#[ i think the only thing keeping him in the 'somewhat difficult' category is his low self worth ]
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difficult person test.
#♠: m : dashboard .#[ compared to don's like FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF ]#[ i think the only thing keeping him in the 'somewhat difficult' category is his low self worth ]#[ good grief ]
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Weird is Good
Summary: A story about two people tryna make it through the age of COVID-19 in a country where people are fucking dumb lmao. My hc is that Spencer would be like wtf at all these science-denying anti-maskers. Also, two teachers just tryna make it through quarantine and remote teaching in a one bedroom apartment (this is taking place during a mandatory leave/lecture cycle).
Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader
Category: fluff
Warnings/Includes: no warnings. reader is both a kindergarten teacher and a bruh girl with a pirate’s mouth. lots of Spencer x factz.
Word count: 3.1k
———
“We’re home for the next two weeks. ”
Spencer looked up from his desk to see Y/N kicking off her shoes, dropping her bag, and walking directly to the sink. “Starting when?”
“We get to go in on Monday to say goodbye to the kids and get any materials we might need. Then we’re home for two weeks. They’re calling it an early, extended spring break.” Y/N began her hand washing routine. As a kindergarten teacher, she’d always been a strict hand-washer. In the time of COVID, she had only become more zealous. She looked at Spencer. “Have you heard anything?”
“Since we’re so close to the end of the semester, the department head thinks they’ll try to finish out the year as normal.” He set down his pen. “I honestly don’t know. It will all depend on whether people follow the CDC guidelines. The spread of any virus is deducible mathematically, and SARS-COV2 is no different. Based on the outbreak in Italy prior to their lockdown, we can accurately describe its reproductive number, or Rt, to between 2.43 – 3.10.”
Y/N shut off the water and dried her hands on a paper towel. “In layman's terms, Dr. Reid.”
“The Rt tells how many people are infected by the contagious host,” he explained. “In the case of this strain, each infected person is infecting between two and three others. For comparison, the standard seasonal flu has an average Rt between 1.4 and 1.7.”
“So in other words, fucking yikes,” Y/N groaned. She moved to perch on the edge of Spencer’s desk.
“Indeed,” Spencer agreed. “We know how fast the flu can travel through an office or a classroom, so imagine if it was two times as transmissible. But it's also really important to understand that this number changes depending on the mitigations in place. Even prior to full lockdown, mask wearing and social distancing was somewhat common in Italy, so it’s likely the uncontrolled Rt is higher.”
“Jesus Christ.” Y/N scrubbed a hand over her face. “We’ll probably never go back.”
Spencer rubbed his hand up from her ankle to the inside of her knee. “The good news is there’s nothing special about this virus compared to others in terms of how it spreads— it’s just aerosols. So if everyone wears their mask, we’ll be able to keep the spread low.”
⧭⧭⧭
“It’s safe to say that everyone did not wear their fucking masks,” Y/N snapped. She watched from the couch as Mayor Bowser delivered the news that DC Public Schools would remain closed for the remainder of the year. “This is crazy. I mean, I knew it was coming because people in this country are absolute buffoons.” She looked at Spencer, fingers pressed to her temple. “But holy shit, are we ever going to be able to go outside again?”
“With schools and universities closed, people working remotely, and lockdown orders in place, the Rt in the US could stay low. But masks have to be worn at all times, and social distancing has to be strictly followed.” Spencer pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I just— I can’t believe people are refusing to wear masks. The empirical, peer-reviewed data clearly shows—”
“This is ‘Murica, boy.” Y/N mocked. “Ain’t no tyrannical government gonna tell me what to do!” She rolled her eyes. “Trust me, your choice to abstain from social media is paying dividends to your sanity right now.”
Spencer looked truly dumbfounded, setting his newspaper down in his lap. “But that’s just it. It’s not just in social media circles.” He gestured to the article in front of him. “This economist just argued for ‘reopening’ the economy using the justification of herd immunity. Herd immunity can be a plausible option for less lethal diseases. But this virus is not like varicella—the chickenpox,” he clarified at Y/N’s raised eyebrow. He waved his hands around in exasperation. “Putting aside the fact that one facet of herd immunity is vaccinating as many people as possible, its success completely hinges on the Rt of a disease. If you model a population based on an Rt of 2.5, herd immunity wouldn’t be achieved until approximately sixty percent of the population has been infected. Consider that the US population is currently 328 million, and sixty percent of that is 196.8 million. The current mortality rate for SARS-COV2 is 3.06 percent. 196,800,000 multiplied by 0.0306 is 6,022,080. Over six million people would die. It's simple mathematics.”
Y/N let out an exasperated breath. “It used to be that simple math and facts were enough. Now you’ve got basement scientists who think they know better than actual, literal scientists who’ve spent their entire lives studying these things.” She ran a hand over her face and gestured at the news conference still playing. “How long do you think it’ll be before we’re both trying to teach from this tiny ass living room?”
⧭⧭⧭
“Goooooooood morning, kindergarten! It’s Friday, and no Friday is a bad Friday!” Spencer smiled. As he poured his first cup of coffee, he hummed along with Y/N and 23 six-year-olds as they sang their morning song. Observing fourteen days of remote kindergarten from across the living room had given Spencer a new appreciation for elementary school teachers, particularly Y/N. She sang, danced, conducted science experiments, held puppet shows, read stories, led art projects, and fielded questions for four hours a day— three hours less than when they were in the school building. He was exhausted by proxy.
But he was also grateful for the opportunity to watch Y/N in her element. Even though they were at home, she still got dressed every day in bright, patterned sweaters and dresses— her Ms. Frizzle attire, she’d told him once. She was able to channel her personality into a kid-friendly version that her students clearly adored, never afraid to be silly or strange to get their attention and keep them engaged during the long days. He worked from home whenever possible, strangely happy to have the background noise of kindergarten over his quiet university office.
...
“Okay, but where do I put the biiiiiiiiiiiig number?” Y/N made a wide gesture with her arms. “Ariah, where should I put it? In the big box, yes! But oh no, my small number needs a friend. My three is soooooo lonely!” Y/N drew her mouth into a pout. “DJ, how can I help my three not be so sad? You’re absolutely right, let’s put that two right next to him in our number bond.”
…
“I’ve been waitin’ for a girl to mute,” Y/N sang into the gold karaoke mic. “I said, muuuuuuuuuute, I’m blinded by loud sounds. No, I can’t hear the friend who’s tryin’ to talk.”
…
“Oh boy. Kev, honey, we can— we can see you. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. We can see all of you. I can’t turn your camera off, buddy. You gotta— there we go.”
…
“Mute please, I need— I need everybody to mute, please. Oh my goodness where is that music coming from?” Y/N frantically searched for her index card with the picture of the mute icon, as the sounds of a highly inappropriate song blared through the computer speaker. “I know it’s so loud, guys. Why is my mute power gone?! This is why we need to make sure we keep our mute button on, kindergarten.”
…
“No sweetie, it’s not time to log off yet. I’m sorry, I know it’s such a long day. We have about an hour left. Do you guys wanna do a countdown? It’s the fin-al count-down! Do-do doo dooooo. Do-do-d-do-dooo…”
…
“Annnnnd, I should see all my friends on mute. William, hang on just a second. All my friends need to look at my picture, it’s an oval with a line through it… Okay, William, what did you bring to show us?” Y/N leaned toward the computer screen. “Grandma Kathy? O-oh, she’s— she’s in the—“ Y/N’s eyes widened. “Is that— is that an urn? Oh wow. Um, well, wow. It’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, William. Grandma Kathy, may she rest in peace.”
⧭⧭⧭
A week into Y/N teaching kindergarten from their living room, the university had announced its transition to online coursework for the remainder of the academic year. Spencer had to host his first zoom lecture, and he was absolutely dreading it.
“Spence, it’s going to be fine. It’s not like you’ve never been on a video conference,” Y/N assured him. She sat cross-legged on the couch, waiting for him to let her in to his practice zoom.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t running those meetings. I just showed up.” He squinted at the computer screen. “Are you in?”
Y/N barely resisted the urge to make a joke, knowing that Spencer probably wouldn’t appreciate the innuendo. “No, you have to admit me.”
“What do you mean? How do I do that?”
“There should be a box with a button that says admit.”
Spencer gestured at the computer. “Well there’s a bunch of boxes— which one should I be looking at?”
Y/N sighed and got up from the couch. “IQ of 187 and can’t find the box.”
Spencer dragged a hand through his hair. “I know I shouldn’t find this so difficult. I’m sorry you have to waste your time on this.”
“Hey, it was a joke.” Y/N grabbed his hand from where he was frustratedly pulling on his frazzled curls. “I’m sorry. That was mean and you’re already stressed enough.” She used her free hand to smooth his hair back into place. She scrunched her nose. “I love you and your limited technology skills. And honestly it’s kind of nice to have one thing I can actually teach you about.” She squeezed his hand, leaning over him to peer at his computer screen. “All right, let’s find that elusive admit button.”
When the day of his lecture rolled around, Spencer thanked all the atoms in the observable universe that Y/N had a break during his class. Within the first ten minutes, he’d managed to accidentally kick himself out of his own meeting and then somehow lose track of the screenshare button.
“No one can see me and I don’t know what happened to the screenshare option. It was there and now it’s just… gone,” he told Y/N.
She leaned over his desk, eyes tracking over the screen and mouse clicking around the desktop. “How in the world did you manage to block your camera?”
“I don’t know! I didn’t even touch it!” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand how it’s even possible to be this bad at this.”
Y/N bumped his knee with her own, pulling up his camera settings and preferences. “Relax. You can’t be good at everything. It’s a refreshing reminder that you’re a mere mortal like the rest of us.” With a few rapid clicks, Y/N unblocked his camera and located the screenshare bar. “There. Crisis averted. I’m just going to share your whole screen in case you want to toggle between application windows. So just be aware that they’ll be able to see everything. And then you just click here when you’re ready to stop sharing.”
When Y/N turned her head toward him to check that he understood, Spencer grabbed the side of her face and caught her lips in a kiss. Y/N smiled against his mouth, heart speeding up as he traced the seam of her mouth with his tongue.
“Um, Dr. Reid? Your um— your camera’s working now.”
Spencer nearly fell out of his chair, his cheeks about the color of the Leave Meeting icon. Y/N dropped her head, debating whether she wanted to laugh or let the earth open up and swallow her whole. She ultimately decided to compose herself, stepping back and giving a little wave to the sea of tiny, grinning zoom faces before slinking out of frame, miming sorry to one very mortified professor.
⧭⧭⧭
“Would you want to be our mystery reader next week?” Y/N asked, bookmarking the page of her novel and reclining back in bed. “You just have to pick a story to read. Oh, and think of four clues about your identity to give the kiddos.”
Spencer raised his eyebrow, continuing to read. “Any story?”
Y/N laughed. “Well they’re six, so maybe hold off on the Chaucer and Bradbury for now. A picture book would be preferable.”
“Did you know that the first picture book, Orbis Sensualium Pictus, or Visible World in Pictures, was published in 1658?” He looked up from his own book. “Czech educator John Amos Comenius wanted to create a book that would be accessible to children of all levels of ability. The educational theories he explored are actually still in practice in the field of early childhood education.” He turned toward her from his spot under the covers. “For example, when you have your students make a hissing sound and slither their arms when they produce the sound represented by the letter s? Comenius included an alphabet chart with various animal and human sounds representing each letter. He wanted to demonstrate that the incorporation of multiple senses could help increase learning.”
“I guess you don’t fix what isn’t broken,” Y/N mused. “300 years later, and we’re still using the same methods.”
“362, actually,” Spencer corrected.
She gave him a look. “Maybe we can save the Comenius for another time.”
“The genre of children’s literature encompasses some of the most profound and philosophical story telling of all time.” Spencer returned his attention to his reading.
“...So is that a yes?”
Spencer smiled. “I’ve got a book in mind.”
“And clues,” Y/N reminded him, snuggling down under the covers and reopening her book. “We need some fun clues, mystery reader.”
…
“Kindergarten, we have a very special mystery reader this week. Oh man, are you ready for the first clue? The mystery reader loves jell-o! Raise your little hand if you love jell-o, too. Okay, kindergarten, I see you! Lots of jell-o lovers in the house.”
…
“Okay, clue number two! Our mystery reader works as a community helper— remember we learned about all different kinds of community helpers; firefighters, nurses, police officers. But if the mystery reader could be anything, they’d want to be a cowboy! How cool is that?”
...
“Clue number three for our mystery reader!” Y/N sucked in a gasp. “You guys. The mystery reader can do magic. Oh my goodness, I am so excited for Friday,” she sing-songed. “Will they show us a trick? Hmmm, I don’t know. Maybe if you ask nicely.”
…
“Okay, my friends, the last clue. The mystery reader loves reading. They read every day, and they’ve been reading since 1983! Yes, that was a very long time ago.”
⧭⧭⧭
“Okay, any last guesses about who our mystery reader might be?” Y/N questioned.
“I think it’s your dad,” a little voice called out.
Spencer made a choking noise from where he sat, slightly off camera. Y/N laughed. “The mystery reader is decidedly not my dad, Keyshon. Remember I showed you guys the picture of him— my dad’s a farmer, so he’s kind of already a cowboy.” She clapped her hands together. “Okay, without further ado, drumroll please... Our mystery reader is…” Y/N pushed her desk chair out of frame to allow Spencer to roll in, holding her hands out. “Spencer!”
He gave a little wave, smoothing his hair, suddenly painfully self-aware and nervous about the opinions of two dozen six-year-olds. “Hi guys.”
“You’re the boy on Ms. Y/L/N’s phone.”
“Your hair is so fluffy!”
“Do you have a cowboy hat?”
“I like your sweater.”
“Can you really do magic?”
“What’s your favorite jell-o?”
“Whoa, okay, let’s remember our mute button,” Y/N, holding up her index card. “I promise you’ll get to ask Spencer all your questions after he reads the story.”
Spencer smiled at the excited faces beaming through the screen. “Yes, I’m on Ms. Y/L/N’s phone; I don’t own a cowboy hat, yet; yes, I really can do magic; and the red jell-o is my favorite.”
Y/N watched with interest as Spencer pulled out his book. He’d been secretive about his choice, so she was as curious as her students.
“This is one of my favorite stories. It’s written by Munro Leaf, and illustrated by Robert Lawson. It’s The Story of Ferdinand.” Spencer held the cover up to the camera. “Ferdinand is the bull here on the cover. This story was written in 1935, which was a long time ago! Okay are you ready?” Spencer looked out on a sea of thumbs up, turning the page to the beginning of the story. “Once upon a time in Spain, there was a bull, and his name was Ferdinand.”
Y/N smiled as she listened to Spencer read each page, recounting the story of the peaceful bull. He was an excellent storyteller, changing the inflection and expression of his voice to match each sentence. He held each page up for just the right amount of time, panning it so her students could see each detail of the black and white pictures. He added his own wonderings and exclamations here and there, and her students were decidedly enthralled. Her heart ached at how comfortable he was, how natural this was for him. She rested her chin in her hand, trying to keep her mind in the present— ignoring the persistent little mental image of Spencer as a dad.
“So they had to take Ferdinand home. And for all I know, he is sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly. He is very happy… And that’s The Story of Ferdinand.” Spencer closed the book with a soft smile. “I love this story. Ferdinand is a very special bull. What do you think makes him so special?”
“Ferdinand didn’t fight,” a little voice piped up.
“Yes!” Spencer agreed. “He practiced pacifism in the face of the persistent, ingrained militarism of his country’s culture.”
Y/N placed a hand on Spencer’s knee and gave a quick squeeze. “Right, Ferdinand chose not to fight, even though everybody else he knew wanted to.” Y/N winked at him before turning back to the screen full of kids. “All his friends thought he was kind of weird, but he just really wanted to hang out in the shade and smell the flowers, huh? Sounds pretty good to me.”
“He wasn’t bothered that the other bulls thought he was strange for wanting to be peaceful,” Spencer added. “Sometimes being different can be a good thing. The Story of Ferdinand reminds me that it’s okay to be yourself, even if other people think you’re weird.” His eyes met Y/N’s. “Because there will always be people who love and appreciate you for who you are.”
#spencer reid#spencer reid x reader#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid x you#criminal minds fanfiction#criminal minds imagine#spencer reid fanfiction#criminals minds self insert#dr spencer reid#professor spencer reid#spencer reid fanfic#criminal minds#homoose writes
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Oh wow! I feel like I now know Neji so much better, thank you so much for answering! The differences between him and sasuke are much clearer now as I used to think they were indeed very similar. Seriously thank you for answering! Would you like to talk about Sasuke’s characterization? I know he’s another complex character that many people struggle with. This topic is so interesting!
(Ahh, I'm so happy you found it interesting!! I really enjoyed writing it! Sasuke's characterisation is always difficult but I will try my best to list some of the things I always keep in mind when writing him:)
Sasuke's Characterisation:
1. Trauma - It is a sad reality there is almost no part of Sasuke's character that isn't at least somewhat influenced by or driven by trauma. His life has been so hard and has left him with many scars. Sasuke suffers from awful nightmares, has defence mechanisms on top of defence mechanisms, trust issues, difficulties accepting love, a low view of his self worth as a person... And that's just the start of it. Canon can sometimes gloss over it, but I think it's very key to Sasuke's characterisation to remember how broken he is. Even being in Konoha puts Sasuke on edge after everything that the village has done to him. That's why frequent trips out of the village are pretty key to maintaining Sasuke's fragile mental health in my opinion. He needs to get away.
2. Sex vs Love - Sasuke actually has no trouble accepting sexual advances, especially compared to similarly traumatised characters like Kakashi or Gaara. I don't think Sasuke ended his missing nin era as a virgin, personally. But love? He can't handle that at all, and sex fuelled by love falls into the love category. Sasuke doesn't want to leave himself vulnerable to being hurt, it's instinctive after how many times he's been hurt before, so allowing himself to love someone or be loved by someone is a mountainous hurdle for him. If he's alone, he can protect himself. If he relies on others, he open to being hurt at all times. It's something he gets better at, but it never truly goes away. Sex that doesn't mean anything, doesn't leave him open to getting hurt so he's down for using it to blow off some steam.
3. Perfectionist and control freak tendencies - Sasuke is a perfectionist in everything he does. He keeps meticulous training regimes of course, but he also keeps a meticulous shopping list. If someone else buys him his weekly food shopping, he'll double check they got the right things and didn't forget anything (right in front of them lol, some people find it a little insulting.) Sasuke has always had elements of this in his personality, but I think mundane chores were the only things he felt he could control in his life, so he controlled them as much as he could, something he never grew out of. Sasuke is also a very clean and tidy person who likes his space to be perfectly ordered.
4. Touch starved but resistant - Sasuke is touch starved and love starved to the highest degree, perhaps beaten only by Kakashi, but he is resistant to solving those problems. It's why, whenever his guard is down (sick, injured, sleepy etc.) he will always automatically reach towards comfort. He needs it. He thrives under it. But his defences get in the way if they aren't already lowered. Sick!Sasuke does many things normal!Sasuke would be ashamed and embarrassed about.
5. Determination - Sasuke is determined to do things. When he starts something, he commits to it. It's one of the most interesting but often overlooked parts of his characterisation, outside of his commitment to training. Yes, he is determined to train. But when his therapist recommends keeping a garden? That garden will be the healthiest and neatest garden in Konoha if he has any say over it. I imagine that Sasuke vs Ikea furniture would be as entertaining as any part of the chunin exams. Between the perfectionist tendencies and the determination... It would be fun to watch.
