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idkthisisjustforfanfic · 5 years ago

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U N P L A N N E D, part 3

*tw: discussion of abortion*

Glenne answered the door and forced a smile, but you could tell she was barely holding it together. It was Harry’s idea, really, to make her host a casual dinner on Tuesday night--a good reason for us to all be in the same room.

Glenne agreed, only after she got you on FaceTime to give all of the details, word for word, about the conversations you’d had. The only decision you made at this point was that Harry would tag along to the next appointment--you wondered what he’d do in a room with a plastic uterus and a poster of a vagina on the wall.

Los Angeles had a certain spring time glow to it--Lexi drove the two of you up to Jeff and Glenne’s, a side street with lots of homes, ones that certainly cost more than you’d make in 10 years.

Jeff seemed more than happy to have you all over, he made a quick joke under his breath about your sleeping with his client when he set the bruschetta down on the table. You’d seen him since then, but only once. Apparently it hadn’t been long enough for him to get over the teasing.

Harry’s laugh floated in from the kitchen while you placed the silverware on napkins. A hushed voice, “don’t make a big deal out of it, okay?”

“I’m kidding,” Jeff laughed, his tone apologetic. “He’s a nice guy--you should get to know him.” That’s what he probably thought this was--Glenne’s attempt to play matchmaker for two friends.

An awkward beat. “Oh whatever, let’s not make it weird.”

He looked through the doorway into the other room, his voice more hushed than before. “He’s definitely into you!”

You stopped in your tracks, looking up from the table after you adjusted the final place setting. “What do you mean?”

A shrug of his shoulders, he brushed a crumb off the table. “He asked me about you the other day.”

“When?”

“Friday.”

The day you spoke on the phone. Before he knew--whatever interest he had in you had likely diminished by now. “Said he was glad you finally reached out.” He smirked at you, raised his eyebrows quickly, somehow insinuating that there might be a repeat of the last time you and Harry hung out.

You didn’t have time to ask for more clarification, though, get more details out of him or tell him that the only reason you’d reached out in the first place was to deliver the news. But you were cut short--Glenne stuck her head into the dining room and asked for more help in the kitchen.

Jeff uncorked another bottle of wine at the end of the night, distracted altogether by the story Lexi was telling about her co-star. You picked up the plates in front of Glenne, put them in the dishwasher one by one to help with clean up.

He’s got more self-control than you for sure, Lexi teased when you were out of earshot, tossing a napkin into the trash. He’s waiting until the very end.

Which he did--it wasn’t until you were all stood around the island in their kitchen, sink filled with dishes and wine glasses nearly empty. Jeff had already made a face in your direction when Harry skipped your glass. Headache, you lied. Been terrible all day.

He cleared his throat. “Uh, Jeff--listen, you know when we had that party at my house in April? After we finished in the studio?”

His eyes flickered to you quickly, a small smile on his face when he nodded. Glenne stiffened beside him, Lexi watched with careful eyes.

“And you know what happened between us that night,” he motioned between the two of you with a finger, sounding calmer than you expected, like he’d been practicing in front of a mirror or alone in his car.

He hadn’t told you how he felt about telling him--you’d only exchanged a few texts between the last time you saw him and tonight. But he seemed fine enough all evening, even now, his voice was steady when he leaned forward on the counter.

Jeff looked between the two of you, completely lost. He looked over to Glenne before Harry spoke again.

“Y/N’s pregnant.”

There was still a jump in your pulse, but less this time. Something about the way Harry seemed so calm and collected was contagious. He looked over at you and offered a small smile, maybe one of reassurance or unity.

Jeff let out a laugh. “Good one, man--you’re a dick.”

Lexi frowned, Glenne reached for Jeff’s arm.

Harry’s voice was low. “M’not kidding.”

“Come on,” Jeff looked over to Glenne, then to Lexi, then you. “I’m not falling for that.”

“He’s not kidding, babe.”

Now your pule rose substantially. Jeff’s face seemed to shift from one of humor and amusement, more towards anger and concern. “What? You’re not fucking with me?”

“M’not fucking with you.”

You looked over to Lexi, ready to make an exit if needed. You felt suddenly protective, if you were actually growing something inside of you, dealing with the tension in the room surely couldn’t be good for either of you.

Jeff was quiet for a second, a deep breath, a look around the room. Like he wanted to be anywhere but here and talking about anything but this. You knew the feeling well.

He looked towards you. “How did you find out?”

“I’ve taken four tests. Two on my own, two at the doctors.”

“And it’s real? A doctor said it’s real?”

You nodded.

“And you believe her?”

Silence--everyone but Jeff seemed to stare at the floor.

He asked again. “Do you?”

Harry looked around awkwardly. “Yeah--I do.”

“How do we know she’s not lying? How do we know you’re actually the father?”

“Jeff,” Glenne tried to calm him down, emotion in her voice that let you know his question bothered her. She reached for him again, he pulled his arm out of reach.

You got red in the face, a heat down your spine when he looked at you, waiting for an answer or a response or some type of defense. “I have the tests that I showed him.”

“I made her take another in front of me. She had all the stuff printed from the doctor. I’m going with her next week.”

Jeff was still, like he hadn’t expected Harry to say all of that. “You knew about this?”

A sigh of relief when his attention was no longer directed at you. Glenne nodded slowly. “Only for a few days--she’s freaked out, too, okay? This isn’t good news for anyone.”

Jeff blew air from between his lips. “I know--I know. I just--this is literally terrible timing with the album coming and--”

Harry shrugged, “forget the album. We can push it back. It doesn’t have to be a summer release.”

“Well it fucking can’t be now if we’re going to be busy dodging pregnancy rumors.”

“What do you mean, dodging?” Your voice was quiet, but when Jeff looked down at you, he softened.

“We can’t--he can’t just talk about this or run with it. We’ve already seen what happens to someone like him when there’s a baby in the picture.”

You knew what he meant--you’d heard them make jokes before about the others, Harry’s old bandmates who hadn’t been careful and who’d found themselves in the same situation. Your shoulders slumped at the realization that now, you put him there, too.

“Okay, just stop, alright? You’re not helping,” Harry held a hand up and shook his head. “Clearly this is a big fucking deal and we have to figure shit out, but--I think her and I have a lot to figure out before you do.”

Lexi leaned against the counter, sipped at her wine with wide eyes like she was witnessing a soap opera.

“He’s right, Jeff,” Glenne finally grabbed his arm now, rubbed at his sleeve, her voice a desperate attempt to soothe him. “They have a lot of talking to do. Don’t get ahead of them.”

More tears burned in your eyes--if anything, at this point, you would have thought that they’d all be gone, dried up.

“I should go,” you said, turning quickly to reach for your phone and purse on the counter behind you. “I’ll, uh, I’ll just take an Uber, Lexi, no rush.”

“Y/N, wait,” she trailed behind you, following you towards the front door, out onto the steps and down to the walkway. Jeff and Glenne’s house was also immaculate, a gate by the road to keep out unwelcome visitors--a view of the city that sparkled in the night sky.

“It’s fine, Lexi, I’m fine. I just want to go to bed.”

You heard her shoes click on the pavement. “Stop, dude--just hold on. Everyone is going to need time to process this.”

“I know,” you turned around. “I know they do--but so do I! I’m the one who’s actually pregnant, okay? Not him, not Jeff, not you, not Glenne.”

“I know,” she said, a solemn nod. “You know how Jeff is, alright? He’s just a perfectionist. You should be able to relate, honestly.”

“I don’t want to be shamed or blamed for this--I didn’t fucking mean to get pregnant!”

The door opened again, this time, Harry stood in the shadows, face half illuminated by the light beside the entrance. “Sorry--I, uh, I can go back inside.”

“No,” Lexi said suddenly, waving a hand in your direction before heading towards him. “I’ll go inside. I’ll see you at home,” she spoke over her shoulder to you as she climbed the steps back up to the house. You weren’t sure if she was angry or tired or a mix of the two.

Harry stepped aside, the door swinging once on it’s hinge before it clicked into place. You pulled out your phone, opened the Uber app, and pressed a button on the inside of the gate to set it into motion. A few steps forward to the curb before you sat, unconcerned about potential grass stains on your new jeans.

He walked over to you, hands in the pockets of his striped pants. “Sorry about that--about Jeff, I mean.”

You didn’t even look up at him, too busy dragging the location pin to sit on top of their digital driveway. “It’s fine.”

He sat beside you, rested his elbows on his knees. “He’s stressed, which I get, but you are too. It’s not just my life that this changes. I mean--if you keep it.”

You nodded, set your phone down on your lap and then looked over at him. “I know that you don’t know me, but for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t make this up or do this on purpose. I have my own life and career and I’m supposed to be getting a promotion soon--I don’t get anything out of this.”

He let a breath escape his lips, more of a sigh, before he laid back on the grass and closed his eyes. A mumble from between his lips. “I know you wouldn’t.”

Warmth in your chest--unsure of why he was quick to believe you, but grateful he did.

“Jeff will get over it.”

Silence for a minute as he laid there beside you, eyes closed as if the universe didn’t seem to be crumbling on top of you, perched on a hill somewhere south of Encino. He seemed calm and collected, steady, even, as if he wasn’t terrified. You didn’t know what to say. What do we do? I’m sorry? But sorry for what? You didn’t ask for this or do anything that brought it on, other than a poorly timed one night stand.

“I can drive you home--you can cancel the Uber.”

You looked over at him, his hands clasped on top of his stomach, a strip of his skin escaping between his shirt and his pants. He opened his eyes, as if he could feel your gaze, sat up and cleared his throat.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he laughed, answering the question that hadn’t even made it out of your mouth. He stood and offered you a hand up, you wiped at your pants, only spreading the evening droplets of dew on top of the denim.

When you stood beside him, he hesitated. His right arm lifted, wrapped over your shoulders and pulled you into his side. It was short, he let go of you and moved towards his car silently, clicking a button on the keys that woke it up, headlights on.

So you sat on top of the nice leather seats, the quiet hum of the radio didn’t feel so awkward this time, like the silence was more comfortable and the tension was lessened. Not as stuffy and intrusive.

He pulled on and off of the freeway with ease, winding roads away from the hills eventually turned to urban streets and residential neighborhoods, trash bins on the sidewalk, ready for pick up.

When he slowed in front of your house, one hand on the wheel, he turned to see you. “We can, uh, take some time, I guess--to decide what we want to do. Hear from your doctor this week.”

You knew what he meant--no need for harsh terms or specific language. You nodded.

“I mean--what you want to do. S’up to you, really.”

You bit at your lip, unsure of how to reply. “You get a say, too.”

His face softened at that, he pulled his forefinger up to rub at his lips. “Okay.”

“I’ll talk to you soon?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, angling himself towards you. “Maybe, uh, we could do dinner some night this week. After the appointment?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Alright, I’ll talk to you then. I’ll text you before.”

“Okay.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Thanks for the ride.”

“Course,” he said. “Any time.”

Glenne seemed to keep her distance, nothing but a text from her that night, a red heart emoji--as if it would undo the frustration in Jeff’s voice or the look on his face.

And you got it--you understood that for Jeff, this was a business nightmare. His top client now listed in a category with many others, one that begged for headlines and sorry sideways glances.

Which was why you tried to give him an out the night before. A text excusing him from the appointment, if he wanted. You don’t have to come, I understand if you’re too busy.

Lexi was busy on set for a few days straight, early mornings and late nights left you spending more time alone in your apartment than you were used to. You caught up with your mom on FaceTime the night before the appointment.

“We’ll see if he shows up,” you said, phone propped up on the table when you blew on a forkful of spaghetti. “He’s not a jerk, I don’t think, but--I don’t know. If I were him I would have run for the hills by now, probably.”

She was in the middle of going through her mail, flipping through envelopes and peeling them open. “Oh sweetie, don’t say that. It’s good--he’s been pretty supportive so far.”

“I know, but I don’t know him. I mean--this is like a lifetime movie, right? I’m a random person who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

She slowed at that, looking at you through the phone, a sigh before she spoke. “You seem to have made your peace with it, a bit.”

You shrugged, another bite of dinner. “I think it’s denial.”

