August and Rousseau are functionally the same character: the serious version

On Thursday evening, at my fanfic co-author’s encouragement, I posted about August and Rousseau being functionally the same character. This post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but there’s always been a serious, liberal arts college analysis version of it lurking in my head. I decided to go ahead and share it because what is the point of rejoining tumblr if I can’t torture the world with my Young Royals meta? (Do we even call it meta anymore? I am Fandom Old.)

So anyway, I have now written too many words about how Rousseau the horse is a narrative shadow for August, and how horse tropes are used to communicate August’s character arc. My ~credentials~ are as follows: I’m currently doing a terminal degree in writing literature for children and teenagers, and I have re-read the Felicity Merriman American Girl Books more times than I can count. I was not a horse girl in childhood, despite my mother trying to get me to be one by buying me Breyers and an alarmingly technicolor Lisa Frank notebook with a horse on its cover. (For Not Being A Horse Girl reasons there may be some errors in equestrian terminology here, but I’m gonna do my best. I invite genuine Horse Girls to weigh in with their knowledge and insight.) I have more thoughts about August as a character than I know what to do with, to the point where those thoughts have in part inspired the critical thesis on justice and privilege in YA lit that I am going to write for my MFA. These thoughts here on tumblr are merely for a fannish intellectual experiment, however, so I will not be as aggressive with the MLA and the footnotes as I would be in thesis work.

While I am an American of Swedish descent who has celebrated her Scandinavian heritage since childhood, I am still very much an American and my native language is English. Most of my lit theory here is therefore informed by the Anglo-American Horse Girl tradition, which I know got imported to a lot of other countries in translation. At the same time, I am aware that there are Swedish Horse Girl books out there, and I do not know as much about where they overlap with the Anglo-American tropes and where they differ. If anyone has knowledge in this particular area, please feel free to chime in.

Before we begin, I feel it necessary to issue a few notes about content. The first and most obvious content note is that this meta deals with August’s character arc, so I will naturally mention his releasing of the video and his other toxic masculine behaviors that harm the people around him. I will also make reference to his drug addiction, mental health issues, and possible disordered eating. In addition, there will be discussion of abusive relationship dynamics and adults invading the privacy of teenagers with the goal of controlling their romantic, sexual, and reproductive futures (particularly in the context of a monarchy securing its lines of dynastic succession.) You have been warned.

TOPICS COVERED

Horses in Literature and their General Vibe

Cinematography and Film Language in Young Royals

August, Felice, and Sara

Bloodlines and the Line of Succession

What’s next for August and Rousseau?

Horse/Power

Horses have long been symbols of wealth, status, and nobility. While literature and folklore offer their fair share of ordinary workhorses, the prince on a fancy white horse is an iconic fairy tale image. Historically, the ability to maintain a stable full of horses, specifically bred for battle or fine riding, was (and still is) a privilege only the rich can afford. Among the Romans, the second highest ranked social group after the senatorial class were the equites, named for the fact that they were rich enough to own horses they could bring to war. Fast forwarding to the modern day Young Royals, we see the wealth of Hillerska on full display in the stables. Even Felice’s parents, who have plenty of money to burn, remind her how much they spent on Rousseau.

August, of course, defines himself by his status. When we first meet him, he’s always going on about his father’s estate, bragging about flying off to restaurants in France, separating out who is nouveau riche and who is ancien regime—and so on and so forth. So what? you may be saying. Plenty of Young Royals characters are wealthy and own land. Why single out August and make him the character shadowed by the horse, just because of his money? Probably because of the other ideas horses get associated with in popular media. Horses in fiction are often temperamental, but their humans often work to control and tame horses in spite of that. There’s a certain tension and troubledness to fictional horses that makes them dangerous. Rousseau is no exception to this—Felice and others have difficulty managing him. We know August has a temper that gets the better of him. We also know he’s obsessed with control, and the first person he tries to be strict and controlling with is himself.

To put it more briefly, horses in stories can be used to open up a lot of questions about wealth and power and how that power is, well, reined in. Thematically, having Rousseau as a shadow to August’s character arc is an obvious choice.

Framed by the Stable Doors

The cinematography of Young Royals visually links August and Rousseau from the very beginning of the series. As early on as episode 1.2, a shot of Sara taking Rousseau out for a trot is followed immediately by a shot of August out on a run. (Or maybe it happens in the opposite order? Help.) These moments mirror one another—both of them are scenes of a moment of discipline and exercise, underscored by tense background music. Throughout season 1, even when August and Rousseau aren’t paralleled by the editing, they are at least paralleled by the writing.

As we move into season 2, the shots of Rousseau become more constrained as the threat of prison looms over August’s head. Rousseau is almost always behind a fence or restricted by some other architectural features. The bars(?) of Rousseau’s stall door echo the bars of a jail cell, while the trailer belonging to the Worst Kind of Horse People (TM) suggests a police van taking August away after a future arrest. These scenes almost always include Sara somewhere, and she’s often having reaction faces. As others have noted, Sara doesn’t speak much, but these visual cues offer hints about her internal mental landscape while also foreshadowing her eventual role as the one who turns August over to law enforcement.

I’m inclined to read these “imprisoned horse” scenes as Sara having internal conflict about her relationship with August. On some level, she is attempting to grapple with the fact that they’re already doomed because of August’s prior actions with the video. I don’t necessarily think this means that Sara is always thinking these things consciously and in words. Maybe it’s just a sense of foreboding in the pit of her stomach. Instead of having Sara try to articulate this in any sort of literal way, my guess is that the YR production team wanted to convey this part of her arc through visual language and symbolism. I think it works, once you’ve decided to buy into the horse parallels.

Does this mean we’ve segued into talking about the girls now? Probably. Might as well gallop ahead…

Enter the Equestriennes

Even outside of Horse Girl books, women on horseback are a repeating motif in Western literature. As various academics will tell you, equestrian women occupy a complex and problematic (in the academic sense) space on the page. On one hand, riding horses confers status upon these women and gives them some freedom of movement. On the other hand, equestrian women are often being trained for the patriarchy in subtextual ways. One thesis I looked at explains how in Victorian literature, riding was often used to facilitate female characters’ interaction with men in ways that eventually lead to marriage. You also examine the common Horse Girl cliché of that one special teenage girl who knows how to calm down the impossible horse, and understand it as a little sister to the “I can fix him” romance genre. As bastion of literary analysis TVTropes points out, ponies and the Troubled But Cute Boyfriend sure do have a lot in common.

Young Royals knows the tropes, and it wants you to know that it knows them.

Felice Ehrencrona doesn’t want to be a horse girl. Felice’s mother wants her to ride, because riding is what archetypal rich girls from Hillerska do. Throughout season one, we see Felice struggling with her riding classes and being afraid of Rousseau. While she gains more confidence with the help of Sara, she never truly grows to love being around Rousseau (as we can see by the way she quickly abandons her hobby later.) Still, for a while, Felice maintains the public image of the happy equestrian by posting pictures of herself and Rousseau to her Instagram and making additional posts that say she’s in the stables when she isn’t. Felice’s mother, believing this to be true, is delighted—until in 1.3 it comes out that Sara has been riding Felice’s horse instead, and Felice’s positive relationship with Rousseau is just a facade.

What holds true for horses holds true for boys, too. Felice’s mother is constantly putting pressure on her about boys, specifically in the way she encourages Felice to pursue Wilhelm. The fact that Felice knows stuff about the line of succession and whose babies get what rank (something she explains to the beleaguered American Maddie) suggests that Mamma Ehrencrona isn’t just interested in Felice having a nice boyfriend, she’s actually bringing marriage and babies into it. Which… is a lot. It’s so “a lot” that Felice rebels against her mother at the end of 1.3 by hooking up with August.

Although Felice’s initial act is one of rebellion, she ends up trapped back in the same place she started from, where socioeconomic status and performative gendered nonsense is prized above all else. August, after all, is still from the nobility and still comes with all that baggage Felice is getting from her parents. Felice’s relationship with August is very bad, especially behind closed doors where he’s constantly questioning her about who she’s with and where she’s going. To Hillerska at large, however, they give off the impression of being the school power couple. During moments of characters scrolling there phones we can see that in addition to being seen together, they also included photos of themselves together on one another’s instagrams. This contrast between the image and the reality of Felice’s relationship with August echoes Felice’s selfies with Rousseau.

As for Sara… well, if you nodded along to what I said before about the special teenage girl who is the only one who can tame the troubled horse, you probably already know where I’m going with this. Sara and August’s relationship doesn’t really come out of nowhere. Rather, they’ve spent an entire season taking a step closer to one another, literally and figuratively, every few scenes. You know the cliché where the horse girl visits the troubled horse every day and gets a little bit closer each time until the horse finally trusts the girl enough to eat sugar cubes out of her hand? Yeah. Same rhythm/pacing as the Sara/August scenes, and it only gets more obvious in season 2. That scene where he’s having a panic attack and she calms him down? He is a scared horse. We’re all on the same page, right? I hope we’re all on the same page.

In some ways, it’s not a perfect analogy and doesn’t always match up in a one to one way. Most horse girl books stay wish fulfillment and there isn’t always a moment of “the horse is Bad Actually, and we will remind you that the horse released a sex video of the horse girl’s brother.” But I think the horse girl novel coding speaks to what makes a relationship with August appealing to Sara in the first place. Deep down Sara wants to be special and exceptional to someone else, and she feels she understands things about August (and how to keep his emotions regulated) that other people don’t. As Sara sees it, she’s taken time to build trust with August. It’s the two of them together against really difficult odds, and she’ll take the difficulty that comes with that.

Also, while we’re here, the first place August kisses Sara is the stables. And there’s that entire conversation Felice and Sara have when Sara comes back after having sex in 2.3. I’m just saying. It’s right there. We’re all doing the math, right? We all see it?

People Of Good Breeding

Here’s where it gets even more icky.

In season 2, Felice decides to quit riding. This makes keeping Rousseau a bad investment, so Felice plans to sell him, and Sara decides to tag along. When a particular family expresses interest in Rousseau and comes to Hillerska to assess him, Sara swiftly dubs them the Worst Kind of Horse People.

What makes the Worst Kind of Horse People so upsetting to Sara? They don’t know how to respond to Rousseau, and they don’t treat him with the compassion Sara does. They’re willing to endure Rousseau’s volatile moods, however, because of he’s a thoroughbred and has a prestigious pedigree.