6. Protective/possessive behaviours - Let's say someone managed to break down all or most of Sasuke's defence mechanisms... someone like Naruto or a possible partner. Sasuke would die for them without question. He finds it so hard to love, but when he does, he loves completely and in an all-consuming way. He defends that person to the end, and like hell is he letting anyone take them away from him. Even just pulling a prank on his partner would put you on his permanent shit list.
Quick side note to do with the last point, it has been explored by some people on the internet before, but I really like the idea of the sharigan impacting more than just physical health. I think that Uchiha love more deeply, more obsessively than your average person because of the way the sharigan affects their brain. When they attach to a person, truly attach to them, they will never let go, there is nothing they wouldn't do to try and protect that person. Sasuke is the epitome of this. He would do anything to protect a beloved partner. Anything. And if he fails, he would join them in death. There is no life without the person Sasuke attaches to.
I think Sasuke is an 'all or nothing' kind of person in more ways than one.
(Hope that made sense! x)
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ANGER & THE OTHER HOMUNCULI IN BROTHERHOOD.
NOTE: This post is only my thoughts on what Anger’s relationships with her siblings in her Brotherhood verse are like. It does not apply to any of my current interactions with other sin blogs(but can if muns want it to), and more than anything else I believe should serve as a potential jumping-off point for discussion when I interact with new sin blogs. I will also not be including Father in this list, because he is a beast and fucking complicated all on his own and kinda deserves to have a separate post. He may or may not get one in the future, I haven’t decided yet.
If I do not currently interact with a blog for one of the sins and Anger is asked about them, she will default to the information listed here.
DO NOT REBLOG THIS POST.
The first thing to be noted is that in my blog’s canon, Anger was a bit of a mistake. I will probably make a post on that and the whole Pendleton situation in the future(and will elaborate if asked in DMs) but for now, we continue.
Something important to note is that one of my headcanons regarding Anger and the other homunculi in her Brotherhood verse is that she was kinda passed around them like a hot potato. This is somewhat because Father likely wanted to figure out where Anger would be most useful but also because I honestly don’t think most of the sins wanted to play babysitter for long.
Anger was very stubborn and childish and asked lots of questions. Not to mention her childlike nature plus the fact that she’s Anger the Irritable means that she was rather prone to destructive tantrums and fighting. Thankfully she has somewhat mellowed out since then but when I say Anger was prone to fighting I mean fighting. Over the smallest, silliest thing she would be ready to throw hands if it made her mad enough.
For these reasons I can see her pressing some buttons that would best be left alone. And, eventually, it led to her being sent to 'find Greed', but it was honestly only for Father to get a break from her and her antics. Plus, maybe she would grow the fuck up on the way and become useful in some capacity.
Pride.
Anger looked up to Pride quite a bit in her early life. Of course, Pride has a pretty low tolerance for nonsense, so with Anger’s fondness of pranks and simply being a little bastard of a child in general, it’s easy to see how she could get on his bad side rather easily.
Make no mistake, parts of it she earned. Several times she’s tried to fight Pride and in every instance, she’s had her ass handed to her in, at most, five minutes. Safe to say, Anger eventually began to dislike the eldest sibling.
Lust.
Lust was Anger’s only sister, so Anger felt an obligation to try and be close with her. Not that it was difficult for Anger to try. It just wasn’t quite reciprocated in the way Anger wanted, not that she knew. Her relationship with Lust was positive, in Anger’s eyes despite being very surface-level.
Greed.
Anger, in her early days, hardly knew about Greed other than that he was one of her older siblings, and his presence was severely lacking compared to the others. Over the few months that she was below Central, Anger learned a few things about her missing sibling.
He’d been missing for many years.
This disappearing act was not a good thing.
And several of her siblings did not appreciate this little stunt from Greed, to say the least.
But if/when Anger gets to meet Greed, they’d probably get along great. They’re both chaotic bastards after all, and probably share about two brain cells when they’re together.
One is logic, the other is pure chaotic energy and you can seldom tell who has which. But usually, they’ve split the chaos one in half and logic is tossed away somewhere and forgotten about for a while. Anger is certainly the baby of the homunculi and one that is not completely rotten so I can see Greed liking her and her antics and being the big sibling Anger always wanted the other homunculi to be.
Envy.
Envy was honestly one of Anger’s favourite siblings, once upon a time. Before she was sent out to ‘find Greed’, I can see Anger and Envy being the chaotic duo under Central. Anger was always willing to do some outlandish shit to get positive attention and approval from them, but she would always draw the line at hurting someone. It was pranking galore with these two, and I believe that Envy might have at one point been sad to see Anger go.
Sloth & Gluttony.
There’s not much to say when it comes to Sloth and Gluttony, so they’re in the same category to save space. When it came to both of them, Anger was nice whenever she would interact with them. I can see her and Gluttony getting along well(though, it’s mostly because sometimes Anger would share her food with him). On the rare occasion that Sloth would be in father’s little man-cave(where Anger mainly resided), sometimes he would let her curl up against him and take a nap, or sit on his shoulder(which made her one very happy child).
Wrath.
Anger and Wrath’s relationship was likely a bit...strange in comparison to Anger and the other homunculi. Technically, they’re very similar, which can’t be helped; but at the same time, they’re somewhat different.
While Wrath is an adult and the leader of an entire ass country, Anger is a child and thus usually would worry about things that a child would, which pale in comparison to the duties that Bradley has as Fuhrer of Amestris. While Wrath doesn’t often display his sin and can keep it restrained(i.e, during Maes’ funeral when Elicia was crying), Anger will display hers on a whim, easily becoming irate when slighted by someone else.
Their similarities begin, however, in the fact that when they are serious and want to harm, they will. Of course, they’re also both human-based and are technically made from the same sin. Anger is simply a lesser form of Wrath. They’re two sides of a scale if you will. On the other hand, they can also both be compassionate and sympathize with humans.
With all this in mind, I think that Anger and Wrath’s relationship was...kinda neutral. Wrath, being around humans quite a lot more than the other homunculi, was probably the only one who understood Anger’s tendency to act more like a human than a homunculus, and because of this, Anger liked spending time around Wrath.
#who witnesses the truth.{ooc.}#counting all my sins.{canon v.}#cheek to cheek in hell with a dead girl walking.{headcanons.}#long post#fma spoilers#//IT IS FINALLY DONE#//This took a week but it's HERE#//....and now I go make food and hide from tumblr bc Anxiety lmao
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Please do go off about why you chose certain chapter titles
I wanna know it all 👀
Well. I mean. *cracks knuckles* If you insist....
(putting in a read more tho cause I just break down every chapter title so it gets lengthy)
Some of them are kinda obvious and simple. Like “The Meeting” details Felix and Benji’s first meeting. Duh.
“‘Someone Like You’” is named after a quote in the chapter HOWEVER it IS a quote that comes back once Felix learns about consuming and what Mrs. Marotta truly meant when she said it.
I think “Lion’s Den” was my first ‘clever’ chapter title. There’s not really anything deeper to it than being a reference to the fact that Benji innocently walks into a house filled with preds (the majority of which have consumed fatally)
“The Truth” is simply named for the fact that it’s the chapter where Felix learns the truth about preds and consuming. However, it’s somewhat unintentional (maybe I did it subconsciously), but I think most chapters that start with ‘the’ in the title, are sort of markers for important milestones in the story/character arcs. So, for instance, so far the Big Things to happen have truly been their meeting and learning the truth
“Trust” is also pretty straightforward but I do think it’s the beginning of a sort of reoccurring theme in the story. I also just find the concept of trust fascinating, especially when it’s given to people who naturally don’t seem to deserve it (like Felix)
And then there’s “Crush”!! This chapter was definitely named after the fact that it’s about Camille’s crush on Felix. HOWEVER I liked the sound of it because it was a sort of dark foreshadowing for how their relationship would evolve as time went on.
Was the chapter “Changes” inspired a little bit by the David Bowie song? Maybe so. Do I hear it play in my head every time I read the chapter title? Who is to say? (Same kind of goes for “‘Someone Like You’” where that Adele song plays)
Mmm and “Instinct” was of course named after the fact that this is when Felix’s pred instincts really kick into overdrive and start pushing him down the road to becoming Lux. I know it’s another simple title but I like to think it mirrors “Trust” in a way. Not only are they single word titles, but they’re both reoccurring themes in the story. They’re also both sort of the defining factor in Felix and Benji’s relationship. Does Benji have enough trust in Felix that he’s safe? Are Felix’s instincts powerful enough to jeopardize that safety? Only time will tell...
Okay now listen. Imma be honest. The line, “For Benji,” was NOT originally in this chapter. I was trying to come up with a title and I was like “doesn’t Felix think that to himself at some point?” Turns out ahh nope he didn’t. But no worries. I can do what I want. I simply slipped it in there and now it’s the chapter title. I really only wanted this title For The Drama.
Oof the title for “A Single Condition” was a little difficult to come up with. It’s just that SO MUCH happens in this chapter. It’s the longest chapter in the story so far.* But ultimately the line about Prey Man having a single condition really stood out to me as it’s basically the driving force for the next few chapters so that’s how I got that chapter title. (*Now when I say it’s the longest in the story, I mean it’s the longest POSTED chapter. There’s been more than one chapter I’ve had to split into two when posting cause they’re just too damn long.)
Now “The Scorpion” is one I’m super proud of. I uh dunno how many people got the reference but it’s to the Fable called “The Scorpion and the Frog” where a scorpion asks for a ride across the river on the back of the frog. The frog refuses at first, saying the scorpion will surely sting and kill him while he swims. The scorpion reassures the frog, saying that if he dies, the scorpion will also die by drowning as he cannot swim. The frog agrees to help.... and the scorpion stings him. As they both die, the frog asks why the scorpion did it, and the scorpion responds that it’s simply in his nature. The Scorpion, in this case, is Felix who betrays Benji simply by giving in to his nature. (Note that I don’t really agree with the message behind the fable, but ya know... The Symbolism.)
And then obviously “The Frog” is a reference to Benji who also makes the mistake of trusting his natural enemy and paying for it dearly. (Fun fact but these two chapters where originally one that I split into two to keep the lengths reasonable. And BOY WAS IT A GOOD DECISION. That one week between releases where everyone was LOSING it because they didn’t know whether Felix would let Benji out or not.... was a Good Week)
I think “A New Perspective” was a pretty straightforward title decision. As low key as the chapter itself. I do find it interesting tho that both chapters that start with “A” in the title have to do with Benji getting his world rocked upon learning how other prey view preds
YASSS and then there’s “Lux.” I like this chapter title purely because I don’t think people realized the significance of it when I first posted it. Like it really was like “oh Felix has a cute nickname. That’s fun!” And then several chapters later it’s just “oh okay so Lux really is this whole different side to him huh?” Like this chapter is the absolute true beginning to Lux. Love it.
And for “Lilian” this was a chapter title meant to mirror the previous one. They’re the only two chapters named after a character, they’re back to back, and they both start with an L (although that wasn’t intentional, it just sorta happened lol). This chapter was also originally combined into one chapter with the previous chapter, but again, I broke them up to save on length.
“The Alliance” was simply named for the Pred-Prey Alliance in the chapter, also the driving force for the main conflict (but also note that it’s another chapter title that starts with “the”)
AND THEN we have “The Facility,” the title for which is meant to mirror the one before it because... this is it. These are the two chapters that cement Camille and Felix going down completely opposite paths with Benji stuck right in the middle.
“Homecoming” I think is... a kind uncreative title. But truly not much happens in the chapter itself except that.... Benji comes home
Now for “A Place to Belong” (note how this is the other chapter title that begins with “A”), I think simply titling it “Epomis” was a huge temptation. It’s The Big Reveal and it would sort of mirror the title for chapter 17 “The Facility.” HOWEVER. I thought naming it that would be too much of a spoiler. Especially if a new reader happened to be skimming through the list of chapters. It would give away the significance too soon. And I hate giving spoilers away more than I liked the drama of the title, so I went with “A Place to Belong” instead.
Okay and I’m very much proud of “Golden Boy” because it’s such a small line in the chapter, and the title itself is vague enough that no one would question it until they had more context. And then you get the context and you REALIZE how significant The Golden Boy really is. (Also maybe a little bit cause Lux’s name means “light” and I just like the image of golden light)
“Busy Work” was another one of those uninspired titles for another one or those lowkey Benji chapters. Hmm maybe they should get a category of their own since they keep happening. Anydays. The title mayyy have also been a small reference to the Avatar episode “Bitter Work” in which Toph first (attempts) to teach Aang to earthbend. (Because that show is my favorite ever and I think it inspires my writing a lot in general.)
“The Mission” title is also quite obvious but notice how it’s another “The” title! This is the chapter that marks the beginning of Benji’s path back to Felix/Lux. I’d say that’s pretty important.
Mmmm I love the title for “‘To Live and Give.’” When I first wrote that line a few chapters earlier I was evil smiling to myself about how I was planning to bring it back with a MUCH darker twist. I love it.
“‘All Mouths That Surround You’” aka one of my fave chapters. The perfect intro for the new Lux. This is a reference, of course, to the alt-J song “Every Other Freckle,” which I’ve associated with Lux from the beginning. Now. I realize that some (most) lyric sites list that line as “all baths that surround you.” I think out of context, that line sounds strange, but there IS another line that’s clearly “all showers that shower you” so I guess that would make more sense to include baths as well. But is that as sexy as “mouths”? Absolutely not. So we improvise, overcome, adapt. Moving right along.
“The Reunion,” which I sorta mentioned earlier, is meant to mirror the very first chapter, “The Meeting” and I think that’s beautiful. Like I’m all about taking everything that seemed happy and innocent in the beginning of this story and twisting it so it matches the darker tone of the rest.
“Table Talks” is a little bit of a meh title to me but I do find it entertaining that I think table talks are usually.... not as angsty and full of conflict as Benji and Lux’s is.
“Kleptoparasite” is, as mentioned earlier, a reference to Lux stealing Cecil’s prey. It’s the ~scientific~ term for an animal that acquires its prey by stealing it from other predators. I mostly chose it because I wanted something more clever than “Stolen Prey” (and also I like incorporating Real Life stuff into the story. Like how Epomis is a beetle whose larvae practice predator/prey role-reversal in nature).
And finally there’s “Crumple” which is a callback all the way to chapter 6 “Crush.” This time Camille really IS a crumpled mess. The chapter really hits home with how her and Lux’s relationship has changed over the years. And, of course, it’s just me again doing the classic twist of making things in the early years darker to fit the later years.
Okay! That’s everything up to date so far! I hope this is what you meant when you wanted to “know all” 😂
#anon I’m so fucking sorry if this is Too Much Information#you gave me the opportunity to go off and I SEIZED IT#asks#heart pangs
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Beginning of the central plot for the next part of OpB. Almost finished with everything as whole, just feel bad that it’s been a few months, so here’s this if you want it.
Joya was a proud, but small nation that Haven had only heard of in passing and Locke knew very little about. But, same as all nations, its port cities seemed to be the same as else where. Docks and shops and people milling about. It was easy to sneak into the country without going through any proper channel when it was exiting off a known boat with steady and shady connections.
Jed was silent for once, completely, even as they were still somewhat out from the shore. Just the lights of his home country, something he’d never thought he’d glimpse again, was enough for him to bow his head in silence.
The others left him alone to his thoughts.
There was no ploy or pretending as they left the boat. Carrying of crates or anything like that. Just one of the guys Haven knew calling out to her, remarking that they had three days; the evening of that last day, he was pulling out of Joya and they could either find themselves there or left behind.
“We should give him a few minutes,” Locke muttered to the women as, once they were on the docks, Jed stumbled off in a bit of a daze while the three of them hung back. “And figure out where we’re headed first.”
“Three days?” Shae snorted, glancing over at Locke. “We won’t have enough time to go both places.”
“We’ll split up then,” Haven suggested. “Two people go one way, two go the other. We meet up back here. I’ll go with Jed, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Shae retorted as the blonde only ignored her.
“And you and Shae,” she went on, “go get that woman or whatever, Locke.”
“Will you actually get back here in time?” he questioned. “And not get yourself into any trouble? This is a tight timeline. Splitting up makes it even more-”
“I actually probably feel better about not showing up at her house with four people,” Shae offered with a bit of a shrug. “And it shouldn’t take me long to just….ask. That’s all I gotta do. You know? Ask a question. Just ask. And then-”
“Jed and I’ll probably have more fun than you guys anywyas,” Haven remarked over the other woman.
“Yeah,” Locke retorted with a frown. “Taking an emotionally shattered man to his deceased father’s home sounds like a walk in the park.”
She stopped short suddenly, Haven did, causing someone walking behind them to nearly bump into her. As that person grumbled at the woman though, she only frowned ahead at Locke and Shae.
“Wait, I wanna switch,” she insisted then. “Locke. You go do that.”
“Nope?”
“What?”
“No.”
“Locke-”
“You wanted to bring him, Haven. And you kept insisting that he’s your friend, so-”
“Shae’s my friend too,” the blonde insisted. But when she tried to toss her arm around the other woman’s shoulders, she was only shoved off. “Shae-”
“Yeah, no,” Shae retorted simply.
“Then...Locke come with me and Jed! Don’t be a creeper, crashing Shae’s reunion with her girlfriend.”
“Haven,” the man finally sighed, exasperated some. “You knew that he was going there for that reason. Why are you acting like this about it now?”
“Because I didn’t think of it the way that you said.” And she hadn’t. At all. Jed, up to this point, had mostly been someone she spwed her views onto. The idea of him potentially requiring her comfort was terrifying and she knew with certainty would only result in her screwing it up. “So really, it’s your fault and you should have to go with him.”
“Just think about whatever you were thinking about before I put the thoughts into yoru head.”
“I can’t! I wasn’t thinking anything then!”
The man nodded down at her. “I believe that.”
“You’re better at this shit than me, Locke,” she insisted then, trying her best to sound pathetic. On Haven, it just felt flat and empty. “You go with him, okay? And me and Shae-”
“No.” The other woman couldn’t give Haven a chance to sway her boyfriend. She’d see the two of them interact enough the past few months to know that, soon enough, the convincing would be complete. “You can’t switch.”
“Why not?” Haven frowned at the other woman then and they’d all stopped walking, at the end of a street corner, standing around staring at one another. “You think that I can’t help you with this one? I conned Locke’s ass into getting back with me whenever I wanted.”
“I happened to be in between people every single time you- Shut up, Haven,” he complained some with a frown while Haven only shrugged some at the other woman.
“If you want help in this,” the blonde kept up, “then you should pick me to go with you.”
Shae rolled her eyes before looking off, back out at the water. To Haven she remarked simply, “Hard pass.”
“Sorry, Have,” Locke snickered as his girlfriend glared up at him. “Looks like you and your best friend are gonna go have some heartfelt moments together. A new type of adventure for you, yeah?”
They couldn’t take much longer out of their already short schedule for arguing the inevitable. Jed returned to them eventually, a bit misty eyed, but alright otherwise, and they all had one last meal together before splitting up. Shae and Locke would be taking a train one way while Haven and Jed merely had a day or so’s walk.
“Don’t get into too much trouble, okay?” Locke insisted to Haven as he hugged her goodbye. The woman was stiff in his grasp, angry over him not allowing her off easy for once, but that was fine for the man. Rigid described Haven in a lot of ways, honestly. “I know new places make it difficult for you to control yourself.”
“Number one,” Haven carped, “I’m always in control. Always.” As he released her, she only took a step closer, whispering the next part only to the man, “Number two, I’m going with someone to his dead father’s abandoned place. For your benefit. So shut the fuck up, Locke. Idiot.”