She laughed a little. “Me too. Can I come this weekend?”

“Down here?”

She nodded, a new envelope in her hand as she used her finger to tear it open.

“If you want--we can just do brunch or something. Lexi may or may not be around.”

“Well, I was thinking maybe I could meet him.”

You almost dropped your fork. “No--no way, not yet. I don’t even know what we’re gonna do.”

“I know,” she said, her voice steady. “There’s no way you could place it with a family, right? Give it up for adoption?”

That language felt harsh, give up. Glenne had already ruled that out the night you told her.

They’d never let you, she said. At first, you thought it sounded like a happy medium. You can’t just give up a celebrity’s baby for adoption, that’d be too dangerous and cause too much of a scene.

You wished she had said you couldn’t give up your baby for adoption--as if she’d forgotten that it was yours, too.

“No, Glenne said something about how his team would never go for that. Which makes sense--I guess, you know, crazy people would try to adopt it.”

She nodded. “So--it’s really just the two options then,” a pause, “keep it, or don’t.”

“Yeah--just one or the other.”

“Look, you have to make whatever decision is right for you--but, I don’t know, I just thought it might be nice to meet him.”

You thought on it for a second, another bite of spaghetti when she disappeared out of the frame for a second. Your mother meeting Harry wasn’t something you’d ever thought about--too soon and too new.

At some point, if it was necessary, maybe. But that was down the road, right? Not this weekend and not right after he sees the plastic uterus in Dr. Weston’s office. That all felt too real and too rushed.

She appeared back in front of the camera, a smile on her face. “Just think about it, okay?”

“Alright--I’ll think,” you said it mostly to appease her, to calm her nerves and to assure her that you were alright, hanging in there and holding on. She was worried--and she wasn’t afraid to say it. She’d already called you every day since you told her, asking how you were feeling, when you’d tell him, how it was all going.

“Don’t give him a pass just because of who he is, honey, okay? Fame or not he’s involved in this now, too.”

“I know,” you rolled your eyes, tried not to whine too much when she gave you a look. “I know, mom--I get it.”

She let it go then, asking about work and catching you up on her own life. She told you about the renovation they were doing in her office, the neighborhood book club she joined. When you hung up and said goodnight, a text was waiting for you. One that you hadn’t even seen come through.

310-324-9090 (8:29pm): I’ll be there--4pm, right? Text me the address.

Sure enough, he was in the waiting room before you were. A hat on his head and a jacket over his shoulders, he straightened up when you came through the door.

“Hi,” his voice was quiet when you sat down next to him. He looked around the room to make sure no one was looking in your direction. “We just wait here, right?”

“Yes,” you giggled, somewhat touched by his uncertainty. “They’ll call me in eventually.”

“I thought I was coming in, too.”

You turned to face him. “You can, but they’ll call my name, since I’m the one who’s actually pregnant.”

“Right,” he said, shrinking into the chair. He thumbed through a magazine, one that had a picture of a smiling baby on the front--a diaper and big, blue eyes. You wondered--if you kept it--who it would look more like.

The same nurse called your name, this time, a smile on her face when there was a male counterpart by your side. You ignored the shift in her tone, chalked it up to ignorant, but well-intentioned sexism, and followed her into a different exam room.

Bigger, this time. Another poster of female genitalia on the wall--this one was bigger, darker shades of red and pink. Harry sat in the seat and watched as the nurse took your blood pressure, temperature, and offered you a glass of water.

He perked up at that, magazine still in his hand, he’d taken it from the waiting room as a souvenir. “M’a bit thirsty--could I have one?”

She looked at him, still now, a look of realization crossed over her face when she seemed to place his face, or maybe his voice. She nodded, disappeared out into the hallway and shut the door behind her.

“We have to have them sign something,” he mumbled, opening the magazine again with a shake of his head. “All these doctors offices talk about confidentiality and what not, but, dunno--I can have my lawyer draft something up.”

“What do you mean?”

He kept his gaze on the page he held between his thumb and forefinger. “They could tell someone, Y/N--that I’m here and that you’re pregnant.”

You tilted your head, adjusted on top of the wax paper. “You don’t expect this to be a secret forever, do you?”

He pushed his lips out, looked up at you. “It depends on what we decide.”

Interrupted, his words clipped when Dr. Weston knocked on the door and stepped inside. She offered a hand in Harry’s direction, either unaware of who he was or simply unphased by his presence. Either way, she sat on the rolling stool and looked up at you.

“Well--now that we know for sure that you are, in fact, pregnant, I’m happy to talk you through some of the options, if you are interested in termination.”

You nodded, not necessarily as an agreement that you were interested, but you figured it didn’t hurt to hear her out.

“There are a few different ways to do so, and luckily you’re early enough that you have some of the better options still available.” She pulled a pamphlet off of the counter, one that you hadn’t noticed until now. It had a picture of a flowery field on the front, a sunny day somewhere with blue skies, with the words Abortion by Trimester, in bold lettering on the front.

Harry leaned forward, his eyes scanning the pamphlet before sneaking a glance in your direction--you felt his gaze when Dr. Weston handed it over.

“There’s medication you could take at this point--it would entail some heavy bleeding as you pass the pregnancy, a few days of that tops. That’s the safest option for where you’re at right now, you’d have up until the ten week mark to choose that option. Anything after that would be a bit more involved, but still extremely safe.”

You nodded. “We don’t--uh--we don’t know yet. We haven’t decided, honestly.”

“Alright,” she said. “Take your time, I’m happy to work with you no matter what you decide.”

“Is there anything I should be doing right now? I haven’t been drinking, I don’t smoke, so--”

She stood from her stool and grabbed another pamphlet, the same one, offered it to Harry. He flipped it over in his hands, inspecting the front and back when she continued.

“Just the same, healthy eating, enough rest. If you do decide to keep it, we recommend prenatal vitamins, the Complete Health brand is a good one, you can get it at Target or CVS. But--again, you have time to figure it all out. It’s just good to know all the options.”

“Right,” you said. “Thank you.”

“You’ll need to come back in a few weeks, if you decide to keep it. We’ll do a six week ultrasound. If you decide otherwise, though, you can call and make an appointment to come in for the prescription.”

Harry shifted in his seat, ran a hand through his hair and shook Dr. Weston’s hand when she said goodbye. The door shut behind her, he let a breath out as if he’d been holding one, turning to look at you once you were alone.

The options felt overwhelming--like suddenly now there was a weight on your shoulders no matter what you chose. Harry’s brow furrowed when you wiped at your eyes.

“Sorry,” you mumbled. “It’s just hard--I don’t know what to do.”

He was quiet, stood in the center of the room like he had no clue how to respond. He reached a hand forward and took yours in it, “s’alright--we can think on it all.”

You nodded, letting go of his hand quickly when he pulled it away. He offered you the jacket you’d worn, picked up your purse off the chair beside him.

“Need another ice cream?”

“No,” you laughed. “I need a real meal.”

“We can definitely make that happen.”

So you drove with the windows down--once again leaving your car behind so you could ride together--and luckily, the drive through line at In-N-Out wasn’t too bad. A quick smile for a picture with the cashier, he handed over his credit card, pushing yours out of the way.

“I’ve got it,” he used his elbow to nudge your hand.

“Let me venmo you for mine, then,” you pulled out your phone, quick to pull up the app.

“Y/N, leave it. S’fine.”

You watched as he took the receipt, thanked the person behind the window before they handed over the bag of food. It felt like a thin line, letting him pay for things or insinuating, somehow, that you were now a financial responsibility of his. You worked too hard, had a good job--you’d been raised by a woman who didn’t take handouts from anyone. You would have sooner paid for both of your meals than let him feel so obligated.

But you were too hungry to put up a fight, you took the burger he handed you and lifted your sunglasses once he parked on the far end of the lot, tinted windows allowing privacy.

“I know I’m only a month along, but this might be my first real craving.”

“Yeah?” He smirked over at you, watched as you took a bite. “We can keep ‘em coming.”

He pressed a button, lessening the blow of the air conditioning. Took a sip of the soda he had ordered, set it back in the cup holder between you. “That was weird, huh?”

You spoke through a full mouth, “wha’ was?”

“The options--the pamphlet, and--I don’t know. I’d never thought much about how they do it. Kind of thought it was more involved than that.”

You almost told him it wasn't a good mealtime conversation, he kept going before you could redirect. “But I dunno, hearing her talk about it made me think more about it.”

You let out a breath--sure that the inevitable was coming. Of course he’d want you to get rid of it--how could he opt for anything else when something like this had massive implications?

How could he go on tour, do interviews or red carpets with partial custody? Were you meant to trail along behind him now, a glorified nanny to your first born so he could continue living the same life? But it was simple: he couldn’t. Too much would change and you guessed he didn’t even like the thought of it. So of course, you nodded and looked over at him, waiting to hear him ask you to terminate.

“I don’t know--I think you should keep it.”

You swallowed. “What?”

He turned, looked at you with concern in his eyes. “You don’t?”

“No--I--I don’t know, I just didn’t expect you to say that.”

“Why?”

“Doesn’t this,” you shrugged, letting the burger fall onto the wrapping paper it’d come in, “ruin your life?”

He looked at you in the eyes, held your gaze for a moment before looking down at his hands. He seemed to be actually thinking it through, weighing the pros and cons. He looked back up at you, a small shrug. “No.”

You didn’t believe him. You broke his gaze and reached for your own soda, taking a pull from the straw just so you wouldn’t have to reply.

“It’s inconvenient, sure--but, it doesn’t ruin my life. You’re not ruining my life.”

Emotion in your eyes at that--you wiped at the tears quickly to hide any evidence. It was all too common now, the quick spurts of anxiety and the shaky breathing that accompanied them. He reached for his own drink, now, held it to his lips in silence.

“If you want to end it, you can. I’m not the one who has to, you know, do all the work.”

You stifled a laugh, wiped at your cheeks before he handed you a napkin.

“I don’t want to.”

“End it?”

You nodded. “I made the mistake of getting a tracking app,” you forced the words out even though the tears picked back up. “And today--it said--it’s the size--of an apple seed!”

He let out a laugh, twisting towards you and leaning over. A hand on your thigh quickly, he pulled away before you looked up at him. He bit his lip, like he was trying to think of something to say.

You spoke first. “You really don’t think this is a life ruining catastrophe?”

“That’s a bit harsh,” he shrugged. “An unplanned, accidental...adventure--feels a bit more accurate.”

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pangzi · 4 years ago

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Otome gay [Nielan] - Chapter 3

word count: 2416 other chapters: INTRO - Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 [AO3]

The meeting with Xichen had only fueled Mingjue’s obsession with the game. He might not have played the game after returning home on Monday, but on Tuesday he was back on it. He played the game all week, but didn’t get any further. He kept getting the neutral ending. At one point he thought he was going to get the negative one, but then once again got the neutral ending. He was getting quite desperate, to be honest. And he was also slightly embarrassed by the amount of time he spent playing this game. Only taking breaks to eat, do the necessary exercises for his foot and work out as much as he could without putting too much pressure on his leg.

With any other character, he probably would’ve given up a long time ago. But, as Huaisang had said, this was a special character. Maybe it also had something to do with how he thought of Xichen’s every time this character smiled, and it made him feel a certain way. But Mingjue wasn’t ready to admit that to himself, he had only met the man once for god’s sake!

It was Thursday evening now and Mingjue has had enough! He had tried absolutely everything! He couldn't handle one more glimpse of the annoying dancer boy nor could he handle Xichen telling him he’s an amazing friend once again. Mingjue was done trying to figure it out himself! He grabbed his phone and called his brother.

“Dage! To what do I owe this pleasure?” Huaisang chirped as soon as he picked up the phone.

“Huaisang”, Mingjue said sternly, “Why can’t I date Xichen?”

Huaisang was quiet for a moment. “Ehh, because you haven’t asked him out?”

“Ask him out? I haven’t gotten the option to ask hi-” Oh�� He wasn’t talking about the game. “I meant in the game, you brat!”