Things I did not know before watching a documentary about it: apparently all the thoroughbreds that exist in the world now are descended from three historical stallions. They are inbred af. IRL people who own thoroughbred stallions now will charge ~$50,000 per insemination in like a horse breeding hookup situation. Which… what? What the literal fuck. I get that this is a hobby people feel very passionate about and find fulfillment in, so I am trying not to be judgmental… and also that is a lot of money (more than half my yearly salary) for just one instance of breeding horses. So I’m still wrapping my head around it.

It stands to reason that the Worst Kind of Horse People could want Rousseau for his, um, genetic material. Anyway, let’s talk about the monarchy and the line of succession.

At the same time that the Worst Kind of Horse People are expressing interest in Rousseau, the royal court has started to pay attention to August. According to the YR fictional family tree, August is next in line for the throne after Wilhelm. Kristina’s advisors have plans to groom (see what I did there) August as a backup heir if Wilhelm keeps insisting on having free will. (Really! The audacity! Good for Wilhelm, though, we’re all rooting for him.)

For August, the idea of being elevated to spare prince, or potentially even king one day, feels liberating. Based on how he’s acting at the shooting range after his visit to the palace, he sees a chance for himself to leave his crimes behind and not be caught in his guilt. But I want to pause for a moment and consider the scene in 2.4 where he gets the phone call from the palace. Jan-Olof asks August a series of privacy-invading questions, including ones that touch on his sexual history. The final question (and therefore the one the writers want you to notice) is simply “are you heterosexual?” to which August replies that he is.

There’s a tempting rabbit hole I could go down about what it means for August to go beyond just engaging in toxic heterosexual behavior, and actually embrace heterosexuality as a label, and because it’s a tempting rabbit hole I will save it for another meta. What I want to focus on here is how sinister this scene feels. Part of that is because we (and Sara) know how blatantly and easily August is lying, and that he’s slipping back into his old, status-loving, drug-abusing self. In light of the established Rousseau parallels, however, I can’t ignore the subtext that the royal court is interested in whether or not they can “domesticate” August just enough that they can get him to eventually marry the right girl and produce a legitimate heir to the throne. That’s it. Nothing more. They aren’t interested in helping him with his addiction or getting him into therapy for his disordered eating or helping him process his dad’s death—all of which would put him in a better emotional place, and maybe even prevent him from returning to the emotionally dangerous mindset he was in when he outed Wilhelm and Simon to the entire world. On a metaphorical level, the royal court is basically treating August as livestock. Which. Is gross, actually.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We all know that August himself perpetuates a lot of gross sexual behavior toward others. Aside from releasing the video, he’s selfish and borderline emotionally abusive toward Felice, especially about sex. He constantly eggs on his classmates to stand up on the breakfast table and brag about their “conquests.” He eventually becomes extremely sweet and tender with Sara, but that’s only after he’s tried to get her to sell him drugs, bullied her family about not being able to eat lunch on Parents’ Weekend, and kissing her without her consent in the stables. August is very much Not Someone Who Respects The Sexual And Reproductive Autonomy Of Others and yet! There is this whole entire system of hereditary monarchy behind him, aiming to control every aspect of his life and violate his privacy, and he is a teenager. It’s not okay that they do it to Wilhelm either. We know they’re trying to do it to Wilhelm even now, and we get the sense they did it to Erik too, given the lines about the OnlyFans girlfriend needing to be hushed up.

I think it’s easy to say, well, August is power hungry and amoral enough that he consents to having his privacy invaded, and he does, but I legitimately wonder if he knows what he’s getting into. (Case in point: I think August really believes that the palace crowd would let him publicly date Sara. And, no. Even if Sara weren’t Simon’s sister, I can’t imagine they’d be excited about him dating the neurodivergent daughter of an immigrant mother and a father with a shady drug past. At the very least they’d force Sara to sign some pretty hefty NDAs.) My point is, you can consent to something and still end up in a weird power dynamic that’s bad for you and doesn’t honor where your feelings are. You can be a person of privilege who harms others, while still being harmed by systems of privilege yourself. And that’s precisely part of what makes August a compelling and complicated character.

Look, I just wish more people nowadays had seen the legendary 1990s anime Revolutionary Girl Utena because they would then get what I mean when I say that August isn’t Akio, he’s Saionji.

…I’m off track. My point is that the reproductive subtext in that scene is deeply unsettling and August’s nakedness in front of the window only makes it moreso. Right. Moving on.

What’s Next? The Horse and His Boy

(Apologies for naming this last section after a problematic Narnia book.)

Man. I wish I could just write August off and clamor for his untimely and violent death without a care in the world. The reality is that I’m under a curse, and that curse makes me want to see him eventually sort his life out, one way or another.

Let me be clear about what that does and doesn’t mean: I don’t mean that I don’t want to see him face consequences for the very real crime he did. I don’t mean I think he should suddenly be perfect and woke. I don’t mean that he and Sara should get back together. I don’t mean I want to see everyone forgive him. I just mean I want August to honestly confront the truth of his life so far and go “you know what? I suck. I can do better. I’m not even sure how, and I’m gonna make mistakes along the way, but maybe I can suck less.” And maybe he takes one tiny step where you’re like, if he keeps taking steps like this, this kid could turn out okay by age 40. Maybe. I feel incredibly exposed even saying this, since I know August is so widely despised by so many people in fandom, and I know other people who are okay with letting him stay in the villain zone, but I also feel like if anyone can pull off this story, it’s Lisa Ambjörn. She gets nuance, and she gets young people their flaws and their family conflicts. If YR were a different show, with a different writer and a different morality underlying the stories it tells, I would feel differently. But I don’t, and I think Lisa can pull off a complex story like that. So here we are.

(For examples of YA novels that pull off this kind of narrative catharsis, check out the character arc of the protagonist Deposing Nathan by Zack Smedley. Or pay attention to the uncle’s character arc in Randy Ribay’s Patron Saints of Nothing.)

There’s a very soft acting choice of Malte’s in 2.3, where August goes to meet Sara in the stables, to ask if she wants to come by and talk later. Sara’s getting Rousseau settled for the evening, and August reaches out and pats Rousseau on the nose. If I’m remembering the scene correctly, the usually temperamental Rousseau is calm in response.

We’ve seen August act self-aggrandizing before so he can build himself up and threaten other people. We’ve also seen him engage in escalating acts of self-harm (via excessive exercising and calorie counting) when he isn’t living up to his own strict standards. What we don’t see a lot is him having compassion for himself. If we accept that Rousseau is August’s shadow-self, then this nose pat is a rare moment of self-compassion. It’s at this point in the season that August realizes he needs to exist in community with other people, and that he needs to actually process his overwhelming emotions instead of lashing out at others. He makes an effort to try and quit using drugs, genuinely connects with Sara, and even briefly defends Simon when Vincent gets on Simon’s case after the indoor rowing match. It’s a positive trajectory and a glimmer of what could have been. That lasts until his visit to the palace, when August is offered the position as Wilhlem’s backup and starts to go back to his old ways. Moreover, the pressure of becoming the spare creates new complications for August’s mental health, and he slides back into lashing out at others again.

At the end of the season, August views Rousseau as a commodity and buys him for Sara in a Grand Gesture (TM) that’s actually pretty alarming and could be categorized as love-bombing. Sara is not impressed (I suspect she’s witnessed Micke love-bombing Linda, and all her alarm bells are going off) and continues her trip to the bus stop so she can report him to the police.

I could talk about the police call and the part where Sara is playing with a small horse keychain at the bus stop, but that might be the topic for another meta. Instead I want to take a moment to think about the practical fact that August owns a horse now. This opens up a few questions: if Rousseau continues to be August’s shadow-self, what does it mean for August to buy and own Rousseau? Is August going to have to learn to take care of Rousseau now? How much farther can we extend this metaphor?

Patience, comrades. We’re almost to the finish line.

By buying Rousseau, August has allowed himself to be bought by the aristocratic power structure that’s been trying to maneuver him into royal life. He’s started to actually use the inheritance left for him by his father—not because he’s finally started to process his grief, but because he’s doubling down on the idea that he deserves his inherited wealth and that he can use it as lavishly as he wishes. What’s interesting is the way he thinks this makes him into someone Sara will stay in love with. There’s the quid pro quo of it all, which is the obvious surface reading, but there’s also another level wherein August has been raised to believe that this is the ideal of aristocratic masculinity, and therefore what Sara would be attracted to. He assumes Sara wants the prince (even if he has to be a little bit Machiavelli’s the Prince behind the scenes to play that role.) But Sara wants the trust and care and connection, and a bond that’s a little bit weird and unique and ultimately private. She also values honesty and accountability. Sara doesn’t want the prince—she wants the horse. But not the literal one. And not necessarily in a material ownership kind of way, either.

As we move into season 3, I find myself wondering what’s next for August and Rousseau. Like. August owns a horse now. Is he going to have to take care of it? Like is he going to have to learn how to groom Rousseau and muck stalls and such? I get that he’s rich and can probably pay someone to do that for him, but given the way that Rousseau is meant to be a commentary on August’s character arc, there’s a lot of narrative potential (and dare I say… humor?) in August just having to learn to take care of the horse his own damn self in season 3. I feel like it could allow for some great moments of introspection on August’s part, if done well, and could lead him to a place of radical acceptance. We don’t even have to rule out August going to jail for his crimes, but knowing that jail is not the kind of thing that will happen in the first five minutes of the first five episodes, why not facilitate some internal character growth via horse chores first?

Alternately, August will just keep doubling down on making someone else do the horse chores. This would be consistent, if nothing else. He may just continue to be horrible, in which case I am worried for Rousseau.

(Please, Lisa Ambjörn and/or god and/or Epona. I am so desperate for this as-of-present unrepentant fuckboy to have to do symbolic horse chores that end up being about him finally coming to terms with the impact his counterrevolutionary behavior has on others. Is that so wrong?)

Anyway, I guess we won’t know until season 3. Thank you for sticking around if you’ve read this far—it ended up being way longer than intended! I’m back on tumblr after being away since 2015 or so, so this post feels like a wild way to reappear. But I’m glad I shared my thoughts all the same. Have a blessed Saturday, fandom.

Over 100 Years of Generational Pandemic Trauma with a Side of WW1/Depression/WW2 Trauma and Frugality: 1917-2020

This will be more personal than I usually get on Tumblr, but for some reason, I wanna share it. I wanted to put it in words with a bit of research as a way to process it and maybe get some other stories from other people.

...