He smiled though, reaching out to pat the woman on the top of her head, replying simply, “I love you too, Haven.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Come on.” Shae glared over at the two of them. “Locke. We have to go.”
“Safe travels to the two of you as well,” Jed was sure to bid the both of them farewell. “I hope to see you in better spirits when we meet again, Shae.”
No matter how things went, somehow the woman doubted that.
Locke kissed Haven before tapping her on the head and following after the departing Shae. The train was boarding and they were gone, just like that, and Haven didn’t wait to see it leave the station. Rather, she snorted a bit, at nothing really, before turning on her heel to start on her own journey.
“There should be a lot tension on our side of things, I imagine,” Jed offered Haven once they were back on the road. “Don’t you as well? Haven?”
The woman was actually in the process of glancing over a map with a confused stare. Locke had given it to her after purchasing their train tickets and even ran a finger over a certain path. She’d been more concerned with being cold towards the man then, to commit it to memory, and now she wasn’t sure of where they were headed. The blonde could be, at times, a bit directionally impaired.
When he noted her distraction, Jed merely reached over to lay a hand on her shoulder. After garnering the woman’s gaze, he said simply, “I’ll get us there. I’ve been to this port many times in my youth. It is not a far distance.”
It was hard for her to disagree as, no matter how far she’d been in Fiore, she too seemed to always know her way back to Magnolia and its surrounding areas.
She imagined Locke’s trip with Shae to be a lot quieter than her own and almost envied it. Almost. She knew, deep down, that she was not the person to be helping Shae through whatever relationship woes she was going through. Of course she knew. But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t rather be there, either sulking about being reprimanded by Locke for an inappropriate tone or question or smoldering over something the other woman had retorted. Now she was left to make the inappropriate remarks alone and, hopefully, police herself on the issue.
Being sympathetic had never been one of her strong suits. Empathetic either.
So she tried to keep the conversations steered towards other things. Jed was an easy person to have a conversation with, Haven had always found, and he seemed rather amused with her shortcomings rather than off put by them.
“You know,” he’d told her once, back at base, when they were doing rounds and she just got finished drifting from telling him about a job she took once and into how incompetent both Ravan and Locke were on it, “you’re very vivacious. In a certain kind of way.”
“Oh yeah?” And she was guarded, that evening, on edge of not only patrol, but also riding down a high from absolutely berating Locke and Ravan, fictionally, in her mind. “What’s that mean, anyways?”
“Vivacious?” The man shook his head. “Like...effervescence.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel stupid-”
“It means that you’re excitable. Enthusiastic.” He laughed at her souring expression. “It’s a good thing. Usually. But I think that your motivations and goals sometimes...make it rub people the wrong way. It can be off-putting. But I like it. You remind me of people I knew, when I was your age. Lively. Excited about what was to come.”
Haven found that she liked him for the opposite reason. She typically found herself drawn to people who were either as vicious as herself or were starch against it, who she would then butt heads with. Most everyone in her life seemed to fit in those categories, some even sliding between them, but Jed reminded her of something from her past as well.
His meekness and content being felt a lot like her sister, who was always the first to listen to Haven’s fantastical tales and, these days at least, seemed pleased to hear most of them. Jed’s aura felt equal to Marin’s, in a low-key way, and she took comfort in him hanging around.
Being her friend.
Haven didn’t have a lot of those. Most people she’d formed some semblance of one with were merely there for usage, on her part or theirs. Jed might’ve been the only person she had at the moment, outside of Xay, who enjoyed her presence.
So he listened, talking idly with her as they hiked together, taking rests for the man in spots, conversation mainly centered on the woman. As was the standard. She spoke some on former jobs and Jed laughed in places, shook his head in concern in others, but was overall impressed with most things she had to say. Having grown up literally in the bar most of the time, she’d long learned the art of a tall tale and, there with a rapt audience, she gave way to her most braggadocios, slanted and one-sided versions of events she could muster.
For someone who hadn’t grown up around mages much, Jed found them to be more like comic adventures he’d spent his childhood reading, only drawn out and less plot thoughtful, in the way life truly was, rather than concise and consistent. Haven had a knack for losing interest, in the middle fo tales, when it got too difficult to spin it in her favor, and they would just be transported, it felt like, straight to the next battle scene where she could shove her prowess off on someone who knew nothing of such feats.
Everyone in her life was a caricature of their actual selves, as it related to Haven, and it all felt so magical and distant, even from her own perspective. Maybe that was why, after being exposed to this for a number of weeks, that Jed felt so bold as to ask a question, make a request almost, for a story, as they took a breather on the side of a path. Haven was knocking back some water while he sat, on a stone, catching his breath some.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Haven hardly even shrugged, glancing over at the man in anticipation.
He smiled some, Jed did, in a curious way, pondering aloud almost as he asked, “Why is it that you and your father don’t get along?”
She choked a bit, on the water, even making a face at the mention of the man.
“Laxus?” She snorted. “I was just saying that he was pissy about how Ravan and I handled the job. That’s all.”
“No, I understood the story,” he assured the blonde. “I couldn’t imagine I would like it much either, if I had a child who was constantly taking such risk-”
“It’s not that.” And she snorted again, feeling weird now as she moved to take another, smoother, sip from her canteen. Taking in a breath after, she said, “He’s not...worried about me. He never was. That wasn’t the point.”
“The point?”
“Of...him. And how we are.” She frowned. “He was drunk. A lot. When I was a teen. And jealous that I was primed to be a better mage than him. Or something. I don’t know. He probably doesn’t even know. He’s a drunk asshole. I mean he was. Then. It’s different now. The drinking part. But he’s still an asshole.”
Jed was silent for a moment, making sure the woman had finished speaking before offering simply, “I’m sure he was.”
“Of course he was.”
“My father could be...pushy and distant as well. When I was growing up.” He got to his feet, pulling his pack onto his back once more. “Strangely, though, when I think back on our interactions, they don’t seem nearly as harsh as I remember feeling them in the time. I suppose our mind, our memories, paint things the second they’re absorbed. It’s why you can never take someone fully on their word, hm?”
She’d been duped. By the man. Knowingly or not, he’d walked her into the topic she was hoping to avoid.
“I’m not a liar,” Haven defended, momentarily confused by his approach, but Jed only shook his head.
“I know,” he agreed. “That is how you view your interactions with your father. It is the truth. I guess I mean to imply, how different it might be, to address them ten years from now, as I am with my own father. When I was your age, I ran off as well. With my own ideas and morals. It’s the way it has to be, for some of us. You either become your parent or you become the polar opposite. Conform or run away. Believe it or not, I did my fair share of both. Before he died.”
His voice fell off here and Haven felt something, the natural urge to not only know more, but to also just further the conversation. It was futile to fight it, as she’d known, the second she realized she was stuck in this fruitless misadventure.
So she tired to think like Locke. Instead. Because he was never nervous about speaking to others, even in such dramatic situations, and it got her out of a lot of sticky situations. Shutting up was usually best and letting Locke take over, in these parts of things, but to have to become him, almost…
“How long ago was it?” she whispered softly as they’d become to walk again, at Jed’s pace, and he smiled over at the woman when she questioned this.
“Four years,” he replied with a soft nod of his head. “I just turned thirty-one and he’d sent me a card, in the mail, that I didn’t wish to open just yet. Our last correspondence hadn’t been pleasant and I just...shoved it aside. I would deal with it later. But, a few days came to pass and I hadn’t. Then another letter came. Not from him, but from our home town, and I… Knew. Somehow, I just knew. He hadn’t been sick. I even opened the card he sent and it made no mention of feeling unwell. So how did I know then? Before I even read the words? That he had… How do you feel those sorts of things?”
Staring over at the man, Haven’s first reaction was to respond with something from her own life. Her own feelings on the matter. But she was able to bite it back, thinking to Locke instead, and finding it in herself to ask, “How did he die?”
“It’s the strangest thing.” Jed even laughed a bit. “Healthiest man you’d ever seen for his age. Dead. Just dropped, one day, in his lab. His assistant found him and it was an entire madhouse, at first, but turns out he had a heart attack. Cardiac arrest. Just like that.” And he snapped, Jed did, with a shake of his head. “Everything can change, just like that.”
Haven didn’t like this assessment of death, especially given it had never been how she’d rightly viewed it. You died in the heat of battle or as a decrepit old shell of your former self, left over after all the other battles were complete.
There was no in between.
She understood, of course, at the core of the idea, that yes, people did die of unforeseen causes. They might get sick or hit by a carriage. Maybe they drank themselves to death or even tripped and hit their head too hard. They could be murdered in the heat of a robbery or even in just a lovers quarrel gone wrong.
But those weren’t the kinds of deaths that she foresaw for herself or any of the friends she had.
You died fighting.
Always.
She’d died fighting.
The idea of not even having a chance at wading off your whatever brought about your death was somehow more terrifying than the idea itself and she pictured losing her father that way. Her parents. Just in the blink of the eye. No one to be angry at, no way to avenge them.
Everything can change.
Just like that.
“His home is a bit remote though,” Jed was going on while Haven had fallen into silence. “I had to lug all of his belongings back from the lab, to his cabin, following his death. I stayed there for two weeks following his death, not sure what I was going to do with the place, and then I left. For the coast. To clear my head. And I never rightly returned. I hope to find all of his papers still in order, but-”
“How were you taken, then?”
“Hm?”
“To Ewings? Or wherever you passed through first?”
These were the kinds of questions, Haven realized, Locke would have reprimanded her for and avoided himself. While the events of the summer just felt like a big, long job for Haven, they were attached to trauma for others and she saw it then, as Jed paused, momentarily, bringing his wrist up to his face and rubbing at it, right where his marking would have lied.
“I was one of the foolish ones, I suppose.” Sighing, he continued on, walking a bit faster now, as he thought back on the time. “Fell in love with the wrong woman. I...did something wrong, to her, and she sought revenge on me.”
“What did you do to her?” Haven whispered softly before, realizing the implication, adding, “And how did she get you sent to Bosco?”
“I cheated on her. With another woman.” Jed glanced back and down at her. “Her brother ran a ring out of Joya and into Bosco. I had no idea about this, of course, but…”
“So she fucking sold you to the wolves?”
“She was a rather...volatile woman.” He looked uneasy as he turned his gaze back onto the pathway before them. “In a good kind of way, when we were happy. But when we weren’t-”
“I’m volatile,” Haven intervened and Jed made no motion to deny this fact, merely nodded his head. Going on, the woman insisted, “But I would never do something like that. That’s evil.”
“Then you’re just volatile,” Jed offered her. “Not evil.”
“Yeah, but-”
“We don’t have much further,” he changed the subject as he glanced around what lay before them. “We won’t need to go into the actual town, but rather hit a small, hidden path right before the one that breaks off into the city. We can spend some time at the cabin, look things over, and then go into the city for a meal. What we need is either there or not. I suppose that will make things rather boring, on your end, hm? Shae and Locke have a much more interesting journey.”
“Maybe,” Haven replied softly, but she was thinking beyond the cabin now, beyond Locke’s stupid papers that she wasn’t even certain he needed nor wanted. And towards something else. “But maybe not.”
Locke would have sworn he felt it, the second a bad idea popped into his girlfriend’s mind, and he groaned, loudly, as he sat across from Shae on the long train ride they were stuck with. She hardly noted it though, continuing to glare out the window as she thought about what was awaiting them.
“Maybe,” Locke had offered more than once, “she’ll be happy to see you.”
“Maybe,” Shae agreed softly, but much like Haven, she was leaning a lot more towards the not.
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@itoshiki
hello! im submitting my sort-of-trollsona-but-not-really. I made him I guess more Alternian and he’s highly personal 2 me but that shouldn’t discourage you! I’m stuck at some parts because I just recently got back into homestuck and I’d like advice from someone who knows their stuff. IT’S SO LONG IM SO SORRY… Thank you so much if you do review it tho!
Hey no worries. Thanks for your patience!
Hell yeah hell yeah ceruleanbloods with Eye Stuff.
World: Alternia, maybe an AU? I’m unsure. But he’s Alternian.
Name: Sancti Serpus
“Sancti” comes from “Saint” and his belief that he can do no wrong, as well as how he believes that his experiments benefit troll society. “Serpus” comes from “Serpent” and his personality being sly and manipulative, could be described as a snake by others in the way he is first nice to his friends but backstabs them later, as well as his lusus being a two-headed Titanoboa (prehistoric Boa).
I understand the reasoning behind the first name! If you want something that plays a little more into the archetypal Mad Scientist “I will become a GOD AHAHAHAHA” vibe then I suggest Apoteu from the Greek apotheoun, meaning “to make a god of.” Still fits his beliefs about himself and how he benefits society…but there is such a thing a vengeful, malevolent god.
I like the serpent theme, especially given the Rod of Asclepius/Caduceus confusion, given that the former is about medicine and the latter about commerce. Plus snake oil salesman as duplicitous people claiming they have a cure when they’re really just selling you whatever they could dig up. Serpus is a little too obvious as a snake troll though, so maybe we abstract that a bit. A slightly silly one would be Davdav, since the longest-living two-headed snake is named Double Dave after its discoverer.
Apoteu Davdav. It has the opposite of a nice ring to it, but I like it because it sounds kind of mad sciencey.
Age: 7.5 Sweeps (16 Human Years)
Theme/Story: His theme is sort of Mad Scientist vibes. He dabbles in forensic pathology, chemistry (even though he often explodes things), troll biology/genes and psychology. Those are his main 5 branches because he’s not very good at math so his knowledge of physics is limited.
fugidghiuuaehiu Bad At Math Science Gang RISE UP
He was hatched and went through The Brooding Caverns. He decided to settle on a Hive in the outskirts of a city, in a suburban area with only a few highblooded neighbors. However, his lusus was very, very hard to feed for the two heads would often argue with and attack each other. His lusus would feed on anyone who visited or came too close, by asphyxiating them. It also neglected him and didn’t pay attention to him for it was too busy fighting with itself. He eventually learned to sedate his lusus through aromatherapy, with chemicals he himself created in his lab. He lives on a huge castle-like hive near a forest where he gets the material for his experiments and corpses to analyze. He has a bunch of body parts in flasks and bottles.
He is a very strange troll, but he doesn’t want to be. Due to his upbringing and his lusus eating whoever came over. He often saw culling, death and destruction near him, which caused him to have a morbid fixation on death and a desire to better troll society through science, influenced by his ancestor Discordi Discipla (he’s a WIP). However, he has fallen victim to his own mental deterioration and apathy as he spent more time around the dead (and undead). This mental deterioration was exacerbated when a presumed dead corpse came to life in his lab and attacked him, causing him blindness in his right eye. He’s somewhat afraid of being culled for his blindness, but knows that it’s not likely, due to his highblood status.
This is pretty good and comprehensive!
Due to his childhood where he didn’t have control over what his lusus did, he now wants to have control over everything in his life. This makes him a very controlling and manipulative person, bent on doing anything to get his way even if it means experimenting on his lowblooded friends. He doesn’t necessarily like hurting others and doesn’t mean to, Alternian society and his own visions of violence has just made him apathetic. This apathy as well as his low self-worth stemming from his neglect has made him have tons of unhealthy relationships, as well as has made him a perfectionist and narcissist. Despite his supposed belief that the end justifies the means and he’s going to make troll society better, he doubts himself and has an inferiority complex.
His mental deterioration has made him a very unstable troll to be around. He’s still a good troll at heart, however the odds are in disfavor due to his blood color causing him to look down on others lower on the hemospectrum and his own childhood. He does things mainly on impulse and suffers from strange hallucinations and visions of the future ever since he was blinded on his right eye. He’s learned to cope with them and they don’t necessarily harm him, but they do cause him significant distress.
He also has a lot of scars from laboratory incidents, and his neighbors hate him.
fjiodshfuo yeah if my neighbor kept making ungodly noises and murdering people with abandon I may also have a beef with them.
Review Goals: General Overview please!
Strife Specibus:
Chemicalkind. He carries around various noxious chemicals to use as he pleases, but sometimes they irritate his eyes when he uses them. He can handle it almost all of the time though. He throws them in bottles and that’s how he fights.
I know I *just* suggested this for my most recent review but bottlekind fits here too because if he runs out of chemicals he can just break a bottle off on a nearby surface and stab someone with the broken glass it’s fun it’s easy it’s free.
Fetch Modus: I kind of took the idea from a mspa fetch modus entry, since I’m bad at coming up with fetch moduses. It’s unoriginal I know, but I genuinely couldn’t think of anything.
Periodic Table Modus.
It requires Sancti to remember his elements, as he needs to remember them for when he’s working and therefore it helps him but also inconveniences him as he can forget them.
This is how it works:
When an item is captchalogued, a quick calculation is checked to see the size of that item. If it is lower than 190x190, the size of the item is totalled and placed on a slot on the fetch modus that corresponds to the periodic table number.
For example, an item that is 4 in by 2 in would total to 6, and be in the position of Carbon on the table.
Sancti would then have to open the periodic table modus, which would open as an actual metaphysical table, and retrieve the item.
It is blank, with 118 spaces.
This fetch modus is a little confusing to me as well, and your poor math challenged troll likely also finds it difficult.
…but I think I have an idea that keeps with the spirit *and* the confusion while generating some good old Modus Shenanigans. What about an ORBITAL MODUS, with items filling in in each new category as an electron shell would? All items in the outermost shell would be immediately accessible, with deeply nested items remaining inaccessible until the outer shells were emptied.
Like this. Which is perfect for your chemist troll.
Blood Color: Ceruleanblood/Cobaltblood.
Lunar Sway: Derse, because he is dissatisfied with himself.
Derse and Prospit assignations don’t necessarily have to do with how one feelings about *themselves!* Karkat is Prospit and Nepeta is Derse, which reflects the fact that Karkat has accepted the hemospectrum as the way things have to be despite the horrors it inflicts on him, while Nepeta is extremely happy to be herself, but constantly snipes Equius for kowtowing to the hemospectrum. Even Equius is a Dersite, since he doesn’t agree with the hemospectrum so much as develop a really disturbing fixation over the following and subversion of it.
Given that your troll actively uses the hemospectrum to his advantage and delights in doing so, I’d argue he’s a Prospitan!
Title: I’m unsure if I want to make them a sylph of light or a sylph of space, I’m actually not sure at all what they should be.
Between forensic pathology and genetics and chemistry and being attacked by a zombie and feeling he knows best he’s actually coming off VERY much as a Life player to me. Since you’re bouncing between two Sylph classpects I’m happy to keep that title as long as we acknowledge he’s not currently very good at it :P.
Symbol and Meaning: The symbol for purification by burning. He’s my first troll in the session I want to make. It kind of has the meaning of spiritual cleansing or purifying something that is not pure. In this case I think it relates to Sancti’s personal growth that will happen through the session, reflecting how he has to better himself through painful events.
If we go by the EZ, his sign would be Scorsci, Sign of the Fixer. Which is certainly what he sees himself as! I’ll see if I can play with the symbol you gave him and incorporate the Scorpio M into it.
Handle: gravesideAnopsia
Anopsia is a defect in the visual field or blindness, and graveside refers to how he got his blindness.
We definitely see trolls with retroactively foreshadowy trolltags, but I can’t think of a reason for him to have picked Anopsia before his blinding. What about gravesideConjunct, since he sees himself as the connective tissue between the dead and the living? Which can become retroactively ironic when his eye putrifies after it comes into contact with necrotic tissue, which is basically an extreme version of conjunctivitis.
Quirk: ~~( he types…. zzz….. taking… his time…. with words… and….types in caps when he…..wants to zzz…. ASSERT HIS POINT….)~~
Love this quirk he’s a sleeby boy.