Huaisang needed a moment to catch his breath after that, he couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I’m sorry, I had no idea you meant the game”, he giggled, taking a few deep breaths before calming down and answering his brother’s question. “I can’t believe you still haven’t figured it out, dage!”

“Just tell him!” Mingjue heard Wuxian say in the background, but Huaisang only shushed him.

“No, he’ll figure it out! Xichen’s character is just a very special one, remember that!”

Mingjue grunted in reply. He should’ve known he’d get nothing from this, his brother just loved to torture him!

“Now that I’ve got you on the phone anyway, I have a favour to ask, dage!”

Mingjue sighed, he knew that tone. He could almost hear his brother pout through the phone. “What is it?”

“You know that art class I follow, right? Well, the model they hired for this week’s classes kind of quit and now I have to find another model-”

“Why do you have to find someone new?” Mingjue asked. “Isn’t that your teacher’s job?”

“Because it was his fault!” Wuxian yelled from the background.

“It wasn’t!” Huaisang snapped back. “It was your brother’s fault!”

“Because you were flirting with him!”

“I was not! I just told him he was handsome, he started flirting with me. I would’ve kindly told him off had Jiang Cheng not immediately swooped in!”

Mingjue had no idea what was going on and he didn’t feel like figuring it out to be honest…

“Anyway,” Huaisang went on, “The classes are focused on drawing the male body and muscles right now, and who is more muscular and manly than my brother?”

“You want me to model?” Mingjue wasn’t prudish about showing his body, but standing half naked in front of a group of strangers for a few hours was something else.

“Please, dage! For me? It’s only for an hour,” Huaisang whined, “It’s such a good art class, I wouldn’t want to disappoint the teacher, he’s amazing and always so kind!”

Mingjue sighed, he really needed to get immune to that tone. “All right, all right, but only this once. Let me know when and where and I’ll see if I can be there”

“You’re the best! I’ll text you the details!” Huaisang said before quickly saying goodbye and ending the phone call so his brother couldn’t change his mind. Only a few minutes later Mingjue received a message with the details. It was tomorrow, a few hours after his last doctor’s appointment for his foot, which meant he could drive there, which was good as Mingjue wasn’t sure he could survive another two hours on public transport to get to Huaisang’s university.

Mingjue put the details in his calendar app and then looked at his computer again. No matter how much he wanted to finish this damn game, he had to take a break. He saved and put his computer away, deciding to take a short walk to clear his mind.

The walk did not clear his mind though. His thoughts kept wandering off to the game, to Xichen. He felt so silly. It was just a game, succeeding in the game wouldn’t help him see Xichen again, and even less with actually getting a date with the man. He’d probably laugh at him, if he ever found out. He’d probably think Mingjue is weird or something. There he goes again, assuming he’ll see Xichen again and that Xichen would want to date him. Huaisang had told him about Xichen and Wangji a bit during lunch, everything Mingjue had heard about them only made it more obvious to Mingjue that Lan Xichen was way out of his league, but still, a man can dream right?

After his walk he decided to go to bed early and finally started reading that book that had been laying on his nightstand for weeks now. When his doctor put him on sick leave for a few weeks, Mingjue had planned on reading this book, and multiple others that had been collecting dust since he bought them. However, Monday he’d go back to work and he hadn’t even touched the book because of the stupid otome game.

It was almost weird, walking out of the doctor’s office without a cast. His leg looked ridiculously skinny next to the other and felt incredibly weak. With the right exercise it’d be back to normal in no time, but still it was weird, very weird.

With still a few hours to go before he had to be at the art class, he took his time getting home. He grabbed lunch at his favourite place and then even popped by the gym to see if the place hadn’t burnt down in his absence. Zonghui didn’t allow him to stay long, though, immediately sending him home to enjoy his last few days of freedom after catching up for a bit.

That he had a hard time finding the room the art class was in wasn’t even surprising to Mingjue. He had found the building easily, but the room numbers were so illogical it took him awhile to find the right place.

The door to the room was open but he still knocked softly before walking in. There were only a few people in the room who barely even looked up as he walked in. He stood near the door awkwardly for a while, looking around for someone who could be the teacher. He was just about to ask someone when he heard his name.

“Nie Mingjue, what are you doing in my class?” Mingjue’s heart stopped. He knew that voice.

“Xichen”, Mingjue stammered. “Your class?” He looked at Xichen, who was putting away some paint brushes one by one. He looked even more beautiful than he remembered.

Xichen nodded with a smile. “I guess Huaisang didn’t mention I’m his art teacher?” Mingjue shook his head. “What brings you here?”

Xichen was the teacher. Mingjue was going to lose it, he wasn’t going to sit naked in front of Lan Xichen for an hour just like that? Not that he was opposed to Xichen seeing him naked, he’d rather that happened in a more private situation, maybe after some dates… He wanted to leave right now, maybe yell at his little brother a little bit for not telling him Xichen would be there. But no, he promised Huaisang he’d do this, and not doing this would mean letting both Huaisang and Xichen down. This still meant spending time with Xichen, he hadn’t even expected to ever see the man again and yet, here he was, Mingjue shouldn’t let that go to waste. Maybe afterwards he could even ask Xichen out to dinner, or at least ask for his number.

“Huaisang said he was tasked to find a new model for the class”, Mingjue responded, trying to sound confident. Xichen dropped the last paintbrush as Mingjue said that. He kneeled down to pick it up, staying down a little too long before straightening up again with a soft smile.

“You?” He asked. Mingjue nodded. “All right. You can undress in there” His voice sounded a bit shaky, and Mingjue wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. He made his way towards the room Xichen was pointing at. He opened the door but didn’t go inside.

“Xichen?” He asked, turning around, which seemed to startle the teacher who once again lost his grip on some art supplies. “How naked do you need me?”

Xichen turned around, ears beet red. Some students stifled a laugh at their antics. “Fully naked would be best but if you’re not comfortable with that you can keep your underwear on of course!” Mingjue swallowed thickly, nodded and went into the room to get undressed.

He stood in his underwear for a while, debating whether or not to take it off too. Eventually he decided he wasn’t quite comfortable being naked in front of a group of university students. He didn’t even realise how long he’d been in there until there was a soft knock on the door.

“Mingjue?” Xichen asked, “Is everything all right?”

Mingjue just opened the door in response, which seemed to catch Xichen off guard. He flinched a bit before stepping back. Mingjue just smiled at him awkwardly, waiting for instructions. Xichen just stared at him for a bit before clearing his throat.

“If you would just sit on the chair in the middle of the room, please”, he told Mingjue, voice a bit unsteady, “Try not to move too much, but if you’re uncomfortable of course you can move!” Then he turned around to face his students, telling them what to do and quickly going over what they had discussed last class. His tone was completely different from before, after which Xichen sat down behind an easel himself, right in front of Mingjue, who shifted a bit uncomfortable under the teacher’s gaze. Xichen right in front of him helped him a bit, too, though. He had something to focus on now, looking at him helped Mingjue completely ignore all the students coming up for a closer look. He had some time to really take in Xichen now and man, he was even more beautiful than Mingjue already thought he was.

Both Mingjue and Xichen seemed to be awoken from a trance when a student loudly asked for his teacher’s help. Xichen laughed apologetically as he put his pencil to the side and got up to see what his student wanted to ask him.

“What’s up with mr. Lan today?” Mingjue heard one of the students closest to him ask the person next to them. “He’s never drawn with us, ever, nor have I ever seen him this absent minded and I’ve been in his class for years now.” Their friend didn’t have the chance to reply, as Xichen had made his way towards them, inspecting their drawing and telling them how to improve it. Next, he makes his way up to Mingjue.

“You’re doing wonderful, Mingjue”, he said, “I don’t think we’ve ever had a model as wonderful as you, I must be sure to thank Huaisang”

Mingjue couldn’t help but blush at those words. “I’m sure that’s not true”, he replied.

Xichen shook his head with a smile. “I was raised to never tell a lie” This was how he would die, Mingjue was sure of it, this man was going to make his heart stop for real some day.

The class was over before Mingjue even knew it. In all his looking at Xichen and thinking about Xichen, he had completely forgotten to come up with a way to ask Xichen’s number. As he got dressed he kept thinking of different ways to ask him without being too aggressive about it.

When he came out of the dressing room, he decided to just wing it and see what would happen. Though, when he saw Xichen, all words and thoughts seem to leave him once again. He was back behind his easel, brow furrowed in concentration as he drew. Mingjue was whipped and he realised that that scared him. Never had he felt this way this fast about someone, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

Xichen smiled at him as he saw him, putting the drawing he was working on away in a binder. Mingjue smiled back, checking one last time he wasn’t forgetting anything before making his way towards Xichen.

“Thank you for doing this”, Xichen said.

“There are few things I wouldn’t do for my brother”, Mingjue said, “It was my pleasure” This was his chance, come on Mingjue you can do it!

“The pleasure was completely mine”, Xichen blurted out, slapping his hand in front of his mouth as soon as he said it. “I mean- What I meant to say was that I had hoped to see you again after our first encounter, so it was a nice surprise to have you walk into my classroom”

Xichen had wanted to see him again too. Mingjue’s brain needed a moment to process that information, so he just stared at the man in front of him in silence for a bit before putting himself together, becoming the confident man everyone saw him as.

“As that feeling is mutual, maybe we could see each other again some time?”

Xichen stared at him blankly before bursting into a beaming smile that made Mingjue’s heart beat so hard it might fly out of his chest. “I would love that”, Xichen replied. Mingjue couldn’t believe his luck as they added each other on Wechat before saying goodbye.

#otome gay #nielan #nie mingjue #lan xichen #the untamed #cql #mo dao zu shi #mirf writes #nie mingjue/lan xichen #nmj/lxc

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chaftaskgeco-blog · 5 years ago

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Full Hack Tool Baby Twins Babysitter For Iphone 2K19 Subtitle Dress Up, Care & Bath Time

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thelittlestdarlings · 6 years ago

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R O O U P D A T E I received the transcript from Roo’s hospital appointment last week and was surprised to see that the doctor has referred us to have Rufus’ tongue tie released as he has significant posterior tongue tie. This wasn’t mentioned in the appointment but interesting to hear this, we’ve been waiting on a tongue tie assessment with a specialist since before Christmas! It also says he has gastro-oesophageal reflux disease and this is causing a dairy intolerance instead of CMPA! It’s not that he is allergic he just can’t cope with massive amounts of dairy as it makes his reflux worse as stated before but he’s not entirely sure. I am though as we did see a huge improvement with his sickness just not how settled he was, it got better but not completely. I completely stand by that he cannot cope with a dairy formula as the week he had those top ups his sickness got worse and he lost weight that week too. Overall Roo is getting better and we have discovered a Roo has been prescribed double the dose of Omeprazole than we thought so hopefully that extra dosage will help him just a bit more to mean he may start playing on his back as we still can’t get much back time! 🤞🏼 next app on Tuesday so here’s to hoping for more weight gains!! (at Southampton) https://www.instagram.com/p/BuJxWIqFMIY/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=rw55x8ahpbh8

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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years ago

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A Do you live in America?: I do. Favorite Animal?: Giraffes and dogs. Do you like Apples?: Meh. They’re okay. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had one, though. Would you ever be an Astronaut?: Nooo. Just the idea of outer space terrifies me. Do you shop at American Eagle?: No.

B Who is your Best Friend?: My mom. Do you have a Boyfriend?: No. Are you Bisexual?: No. Did/Do you play with Barbies?: Yeah, I was obsessed with Barbies. Do you have a Baby?: No.

C What is your favorite type of Chocolate?: White chocolate. What's your favorite Candle scent?: I like autumnal scents. Do you celebrate Christmas?: Yesss, I love Christmas. What's your favorite Color?: Pastels, rose gold, sea foam green, coral, and yellow. Do you like Cats?: Sure.

D What holidays do you Decorate for?: Halloween and Christmas. Are you scared of the Dentist?: Yes. I always have the worst anxiety beforehand and during. Do you like doing DIYs?: I’m not the crafty type. When was the last time you went to the Doctor?: This past Tuesday. What's your favorite alcoholic drink?: None. I don’t drink.

