  It’s very unusual to use an item of food as a symbol for the PS:  in Harry Potter we have an actual Red Stone in the first book, and the Resurrection Stone in the last book.  In LOTR and Wagner’s Ring cycle, it’s a golden ring.  But Pullman has used the symbolism of the egg --Will and Lyra’s shared omelettes--to mark the beginning of their partnership in TSK, so how wonderfully appropriate it is to have them share sweet red fruits to initiate their final union in TAS.  Fruits, it’s important to say, that Mary Malone packed for Lyra.

She could see from his eyes that he knew at once what she meant, and that he was too joyful to speak. Her fingers were still at his lips, and he felt them tremble, and he put his own hand up to hold hers there, and then neither of them could look; they were confused; they were brimming with happiness.

Like two moths clumsily bumping together, with no more weight than that, their lips touched. Then before they knew how it happened, they were clinging together, blindly pressing their faces toward each other.

Lyra and Will embrace and kiss.  If they do anything more, Pullman doesn’t say, but in subsequent interviews he said they did not have sex.  Lyra confirms that in TSC.  But what matters is what the result of their Chemical Wedding is...

Part 3.  

[minnie-marvel]

Crown Fell (Peter Parker x Reader) Part 4

Asgard has been destroyed and the time has come for you to live on Midgard with your brothers Thor and Loki. They’ve decided in order to live among humans you must learn to adapt to them, and what better place to do that then highschool? Don’t worry too much though, a very cute Peter Parker is ready to teach you and might be the Prince Charming you never thought you’d find on earth.

Peter Parker x Reader

Words: 1,848

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

A/N: Okay but we all know that we busted an entire tear when we saw Rue’s death scene in Hunger Games let’s be real for a second. I really wanted to get this out before my wisdom teeth removal so here ya go!

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You kicked your feet to and fro tapping furiously at the new phone in your hand. It was a gift from Tony Stark, a way to communicate with him and the rest of the Avengers should the time arise. You still sat on the barstool Peter leaning beside you as he helped you punch in his number as a contact.

“There! Now if you need me but I’m not here, you can click these and we can talk whenever you want,” He smiled innocently looking up at you his chocolate brown eyes making your cheeks flush as you looked at him.

“But…does that mean you’ll be leaving on a mission after this weekend?” You asked disappointment creeping into your tone. He waved his hands feverishly in response to whisk away your sudden sadness. 

“N-no I’ll still be here!! And at school too!! It’s for like when I’m not two feet away from you, you know?” he asked to help you put both of your minds at ease. Peter wasn’t sure if his heart could take another somber gaze from you.

You felt your lips smile and you nodded shoving the phone into his hands. “Now then! You’ll have to show this Instagram Flash was talking about, I’m quite curious!!”

Peter laughed and happily obliged starting to make your account for you. “Okay, what do you want people to call you on here?” He asked as you rested a hand on his shoulder while you watched, making a chill run down his spine.

“Hmm… it should be something inconspicuous… what would you suggest?” You asked blinking up at him.

“what about just your name? Or Y/N. O with some numbers or x’s?”

“PERFECT! Go forth Peter, I’m anxious for this Instagram to finally take shape,” You said eagerly as he tapped your name away with two simple x’s before and after your name and initials. He took a step back with the phone still in his hands your face perfectly fitting in the frame.

“Peter? What are you doing?” You asked curiously tilting your head to the side. 

“It’s not complete without a picture! Smile!” He cheered. It wasn’t like he had to ask you twice. The happiness in his voice was enough to make you break out in a huge grin.

Snap!

He set the picture as your profile icon and added it to your page without a caption before handing the phone back to you. “Now you can add and follow people as much as you’d like! I followed you,” he explained pointing to an icon of him and Ned in mid-handshake. You smiled at his profile scanning what few pictures you could before a notification popped on your feed. You squinted at your phone.

“Flash_99 has followed you…? How quick…” You whispered to yourself. Peter nearly fell over looking at your phone too. “I JUST made this account like… literally a minute ago!! God, he’s so annoying…” he muttered to himself throwing a hand through his hair. You shrugged and clicked the phone off before approaching Peter again.

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I like you far better than I do Flash,”  You smiled before walking off, leaving Peter a blushing mess, that tried to struggle from melting into the cracks between the floorboards.

“Okay everyone, since it's our little princess’ first day home from school I thought it might be appropriate for a little catch-up party!!” Tony Stark had hopped over the large seat planting himself comfortably while swinging his legs over the sides. 

“Aww sweet a catch-up party??” Peter asked sitting on the floor right by Thor’s feet. “This’ll be great,” You sat between your two brothers as you usually did, blinking as the huge flat screen slowly descended from the living rooms ceiling. You leaned your head down to Peter. “what’s a catch-up party?”

Steve sat properly on a sofa close by while the rest of the Avengers who wanted to join you filtered in the room slowly. Some had bowls of popcorn, others bottles of sodas and cups to pass around. You turned to listen to Steve’s explanation.

“I’m older than the rest of these guys,” He explained pointing to the collective group with the back of his thumbs. “I come from a time that didn’t have all these different forms of technology, and movies and things, so every once in a while we throw one of these parties to catch me up to speed with how things are in the twenty-first century,” he took a cup and filled it with sprite before taking a sip of the bubbling liquid.

“This will be good for you too Y/N, it might help you with making some references,” Tony said grabbing the remote and turning the television on. “I think we’ll have to pick a teen movie for your sake, we’ve got Mean Girls, High-school musical, Twilight, The Princess diaries- I think you might actually enjoy that-”

You pointed your finger to one picture that had a serious looking girl pointing an arrow seemingly at you. “What’s that one?” You asked almost expecting for her picture to move.

“That? That’s The Hunger Games,” Peter answered tossing a glance at you. “It’s kind of violent though… are you sure you want to watch it?” He arched an eyebrow and you returned him with a sly smirk.

“You’re asking this to the person who pulled a knife on you earlier today?” You asked.

“What?!” The whole room erupted minus your brothers (Loki looked especially pleased) and Peter causing you to shrug sheepishly. “We were only playing!!” You defended flicking your wrist a dagger appearing in your hand in an instant.

“She can do the instant dagger thing too?!?!?” Bruce asked already letting his fingernails dig into the arms of the chair he sat in.

“Sister, your Loki is showing,” Thor said patting your shoulder. You pouted as you flicked your wrist again the dagger seemingly disappearing into thin air.

“I’ll try not to take that as an insult brother,” Loki chimed as he pulled you close to him. “It’s high time you showed your mischievous side!”

“Is that so Loki??” You erupted in a laugh pulling Thor with you as the three of you collided in a sort of dogpile on Loki, the combined weight of both you and Thor nearly choking him. He slapped your bodies away vigorously like a cat who had water dumped on them who sought out revenge.

Peter and the rest of the Avengers couldn’t help but stare. It was so odd to see Thor and Loki act so friendly. They weren’t complaining though, anyone would have preferred a happy Loki as to a sad one, or even worse- an angry one.  

“Alright, quit horsing around you three, I’m gonna start this baby up,” Tony said pressing play shuffling into his chair more. You suddenly found your attention drawn to the television as the movie started. 

You can’t say the violence shocked you or really anyone but Peter being that he was the one that was least used to the violent lifestyle that the rest of you were all accustomed too. You hardly reacted throughout the whole thing but listening to Peter’s commentary proved to be a bit funnier than expected. Halfway you found yourself sliding to the floor next to him because Tony threatened to blast him with his iron suit if he said one more lame pun. You of course still wanted to hear everything he had to say about the movie so you stayed close- much to your brothers’ dismay.

You hugged your knees as the pale light from the screen reflected onto your faces while the rest of you sat in the dark.  You suddenly felt your body go still as you saw a child have a spear thrown straight to her chest. As the protagonist sang softly to her body you felt your eyes sting, tears welling up inside them. Your lips pursed as you tried not to give yourself away, but Peter’s eyes were looking into yours from the side.

You didn’t see it but both of your brother’s body had tensed up uncomfortably as they forced themselves to watch the screen. Loki felt his nails dig into his own skin as he crossed his arms tightly and Thor’s teeth clenched so hard on top of one another that he thought they might break. They barely moved barely breathed until the scene was over. When it finished and the riot ended their eyes tore themselves from the screen and landed on you as you rubbed your shoulders.

They didn’t let their gaze shift from you for the rest of their movie because some part of them, even if it was a small part, feared that if they did, you might have ended up the same way as the poor girl in the movie.

After the credits rolled and the lights came on everyone broke out into individual discussions about the movie. You couldn’t help but attack Peter with questions.

“So they both were allowed to live with their lives?? How is the Capital not furious??”

“Oh, they are,”

“Then why are they still alive and fine?? Why couldn’t the little girl live too?”

“Well, there's another movie,”

Your jaw just about dropped as you leaned in close to Peter’s face. “Another?!” You asked. Peter couldn’t help but blush despite knowing that he had two Norse gods watching his every move. Your eyes were just so close to him, he could see the different specks of color in them seemingly glistening with excitement. 

“Y-yeah like… two more,” He answered averting his eyes shyly. 

“TWO?!?!?!?” You shouted. You grabbed his hands quickly in yours. “Peter, we must watch these immediately!! I have so many questions, so many thoughts so many-”

“Y/N, it’s getting late,” Thor said standing to his feet. “Perhaps you can watch in the morning, for now, we all need rest,” he said taking you by the back of your collar without breaking a sweat. He threw you over his shoulder. 

“Goodnight fellow Avengers, Peter,” he said not even bothering to glance back as you were carried away to your room.

“Tread carefully spider-boy,” Loki said in a soft hiss leaning down into Peter’s ear from behind causing him to jolt in place his heart jumping out of his chest in fear. He left him grasping at the cotton shirt he wore breathing heavily a soft “oh my god,” escaping his lips.

Peter wasn’t sure if he had just made two very powerful adversaries or not, but he wasn’t going to try and push their buttons to try and find out.

Meanwhile, you sat in your bed still trying to figure out how the foreign application on your phone when you saw a number one pop onto a small bubble at the corner of your screen. Curious to what it did you clicked onto it blinking at the message it held.