So the other day, Mom and I were talking about illness and reactions to the threat of widespread, dangerous illness while watching pandemic coverage on TV. (Yes, we talk about weird social stuff a lot. A lot.) Mom casually said she and her sister were distressed every time they got even a little bit sick and tried to hide it from my grandfather because he seemed to react to illness with anger. Huh, we said, How odd.

“Maybe he was angry at the illness, not at you?” I guessed.

“Hmmmmmmm,” Mom said doubtfully.

So we were taking a break from talking and someone on TV brought up the 1917-1918 flu pandemic.

“Oh, hey, didn’t Great-Grandpa live through that?” I idly asked.

Mom blinked and went utterly still. After a minute of staring blankly, she said, “Oh. Oh.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t angry. He was afraid,” Mom said.

“Who? Oh, Grampa?”

Mom nodded, face in an expression of epiphany.

I started thinking. It turned into diving into family history and history in general.

Okay, so. Let’s back up for some context.

...

2000s back to 1950s back to 1940s back to 1930s back to 1914: Habits from World Wars and the Great Depression

First of all: I know for a fact that my mother, born in the 1950s, was raised on Depression/WW2 Era food frugality. My grandparents lived through both and were old enough to remember them; Grandpa was around twelve on Black Tuesday and Gramma was around two years older. Grandpa and his brother were in the military during WW2.

The things Mom was raised on:

Very simple recipes, all based on salty canned/jarred food that had been cooked to Hell and back. SO MUCH SALT. SO MANY PEAS. Grampa was especially focused on canned food; he likely ate mostly canned food when deployed and on kitchen duty. Treating sugar and salt like gold. Stretching meals that had meat with potatoes and gravy. A backyard pseudo-Victory Garden Gramma and Great-Grandma canned veg from and orange trees that Grampa obsessed over keeping healthy and productive; the garden was dominated by tomatoes to be stewed even into the 1980s and the obsessive care for the orange trees had them massive and healthy when I was a kid in the early 1990s. Butter was for holidays; the rest of the year was margarine (”oleo”). Leftover grease was strained and saved. SO MUCH JELL-O and relish IN SO MANY RECIPES, possibly because it hadn’t been rationed. (You know all those weird old 1960s-1970s recipes with gelatin and odd stuff? Look at when the recipe-makers were kids.) Did you burn your food nearly to charcoal? Eat it. Food was absolutely not to be wasted.

Shoes were to be worn until mending or tape couldn’t hold them together anymore. Weird little broken things were saved in a junk drawer as possibly useful for scrap-- broken rubber bands, screws from something that had broken, old keys, bent nails-- and metal cooking pans were to be used until they started ruining food. Boxes, scrap paper, newspapers, and magazines were to be bundled up and saved.

(source)

And so on.

For other rationing information, see the “Make It Do” tag on Sarah Sundin’s blog.

But my grandparents’ frugality goes back another generation. There was no formal rationing in WW1 in the US, but there were massive propaganda campaigns to reduce consumption of certain things. People were encouraged to have “meatless” and “wheatless” days. Weird recipes for “Camouflage Cookery” appeared.

(source)

WW1 “War Gardens” were the predecessors of Victory Gardens. Canning the produce from the gardens was patriotic. And so on.

My grandparents improved bit by bit as Mom grew and Grampa made more money at better jobs and the economy recovered. One of the first things they caved on was having coffee all day every day as some kind of personal victory, but still never with cream or sugar. Mom and I keep suddenly realizing some of their habits were tied to rationing.

Generational drift has kept a lot of those odd little habits. Mom hates vegetables that aren’t salty and cooked to floppiness. Eat freezerburned food because it’s your own damned fault it got freezerburned. Wear shoes until they fall apart and unless they are flip-flops that become 100% unusable, keep the worn out pair until our next pair of shoes wear out “just in case” the new shoes get damaged. Shoelaces are saved when the shoes get trashed. Clothes get ripped beyond repair? Fight the urge to save the cloth for “something.” Recycle things to near-obsession. “Waste not want not,” but for very specific things.

I explain all this to establish that we have already identified patterns in hardship coping mechanisms within our family.

Now we have identified another.

1917-1918 Influenza Pandemic

My great grandparents-- the parents of my maternal grandfather-- were European immigrants who lived in Chicago during WW1 and the pandemic. My other grandparents likely did, too, but I have very little information about them. My GGF’s occupation would be considered non-essential in modern times, but I’m not sure about 1917-1918. I don’t know what he did during that time; though I know there is a Draft Registration Card for him, I have no proof or anecdotal evidence that he served in the military. So he was likely home with his wife and baby. During a time of fear of bringing illness home enhanced by propaganda,

real(?) news,

(source)

and gradually escalating sanitary measures imposed by the local government.

(source)

So. Terror.

Mom and I talked about him. Obsessive about handkerchief use and washing. Strict standards for cleaning. He didn’t live with Mom’s family, so she doesn’t remember much else relevant. And Great Grandmother? She focused on the food and frugality.

But their son, my grandfather? Also obsessive about handkerchief use and washing. So unreasonably obsessed with cleaning that Gramma threw up her hands and said, “Then you do it!” and Grampa, a man in the early 1950s, did it without complaint. Silverware and dishes were never to be shared or used twice and must be washed immediately after use.

He was born during a pandemic and raised by a father who had to keep his family safe during a pandemic. And a world war. And the Great Depression.

How could my great grandfather’s parenting not be affected by all that trauma?

How could my grandfather not be affected by that parenting from trauma?

How could my grandfather’s parenting not be affected by all that trauma, plus trauma from serving in WW2?

How could my mother not be affected by that parenting from trauma?

Mom said she and her sister were distressed every time they got even a little bit sick and tried to hide it from my grandfather because he seemed to react to illness with anger. Huh, we said, How odd.

“Maybe he was angry at the illness, not at you?” I guessed.

“Hmmmmmmm,” Mom said doubtfully.

“Oh, hey, didn’t Great-Grandpa live through that?” I idly asked.

Mom blinked and went utterly still. After a minute of staring blankly, she said, “Oh. Oh.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t angry. He was afraid,” Mom said.

“Who? Oh, Grampa?”

The chain was greatly loosened by my mother, who was a sheltered white girl who literally didn’t know who Martin Luther King Jr. was until everyone started talking about his assassination because my racist grandparents and their social circle controlled her access to media about the Civil Rights Movement so tightly. (The deprogramming of all their underlying racism is a completely different YIKES discussion for another day.) Grampa didn’t serve in Korea, she didn’t have any brothers to get roped into Vietnam, they were very middle class when she was old enough to notice such things, she never really wanted for anything. Just lived a very privileged white girl life.

A charmed life until her mid-30s.

And she still inherited a lot of frugal and cleanliness/sanitation compulsions from my grandparents, which she then passed down to me. Diluted twice over, but very much there. And very useful, now that we are low-income and disabled but still live in a run-down but big house capable of storing extra stuff. If one or both of us has a flare and can’t shop? We just turn to the freezer and pantry and the garage cabinet. Because always having a month’s worth of food is... just how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?

Buy extra nonperishable food when it’s cheap whenever you can afford it. It’s better to have too much than to have not enough. Mind your hygiene. Wash, wash, wash anything that gets saliva or nasal discharge on it. Wash your hands before, during, and after food prep. Wash your hands in general. Grow your own vegetables and make sure they’re nutritious ones that’ll keep. Some things Are Not To Be Shared. Anything like double-dipping is a crime against humanity. Don’t lick the stirring spoon, or wash it immediately after if you do. Correct people who don’t cover coughs and sneezes and either make them wash their hands if they used them or do not let them touch you. If you get sick or poor or disaster/war breaks supply lines, you’ll be glad to have enough food to live on for a month. Buy extra nonperishable food when it’s cheap whenever you can afford it. It’s better to--

2020 Coronavirus Pandemic: Distilled Generational Habits and Coping Mechanisms

I still have the recipes Gramma carefully saved from the Eagle Brand canned, shelf-stable sweetened condensed milk that was given to her family by local welfare workers in the 1930s.

This is why when panic buying started in early March 2020-- before people started taking the possibility of long-term shutdowns seriously-- one of the first staples I went for was shelf-stable milk. I remember being surprised that there was so much of it on the shelf. Huh.

Fresh potatoes were gone, but the canned and dry/instant potatoes were untouched. Huh. Tons of Gramma’s recipes used “potato flakes.” Don’t they know that fresh potatoes have a much shorter shelf life? Huh.

Fresh tomatoes were picked over, but the canned diced/stewed/paste/sauce were still well-stocked. Huh.

Bread and bread products like tortillas were gone. The flour was untouched. Huh. I didn’t buy any because we already make sure we have a good amount of flour on hand. Same for salt, sugar, yeast, baking soda, and baking powder. Like, we have an in-other-times-(by-which-I-mean-January)-excessive amount of salt, sugar, and baking soda. Prepackaged bread crumbs were untouched; we still had a good amount of panko at home but I got two more boxes because they were BOGO and surely people would soon realize this was good to have for a bit of shelf-stable variety.

Buy extra nonperishable food when it’s cheap whenever you can afford it, Gramma may as well have whispered to me.

I should’ve bought dried split peas to make soup with the leftover ham hock we have in the freezer. They sold out the next week with all the pasta. Which I hadn’t even considered because Mom is diabetic and controls it through diet alone. Pasta is a no-no here.

I was so busy with sorting out *vague gestures* life in general during a pandemic that I delayed going through my seed stock; I didn’t realize some of my staple veggie seeds were so old because I started my garden so late last year that I just bought seedlings. I’m guessing seedlings are gonna sell out. So I was late to go hunting for seeds online, but now they’re in the mail. My usual tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, and winter squashes, along with things I hadn’t seriously considered before: Green/soup peas. Black-eyed peas. Carrots. Onions. I usually try to grow fun things mixed in with staples but not this year.

Remember to use sunflowers as wind and sun breaks, Grampa may as well have whispered to me. In hot and sunny places, they can make or break a garden. I learned that the hard way when I moved out west. They bring the bees, too.

Okay. I can do this. Thanks.

Conclusion

That meme of the person going “wow I wonder what it would be like to live through a major historical event-- WAIT NOT LIKE THIS NOT LIKE THIS NOOO” has me thinking even more than it usually does. This pandemic has made me acutely aware of how “macro” history’s threads are woven into the “micro” history of my family. It has made me more curious; if we’re shut in for longer, then I may actually get to poke into Mom’s side of the family more. Gaining extra context for things fascinates me-- and could be a great distraction when I’m not able to garden. I’ve already learned a lot.