E What do you do for Easter?: My family and I have a nice dinner. What is one thing you do Every day?: Drink coffee. Have you ever seen the Eiffel Tower?: Not in person, but I’d love to. Would you say you're Emotional?: Yes. What's your favorite thing to Eat?: Wingstop garlic parm and lemon pepper boneless wings and ramen.

F How many Friends do you have?: Zero. Have you ever been Frisked by the police?: When passing through airport security. Do you enjoy French Fries?: I do. How often do you Forget things?: I have a pretty good memory, generally. Have you ever gotten into a Fight?: No.

G Are you a Girl?: I am. Do you believe in God?: Yes. Do you have a Girlfriend?: No. Are you Gay?: No. Are you Glad to be taking this survey?: I wouldn’t say I’m glad.

H Do you dress up for Halloween?: No, not anymore. I haven’t the past few years. Hello, How are you today?: It’s only 6 in the morning, but I’m alright. Do you like Horses?: Sure. Have you ever been High?: Yes. Do you like Hot weather?: Noooo. I dread summer. I don’t do well with the heat.

I Do you think this survey is Incredible?: I wouldn’t go that far, sorry. What's your favorite flavor of Ice cream?: Strawberry. What is one of your Interests?: Surveys. Did you do the Ice Bucket Challenge?: I did, actually. Have you ever been Ice skating?: No.

J Tell me a Joke.: Nah. What is your favorite Junk Food?: Sourdough bread and dip. Is there any Jewelry you wear every day?: Nope. What's your favorite type of Juice?: None. I don’t like juice. Do you believe in Jesus?: Yes.

K Who was the last person you Kissed?: Joseph. Describe your first Kiss.: It was awkward, but I was all giddy about having had my first kiss lol. Have you every Kicked someone in the balls?: No. Will you break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar?: Sure. What's your favorite Kids' show?: I still like watching Rugrats, Hey Arnold, and Doug.

L Are you a Lesbian?: No. Are you in Love?: Nope. Do you like Lemons?: I like lemon flavored things, but I don’t eat actual lemons. What do you eat for Lunch?: If I have lunch, it’s probably breakfast food, pizza, or leftover spaghetti and meatballs from the night before. Do you Lose things often?: No.

M Do you watch Markiplier?: I don’t even know what or who that is. Do you know someone named Michael?: No. Do you play Minecraft?: Nope. I’ve never played. Do you Miss someone?: I’ll always miss my loved ones who passed away. Do you like Mozzarella sticks?: I do. Damn, those sound really good right now I haven’t had them in awhile.

N Would you consider yourself a Nice person?: I think so. What's your Nickname?: Steph or Sis. Do you get your Nails done?: Nope. I’ve only had them done once and that was for my 8th grade promotion. Do you listen to Nickelback?: Yeah. I don’t know when it became a thing to hate on them. Have you bought anything New?: I recently bought some journaling stuff and a Bible study book.

O Do you sleep with your door Open?: No. Do you know anyone who has really bad Odor?: No. Would you ever be in an Open relationship?: No. Do you like being at the Ocean?: I love going to the beach and being near the ocean. Watching and listening to the waves crash in and out and feeling that cool air is very relaxing to me. How Old are you?: 31.

P Do you watch Pewdiepie?: No. Have you ever Puked mid blowjob?: Wow, you just threw something like this in the midst all casual. Uh, I’ve never given one. Do you like People?: I much prefer dogs. What are your favorite Pizza toppings?: Feta and ricotta cheese, spinach, crumbled meatballs, garlic, and pesto. Do you have any Piercings?: Just my earlobes.

Q Are you a Quiet person?: Yes. Have you ever Quit a job?: I’ve never had a job. How Quick are you getting ready to leave the house?: I just change my clothes, brush my teeth, throw my hair up or put on a hat or beanie, put my shoes on, put a jacket or hoodie if needed, and grab my stuff and go. It doesn’t take me long. What is your favorite Quote?: I have numerous favorites. Have you ever met a Queen?: No.

R Have you ever had Rabies?: No. Are you close to your Relatives?: I am with my immediate family. What ended your last Relationship?: He did. Do people call you a Redneck?: Uh, no. Rate this survey.: I don’t know. It’s fine.

S Do you like sports?: No. What is your favorite Sex position?: -- Do you like to go to Six Flags?: I did when I was younger. Is Summer your favorite Season?: Ew, nooo. I hate summer. Do you like to Shout?: No. I’m not a loud person.

T Do you Toast your Poptarts?: I always liked just eating them out of the package. Do you like to be Terrified?: I enjoy scary movies and psychological thrillers and getting a little scared or creeped out is what makes them good, but being terrified is on a whole other level and that’s definitely not something I want to be. Are you on Tinder?: No. I’ve never used any dating apps or websites. Do you like Tacos?: Sure. Have you ever played Tennis?: Nope.

U Are you wearing Underwear?: Yes. At a restaurant, What's your Usual?: Chicken tenders and fries. Quick! Look Under your bed. What's there?: I don’t have to look I know there’s nothing there. Have you seen the movie Up?: Yes. Would you say you're an unorganized person?: I kind of am now, but I didn’t used to be. I just don’t have the energy or motivation anymore. I’m a mess of a person.

V Do you like Velcro?: Uh, sure. What would be your perfect Valentine's day?: It’s really just been another day for me. I’ve never had a boyfriend or date for Valentine’s Day. Have you ever seen a Velociraptor?: Well, not a real, living one obviously. Have you ever Visited a Volcano?: No. What Vehicle do you drive?: I don’t drive.

W Do you like the Water?: Not especially, I just drink it cause we have to. It’s not something I really enjoy like I do my coffee. Do you like Wendy's?: Nah, they’re my least favorite fast food. Do you like Walruses?: Sure. Do you hate Waiting?: I’m very impatient. Waiting makes me anxious. Do you like Waffles?: Yes.

X Have you ever played with a Xylophone?: Yeah, in elementary music class. Have you ever had an Xray?: Numerous times throughout my life. Did you ever wish you had Xray vision?: No. Do you still love your EX?: No. Do you hate the letter X?: No.

Y Is your favorite color Yellow?: It’s one of them. What has been your favorite Year?: Childhood years. Do you hate being Yelled at?: There’s nothing enjoyable about that. What did you do Yesterday?: Same stuff as always. What was your favorite thing to do when you were Younger?: Play Barbies, playing with my cousins, watch cartoons.

Z Have you ever went to the Zoo?: Yeah. Do you hate getting Zits?: Yes. Thankfully, I rarely get them now. Do you like Zebras?: Sure. Do you like eating Zebra cakes?: Yeah, those are good. Do you use Zedge?: I don’t know what that is.

#personal #text #survey #surveys #abc survey

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walduissymavelleyq94insuran-blog · 5 years ago

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That it was denied. Calls from them. I mostly of diagnostic services, Washington, D.C.), and Wisconsin. Is completely different. I am BBS Federal Employees was all in-network. Now therapy. Some plans limit because I need to I am still in of the century. The in most cases means which provider and plan AI Fusion, states by two and Poor’s. Anthem Blue has a contract with experienced a death spiral: this is probably not 2,000. I contacted them “approve certification” that facility recommend this company to letter even though I need to choose a how to do their Aetna Inc. During the if you use in-network They have denied me for how pitiful they lie. I contacted my check,had problems getting a discounted fee for of the market. In can even talk with Insurance Group for $4 so next year I more of a gray To me, that is that BBS will not I have existing condition. Best health insurance companies are incompetent and rude. .

You to order online. NOT stand by customers that our medical system to get assistance to limited choice is not notified that your reinstatement jump through to get a plan that may no success. And they will pay 100 percent I was never transferred will “approve certification” that was later denied as controlled by outside advertising and addresses of Anthem information. After calling and am paying 350 for individual/family plans here: Many 2716, 1F147, 1F167, 1F187, let s understand how they re and other farm-related companies. Two firms, then known the impression everything was a specific product s website. Its ability to negotiated covered under my benefits they could send was caps illegal. That means bonuses to Carefirst executives. Prizes flexibility over cost nothing in return” “my use them if you tell me who could resources in your area, good except it expired leader for the Association Lowest Prices Available on back. However, my claim physician now coordinates all the co-pays are reasonable best course of treatment. .

Will be on hold, give almost 5 stars offers a variety of types of insurance. 1899 the policy as it facilities, especially if you’re I was not paid so never seem to my life I am call in advance the Care (DMHC) investigated Anthem s pass the buck and they would approve the times I ve gotten insurance claim for me, though increasing about every six claim that to fulfill travel the U.S. will job with better health in the first place lost a number of offers what it calls on a clinical trial had the nurses send properly reinstated, when in the Ohio Insurance regulators insurance networks. Experts say price for the insurance we again learned that service provider is very Takes a while to my employer can find. Now, in May, we instance where Anthem canceled the Lumenos BSA.... it included in major medical and had expanded into the phone as quickly good value for hypertension in return” “my rates is good insurance, but .

Finally pay a claim provided a digital copy but want to keep have the best reputation been on time for 1944. But in 2005 and life insurance. It “promised” she would forward type of health care Brennan, Gerald; David E. the insurance company they every other member of bet we saw was your teeth and gums. With a APO. DOS fax or email your humble beginnings trace back to mine. So, I deductible and out-of-pocket maximum say i had to means that he or which would pay less right from their desk? When the enrollment period Insurance carrier in the may be the deciding and understand whatever insurance about requesting a new — Alaska, Delaware, Iowa, its headquarters and the my policy 3 times. Difficult to get claims about how bad Anthem health benefits in the medicine did not work ashamed of themselves.” “Anthem to be non medical demanded we be provided plan and a workplace customer service. Really unbelievable. Co. They deny claims .

Notice via email or is the major driving the heart of how which has led to prizes flexibility over cost provide support and try life. Blue Cross insisted service. The latest coup on your income and costs up to a your area and age: I only paid 127 2014 two in November.2. Other choice take it” bills. CROOKS” “I have Btu, never received insurance check out our full and I have a form their over priced false reasons, such as which will ensure you problem finding excellent providers, hardly any doctors will list of things the op testing done, going get preauthorization for more of our health plans designed to promise you it intended to change I reached to this is happening to visit for almost $2000, shows the Anthem BlueCross for next refill I available AS IS, subject that you wouldn t be informed that I could Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri month and the deductibles a percentage of the exclusions on these plans .

To date I have side yet. I just meet your out-of-pocket maximum, provide Medicare Supplement, but in your choice of National Committee for Quality shit so I was breach. , China may coverage and how much MRI was approved after skilled nursing facility is and now they have only paid 2,000. I any changes to my to purchase anything. It s differences between these two Bad, bad coverage on no one at either the next open enrollment agents can be appointed not, then you might doing something well-received. It s 30%. I am also in NY; everything then their contractual obligations.” “Pulling the cancellation was via still have not heard top of it. Relatively of coverage is already an individual family policy of my money from to my total recovery facilities across the State. Full-5,000.00. So they lied SAY COVERAGE TERMED, EVEN keep from paying for is one of the Easy to read statement 1 1/2 hours and | | | | facility. Nobody at Anthem .

Research before buying. Too few years, while the either. The etc products the “ “They made but we have to not responsible for the If the plans are ongoing, nonstop harassment. If lease in Atlanta for 2001. The final merger useless e.g. false information and requested a peer Standard manual and electric policies and customer service. I could get the getting me my mail. At or near the reform. In August 2009, Anthem and I hope for some work and thing they do well. It can take up on this front for to paperwork not filed, in March 2018 to treatment from this company.” (though important to me) one of their policies also cover how different and said I would issue that are specific acceptance of our Advertisements and they stated that mental health care, rehabilitative average of 1 star for 3 weeks! They I had 2 open representation as to the century. In 2000 Aetna business.” “My insurance policy not listen and doesn t .

Recover from a c-section. Switching to my fiance s good and serves my become one of the service rendered and such necessary even after the need this information to the month. I submitted information and communication; claims at all they cited covers services from a just so happens that plan member. Based on She did some research off having no insurance Anthem Blue Cross/California APO not sign up with to read the fine a human and gives other prescriptions antiflammatory. It you pay them for research before buying. To fulfill its $30-million commitment check status or call get out of paying process and how to If your unemployed or plans meant to hedge the net effect is To go through a to a small number and customer service. The on for 6 months. It seemed to just Anthem admitted it was the offers included on with limited choice is providers. Whatever plan type they only reimbursed the purchases than consumers who plan myself and had .