He either keysmashes to laugh as “eoeoeoe” “sksksks” or simply laughs like “haha” or “hehe”. He also uses the following emoji :)-< and (－‸ლ)
Special Abilities: None, unless you count his visions of the future. But he wasn’t born with psychic abilities.
Idk that he even needs visions of the future tbh. Injury does not always confer abilities in troll society.
Lusus/Guardian: A 2-headed Titanoboa (think of a huuuuuge prehistoric Boa, even bigger than an Anaconda). He considers himself to have two dads as the two heads have separate brains. He calls them “my snake dads”. Him and his lusus have a better relationship now that his lusus is sedated, and he often cuddles with his lusus in between their two heads and feeds them the corpses after he’s done analyzing them. However, their relationship used to be negative and neglectful, as explained above.
Omg yes I love his dads.
Interests: Apart from the sciences listed on his theme, he also enjoys the arts and painting with blood of the corpses he studies, as well as making artistic murals outside to the annoyance of his neighbors. He likes cosmic horror books, doomsday devices and machinery, bodily modification, philosophers, and in his spare game he will play puzzle and roleplaying games (but not FLARPing, he’s bad at it). He thinks about hunting the undead sometimes, and likes horror movies, making friends regardless of their dead or alive status, scaring his neighbors, horror movies, and mindless antics.
Appearance: His hair is very straight, but it tends to get messy. Also the string on one of his horns is a string that got stuck on his horn and it’s hard to remove now.
usghiuserg good. I’m gonna see what I can do to his sprite to convey the “straight but messy” vibe more.
Personality:
He’s VERY creative, more than analytical, which is an oddity for a scientist, others may think of him as a “creative genius” but he rejects the title of being a mad scientist. He wants to be positively known. He also always tries to finish things and has a general curious personality. He’s always seeking knowledge, and often tires himself out from working too much on his experiments, which causes him to enter a cycle of all nighters vs heavy sleeping. He’s a very heavy sleeper, often taking naps throughout the day. He procrastinates on mundane tasks that don’t relate to his interests or experiments. However, he drinks a lot of caffeinated beverages when he needs to work in order to keep himself awake essentially starting an all nighter cycle.
Depending on the circumstances, he can be very friendly and charming, or quite the opposite. It all depends. He likes to crack morbid jokes that make nobody laugh, and is quite disorganized as well as silly. He cares for his moirail (wip) and matesprit (wip) the most, and even though he sometimes snaps at them, he never wants to lose them.
Land: Land of Dreams and Angels, but depending on the classpect you assign him I will change it.
*Hopes and Dreams plays in the background*
What if he’s Land of Regrowth and Thaw, with the grass being fed by the remains of former consorts and the rest slowly unfreezing from ice as his journey continues? Works with his work with dead bodies and also gives us the vegetation associated with Life.
I also have his introduction written out but idk if I should include it. Here it is:
Your name is SANCTI SERPUS and you’d rather be sleeping, or dead.
You love everything relating to THE SCIENCES, but you are not very good at MATH, or keeping organized. However, you are still considered a “CREATIVE GENIUS”. You love anything that STIMULATES YOUR GRUBBY BRAIN - such as PSYCHOLOGY, FORENSICS and TROLL BIOLOGY. You do many EXPERIMENTS, most of which involve using troll parts in jars, to create true ABOMINATIONS; and one which sadly took your right eye’s vision and has had you in fear of being CULLED. However, you reject the idea of being a “MAD SCIENTIST”.
In a weird fashion, you also highly enjoy THE ARTS, and paint the walls of your GINORMOUS HIVE and other places with objectively “pretty good” PICTURES made from the BLOOD of the corpses you work with, to the annoyance of your neighbors. You also have a slight interest in BODILY MODIFICATION, in an effort to withdraw attention from your accident, as well as an interest in COSMIC HORROR BOOKS, as any good scientist should have. Another interest of yours is VIDEO GAMES, especially ROLE PLAYING and PUZZLE games, and when you’re not working, you spend your time playing them. You’ve even attempted to CODE your own game, and FAILED. However, you are not a very good FLARPER.
Despite this, all your work leaves you tired, which means you are a HEAVY SLEEPER and tend to procrastinate even the most MUNDANE TASKS that are not related to your interests. On the days that you are energized from drinking CAFFEINATED BEVERAGES, you like to go outside at night and collect all sorts of RANDOM KNICK-KNACKS, which may include CORPSES and FOSSILS to analyze. This has attracted the attention of your neighbors and BEST FRIENDS, who call you an UNHINGED TOTAL MANIAC. You don’t understand why, until you take off your lab coat to reveal an alarming amount of new scars from LABORATORY INCIDENTS. You really are kind of an ODDBALL.
This is such a frickin MOOD. Let’s go to the redesign, though I don’t have much!
Horns - you said he got string tangled in his horns but those horns are shaped in a way that makes it pretty easy to untangle stuff! I gave him horns that are Klein-bottle inspired, though it’s obviously impossible for horns to actually grow into a Klein bottle shape. Now THAT’S a mess I wouldn’t wanna tangle with!
Hair - I absolutely ripped a fan-troll template to shreds and put it back together again for this hair, but I think this conveys “basically straight but mussed up” with a little more shape than the original.
Face - I adjusted the proportions and replaced the eyebrows with just the piercings because it was looking a little busy.
Shirt - Again it looked a little busy with the jacket with symbols on both flaps and the pendant in the middle, so I gave him a mad scientist jacket edited from John’s.
Symbol - I tried to find a happy medium between the radial symmetry of the original symbol and the Scorsci M with the arrows.
That’s pretty much it! Hope this helped!
-TR
#ceruleanblood#cobaltblood#submission#itoshiki#review#tr review#sancti#serpus#sancti serpus#apoteu#davdav#apoteu davdav#redesign
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what its like to pretend.
wc: 2719
focus: leonnaux altoix
a/n: caught a writing bug. first installment of probably a three-part series, but i have other stuff i wanna work on before i continue this! thanks ebonguard for sprinting with me and encouraging my Mess lol
and i swam in the wakes of imposters
just to feel what it’s like to pretend;
[ PDF MIRROR ]
One of the greatest skills that Leonnaux possessed was the ability to blend in, despite his burning desire to stand out. It hadn’t been easy to forge these skills, and the early days were rife with trial and error while his makeup work steadily improved, while he picked up little tricks to alter his figure or the way he carried himself—gait being one of the most difficult things to consciously alter. These days, he felt as comfortable in the skin of someone else as he did in his own.
The best way to test his disguises, he’d found was of course in the midst of other people—parties, nights out on the city streets. While he always asked for at least passing approval of his disguise ideas from Edda—“I’m asking you if you think this is convincing, not if you think it’s attractive,” he would occasionally remind her for his zanier ideas—the only way to really tell was among strangers (or better yet those he knew before, but he honestly would feel bad for deceiving his friends in such a way).
If no one was suspicious, it would get added to his repertoire—filed away for future use.
Tonight he’d chosen a dive bar in one of Ul’dah’s seedier areas: far away from the sort of establishment he would usually frequent, but the food was good, at least. Never tried a drink before, didn’t want to risk it at the time just in case drinking made it harder to maintain a façade. He had used this establishment to test disguises before and the bartender remained unconvinced of his authenticity for the entire night. That had been over a year ago, though, and he liked to think that he had improved substantially since then.
As Leonnaux made his way inside, he found the bar was just as smoke-choked as he remembered it. The lanterns on each of the tables were forced to cut their way through a thick curtain of smoke to illuminate the space. Leonnaux wrinkled his nose at the smell, his hands buried in his pockets, a wry smile pulling at the corners of his lips. The establishment was very nearly filled to capacity, with a number of patrons drinking their sorrows at the bar or engaged in a merry night of banter at one of the tables.
One or two parties were even engaged in some heated card games on the balcony above, but he wasn’t in the mood for cards tonight—he was in the mood to get even.
The disguise of the night was on the subtler side of things; unlike his adventure in Ishgard during the Fury’s Moon, he tried to keep his appearance fairly close to his actual appearance. It was often the subtle changes that were the easiest to pull off, even if they went against his usual philosophy of every impression you make on a stranger should be wrong.
In Ishgard, that philosophy meant making drastic changes in both appearance and manner. Tonight, however, the policy was applied more loosely. He didn’t change the color of his hair, or even the length tonight—though the character that he had constructed presented herself in a more feminine manner than Leonnaux typically did in his day-to-day life—and more rough and tumble besides. He donned a pair of leather pants that he had picked up recently, and threw on a leather long coat on top of it. He settled on compromising with well-fitted, cropped halter top that would hide the fact that his cleavage was fake while still exposing enough abdomen to be provocative. He shed his usual gloves in favor of armguards and feathers reminiscent of a magpie’s iridescent blue-green plumage were intertwined with short braids just in front of his ears.
A little makeup work smoothed down sharp angles and strong lines in his face; eyeliner, mascara, and kohl framed his eyes—glamoured to be mismatched shades of hazel—for a suitably intense look when paired with dark lipstick. And of course, a pendant was tucked into his shirt to change his voice so that he would not have to strain to maintain a higher timbre for the night—which without magic would be the one aspect of his person that was unlikely to pass muster while wearing a feminine guise.
“Evening,” the bartender greeted with a smile, tossing the rag he was using to dry newly-cleaned glasses over his shoulder. “What can I get ya?” He was an scrutinizing fellow, a Duskwight with a discerning eye. The sun had given his skin a little more color over the years than he would have had naturally, stealing enough of the grayness from his skin that were it not for the clan tattoos running up his arm and neck—etched into his skin with a blade, not a needle, and highlighted only in certain spots with white ink—he would pass for a Wildwood. His dark gaze settled on Leonnaux, his lips twisted in a smile that was—procedural, somewhat sarcastic even.
Leonnaux tapped a manicured nail on the counter as he hauled himself up and onto the bar stool. When he spoke, it was not with his own voice, but a more feminine one—albeit one on the sultry, low side, as he figured that that sort of voice would fit the character he created for the night the best. “Sazerac. On the rocks.”
His gaze rose to the bartender as he slid some gil coins forward to provide payment for the drink—and a tip, of course.
The bartender nodded and set about making the drink. It wasn’t done with as much finesse as Leonnaux would employ if he were the one on the other side of the bar, and the ingredients here were subpar—catered towards people who were more concerned about getting nice and drunk than people who wanted a high-class experience. That suited him fine, and he tried not to watch the bartender too closely as he muddled the sugar, the water, the bitters. The cognac, the whiskey—stirred, not shaken—then slid over to Leonnaux after a lemon peel was lazily tossed into the glass and left there.
Leonnaux let it sit for a moment before bringing the glass to his lips, leaving some dark plum-red lipstick on its rim once the glass was lowered back onto its coaster. It was good—for the components used. It was what he paid for, anyway; he knew that a place like this probably didn’t have the wherewithal to obtain the nice Ishgardian cognac, and he knew that it wasn’t really ‘in-character’ to complain.
So instead he mumbled a thanks, casting his gaze about the bar. A drunk Seeker whose arms and chest were almost completely covered in tattoos was about six shots in two stools to his left. The stool immediately to his right was vacated soon after he ordered his drink, a midlander woman with eyes like daggers and a scar running down over her right eye having apparently had her fill of listening to the men upstairs gamble their paychecks away.
“So… Friendly bunch,” he started, somewhat awkwardly as the midlander held his gaze until the heavy door had fallen shut in her wake and she was back out on Ul’dah’s streets.
“Friendly’s a word. Think most of our professions down here kinda exclude us from the category,” the bartender replied, setting the Seeker up with another shot even though he definitely did not seem conscious enough that that would be a good idea. The bartender’s voice carried with it a thick accent—caught somewhere between what he had grown up hearing in the depths of the Black Shroud and what might be expected of Coerthas natives.
“I… Don’t think I could have guessed,” Leonnaux replied, squinting a bit. For the disguise he’d gone without his glasses—it wasn’t really possible to navigate around them for every single disguise he wanted to try. Thankfully the low light of the bar didn’t impact his vision too much, and he only had to deal with distance-related issues. The bartender right in front of him was just barely out-of-focus, and the rest of the room? A blur. “Between the scars and the tattoos. You got word of the street?”
The bartender huffed a laugh. “Depends on what you’re lookin’ for, missy.”
“Call me that again and I’ll break your fingers.”
“Oh, oh, this one has spunk! I like it!” The huff turned to something heartier, this time the bartender laughing from deep within his chest, shoulders heaving. “Most interesting thing anyone’s said to me all godsdamned night. Well, then, what’s your angle?”
Leonnaux’s shoulders rose and fell in a half-hearted shrug. “Just new here, just lookin’ for some fun,” he replied, setting his sazerac down on the counter and retrieving a silver cigarette case from an interior pocket of his coat, along with a box of matches. He places a cigarette between his plum-colored lips before offering one to the bartender across from him. “Looks like you are, too?”
The bartender scoffs before taking a cigarette, producing a very different implement for lighting his cigarette—a well-crafted lighter, like the ones that Leonnaux had often seen crafted through the collaborative efforts of the Goldsmith’s Guild and the Alchemist’s Guild, a small fire shard producing a small flame once it was flipped open. He huffed a bit at the sight before striking a match and using that to light his cigarette. The match was blown out before being discarded in a nearby ashtray, overflowing with ashes and cigarette butts and similarly-discarded matches.
“You could say I’m looking for a little entertainment, yeah,” the bartender replied, “It’s all the same shite ‘round here.” He blew out a cloud of smoke to punctuate the statement, a sigh. “Fun’s dried up if that’s what you’re looking for, though. Jobs, though. Plenty of jobs. Jobs that you gotta be really fuckin’ down on your luck to consider takin’, though.”
Leonnaux couldn’t help a little bit of laughter at that. “Well, let’s say I’m down on my luck then. City’s not real easy to get started in, unless you’d rather give me tips than work. But I’d really prefer the work.”
“Not a whole lot for a pretty face like you to do besides hook on street corners.”
His eyebrow couldn’t help but twitch a little in response to that—a brief expression that didn’t go unnoticed, since the bartender burst out laughing in response.
“Oh, oh, lighten up. If you can’t take a joke then you ain’t gonna last five ticks out there.”
“Rest assured, you’re not the only one who’s lacked enough sense to tell me that. Lucky for you, though, you can make a decent drink. The other ones couldn’t.” He lifted his sazerac, then, removing his cigarette from his lips and blowing out the smoke to take a sip from the glass. “Guess you have a half-decent face too. Hate to ruin it.”
“Well, color me honored.” The bartender ashed his cigarette, poured the Miqo’te gent another shot—absinthe this time, Leon realized, and though now he was wondering if the bartender was just steadily making his way up the ladder in terms of alcohol strength, he couldn’t help but think the man two stools down might need to stop if he didn’t want to end up worse than passed out in a ditch. “Laraunt, by the way. So, if you’re looking for work… Well, got some postings over in the back. But if I’m being frank, there’s been some shite going on that I’d love for someone to look into. What’s your trade, missy?”
“Call me Reine,” he corrected. “I’m serious about your fingers.”
“Sure, sure, right, right. Anyway, what’s it you do?”
Leonnaux clicked his tongue, considering for a moment, lowering his gaze to the lemon peel floating in his drink. “… This and that. Anything for the right price. Ran some drugs when I was up in Gridania—sonmus, snow, you know, that shite. Prefer to work more discreetly where I can, though—stuff what won’t give folks a paper trail to look for… Information, a favorite.”
His gaze returned to Laraunt , then, watching him carefully for any sign that he wasn’t convinced—pinning his preferred trade as information was a risk, but it was the only risk he could feasibly take. He couldn’t offer any answer that would be easy to verify; he couldn’t describe in-depth what it was like to work a job that he had no experience with whatosever, not even by proxy. To say nothing of if Laraunt decided to cross-check him, or press for more details than he had.
Laraunt considered for a moment before offering Leonnaux a half-shrug. “Information’s honest enough trade, I guess. You just a broker, or do you do groundwork?”
“Depends on my mood…” Leonnaux trailed off, then, somewhat uncertain before he nodded to Laraunt’s tattoos: raised scars and white ink against his dark skin, etching intricate runes and designs and occultic symbols into his exposed forearm and extending up his sleeve to his neck. The designs themselves were, of course, pleasing to the eye—but the runes were chiefly Duskwight in usage, sigils of power similar to the ones etched into pomanders. “But you could say I’ve always to ears out, eh?”
The bartender arched a brow, then, before nodding his assent. “Ah, more than just a pretty face, then! Seems you have some keen eyes, too. Well… Well, I suppose you’ll do, Reine. If you think you can get the job done. I’ve been through a few brokers, kind of need a dedicated investigator if I’m being honest. They all chickened out once they got a handle for the situation.”
Leonnaux perked up a bit, folding his hands in front of him on the table and ashing his cigarette. He looked the bartender over, but without his glasses his eye for detail was somewhat limited, even this close. “Well, running drugs up to the Shroud ain’t exactly a cushy fucking job, as long as no one’s gonna try and drain my body of its blood I think I can stomach getting my hands a little dirty.” He scoffed, then, as if it was a joke. “So what is it. I can’t say for sure unless you tell me what the job is.”
Laraunt met Leonnaux’s eyes, then, his lips pressing into a thin line. “My sister’s missing.”
Oh—oh.
Leonnaux had to fight off the shock when the bartender’s voice suddenly becoming quite grave, going from somewhat condescending and sarcastic to a sobering baritone is no time flat. He took a breath, considering those three words as he drew his cigarette back to his lips, puffing away quietly.
“If it’s a missing person case, I think you’re gonna want the Blades instead.”
“Not considering what all my sister was getting up to before she went and vanished.” Laraunt tapped a fingertip—hard—on the surface of the counter, pulling Leonnaux’s attention back up to his eyes. “This ain’t the best place to give details though—or time. How can I get in touch with you after this? Sit down for a more proper talk. Client to broker.”
Leonnaux paused, offering a shrug. “I’m new here. You think I already have an office? Just pick a day pick a time and—I’ll meet you out back. After a shift, maybe. So we won’t be interrupted.” He tilted his chin up, then, before he snuffed the cigarette out, grinding it in the ashtray and leaving it there in a crumpled heap. With a grimace, he slammed back the rest of his sazerac in one go, chewing on the lemon rind left behind once the glass was emptied.
“Ah, eh… Should be free at the end of the week.”
“Cool. I’ll see you then—see if I can’t turn up any leads on a missin’ Duskwight in Ul’dah in the meantime.”
“I’d appreciate it.” There’s a pause and Laraunt takes a breath, watching Leonnaux as he starts to leave. “Hey, say—this is bugging me, but have I seen you before?”
Leonnaux’s heart skipped a beat, and he paused mid-step to look over his shoulder, one hand against the heavy wooden door, poised to make his way out.
“I don’t know. Have you?”
––to be continued.
#crystal data center#ffxiv rp#balmung rp#crystal rp#ffxiv balmung#ffxiv crystal#hellsbovnd#( c: leonnaux; )#( writing; )#[ i keep saying leon is cis/gender nonconforming but honestly w how i write him he might actually just b straight up genderfluid ]#[ i just dont want transphobes crawling into my mentions to call me gamer words so i'm gonna keep him as cis on paper lol ]#[ no harm in having little a noncanon headcanons about my own character.... as a treat ]
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Closer
I started writing this monstrosity a while ago and with NaNoWriMo starting I thought I’d best finish it so it wasn’t hanging over me. I basically wrote some Bruce/Hulk reader insert erotic fanfic, so if that’s your thing, read on. I’ve written the reader as gender neutral. Also there is use of the phrase, ‘hulk smash’ and I’m not sorry. This story (or rather the sex part) escalates pretty quickly.