I really wish I could talk to my grandparents and great grandparents about this. I can already see that I am going to have some habits permanently ingrained in me as compulsions, the same as pandemic and economic disaster did for them.

And I really understand my grandfather’s difficulty controlling anger at an invisible, microscopic enemy and what it could do to your family.

The only difference? I have twenty years of therapy behind me as a tool. I hope that’s enough.

Because yeah, there is anger in my anxiety.

Bungou Stray Dogs Dead Apple: “You used corruption, believing in me? How Beautiful.” A “DISSECTION” OF THE SCENE

I mentioned before in one of the posts by @nataliaphantomhivesblog​, where we were discussing about the corruption scenes in BSD, that the scene in Dead Apple is my favorite. So, I decided (like any SKK trash) to make an “analysis” of that scene, just to make a point why I like it the most compared to the other corruption scenes (as if this post is the definition of being productive like I’ll just wasting my time rambling here LOL)

I divided this post into two parts. Part 1 is the more difficult one where I am attempting to write some “character analysis”. While Part 2 is more about how the scene is composed (it’s pretty boring. I’m sorry)

I will NOT include the infamous Lap scene (I know. I know. We all love that moment. But I would rather focus on the scenes before that).

Side note: I do not specialize in film or literary critique, so really this whole post is just for fun. Thus, why I put quotes on the analysis. Take this is as my personal opinion where I’m attempting to make sense by making it sound “fancy”.

But anyway. Here it goes:

In every Corruption scene, the thematic notion is always Trust—as in Chuuya trusts Dazai well enough to use his ability so long as he is present to nullify it. It is a very life-threatening process, especially for Chuuya since Corruption, despite being one of the most powerful abilities, can cause self-destruction the longer he uses it. So, Dazai should keep a close watch on him at all times, and then even giving him a sense of comfort to compensate to Chuuya’s worn-out body and for his efforts. This is the same trajectory in all 5 episodes of Corruption, but out of all of them, what stood out the most (for me) is the scene from Dead Apple. 

This scene has amazed me ever since I first watched the movie. And while it just shows their infinite trust, the whole execution of this scene evokes more than just that thematic concept. What I see in this scene is something that all of us have already witnessed, but there is something unique in the way Dazai nullifies Chuuya’s corruption, and their dialogue may be just them bantering and yet, their tonality is different. It is as if, we just touched a moment that is reserved only for these two and we just happened to have the privilege to witness it. In other words, there is a sort of familiarity (or intimacy) and gentleness going on at this very moment—it is cathartic. This is what I want to look into—like how did we come to this?

PART 1: His Proper Partner.

In the Japanese version, ever since the episode where Chuuya made his first debut, they call themselves “aibou” (相棒), referring to a one-on-one partnership. While “nakama” (仲間)can also refer to a partner, it has a different connotation in which the closest English equivalent of that term would be “comrade” or “acquaintance”. The closest English equivalent of “aibou” is, to no one’s surprise, “partner” (or “pal”). And it makes sense, considering that the first kanji (相) can mean “mutual”, “together”, or “each other”. So, to have Dazai and Chuuya referring to themselves as that, it just manifests their familiarity on each other.

And in their case, their “familiarity” is both their advantage and disadvantage. It is a “disadvantage” because they use it to get on each other’s nerves (both in comedic and serious situations).

However, it also serves to their advantage, especially when they have to cooperate in the battlefield. This comes into light in the Lovecraft Episode where they executed Operation Shame and Toad—Chuuya acknowledges Dazai’s tactical mentality, whereas Dazai (as he referenced Chuuya’s mastery in martial arts) let’s his partner do the grunt work. Interesting enough, this is the same episode we first see Chuuya’s Corruption (but not the first time he uses it).

Using Corruption stipulates that “familiarity”, especially in Dazai’s part who has to be present to monitor Chuuya’s physical state, therefore he is aware, not just the consequence in using Corruption, but also of Chuuya’s limit. This explains why Dazai declares that he is aware of Chuuya’s moves and “breathing pattern”, otherwise, as what he himself says, he “won’t be a proper partner”.

What is witnessed in the Lovecraft Episode is the standard protocol that Soukoku uses when they are at their last resort. So, it is not a surprise that we get to witness Chuuya using Corruption, again, when he saves Dazai in Dead Apple, except it is done differently.

Even though Dazai is ten steps ahead of the enemy, the situation is still risky and even more complicated in Chuuya’s part since he is using his ability WITHOUT Dazai present. And that he has to save Dazai first before he can get it nullified. With that being said, it requires a careful approach, one in which they know the other’s moves—Dazai knows too well how Chuuya would react. For instance, the manga version of Dead Apple demonstrates how Soukoku communicates in their operation using “codes”. As such when Dazai got himself kidnapped, no one knew about his whereabouts until Hirotsu mentions about Dazai buying a microscope (to which it leads them to a dead end). However, Chuuya—upon remembering that Dazai teases that he needs a microscope in order to see him—demands to see that microscope, breaks it, and finds the transmitter. It is a well-planned strategy in Dazai’s part where all it takes is to leave helpful clues for Chuuya to pick up and catalyze the operation. In the Dead Apple movie, he does it again:

Indeed, for the audience, it is not new to see Dazai planning ahead and having ulterior motives behind his actions. It is not new to see Chuuya executing his plans and understands his motives either. But seeing these two working together despite those four years of absence, and without physically communicating is beyond human comprehension. Almost like the microscope scene, Dazai is not there to directly tell him about his plan. Chuuya doesn’t know about the antidote until that punch as his only “clue” is that Dazai is working alone, so he sees that something is amiss.

Seeing the critical state of Yokohama, Chuuya knows that he will use Corruption, but seeing Dazai’s corpse, it gives this uncertainty on whether they can make it out alive or not. And yet, what did Chuuya do? He jumped off the plane and activates his ability, knowing that there is “no time to chicken out” or else Dazai’s plan won’t work, and they’ll end up dead. Even if it means doing the job to protect the city, it still takes guts for Chuuya to work and place his life on someone he “hates”. Despite those 4 years of absence, the scene in Dead Apple just manifests that they never doubt each other’s capabilities. And to further validate this, let’s check out their dialogue:

           Dazai: You used Corruption, believing in me? How beautiful.

           Chuuya: Yeah I did. I believe in your disgusting vitality and craftiness.

           Dazai: That was a somewhat violent way to wake up Snow White.

           Chuuya: Tch. You’re the one who hid an antidote your mouth knowing I would punch you.          

Not only does this scene perfectly parallels to the Lovecraft episode where we see Soukoku bantering while still in a critical situation, it also emphasizes the degree of their trust and how that trust has taken root from their familiarity.

Dazai: You used Corruption, believing in me? How beautiful.

Chuuya: Yeah I did. I believe in your disgusting vitality and craftiness.

Dazai’s first line is the main idea of their partnership, echoing Chuuya’s quote from the Lovecraft episode: “I used Corruption because I trust you”. This is a vital aspect in their relationship since it has been stated before in Fifteen and Stormbringer that “no one has trusted Dazai”… until Chuuya comes into the picture. Ever since their first teamwork against Rimbaud, Dazai finally has someone he can rely on both in strength and assurance, even smiling at the fact that Chuuya doesn’t even deny his proposal but merely asks for his reason.

With that being said, then it is appropriate for Dazai to say that line, touched by the idea that Chuuya still constantly trusts him. It just reminisced so much from what they have as children that it seems to this day, they never forgotten about it.

On the other hand, in Chuuya’s end, he confirms that trust and provides a reason, which is appropriate since Chuuya is Dazai’s “reason-living” like in Fifteen:

Chuuya’s line—“I believe in your disgusting vitality and craftiness”—is very similar in the excerpt from Fifteen, and this just shows how that line from the movie indicates his familiarity to Dazai. By “familiarity”, I mean that he knows his partner’s mental process and motives (as I have mentioned above). In this case, it seems like Chuuya has seen something that he and Dazai have in common: the desire to live. Of course, the latter always craves for death, but with his new viewpoint on Death, his mission in fulfilling Oda’s wish, and the fact that he is tethered to someone who wished to live, Dazai just couldn’t die. And Chuuya, being his constant companion, knows this. This is why Chuuya “believes” that whatever plan Dazai has on mind, it will always work, and in the scenario in Dead Apple it starts by taking a leap into Corruption—which is ironically, the very thing that could kill Chuuya, and by extent, would cause Dazai’s death if the plan is not well-thought or if they don’t work together. By referring to his “vitality and craftiness”, Chuuya is acknowledging his familiarity on Dazai, admitting their “rotten relationship”, and justifying his trust on him.

Dazai: That was a somewhat violent way to wake up Snow White.

Chuuya: Tch. You’re the one who hid an antidote your mouth knowing I would punch you.

Another interesting thing I find in the dialogue is Dazai’s line: “That was a somewhat violent way to wake up Snow White”. Fans think that this is Dazai flirting, where he is implying that he wants to be kissed by Chuuya the same way the prince does to Snow White. For me, I think this little dialogue is more than just fanservice since it makes sense, not only in the context of the movie containing motifs of a “poisoned” apple. I think the reference of the fairytale in this dialogue not only foreshadows his “death”, but it also highlights their dynamic whenever they work together with Dazai acting childish and Chuuya knowing that he is actually being serious (or the fact that he cracks some jokes in most Post-Corruption scenes). This is still related to the whole “familiarity” theme that I have been rambling about; as mentioned before, Dazai and Chuuya would use whatever they know about each other just to rile each other up. These moments are generally meant for comedic effect, but these teasing and bickering can serve as their advantage.

Similar to the microscope scene I have mentioned, Dazai makes that microscope comment seem like a childish joke on the surface, however, Chuuya picks this up as a clue and sees his real motive. This kind of synergy is seen again in the prologue of the movie where Dazai jokes about Chuuya getting hit by bullets when he is in close range of the enemy, and yet, the latter takes it as a warning that an ability-user is nearby. We really don’t know if Dazai leaves a Snow White-related clue for Chuuya before the events in Dead Apple (it would have been pretty cool tho), but that dynamic in the microscope incident and prologue is very similar to that dialogue we see in the movie: Dazai is being playful, but Chuuya sees and calls out his ulterior motives. This is how Soukoku works!

PART 2: The Art of Catharsis

The relationship of Soukoku in the battlefield is one of the best teamwork we have seen in the anime. Both parties are synchronized in the way that Dazai’s brains and No Longer Human, and Chuuya’s fighting skills and Corruption perfectly compliment each other. Moreover, we also see the basis of that partnership, and this is something that the creators want to highlight in this scene (in other words, how did the animators deliver this dynamic?)