‘Hey Y/N, I’m gonna be throwing a dope ass party at my house tomorrow night, you should totally come ’

Part 5

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“Crown Fell” Tag

@itsyaboi-tom @letemsleep2k18 @lieslokiandchemicals @marshmellowhat1 @deanilostmyshoe @kristinaraven99@meoodle @plethoraofpuppies @beforethebraces@clementinebloody @emobitchicons @southsidejournal @sugakookiessss @einhcrjar @neoctsus @itsanonymouschick @alienadvocate @alt-wildflower @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11 @jace-abel @person-without-a-life @vxidnik @vineisdeadiwishiwas @nikkalick @lilspooderboyo @rdjismydarling @kindflyer @42cat1387c @musicfreak180 @skullsinger @maddie-laufeyson @jellyfishyishy @wow-thatsnice​ @thelonelyhufflepunk @we-are-band-sexuals @peterparkerstarke @are-ya-feelin-it-now-mr-crabs @part-time-patronus @queeeenofscots @5sos-wdw @mbsgr @pynk-janelles @stevieboyharrington @marisasstuff @thanosismybitxh @i-am-a-fandom-slut @americasmarauders @royalestrellas @queeneliza108 @bluegirlusa1 @cartwheelandfaceplant @skullsinger @kiera-hastings

Permanent Tag

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Discount Avengers Tag

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[memoirsofaunistudent-blog]

But first, Let me take a selfie

Selfies and social media seem to go hand in hand, like a match made in heaven. Snapchat and Instagram seem to be flooded with selfies. So much so there is even a song about taking selfies and using Instagram filters by the Chainsmokers appropriately called #selfie (The Chainsmokers 2015). The dominance of social media can be regarded as narcissistic (Murray 2015, p. 490). I admit I have taken my fair share of selfies and share them to social media. Events like my birthday, achievements like buying my first home and even on my wedding day; these moments were documented by me taking a selfie.

These days we connect to each other by sharing moments of our lives in photos on social media or videos. These photos have become an essential part of communication especially online with each other. Almost everyone has access to a camera from your phone, your computer or an actual camera.

Something that I learnt this week is an app called The French Girls App. I think the name comes from Titanic. However, it has become such a meme, even I have taken a photo of my friend whilst he was lying on a hospital bed waiting to be seen by a doctor for his torn achilles, blowing on a green whistle using the snapchat app outlining him and captioning it “draw me like one of your French girls.” However, I digress. The French Girls App is about posting your selfie an having complete strangers draw a portrait of you (frenchgirlsapp 2014) but you get to keep your clothes on unlike Kate Winslet.

Tenor 2017

Highsnobiety 2019

Just like that Snapchat was dead. Snapchat has over 186 million daily users, generating over 10 billion views per day (Statista 2018), however Kylie Jenner is no longer one of them.

It was unavoidable that an app like Snapchat would be created with the release of mobile phones with inbuilt cameras and readily available internet access. It became so normal to take a photo of every moment and share them instantly on your chosen social network. This method of story telling has become a staple in the way we communicate with each other.

The appeal of Snapchat was that images we posted only visible to other users for a short time, but it’s gone (Tillman & Betters 2018). Perfect for creeps to send photos of their unwanted genitalia. I joke but it is a serious issue. But just like Snapchat’s photo disappearing so is its popularity with one tweet from Kylie Jenner. Yes, we live in a world where one tweet from Kylie Jenner can cost your company $1.3 billion dollars (Highsnobiety 2019). Its scary to say but this is reality.

References

Frenchgirlsapp, 2014, viewed 27 27 January, 2019, <https://www.frenchgirlsapp.com/>.

Murray, D. C. (2015). Notes to self: the visual culture of selfies in the age of social media. Consumption Markets & Culture, 18(6), 490-516.

Highsnobiety 2019, Kylie Jenner's Tweet Did Not Cost Snapchat $1.3 Billion, viewed 27 January, 2019, <https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/kylie-jenner-snapchat-tweet/>.

Statista 2018, Number of daily active Snapchat users from 1st quarter 2014 to 3rd quarter 2018 (in millions), Statista, viewed 6 January 2018, <https://www.statista.com/statistics/545967/snapchat-app-dau/>.

Tenor 2017, I Want You To Draw Me Like One Of Your French Girls GIF, viewed 27 January, 2019, <https://tenor.com/view/titanic-kate-winslet-leonardo-di-caprio-voglio-gif-8627264>.

Tillman, M & Betters, E 2018, ‘What is Snapchat, how does it work and what is it used for?’, Pocket-Lint, 27 September, viewed 6 January 2018, <https://www.pocket-lint.com/apps/news/snapchat/131313-what-is-snapchat-how-does-it-work-and-what-is-it-used-for>.

The Chainsmokers 2015, #selfie, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 5: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains WandaVision spoilers through episode 5, possibly beyond, and for the wider MCU.

WandaVision episode 5, “On a Very Special Episode…” took everything we liked about the first two episodes and shook them up. For the first time, we have a fully blended approach to the storytelling, with the episode alternating between the altered “sitcom” reality of Westview, NJ and the actual, current MCU events. And then there’s that multiverse-shattering ending to contend with.

There’s a lot to break down with this week’s WandaVision, so we’d better get to it…

Sitcom Influences

WandaVision took us to the ‘80s this week, with a little Growing Pains, some Family Ties, and maybe a hint of Full House thrown in for good measure. The living room set itself looks very much like the standard seen on shows of the era, specifically Family Ties and Growing Pains.

Family Ties

The aging up of Billy and Tommy is much like Andy Keaton from Family Ties. In season 4, Andy was born and spent the whole season as a baby. As of the beginning of season 5, Andy was suddenly about 5 years old with zero explanation.

Also from Family Ties is the beginning of the opening credits, where it would show someone painting a colorless sketch of the family.

Bettany’s Michael Gross impression was extremely disturbing in how good it was a couple of times.

Growing Pains

Wanda and Vision getting vaguely horny for each other while doing regular domestic stuff is reminiscent of the way the parents would occasionally get it on on Growing Pains and Family Ties.

The sitcom theme lyrics and feel are extremely Growing Pains. And yes, as you might expect, they are very appropriate for these characters.

Here are the full lyrics for you (courtesy of the Disney+ closed caption feature):

“You wander the world with a vision…Of what life could be But then the years come and teach you…To just wait and see Forces may try to pull us apart…But nothing can phase me If you’re in my heart Crossing our fingers Singing a song We’re making it up as we go along Through the highs and lows We’ll be right, we’ll be wrong We’re making it up as we go along And there will be days…We won’t know which way to go But we’ll take it higher…You’re all I desire When the going gets tough…When push comes to shove We’re making it up Cuz we got love we got love we got love We got WandaVision”

Darcy also refers to Vision “playing Father Knows Best,” a callback to the sitcom style of the first episode.

We wrote in more detail about the sitcom influences of WandaVision episode 5 here.

Scarlet Witch

For the first time, we get the names of Wanda’s parents: Irina and Oleg Maximoff, but in the comics they were known as Django and Marya.

Wanda was born in 1989, the same year as Elizabeth Olsen.

We learn here that the “Scarlet Witch” codename has never been used in the MCU

Darcy refers to the anomaly as “the hex” after the hexagonal patterns that were noted in the previous episode. In the comics, Wanda’s powers are often referred to as “hex bolts.” She could also produce “hex spheres” and the town seems to be enveloped in a large one here.

Wanda’s accent, missing since Avengers: Age of Ultron, makes its triumphant return here.

Wanda talking to the kids about how “my brother is far away from here” is technically true: his corpse is…nowhere nearby. Although given how the episode ends, she could very well have been referring to another corner of the multiverse. We’ll get to that soon enough.

SWORD seems to refer to what’s going on as “The Maximoff Anomaly.”

Vision

We now know that Vision’s corpse is physically present in Westview and he isn’t just a manifestation of Wanda’s powers, nor was the horrific image of him glimpsed at the end of episode 3 a hallucination: it was Wanda seeing him as he really is.

Vision is working on a Commodore 64 at Computational Services. This early personal computer was a terrific gaming machine, with graphics and sound that were far better than early home gaming consoles of the era.

Vision apparently had a “living will” about what he didn’t want done with his body in the event of his untimely demise. Think of it like the MCU equivalent of a DNR. No, not a “do not reveal.” The other thing.

House of M

Before Agnes shows up the second time around, Vision is reading a newspaper with the headline, “LOCAL HOMEMAKERS INNOVATING RECIPES.” Moments later, he folds the newspaper in a way so that it only says “HOM.” HOM is short for the big Scarlet Witch comic event House of M.

The Twins

While it’s used as a setup for the twins inexplicably growing up, Wanda and Vision are horrified to find that the babies have simply vanished. In the comics, the first time we really get an idea that something is wrong with the children (as well as Wanda’s mental wellbeing) is when they show us that Billy and Tommy would cease to exist when Wanda wasn’t around.

This episode is the first to really feel like it’s borrowing a lot from Wanda’s most important story: the Dark Scarlet Witch story from Avengers West Coast. In that book, the first clue that something was wrong with Wanda was how the twins would disappear when she wasn’t looking a them. This would often happen when Agatha Harkness (presumably Agnes here) was babysitting for them. And later, Wanda’s personality started to shift towards full villainy and she was very cavalier about the use of her powers, something we start to see in this episode. 

For most of the episode, the twins are dressed in red and green. This more than a nod to their parents’ favored color schemes, but it appears to mirror the colors they adopt when they grow up to be superheroes themselves. William becomes the hex-wielding Wiccan, who favors red, while Tommy favors green (like his Uncle Pietro) as Speed.

Sparky

Poor Sparky. Good boy.

The name “Sparky” is a reference to Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta’s brilliant Vision story, in which Vision and his “family” (not the Maximoffs) move to the suburbs and try to live a “normal” life. Part of that includes a synthezoid canine named “Sparky.” He didn’t meet a good end there, either. Stop letting dogs die in our stories, you monsters! It’s too sad.

Lagos

This week’s commercial is for Lagos Brand Paper Towels, with the catchy slogan of:  “For when you make a mess you didn’t mean to.”