Pairing: Bruce Banner/reader I Rating: 18+ I Word count: 3,319. Category Romance/Smut (a little fluff too)
Summary: The reader and Bruce have been dating for a while, but the lack of intimacy has gotten in the way. They know what the dangers are, but when Bruce says he’s ready to try they can’t deny him or themselves.
You close the gap, how long have you been waiting for this?
“You know I can’t,” Bruce said, the palm of his hand already across your own before you’d even been able to touch his cheek.
He’d tried the same thing so many times, it was sweet in many ways, he just wanted to keep you safe and avoid any harm. But it was getting ridiculous, to date him and love him so completely without being able to have sex, without touching one another and barely kissing. The ache inside you grew stronger with every day that passed till you could take it no more. But only if he was willing.
“I love you, you know that,” Bruce said, still holding onto your hand tightly.
He smiled gently and tilted his head so he nuzzled into your hand, his stubble was rough against your skin but it was a brief moment of intimacy and closeness that you would hold on to.
“I know, but I wish we could show one another, we could at least try. When I started dating you i knew what that meant, I knew it meant I was getting both of you…”
Bruce closed his eyes for a second, you could feel his breath against your skin as he sighed.
“But what if,” his eyes remained closed.
“Shhhh,” you soothed him and pressed a kiss to his temple.
“I’d never forgive myself if he hurt you.”
“I don’t believe he will, I don’t believe he’d even be capable of that Bruce.”
He opened his eyes to look at you, “Besides he might rather enjoy it,” you joked as you gave a cocky grin.
“Not funny.” But despite his words, Bruce did have the faintest trace of a smile on his lips.
“We don’t have to do it now, but please just think about it.”
He kissed your knuckles and you leant in to kiss his lips only briefly so that there was no risk of his heart rate increasing.
He tasted like the coffee he’d just been drinking, like there were droplets of it on his lips. His coffee was strong, usually black with sweetener. If he was going to have milk he’d go all out and have something like a hazelnut latte. You’d discovered that was the epitome of Bruce, one extreme or the other, you often wondered if this charming, polite man had always had two sides to him, even before the Hulk made his debut.
The most perfect moments had been those over the precursing weeks where the two of you had sat on the porch watching the leaves fall ideally from trees. A perfect symphony of orange, red, yellow, brown and green. He’d scooped you into his arms and carried you outside, laid you down on the swinging chair and nestled in beside you, throwing a blanket over the two of you. It was so peaceful you could have fallen asleep.
Sleep, it seemed was your main activity. Not that you blamed Bruce, on the contrary you understood why Bruce was overly cautious but you couldn’t help but feel the pang of jealousy when you were out and saw other couples together, living a more normal life. Their fingers entwined with one another, spinning and dancing, lost in one another’s eyes. The kind of long passionate kisses that told the world when they retreated beyond the watch of prying eyes that they would make love.
Hands running through hair, overt public displays of affection. Bruce wasn’t one for that, to be honest neither were you so that didn’t bother you. As long as he held your hand you didn’t mind the other stuff, but what went on in the bedroom, or the lack of, was starting to get to you.
One evening you found yourself crying at a romance novel more aggressively than you usually would, it hurt to see other normal couples. You knew the self-pity was unattractive and if anyone was truly suffering it was Bruce, at least you were able to let out the pent up sexual anger and frustration by getting yourself off. You weren’t sure when Bruce last had an orgasm, but his jokes about blue balls told you all you needed to know.
Bruce entered the the living room slowly, without notice to you at first. It was the lights that were off, the TV that played nothing but static, the fact you had sunk so low into the sofa he couldn’t see you at first. When he did noticed he approached cautiously, leaning over the sofa and placing a kiss on your forehead.
“What’s up buttercup?” He asked as he stroked your hair.
Your eyes fluttered open wearily, you stretched out your arms above your head so that you could pull him over the sofa and on top of you. He slid over and into your lap. His weight pinned you down as you lay chest to chest, his breathing already increasing.
“Y/N You know we can’t do this.”
You felt tears in your eyes, you were sure this time you could convince him to stay, to entice him to become one with you.
“I need you Bruce, I don’t care, I don’t care what happens I just have to feel you.”
Bruce looked down at you, “Baby….” his voice was so soft and gentle, that of a man who couldn’t find it in him to hurt a fly.
Baby was one of those words that Bruce used but sparingly, when he used it your heart would flutter you knew how much he loved and adored you. You were his baby, his words meant the world to you, “Yes?”
You asked, upper inflection in the way you spoke, trying to tease him, coax something out of him that you had yet to see. Playful. You’d seen Bruce be playful a few times, it was in the jokes he told on rare occasions, you knew The Hulk could be playful too if he were given enough room to play in.
You kissed him, just a few quick kisses to start with and then deeper as Bruce melted into you, his tongue pushing past your lips. Had you of been able to speak then you would have allowed, “Yes….” to be spoken.
Bruce suddenly broke the kiss, he climbed off your lap and stood beside the sofa before scooping you up into his arms. He’d never done this before, you wondered whether some of his strength came from the hulk or whether Bruce had always been this strong.
He moved to the bedroom without words, there was no light aside from that of the moon which streamed through the gaps in the blinds. You went to turn a light on but Bruce placed his hand on yours, “No….the dark, it’s better…”
You nodded, understood why this would be better, you could still make out his features. He lay you on the bed gently as a rose.
He took off his top and climbed onto you. You ran your hands over his muscles and pressed kisses against his chest.
The next few minutes were a blur as he took off your clothes methodically. Through his jeans you could feel he was starting to get hard, his breath increasing in speed just at the sight of you. And then as he pulled down his jeans and white boxers in one swift movement you could feel tears in your eyes of equal joy and anticipation. As he lay on you again, your bodies now bare, you wrapped your legs around his waist. There were a few hints of the change already and you tried to push any fear you had to the back of your mind.
Bruce kissed you, slowly, his hands in your hair and you knew he was doing his best to take it slow and steady. As he pulled away you looked at him patiently and noticed it more prominently now.
His skin flashed green in small patches, “Y/N wait,” he said with desperation.
You stopped rocking your hips and looked into his eyes, he was pleading for both you to stop and for the sweet release that had haunted him for over 10 years.
“If we continue, I can’t promise I will be able to stop,” he said in-between desperate pants.
“What if I don’t want you to stop,” you spoke in a manner that demonstrated how sure you were of both yourself and your situation.
“Okay.”
That was the word you had been waiting to hear fall from his lips for so long, “Really?”
“If you think you can handle it,” he said, his hands holding onto your arms to keep himself steady, worried that instinct would take over and he would buck uncontrollably into you.
“What do you think I was doing at University?” You cocked your head to the side and grinned.
Bruce bent down and took your lips in between his own, kissing you more passionately than he ever had. You felt the tip of his cock against your entrance and mewled for more, you wanted his length inside you even if it was just the once.
He inhaled sharply and slowly pushed himself into you, your walls squeezing against his hard member. He let out the most delicious gasp as he felt your warmth and tightness. His eyes screwed shut and as he sheathed himself he let out a cry.
You could see his skin changing once again, flecks of green, veins bulging but you weren’t afraid anymore.
“Bruce, I love you,” you confessed as he opened his eyes, still inside you.
He smiled, that warm and comforting smile where you always found kindness. His glasses looked somewhat crooked on his face, there was sweat on his brow that met the nest of curls.
Your arms wrapped around him and slowly you raised your hips, he hissed as you did so and you saw the change in his eyes. You knew for certain that at best you may only have a few seconds before the other guy made an appearance but that didn’t matter, you had managed to achieve it, to know what it was like to be fucked by Bruce Banner and not the Hulk. To have him kiss your lips and say your name while his cock throbbed inside you and made you desperate to cum.
He rocked into you several times, keeping it steady and slow to try and avoid waking the Hulk. It was difficult, with the concentration on his face to know whether he was truly enjoying it or whether that level of concentration ruined it a little. But how hard he was, how sure his movements were, the moans that escaped from between pursed lips, the way his brow furrowed and he said, “y/n, y/n, y/n” over and over.
For one blissful moment you felt like a normal couple just making love on a raining Sunday afternoon in Autumn. You could curl up and watch a movie afterwards, hot chocolate and blankets and candles.
But the green seemed more noticeable the longer it lasted, in between the kisses and the way his hands gripped your hips, not hard enough to leave bruises but you were sure the other guy could take care of that after all.
“Bruce…” you said softly noticing tears in his eyes, “It’s okay, it’s okay if you need to let go.”
You held his face steady and stroked his cheek with your thumb. You hated that it had to be like this, in some respects it had added to the intimacy in your relationship and had more than strengthened it in comparison to other relationships you’d had, but still. It didn’t feel right that either you couldn’t sleep together or you did and there was the potential you wouldn’t just be sleeping with him. That in itself didn’t bother you, what bothered you was the fact that it almost felt like cheating and from the look in Bruce’s eyes when you stroked his cheek so softly, you knew he felt the same.
You could take away a great deal of pain for the man you loved, but that was something you couldn’t heal.
“I want you to have this,” Bruce replied, still moving so slowly inside you that it barely felt like he was moving at all. To have sex of this nature was completely new to you and to Bruce also.
You kissed his lips, how many times had you told him to apply lip balm before he went to sleep to stop his lips from cracking? You smiled as you kissed him, he was perfect in ways you didn’t know a partner could be.
He begun to speed up just a little and again you saw the veins bulging even more than before and felt like something was growing a little more inside of you so that you let out an unexpected moan and tipped your head back in ecstasy. You were quick to look back at Bruce though as you had a feeling you were about to loose him and wanted to enjoy every precious second that the two of you were able to fuck without being interrupted.
“Bruce, I’m so,” the word happy was trailing on your lips but difficult to say as the pleasure rippled through your body. “I love you,” you managed to say.
Bruce smiled and his face contorted a little, partly in pleasure and partly you suspected in pain and the anticipation of what was to come.
He let one of his hands dip between your legs so he could ensure you were pleasured just as much as he was. He seemed determined to see it through as himself and not the other guy, but he was quickly loosing the battle.
His pace was increasing to nearly twice the speed and you felt a little pain as he cock seemed to grow larger.
His face begun to twist, his thrusts became more spasms, “I’m sorry, I love you,” was all he could manage before he transformed.
There was a moment where the Hulk seemed confused he looked down and inside his deep eyes you could still see Bruce.
“Hey big guy,” you said and stroked his black hair.
The Hulk seemed confused but soon realised, you’d known that sex wasn’t a foreign concept to him after his time on Sakaar, but still this must have been a strange situation for him to have woken up to.
He looked curiously at you, you’d only met him a few times but had gotten on well during the brief conversations that you’d had. He cocked his head to the side and looked down at your naked form, drinking you in with his eyes that seemed to widen as he realised what was happening.
Of course Bruce had changed from himself to The Hulk while he was inside of you. The way his cock had grown inside you made you suck in hard through your mouth and then hold your breath for a second. Your hands gripped the bedsheets and you tried to breathe through the pain.
“Y/N?” He said, there was a moment where he was quiet and almost serene, something you weren’t used to experiencing with him. A second later though that was gone, it was like instinct took over with him, the Hulk knew that mating was a primal response, a desire he could not ignore considering the situation.
But the softness in his voice when he said your name was a way of asking permission, checking in with you that this was okay. His cock was still sheathed inside you, you wanted him to move it out of you but at the same time you knew that might hurt.
You nodded, smiled at him, “It’s okay, I want you, I want to feel you and know what it’s like to be one with both of you, do you see?”
And oh did he see, he saw with such unimaginable love and vigour that for a moment you believed you’d gone blind. The world seemed to fall away in front of you, people often said they saw stars when they came, you’d never experienced anything like that, though now you had a feeling that you might just be about to.
“Hulk smash?” He asked, you almost laughed, it was too absurd for words but at the same time the pain and the pleasure was so overwhelmingly intense that it rendered you unable to do so.
You clenched around him, not that there was any room to move, but the action of your muscles doing this felt good, and by the cry and panting of the hulk it seemed he was enjoying it too.
There was unimaginable pain for a while, his arms strong enough to crush you as if you were nothing underneath him. But you continued to stroke his face and try and kiss him, to show him a softer side of life and in doing so you saw flashes of Bruce.
He grunted every time he thrust into you, your fists balling into the sheets and tears stinging your eyes every time he did so. You knew if it were Bruce he’d take it nice and slow, allowing you to adjust to his size and length but with the Hulk there were no such mercies. Your hips didn’t rock against him, if anything you tried to push your weight further down into the already sunken mattress so that he found it difficult to thrust too deep into you.
The hulk appeared driven by rage in a sense, moments were he looked at you there was a kindness in his eyes where he recognised you. It was how you knew you could trust him and that he wouldn’t hurt you, no matter what.
One of the Hulk’s hands grabbed at your chest and squeezed the nipple, you inhaled sharply for a second worried about what he might do. But exhaled when you realised he was exerting a similar amount of pressure as Bruce had.
You could tell by the movement of his hips that he was getting close, you longed for it to be Bruce who came inside of you instead of The Hulk so you tried something.
You tried to take control, gently at first, you placed your hands up onto his shoulders and gently massaged, tried to pull him into a kiss. Once his lips met yours and begun to give you wet, sloppy kisses you ran your hands down to his hips and applied pressure to try and slow the rocking so you were both moving at a far steadier pace.
When you opened your eyes you could see that this was working, more of Bruce seemed to seep through, “I love you Bruce,” you said softly as you kissed The Hulk’s lips again. “Come back to me, come back to me baby.”
It happened in a way you had never thought possible, The Hulk seemed to melt away and suddenly you were filled by Bruce again, your hands nestled in his hair. He came a moment later, only having a chance to thrust into you once deeply before he cried out.
Afterwards as you lay in his arms you heard him chuckle, “I bet the big guy is gonna be pretty pissed off at me.”
You laughed, glad that Bruce hadn’t lost all his humour despite the state he was in.
You raised yourself from the bed and climbed on top of Bruce, placed a gentle kiss to his lips, “I reckon we can come to some sort of arrangement.”
Bruce grinned, he reached for his glasses and on putting them on he kissed your nose, “All the better to see you with, I think that would be agreeable to both myself and the big guy.”
#Bruce Banner#The Hulk#Fanfiction#Marvel#Marvel fanfiction#bruce banner fanfiction#nsft#reader insert#Bruce Banner x reader#my writing#gender neutral reader
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two slow dancers
beaujester week day 4: fake dating & resurrection/revivify
Beau and Jester go undercover at a very fancy party. [Read on AO3]
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“Just follow my lead, and everything will be okay. I promise.”
Jester and Beauregard were arm in arm and climbing up the very fancy steps of a very fancy home in their very fancy clothes that led to a very fancy party.
“Why are we doing this again?” Beau asked for the millionth time.
Jester rolled her eyes but answered anyway. “We have to go to this very amazing and cool party because someone has to plant the evidence on the duke. We, specifically, are doing it because Caleb and Nott are breaking into his office, and Fjord and Caduceus are keeping look out.”
Beau knew all of this, but still nodded like it was new information.
“I still think Fjord should have done this part. He’s better at the social part,” Beau grumbled.
“But we needed someone good at sleight of hand,” Jester countered. She poked Beau in the side and added, “That is you.”
That finally managed to get a smile out of Beau. She batted Jester’s hand away.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m the greatest, and all that.”
Now it was Jester’s turn to smile.
The two of them followed the flow of people into the building. Beau watched Jester openly gawk when they stepped into the foyer. There were vaulted ceilings, and practically everything was gilded. Not to mention the massive rug that stretched the entire length of the room. You’d think an asshole that’s embezzling money would be a little more subtle about it.
Jester audibly gasped as they entered the main ballroom. Honestly, Beau couldn’t blame her. Beau was never one for ostentatious decoration and flagrant shows of wealth, but even she could admit that the ballroom was gorgeous.
“Oh my gods, Beau,” Jester whispered as the descended down the main marble staircase.
The large dance floor in the center of the room was already teeming with dancers. Score of beautiful people to match the beautiful room. Shining hardwood floors, multiple crystal chandeliers, spotless silk tablecloths, and the finest wine.
“Yeah, I know,” replied Beau. All of this was not boosting her confidence. She still felt extremely out of place.
“How about you go get us some drinks while I scope the place out,” Jester suggested, nodding toward the bar on the right side of the room.
“Yeah, yeah,” Beau could do that, “What do you want? Milk?”
“Um, see if they have juice or something. If not, milk is fine.”
“Alright, got it,” Beau patted Jester’s arm before they parted.
More and more guests were funneling in. Beau, focused on her mission, carefully maneuvered through the crowd in the direction of the bar.
“Good evening, ma’am. What can I get for you?” the bartender asked when she approached. He was a gnome man who looked way too chipper about working this event.
“Do you have juice? Like, just normal juice?” Beau leaned her forearms on the counter.
“Like a fruit juice?” he asked.
“Yeah, and a glass of your finest wine too.” If Beau was stuck at this dumb party all night, she was at least going to take advantage of it.
“All right. Juice and wine, coming right up!” the bartender said as he went to prepare their drinks.
Beau turned her gaze from the bar and tried to spot Jester in the crowd. She didn’t know why it was so difficult. Jester was wearing a bright pink dress—“It’s magenta!” she had corrected Beau earlier—and hell, she was fucking blue.
A tap on her shoulder drew Beau’s attention away from the dance floor and to the man standing behind her. He was human, probably just a little older than Beau.
“You need something?” she said, cocking an eyebrow.
“I just thought I’d strike up a conversation,” he said with a sly smile. “No reason a nice girl like you should be alone a such a fun party.” This was concluded with a casual lean against the bar’s counter.
There was no way this was happening. There was no way this man was hitting on Beau.
Listen, Beau knew she was attractive, attractive enough anyway. She knew she was attractive to those who mattered. This man did not fall under that category because, well, he was a man. Beau was dressed in a suit for crying out loud. It was tailored to fit her nicely and the blue compliment her eyes, but she was still confused. Usually Beau would just tell any unwanted advances to fuck right off, maybe throw a punch if necessary, but she absolutely could not draw attention to herself. They had a job to do.
Thankfully, she was saved from her mental panicking and the awkward conversation by a hand at her elbow.
When Beau turned her head, her eyes met Jester’s. Relief washed over her.
“Did you get our drinks, darling?” Jester asked in a stuffy accent. She had insisted that she and Beau have personas for this job. Jester had adopted a fancy accent and the alias Celeste, and Beau forewent an accent but took the name Allison.
Oh, and they were also married.
“I did, I did. Just waiting on them now.” Beau stiffly replied.
“Wonderful!” Jester now had both arms wrapped around Beau’s; one on her elbow, one on her bicep. “And who is this? Already making friends?”
“Oh no, we were just chatting while I waited,” Beau gave the other man a somewhat smug look in response to his perturbed one.
“Your drinks,” the bartender called.
Beau thanked him with a nod and a nice tip as she took the drinks from the counter.
“Oh! Well, it was nice meeting you!” Jester waved at the man as Beau led them away. She wove them through the other guests and casually handed Jester her juice. When they were far enough away, Jester leaned in to whisper in her normal voice, “Are you alright? You looked really uncomfortable when I showed up. Was it because of that guy? I tried to get you out as fast as I could.”
Beau’s heart swelled at this. Logically, she knew Jester cared for her, the whole group cared about each other, but it still felt nice to hear it. Beau patted Jester’s hand where it sat on her arm, saying “Thanks, Jes. I’m good now.”