In my opinion, I think the words “gentleness” and “cathartic” fit in this scene. To start off, before this moment takes place, we have witnessed Chuuya fighting the Dragon.

That scene was intense! Chuuya activates Corruption, generates into pure destruction with him yelling Dazai’s name (despite the fact that he is not supposed to be in a proper mindset). The way this scene plays out is interesting; in the shot, we see the two main figures (the Dragon and Chuuya) mostly in red—which is a very vibrant color—in contrast to the blue and green background. By using the color that pops out, the attention is on them, and it is topped with the amount of action in that moment. Not to mention, the background music, containing a rock music and a rap, elevates that energy. It is a scene that heightens the adrenaline, so the audience can empathize with Chuuya—understanding him as a character that is full of life, and also his hastiness to kill it before he runs out of time.

When that fight is over, we notice that the music alters into a string orchestra. This is a very good change because the tempo is slower—a direct contrast to the rap music—as if it is slowly bringing the audience down from the hype in the fighting scene the same way Chuuya slowly goes down and hovers Dazai’s body. The music immediately stops right on cue when the punch happens, then the audience is left in silence. Usually in films, silence is used for the purpose of anticipation. In this case, the anticipation is placed on whether Chuuya’s punch and/or the pill worked and saved Dazai.

The transition from the white background into a blue background should indicate that Dazai is alive. And yet, the animators did this subtly rather than showing Dazai’s face (like in Season 1 episode 1), just so the audience is still in the state of anticipation (add that with the white noise in the background). Furthermore, there is a fairytale quality in that shot, like this is similar to when Sleeping Beauty (in this case “Snow White”) wakes up, that’s when the colors in the castle come back.

Getting close to that iconic shot, I love how the animators keep the “camera” in the same place (Chuuya’s face), that way we can further empathize with Chuuya by seeing a close shot of his state: he was at his limit! But as soon as the blood starts moving away from the screen, we can see a bandaged hand moving to his face. And then, finally!

Words cannot describe how much I appreciate the details of that scene, especially on Dazai’s gesture. He moves his hand slowly but quick enough to nullify him right on time. Not to mention, he does not just touch his cheek but rather cups it (look at the shape of his hand!). One can say that the gentleness in Dazai’s gesture is the exact opposite to Chuuya’s punch, and this sort of contrast further highlights the catharsis in this scene. In other words, after all of that intensity with the fight and seeing Chuuya’s bloody state, it is relieving to see that familiar hand touching him, indicating that Chuuya can rest. And seeing that we witnessed and empathize with him, we know what it feels like.

With that being said, that’s why the third shot above where the hand is fully placed on his cheek and he made a short gasp is my personal favorite. It is the contrast in Chuuya’s face where we can still see “Corruption”, and Dazai’s hand to which he activates “No Longer Human”. I have seen some people complaining about how they want to see Dazai’s face in this scene; personally, I think this scene is animated brilliantly as it is. It is only fair to see a close up of Dazai’s hand to indicate that he is nullifying “Corruption”, after all, “No Longer Human” is works through touch. To top it off, the beauty in “not seeing the face” is more powerful because it leaves more to the imagination—we don’t know specifically what kind of face Dazai is making, but the way that hand moves alone is enough to tell us what he is thinking at that moment. And finally, upon contact, we see Chuuya making a slight twitch—this is when Corruption recognizes No Longer Human and deactivates. This is when Chuuya recognizes that familiar touch and knows that his partner is finally awake, so he can finally rest.

Then we have that iconic shot! Like the one I mentioned above, the camera stays in one place, only this time, it is a long shot, so the focus is on them (thus they are on the middle). Interesting enough, there is no background music in this scene, and we can’t see their expressions. Usually, in this anime, when a character is seen faceless, in order to determine what they are thinking are feeling, the animators would usually make them do a gesture or a dialogue.

In this scene, where everything is silent and their faces “unseen”, our focus goes to their exchanges. Both Mamoru and Taniyama use their “bedroom voices”, and I think it is appropriate considering that their dialogue contains a deeper meaning in regards of their relationship. In other words, as mentioned before, it may seem like another day of bantering, but with their tone, there is something sincere and intimate in what they are saying. Also, the playfulness in Dazai’s comment and Chuuya’s response hits different compared to their other moments of constant yelling. You really don’t need the close up of their faces in order to see that they are at peace in each other’s company.

In addition, the color scheme of the scene is predominantly blue, which makes sense, not just because of Dazai’s ability, but also because it highlights the serenity in the scene. The blue color, the orb, and the bandages that glide silently are animated in a way that they buffer out the red that we have seen back with Corruption, and also indicates a sense of “protection” (which is later seen in the lap scene when Dazai has to protect Chuuya from the fog). In short, the ambiance perfectly fits with how Dazai is there to give Chuuya a sense of comfort in Post-Corruption, letting him rest so that he can compensate for all that he did.

**********

The scene in Dead Apple is something that lies in between of the familiar and the new—we have seen Dazai and Chuuya in this situation before, we know how they function as a team, and we know the level of risk they are taking. But this is something that we have never seen before; like subtleness in his gestures, the softness in their tones, and the fact that these two are in a position where they are saving each other, which becomes part of their instincts. They show how much they trust each other by knowing how much they knew of each other. They acknowledge the fact that their fates are tethered regardless of the years of absence. And finally, it is not just the Prince saving Snow White, but rather: the Prince saves Snow White and Snow White saving him in return.

OK, I just literally fried my brain. If you’ve read this far, I thank you so much for your time! I am so sorry if this is too long. I welcome for any critiques or discussions. So yeah, that’s my ted-talk

Rowing the Rarepair Rowboat: Klaus Mikaelson x Lexi Branson (The Vampire Diaries)

Requested by @insidious-wxlf

Klaus eyes the girl standing alone in the corner of the exhibit. He thinks the word "girl" lightly only because her face is surprisingly smooth and unblemished by the age that he's aware she possesses.

He politely excuses himself from his conversation with an over enthusiastic guest. She doesn't mind in the slightest when her agreement rewards her with a pleased smile that holds the potential of a promise of his return. He's not one to keep a promise.

The girl with the locks of golden curls just stands there, head tilting this way and that. Sidling up to her, he notices her even squinting her eyes a little bit with her lips twisted uncertainly.

"You're not impressed," he says bluntly, and knows he's guessed correctly.

The girl doesn't even turn to him. She merely glances with a sideways flick of her sparkling eyes, like bubbles in champagne, and gives a tittering smile. Familiar and infuriating at the same time.

"Now, did I say that?" Alexia responds.

"You didn't have to," Klaus says flatly, hands behind his back and doing his best to keep his face a mask so as to not seem wounded by the slight poking of a sharp dagger in his chest and his throat. "Your face said it for you."

"Well, I wasn't aware that my face had developed the unheard of ability to speak for me. And with my mouth closed, to add further astonishment."

Klaus rolls his eyes and sighs, already sick of their little game. He waves a hand at the canvas in front of them.

"If you're going to come here and silently judge my work, then, do tell, what exactly is it about it that you find so unimpressive?" he asks. More demands, but one never really demands anything of Alexia Branson. He's learned that lesson before. Many times.

Sure enough, she takes an extra moment to answer simply to spite his tone. He clenches his jaw but stays quiet, waiting.

Then she squints her eyes some more, gives another tilt of her head, as if really examining the flaws in the painting. Klaus even finds himself glancing over it uncertainly. Perhaps it wasn't one of his best. He does recall being rather frustrated with it during the process of creation, and there had been a light squabble between his siblings that he had been made to deal with in between. Maybe it reflected a little too much in his work.

Then Alexia says, with an air of finality on her descision, and extreme confidence, "It's too blue."

Klaus stares at her. "It's too... blue? Your problem with this piece is that there is too much... blue?"

"No, not too much of the colour blue," Alexia says, shaking her head, making those curls move with her, fascinatingly. "It's too blue. Sad. You may has well have just painted a big frown on it and titled it, "My Inner Soul"."

She turns to him and he finally sees the grin stretching across her delicately painted lips. A weight is lifted out of his chest and then he's shaking off his disbelief.

"You're mocking me," he scoffs, a low chuckle starting beneath it in his throat. "To my face as well, a very bold move, I have to say!"

It's her turn to roll her eyes now. "Oh, I'm so scared, Nik! What are you going to do? Kill the only person who actually buys your paintings? Now, would that not just be a poorly-thought out business move?"

She's turned to properly face him now, her head tilted again, and that smile still playing across her lips. It's impossible to hold any displeasing thoughts or feelings inside of him when it feels as though she can peer right into the soul that he questions the existence of. She doesn't. She has no doubt that it's in there -- she's told him as such, time and again, despite his protests and attempts to prove her wrong. She's so certain.

He sputters a bit, fumbling over his words, something in which she finds great amusement. And he finds fondness in her amusement, so really, he doesn't mind too badly.

"Now -- that is simply untrue! I have other buyers."

"Mhm." Lexi hums. "But if that's the case, then why have I been granted the absolute privilege of being allowed to remain... well, undead?"

Klaus considers it. In truth, he's snapped necks for lesser insults and grievances.

But he looks at Lexi, and his mind instantly softens his hands to caress the delicate skin of her neck instead. He can see the places where his lips have left love letters, once reread over and again, now tucked away beneath the surface of her skin to be kept secret.

An odd feeling posesses him for a moment longer than he'd like. Similar to the time one vampire got brave and made a grab for his heart, managing to get their idiotic little fingers wrapped around it for just a moment. They had just started to twist when their head had landed on the other side of the room, courtesy of a well-timed Elijah.

It's that feeling. The twisting of his heart, phantom fingers around it like it's some kind of ball for them to play with, just to give the strings a little tug.

It's an aching, hollow feeling right in his chest and down a bit, where no one should be able to reach.

He swallows and draws his eyes away from Alexia's unmarked neck, back up to her still sparkling eyes. She raises her eyebrows at his delay in answering.

"My god," she says, widening her eyes with feigned amazement, "I've actually rendered the great Niklaus Mikaelson speechless. I wasn't sure anything could ever make you stop talking -- if you don't inflate your ego, who else will?"

Klaus' mouth twitches at the corner and he allows the smile to blossom into another chuckle. He shakes his head.

"Precisely, my love," he says, but he is too soft, still caught up in his thoughts, where the desire to be gentle always won out.

Alexia doesn't bat an eyelash. "So, am I going to be walking out of Chicago with a head then?"