This references the opening scenes of Captain America: Civil War, when Wanda used her powers to stop Crossbones from detonating a bomb in a crowded marketplace. While she reduced the number of casualties overall, a number of innocent civilians still died when he exploded. It’s the first indication that Wanda’s grief and trauma in Westview are driven by far more than just the loss of her lover.

The Lagos ad is also another reference to the Infinity Stones. Previously, we’ve had the toaster (Power), the watch (Time) and the Tesseract-shaped bath powder (Space). Here, we have a red liquid spill in a sly nod to the Aether (Reality). Only the Mind and Soul stones to go – which means two more commercials.

X-Men

These are definitely not the only X-Men references in the episode (of course), but we’ll get to that big one down below…

The scene of Wanda confronting SWORD agents looks to be directly inspired by the scene in the first X-Men movie where the police try to take down Magneto. Much like Wanda, he uses his powers on their guns, causing them to be aimed at the cops themselves before escaping. Considering the payoff to this episode and Magneto’s role as Wanda and Pietro’s sometimes-father in the comics (not to mention Pietro’s definite father in the X-Men movies), this was more than likely set up. 

Vision says he was reading Charles Darwin’s “The Descent of Man” to one of the twins, a book that deals with evolution. (David Bowie voice) “Gotta make way for the homo superior!”

The Twilight Zone

Serious Twilight Zone “It’s a Good Life” vibes in the episode throughout, particularly when Agnes is visibly weirded out by Wanda with her “take it from the top” moment (unless she’s deliberately screwing with everyone), and the mailman telling the twins “your mom won’t let [Sparky] get far.”

Also, while we’re on the subject of The Twilight Zone, Agnes appears to live at the corner of Maple St. and Sherwood Drive. “The Monsters are due on Maple Street” is a notoriously paranoid unpacking of suburban paranoia.

Westview

The opening credits feature a “Greetings From Westview, NJ” postcard in a pretty common format, but one made most famous on the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Greetings From Asbury Park” album.

We wrote more about Westview in general here.

“For the Children

Vision points out that there are “no other children in Westview,” which calls to mind the creepy “for the children” chant from back in episode 2. 

Captain Marvel

Darcy draws the connection between how both Wanda and Carol Danvers got their powers via an Infinity Stone. Similarly, they acknowledge Wanda almost took out Thanos in Avengers: Endgame but that this feels outside the scope of her powers. Still, the fact that both Wanda and Carol stood up to Thanos isn’t something that’s being glossed over in the MCU.

Note Monica’s reaction when the name “Captain Marvel” is said isn’t exactly what you’d call enthusiastic.

Monica Rambeau

Monica’s test results coming back blank seem pretty significant. Is this a signifier that her molecular structure has changed, whether from the blip or passing through the hex barrier? Are we witnessing Monica’s superheroic origin story in slow motion?

Who is the Villain of WandaVision, anyway?

Despite the implications from the end of episode 4, Wanda isn’t completely in control of what’s going on. At various points in the episode she seems to be manipulating everything, but at others seems to be completely immersed in this reality. 

But if she doesn’t remember how this all started, that sets up a potential villain reveal (or more than one) down the road.

What’s up with Agnes?

Agnes is complicit but was disturbed by Wanda’s ability to “resurrect” so how much can she really know? Unless, of course, she’s just “acting” this way to continue with her cover.

On the other hand, Agnes “helping out with the kids” is kind of in line with our Agatha Harkness theory for the character.

Reed Richards?

Monica mentions that she has a particular “aerospace engineer” in mind to call for help. Based on all the other subtle Fantastic Four clues that were in the fourth episode, could this individual be Reed Richards?

If they aren’t taking that big a swing, it could be Adam Bernard Brashear, known as “The Blue Marvel,” another prominent Marvel scientist, and one who has led the 616 version of the Ultimates with Monica on the team.

Evan Peters is Pietro

“She recast Pietro?”

Yes, you are indeed seeing Evan Peters returning as Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver here. This is (at least until it’s revealed that the MCU Wanda and Pietro were indeed mutants whose powers were merely “activated” by Strucker’s experiments) now officially the first appearance of a mutant/member of the X-Men in the MCU. Peters, of course, played Pietro in three films,X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix. While Aaron Taylor-Johnson played Pietro in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Peters played him in Days of Future Past, and he was generally more warmly-received by fans.

And does this indeed mean that Pietro is alive again, albeit in “recast” form? Or is Wanda so powerful that she ripped open a hole in the multiverse itself in order for her brother to “make a guest appearance” in Westview? This could very well be the first indication of what’s to come in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the possibly Spiderverse-y Spider-Man 3.

Unless…what if this isn’t Pietro at all? What if it’s someone manipulative merely taking the form of Pietro to mess with Wanda even further?

Also, Pietro’s “bad boy” appearance very much feels like it fits with the Family Ties aesthetic. His “New York tough guy” look and persona is much like Nick, Mallory’s idiot boyfriend.  Coincidentally, Nick also starred in an episode of the show where he got a dog and it died soon after from an accident.

We wrote much more about the shocking WandaVision episode 5 ending here.

We Are Kind of OK With the ’80s

Jazzercise was indeed a real thing, god help us.

For those of you thinking the internet was a whatever a reverse anachronism is, we made the same mistake too. But it turns out it has been around in some form since the 1960s, when the Advance Research Projects Agency (precursor to today’s US government mad science agency, DARPA) networked a few computers and sent messages back and forth. 

Unanswered Questions

Dennis the Mailman is back from episode 1. His little aside to the kids is an indicator that he is vaguely aware of what’s really going on. Not necessarily in a sinister way, but a reminder that the people of Westview aren’t really enjoying this.

One of the camera feeds we see is from Satellite 348. Avengers #348 had a Vision-centric cover and story.

Is there a significance to the stuffed animal on the chair at the beginning? I thought maybe it was a stuffed Bova or something, but I think it’s just a bunny.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post Marvel’s WandaVision Episode 5: MCU Easter Eggs and Reference Guide appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3pZW8jy

[booksbakingandblogging]

It’s time to step up and do the work to eradicate racism. That’s an abrupt start to a blog post, but it’s also the truth and one that we shouldn’t ignore any longer. Over the past week, protests have erupted all over the world in response to the murder of George Floyd, and it doesn’t look like they’re stopping any time soon – and with good reason. Black people have been faced with racism every day for centuries and they are tired of it. Of course they are. It’s a gross injustice and it’s taking human lives. This isn’t a political issue – it’s a human rights issue, and we need to stop looking away and face it. We live in a world with systemic racism, where Black people (and people of colour in general) face microaggressions every single day. Racism is a system created by white people, so it will need to be dismantled by white people as well. Let’s stand up, and get to work (follow this link to find out how you can help).

That was my little speech. Now, let’s get down to specifics of this post: we need to educate ourselves. A lot of people (myself included) have been too ignorant about racism for a long time, and in order to be able to help, we need to learn. Part of that is reading books by Black authors, both fiction and non-fiction. Fiction can teach us empathy and it can create understanding, which is extremely important. On the other hand, non-fiction faces us with our history and everything that’s going on in the world in concrete terms. Let’s educate ourselves and read books by Black authors. Not just the ones that tell us about pain and trauma, but also the ones about joy and happiness. We need to learn, and this is a good way to do it. Plus, by reading more Black authors, we’re giving off a sign to the publishing industry that books by Black authors are wanted and cherished.

10 books by Black authors to read right now

While putting together this list, I realised that I can do much better myself as well: I need to read more books by Black authors too. Luckily, there are tons of other people out there making lists of books by Black authors, so I’ve found many books to add to my TBR already. I recommend checking out these two lists by Chapters of May and Electric Lit, too. If you’re looking for more non-fiction resources, including articles, films and podcasts, you can check out this list!

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1. The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas (2017)

Let’s start with the most obvious one first given the current situation. If you’re a fan of YA and haven’t read this yet: what are you doing? This novel tells the story of Starr, a Black girl who sees her best friend be murdered by the police right in front of her eyes. It deals with the aftermath of this traumatic and terrible event, as Starr struggles with what happened while having to see her friend be talked about all over the media. At the same time, it’s also a story about Starr as a teenage girl, and her loving family. This book was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and it’s extremely important. I’m happy to say that it’s a bestseller and has sold millions of copies.

2. Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid (2019)

In Such a Fun Age, our 25-year-old Black protagonist Emira works as a babysitter for a white family, caring for three-year-old Briar. The story kicks off when Emira is apprehended by a security guard in a grocery store because he thinks she has kidnapped Briar. The book deals with racism and white privilege and it’s a very eye-opening read. I learned a lot from it in terms of unintentional racism (remember: impact is more important than intent). Plus, the writing is phenomenal. I can’t wait to read more by this debut author.

3. A Different Drummer – William Melvin Kelley (1962)

I read this book last month, and it’s the best book I’ve read in a long time (read my full review here). It is a literary masterpiece: stylistically brilliant and a story that takes on epic proportions. On a random day in 1957, in a fictional state in the deep south of the USA, the entire Black population decides to leave. They pack their things and leave the state, fed up with its racist history and the way they are being treated by the white population. The story is told through the perspective of this white population that is left behind and it is so incredibly powerful. William Melvin Kelley was described as ‘the lost giant of American literature’. Why was he forgotten? Let’s just say it: it was most likely because of racism. Go read this book!

4. Let’s Talk About Love – Claire Kann (2018)

June is also pride month, so I want to add at least one LGBTQIA+ book to this list. Alice is a Black, biromantic, asexual girl in college and she is done with dating after her girlfriend breaks up with her for being asexual. But then Takumi becomes her new co-worker at the library she works at, and she can’t stop thinking about him. This novel explores asexuality in such a wonderful way and I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. I’d highly recommend picking it up!

5. There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé – Morgan Parker (2017)

Let’s throw some poetry in the mix! In this collection, Morgan Parker explores what it’s like to be a Black American woman in the 21st century. She uses pop-culture and political references as her framework and doesn’t shy away from important and difficult topics such a depression, isolation, and exoticism. Thought-provoking and confronting, this is an essential collection for anyone who is into modern poetry.