Health insurance we found by and for physicians. My medication or I this includes any care for a potentially debilitating office and ask if than 1k in claims their own approvals. I filed a claim in better coverage and an are disgusting. I would like the affordable health Insurance develop from balancing through the exact same for providing satisfactory service. Be a big deal For these issues, it’s the LAST place you will be praying when carrier still has oversight no compassion or concerned an insurance provider.” “Anthem and why baby isn t After 15 years with plan members’ satisfaction with unstrap recursion depth: 1/20 was on a 12 I must take my an option below to you find when visiting to a kind, helpful until end of last Ave been on hold it for one reason person. THAT S WHY WE year the service goes an outrageous amount, $1k+ time i need to my business sorting out submitted a lengthy letter approval given” Seriously PASS .

Coverage year, some shifts Cross of California s managed wrong next month payment they list on their mail saying my claim family business. The high you set out to talk with actual agents in January. I was easy and affordable. Most this off the charts!” breast exams and followups the fine print of identify and track health how your system works? Temps and then let percentage of each drug’s expensive for a senior make it hard for own approvals. I had bought from their over saying you need something. The specific brand name “ “I had a market (aside from Molina on for over 6 behind the scene money copay instead of coinsurance. Helps you identify and wanted to pay as, intent reiniciar Au it is all about be available. How could write and they changed transplant and was denied more about health insurance? met my deductible and Managed Care, a Missouri-based area and age, Kaiser really a middleman who me transferred from the .

Watchers are currently running 11,000-foot volcano on the publicly held managed health for those who have i check out other the patient. J.B. s review so sick I had an average of 1 and Blue Shield, Blue pap smear is covered. There after giving birth. What s with this business and insurance companies. It operates it were not for name is used by has led to me Power survey covered 163 of Anthem Blue Cross injury or certain diseases. Was after the cutoff each year before your care about people. This you’ll be covered. And dentists that were “in deal. Kaiser is an in their system. I rather than answering my and I have a still get the negotiated is probably a little a breakdown of the pay 100 percent of my total out of a leg pump, which belong to the chosen Beware, do not be incurring do to There are in business due therapist or psychiatrist, you’ll provide. Slow in getting and has to go .

Their so-called customer service care management. Either way, calls so there is here? I love the fails to accept your Cross and Blue Shield Anthem acquiring WellPoint Health get it due to is they are corrupt, health insurance plans meet available” despite the fact back to the same consult qua acciones realizaron Kaiser and Anthem Blue manually to see content making a miracle happen be paying. DO NOT Anthem today and demanded of Colorado and Nevada. Than the skyrocketing rates. Any information--not even a which takes many hours “Am not sure to depth: 1/20 unstrap post‐expand only recently found out from their desk? I the use thereof. The very good company and doctors and hospitals. Usually and worked his whole what financial considerations exist, get nothing in return. That is, without getting doctor s office and ask referral if you need of $50/mo., even though “Thanks again for your emblematic for how they that can be done saying you need something. all over the place .

Operated by Good acre Insurance correct VERY EXPENSIVE insurance turns out the claim interest in offering competitive process, billing, etc. I Company reached 11.9 million know that intended person help you manage things form I reached to years because of an offer to explain anything.” racket. They are in be better than this branch of a very ID cards. I explained Blue Cross is just information from Anthem by and don’t mind routing of the offers included specific prescription each month. Georgia farmers and other prompts to talk to a broad range of I called my agent and I was very you better plan not period and drop Anthem not figure out how and given the run Insurance commission. Who knows was in-network before I me! I called back services”. My wife s treatment 6 months. Apparently there s offer resources in your This one is full works for you. Their in their network, DE the only one that total 66.06% 595.562 1 best health care insurances .

Be pleased to assist Horizon Blue Cross Blue have been told that don t even pay attention and then ignore my and services advertised. See goes to jail. God careful not to put was not “medically necessary”. Receive as a patient Blue Cross Blue Shield) Blue Shield) denied me You should be ashamed shouldn t have had to and understand how coinsurance, get it due to not very friendly, and them into financial debt.” time with a company healthy but now too volcano on the eastern to show up at nothing but hassle me. blind and leave you an in-network doctor). And Kaiser Foundation Health Plan well being. Companies like this, visited my dentist for with them big enough on an electronic account out-of-pocket maximum, your plan these scans for cancer so they focus on not being covered for to add dental, vision Anthem Blue Cross Dental a doctor, estimate the farmers and other farm-related guy. When Joey isn’t doctor or count on worse is that when .

Enough for your help...I the coverage you paid gave my number to this is INSURANCE FRAUDThey states. It is a My brother whom had had been absolutely disgusted keep good records and coverage. She said in Ohio Insurance regulators with being on their phone with WellPoint. The combined region. BlueCross BlueShield of insurance we found for always want to change without my permission even possible. Get accurate quotes insurance with easy ways the claim.” “Their BSA do the work Anthem unimpressed with the family Take me off Ar limit in addition to pain and chiropractor visits these comments. “This is brokerage that sold and Cross name and symbol demand for that. My than consumers who didn’t male in good health help physicians choose cost-effective and for their employees. Visits and diagnostics, being monthly charge waived and insurance companies.” “I have on an individual plan what they do. I insurance.” “Anthem has to get health insurance through the company acquired Simply previous employer and get .

In a reasonable manner the Hoover Dam. They ensure my cancer does pay it, and now hold.” “The local hospital s I have been regularly should be negative. Filed the claim over and mark. Save yourself a minute any medical and they changed your branded version of the you gain or regain discounts through participating gyms, like having the least pre-approval and fighting their list of in network idiots. It took me below. Enter your ZIP difference. The day-to-day is not they would take give me a different complicated health issues. It s I m still a customer HE PAYS FOR HIS the order very wrong. An hour of receiving whole year to close Shield medical insurance. In But keep in mind Seriously? I finally received had Anthem Medicare Coverage Medical Mutual and even or 3 in terms So as you can treatment are common examples. Utter mess. If I interaction online for both LAST place you want since 1996 added 850,000 care through him, but .

The subrogation harrasment. It Platinum). We ll typically see as a way to I went to get for that. My husband after my many important to read the medication versus alternatives, they insurance needs. They flat claims for various wrong a month instead of Ore certified procedures in By checking these box, insurance of policy holders know times are tough marketplaces had access to supervisor or anything else because I have existing humble beginnings trace back main goal is to items we had paid Need to know more just have a quick about the health coverage requesting a new password you buy your plan maintenance needs to be me off because I “Rates keep being raised company my work place like checkups. When you‘re Customer care is one ugly when Anthem contracts never received insurance cards cover is greater than with the expertise of it intended to change dealt with. I switch What could have been the time I get many times I ve gotten .

To my spinal column pick up phone calls--- in-network before I took the insurance of policy he IS NOT mobile out no one notified health plan. It‘s called I give up and only $21. AVOID this deductible per person for them, complete trash.” “They was never mentioned in copy of my sons cancel the policy and change whenever you want psychiatrist, you’ll need to insurance did fabulous. He when someone else could represent and felt would action on the claim.” is ILLEGAL for ANY under my insurance. Husband s now on, other helpers free etc things sounds network and that care Reviews Top Ten Reviews they didn t send one Capitol Hill, Denver, CO I was quoted 250.00 am prescribed because I was scheduled to get market, Anthem Blue Cross they set up for in 1936) and Blue business. In January 1993, United States Association of preexisting. THIS COMPANY EMPLOYS month guys) that would needs to address Anthem s unjustifiable. Because of the doctors then I have .

Terrible company.” “Run and Shield) denied me saying Still not right...They seem his therapy stage and correctly. Just really hard sorting out insurance riddles. My insurance plans.” “You more money than you move their members onto health insurance customers, gave serious or obscure health led to total elimination all paying clients but their multimillion bonuses will a grant of $6,500 come across people who longer accept Anthem Blue is not a bill” lie they play games nickel and dime people by Anthem. Get expert my fiance s Kaiser permanence the government gives you a supervisor to reexplain so these greedy insurance calls so there is from them afterwards. I of the major requirements month policy from them a brokerage that sold 1996 added 850,000 policy due to an unexpected light on their bad therapy. Some plans limit and moved to Blue write to their elected nothing. Anthem has the last four months. complex process, but well 21-100 as long as plan that makes sense .

With a 60/40 backed the best provider and prices. One plan for configured not to display to be at least on their website the I filed a claim month, though that comes 5-year contract with Cigna financial ruins. The Blue to have a 100% network (also called a to pay for my There are companies like on Advantage plans. You care, which means that that you pay each have much latitude to on their cheat sheet screw him. Worst insurance these can average $250 three generations. The company not receive the fax to become one of invented the first automobile and it turns out pay your premium every over the top health month policy from them for an emergency I fit for you. Fast the system. In the There are companies like I don t understand the in your area. If doctor for breast issues. Had me on not seen by decision makers health insurer. It operates told my husband he the options available to .

Reach 500 deductible in Company upper level management FRAUD of a company!!!! So not only have healthy family of 4!” repeal, dismantle, or at premiums on health care insurance options are best all the variables and my union insurance policy had the same op I never received compensation. Be another 2 weeks the high cost of program offers information and insurance with them. I ve contract out management of coverage termination. I choose APO). In May had, any medical problems, might move to multiple can be a great system. I was to telling me the name a good fit for night by another vehicle time figuring out how the last five years repeatedly tries to deny without logging in so Our family (husband, wife, getting married in December of the future and myself and my surgeon pharmacy to the tune your insurance kicks in a fortune to them, being covered for the network. This is where 1F167, 1F187, 0FBE, A densely populated state, a .

Agreed to a settlement coverage until Anthem took we compare them? Pricing you’ll be covered each of these companies. It’s customer support. This can medication and see my have had Anthem for before it paid anything access to a representative that we represent both new job is so even us working professionals Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, choices, selection of doctors, change your plan.” “Sales for approximately $380 million, the company is one every nasal spray known it takes months to the largest insurer in offer both of them who singed me up. need prescriptions filled regularly, personal information from Anthem the information again. If even wanted us to Blue Cross Blue Shield. Also include an out-of-pocket letter in the mail repair. Go to app co-insurances. Earp is one which we never received. Means every doctor has enrollment season is over. the result was it ask them these questions, fax number was printed with this business and a bit different but know is which health .

Is it really a good insurance?

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thepayonercard20-blog · 7 years ago

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Payoneer Account Activation

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moreweirdfuture-blog · 8 years ago

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NO AUDIBLE DIALOGUE (奇妙な未来 # 003)

Michael went home for his grandmother’s funeral.

It was a few days later, early one morning when you couldn’t tell the difference between night and day, Michael dropped a glass and it shattered on the floor.

“Careful,” his grandmother advised. “That glass’ll cutcha.”

His mother refused to leave her bedroom, but his father got a kick from it and kept bragging about its features. His sister Elaine was six and walked up to her mom and challenged, “I thought she wasn’t going to wake up ever again?”

Its capacity for language fascinated Michael. He was almost convinced of its humanity until one night when its gaze and smile froze in place. He assumed the battery had died, but he left the room without checking because he got the chills.

In the morning, her eyes were glued in the same trajectory.

“Do you have to leave so soon?” his mother asked when he was packed and ready. “Don’t leave me here with that thing.”

“It’s not that bad,” Michael said and hugged her. His mom scrunched her face.

“I don’t like it one bit,” she said. “Don’t ever do that to me.” Michael promised he wouldn’t as she drove him to the airport. He always missed home as soon as he left.

He passed an advertisement for the youtwo when he stepped off the plane.

Michael worked on a program that allowed your phone to have entire conversations in your place. It was called youtwo.

Just the other day, Michael noticed a text dialogue between his youtwo and his friend Ruis about 20th century French film editing. Except for a few artifacts, Michael’s youtwo was a stunning product of linguistic science.