Jester gave a relieved smile. “Also, it’s Celeste, darling,” she said, posh accent returning.
“Right, right.” Beau nodded with a smile. “So, did you find our guy?”
“Yes. He is out there.” Jester subtly pointed him out among the people dancing in the center of the room.
“Well, I guess you know what that means.” Beau downed her wine and set her glass on a nearby table. Jester did the same. The two of them shared a smile, like they were laughing at a joke that no one else was in on. Which they kind of were.
Beau made a show of bowing and extending her hand. “May I have this dance?”
This made Jester giggle, but she still nodded and took Beau’s hand.
As soon as their feet hit the dance floor, Beau couldn’t help herself, she sent Jester into a dramatic twirl and promptly pulled her close. Her previous smile slid into a smirk.
“Oh, my dear Allison, I didn’t know you could dance so well,” Jester laughed in her silly accent.
“As much as I would like to say otherwise, that’s really all I can do,” Beau began leading them in the vague direction of their target. She barely had the chance to see the mischievous glimmer in Jester’s eye before she was dropped into a low dip. The combination of Beau’s flexibility and Jester’s strength meant that Beau was almost in a backbend before she was pulled upright.
Beau’s head was spinning, the lights and dancers around her all blurring together. The only thing she could focus on was Jester’s brilliant smile. Now she was leading Beau through the crowd, still laughing brightly. Beau was honestly confused. Why were they sent on the stealth mission? How in the world were they supposed to not draw attention to themselves when Jester looked like that? She was shining like a sun, and Beau couldn’t pull away from her orbit.
Jester gave Beau a final spin before she closely whispered, “Okay, I got us close enough. I’ll bump into him, and you catch him.”
Beau shook her head and cleared her mind, “Yeah,” she moved her hand from Jester’s shoulder to pat her breast pocket that held the duke’s letter, “then I finish it up and we can split.”
“Can we have one more dance before we leave?” Jester asked with a small pout.
“Okay, fine,” Beau rolled her eyes, as if she didn’t want the exact same thing. With a heavy exhale she said, “You ready?”
Jester nodded and bit her lip.
Then she stepped directly into the duke.
Beau swooped into stabilize him as he teetered, slipping the letter into his pocket without notice. They exchanged quick apologies and went about their nights, not wanting to make a scene.
After quick bows, Jester and Beau danced away.
“Oh my gods! Did that actually work?” Jester was barely containing her excitement.
“Yeah, I think it did,” Beau replied with a triumphant smile. Things so rarely went right for them. She could only hope that the others were doing as well.
“Well, my love,” Jester said, accent returning full force, “how about we dance the night away, hm?”
Beau could get used to this. She smirked and pulled Jester closer, “I think that sounds delightful.”
And so they did.
#yeehaw this one was fun for me#it is very late but i'm posting this anyway#critical role#beaujesterweek2019#beauregard lionett#beauregard#jester lavorre#beaujester#lavorregard#sappheau#text#fanfiction#my fics#campaign 2
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AS ONE OF THE TABOOS A VISITOR FROM THE FUTURE WOULD HAVE TO BE ABLE TO GET A CHECK WITHIN A WEEK BASED ON A HALF-PAGE AGREEMENT
You would not believe the amount of stock to give him. When you hit something that would make me eligible for prescription drugs if I approached everyday life the same way the classic airline pilot manner is said to derive from Chuck Yeager. But in fact it was the basis of Amsterdam's prosperity 400 years ago. Tip: for extra impressiveness, use Greek variables. Which is to say that it's heretical. The right tools can help us avoid this danger. And as you go down the food chain the VCs get rapidly dumber.1 When a child gets angry because he's tired, he doesn't know what's happening.
A silicon valley has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo. Related fields are where you go looking for trouble. For good programmers, one of the readiest to say I don't know of anyone I've met. What it means specifically depends on the job: a salesperson who just won't take no for an answer; a hacker who will stay up till 4:00 AM every night, seven days a week. Politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place here, however: make the capital gains rate low and be accused of creating tax breaks for the rich, or make it high and starve growing companies of investment capital. The influence of fashion is not nearly so great in hacking as it is in painting. It's like light from a distant star. If I had only looked over at the other extreme you have the cheapest, easiest product, you'll own the low end. Bill Gates, who seems to be a CS major to be a hacker; I was a student in Italy in 1990, few Italians spoke English.
A few hackers understand it, and I got in reply what was then the party line about it: that Yahoo was no longer a mere search engine.2 This is their way of weighing you. Forty-two years later you'll be making $4. Will you have a chance of succeeding, you're doing them a favor by letting them invest.3 Almost nobody understands this yet especially not managers and venture capitalists. You're better off starting with a blank slate in the form of a small town. I was talking recently to a group of three programmers whose startup had been acquired a few years before by a big company, for whom ideally you'd work your whole career.
Now how are you doing compared to the rapacious founder's $2 million. This works in America, but it feels young because it's full of rich people.4 The way to do that is to implement it. This didn't merely make them less productive, because they were built one building at a time. So hackers start original, and get original. Should you take it? Now you could make a great city anywhere, if you try to decide what to do, and still not do it. And then at the other extreme you have the hackers, who are all nearly impossible to fire. So what makes a place good to them? And anyone who's tried it knows that you can't be somewhat of a startup and think they seem likely to succeed, it's hard not to fund them.5
Even other hackers have a hard time doing that. This essay is derived from a guest lecture at Harvard, which incorporated an earlier talk at Northeastern. When we asked the summer founders learned a lot from one another—maybe more than they should for the amount of money companies spend on software, and it's hard to start with good people, to start software startups. Even a lot of things e. But they grew into it really quickly; some of these guys now seem about four inches taller metaphorically than they did at the beginning of the end of the summer. Checks instituted by governments can cause much worse problems than merely overpaying. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by their ability to say things you couldn't say anywhere else, and this can be enormous—in fact, discontinuous. Are People Really Scared of Prefix Syntax?6 If there is one message I'd like to get across about startups, that's it.
7% of the upside, while an employer gets nearly all of it.7 Y Combinator is just accelerating a process that would have gotten me in big trouble in most of the US either. Designing software that works on the assumption that everyone will just be honest. The mathematicians don't seem bothered by this. In hacking, this can literally mean saving up bugs.8 Otherwise I just worked. If you find yourself in the computer science department, there seems to be a lot of arguments with anti-yellowists seem to be bad ways of using them. Copernicus was a canon of a cathedral, and dedicated his book to the pope. In every period of history, the answer is almost certainly no. In it he said he worried that he was fundamentally soft-hearted and tended to give away too much for free. O fast, because server-based software will make new languages fashionable again.
It might dilute the value of safe jobs. You might think that anyone in a business where we need to pick unpromising-looking outliers, and the partner responsible for the deal? Gradually the details get filled in. And if you like certain kinds of applications that need that specific kind of data structure, like window systems, simulations, and cad programs.9 It would be too easy for clients to fire them.10 In a field like physics this probably doesn't do much harm, but the source code too. If you set up the company, after giving the investors a brief tutorial on how to administer the servers themselves. We did.
Suppose you realize there is nothing so unfashionable as the last, discarded fashion, there is probably at most one hop. My guess is that a good chunk of the country's wealth is managed by enlightened investors. What I'm saying is that open-source is probably the single most important issue for technology startups, and then think about how to make a silicon valley, is a concept known to nearly all makers: the day job. I think it's better to follow the opposite policy.11 Startups are marginal.12 They just smelled wrong. At the very least we want options. Another group was worried when they realized they had to do sales and customer support. Yahoo's market cap then was already in the billions, and they were still worrying about wasting a few gigs of disk space. This should be the m. What groups are powerful but nervous, and what ideas would they like to suppress? In one culture x is ok, and in most of Europe it's not.
Notes
The rest exist to satisfy demand among fund managers for venture capital as an experiment she sent their recruiters the resumes of the companies fail, most of their portfolio companies. When an investor in!
The person who wins. Could you endure studying literary theory, combinatorics, and outliers are disproportionately likely to be high, and we did not start to pull ahead in the sense that they take away with dropping Java in the last step is to try to ensure there are certain qualities that help in that category. I was as bad an employee as this. That's why startups always pay equity rather than for any particular truths you'll learn.
You leave it to colleagues.
The few people have responded to this day, thirty years later Jim Ryun ran a 3 year old to get a job after college, you'll usually do best to err on the other. I had no idea whether this would be unfortunate.
These were the seven liberal arts. At first I didn't like it if you agree prep schools do, and graph theory. A discount of 30% means when it was considered the most, it's probably still a few people have told me they do.
We fixed both problems immediately. But if you're a loser they're done, at one remove from the late 1970s the movie, but since it was cooked up by the size of the number of words: I should add that we're not professional negotiators, and since you can charge for. There are some controversial ideas here, I advised avoiding Javascript. Our founder meant a photograph of a startup was a small amount of damage to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years investigating it.
If you're a YC startup you can do it now. This is almost pure discovery. 107.
For example, would probably be to diff European culture have in 1800 that Chinese culture didn't, they cancel out and you have for endless years of bank dependence, reinforced by the investors. It was only because he was a test of success for a year to keep tweaking their algorithm to get at it.
Though you should never sell i.
The existence of people we need to. Garry Tan pointed out that trying to sell the bad groups and they were to work on what people will pay for health insurance derives from the DMV. Since they don't yet have any of the company goes public. It should be your compass.
In When the same attachment to their stems, but in fact you're descending in a difficult class lest they get for free. But they've been trained.
After Greylock booted founder Philip Greenspun out of school.
Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, and Sarah Harlin for reading a previous draft.
#automatically generated text#Markov chains#Paul Graham#Python#Patrick Mooney#Really#startups#Harvard#anyone#attachment#Blackwell#book#sup#reply#essay
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Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19?
If it seems like everyone in your social media feed is drinking more right now, they probably are. According to IWSR data shared with VinePair, retail alcohol sales during Covid-19 have hit double-digit growth, mirroring “holiday-type” volume and value spending.
Of course, any current data should be examined with the caveat that on-premise sales have plummeted, and many are replacing those purchases with stay-at-home Quarantinis. There’s also stockpiling to consider, though IWSR figures signal that the bulk of this took place during a two-week period in March, and sales since then have remained strong.
But just as our interactions with the physical world are largely confined to the views from our windows, we should not overlook the subjectivity of social media feeds. Put simply: Not everyone is drinking more right now.
“If anything, I’ve seen this kind of outpouring of, ‘Here are all the ways that I’m taking care of myself,’ and lots of people doing yoga and meditation,” says Sam Thonis, co-owner of Getaway, an alcohol-free bar in Brooklyn. Opened in April 2019, the bar has become a brick-and-mortar signifier of the growing low- and no-alcohol movements.
Prior to Covid-19, these movements had started gaining significant traction, with coverage reaching national media. By the end of last year, publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times had devoted significant column inches to the popularity of lower-ABV spritz cocktails and hard seltzers, and the growing interest in the “sober-curious” lifestyle. While it was harder to back the “trend” with sales data, low- and no-ABV drinks had by then entered the cultural lexicon.
But like everything else right now, the future of the low and no movements feels delicately poised. Convincing drinkers that it might be a good idea to lower their alcohol consumption is difficult enough at the best of times, let alone in the midst of a global pandemic. And looking forward, there’s the dark cloud of recession looming on the horizon, which is likely to impact consumer spending. That could be a particular challenge for the zero-proof category, whose products have been priced at retail similarly to the boozy libations they were designed to replace. To boot: The non-alcoholic botanical “spirit” Seedlip sells for around $30 for 700 milliliters, while a slightly larger bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin sells for $25. These issues raise the question: What does Covid-19 mean for the future of the nascent low- and no-ABV movements?
Drinking Habits In a Global Pandemic
For Thonis, there’s no question that the zero-proof scene was gaining traction prior to Covid-19. After Getaway opened, it received significant press. While skeptics could argue it seemed like a niche “New York” concept, multiple operators around the country reached out to Thonis and told him they wanted to emulate his model.
Sales, too, seemed to indicate that the city that never sleeps was willing to take the occasional night off from booze. “Before March, when everything changed, the two normal months of 2020 were our best months yet,” he says. “We were on a serious upswing.”
Sadly, those sales have now crashed to nothing. Unlike some New York cocktail bars, Getaway hasn’t pivoted to takeaway or to-go options. And when stay-at-home orders are finally relaxed, Thonis realizes his bar’s offerings might be deemed as a luxury by some. “[Non-alcoholic cocktails] are not human necessities, unlike food and arguably alcohol,” he says.
Lifestyle writer Ruby Warrington has noticed contrasting attitudes on her social media feeds. In 2018, the New-York-based British author wrote a book on alcohol abstinence titled “Sober Curious.” Some have even credited the work with popularizing the no-ABV movement. Warrington also hosts a podcast of the same name and interacts via social media with a community of people who choose not to drink.
Many of those interactions have included people speaking about how glad they are that they don’t drink right now and don’t need to navigate hangovers in the midst of a pandemic. But when she opens her Facebook feed, which has a lot of people from her “pre-sober-curious life” in the U.K., she notices some friends repeating the kind of statements that could double as a quarantine meme, such as “How early is too early to start drinking?” and “Drinking alone doesn’t count in a crisis.”
“It almost feels like there’s a lot of bravado, a ‘let’s drink our way through it’ sort of attitude,” she says. “With my sober-curious goggles on, it does seem like underneath there’s a lot of fear.”
Her evaluation is backed by psychological science. “It makes a lot of sense that people are drinking more during this time: They want instant relief from anxiety, boredom, depression, and just not wanting to feel their feelings — alcohol offers a solution to that,” says Lindsay Hayden, a New York-based licensed mental health counselor who specializes in addiction.
Hayden warns that without the structure and routine of normal life, those who are using only alcohol as a coping mechanism could soon be facing more serious issues. “Not everyone who is relying on alcohol will come out of the pandemic with an alcohol addiction, but it is definitely something people should be watching out for,” she says.
Drinking Habits During a Recession
While the “new normal” of quarantine life is unprecedented to all experiencing it, at least some of what comes after Covid-19 is not without parallel. By many accounts, the world economy is headed into a long and potentially deep recession. The IMF predicts the coronavirus crisis could knock as much as $9 trillion off global GDP over the next two years. If previous recessions are benchmarks, that doesn’t spell good news for the low- and no-ABV movements.
During the eight-month 2001 recession, whose economic impact lasted for several years, alcohol volume sales grew year-over-year, totaling a 4 percent increase between 2001 and 2004, according to IWSR’s chief operating officer, Brandy Rand.
While alcohol sales growth was somewhat flat during the Great Recession of December 2007 to June 2009, that was only because of declining beer sales. “[U]nemployment rate at the end of 2009 was 10 percent, yet there was still an upward consumption trend outside of beer,” Rand explains.
The purchasing habits from both of the most recent recessions indicate that when economic times are tough, consumers turn to the bottle. Amid the uncertainty, and with less cash in their pockets, they also favor higher-ABV beverages to leverage more bang for buck.
Lisa Laird Dunn, executive vice president of Laird & Company, predicts a similar trend this time around. Founded in 1780, her family runs the oldest licensed distillery in America. In its 200-plus-year history, Laird & Co. has survived more than 30 recessions, two world wars, and even Prohibition.
While known for its Applejack, the distillery’s portfolio contains a broad range of products, priced from high- end to value brands. Laird Dunn confirms that the company’s lower-priced value brands typically sell best during a recession and expects to see a repeat of this trend following Covid-19. “I think you’ll find that there will be more price shopping versus just brand shopping,” she says.
But national sales statistics and the experience of recession-defying distilleries paint just part of the picture.
In January 2013, the University of Buffalo published a study on alcohol use during the Great Recession. Polling more than 2 million Americans between 2006 and 2010, the study uncovered notable increases in heavy drinking (3.9 percent) and frequent binge drinking (7.1 percent), but also found a slight increase in abstention from alcohol (0.8 percent). Put more simply: Not everyone decided to drink more. And there’s more than just anecdotal references to prove the same thing is happening right now.
On Thursday, global research firm Wine Intelligence published its first Covid-19-related consumer analysis report. Based on data collected at the end of March and beginning of April, the report found that, on average, wine consumption has remained stable during lockdown. But once again, this trend only tells part of the story.
“We’re seeing an increase in frequency of wine consumption amongst more engaged wine drinkers,” says CEO Lulie Halstead. “So those who were already drinking wine at higher frequencies are increasing that frequency.”
On the flip side, younger drinkers who were just discovering wine are now drinking it much less frequently than before, she adds. While this finding is based on data collected in Australia, Halstead says early examinations of international data appear to show a similar trend in other markets.
Hope For the Low- and No-ABV Movements
During previous recessions, those who opted not to drink were limited to sodas, seltzers, and water. But this time around, the market is already awash with interesting alcohol alternatives. From no-ABV beers to zero-proof spirits, there are a number of non-alcoholic options that taste just like the real thing (or pretty darn close) without the alcohol and with fewer calories. If consumers can get past price concerns, the compelling flavors and low-calorie appeal of these products could help keep the low and no movements humming along.
As one notable example, Scottish brewery BrewDog has reported strong demand for its range of alcohol-free beers this year. Compared to the last four months of 2019, volume sales on its e-commerce platform have surged more than 350 percent between January and April of this year.
“Just last week, we had our strongest day of online sales ever with the launch of our newest NA beer: Ghost Walker,” says CEO Jason Block. Demand from wholesalers has been stronger still, with volume growth reaching quadruple digits during the first four months of 2020.
The thirst for no-ABV spirits appears to be similarly strong. Ritual Zero Proof, a non-alcoholic beverage brand that offers gin, tequila, and whiskey alternatives, sold its entire six-month inventory in just five weeks when it launched in September last year. Despite the current global pandemic, March 2020 sales were up 16 percent over February, and April sales are on track to double that.
“Spirit alternatives like Ritual are today what veggie burgers and almond milk were a few years back: New, easy to knock, and so broadly desired there are now sections in the grocery store dedicated to them,” says founding partner Marcus Sakey. “Almond milk did $5.3 billion in 2018.”
Support from internationally acclaimed bartenders has given these alternatives further credentials. At Bar Kumiko in Chicago, partner and director Julia Momose curated an extensive “Spiritfrees” cocktail menu. The bar is currently offering five of these drinks as part of a temporary to-go menu.
One of the most vocal supporters of low- and no-ABV cocktails has been Derek Brown, owner of Washington D.C.’s Columbia Room. In February, Brown authored a high-profile article on embracing “mindful drinking” and detailing his own complicated relationship with alcohol.
Brown believes zero-proof cocktails can be just as delicious, interesting, and thought-provoking as those with booze. While he’s also noticed an anecdotal increase in alcohol consumption, he doesn’t think that will harm the low and no movements. In fact, Brown believes our current situation might serve as a wake-up call for many. “A lot of people who went into this wondering whether they had a drinking problem will come out of it knowing the answer to that,” he says.
For those who do, there’s never been a broader range of alternatives and support to help change those habits.
The article Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19? appeared first on VinePair.
source https://vinepair.com/articles/coronavirus-impact-low-no-alcohol-movements/
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Text
Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19?
If it seems like everyone in your social media feed is drinking more right now, they probably are. According to IWSR data shared with VinePair, retail alcohol sales during Covid-19 have hit double-digit growth, mirroring “holiday-type” volume and value spending.
Of course, any current data should be examined with the caveat that on-premise sales have plummeted, and many are replacing those purchases with stay-at-home Quarantinis. There’s also stockpiling to consider, though IWSR figures signal that the bulk of this took place during a two-week period in March, and sales since then have remained strong.