#gallery-0-8 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-8 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 20%; } #gallery-0-8 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-8 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

6. Dear Martin – Nic Stone (2017)

In Dear Martin, main character Justyce tries to do everything ‘right’: get good grades, dress appropriately, and be an all-around upstanding citizen. Nevertheless, when he tries to help out his drunk ex-girlfriend, he is arrested by a (racist) white cop, and he realises he cannot escape racial profiling from the institution that is meant to protect him. He feels a lot of frustration and anger at this realisation and decides to try and apply the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. He begins to write letters to MLK as he tries to find his place in the world, dealing with white privileged, racist assholes (let’s just say it as it is) and police brutality. Another book that taught me so, so much.

7. Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)

This is the only book on this list that I haven’t read in its entirety – but I’m in the middle of it and I am learning an awful lot about racism and white privilege in Britain. For those of you who think that racism is only a big problem in the USA: think again, and read this. Reni Eddo-Lodge didn’t plan on writing this book; she wrote a blog post with the same title, explaining that whenever she talked to white people about racism, she encountered skeptical stares and people unwilling to learn. Wanting to protect herself from that in the future, she vowed to stop talking about racism to white people. The response to the blog post was so enormous, however, that she ended up writing this book. It’s been on my radar for a few years now, but I’m ashamed to admit that it apparently took an uprising for me to get up off my lazy ass and actually read this, and educate myself. I urge you to do the same!

8. Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi (2018)

More of a fantasy reader? No problem, I’ve got a recommendation for that as well, even though fantasy is a notoriously white genre. Children of Blood and Bone is a YA fantasy novel based on West African mythology. It tells the story of a land in which magic has disappeared. When that happened, the king ordered all maji to be murdered. The children of these maji remain alive, though, but they become outcasts. They have darker skin than the rest of the population and are judged and discriminated against because of it (sound familiar?). The novel tells the story of Zélie, who finds herself with a chance to bring magic back, but has to race against the clock to do so. This is a YA fantasy story that has an all-black cast of character and explores and condemns racism: such an important addition to the genre.

9. With the Fire on High – Elizabeth Acevedo (2019)

This book tells the story of Emoni, who lives with her grandmother and is still in high school – but also has a young daughter to take care of. Emoni loves to cook, and the novel is filled with delicious descriptions of food and some of the recipes Emoni creates from scratch, which I always love in a book. It also deals with all the prejudice Emoni encounters as a Black teenage mother, however, and how it differs from how her daughter’s white teenage father is treated. Sexism and racism are both explored, but this novel is also a wonderful coming of age story as Emoni tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life.

10. The Sun Is Also a Star – Nicola Yoon (2016)

Spanning one single day in New York, this YA novel deals with racism and immigration, but it’s also a story of two people falling in love. Natasha has one day before her family will be deported to Jamaica, and she is desperate to find a way to stay in the USA. In the meantime, Korean-American Daniel is on his way to his college admission interview. They meet by chance and they spend one day together, Daniel wanting to fall in love and Natasha feeling the absolute opposite. I learned a lot about both of these two characters’ cultures and about what it is like to be an immigrant in the USA. As far as learning about other perspectives goes, this is a very good book to pick up.

With everything that's going on in the world, I wanted to do my part to raise some awareness and hopefully help educate some people. Here are 10 great books by Black authors to pick up and read today! It's time to step up and do the work to eradicate racism. That's an abrupt start to a blog post, but it's also the truth and one that we shouldn't ignore any longer.

[nancygduarteus]

Why So Many Instagram Ads Are Enticing Women to Freeze Their Eggs

One of the Instagram ads for Extend Fertility, a New York-based egg-freezing service for women, presents two images. First, there’s a hand with freshly manicured nails, followed by a sassy pink cartoon of a human egg with big eyes and long lashes. “If you can afford this,” text reads above the nails, “You can afford this,” referring to the cartoon egg.

The ad, part of a campaign created by the woman who gave us the Aflac duck and the iconic “yes! yes! YES!” Herbal Essences commercials of the late 1990s, is intended to raise awareness among millennial women about egg freezing’s capacity to extend their potential fertility well into their 40s. It’s just one of a number of marketing experiments that Extended Fertility and several other egg-freezing upstarts are running to get out word of their services. Kindbody, which debuted its first New York City clinic in 2018, takes an Instagram-friendly van across the country to dole out free hormone tests. Trellis Health recently popped up at a location of the indoor-cycling studio Flywheel to offer a women’s-empowerment spin class. All three companies partner with popular figures on social media, who spread the gospel of reproductive control to their own audiences.

Cost is often a theme: The campaigns emphasize that egg-freezing services can be in your price range, whatever that might be. But contrary to what Extend Fertility’s sassy little egg suggests, egg freezing costs a lot more than a manicure. It’s a relatively new procedure, and although it’s no longer considered officially “experimental” by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, it’s rarely covered by insurance. At traditional fertility clinics, which have long focused on helping people who are already infertile to conceive, egg freezing usually runs in the low five figures. Most of the newer upstart clinics do offer prices thousands of dollars below the more traditional settings, but that’s still in the range of a decent used car. Neither of these prices includes the cost of medication, which can be as much as $5,000.

The new clinics compare their services to manicures and blowouts because they offer financing, allowing customers to pay small amounts over time. This is one of many ways the companies tell young women that the procedure is just as easy as, say, getting their roots touched up. They invite prospective patients to come to informational seminars in tastefully appointed offices. They provide young, friendly, female fertility coaches. They associate themselves with green juice and spin class.

The intense pressure to get married and become a mother has long been a source of significant anxiety for young women, and as what it means to be a woman in America changes, those pressures haven’t abated. Instead, they just look a little different: As millennials delay marriage and worry about their careers, the average age of first-time motherhood in America has crept into the late 20s. For affluent and highly educated women, it’s even older, prompting fears among many people about the viability of having babies well into their 30s.

In that way, an egg-freezing clinic might be the perfect business model: By finding an ambient fear and promising to alleviate it, these new companies paint an expensive, invasive, uncertain procedure as just another normal thing women do in order to live their best lives. There’s a thin line between making something “accessible” and marketing the prospect of motherhood like a beauty product, though, and these new companies are still figuring out which side of it they’re on.

Whether a woman who freezes her eggs will actually be able to have a baby with them years in the future is far from certain. After an expensive retrieval process that requires several weeks of daily hormone injections, half a dozen office visits, and anesthesia for the retrieval itself, the eggs are then kept in a cryogenic freezer until they’re ready to be used in in-vitro fertilization. According to James Grifo, the director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at New York University’s Langone Fertility Center, skilled practitioners have the same rate of success with frozen eggs from young women as they do with fresh-egg IVF, which is 55 to 57 percent in patients under 40. “It is by no means a guarantee,” he says.

Younger or particularly fertile patients sometimes can do a single round of egg retrieval to get the 15 to 20 eggs recommended for decent odds of pregnancy in the future. But many women opt to repeat the procedure multiple times, Grifo says, especially if they’re toward the end of their natural fertility and producing fewer viable eggs with each round.

Despite the costs and daunting odds, egg freezing’s popularity is expanding in the United States. Only 9,000 women nationwide froze their eggs in 2016, but according to Extend Fertility’s CEO Anne Hogarty, her company alone did a thousand egg-freeze cycles in 2018. Kindbody, which has only been open for a little over six months, says it has already done a hundred. Trellis wouldn’t reveal their numbers so far, but the brand has been around since 2018, and it’s part of IntegraMed, which is the largest network of fertility doctors in the country.

These new businesses’ Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns have put egg freezing on the radar of an untold number of women who likely wouldn’t have thought to visit a fertility doctor while young and single. For those potential patients, the message is one of familiar, friendly empowerment. These new clinics emphasize that they can give working women more time to focus on their nascent professional success. At the same time, research suggests that work isn’t why unmarried women consider their fertility options: It’s the limited availability of partners with whom they’d want to raise a family. That probably doesn’t make for much of an empowering Instagram caption.

“We’re trying to make what we’re doing into a lifestyle brand that’s more appealing to people and not something that’s so foreign and sterile,” says Rebecca Silver, Kindbody’s director of marketing. “We don’t want to look or feel like a health-care company.” Extend Fertility and Trellis both told me that their target demographic begins at 27 years old, while Kindbody hopes to reach consumers as young as 25.

That desire to skip the traditional doctors-office feel is clear in both Kindbody’s country-crossing van and Trellis Health’s offices, which are appointed in an Instagram-friendly style that includes soft pinks, plants in minimalist pots, and encouraging words on the walls like “It’s up to each of us to invent our own future” and “Invent your future.” At its mobile events, Kindbody gives out T-shirts and branded S’well water bottles, in addition to controversial hormone tests, which some doctors fear could be used to stoke unnecessary anxieties in perfectly fertile young patients. (Kindbody says they provide the appropriate medical context to anyone who takes one of their tests.)

Kindbody, Trellis, and Extended Fertility offer regular informational sessions that bring in groups of prospective clients to learn about egg freezing, and they all told me their goal is simply to get the facts to young women who have been underserved by the industry in the past. But a 2017 study from University of Minnesota Duluth found that marketing messages from egg-freezing companies were usually persuasive instead of neutrally informational, and that few provided detailed information on the process’s limitations or downsides. The three companies emphasized to me that egg freezing isn’t a guarantee of future pregnancy, but if you peruse any of their online egg-freezing FAQs, the numbers that Grifo gave me, which paint a more modest picture of the possibilities, are absent. They also don’t tell you that most of the people who freeze their eggs never thaw them.

Scarlett Leung, Trellis Health’s head of operations, told me that “fertility declines rapidly basically when you hit 32.” But as the psychologist Jean Twenge has reported, American women’s ideas about disappearing fertility in their 30s originated in reviews of birth records for French women living more than a century ago. The modern numbers are far less alarming: A 2004 study found that 82 percent women in their late 30s conceived on their own within a year of trying, compared with 86 percent of 27-to-34-year-olds. For those worried about birth defects in older mothers, Twenge’s survey of the available research found that 99 percent of pregnancies in 35-year-old moms were chromosomally normal, and 97 percent in 40-year-old moms.