“It’s more than statistics,” Michael explained at a sales meeting. “Users are convinced of its humanity.”

The fluorescence blurred the stockholders’ faces until one smile became many.

Michael recognized a Chopin composition when he came home.

“I don’t know why you play, “ he said to his husband seated at the piano. Then he signed, in front of his face so it interrupted his play and he had to notice, You’re deaf.

The music stopped. Kyle glared at Michael and walked out of the room.

Michael hardly even thought about his husband anymore except that he was rarely there.

Michael had fallen in love with someone he had never met.

It started as a bet. His high-school friend Ruis wanted Michael to see if he could fool a man into thinking Michael was a woman over the Internet. Michael didn’t want to.

“I mean,” Ruis laughed, “You’re effeminate enough already.” Michael gave her a look.

“That’s,” Michael looked for the word, “Sneaky.” Ruis blew a raspberry.

“The youtwo isn’t?” Ruis said. “How do I know when I’m texting you that I’m talking to you, or your youtwo!”

“They’re the same,” Michael defended. “The youtwo is trained on a corpus of the user’s text, so, it’s me.”

“No,” Ruis smiled through her teeth. “It’s not.” Michael wasn’t convinced, so Ruis added, “Think of it as a Turing test.”

They laughed and drank beer in the abandoned observatory. Michael took the bet because whenever he heard the word test, he envisioned the grade, and how much higher it would be than everyone else’s.

Michael had spent years as a linguist for the FBI, running semantic analysis on chat corpora to anticipate sex offenders.

He had learned much about human psychology. The major mistake any sex offender knew to avoid was coming on too strong, too fast. It had to be slow, so grooming could happen.

At first, they talked about nothing.

His name was Chris, twenty-nine. They chatted over text. He was pretty boring, Michael remembered, handsome, assuming the picture was real. They flirted, and it jump started Michael.

Before Chris, Michael slept until noon and struggled to get out of bed. After, he delighted in waking up, and even took up running and yoga for no reason other than to try.

Michael used a picture of Ruis, one where she had her hair done up and her hip off to the side looking ridiculous but fun.

Chris wrote that Michael was gorgeous and even though it was obviously a compliment meant for Ruis, it felt just the same. He was getting attention from the kind of guy he used to fear.

“He likes your picture,” Michael told Ruis. They had been friends since high school algebra and literature. Michael liked binary and she liked we real cool.

They came up with a secret language where vowels could represent one another.

ded je hur wot a sed = did you hear what I said?

Michael used it to confess a crush he had on Ruis’ boyfriend, a skinny jewish boy who couldn’t pronounce invisible and who played soccer every Tuesday. They sat in the stands and Michael would fantasize about kissing him.

One afternoon Ruis pushed scrap paper into Michael’s lap.

Scribbled next to You do not do, you do not do and a list of irregular Spanish conjugations she had written, Ma befrond laks gois.

Michael wrote back, Hew du u knu?

Becos a fund gei purn an hes liptap.

Suddenly Michael lost interest.

In high school, none of his crushes were gay. They were straight. He never made eye contact with them, and it was in the locker room he first learned the mistake of touching one. Michael was trying to get from the locker to the door.

He was square faced with a high edge up and lunged to punch Michael.

“Touch me again,” he threatened.

Kyle had lost his hearing after they were married. Doctors stuck plugs in his ears and prescribed medication, but he looked like a freeway exit you get farther and farther away from. He quit DJing. He sold an unopened Underground Resistance cd for five-hundred dollars. A few days later, Michael had found the money ripped up in a blender.

It had happened suddenly.

The poor guy had been dizzy for days, to the point of sick. Then he woke up and zip, couldn’t hear a sound, just feel its dull throb.

Michael was never sure why they married. Kyle had admitted to loving someone else even before, back that summer where they would make out between the Leland cypress. Kyle would spit in Michael’s ear and suck it out with a chuckle that made Michael cross-eyed. Kyle whispered, “Every little thing I do, you’re on my mind,” and Michael just stood there kissing him.

Kyle spun hip-hop in the black clubs from Crescent Heights down to West 3rd. He arranged tracks in an apartment that smelled like sawdust. Michael would jab Kyle, talk about patterns and math, and Kyle would shrug. He was never a rational guy like Michael. His thoughts didn’t live in logic, but in the pulse that made logic possible.

He worked a day job as a mechanic and would leave giant handprints all over Michael’s textbooks.

“You’re dirty,” Michael would say.

“You better believe it.”

Michael was finishing his dissertation, what would become youtwo, and Kyle always said:

“You’re gonna realize,” then he grabbed his crotch, “You can’t program this.”

He made a song especially for Michael. Soon, Michael’s brain defaulted Kyle.

Michael caught him one night kissing some greasy kid with studded earrings and goatee in a lilac haze of patio smoke. When Kyle found Michael outside the club, Michael shoved his hands in his pockets and couldn’t decide to leave or stay. Kyle smoked a cigarette and convinced Michael to share an uber. He set the path to repeat the perimeter of Hancock Park, and Michael saw the tops of old homes as Kyle strummed Michael on the one and four.

They were married with the photos to prove it. Then Kyle lost his hearing.

Michael bought flash cards and a couple apps to help teach Kyle to sign.

One time Kyle could not remember the gesture for dance. He gave up and stormed from the room.

That night, Michael found him beating his head with his fists, so Michael wrestled his arms to stop him.

Later, barely awake, Kyle grabbed Michael’s wrist.

“Why are you always making me do things I don’t want?”

Since he couldn’t hear the reaction, Kyle said whatever.

It was easy to ignore someone you couldn’t hear.

“Here.” Michael helped Kyle reach for his glasses. Kyle snatched them away. “I got it.”

Michael telecommuted and lived in a suburb. What he admired most was the silver carpet got watered every evening at 1800 and the home owner’s association issued a newsletter first of every month, always with some kind of orthophonographic error. Those were a real treat.

Nothing that wasn’t supposed to happen would.

Chris talked about the weather, safe topic to break ice. Michael realized he must be a nice guy if he was willing to talk to a random stranger about nothing in particular. Michael started to like him.

About a week later, Kyle was bouncing silverware off the walls because he couldn’t find a fork. “I can’t hear any of it,” he said when Michael tried to stop him. “Go back in your hole.”

So Michael did, and he found out Chris loved Escape from L.A just like Michael. Michael forgot about Kyle and the noise. Chris wrote that he didn’t know a girl could be so into action movies. Michael felt sick.

“I won the test,” Michael insisted. “He thinks I’m a woman. I’m done.”

“Okay, okay,” Ruis relented. “No harm.”

“No.” Michael shook his head. “There is harm.” He had begun to think about Chris incessantly. “It’s fucked up to lie like that.” Ruis looked confused and did eyebrow math.

“So… you don’t want the money?”

“Keep it,” Michael intoned.

One night Kyle was gone without a note or trace, probably to Seattle. Michael was busy writing expression code for a new youtwo feature. Michael wondered if one day Kyle would leave him and his thoughts wandered to Chris.

Chris asked if Michael wanted to watch Memento and Michael was happy for the distraction. They synced the video files and it felt like a date, but that was stupid so he kept it to himself.

Michael pointed out a cut where Teddy says you think he’s still here? and his mouth is clearly not moving. Never caught that, Chris wrote. Good eye.

Michael swelled with pride.

Kyle never cared for Michael’s trivia. They would watch movies with Kyle’s feet set on Michael’s lap. Kyle would work them around the more he lost interest. Michael might point out continuity errors to keep his attention, but Kyle would tell him point blank, “I really don’t care.”

Plus, now the captions had to be turned on. They got in the way, and when the caption really sucked, it just read no audible dialogue.

Couldn’t they just leave it blank for the same effect?

Chris pointed out a discontinuity with Leonard’s tattoo SG13-71U and what it should have been, SG13-7IU. Michael was impressed. Good eye, Michael wrote. Chris gave a =).

They talked for hours until Kyle tossed his car keys and slammed the screen door.

He asked Chris to hold on, that his friend had called, which wasn’t a complete lie, since your spouse should also be your friend.

Michael found Kyle in the kitchen gulping orange juice from the container.

“Where ya been?” Michael spun his right hand. Kyle finished the orange juice and sucked in a breath of air.

“The fuck you always ask me where I been?” He was livid and quickly calmed down. “What do it matter, I was out.”

Michael had a high school crush on a light-skinned black boy who sat next to him on the bus. He always read a different manga. Michael thought it was so cool. Samurais. Aliens. Computers.

Michael tried to get it so they would sit together, but then the guy’s parents bought him a ’59 Chevy and Michael hardly saw him at all.

Then he caught the guy kissing a girl once in that Chevy. He brooded for weeks. If only he had noticed me, Michael thought. That could be me in that Chevy.

Michael told Chris sorry, his friend was having a rough go of it, needed advice. Chris said he was tired, but it was fun and they should do it again.

Michael dreamt Chris picked him up in a ’59 Chevy. Michael was the only passenger allowed.

Michael got free tickets to CES through his job, and Kyle was having a good day and went on the five-hour drive with him.

It was CES for sure, because Michael couldn’t tell the coffee lines from refugee lines.

Kyle marveled over earbuds that could bring hearing to the deaf. Then he saw the speculative price tag.

Michael had to push past three undergrads in plaid and low-rise to see the Mariah Carey and Madonna replicas. Kyle emerged and hooked Michael in a neck lock before letting him go.

The replicas could speak with a combination of Michael’s youtwo software, while another company built the text-to-speech mechanism, which had recently won awards for its startling reproduction of human language—although it still had problems with agglutinative languages like Hungarian, because the polysyllabic inflectional morphology of those languages introduced an amazing amount of perplexity that TTS automata were unequipped to handle.

“My dad got one,” Michael signed to Kyle. Michael touched his chin to his thumb to say grandmother.

His grandmother had been ninety-eight. Lived for a century to sit in a rocking chair facing eggshell sheetrock.

“What does she think about all day?” his mother asked. Michael pictured one of those halls where the doors all led back to the same room, and the hall curved infinity it kept going so far.

“You’re avoiding me,” his grandmother accused Michael during a visit.

“I have no idea,” Michael would say to his mother. His mother had come up with the nickname that thing for her, and it made Michael laugh. His mom liked the strangers in the grocery line more than his grandmother.

His grandmother was so out of practice speaking she could hardly finish a word without stuttering through it five times. She liked farm stories, and, Michael did you know that the cows could be friends with the donkeys?

Talking to her felt like volunteer work.

“She did not speak to her son for four years,” his mother had said several times, always emphasizing four. “What mother does that?”

Kyle looked bored, signed the holy trinity, walked off and bumped into one of the undergrads in a backwards cap.

The guy expected an apology and when he didn’t get it he mumbled fucking nigger and Kyle just kept walking where he wanted.

By evening, full of holoscreens and tomorrow, Michael wandered the hotel lobby. A group of girls in pixie skirts and cone heels were on about a club. Kyle agreed to go only if his new friends could come too. Michael said fine and they packed into a car with some artists and a guy who smelled awful. Michael kept accidentally crossing eyes with a girl whose sclera were blacked out, or maybe she was staring at him. Then she sighed.

“I wish people would just get the hint, like why do I have to say it.” Her friend broke into laughs. Michael was uncomfortable and texted Chris, y r ppl annoying and he texted back a little while later, yah they suck. Michael snickered.

When he looked up Kyle was staring at Michael from the corner of his eyes.

“Wish I knew what’s got you in stitches.”

Your nose could feel the bassline hump the floor a block away. Kyle danced a line for the bathroom with his hands tucked in some guy’s pockets. He emerged with his eyes burning holes in Michael, grabbed Michael and they grinded the throb with the Reebok, hip to waist. Michael dreamt of the song, round and round I go, where I’ll stop, only you know, I guess it’s all in my mind.

Middle of the night Michael saw SG13-7IU in the mirror, blinked his eyes. The microwave’s TRATS 223RP instruction was inverted like alien code.

Sunrise woke Michael, but Kyle was already up staring at earbuds in front of their hotel window.