She's kidding, of course. Teasing him because they both know that he's never had a single desire for her pain in any form. Even the thought of it makes his gut twist like someone has stuck a dagger in it and forgot to remove it.

"I'd rather you didn't walk out of Chicago at all," he confesses before he can think.

This wasn't how things were supposed to be. Alexia was simply a fellow vampire he stumbled across during a darker period. Many vampires have come and gone through his many centuries, many during much worse times in his life, and yet she's one of the rare few who got stuck in his mind. Her gentleness, the way he softens just by being near her or thinking of her and how she'd react if he made a particularly unpleasant descision.

Finally, she's the one who's caught off her guard. "Oh," she flusters. "Um... I mean, I don't have to go right now. Kind of got forever. So... I can stay."

Klaus nods. "Good. I'd..." he clears his throat, but the words seem to have lodged themselves firmly in there.

Alexia's grinning again, leaning in closer. "What was that? That word you were going to say? You'd...?"

Klaus clenched his teeth again but it's partly to keep his smile from stretching like it wants to.

"I'd advise you quit while you're ahead, dear Alexia, or--"

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?" she interrupts. "You sound like your brother when you call me Alexia."

Klaus actually is wounded this time. "Point made. Lexi it is."

She smirks, and says, "Good. Now, you were saying that I should quit while I'm ahead?"

"Which would apparently be always," Klaus concedes.

Lexi laughs, looking rather pleased about it, too. Such cockiness on anyone else would infuriate him. With Lexi, it's more fond exasperation. If anything, it's a good look on her and one he always takes pleasure in.

"I would be very happy if you were to stay for a little while longer," Klaus says, finishing his thought.

Lexi beams at him. She tilts her chin up and takes his arm, surprising him as she hooks it over her own.

"Then it is a very good thing that your happiness actually means something to me," she says. "Now, show me the rest of your paintings. And I want less sadness! Show me your happiest one."

Klaus peers at her for a moment. She just smiles that beautiful smile at him.

"I know just the one," he says, and she gestures for him to lead the way.

Kinktober Day 1: Intensity Challenged

Kinktober Day 1 Prompts: Sexual deprivation (long term) ~ Orgasm control ~ Competitions (with other Subs) Fandom: Original Tags: Exophilia, Sexual deprivation, Orgasm control, sub competition, angst, hurt/comfort, F/F themes, dom/sub themes, bondage Pairing(s): Orc(m)/Human(f), Darnok/Lia, Human(f)/Human(f)

[Authors Note: Welcome back to another Kinktober. I hope to do better this year than last because I have a lot of stories mapped out, especially for these two. Originally I had not planned for the competition to go this way and was not intending a mixed scene with both m/f and f/f elements. Hopefully it doesn’t come across as too muddled and unfocused.]

Lia was going to get to see Darnok again soon and they had the opportunity to enjoy the V.I.P. access. Slipping the card into her wallet Lia sent a message to Darnok, checking to see if he received his own invite. She was worried that he hadn’t and worded the question in a way that made it seem like she had not received one. Lia was relieved when he had also received the invite and informed him of her own. Their plans were changed to be more casual since it would be best to explore the lounge and what their new access had to offer as opposed to doing a complex scene. 

The night arrived and Lia was both excited and a little worried. She wasn’t sure what would happen and decided not to bring anything extra with her. She dressed a bit nicer than she usually would when going to the club, not wanting to upset Darnok by picking out something inappropriate. The drive felt like it took longer, though rationally Lia knew that it took the same amount of time it always did. 

She walked up to the club and showed her new ID card to the bouncer who waived her through with a smile. She headed to the main area of the club to wait for Darnok, not wanting to enter the V.I.P. area without him. Sipping on a drink her eyes lit up when he arrived, holding out an arm to her and escorting her to the Lounge. The V.I.P. area was named Destiny’s Lounge, but most just called it the lounge as that was simpler.

“I hope you aren’t too disappointed about not doing a scene tonight. I know we haven’t really had a chance to have a good one in a while and I wanted to make sure that was ok with you.”

“It’s fine Darnok. I think this is a better plan. See what is offered, and that might help us plan our next scene. I can be patient, can you?”

Darnok laughed and headed to the lounge with Lia holding onto his arm. They were allowed in after showing their cards and walked into the small foyer that granted access to the full V.I.P. area. The lounge had a sign over the door, a soft glow coming from within. Quiet music could be heard as well. There was a bar off to the side, separate from the lounge with plenty of seating for an intimate crowd. There were other areas to explore, but that could come later. The lounge itself seemed like the best place to start. 

They had not been there long when they were approached by someone Lia did not recognize, though he seemed to know Danrnok as the two shook hands. The man was unusual looking. Sharp features, horns curling up from his head, eyes that seemed to glow. Lia noticed his hand had dark claws, she wasn’t sure if he looked demonic or draconic as his skin had a somewhat dusty grey hue.

“Well, are you going to introduce me, or are you going to be rude?” The tall horned man was looking at Lia.

“Right, of course, how dare I be rude. Lucien, this is my sub Lia.” Darnok glanced down at Lia to check on her. 

“Well, Lia, as Darnok said, I am Lucien and I am quite pleased to meet you.” Leaning down he grasped her free hand, kissing it softly. His eyes shifted color as he winked at her. “I hope my appearance doesn’t frighten you too much.” He stood up straight releasing her hand. 

“No Sir, I am not afraid.” Lia knew she had to be extra polite. She didn’t want to embarrass or upset Darnok.

“Oh I like her, my friend, do let me know if you plan to ever share.” He gave Darnok a look and then addressed them both. “Well I must be going. I have some things to tend to and the grape vine is singing. Morwenna is looking for you both.” With a slight bow Lucien left.

Darnok looked down at Lia. “Lucien is an old friend of mine. He has been trying to get me V.I.P. access for over a year now. His sway isn’t as strong as Morwenna’s and my schedule prevented me from being able to attend some key events. I am glad that the owners were willing to overlook the past when considering me.” Darnok led Lia over to a couch with a table she could set her drink on. 

There were no worries about drugged drinks as the lounge was heavily surveilled and had security on premises. Everyone knew the punishment for such behavior and it was unpleasant and possibly illegal if Lia thought too hard about it. She relaxed into the couch, leaning into Darnok and observing the people. There was a good mix of races, just like with the rest of the club. She saw other orcs, some elves, a couple of goblins, and plenty of humans. Though some of them might not be human at all. 

The comfortable silence did not last long as Morwenna came into view. She seated herself next to Darnok with a smile and waved over a server ordering herself a drink. She looked Lia over with a smile before turning to Darnok.

“I am glad to see that you were finally able to get access to the lounge. It will be so much more fun with all the new blood coming in. The gala saw more invites than usual as there were exceptional performances and behaviors by both dom and sub alike. The owners are not usually so generous, but I am glad for it. We always need new and interesting people.”

Darnok nodded. “I am just glad they are still picky and stuck to their original model. Not letting people buy their way in or otherwise force their way in. It keeps the undesirables out. Having to earn it, means you will respect the privilege more, at least it should anyway.”

“Yes, well, not everyone does and sometimes after they get comfortable they get cocky and I have seen a good number of access privileges revoked over the last year. Not sure why, maybe something in the water? Either way, now that you are here why don’t we discuss that wager I mentioned” When her drink arrived Morwenna took a delicate sip and continued. “I am eager to play with new blood. So how about a two part competition?”

Darnok raised a brow. “A competition? Of what sort?”

“Your sub verses one of mine. A test of endurance, patience, and control.” Morwenna was smiling behind her glass.

“I’m listening.”

“Good. Part one is sexual deprivation. The subs must go without sex and release for as long as possible. That includes masturbation, but no one will be disqualified for any nocturnal releases. During this time the sub must perform sexual acts for their dominant. We shouldn’t have to suffer, this isn’t testing our abilities but theirs.” 

Darnok looked thoughtful. He had a better chance to win since he wasn’t able to see Lia regularly, something Morwenna wasn’t aware of. It did prevent him from keeping an eye on her, but he trusted Lia. “Ok, that seems fair, what is the second part?”

“Ah, the second part is more fun. Orgasm control. After the deprivation, someone one will of course either lose part one or we call it a draw after hmm, three months? Is that too long, yes probably, 37 days, how is that. A little more than a month. So after 37 days if no one breaks, we move to part two. This will require them to control their orgasms. That part of the competition we will need a room for. We will tease and pleasure our subs and it is their responsibility to hold off as long as possible. Whomever’s sub orgasms first, loses.”

Glancing at Lia Darnok looked back at Morwenna. “I could be on board with this. What does the winner get?”

“Aren’t gloating rights enough?” Morwenna laughed lightly. “I jest. We both have the funds for a substantial prize. Loser buys the winner and their sub an all expense paid trip to an island getaway. It would be just in time for the worst parts of the season and I do like warmth.”

“You speak as though you are going to win.” Darnok did some mental calculations and knew he could easily afford it. Though it would be nice and he could frame it as a business trip when he won. 

“Oh Darnok, you know I always get what I want. I rarely, if ever, lose. Still, you do have some advantages. I know you, but not your sub. So I am going in a bit blind. I am still willing to take the chance. So, do we have a wager?” Morwenna held out her hand to Darnok.

Shaking her hand Darnok smiled. “You might want to go ahead and book those tickets now. Save yourself a little money.” 

“Oh I do so love it when you are cocky.” Standing up, drink in hand, Morwenna smiled at them both. “The competition starts tomorrow. I suggest you enjoy your evening while you can, I know I plan to.” 

Lia watched the woman walk away and felt a lump in her throat. They had not planned to have sex and now she was going to have to wait over a month to do a scene with him? Or was it more she would have to wait to be allowed to enjoy it? Looking at Darnok curiously, she decided it was best to let him lead on this. Maybe he knew something she didn’t.

“I know I should have asked you before agreeing, but this is a perfect opportunity for us. Not only would it give you a chance to prove yourself as a sub, but a nice trip to an island, a resort, maybe a private bungalow. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a dream to me.” Darnok stroked Lia’s cheek. “I know we can do this, our schedules will make this an easier competition for us, at least, the first part.”

 Those words hit deep, prove herself, that was something she wanted. She needed to prove to Darnok that she was perfect for him. If they won, a weekend together away from everything could change their entire relationship. It could potentially give Lia what she wanted, or at least put them on that path. There was the possibility of it going wrong, but she had to have faith that it wouldn’t.