These new egg freezing companies’ questionable marketing tactics don’t mean that egg freezing serves no purpose, or that there’s no need for more accessible information about women’s reproductive care. Biological clocks are real, even if Americans’ cultural understanding of them is a little off-kilter. The inability to conceive can be heartbreaking for women who just want the opportunity to be moms.

One thing these companies are unambiguously good at is explaining their prices. All three business I looked at for this story included detailed cost breakdowns on their websites, which is a rarity when planning for any kind of medical expense. Their rates are sometimes as low as half of those of traditional clinics, and the companies say they intend to make those numbers sustainable in the same way that most start-ups do: attract enough customers that the business’s cost per patient becomes manageable.

In a way, what these business are doing makes perfect sense. They’re corporate citizens in a health-care system that eventually reduces everything to a purchase, including many issues of life and death. The rich have had access to egg freezing for years, and now entrepreneurs are trying to find a way for those in the next several bands of wealth to get on board. It’s the same way appliance-makers and retailers have made stainless-steel kitchen renovations accessible to people who can’t afford professional-grade home kitchens: take a luxury, make a version of it more affordable at scale, and give people a short-term credit line to buy into a life slightly fancier and more comfortable than the one their current options afford them.

Except it’s not a gas range we’re talking about here. It’s a baby, or motherhood as a concept. The ways Americans have been expected to save up their money to buy these very different things has been uncomfortably similar for a long time, but by dressing up deeply personal procedure in the visual trappings of modern consumerism, egg-freezing start-ups might have made those similarities just a bit too clear. The sassy little cartoon egg might be a bridge too far, encouraging young women into medical debt for a service they likely won’t need and that itself provides no guarantees. What might be more useful for this generation of women would be a reconsideration of the pressures American culture puts on them to become mothers if at all possible, in spite of what might be their own ambivalence or differing personal priorities.

Sidestepping these broader cultural concerns to sell a novel, complicated, and very personal procedure means companies that want to market egg freezing broadly have some communications challenges to overcome. When Extend Fertility’s cartoon campaign launched, the company told Ad Age that it hoped it would inspire viewers to share it. That has happened, but maybe not in the way the campaign’s creators had hoped. I became aware of the ads in 2018 after seeing a 35-year-old friend complain that she found their sudden arrival on her Instagram feed invasive. Similar sentiments are not uncommon on social media, and a journalist at Wired wrote about why it felt “creepy” to find them inserted in her feed.

Extend Fertility’s Hogarty, who joined the company in early February, also doesn’t seem to love the cartoon egg. “The origins of that ad campaign predate me, and as the market evolves, we certainly want to evolve our brand and our ad campaigns with it,” she says. “You can look to see us doing that shortly.”

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/03/egg-freezing-instagram/584053/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

Why So Many Instagram Ads Are Enticing Women to Freeze Their Eggs

One of the Instagram ads for Extend Fertility, a New York-based egg-freezing service for women, presents two images. First, there’s a hand with freshly manicured nails, followed by a sassy pink cartoon of a human egg with big eyes and long lashes. “If you can afford this,” text reads above the nails, “You can afford this,” referring to the cartoon egg.

The ad, part of a campaign created by the woman who gave us the Aflac duck and the iconic “yes! yes! YES!” Herbal Essences commercials of the late 1990s, is intended to raise awareness among millennial women about egg freezing’s capacity to extend their potential fertility well into their 40s. It’s just one of a number of marketing experiments that Extended Fertility and several other egg-freezing upstarts are running to get out word of their services. Kindbody, which debuted its first New York City clinic in 2018, takes an Instagram-friendly van across the country to dole out free hormone tests. Trellis Health recently popped up at a location of the indoor-cycling studio Flywheel to offer a women’s-empowerment spin class. All three companies partner with popular figures on social media, who spread the gospel of reproductive control to their own audiences.

Cost is often a theme: The campaigns emphasize that egg-freezing services can be in your price range, whatever that might be. But contrary to what Extend Fertility’s sassy little egg suggests, egg freezing costs a lot more than a manicure. It’s a relatively new procedure, and although it’s no longer considered officially “experimental” by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, it’s rarely covered by insurance. At traditional fertility clinics, which have long focused on helping people who are already infertile to conceive, egg freezing usually runs in the low five figures. Most of the newer upstart clinics do offer prices thousands of dollars below the more traditional settings, but that’s still in the range of a decent used car. Neither of these prices includes the cost of medication, which can be as much as $5,000.

The new clinics compare their services to manicures and blowouts because they offer financing, allowing customers to pay small amounts over time. This is one of many ways the companies tell young women that the procedure is just as easy as, say, getting their roots touched up. They invite prospective patients to come to informational seminars in tastefully appointed offices. They provide young, friendly, female fertility coaches. They associate themselves with green juice and spin class.

The intense pressure to get married and become a mother has long been a source of significant anxiety for young women, and as what it means to be a woman in America changes, those pressures haven’t abated. Instead, they just look a little different: As millennials delay marriage and worry about their careers, the average age of first-time motherhood in America has crept into the late 20s. For affluent and highly educated women, it’s even older, prompting fears among many people about the viability of having babies well into their 30s.

In that way, an egg-freezing clinic might be the perfect business model: By finding an ambient fear and promising to alleviate it, these new companies paint an expensive, invasive, uncertain procedure as just another normal thing women do in order to live their best lives. There’s a thin line between making something “accessible” and marketing the prospect of motherhood like a beauty product, though, and these new companies are still figuring out which side of it they’re on.

Whether a woman who freezes her eggs will actually be able to have a baby with them years in the future is far from certain. After an expensive retrieval process that requires several weeks of daily hormone injections, half a dozen office visits, and anesthesia for the retrieval itself, the eggs are then kept in a cryogenic freezer until they’re ready to be used in in-vitro fertilization. According to James Grifo, the director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at New York University’s Langone Fertility Center, skilled practitioners have the same rate of success with frozen eggs from young women as they do with fresh-egg IVF, which is 55 to 57 percent in patients under 40. “It is by no means a guarantee,” he says.

Younger or particularly fertile patients sometimes can do a single round of egg retrieval to get the 15 to 20 eggs recommended for decent odds of pregnancy in the future. But many women opt to repeat the procedure multiple times, Grifo says, especially if they’re toward the end of their natural fertility and producing fewer viable eggs with each round.

Despite the costs and daunting odds, egg freezing’s popularity is expanding in the United States. Only 9,000 women nationwide froze their eggs in 2016, but according to Extend Fertility’s CEO Anne Hogarty, her company alone did a thousand egg-freeze cycles in 2018. Kindbody, which has only been open for a little over six months, says it has already done a hundred. Trellis wouldn’t reveal their numbers so far, but the brand has been around since 2018, and it’s part of IntegraMed, which is the largest network of fertility doctors in the country.

These new businesses’ Instagram and Facebook ad campaigns have put egg freezing on the radar of an untold number of women who likely wouldn’t have thought to visit a fertility doctor while young and single. For those potential patients, the message is one of familiar, friendly empowerment. These new clinics emphasize that they can give working women more time to focus on their nascent professional success. At the same time, research suggests that work isn’t why unmarried women consider their fertility options: It’s the limited availability of partners with whom they’d want to raise a family. That probably doesn’t make for much of an empowering Instagram caption.

“We’re trying to make what we’re doing into a lifestyle brand that’s more appealing to people and not something that’s so foreign and sterile,” says Rebecca Silver, Kindbody’s director of marketing. “We don’t want to look or feel like a health-care company.” Extend Fertility and Trellis both told me that their target demographic begins at 27 years old, while Kindbody hopes to reach consumers as young as 25.

That desire to skip the traditional doctors-office feel is clear in both Kindbody’s country-crossing van and Trellis Health’s offices, which are appointed in an Instagram-friendly style that includes soft pinks, plants in minimalist pots, and encouraging words on the walls like “It’s up to each of us to invent our own future” and “Invent your future.” At its mobile events, Kindbody gives out T-shirts and branded S’well water bottles, in addition to controversial hormone tests, which some doctors fear could be used to stoke unnecessary anxieties in perfectly fertile young patients. (Kindbody says they provide the appropriate medical context to anyone who takes one of their tests.)

Kindbody, Trellis, and Extended Fertility offer regular informational sessions that bring in groups of prospective clients to learn about egg freezing, and they all told me their goal is simply to get the facts to young women who have been underserved by the industry in the past. But a 2017 study from University of Minnesota Duluth found that marketing messages from egg-freezing companies were usually persuasive instead of neutrally informational, and that few provided detailed information on the process’s limitations or downsides. The three companies emphasized to me that egg freezing isn’t a guarantee of future pregnancy, but if you peruse any of their online egg-freezing FAQs, the numbers that Grifo gave me, which paint a more modest picture of the possibilities, are absent. They also don’t tell you that most of the people who freeze their eggs never thaw them.

Scarlett Leung, Trellis Health’s head of operations, told me that “fertility declines rapidly basically when you hit 32.” But as the psychologist Jean Twenge has reported, American women’s ideas about disappearing fertility in their 30s originated in reviews of birth records for French women living more than a century ago. The modern numbers are far less alarming: A 2004 study found that 82 percent women in their late 30s conceived on their own within a year of trying, compared with 86 percent of 27-to-34-year-olds. For those worried about birth defects in older mothers, Twenge’s survey of the available research found that 99 percent of pregnancies in 35-year-old moms were chromosomally normal, and 97 percent in 40-year-old moms.

These new egg freezing companies’ questionable marketing tactics don’t mean that egg freezing serves no purpose, or that there’s no need for more accessible information about women’s reproductive care. Biological clocks are real, even if Americans’ cultural understanding of them is a little off-kilter. The inability to conceive can be heartbreaking for women who just want the opportunity to be moms.

One thing these companies are unambiguously good at is explaining their prices. All three business I looked at for this story included detailed cost breakdowns on their websites, which is a rarity when planning for any kind of medical expense. Their rates are sometimes as low as half of those of traditional clinics, and the companies say they intend to make those numbers sustainable in the same way that most start-ups do: attract enough customers that the business’s cost per patient becomes manageable.