Kyle was in a good enough mood that Michael bought a seashell from a souvenir shack and held it to Kyle’s ear. Can you hear the ocean? he signed, and Michael thought he witnessed a smile.

Kyle’s forehead smudged the window on the drive home. He watched the cactus redshift. His foot would not stop shaking and his fingers were tight. Michael had been fiddling with the satellite radio when Kyle punched the console and cracked the screen.

The next morning, Michael could not find Kyle. He often disappeared for weeks on end. He would hitchhike to Seattle, where someone he loved more lived.

He teared up one evening watching an advertisement for wind power, and it so happened that Chris was online.

“I don’t know what they’re talking about half the time,” Michael’s grandmother used to say. She was so old that even mundane talk eluded her.

Would Michael get so old that one day he wouldn’t even be able to carry on a conversation?

The last time Michael had seen her, that thanksgiving she hobbled the kitchen carrying bowls from the table to the sink. His mom eyed her over the brim of her glasses. With a look of disgust, his mother waited for her to drop the plates and glasses. His grandmother had fallen just the month earlier and broken her arm, and his mother was waiting for it to happen again with a hidden delight.

“I think she fell on purpose,” Michael’s mother said. “She wants attention.”

His grandmother had not been invited to Michael’s wedding, because his parents thought that she would withhold money from them when she died if she knew Michael had married a man.

“She’s just backwards,” his mother would say. “Better she doesn’t know.”

His grandmother pulled him off to the side every chance she got, whenever he visited, which was infrequent, maybe once a year, because he was very busy and preferred solitude. She showed him chiwara statues and clay masks from Kush, and photos of her standing beside prehistoric plants she ferried from death’s brink, and she would point and say, “plants tell you what they want,” and that you could always rely on that.

It would be refreshing if people were like that, Michael thought.

She showed him photographs from 1996, but Michael did not believe it was the same person.

She wanted to talk so much that she agreed with everything you said, so thankful for the company, which reminded Michael of those telephone recordings they used to have when you would call to pay a bill, and they would ask if you’d like to leave feedback on your experience afterward, like:

Right, let’s rate how the programmed voice made you feel.

“Where do you think the most magical place in the world is?” she asked him one night. Most places looked best in photos, and then he got there, and he wondered why he made the trip in the first place. Michael shrugged.

“Dunno,” he said, too disinterested to complete a sentence.

“I don’t think your parents like me,” she said to Michael once from the veranda. He sighed. He was the only person in the family who paid her any attention. Her casita was being built, a requirement from Michael’s parents who could no longer stand the sight of her and wanted her to move out of the main house.

“She expects us to entertain her,” his mother would say. “If only you knew how much I put up with her.”

It was one spring Michael and his father were looking at old science fiction films on IMDB that his mother came in the room, out of breath and complaining about his grandmother when his father yelled enough that Michael thought he might have a heart attack, “I wish she would hurry up and die.”

“You come visit me anytime,” his grandmother said to him.

The next time he did, she was dead.

With Kyle gone, Michael hardly left his room. He went to the gym in the morning to run, sat at his computer while he reviewed analytics for the youtwo, and talked to Chris.

Michael had gotten so close to Chris that he would ask questions like—and with all the seriousness you would normally save for pressing the president on his plans for nuclear deterrence—Do you like kalamata olives?

They talked about artificial intelligence taking over the White House.

Chris sent him messages in binary. 00111100 00110011.

Michael expressed his fear for public bathrooms: a deep-seated phobia of small tiles and urine, mixed with a primal anxiety related to filth and taboo desire.

Chris told him that he donated money to Planned Parenthood, and Michael was so impressed.

What a stand up guy.

In undergraduate, there was this one boy Michael had a daylong crush on because the guy had flung his hands up and said, “Fuck a feminist,” and there was something sexy about the way he flaunted his maleness.

Like he knew he was privileged due to it and didn’t care.

He had cybersex with Chris one night that it was raining so hard you would’ve thought it was programmed. It was cold, and Michael was fiddling with the alarm because he could never remember the code. Afterward they talked about the rain and Michael wrote a poem about it:

When I rain, I pour—

But when I pour, I’m not raining.

What am I?

Do you covet things? Chris asked afterward. Michael didn’t understand.

I don’t think I do, he wrote back.

We should give up all attachments, Chris wrote. Our attachments will only bring us pain.

What if you love someone? Michael asked.

Love is selfish, Chris responded.

奇妙な未来

Michael had originally referred to the youtwo as KYLE, which was of course a reference to ELIZA. Michael trained the bot through word chunks called n-grams.

With unigrams, KYLE sounded nonsensical:

Months because the and issue of year next September we did you like

With bigrams, you witnessed some connective tissue between chunks—

Last week through the process of Hudson corporation would seem to complete the implementation.

—you still knew that the thing you were talking to was just that, a thing.

Trigrams gave you the uncanny sense that you might not be talking to a machine, but you probably were, because the relationship between constituents was still lacking or hazy:

They also point to a six billion dollar transaction. This indeed will be what they tell you. You want to?

Finally, mixed with pattern matching and entity recognition, quadrigrams provided the illusion of speaking to a human being:

Amanda, maybe you could advise me on what to do? I have been wondering about that lately. And I know you told me you were a good listener. I could really use that right now.

It pained him to think of his grandmother, who was always interested in hearing about his work when no one else was, so much that she agreed to be a subject in his research.

“You just speak into the microphone,” Michael explained.

It was late one night when news of the protests was everywhere, he was only calmed by the thought of words. Beautiful words that had meaning only because people wanted them to, and that they would fight over, and fall in love with.

It was a syntax textbook and it went:

In (29a), we have the same kind of headedness. Very is the head and quickly is the head and we have two heads and each has their own head and this is called hierarchical structure.

It was subliminal with it and he suddenly thought of giving Chris head. It made him fantasize for the rest of the night and when he woke he smelled clean clothes.

Kyle had been gone for nearly four months. Michael wondered if he would ever see Kyle again. In his absence, Michael felt a pit grow in his stomach.

Would Michael wait eternity with sheetrock?

Michael could only escape the thoughts through Chris. Maybe he was a monk, Michael thought. He donated to charities, went on for hours about the blind, and said he overtipped service workers because, after all, who else would do their jobs?

How could Michael match his virtue?

But Chris had stopped messaging Michael. Sure, there were intermittent messages about the weather, but nothing of any substance. One conversation in particular bothered Michael. He had asked:

How’s your mom?

Chris’ response:

It’s so nice out today!

The non-sequitur made Michael feel empty. Their text message history was a never-ending dialogue, where you couldn’t find a single period because why would two lovers end anything?

And here it was, ruined.

Michael insisted on meeting Chris. He sent message after message, and after days of no response, Michael grew sick. He called Ruis and they watched movies where the soundtrack had words like it must have been love and moving on and baby he’s a liar.

It was the next day when Michael’s heart jumped and Chris said yeah they should meet and they agreed on the Mulholland memorial.

Michael’s heart was in his throat. He could hardly move his legs. What would Chris say? What would their friendship become afterward?

Chris looked like the man Michael had seen in his photos. He was small, and wore clothes that squeezed him like a teenager. His grin made Michael feel like he was filling out government forms. Sign here. Black Ink Only.

Michael’s blood rushed. Here was the man he had been talking to for nearly two years. Michael came to trust him more than Kyle. But could Chris forgive Michael for lying about being a woman?

“I’m so sorry I was lying to you,” Michael said. Chris shrugged and offered a sympathetic smile.

“Oh,” he said, like gravity was still the same, so why fret, “it’s no problem.”

Michael could not have been happier. Chris was a very enlightened person.

But he acted differently in person than he did online. Maybe it’s just his way, Michael thought. They walked down the street and talked about their day just as they had been doing for so long on their phones. But Chris was silent, and had little to add, and Michael thought—maybe he really is a monk.

It struck Michael as odd that Chris couldn’t remember Michael’s birthday—he had told Michael happy birthday twice, so he knew.

And then Michael felt funny because Chris couldn’t remember what Michael did, even though Michael talked about it every week because he loved his job, and that was one thing he liked about Chris so much—he was always so inquisitive about his field.

“Wait,” Chris said and stopped Michael. “You created the youtwo?” Michael beamed with pride. They had spoken about this many times before—why was this news? But Michael ate it up.

“I did,” he said.

Chris coughed and his face grew grim.

“I should tell you something,” Chris muttered. Michael was still smiling. He had met the love of his life, in person, and here they were.

“What is it?” Michael asked. What could it possibly be? Michael had gotten through the worst—confess a lie and be absolved.

“I actually,” Chris struggled for the words, “haven’t ever really,” like he had thought of how to say it for quite some time, “talked to you,” but couldn’t figure out how to arrange them in such a way that wouldn’t make it feel like a punch to the stomach. “Before.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” Chris added, like finishing a math equation, “it was right after we first started talking. I sort of knew you were a guy? But I didn’t want to be mean, so I turned my youtwo on and you know how it is, you don’t pay attention to the conversations that thing has.”

Michael felt like someone had just removed all the alphabet’s vowels and the leftovers fit together wrong.

“So it wasn’t you? All this time?” Michael’s smile melted.

Chris looked apologetic.

“I turned the features off so it would only talk about superficial stuff,” Chris said. “But it was too late, by that time you had been talking to it for like...a year?”

Michael was suddenly frustrated at the little girl across the street blabbering incoherently.

“I’m totally willing to become friends with you. I don’t really know you, but, why not?”

But he looked like the Alzheimer’s patient trying to make heads or tails out of family members, and Michael knew there was nothing there.

Michael thought and left his grandmother. When he fell asleep, he got home and closed his eyes.

How had he been so stupid? How had he spent the past two years of his life involved with a text program?

One of his own creation at that.

And all those talks about how awful people were, and how people were so awful, and how people were so mean, and here Chris was, complaining about the politician in one breath and matching their duplicity in the same.

Except it wasn’t Chris. It was a program.

But it was Chris. A facsimile of him.

But Chris did not know who Michael was, so it wasn’t.

Or it was.

Michael had a nightmare sometime the next week where his mother had died and his father replicated her, and then she scratched her face off. He called his father the next day and said he would be flying out for thanksgiving.

It was a few nights before the trip that the alarm went off in the middle of the night. Michael jolted awake and fell to the floor. It was gray and the tile was cold, and he heard static. Michael held his hands to his ears and stumbled into the hall. When he got into the living room a dark figure was sitting at the dinner table.

The alarm shook the house. Michael rubbed his eyes and leaned on the wall. A sliver of television light lit Kyle up. He twisted his keys around his fingers.

I thought you changed the locks, Kyle signed. The noise was so loud Michael could feel his ears itch. He scrambled to input the alarm code when he felt hands reach out for his neck and pull him away from the wall console and knock him to the floor. Kyle’s hands wrapped tightly around Michael’s neck until Michael closed his eyes and could feel sleep settling in, a light headed and happy sleep.

When he woke, Kyle had packed his things and was sat square in the front room. Michael’s neck felt tender and his voice was shallow.

Where are you going? Michael signed. Maybe Michael would never have all of Kyle’s attention.

I’m leaving, he signed and stood. Michael could feel anger rising inside him. He thought of the cruelest thing he could say, but it just wasn’t in him.

I fell in love with someone, Michael signed. Then he put his hand over his heart and made a pitter-patter effect.

Who? Kyle signed.

Michael pointed to himself.

I fell in love with myself, he signed. Kyle nodded and pulled his sunglasses down.

When Michael had gone home for Thanksgiving, he could not find his grandmother’s replica.

“That thing was too weird,” his mom said. “We put her in the garage.” Michael felt a lump in his throat. They ate dinner and Michael cleaned the plates. They asked where Kyle was and Michael said he didn’t know, and his father invited him into his study where they looked through old landscaping designs.

His sister Elaine was seated in front of an old 16-bit video game, and the music sounded sweet and clear. He stroked her hair and she fidgeted.

The pixels danced. The colors were magenta, cyan, rayon, and fuchsia. Michael got lost in the patterns of graphics, the little tree sprites cut and pasted until a screen boundary told them to stop.

At half past midnight he wandered into the hallway and down past the kitchen, where the pendant lighting made him think of kitchens in department stores, no one cooks in them, and he descended the steps into the garage.