But just as our interactions with the physical world are largely confined to the views from our windows, we should not overlook the subjectivity of social media feeds. Put simply: Not everyone is drinking more right now.
“If anything, I’ve seen this kind of outpouring of, ‘Here are all the ways that I’m taking care of myself,’ and lots of people doing yoga and meditation,” says Sam Thonis, co-owner of Getaway, an alcohol-free bar in Brooklyn. Opened in April 2019, the bar has become a brick-and-mortar signifier of the growing low- and no-alcohol movements.
Prior to Covid-19, these movements had started gaining significant traction, with coverage reaching national media. By the end of last year, publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times had devoted significant column inches to the popularity of lower-ABV spritz cocktails and hard seltzers, and the growing interest in the “sober-curious” lifestyle. While it was harder to back the “trend” with sales data, low- and no-ABV drinks had by then entered the cultural lexicon.
But like everything else right now, the future of the low and no movements feels delicately poised. Convincing drinkers that it might be a good idea to lower their alcohol consumption is difficult enough at the best of times, let alone in the midst of a global pandemic. And looking forward, there’s the dark cloud of recession looming on the horizon, which is likely to impact consumer spending. That could be a particular challenge for the zero-proof category, whose products have been priced at retail similarly to the boozy libations they were designed to replace. To boot: The non-alcoholic botanical “spirit” Seedlip sells for around $30 for 700 milliliters, while a slightly larger bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin sells for $25. These issues raise the question: What does Covid-19 mean for the future of the nascent low- and no-ABV movements?
Drinking Habits In a Global Pandemic
For Thonis, there’s no question that the zero-proof scene was gaining traction prior to Covid-19. After Getaway opened, it received significant press. While skeptics could argue it seemed like a niche “New York” concept, multiple operators around the country reached out to Thonis and told him they wanted to emulate his model.
Sales, too, seemed to indicate that the city that never sleeps was willing to take the occasional night off from booze. “Before March, when everything changed, the two normal months of 2020 were our best months yet,” he says. “We were on a serious upswing.”
Sadly, those sales have now crashed to nothing. Unlike some New York cocktail bars, Getaway hasn’t pivoted to takeaway or to-go options. And when stay-at-home orders are finally relaxed, Thonis realizes his bar’s offerings might be deemed as a luxury by some. “[Non-alcoholic cocktails] are not human necessities, unlike food and arguably alcohol,” he says.
Lifestyle writer Ruby Warrington has noticed contrasting attitudes on her social media feeds. In 2018, the New-York-based British author wrote a book on alcohol abstinence titled “Sober Curious.” Some have even credited the work with popularizing the no-ABV movement. Warrington also hosts a podcast of the same name and interacts via social media with a community of people who choose not to drink.
Many of those interactions have included people speaking about how glad they are that they don’t drink right now and don’t need to navigate hangovers in the midst of a pandemic. But when she opens her Facebook feed, which has a lot of people from her “pre-sober-curious life” in the U.K., she notices some friends repeating the kind of statements that could double as a quarantine meme, such as “How early is too early to start drinking?” and “Drinking alone doesn’t count in a crisis.”
“It almost feels like there’s a lot of bravado, a ‘let’s drink our way through it’ sort of attitude,” she says. “With my sober-curious goggles on, it does seem like underneath there’s a lot of fear.”
Her evaluation is backed by psychological science. “It makes a lot of sense that people are drinking more during this time: They want instant relief from anxiety, boredom, depression, and just not wanting to feel their feelings — alcohol offers a solution to that,” says Lindsay Hayden, a New York-based licensed mental health counselor who specializes in addiction.
Hayden warns that without the structure and routine of normal life, those who are using only alcohol as a coping mechanism could soon be facing more serious issues. “Not everyone who is relying on alcohol will come out of the pandemic with an alcohol addiction, but it is definitely something people should be watching out for,” she says.
Drinking Habits During a Recession
While the “new normal” of quarantine life is unprecedented to all experiencing it, at least some of what comes after Covid-19 is not without parallel. By many accounts, the world economy is headed into a long and potentially deep recession. The IMF predicts the coronavirus crisis could knock as much as $9 trillion off global GDP over the next two years. If previous recessions are benchmarks, that doesn’t spell good news for the low- and no-ABV movements.
During the eight-month 2001 recession, whose economic impact lasted for several years, alcohol volume sales grew year-over-year, totaling a 4 percent increase between 2001 and 2004, according to IWSR’s chief operating officer, Brandy Rand.
While alcohol sales growth was somewhat flat during the Great Recession of December 2007 to June 2009, that was only because of declining beer sales. “[U]nemployment rate at the end of 2009 was 10 percent, yet there was still an upward consumption trend outside of beer,” Rand explains.
The purchasing habits from both of the most recent recessions indicate that when economic times are tough, consumers turn to the bottle. Amid the uncertainty, and with less cash in their pockets, they also favor higher-ABV beverages to leverage more bang for buck.
Lisa Laird Dunn, executive vice president of Laird & Company, predicts a similar trend this time around. Founded in 1780, her family runs the oldest licensed distillery in America. In its 200-plus-year history, Laird & Co. has survived more than 30 recessions, two world wars, and even Prohibition.
While known for its Applejack, the distillery’s portfolio contains a broad range of products, priced from high- end to value brands. Laird Dunn confirms that the company’s lower-priced value brands typically sell best during a recession and expects to see a repeat of this trend following Covid-19. “I think you’ll find that there will be more price shopping versus just brand shopping,” she says.
But national sales statistics and the experience of recession-defying distilleries paint just part of the picture.
In January 2013, the University of Buffalo published a study on alcohol use during the Great Recession. Polling more than 2 million Americans between 2006 and 2010, the study uncovered notable increases in heavy drinking (3.9 percent) and frequent binge drinking (7.1 percent), but also found a slight increase in abstention from alcohol (0.8 percent). Put more simply: Not everyone decided to drink more. And there’s more than just anecdotal references to prove the same thing is happening right now.
On Thursday, global research firm Wine Intelligence published its first Covid-19-related consumer analysis report. Based on data collected at the end of March and beginning of April, the report found that, on average, wine consumption has remained stable during lockdown. But once again, this trend only tells part of the story.
“We’re seeing an increase in frequency of wine consumption amongst more engaged wine drinkers,” says CEO Lulie Halstead. “So those who were already drinking wine at higher frequencies are increasing that frequency.”
On the flip side, younger drinkers who were just discovering wine are now drinking it much less frequently than before, she adds. While this finding is based on data collected in Australia, Halstead says early examinations of international data appear to show a similar trend in other markets.
Hope For the Low- and No-ABV Movements
During previous recessions, those who opted not to drink were limited to sodas, seltzers, and water. But this time around, the market is already awash with interesting alcohol alternatives. From no-ABV beers to zero-proof spirits, there are a number of non-alcoholic options that taste just like the real thing (or pretty darn close) without the alcohol and with fewer calories. If consumers can get past price concerns, the compelling flavors and low-calorie appeal of these products could help keep the low and no movements humming along.
As one notable example, Scottish brewery BrewDog has reported strong demand for its range of alcohol-free beers this year. Compared to the last four months of 2019, volume sales on its e-commerce platform have surged more than 350 percent between January and April of this year.
“Just last week, we had our strongest day of online sales ever with the launch of our newest NA beer: Ghost Walker,” says CEO Jason Block. Demand from wholesalers has been stronger still, with volume growth reaching quadruple digits during the first four months of 2020.
The thirst for no-ABV spirits appears to be similarly strong. Ritual Zero Proof, a non-alcoholic beverage brand that offers gin, tequila, and whiskey alternatives, sold its entire six-month inventory in just five weeks when it launched in September last year. Despite the current global pandemic, March 2020 sales were up 16 percent over February, and April sales are on track to double that.
“Spirit alternatives like Ritual are today what veggie burgers and almond milk were a few years back: New, easy to knock, and so broadly desired there are now sections in the grocery store dedicated to them,” says founding partner Marcus Sakey. “Almond milk did $5.3 billion in 2018.”
Support from internationally acclaimed bartenders has given these alternatives further credentials. At Bar Kumiko in Chicago, partner and director Julia Momose curated an extensive “Spiritfrees” cocktail menu. The bar is currently offering five of these drinks as part of a temporary to-go menu.
One of the most vocal supporters of the low- and no-ABV drinks has been Derek Brown, owner of Washington D.C.’s Columbia Room. In February, Brown authored a high-profile article on embracing “mindful drinking” and detailing his own complicated relationship with alcohol.
Brown believes zero-proof cocktails can be just as delicious, interesting, and thought-provoking as those with booze. While he’s also noticed an anecdotal increase in alcohol consumption, he doesn’t think that will harm the low and no movements. In fact, Brown believes our current situation might serve as a wake-up call for many. “A lot of people who went into this wondering whether they had a drinking problem will come out of it knowing the answer to that,” he says.
For those who do, there’s never been a broader range of alternatives and support to help change those habits.
The article Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19? appeared first on VinePair.
Via https://vinepair.com/articles/coronavirus-impact-low-no-alcohol-movements/
source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/will-the-low-and-no-abv-movements-survive-covid-19
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It has been more than a week (almost two weeks) since I posted anything, I simply did not have the will nor the effort to do so even the Malaysian government has imposed a Movement Control Order (MCO) from 18 March 2020 to 14 April 2020. Now, I want to share how I felt and experienced this MCO until now.
How did we get here?
Pre-panic Era
The first few cases of COVID-19 in Malaysia were detected during the end of January and the pandemic was still on the rise globally with somewhat insignificant effect, at least to me and the people around me. I boldly assumed that the virus would not be as serious as it was projected globally on social media and news outlets because Malaysia’s population density is quite low and my immune system is quite okay.
In addition, at that point in time, I was still in Johor studying which was one of the most prone areas to the virus as it was right beside Singapore. The cases during that time at Singapore was at a high and yet I still did not fret, at all, not a single shed of fear. I went to my classes without mask and sanitiser. Plus, I even convinced myself this virus is just another strain of flu. The assumptions that I had made until that time was so wrong and yet I still went with it.
On the other hand, the previous government was doing a good job at handling the first wave of the pandemic, keeping the cases as low as possible and the growth rate of the cases was also kept at bay. They did a good job. It did not look or feel like a pandemic, at all- at least to me.
Big shout-out to Dr. Dzukefly Ahmad and his team at containing the first wave of virus.
Life was normal. Until these happened.
Political Fiasco
From 21 February to 4 March 2020 went down the annals of Malaysia as one of the messiest period.
You can read this if you want to know more about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Malaysian_political_crisis#21_February
After for the change in government, the fear in voicing out my opinions boldly (freedom of speech) had come back with a somewhat familiar feeling. Personally, I felt threaten to speak my mind as the people who supported the ‘new’ government and the people running it had left bad impressions to me in the past. (I do not want to go into a rant in this so I will just keep it at this)
It is the mindset that they have that I disliked.
I will give you an oversimplified version of what has happened:
Tun Mahathir (7th Prime Minister) resigned after certain members of his party ‘turned their backs’ on him to form a new government.
In my opinion, (just an opinion, do not arrest me, please.) I feel like those people running the government now, under the 8th Prime Minister- Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin- are nothing more than just disillusioned power-hungry money-grabbing politicians. (NOTE THAT THIS IS JUST AN OPINION)
Sigh…
I do not want to delve into my complaints anymore. The same inferiority and fear from the past is haunting me at the back of mind. I have to stop talking shit.
Back to reality.
Realistically, this political fiasco might have caused the sudden spike in the cases. My point is no matter which new government that just run the country for a few days knows thoroughly the system that was left behind by the previous government and have full control over the people working under them. There must be a shuffle in the government, different people; there must also have shortcomings in making the respective departments work effectively, different government. Thus a more sluggish effort was taken to tackle the cases.
Tabligh
There were over 16,000 people gathering at Sri Petalling for certain religious event at the start of March. Here is the more detailed report about it: https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/574484/14500-msians-tabligh-gathering-40-test-positive-covid-19
At the beginning of March was the rise of the second wave of the virus, even the WHO made efforts to tell people to have social distancing and stop gathering in masses, but there were these people who were ignorant about it.
They were not immediately quarantined and were given opportunities to get back to their respective homes. No actions were taken by the ‘new’ government at this point in time as they were busy distributing their ‘new fortune’ that was conveniently taken by them.
Here comes the spike and the sloppiness in executing MCO.
Movement Control Order was announced by the 8th PM on 16th March 2020 that everyone to stay at home from 18th to 31st March (14-day MCO) as the ‘new’ government just realised that the cases from the tabligh were spreading like wildfire.
Here is the full article, quite long: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/16/malaysia-announces-restricted-movement-measure-after-spike-in-covid-19-cases
(the 8th PM wasted too much time on rather unimportant points, I just summarized his speech in a few lines above.)
As a fellow human, I felt the fear this time, the severity of the virus and had the urge to socially distance myself from the people around me. To be honest, the universities nationwide, mine included, gave delayed messages and some contradicting messages to the students, leaving us in a midst of confusion and panic.
Here is one where they encouraged us to go back before the MCO has been implemented (this was circulated between collages) and they also mentioned about locking down the university during the MCO period:
And to make things worse, there was word circulating in my university hinting that there were already staffs who had the virus during this period of time.
I was utterly confused and panicky. What in the actual fuck is happening? How is it that difficult to make a true statement based on facts? I do not see the need to cover this up. We are facing this together as a country, as a world. Please, do not hide your cases or symptoms during this outbreak, especially during the start of it, these acts are simply foolish and selfish, think about other people also. At this point in time, I had partially lost trust in the information provided by certain bodies.
At 17th March, one of our lecturers still carried out the lecture as usual whereas most of the other lecturers knew the severity of the virus and cancelled their classes immediately or moved them online. I did not attend the lecture, I am not stupid and I care about social distancing. The best time to stop the spread of virus is during the beginning of it. I am just being a responsible person.
A dilemma hit me in the afternoon about whether or not to go home. At this time, I only had the announcement about encouraging us to go back so I just went along with the notice. I grabbed along few of my other friends and went back home.
Luckily I made the right choice, everything went spiralling downhill after then.
On the same day, the police announced that they will start blocking people from crossing states in the midnight- people must register at their nearest police station first before crossing states. It was around 6 or 7 pm when it was announced.
Everyone panicked. It was a mess where people gathered:
Announce by the head of police force to restrict state crossing on 17th March 2020.
Malaysians lining up to get their permission to cross states after the announcement.
Malaysians lining up to catch the bus before midnight.
I managed to get home before they scratched the crossing states restriction. They did not have time to prep for it and did not know one announcement literally threw everybody into panic mode.
I want to emphasize once more. It was a fucking mess.
Mass gatherings were happening here and there during this peak of the outbreak. Well played, nice move by our 8th PM in delivering and executing this.
Entertainers/ Comedians/ Politicians
During this peak period of the pandemic happening in Malaysia, the politicians of the ‘new’ government made some ‘laughable’ (filled with sarcasm, more like idiotic) moves/statements the riled up even more the current situation.
A tweet by a deputy minister
For the full article: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2020/03/16/deputy-minister-closes-twitter-account-after-uproar-over-covid-19-post/
The tweet went like this: The likelihood of dying from the Coronavirus is only 1%, while the possibility of dying at any moment is 100%.
Re-opening the topic on child marriage.
For the full article: https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/513990
In summary, another minister from the ‘new’ government want to continue making child marriage legal in Malaysia and also stated that Child Marriage is a blessing. Come on, people are busy dealing with the virus and you rather spend this time on this? You can be better than this.
Drinking warm water kills the Coronavirus.
For the full article: https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2020/03/20/health-minister039s-039warm-water-method039-to-kill-coronavirus-questioned
This was said by our Health Minister. Applause.
These were 3 of the many things that piqued my interest during these trying times.
MCO Extended
For the first few days of MCO, both the government and the people were not taking things as seriously as it should be. People still moved around and gathering. The government was still catching up to speed unto what was happening and slow at deploying people into the field to prevent these gatherings from happening.
Cases were skyrocketing, (and still is now)
People started to take things more seriously after a week or so. So as the government, day 5 only deployed the army to help the MCO; day 8 only gave money to the health ministry to purchase medical support; day 10 only announced financial help to the people. Well done! Really good job! Give a pat at the back to yourselves.
These were the messages sent by SMS by the government to the people. What a time we are living in.
Since the cases are still on the rise, the 8th PM announced an extra 14 days to the MCO, making it end by 14th April 2020. One whole month of staying at home. #stayathome
At this point in time, I do not know what to say or how to react with the situation. I will just go with the flow and continue with life as usual.
Masks, Hand Sanitisers and Food.
Even before the MCO, masks were sold out throughout the country but surprisingly hand sanitisers were still available. However, the price of masks and hand sanitisers skyrocketed drastically. (From RM0.20 per mask to RM2 per mask) There was a late implementation of price-caps by the government and a poor enforcement of it, making them expensive.
After MCO was being announced, people rushed to purchase food items in their local supermarkets. Here is one of them:
People rushing to stock-up food items and essentials before MCO.
Daily essentials could not keep up production after a few days into MCO. And yet, the government ensured us that there is going to be enough food for us to last for a month or two. But, it contradicted with what is actually happening.
Going Online
Apart from affecting our daily lives, even the education sphere is affected too. Exams are cancelled or delayed and classes are shifted online. Speaking from my thoughts, about my university, we are going online too, including the lab, tests and also finals. Wow! Great job in following the footsteps of other more equipped universities!
Let me ask a few practical questions:
How legitimate the tests and finals will be?
How can hundreds of students sit for a test at the same time?
How are lab classes going to be carried out?
As far as I know, our e-learning system is more or less like a rusty website from the early 2010s, probably made by shitty interns. To put it nicely, the website is basic and have limited usage. A considerable number of our lecturers do not or rarely carry out online classes. I still cannot think of a feasible system for online finals and tests. This is just absurd.
Here are two files as to help us resolve our main concerns:
Kenyataan Pej TNCAA-BM
UTM FAQ PdP 27032020.pdf
Looking at the bright side, we get to try out new stuffs and probably the management team will realise the importance of getting the online portals ready to use in cases of emergency for this period only. All roses have thorns, and I feel like the thorns on this rose is more than the previous ones.
One more thing, based on the announcements given by my university, I should be having online classes starting from 1 April 2020, but the government said the universities only can start earliest by 27th April 2020 and the latest by 1st June 2020. Here is the official announcement:
This is, a mess.
What did I do for these few days?
For the first week of MCO, I focused on a game (King Of Glory), I literally spent more than 8 hours gaming for each day for the week. I guess it was just a purge after months of not touching any games.
For the second week of MCO, I hosted online classes / discussion rooms with my friends, helping them out on the syllabus if they felt left out during the classes. It felt good and invigorating to teach once again, the best part is that they understood what I was teaching (Yay!) and they stayed through with me until this day (for 7 consecutive days!) I did two 2-hour sessions per day covering all the Mathematics syllabus that we are supposed to know for this semester.
This is refreshing. My passion for teaching has yet to die, it burns even brighter in this season.
Every night, except for Sunday nights, I met up with my cell via Zoom for prayer sessions and reading God’s word. I feel like these are the only things that I can do to help alleviate the pandemic at hand. At helpless times like this, God is still there. I believe that God will answer our prayers and eradicate COVID-19 from the face of Earth.
I cooked for most of the days, breakfast and dinner. I did Maths. I lazed around watching Youtube, procrastinating on this post. And I watched more Youtube and scrolled more Instagram than I had ever done. It had been always like that. I did not know when it started.