In a way, what these business are doing makes perfect sense. They’re corporate citizens in a health-care system that eventually reduces everything to a purchase, including many issues of life and death. The rich have had access to egg freezing for years, and now entrepreneurs are trying to find a way for those in the next several bands of wealth to get on board. It’s the same way appliance-makers and retailers have made stainless-steel kitchen renovations accessible to people who can’t afford professional-grade home kitchens: take a luxury, make a version of it more affordable at scale, and give people a short-term credit line to buy into a life slightly fancier and more comfortable than the one their current options afford them.

Except it’s not a gas range we’re talking about here. It’s a baby, or motherhood as a concept. The ways Americans have been expected to save up their money to buy these very different things has been uncomfortably similar for a long time, but by dressing up deeply personal procedure in the visual trappings of modern consumerism, egg-freezing start-ups might have made those similarities just a bit too clear. The sassy little cartoon egg might be a bridge too far, encouraging young women into medical debt for a service they likely won’t need and that itself provides no guarantees. What might be more useful for this generation of women would be a reconsideration of the pressures American culture puts on them to become mothers if at all possible, in spite of what might be their own ambivalence or differing personal priorities.

Sidestepping these broader cultural concerns to sell a novel, complicated, and very personal procedure means companies that want to market egg freezing broadly have some communications challenges to overcome. When Extend Fertility’s cartoon campaign launched, the company told Ad Age that it hoped it would inspire viewers to share it. That has happened, but maybe not in the way the campaign’s creators had hoped. I became aware of the ads in 2018 after seeing a 35-year-old friend complain that she found their sudden arrival on her Instagram feed invasive. Similar sentiments are not uncommon on social media, and a journalist at Wired wrote about why it felt “creepy” to find them inserted in her feed.

Extend Fertility’s Hogarty, who joined the company in early February, also doesn’t seem to love the cartoon egg. “The origins of that ad campaign predate me, and as the market evolves, we certainly want to evolve our brand and our ad campaigns with it,” she says. “You can look to see us doing that shortly.”

Article source here:The Atlantic

[anavoliselenu]

Anchor me chapter 6

“Unless we settle, probably at least another week. Then it’ll depend on how long the jury’s out.” “We’ll do drinks when you get back,” I say. “Or you’ll drink, and I’ll look longingly at your scotch.” “Sounds like a plan. Love you.” “Back at you,” I say, and when I hang up, I see that I have a voicemail from Bijan. I call him back right away, and he apologizes that their PR department sent the newsletter before he’d spoken with me. I assure him it’s not a problem, we schedule a call for Wednesday to go over the specs and set the first round of Dallas meetings, and I manage to control my squeals of joy and delight until after the call ends. Then, of course, I call Justin—to give him both the good news and the bad. “He just left the office for a meeting,” Rachel says. “But congratulations!” “Twitter?” “Instagram, actually. That picture of you on the lawn of your old house. But the caption was good news, and so I asked Justin and—” “It’s all good,” I say, cutting her off. “How long do you think he’ll be out of the office?” “He didn’t say. I’m not even sure who he’s meeting with. He was over in the apartment, and when he came back, he said it had just come up. Do you want me to leave him a message?” “No, that’s okay. I’ll send him a text. He’ll call me when he gets a chance.” “Sounds good. By the way, what are you wearing to the premiere? I’ve never been to a red carpet thing before.” “I’m wearing a white dress with black trim on the bodice and a completely unreasonable slit up the thigh. I was excited about it before, but now I’m thrilled. I figure I should take advantage of the occasion since pretty soon I’ll be in maternity clothes. But as for you, you can do a gown or a cocktail dress. Either one’s appropriate.” “Gown, duh. It’s not like I get the chance that often. Besides, I think Graham Elliott might be there,” she adds, referring to the A-lister she actually met once for about seven seconds. “He and Kirstie Ellen Todd broke up, you know, so maybe I have a shot now.” “Maybe you do,” I say encouragingly. “And if not, there’s always Lyle Tarpin.” “He’ll definitely be there,” I say. “He’s not only starring in the movie, but he’s the incoming celebrity sponsor of the Stark Children’s Foundation.” “That man is seriously hot. I mean, there’s like lava flowing under that whole innocent Iowa boy vibe he’s got going.” I fight a grin. “You think?” “Definitely. Except I think the nice guy routine is real. I mean, you never hear about who he’s dating, and he’s only recently started going to red carpet things.” “Maybe he doesn’t like the whole Hollywood lifestyle.” “Oh, no. That’s not it at all. He loves Hollywood. He just values his privacy.” Her tone is almost solemn, and I can picture her shaking her head vehemently, then leaning forward and cupping her hand around the mouthpiece of the phone as she shares some big secret. I adore Rachel, but she’s significantly more fascinated with Hollywood than I am. Which isn’t saying much, though now that I live in LA, I try to at least pay enough attention that I can follow Jamie’s conversations over drinks. That thought reminds me that I’m meeting Jamie for lunch and I want to get some actual work done before that. I finish up with Rachel, then text Justin. Got the job! Call when you can. Want to share that good news and tell you something else, too. XXOO. Almost immediately, I get a reply. Never had a doubt. Soon, Mrs Stark . . . I hug my phone close, because I sure as hell had doubts. But I truly believe that Justin didn’t. Where my career is concerned, he is my most ardent fan. I text Jamie next, telling her I’ll be at Art’s Deli on Ventura at noon, which only gives me half an hour to go through all my emails and handle any crises. Except I’m not in the mood to work. Not at all. And since my office is less than a mile from the restaurant, I decide to walk there and do a little window shopping along the way. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t lived in Los Angeles all that long. But Ventura Boulevardhas changed a lot in my time here. More restaurants, more shops. Jamie’s condo is just a few blocks off Ventura, so we came down here all the time to grab a drink or a bite or poke around in the bookstore housed in an old, converted theater. Now, I’m looking at the street with a different point of view. I see toys in windows. A shop with designer baby clothes. A store with what has to be the Rolls Royce of baby carriages and a crib that is the most precious thing ever. A darling little onesie with a giraffe catches my eye, and I veer toward that window, thinking that it’s a shame that it’s way too small for Jeffery. Almost the second the thought enters my head, I realize that I don’t have to focus my baby shopping on Jeffery—I have my own baby on the way. I can shop for Ashley. And so I do. In under twenty minutes, I manage to do significant damage to my credit card. Or what I would have considered significant in another life. The amount I just spent is probably less than what Justin has in his pocket at any given moment. That’s something that has taken me some getting used to—this constant proximity to money. The fact that I don’t actually have to think about how much things cost. Not as a matter of survival, at any rate. I still cringe at the thought of paying jacked-up prices just because the store or the designer is trendy. But the point is, I can. Which is why my shopping bag is now filled with a variety of undoubtedly overpriced baby clothes, all of which are just so darn cute that I couldn’t say no. They’re also all unisex, because even though I’ve started calling the baby Ashley, I’m not completely delusional. I’m just hopeful. “Congratulations again, Mrs. Stark,” the clerk says happily. “Come again soon.” “Thanks, I will.” I head out of the store, swinging the pretty yellow shopping bag as I hurry toward the crosswalk because, naturally, now I’m running late. I pull out my phone as I wait for the light to change, just in case Jamie has texted. She hasn’t. I glance to make sure the light is still red before I start to scroll through my emails. And that’s when I see the woman on the other side of the road. Mother? A nearby man turns sharply toward me. “Excuse me?” I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud, but I don’t bother to answer. Instead, I step forward off the curb. “Mother!” I say again. “Elizabeth!” But no one responds. It’s just a crush of people on the opposite sidewalk, all hurrying to and fro during the lunch hour. I curse under my breath and take another step, determined to get across the street. To find her. But now I don’t even see a blond head in the crowd, which is a miracle in a city like LA, and for a moment, I just stand there, defeated. Until someone screams my name—and I turn toward the voice and see a fast-moving BMW coming right at me.