“Ok, I am on board with this. I mean I am the sub so I know I don’t get a choice, but I also know you would give me an out if I really didn’t want to do it. How do we make this work though?”

“That will be the easy part. We already are not scheduled to see each other too much over the next month or so. For the scenes we do, I can help you work on your control. I suggest you also practice edging yourself just be careful. Sometimes you can trigger an orgasm without meaning to, and your body has always been quite responsive to my touch. This will take some practice on both our parts. I have to find ways to cool you down while I work you over, to help you keep from hitting that edge.” Darnok slipped an arm around Lia. “I have a hotel room, I wasn’t sure what tonight was going to be like. I suggest we leave now and make full use of it.”

She couldn’t help but laugh a bit and finished her drink. “Well, I can’t say no to that. No practicing, just driving each other crazy tonight ok?”

“That sounds like the most excellent of plans dearest Lia.”

Darnok’s stamina was put to the test as he and Lia chose to make the most of the evening, and into the early hours. Neither wanted to sleep, for different reasons, but the goal was the same. Close to check out time Lia was laying in the bed sore and completely exhausted. Though if she was honest she had been exhausted for hours. Maybe there was a thing as too much sex, but she refused to beleive it and just chalked it up to her body not being used to this sort of thing. 

“Well, I am pretty sure that will help keep me from wanting to have sex again for a while, and I am too sore to masturbate.” Lia admitted as Darnok walked back into the bedroom from the bathroom fully dressed. 

He was chuckling as he sat down and put on his shoes. “The shower is yours if you’d like, and I agree. I probably wont need sex again for a while, but I will contact you with instructions after a couple of days.”

Lia showered, dressed, and walked out with Darnok. She hugged him before getting into her car and heading home. There was a nap in her future, her very near future and she had to figure out just how she was going to deal with the next 37 days. Lia got the impression that this was going to be much harder for her than Darnok, but that was the point. She was the one trying to prove herself, not him.

The first week was easy, Lia had no desire to masturbate at all, and the idea of sex didn’t appeal to her. It took about that long for her to no longer be sore. Perhaps Darnok had been a little over zealous, but then that may have been the plan. If she was too sore and exhausted to orgasm, then they had this competition in the bag. Of course that didn’t last, but one week down was a pretty good start.

Even after the first week Lia was doing ok, she had gone longer without masturbating before, but now that she knew she couldn’t, the temptation was a lot stronger. It was during the second week that Darnok began instructing her on how she should edge herself. How to bring herself pleasure without release. He wanted to teach her to control her pleasure, to not get lost in it the way she sometimes did. He wasn’t worried about the first part of the competition, it was the second part he feared losing, and he expressed that concern to her more than once. 

Their first scene since the wager began was nothing like what Lia had experienced before. It was pure torture. Darnok drove her almost to the edge over, and over. Teasing different parts of her body. Showing her how to take pleasure, let it build, and then let it fade. He practiced a few techniques on her to try and calm her down while still bringing pleasure. There were a number of close calls that had him backing off and letting her cool down completely before he felt safe touching her again. 

He could see the frustration in her eyes, her desire for release, and knew to stop pushing. Instead he pleasured himself in front of her. Something he had never done, at least not all the way to completion. Seeing her covered in his seed only made him want her more. A temptation he struggled to resist. It would be too easy to fall victim to his own lust, and if he was inside of her, he would not stop, and he wasn’t sure Lia could resist at that point. As it stood he felt a little bad finding his own release when she could not. 

Carefully Darnok cleaned his sub, he praised her and comforted her. The aftercare was most important, not only to help her calm down, but to reinforce their bond. This was the only way to keep the experience from feeling unbalanced. Darnok had to let himself care for her, cherish her, treat her with love and reverence. Something he had been avoiding since things had become complicated in his life. 

The third week brought with it some relief. Lia’s hormones shifted and she simply had no desire to seek pleasure. She was still warm from the last session with Darnok. While the experience had brought her to tears, the aftercare had filled her heart even more than it had been before. He had never treated her so lovingly and if this was what it took to feel that, then she would gladly forego the pleasure of her body to have this with him. 

Once her hormones had cycled back up, resisting became much harder, especially since she had been practicing edging again. She was focusing on different forms of stimulation, the ones she knew would get her there quicker. She had to practice resisting that pleasure for as long as she could. Many days Lia found herself breaking out a toy multiple times, only to not let herself reach satisfaction. It was getting to the point where she did not want to keep going and just wanted release. 

Thankfully Darnok was there to soothe her frayed nerves with his deep calming voice. Their phone calls became more frequent as Lia needed the extra support to get through this and they needed to discuss their next session. This one would be harder than the last. Lia would have to resist even more because Darnok anticipated that simple teasing would not be enough and that Morwenna would expect him to penetrate her during the second part of the competition. This session was to help both of them resist becoming lost in the moment. 

When the session began, Lia was nervous, more so than the last time because she could see that Darnok was nervous as well. The time was almost up and Morwenna had not indicated that her sub had lost, that meant tonight could break them both if they got too caught up in everything. Something that was a very real possibility for them both. 

Darnok started slow, easing them both into the session. He treated it as a rehearsal for the real thing. Starting with simple touches, using his hands and mouth to push Lia to the edge of pleasure over and over, only backing off when he could sense her body tensing. When it was time for penetration Darnok talked Lia through it, explaining how he would move to keep from overwhelming them both. He held his body in a way that the pressure would not be on her clit, anything to give them an advantage. 

At first it was easy, he could go slow, roll his hips, they both enjoyed it but it wasn’t enough stimulation to get them to release any time soon. Gradually he sped up, his control slipping until his tusks were scratching her shoulder and he could feel himself on the edge. Pulling out quickly Darnok came on Lia, covering her slick folds, stomach, and breasts with his seed. He looked at her worried that she had reached completion as well as her body was shaking. 

“I… I am so close….” Her voice was small. “Darnok please…” 

The begging almost broke him, but he was so proud of her. He lost control, but she didn’t. His smile lit up his face as he shook his head. “Oh Lia, you have never made me prouder, please do not give in. We have come so far, you have done so well my dearest.”

Sucking in a breath Lia nodded. She focused her breathing and relaxed the tension in her body. The needy, pulsing, ache that filled her slowly faded in intensity. She was still filled with need, but she could handle it now. She wasn’t in danger of going over the edge unexpectedly. Darnok let her rest for a good while as he carefully cleaned her, not wanting to stimulate her too much and send her over the edge accidentally.

It was much harder to calm down this time and Darnok did his best to care for Lia, to bring her back to a more neutral place. He worried about overworking her body, taxing her mind, nothing was worth bringing her actual harm. He whispered words of praise and encouragement until he felt her relax in his arms. This session was shorter, he could not risk pushing for more, he did not trust himself to not give into her pleas. 

Lia’s frustration was turning to anger and she was glad the time was almost up for the first part of the wager. It was beginning to affect her day to day life. She was snapish, terse, and short with people more frequently now. Explaining it off as bad days was becoming harder and she had to be careful that she wasn’t risking her job. 

As the 37th day arrived and passed Lia was curious when she did not hear from Darnok. She had managed to survive the first part of this challenging wager, it was the second part she feared. Being this keyed up for so long meant that she could lose control more easily. Lia was ready to be done if she was honest and wanted nothing more than to go back to exploring this aspect of her life with Darnok, without all the restrictions. Maybe they could revisit this again, but on their own terms. 37 days did not sound like a lot until she had to experience it, and it was just too long. 

When Darnok finally called Lia was relieved. It seemed to have been a draw. Something that didn’t really come as a surprise. While Lia did not know Morwenna or her sub, she knew how to recognize a competitive streak when she saw one and the domme was competitive. Darnok scheduled their next play session for the weekend. They would be utilizing one of the larger rooms as all four of them would have a play session together. Lia wondered how much cross over there would be, or if they were just sharing space. 

The night finally came and Lia dressed comfortably. She packed a spare set of clothes and some other essentials. She was going to be spending the night at the hotel with Darnok afterwards. Lia had the feeling she was barely going to be able to move and that the after care would take the rest of the night. 

Heading into the club she saw Darnok waiting for her close to the entrance. He guided Lia towards the back rooms as they were the only ones open and big enough for all four of them to have enough space to enjoy themselves. Morwenna was already there when Lia and Darnok arrived. Her sub was naked, blindfolded, and bound to one of the small beds. 

“I wanted to save a little time and get my sub prepared. She has been, a little difficult to handle these last few days. I am sure we could have timed this better, but I did not let her cum, even after the 37 days were up. I wanted her prepared for this and eager.”

“Lia has been a dutiful sub and has not orgasmed either. Even though I never said she couldn’t, she chose to continue the deprivation of her own volition. I could not be more proud of her, or more eager for this wager to be complete. I miss scening fully with my sub and while this has been excellent practice and has given me some interesting insight, my pleasure comes from the pleasure of my partners. This was no easy task for either of us.”

“Shall we begin?” Morwenna asked her hand sliding slowly along her subs body, teasing the bound woman's nipple gently.

“Give us just a moment to get ready.” Darnok helped Lia onto the other bed, stripping her of her clothing. He would not use bonds to hold her, he needed to be able to read every movement of her body. Stripping down to his pants, he nodded. “We may begin.”

Darnok’s focus was on Lia, he could not allow what was happening next to them to become a distraction. He started slow, his hands roaming over Lia’s body, massaging her muscles, her breasts, hips, and thighs. He carefully avoided her hot spots, wanting to warm her up slowly, get her used to his touch, let her sink slowly into the sensations. When she was relaxed enough he began to tease her, attaching the little bell nipple clamps to her now pert nipples. Smiling as they made light sounds with her subtle movements. “So beautiful my little Lia.”

Lia was torn between focusing on Darnok and being distracted by the scene happening next to them. Morwenna had a similar approach, starting slow, but she was teasing her sub more with her mouth than her hands. Lia became curious about how different it might feel, having a soft feminine touch as opposed to Darnok’s firm and more masculine one. She loved the way Dar made her feel, but that didn’t mean she could not be curious about the touch of others. 

When his lips kissed over her inner thigh Lia refocused on Dar. This was a competition and she needed to remain relaxed and concentrate on controlling her pleasure. Even though the sound of the other sub’s moans tickled at her ears, Lia had to stay focused on her own pleasure. Making sure it didn’t overwhelm her or catch her by surprise. When his thick tongue pushed into her, she arched with a cry. It felt incredible, not enough to bring her to release, but enough to make her want more. He hands went to his head holding him in place. She knew that this would push her to the edge faster, but she had been practicing with tug signals.