But, during this MCO, I am facing the demons of the algorithm head-on, battling them valiantly. My sleep pattern was also in a freestyle, I could not sleep at night and felt tired in the afternoon.
I just hope that this will end soon. Hope our world and humanity would be restored and healed.
No more toxicity and complaining about the situation. Think positively and pray and hope for healing to rain upon humanity and the world.
P.S. Here is what the 8th PM tweeted about:
We are a nation at war with invisible forces. The situation we are now facing is unprecedented in history. And this government may not be the government that you voted for. But I want you to know that this government cares for you.
Translation to BM:
Kami adalah sebuah negara yang sedang berperang dengan kekuatan yang tidak kelihatan. Keadaan yang kita hadapi sekarang tidak pernah berlaku dalam sejarah. Dan kerajaan ini mungkin bukan kerajaan yang anda pilih. Tetapi saya ingin anda tahu bahawa kerajaan ini mengambil berat tentang anda.
– Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (8th Prime Minister of Malaysia)
Shalom!
Hope. Joy.. Feelings cloaked as words.
Craving for more? Down below:
WRITING 100 BLESSINGS!
Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli (Book Review)
Why Do I Still Write?
The Fault in Expectations
The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson (Book Review)
Parasite (Movie Review)
14-Hour Phone Detox on Valentine’s Day
it's been more than a week #malaysia #stayathome #thoughts #covid19 #feelings #amwriting #bloggerstribe It has been more than a week (almost two weeks) since I posted anything, I simply did not have the will nor the effort to do so even the Malaysian government has imposed a Movement Control Order (MCO) from 18 March 2020 to 14 April 2020.
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“Do you need a hand?” AVERY MEETING KAAS
Ok, so... have some really bad pep talks.
Morning. At least, he thought it wasmorning. With the heavy curtains drawn over the window, it wasdifficult to know what time of day it was. He was certain he heardbirds chirping, but that didn't really mean anything. It would havebeen sensible to look, but every fiber of his being kept him in bed,staring up at the ceiling.
His arm throbbed. It was doing thatless and less as the days wore on, but it still hurt. The healer whohad stood over him once he had stopped screaming warned him he mightfeel some phantom pain in what used to be his wrist. They had beenwiping off their bloody hands when they had informed him of this, asif they weren't the reason he was in so much pain.
No, that wasn't fair. Kaaras shookhis head weakly. Solas was the cause of this. The others, as much ashe hated them at the moment, had only tried to help him. Of course,when help is holding him down when someone sawed through his dyingarm, it's hard to see things clearly. He would eventually have toapologize for half the things he said, but that wasn't for today.
Sighing, the qunari closed his heavyeyelids. Sleep was getting more natural. He was weaning himself offthe potion they had given him for pain, and soon he might not need itat all. What he would do afterwards, he had no idea.
Off to the side, beyond the heavydoor that had been slammed shut a day prior, he heard footsteps. Oneof them was rather heavy, while the other practically skipped. Bothstopped before his door, and began to speak in low tones.
“How's he doing, Varric?”
“It's not good. He cursed hisbrother out yesterday. Healer says he should be up by now.”
The other voice snorted. “Healerssay a lot of things. Only ones I trust wear feathers. Just give mesome time with him. I think I can help.”
There was a pause, and then the knobjiggled uselessly. “Just uh... can you pick the lock? All thumbs.”
Had he the strength, Kaaras wouldhave laughed. Instead, he just stared over to the door. Varric'stools were making short work of the lock, large fingers somewhatclumsy. That used to be his job, way back before any of this hadhappened.
The door swung open anyway, and afigure stepped inside. It took him a few moments, but he recognizedthe large pair of blue eyes glowing faintly in the half gloom. Hehadn't had much time with Varric's friend, but she was alright.
Avery Hawke crossed the room withouta sound, hopping onto the chair next to the bed like the little birdsthat hopped across Skyhold's garden. She gave him a toothy grin,crossing her legs in an altogether unladylike fashion. Of course,when one wears armor, that tends to be a little hard.
“So, can I give you a hand withanything?”
That might be a little difficult,considering she herself was also disarmed at the moment. This wasprobably the first time Kaaras had seen her without the prostheticthat connected to her right shoulder. Someone had folded up thesleeve so it didn't get in her way, someone with quicker fingers thanthe dwarf standing in the door frame.
Those blue eyes glanced over to hisleft side, and Avery let out a low whistle that was still pretty highcompared to most of Skyhold. “Damn, they did a number on you. Ithought you would at least get to keep the elbow.”
So had he. The qunari glanced over tohis arm, or what was left of it. Apparently, the green glow hadspread farther than his elbow. The thin scars that remained almosttouched his shoulder in places. If anything, he seemed to be lucky tohave kept what he did.
“Guess that's what happens whensomebody else deals with it.” She tapped her own shoulder. “I didthis myself.”
When he gave her a rather incredulouslook “Well... Anders finished it off. Apparently, a bloody sword isa really poor choice of bone saw. Who knew?”
That time, Kaaras did chuckle. It wasa rough sound, probably because he hadn't really spoken much. He satup a little straighter, wincing as he felt nothing but air when hetried to use his left arm to prop himself up. It was kind offrustrating, being without his dominant arm.
“I'm never going to get used tothat.”
The small warrior at his side shookher head. “You mostly will. Sometimes you'll forget and fall flaton your face. I've done it twice, and nobody's let me live it down.Hopefully, you do it less than me. There's a lot more air betweenyour face and the ground.”
That there was.
Kaaras made sure to use his right armon his next attempt to sit up. He dwarfed Avery when he did, and hisneck throbbed from the awkward positioning. In response, she stoodand sat on the back of her chair, never even rocking it once.
“Anyway, Varric wanted me to talkto you to make you feel better. I don't know what I could do, I'm notexactly known for my bedside manner.” She shrugged. “So, getbetter and get your ass back in the field. I bet that big qunari guya sovereign that you could beat your brother in hand to hand.”
He had to snort at that. “Really,hand to hand?”
“What, your brother's a mage. Ifyou can't beat him in good old fashioned ass kicking, we have biggerproblems.”
Somewhere, he was pretty sure Akriwas sneezing. It would be easy to spot, since a building might move alittle bit.
Kaaras shook his head in response.“You'd be surprised what he can do with that mace.”
“Yeah, but mages are squishy, evenif they are 7 feet tall with horns.” She grinned. “It's like alaw of the universe. Qunari are big, the chantry sucks ass, and magesare squishy.”
No doubt the newly Divine would havea problem with some of those proclamations, but he couldn't see muchwrong with them. Others might, particularly those in the 'squishy'category, but they weren't in the room so they had no vote at themoment.
At least, that was what he would tellthem later. Much later.
One thing did cross his mind as hestared over at his impromptu pep party. He looked down at his own armfor a brief moment, and then back to hers. Their eyes met in themiddle, and she cocked her eyebrow in response.
“What, got a question?”
Kaaras felt his face heat up alittle. “No, I was just wondering about your prosthetic. I've neverseen one work like that.”
Indeed, it had been something of amarvel when they had fought together in the Fade. Most fake limbs hehad seen were somewhat clumsy, but hers moved as if it was actuallyattached to her. Since she currently was a little underhanded at themoment, that wasn't the case. Magic came to mind.
Not surprisingly, she grinned. “Ah,I was wondering when you'd ask. My friends made it for me after mylittle chat with the Arishok. It's enchanted, or so they told me. Idon't understand much besides the little bit of lyrium helps it moveand the rest I do with this.”
At this, she pointed at her ear. Asmall earring sat there, a dull purple at the moment. “This doessome weird magic shit as far as I know. Makes it move. If you wantone, talk to Varric about it. He's the one who set me up. Bit of awarning though, it wears you out like nothing else. I'd advise it forass kicking only.”
Well, maybe he would have to talk tothe dwarf about that once he felt a little more up to it. His armwould probably have to heal up completely first. Since it still hadsome bandages on, the qunari figured he wasn't quite there. Still, itwas better than when he had been brought in. He didn't remember much,but there was the memory of his entire arm pulsing a sickly green.What had happened to it after it was removed, he didn't know andfrankly didn't care to find out.
The further away it was from him thebetter.
“I'll ask Varric later onceeverything's healed up.” Kaaras paused, looking to the side as hedid. “It might come in handy.”
What could he say? He was a suckerfor dumb puns.
Outside the room, he heard a groan.Apparently, they were being watched. Still, it didn't matter. Hechuckled at his own bad joke, and his guest joined him in it. It feltgood to laugh, though it still scraped a little bit. He'd have towork on that.
Avery flashed him another grin as shestood at last, barely coming up to his shoulder when seated. “Anyway,I have to go. Keep this between you and me, but I kind of didn't tellanyone in Starkhaven I was leaving. We've been kind of busy since,you know... the defenestration and accidental takeover. If you needto talk or whatever, send me a bird. I have plenty of bad puns foramputation. Though I gotta say, it seems like you have that undercontrol.”
With a small bow that was not in theleast bit sincere, the small woman left, closing the door behind her.Kaaras was left in the quiet room, listening to her footsteps.Varric's heavier boots followed behind her at a steady pace, but hecould still listen.
“Thanks, Hawke.”
“Hey, you got me out of Starkhavenfor a couple days; we're even.” There was a pause. “I think thebig guy's gonna be ok. He's tough.”
Tough; well, he would have to takeher word for it. Right then, Kaaras really didn't feel much ofanything but bored. It was like an itch he couldn't scratch, right inthat spot between his shoulder blades where his horns kept him fromreaching.
It had been a while since his feethad touched the ground, and they felt rather heavy when he did.Still, once he started, walking wasn't a problem. He still reachedfor the heavy drape with his left hand, though, and frowned when allhe saw was air.
“That's going to get annoying.”
Shaking his head, Kaaras finallyopened the window to peer out. The sunlight nearly blinded him;apparently, it was the middle of the afternoon. Blinking hard, he satback down in bed. What he was going to do next, he had no idea.
But, it sounded like he had sometraining to do. After all, he was never one to help Iron Bull win abet. Just, probably not that day. He had other things to relearn,such as the lost art of shirt buttons. Those kind of came first.
Training was a high third, though.
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Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19?
If it seems like everyone in your social media feed is drinking more right now, they probably are. According to IWSR data shared with VinePair, retail alcohol sales during Covid-19 have hit double-digit growth, mirroring “holiday-type” volume and value spending.
Of course, any current data should be examined with the caveat that on-premise sales have plummeted, and many are replacing those purchases with stay-at-home Quarantinis. There’s also stockpiling to consider, though IWSR figures signal that the bulk of this took place during a two-week period in March, and sales since then have remained strong.
But just as our interactions with the physical world are largely confined to the views from our windows, we should not overlook the subjectivity of social media feeds. Put simply: Not everyone is drinking more right now.
“If anything, I’ve seen this kind of outpouring of, ‘Here are all the ways that I’m taking care of myself,’ and lots of people doing yoga and meditation,” says Sam Thonis, co-owner of Getaway, an alcohol-free bar in Brooklyn. Opened in April 2019, the bar has become a brick-and-mortar signifier of the growing low- and no-alcohol movements.
Prior to Covid-19, these movements had started gaining significant traction, with coverage reaching national media. By the end of last year, publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times had devoted significant column inches to the popularity of lower-ABV spritz cocktails and hard seltzers, and the growing interest in the “sober-curious” lifestyle. While it was harder to back the “trend” with sales data, low- and no-ABV drinks had by then entered the cultural lexicon.
But like everything else right now, the future of the low and no movements feels delicately poised. Convincing drinkers that it might be a good idea to lower their alcohol consumption is difficult enough at the best of times, let alone in the midst of a global pandemic. And looking forward, there’s the dark cloud of recession looming on the horizon, which is likely to impact consumer spending. That could be a particular challenge for the zero-proof category, whose products have been priced at retail similarly to the boozy libations they were designed to replace. To boot: The non-alcoholic botanical “spirit” Seedlip sells for around $30 for 700 milliliters, while a slightly larger bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin sells for $25. These issues raise the question: What does Covid-19 mean for the future of the nascent low- and no-ABV movements?
Drinking Habits In a Global Pandemic
For Thonis, there’s no question that the zero-proof scene was gaining traction prior to Covid-19. After Getaway opened, it received significant press. While skeptics could argue it seemed like a niche “New York” concept, multiple operators around the country reached out to Thonis and told him they wanted to emulate his model.
Sales, too, seemed to indicate that the city that never sleeps was willing to take the occasional night off from booze. “Before March, when everything changed, the two normal months of 2020 were our best months yet,” he says. “We were on a serious upswing.”
Sadly, those sales have now crashed to nothing. Unlike some New York cocktail bars, Getaway hasn’t pivoted to takeaway or to-go options. And when stay-at-home orders are finally relaxed, Thonis realizes his bar’s offerings might be deemed as a luxury by some. “[Non-alcoholic cocktails] are not human necessities, unlike food and arguably alcohol,” he says.
Lifestyle writer Ruby Warrington has noticed contrasting attitudes on her social media feeds. In 2018, the New-York-based British author wrote a book on alcohol abstinence titled “Sober Curious.” Some have even credited the work with popularizing the no-ABV movement. Warrington also hosts a podcast of the same name and interacts via social media with a community of people who choose not to drink.
Many of those interactions have included people speaking about how glad they are that they don’t drink right now and don’t need to navigate hangovers in the midst of a pandemic. But when she opens her Facebook feed, which has a lot of people from her “pre-sober-curious life” in the U.K., she notices some friends repeating the kind of statements that could double as a quarantine meme, such as “How early is too early to start drinking?” and “Drinking alone doesn’t count in a crisis.”
“It almost feels like there’s a lot of bravado, a ‘let’s drink our way through it’ sort of attitude,” she says. “With my sober-curious goggles on, it does seem like underneath there’s a lot of fear.”
Her evaluation is backed by psychological science. “It makes a lot of sense that people are drinking more during this time: They want instant relief from anxiety, boredom, depression, and just not wanting to feel their feelings — alcohol offers a solution to that,” says Lindsay Hayden, a New York-based licensed mental health counselor who specializes in addiction.
Hayden warns that without the structure and routine of normal life, those who are using only alcohol as a coping mechanism could soon be facing more serious issues. “Not everyone who is relying on alcohol will come out of the pandemic with an alcohol addiction, but it is definitely something people should be watching out for,” she says.
Drinking Habits During a Recession
While the “new normal” of quarantine life is unprecedented to all experiencing it, at least some of what comes after Covid-19 is not without parallel. By many accounts, the world economy is headed into a long and potentially deep recession. The IMF predicts the coronavirus crisis could knock as much as $9 trillion off global GDP over the next two years. If previous recessions are benchmarks, that doesn’t spell good news for the low- and no-ABV movements.
During the eight-month 2001 recession, whose economic impact lasted for several years, alcohol volume sales grew year-over-year, totaling a 4 percent increase between 2001 and 2004, according to IWSR’s chief operating officer, Brandy Rand.
While alcohol sales growth was somewhat flat during the Great Recession of December 2007 to June 2009, that was only because of declining beer sales. “[U]nemployment rate at the end of 2009 was 10 percent, yet there was still an upward consumption trend outside of beer,” Rand explains.
The purchasing habits from both of the most recent recessions indicate that when economic times are tough, consumers turn to the bottle. Amid the uncertainty, and with less cash in their pockets, they also favor higher-ABV beverages to leverage more bang for buck.
Lisa Laird Dunn, executive vice president of Laird & Company, predicts a similar trend this time around. Founded in 1780, her family runs the oldest licensed distillery in America. In its 200-plus-year history, Laird & Co. has survived more than 30 recessions, two world wars, and even Prohibition.
While known for its Applejack, the distillery’s portfolio contains a broad range of products, priced from high- end to value brands. Laird Dunn confirms that the company’s lower-priced value brands typically sell best during a recession and expects to see a repeat of this trend following Covid-19. “I think you’ll find that there will be more price shopping versus just brand shopping,” she says.
But national sales statistics and the experience of recession-defying distilleries paint just part of the picture.
In January 2013, the University of Buffalo published a study on alcohol use during the Great Recession. Polling more than 2 million Americans between 2006 and 2010, the study uncovered notable increases in heavy drinking (3.9 percent) and frequent binge drinking (7.1 percent), but also found a slight increase in abstention from alcohol (0.8 percent). Put more simply: Not everyone decided to drink more. And there’s more than just anecdotal references to prove the same thing is happening right now.
On Thursday, global research firm Wine Intelligence published its first Covid-19-related consumer analysis report. Based on data collected at the end of March and beginning of April, the report found that, on average, wine consumption has remained stable during lockdown. But once again, this trend only tells part of the story.
“We’re seeing an increase in frequency of wine consumption amongst more engaged wine drinkers,” says CEO Lulie Halstead. “So those who were already drinking wine at higher frequencies are increasing that frequency.”
On the flip side, younger drinkers who were just discovering wine are now drinking it much less frequently than before, she adds. While this finding is based on data collected in Australia, Halstead says early examinations of international data appear to show a similar trend in other markets.
Hope For the Low- and No-ABV Movements
During previous recessions, those who opted not to drink were limited to sodas, seltzers, and water. But this time around, the market is already awash with interesting alcohol alternatives. From no-ABV beers to zero-proof spirits, there are a number of non-alcoholic options that taste just like the real thing (or pretty darn close) without the alcohol and with fewer calories. If consumers can get past price concerns, the compelling flavors and low-calorie appeal of these products could help keep the low and no movements humming along.
As one notable example, Scottish brewery BrewDog has reported strong demand for its range of alcohol-free beers this year. Compared to the last four months of 2019, volume sales on its e-commerce platform have surged more than 350 percent between January and April of this year.
“Just last week, we had our strongest day of online sales ever with the launch of our newest NA beer: Ghost Walker,” says CEO Jason Block. Demand from wholesalers has been stronger still, with volume growth reaching quadruple digits during the first four months of 2020.
The thirst for no-ABV spirits appears to be similarly strong. Ritual Zero Proof, a non-alcoholic beverage brand that offers gin, tequila, and whiskey alternatives, sold its entire six-month inventory in just five weeks when it launched in September last year. Despite the current global pandemic, March 2020 sales were up 16 percent over February, and April sales are on track to double that.
“Spirit alternatives like Ritual are today what veggie burgers and almond milk were a few years back: New, easy to knock, and so broadly desired there are now sections in the grocery store dedicated to them,” says founding partner Marcus Sakey. “Almond milk did $5.3 billion in 2018.”
Support from internationally acclaimed bartenders has given these alternatives further credentials. At Bar Kumiko in Chicago, partner and director Julia Momose curated an extensive “Spiritfrees” cocktail menu. The bar is currently offering five of these drinks as part of a temporary to-go menu.
One of the most vocal supporters of the low- and no-ABV drinks has been Derek Brown, owner of Washington D.C.’s Columbia Room. In February, Brown authored a high-profile article on embracing “mindful drinking” and detailing his own complicated relationship with alcohol.
Brown believes zero-proof cocktails can be just as delicious, interesting, and thought-provoking as those with booze. While he’s also noticed an anecdotal increase in alcohol consumption, he doesn’t think that will harm the low and no movements. In fact, Brown believes our current situation might serve as a wake-up call for many. “A lot of people who went into this wondering whether they had a drinking problem will come out of it knowing the answer to that,” he says.
For those who do, there’s never been a broader range of alternatives and support to help change those habits.
The article Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19? appeared first on VinePair.
source https://vinepair.com/articles/coronavirus-impact-low-no-alcohol-movements/
source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/616288664749834240
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