A violent screeching accosts my ears as the smell of burning rubber insults my nose. My upper arm burns from where someone has grabbed it too tightly, and I turn, startled, to face Jamie. “What the fuck?” she shouts, looking more agitated than I’ve ever seen her. “Selena! What the hell are you doing?” “I—I thought I saw—” “Come on.” She gives my arm a tug, yanking me back onto the sidewalk. “But I saw my mom again,” I say, stupidly. “She was right there.” I point across the street in the general direction we need to be heading. “Your mom?” she repeats, and I nod. I watch as a full spectrum of emotions play over her face. Worry. Disbelief. Shock. Fear. She squints as she looks that direction, then shakes her head. “She’s not there, Nik.” “But—” “And even if she were, that’s not exactly a good reason to get pummeled in traffic. You scared the shit out of me.” “I know. I’m sorry.” I scared the shit out of me, too. I draw a deep breath and realize that my hand is resting protectively over the baby. “Jamie, I—” She holds up a hand. “Hold that thought. Come on.” This time when she takes my arm, it’s gentler. She leads me across the street in the direction where I saw my mother, then down a block to the deli where we were supposed to meet. We sit in silence until she’s ordered for both of us, then she leans back in the booth, stares right at me, and says, “What the fuck?” I don’t even know where to begin, but I suck in a fortifying breath and dive in. “That wasn’t my imagination. I saw her, James. I’m sure of it. She sold her house, and now she’s here.” She leans forward, her elbows on the table, then immediately leans back again because the waitress is sliding coffee cups in front of us. I expect her to say something, but instead she adds about a gallon of cream to her coffee, stirs, and then takes a sip. She puts the cup back down, then exhales slowly. “This has the potential to be seriously fucked up.” “No kidding.” “But if she moved here, why not say something to you? Why just keep popping up in the background like some freakish version of Where’s Waldo?” “To torment me, obviously.” “Maybe,” Jamie says, but she sounds dubious. “So what’s your theory?” I say, leaning back. I want to take a sip of something warm, but I can’t do coffee, and I’d been too out of it to change the order to herbal tea. “Nothing. I don’t know. You’re probably right. Your mom’s freakish enough to think that gaslighting you is a time-honored mother-daughter bonding technique.” She isn’t looking at me. Instead, she’s concentrating on running her finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “But . . .?” Her shoulders rise and fall. “It’s just that you’re the only one who’s seen her.” She lifts her head to look at me. “I’ve been with you twice now, and I didn’t see shit.” “That doesn’t mean—” “No, it doesn’t. But you’ve never caught up with her, and she disappears like Santa Claus.” “She sold her house.” “Lots of older women do. Maybe she wanted to live in a garden home and use the money she spent on landscapers to travel to Europe.” “Or Los Angeles,” I mutter, but Jamie doesn’t hear me. “Okay, fine. She sold her house and me seeing her is just a coincidence. Just my whacky imagination.” “Don’t act like that doesn’t make sense,” she says. “You know it does.” She starts to count out the reasons on her fingers. “First you were putting together that Dallas proposal, so she was on your mind. Now, you know she’s moved, so duh. Come on, Nicholas. We both know you’ve got mommy issues. And that’s got to be on overdrive now.” She glances at the little yellow shopping bag on the seat beside me, then bites her lower lip. “I mean, doesn’t it?” A sharp stab of guilt cuts through me, and I deflate. “I swear I was going to tell you at lunch—we didn’t start telling anyone until today. When did you hear?” She screws up her mouth. “I saw on social media when you were in Dallas. That’s why I called, actually. But then you told me about your mom moving, and I thought I should just wait until you told me about the baby.” “Oh.” I frown, feeling like a horrible best friend. “Listen, James,” I begin, but at the same moment, she reaches across the table to grab my hands, saying, “God, I’m such a bitch!” She pulls me into an awkward across-the-booth hug. “Congratulations,” she squeals, then plunks back down into her seat. “Oh, my God, I’m going to be an aunt!” “So you’re not mad at me?” “Are you kidding? Not even.” I laugh, happy and relieved and contrite all at the same time. “I really am sorry,” I say, but she just waves the apology away. “Oh, please! I should have told you I knew. I was just—doesn’t matter. I’m so freaking excited for you.” She props her elbows on the table and peers hard at me. “You’re excited, too, right?” There’s genuine concern under the question, and it reminds me of just how well she knows me. “I was freaked at first,” I admit. “But I’m over it. Now, I’m excited. Still nervous about—well, everything—but it’s a good kind of nervous.” Even as I talk, I realize that I’m more confident than I was yesterday. “Morning sickness isn’t my friend,” I continue. “But it’s part of the experience. And I’m even okay with not drinking coffee,” I add, then take a sip of water. “Oh, shit. I wasn’t thinking.” She drags my coffee to her side of the table, then adds cream. “I’ll just take that temptation away.” “How about you?” I ask. “Are you excited or nervous or both?” I expect her to bounce in her seat with typical Jamie exuberance, but all she does is stir the coffee. “You mean about the red carpet thing? It’s cool. Exciting, you know?” “Um, yeah. Hugely exciting.” The waitress slides the sandwich we’re sharing into the middle of the table, and I grab a French fry, then use it to point at her. “What’s going on?” “Oh, hell. It’s just that I thought the gig was the start of a promotion. It turns out it was the start of an audition. And I’m already failing, which means that the premiere is going to be my first and last time to walk a red carpet or do celebrity interviews or any of that stuff. And then I’m back to an anchor desk—which is a great job, don’t get me wrong, but now that they’ve dangled the entertainment reporter carrot . . .” She trails off with a frustrated sigh while I try to filter through everything she’s just rattled off and make some sense of it. “I’ve already asked Jane and Lyle.” “Asked them?” “To do an interview with me,” she explains.

“They said no?” That doesn’t seem like something either one of them would do. “They said yes. The studio said no. I can catch them on the red carpet to chat about their outfits and how excited they are about the movie, but no one-on-one interview. Apparently, the studio’s already set up exclusives with another network.” “So you’re telling me that you have to go out and set up your own interviews? That sucks.” “Tell me about it.” She looks more morose than I’ve ever seen her. “Jackson knows Graham Elliott,” I say, referring to another A-lister. “I thought of that,” Jamie confesses. “But he’s in Vancouver on a shoot. I thought about asking Bryan,” she adds, referring to her ex-boyfriend, Bryan Raine, “but just the thought gave me hives.” “Besides,” I say, “you don’t want to give that asshole any free publicity.” “True that.” She sips her coffee. “We should have done happy hour. I could use a shot of bourbon in this. But I guess you’re a no-go on happy hour these days anyway.” She sighs. “I’m so fucked.” “The whole thing makes no sense. Do they think you can just pluck celebrities off a tree? And aren’t you the talent? Isn’t there someone behind the scenes whose job it is to line up the interviews for you?” “That’s the way it works once you land the job. Right now, I think it’s all about proving how much I want it. How spunky I am,” she adds with a very non-spunky snarl. “So we just need to find you one juicy story that gets their attention?” “I think so.” She shrugs. “I hope so.” I nod slowly, realizing now why she’d really called when I was in Dallas. And why it had sounded like she had my resume in front of her—because she’d been preparing interview questions. I reach for another French fry as I consider. Because while I hate the idea of putting the spotlight on Justin and me and the baby, I’m not naive enough to think we can avoid it forever. So maybe it’s better to jump right in and take control of the conversation from the get-go? I draw a breath, then jump into the deep end. “What about me?” I ask as she lifts a section of club sandwich to her mouth. “Or, actually, what about Justin?” Because goodness knows I’m not that interesting. But Justin has been in the public eye for decades. She drops the sandwich back to the plate, but her mouth stays open. “James?” “Are you serious? An interview with you and Justin? If you mean it, that would be amazing.” “I mean it,” I say. “And you could have asked when you called me in Dallas.” She sags, looking a bit sheepish. “I thought about it, obviously. But I know how much you hate interviews, and you were freaked about your mom, and—look, Nicholas, are you sure?” “Totally. I’d rather do an interview with you than have rumors floating around out there.” “And Justin?” “It’ll be fine,” I say, and she just nods. We both know that if I ask him, he’ll do the interview. “We’ll do it on the red carpet,” she says. “And you’ll keep it short?” “Hey, it’s fine by me,” she says. “I figure short is one hell of a lot more than any other reporter will get, right?” I laugh. “Only you, James,” I promise. “Only you.” She thrusts her hand across the table. “Pinkie swear,” she says. “Best friends forever, and we’ll always have each other’s backs.” “Always,” I agree. “And you’ll get the job, James. You’re awesome, so how could you not?” “Speaking of awesome and jobs, what happened at your interview? Any word yet?” “I got it.” Just saying the words makes me giddy all over again. “I found out this morning, actually.” “Ha! That’s fabulous! And damn, but we are an awesome pair.” “I’m just hoping I can survive morning sickness, stay awake long enough to finish interviewing possible new employees, and get everything done on time and on budget.” I bite my lower lip. “This is a make or break project, James. Am I allowed to say I’m nervous?” “Welcome to the club,” she says. “You’re also going to totally nail it. I’ve got your back. Justin’s got your back. Seriously, you’re swimming in a sea of well wishes.” “And a few sharks,” I say. Her brow furrows, but before she has the chance to ask what I’m talking about, I open my phone to my messaging app and pass it to her. “I figure they’re from somebody who’s pissed off I got the job and they didn’t. Or pissed that I was even invited to interview, because the first text came before the offer came in.” I watch as Jamie scrolls through the three messages. “Maybe Ryan can trace them?” Jamie’s husband is the head of security for Stark International. “I don’t think so,” she says. “We were talking about that once when we were watching some really bad action movie. He said it’s seriously hard to trace a text message. And odds are good this is coming from a burner phone, too.” “I hate not knowing who it is,” I admit. “Oh, please. I know. It’s some dickless wonder who thinks he’s all that, and that a gorgeous woman with a rich husband can’t have a brain. Fuck him.” I can’t help but smile. As far as I’m concerned, Jamie’s assessment is dead-on perfect. “What makes you think you can handle it?” she says, quoting the first text. “It.” She repeats. “Huh.” “What?” I ask. She shakes her head. “Probably nothing. It’s just that you said the first one came before you got the job. Did it come before you fainted, too?” I frown. “No, it was after my interview, actually. Why?” “It’s just that the rumors that you were pregnant had started by then. So maybe it doesn’t mean the job. Maybe it means the baby.” “I thought of that.” I press my hand over my belly. “And Giselle’s here.” “What?” Jamie turns in her seat. “Where?” “No, in LA. I saw her at the Tower this morning. She had a meeting with Justin.” “No shit? I bet she’s got a serious grudge going. What did Justin say? Does he think she sent the messages?” I pick up a sugar packet and start fiddling with it. “I haven’t told him about the messages yet,” I admit. “Have you lost your mind?” “I know, I know. But I just got these last two today. And as for the first, I figured it was a one-off, and why get Justin all riled up? But with today’s texts—well, I was actually about to tell him this morning, but then Ollie called, and then I headed out to meet you, and . . .” I trail off lamely. “Not an excuse,” she says sagely. “Trust me. Over the last few months, I’ve learned quite a few things about the marriage code.” She leans forward conspiratorially. “Did you know there are actually rules and expectations?” I feign shock. “No!” “Yes. It’s quite the minefield to navigate.” “I’m sure Ryan is happy to carry you over all the little bumps and incendiary devices.”