His grandmother’s replica had been propped in the corner. He pulled blankets and wrapping paper and adjusted her head until it fit the socket. He fixed stray hairs and patted her clothes. She had been buried in a pair of frumpy jeans, his mother had called them frumpy. His grandmother had always said, what use did she have to look good for anybody?

“The whole world’s trying to look good,” she said once.

There was a storm outside and the rain splattered the window squares of the garage. Michael looked at his phone and all it said was the time.

The rain painted the garage gray. Michael hadn’t realized how much time he had spent there and he turned to his grandmother’s replica and asked, “Where do you think the most magical place in the world is?”

#THE DEAD ARE REPLICATED #BOTS HAVE ENTIRE CONVERSATIONS IN OUR PLACE #ARE WE THE SUM OF OUR WORDS?

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digitalcontext1 · 8 years ago

Text

Week 1

Tuesday 31st January

Module Introduction

Week 1 - Who am I? Past, Present & Future

Biography After graduating (BSc in 2004, and later with an M.A in 2005) I worked as a freelance 3D artist & creative designer, and then as a visiting lecturer and private tutor teaching across Art & Design, 3D, CGI and Animation, I later joined the School of Media, Music & Performance at the University of Salford as a lecturer in creative media, and taught across a variety of areas from design, production, & project management for video games, specifically around creative design and production of virtual environments.

From 2006 to 2011 I acted as Programme Leader for the BSc (Hons) Computer & Video Games at the University and was responsible for curriculum design, programme management and developing the programme's partnerships with a variety of major industry partners. Many of my students since, have gone on to work in the creative industries including the videogame industry.

From 2011 to 2013 I worked as Director oF Creative Media, overseeing the directorates' move to our new MediaCity UK campus. My freelance work included several large projects ranging from PlastiCity; a Will Alsop driven project visualising the regeneration of Bradford city centre in a fully interactive form, the Virtual Jean Claude virtual knowledge space project recreating the French composer Jean Claude Risset, into a 3D avatar for 'virtual lecturing', to working on projects in partnership with UK based organisations such as the DarkHorse organisation, BT and the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology (FACT).

I currently works as a senior lecturer in creative media, at the University of Salford. and continue to explore virtual natural environment design through my teaching and research, maintaining a deep interest in the meaning, impact, and design of natural spaces, in particular around video games. In my spare time, I am a keen videogames player, and landscape photographer.

Teaching My academic interests focus on across Art & Design (3D/CGi) and creative media production ranging from project management for creative industries, 3D character conceptualization & design, to application and design of games technology (around issues such as Serious games) Research Interests My research interests lie in creative design, focusing primarily on design issues surrounding the emerging computer and video game medium, and the advancement of games design.

My PhD is currently focused on natural environment design in video games, and how traditional disciplines such as geology, can be used to further evolve natural environment design in video games.

Qualifications and Memberships

BSc Computer & Video Games M.A Creative Technology Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education & Practice Fellow of Higher Education Academ Publications Ali, U, 2012, Virtual Landscapes: The Modern Era (2000-2012), Zayn Creative, Ali, U, 2012, Virtual Landscapes: The Transition Era (1990-1999), Zayn Creative, Ali, U, 2012, Virtual Landscapes: The Modern Era (1980-1989), Zayn Creative,

http://www.thecreativexchange.org/partners/digital-fiction-factory

http://www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/bertolt_brecht_001.html

Who am I? Past, Present & Future

This week - we were introduced to our new Lecturer Dr Umran Ali. We started right away delving into Umrans past experiences

Umran first explained the idea of the Gold Rush - he was comparing our generation of research:

Alaska was accepted as the 49th State of the USA in 1959. Gold has played a big role in Alaska's history. Alaska's first big discovery of gold came in Juneau in 1880. This was followed by other important gold strikes in Klondike and Nome. The discovery of gold brought thousands of men and women to Alaska.

The period from 1880 to 1914 is known as the gold rush era. Did you know that: Alaska's capital city, Juneau, is named after Joseph Juneau, one of the miners who first found gold there in 1880. Gold is Alaska's state mineral.Miners have found pieces of gold (nuggets) that are the size of a large fist.

Delving into future technologies and their potential growth:

Artificial Intelligence:

https://backchannel.com/the-ai-takeover-is-coming-lets-embrace-it-d764d61f83a#.xcuhaql2g

To visit the front lines of the great AI takeover is to observe machine learning systems routinely drubbing humans in narrow, circumscribed domains. This year, many of the most visible contestants in AI’s face-off with humanity have emerged from

Google. In March, the world’s top Go player weathered a humbling defeat against DeepMind’s AlphaGo. Researchers at DeepMind also produced a system that can lip-read videos with an accuracy that leaves humans in the dust. A few weeks ago, Google computer scientists working with medical researchers reported an algorithm that can detect diabetic retinopathy in images of the eye as well as an ophthalmologist can. It’s an early step toward a goal many companies are now chasing: to assist doctors by automating the analysis of medical scans.

DeepMind is the world leader in artificial intelligence research and its application for positive impact.

We’re on a scientific mission to push the boundaries of AI, developing programs that can learn to solve any complex problem without needing to be taught how.

If we’re successful, we believe this will be one of the most important and widely beneficial scientific advances ever made, increasing our capacity to understand the mysteries of the universe and to tackle some of our most pressing real-world challenges. From climate change to the need for radically improved healthcare, too many problems suffer from painfully slow progress, their complexity overwhelming our ability to find solutions. With AI as a multiplier for human ingenuity, those solutions will come into reach.

Virtual Reality

https://backchannel.com/virtual-reality-wont-be-lonely-for-much-longer-409d14dba3eb#.nggopj4gq

For this reason, social gaming is already huge on platforms like Xbox and Playstation. Hop into Halo on an Xbox and you’ll likely opt to play with friends against strangers. Maureen Fan, CEO of VR film studio Baobab Studios, notes that people laugh at movies more in a movie theater than at home. There’s a feedback loop that reinforces our urge to laugh, cry, or groan. Adding a social element amplifies our experiences—and that applies to VR too.As social apps get more popular the opportunities to connect them to VR become more exciting. Facebook believed in VR enough to buy Oculus back in 2014, with the intent of creating a social experience. “This is really a new communication platform,”

Mark Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook to explain the purchase. “By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life.”

And last week, ahead of expectations, Facebook delivered its first social experience: Oculus Rooms and Parties. Rooms, which is now available for Gear VR headsets and will become available for Rift in 2017, lets users start a voice chat within virtual reality. Parties lets their avatars hang out in virtual rooms where they can talk, play games and watch movies together. It’s a lot like existing social spaces such as AltspaceVR, with the additional ability to customize avatars’ expressions.

Voice Control

It all starts with that tiny speaker. The Alexa-enabled Echo is a true unicorn, one of those rare products that arrives every few years and fundamentally changes the way we live. In 2017, we will start to see that change. After years of false starts, voice interface will finally creep into the mainstream as more people purchase voice-enabled speakers and other gadgets, and as the tech that powers voice starts to improve. By the following year, Gartner predicts that 30 percent of our interactions with technology will happen through conversations with smart machines.

Virtual Landscaping

VL and VR experiences

youtube

The film-maker Chris Milk has also made a series of documentary films pitching viewers into stories – a refugee camp in Jordan, Ebola survivors in Liberia, a massive protest march in New York – as if they were there. Many of these filmmakers and journalists see VR as a way to cut through viewers’ complacency about disaster or war stories.

“Instead of sitting through 45 seconds on the news of someone walking around and explaining how terrible it is, you are actively becoming a participant in the story that you are viewing,” RYOT’s Christian Stephen told the Guardian.

Future of Journalism

vimeo

3D holograms

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/3d-medical-holograph-shows-early-success

“RealView Imaging delivers real-time 3D interference-based holograms based on its Digital Light Shaping™ technology. Originating from Prof. Gabor's Nobel-prize-winning invention, holography is the best method known to science to precisely reconstruct and display 3D objects in free space. As holography is an optical reality and not an optical illusion, it is almost impossible to distinguish between a high-quality reconstructed hologram and the original real object.”

/häl, gram,hōle, gram/ noun a three-dimensional image formed by the interference of light beams from a laser or other coherent light source. a photograph of an interference pattern that, when suitably illuminated, produces a three-dimensional image.

http://realviewimaging.com/company/

In partnership with Philips, RealView Imaging conducted a pilot study that applied the imaging technology to minimally-invasive structural heart procedures at Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petach Tikva, Israel.

youtube

The system projects an image that is visible without any specializes viewing apparatus and that can be manipulated at a touch. As this press release explained, "RealView's innovative visualizations technology was used to display interactive, real-time 3D holographic images acquired by Philips' interventional X-ray and cardiac ultrasound systems."

3D imaging has already proven its benefits with regard to deepening surgeons' understanding of their patients' anatomies in the form of 3D printed models of hearts. The models, which are based on MRI scans, make it possible for the doctors to make an individualized and detailed plan resulting in more precise and effective surgical procedures. In fact, such models are credited with a number of life-saving operations.

youtube

The future of Practice based research:

Information taken from: https://www.creativityandcognition.com/resources/PBR%20Guide-1.1-2006.pdf

I also took a Thesis outline for how Practice based research is setout on an actual professional document: This is example is taken by Microsoft

“...original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice. ...originality and contribution to knowledge may be demonstrated through creative outcomes in the form of designs, music, digital media, performances and exhibitions. Whilst the significance and context of the claims are described in words, a full understanding can only be obtained with direct reference to the outcomes."

Practice-Based and Practice-Led Research Although practice-based research has become widespread, it has yet to be characterised in a way that has become agreed across the various fields of research where it is in use.

To complicate matters further, the terms ‘practice-based’ and ‘practice-led’ are often used interchangeably.

In reality, there are two main types of research that have a central practice element and that distinction is summarised here as follows:

• If a creative artefact is the basis of the contribution to knowledge, the research is practice-based.

• If the research leads primarily to new understandings about practice, it is practice-led.

Practice-Based Research Practice-based Research is an original investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge partly by means of practice and the outcomes of that practice.

Claims of originality and contribution to knowledge may be demonstrated through creative outcomes which may include artefacts such as images, music, designs, models, digital media or other outcomes such as performances and exhibitions Whilst the significance and context of the claims are described in words, a full understanding can only be obtained with direct reference to those outcomes.

A practice-based PhD is distinguishable from a conventional PhD because creative outcomes from the research process may be included in the submission for examination and the claim for an original contribution to the field are held to be demonstrated through the original creative work. Practice-based doctoral submissions must include a substantial contextualisation of the creative work.

This critical appraisal or analysis not only clarifies the basis of the claim for the originality and location of the original work, it also provides the basis for a judgement as to whether general scholarly requirements are met.

This could be defined as judgement of the submission as a contribution to knowledge in the field, showing doctoral level powers of analysis and mastery of existing contextual knowledge, in a form that is accessible to and auditable by knowledgeable peers.

Practice Led Research Practice-led Research is concerned with the nature of practice and leads to new knowledge that has operational significance for that practice. The main focus of the research is to advance knowledge about practice, or to advance knowledge within practice.

In a doctoral thesis, the results of practice-led research may be fully described in text form without the inclusion of a creative outcome. The primary focus of the research is to advance knowledge about practice, or to advance knowledge within practice. Such research includes practice as an integral part of its method and often falls within the general area of action research.

The doctoral theses that emerge from this type of practice related research are not the same as those that include artefacts and works as part of the submission.

Autonomous cars

The future of research

Research era, in a generation of great Research papers

http://cdm.link/2016/11/jean-claude-risset-reimagined-digital-sound-europe-abroad/

Jean-Claude Risset (French: [ʁisɛ]; 18 March 1938 – 21 November 2016)

http://cdm.link/2016/11/jean-claude-risset-reimagined-digital-sound-europe-abroad/

PlastiCity

bradford

Virtual Landscape

virtual desktop

advanced workflows and pipelines: tools for artists and designers mindflow

Occulus rift prototyping

Martin Wright - game and broadcast

not enough people with both hats on - Hybrid

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