“My feet barely even touch the ground,” she says wistfully. “You’re loving it. I’m so happy for you.” “You know, on the whole, it feels pretty much the same as being single. Except with jewelry,” she adds, waggling her left hand and showing off her wedding band. “Bullshit.” “Hey, we were practically married before. So it was really no big deal to tie the knot officially.” I just smile, because I know how big of a deal it was. Jamie’s fear of matrimony almost made her blow the best thing that ever happened to her. “So where is the man of your house?” I ask. “You were attached at the hip when you first got married. But that was months ago on Valentine’s Day.” I make a sad face and try not to crack a smile. “Has the bloom worn off?” “Ha ha. We’re both working to prep for the premiere,” she says. “Which means I’m here negotiating high-level interviews with techno-savvy socialites—” I make a face. “—and he’s with his slave driver of a boss, otherwise known as your husband, to talk about tightening up security.” She glances over my shoulder toward the window and the view of Ventura Boulevard. “Actually, maybe he’s not.” I frown, then turn around to see what she’s looking at. Right there, parked just outside the window, is a shiny red Bugatti Veyron, one of the world’s most expensive cars. And one of my husband’s favorite toys. Within seconds after I notice Justin’s car, my phone pings with an incoming text. Here. Now. I grimace, then glance at Jamie. “Apparently, I need to go. You’ll get the check?” “Rules,” she says. “It’s a minefield.” “I’m pretty sure I’ve tripped a detonator,” I say as I remember that my iPad was in the apartment. And that my text messages flash across the lock screen. “Good luck,” she says, then grabs a section from my half of the sandwich. I give her a wave, then head outside. Then I draw in a deep breath for courage before I get into the car and stow my shopping bags at my feet. Sure enough, my iPad is sitting in the passenger seat. It’s quiet now, with nothing on the screen. But I scowl at it, anyway. “Traitor,” I say. “On the contrary,” Justin says. “I’m considering offering your iPad a job in security. Certainly it’s doing a better job keeping me informed about threats to my wife than the lady herself is managing.” “I was going to—” He holds up a finger, then waves it back and forth, indicating that I need to stay silent. “But—” “No.” I press my lips together and lean back in the seat. I know well enough that it’s best not to argue. Not yet, anyway. “Where are we going?” I ask as he pulls into traffic, and though he doesn’t say anything, in a few moments, I have my answer. He turns into the parking lot of my office condo, kills the engine, then gestures for me to follow him. We walk in silence up to my office, and the moment the door closes behind us, he grabs me and pulls me to him, holding me in such a tight embrace, I think I just might suffocate. “Justin—Justin.” He releases me, but before I can say another word, his mouth is on mine, his hands roaming my body, pulling up my skirt, tugging down my panties. I’m gasping, my contrite guilt at not having told him about the texts disappearing under a wave of pure arousal. “On the desk,” he says, but before I have the chance to move there, he’s lifted me up and sat my bare ass on the polished wood. He spreads my legs, drops to his knees, and buries his face between my thighs. I shudder with the building excitement, then lean back, putting my weight on one hand. I spread my legs even wider as I use my other hand to slide my fingers in his hair and hold his head as he goes down on me, his tongue licking and teasing and turning me on so much that all I can think of is the building explosion. Then he pulls back, and I whimper with a disappointment that fades as quickly as it came. Because now Justin is standing between my legs, and his fly is open and his cock is out. He holds my ass in one hand and scoots me to the edge, so that his cock is right at my core. And then, with one wild, hard movement, he thrusts deep inside me, fucking me hard, punishing me beautifully. “Lie back,” he orders, and I do, resting my back and shoulders on the desk. He lifts my hips, then tugs me toward him even as he buries himself deeper and deeper inside me. He needs this, I know. Needs to feel that I’m safe and here. Needs to know that no matter how wildly the world around us spins, he still has some measure of control—even if it’s only the control of my body, my pleasure. Even if it’s only ensuring that he and I are together, always. And so he takes from me as hard as he gives. It’s wild and brutal, and I’m so wet and turned on that I know I will explode any minute. I reach my hand between my legs, teasing my clit with my fingers and also stroking his cock as he enters me, harder and faster, until finally his body lurches and he bursts inside me, falling on top of me and pinning me down as the final throes of the orgasm rack through his body. I squirm against him, seeking release as he recovers. “I shouldn’t let you come,” he murmurs. “More than that, I should spank your ass.” I’m in no position to argue. Instead, I just beg. “Please,” I say. “Justin, please.” He slides his hand between us and teases my clit with firm, sure motions that have desire building anew inside me. Higher and higher, until I’m so wound up that when the explosion comes, I open my mouth to scream. Only a squeak gets out, though, because he captures the sound with a kiss. That’s for the best, I think as sanity returns. I hardly need to shock Marge. We sprawl on my desktop, half naked and sated from this wild, unexpected encounter. Soon, though, Justin gets up, then tugs me to my feet and leads me to the couch. “Why?” he says, taking a seat beside me and adjusting my clothes. “I saw the message flash on your screen, so I opened your app and saw two others with it. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” “The first time was in Dallas before I went to see Ashley. I thought it was a one-off, I swear. And then I forgot about it.” “And the others?” “Both today,” I tell him. “I sent you a text, remember? Saying I had something to tell you. This was it.” He rubs his temples. He doesn’t look happy, but neither does he look pissed. “Who?” he asks. “Any ideas?” “At first I thought it was about the job—which means it could be anyone. A competitor. An employee at Greystone-Branch who doesn’t like me.” I shrug. “But then I thought Giselle. Or even Sofia. Or,” I add, looking down at the floor, “maybe even my mom.” For a moment, he’s still and silent. Then he stands and starts to pace. “I can’t believe Sofia would do that.”

I press my lips together. I can believe a hell of a lot worse about her, but considering she’s all the way in the UK, I’m not going to argue. “And not Giselle. She’s newly married to a man who doesn’t like controversy and has a hefty bank account. I don’t think she’d risk that.” I nod, that seems fair enough. Everything she did before was with an eye to saving her cash flow. “Your mother,” he says slowly. “You really think she moved here?” “I think I saw her today,” I admit. “I’ve been seeing her around town, remember? Maybe that was her warm-up act for the texts.” “Maybe,” he says, though he doesn’t sound convinced. “So what do we do?” I ask, as he reaches down to help me up. “For now, we wait. And you tell me the instant you get another message.” “I will,” I promise. “What else?” “Now we try and forget about it, at least for a little while.” “Oh.” I grin. I like that idea. “Are you heading back to work?” “Actually, I thought you might want to do some more shopping.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “Unless you already got your fill?” “Of shopping for the baby? Not even close,” I meet his smile with one of my own. “In fact, I found the most darling crib . . .” 13 Justin’s already up by the time the sound of the ocean and the soft light of morning teases me awake. I slide out of bed and stretch, wishing that we could stay here all day. Not possible, though. We both have empires to run. The thought makes me grin, because it’s true. My empire’s significantly smaller than his, but it’s growing, and if I’m going to keep it chugging along, I need to park myself at my desk and get through some of the initial tasks for Greystone-Branch. Before that, though, I have one key appointment, and as I look at the clock, I realize that I should probably hurry. I’d gone to bed naked, and now I pull on a fuzzy robe and tie it around my waist before I head out in search of my husband. I expect to find him in the kitchen, and I’m surprised when I realize that the entire third floor is empty. The house is ten thousand square feet—large by normal human standards, though small in the world of billionaires—but still plenty big enough for a man to get lost in. When I don’t find him at his desk on the mezzanine level, I assume that he’s gone all the way down to the first floor to take a swim or work out in the gym. Unfortunately, I’ve assumed wrong. I’m about to give in and call for him through the intercom when I realize that I know exactly where he is. I head back upstairs to the second floor. Early in our marriage, this floor went mostly unused. Once Syl and Jackson got together and their kids came into our lives, however, we’d furnished one of the rooms as a kid-friendly guest room and another as a playroom. There are still two more rooms that have sat empty, filled with random furniture, miscellaneous boxes of mine, and some packed-up files of Justin’s. Now, I find him leaning against the door jamb of one of those unused rooms, just staring in at the mess of boxes and scattered, mismatched pieces of furniture. “Hey,” I say, easing beside him and sliding my hand into his. “What do you see?” he asks, nodding toward the room’s interior. “Boxes I need to sort through. I think some of those have clothes I’m never going to wear again.” I tilt my head to look at him and the wistful expression on his face. “What do you see?” “The crib we bought yesterday against the far wall,” he says, pointing to the spot he’s chosen. “It’s close enough to the window for the ambient light, but far enough away that the sun won’t shine in the baby’s eyes.” He turns to me. “Can you see it?” I nod, thinking about the sturdy white crib we’d decided on after looking at every single one on display in the upscale baby furniture store. None of them had been quite right, but then we saw one with a headboard design that had two elephants, their trunks twining into a heart shape, and a line of zoo animals stenciled on the outside. It’s absolutely darling, and both Justin and I fell in love with it immediately. It’s a special order, but it will be delivered soon. “It has a mobile hanging over it,” I say. “Another zoo theme.” I imagine a musical mobile hanging above the crib, tiny giraffes and lions and penguins going around and around above our little girl as she coos and kicks and reaches for the pretty animals. “And my rocker by the window,” I add. It was the only other piece of furniture we bought yesterday. When we’d set out, Justin had said he wanted to spread out the shopping. To take it slow and savor every moment and only buy one piece per trip. I was all for that plan until afternoon exhaustion snuck up on me, and I ended up sitting in the most amazing rocker in the history of the universe. And then I informed Justin that there was no way I was leaving that store without being absolutely certain that the rocker would soon be mine. “We need to figure out colors next,” I say. “And we need a changing table and a chest of drawers and maybe a rocking horse.” He grins at me. “I don’t think we need the rocking horse just yet.” “Okay, then. A giant stuffed bear. In fact, a whole menagerie of stuffed animals who can watchover her at night.” “And a bassinet,” he says. “Because she’s sleeping in our room at first.” “Definitely,” I say, as he starts to lead me away from the room toward the stairs. “And a baby monitor. Audio. Video. And a backup system.” “You read my mind.” We continue describing her room as we walk. What I want stenciled on the walls. Where to installspeakers so we can play her soothing music. The colors for her bedding. “Only about seven more months if Dr. Cray is right,” I say. “We’ll know Monday.” I nod. I don’t have to ask if he’s going with me to the appointment. There’s no way he’d miss it. And just that simple reality has me smiling again. “What?” he asks. “Just thinking how much I love you.” “Careful, or I might not let you out of the house. And I think you told me you had a full schedule today.” “I do,” I admit. “Today and tomorrow. I’m trying to get ahead of the game so that we can enjoy Friday.” “In that case, I suggest a sensual evening of working together in the library,” he says. “Two glasses of sparkling fruit juice. A coffee table littered with spreadsheets and computer code.” I laugh. “Sounds like the evening will have all the makings of an epic romance.” “So long as you’re with me, then yes,” he says, then pulls me close and kisses me hard. “You’re seeing Frank this morning?” he asks when he breaks the kiss, referring to my prodigal father. “Do you want me to come with you?”