Lia hoped that Darnok remembered and would ease up when she felt herself spiraling. His finger pushing into her was almost too much and she tugged his hair a bit sharply, it was a little too soon for penetration and she needed to calm down. Especially since it seemed the other sub could handle quite a bit. Morwenna was copying Dar, her face between the other woman’s thighs. If the sound was anything to go on, the efforts were quite enthusiastic indeed. Hearing the other sub moaning, seeing her arch and writhe, the way Morwenna delicately sucked and lapped at what little Lia could see. It only aroused her more. Now she understood why the sub was blindfolded. Yes, it increased her senses, but it prevented her from being aroused by the sight of what was happening in the room. 

Gasping Lia arched harder against Darnok, tugging tightly at his hair. She had almost lost focus and cum right then, it wasn’t going to happen so fast. She did not get this far for it to happen this fast. Panting and whimpering she tried to calm herself down but it wasn’t working. Thankfully Darnok stopped and stood up looking down at her. She could see the bulge in his pants, the dampness on his slacks, he was intensely aroused. 

“Oh Lia, I have missed your taste, your body, taking you the way I want to. I must have you.” He stripped the rest of his clothing, climbing onto the bed with her. He wanted it to seem like he had less control than what he actually felt, but the truth was, his control was already being tested. The cries of both women were getting to him and he knew that the sights were arousing Lia. 

Hovering over her, he slid himself against her, not penetrating, taking his time, letting her cool down some, but still teasing her. “I cannot wait to be inside you, to feel you hot and tight around me.” His voice was a deep gravelly growl.

Lia noticed the other subs cries getting louder when he spoke. Perhaps the blindfold helped with the sights, but not the sounds, so maybe she wasn’t at as much of a disadvantage as she thought. Then again, Darnok’s voice affected her too, so it wasn’t without issue. If he spoke more she might lose control, his voice always did something to her she couldn’t quite explain.

Turning her head she saw Morwenna pulling on a complicated harness. It looked like she was using a strap on, but there were modifications that allowed her to be stimulated, at least it looked like there was a part that went inside once it was buckled on. This excited Lia, having never really seen this kind of thing up close. Her eyes were locked on the Domme, and how she moved over her sub. Untying the bonds holding her down and giving her more freedom of movement. Lia was entranced by the sight of their intimacy. The way their bodies moved together, their breasts pressing into each others. It was beautiful.

“Please, Dar, I need you inside me.” She whispered, knowing that he would hear her, but that it would be hard for anyone else too. As an orc his hearing was far better than a humans and it allowed her to speak to him in low tones when she didn’t want to be overheard. All she received in response was a low, deep growl, and the sensation of his thick cock pushing into her. She hiked her legs over his hips, pulling him into her faster. Her control was slipping and they were at risk of losing. 

Maybe making it this far was enough. Lia wanted this, she wanted to cum, and she could not look away from the women next to them. Her face was forcibly turned by Darnok, who gave her an amused look and leaned in nipping her neck. Lia knew he was trying to keep her present, keep her from slipping and going over the edge too quickly. The nip helped ground her a bit, but also riled her. The feeling of him thick and hot inside of her was almost too much to take and she couldn’t resist another look at the couple next to them. 

Morwenna was clearly skilled if the noises her sub was making was anything to go on. The way her hips moved enticed Lia and she found herself spiralling towards that edge faster and faster. Lia simply could not look away, finding the women beautiful in ways she hadn't really thought of too much before. She had always had an open mind, but this was something different entirely. 

Turning to Darnok, it was his eyes that captured Lia. He had been watching her, watching them, but also glancing at them and it was taking its toll. She could see his control slipping, that slightly feral glazed look in his eye that he got when things were about to get rough and more of his orcish nature would come out. His hips moved faster as he thrust deeper and harder into Lia, filling her body in ways no other man ever had, or ever could. Her pleasure spiralled higher and higher, her body tense, the wager forgotten. She no longer cared. She needed release, craved it, and would no longer be denied. 

A sharp cry filled the air as pleasure had culminated in a powerful release of sheer orgasmic bliss, the other sub had broken first. Lia’s cries quickly followed not seconds after as her own orgasm overtook her. The pleasure she felt was so intense it bordered on pain, it almost wasn’t enjoyable it was so intense. Never before had her body reacted this way, the most powerful orgasm she had ever had, a gush of cum squirting out of her and soaking herself, Darnok, and the bed beneath them. Lia was shaking, tense, her body bowed as she rode out the blinding pleasure that tore through her. 

It took several moments for her to begin to relax, a foot had cramped because her toes curled so hard. Lia was not sure she ever wanted to hold off from orgasming that long again. The experience was simply too intense for her. She was panting, her vision blurry with little dots floating around when she blinked. It was a while before she came back to herself, seeing the worried look on Darnoks face. He had been speaking, she had not responded, she had not even realized he was talking.

“Lia, are you ok?” His tone was worried as she had not responded.

“Do I need to call the medic.” Morwenna’s voice sounded far away. 

“I am not sure. Lia, Lia sweetie you need to respond.”

“ok” Lia croaked.

Darnok breathed a sigh of relief as he slowly pulled out, a gush of fluid following the action. Slowly he stroked his hands over her body. “Tell me what you need.”

“Foot cramp” Lia whimpered as she began to come back to herself. 

She smiled weakly as Darnok moved off of her and started massaging her foot and calf, switching to the other leg once she had relaxed. He was talking quietly with Morwenna, both of them clearly worried about her. She raised a hand and waved it at them a bit.

“M’fine.. Think i saw god… or the devil, not sure”

Morwenna laughed heartily. It was the most warm sound Lia had ever heard the woman make. It was so genuine and somewhat contagious. Lia turned and looked at her. Disheveled, soaked in sweat, her hair a mess, clearly she had reached completion with her sub. For the first time, she actually looked human to Lia, and that only  made her more curious about the intense and aloof woman. 

“I like her, I really do Darnok. Are you sure you wont share?” Morwenna was tending her own sub now that it was clear Lia did not need medical intervention. She had removed the girls blindfold and was holding a water bottle for the sub to sip from. “Slowly dear. I will get you a blanket in a moment, you need fluids first.”

The aftercare was soft, gently, the subs being pampered by their doms with the utmost care. Both couples ended up on the couch. Lia wrapped in a blanket curled on Darnoks lap, and Morwanna’s sub was burritoed and draped across her Domme’s lap, hair being stroked softly.

“You won, but barely. I suppose a deal is a deal. Let me know the dates and I will get the tickets as agreed. I do hope we can do this again sometime. Well, maybe not this exactly, but it would be nice to play again. Maybe with a little more interaction?”

“We will see, I would enjoy that, but I have a few scenes planned out that I would like to get through first. I will need to check my calendars and get back to you on the rest. I am honestly surprised we won. I could feel Lia losing control beneath me and I hit a point where I no longer cared about winning.”

“I think we both hit that point. I got caught up in the moment just as much as you did. We all did, and I think that is what made this so much fun.”

Lia did not remember falling asleep or how she managed to get to the hotel. She woke up in Darnok’s arms, resting against his chest. He was deep asleep and she just watched him for a while. Wondering what tomorrow would bring. 

Modern Gaming Has Too Much BS

I don't think that SaaS it's a healthy approach to games (and maybe, to most software, too).

I am noticing a very alarming trend in video games lately, which stuck out like a sore thumb once I realized that, if I wanted the privilege of using an Xbox controller with Battletoads, which I got on Steam, I had to sign into Xbox live first.

Not only is the process tedious, cumbersome and awful (what's my Microsoft account again? Oh well, let's reset it, oh wait, I need to request a Two-factor auth token first, oh wait, I need to confirm that this is really my email address, oh wait, I am being offered to add my phone number...), it begs the question: Why do I have to sign into Xbox Live if I'm just trying to play a couch co-op game to begin with?

Battletoads (2020) has no netcode at all: multiplayer is offered in a screen-cast, remote couch co-op fashion (which is admittedly pretty cool and something that I've been waiting for in the market, and that will allow me to share a lot of my emulated library, which is really cool).

So pray tell, again, why do I need to sign up to Xbox Live if I just want to play a quick game on steam? WHY?

Why did you dare lock the ability to use a controller behind it? It's insulting to my intelligence.

You know what other games work with Xbox Controllers on PC out of the box? EVERY OTHER GAME ON IT It's a standard USB device, it's just plug and play, it's the whole point of it and it's always been the whole point of it.

But it's not just Microsoft pulling this bullshit, it's Everyone else.

I have a:

Steam Account

Xbox Live Account

Playstation Network Account

Nintendo Account (wanna play mario kart tour on your ipad? HoOOOO just wait and see what bullshit awaits you!), which itself is divided into TWO ACCOUNTS: a Nintendo Network id (nnid), used for legacy services on Wii U and 3DS, and a Nintendo Account (for switch onwards).

Battle.net Account

Rockstar Account

Uplay Account

Origin Account

Epic Games account

Steam account

Amazon wants to get in on the fun and they already offer a game storefront of sorts.

And this is just for video games. Let's not consider the fact that for streaming and other kinds of entertaiment, there's also so many other services: neflix, hulu, spotify, youtube, google, itunes, twitch, discord...

I'm going to go ahead and say it: this is not a good way to do things.

It leads to an increasingly disjointed way of seeing the world.

It normalizes the idea of always-on, always connected, which is unsustainable (good luck trying to play Mario Kart Tour if you don't have Internet Access, bucko).

Aren't we supposed to become more sophisticated as time passes? Doesn't the fact that I need to sign up for tens of "free" accounts (which in the end just want you to paywall you anyway) seem like a regression to you?

20 years ago, I could just buy a game and play it without compromise. One and done, buy it, pop that sucka in, boom. Now, however, before you start playing a game, you need to do inane shit such as:

going through mandatory day-1 patches for games because the devs shipped an incomplete product to gold

scrolling through 40 pages (!!!!!) of EULAs (I kid you not, this happened with Crash Team Racing and I hated every second of it)

mandatory sigups and signins as explained before

being marketed with DLC and in-game items before even actually starting to play the game, again

It took like, 30 minutes of bullshit before I could play Ninjala on Switch, and once I actually got to play it, I realized it sucked, fast.

So, I'm going to sound the alarm.

You know what made me sound the alarm? That Battletoads (1991) never was as disingenious as to ask me to fucking sign in before starting to play with my friends. Battletoads on the NES is a matter of, just have a friend over, hand them a controller, and BOOM goes the dynamite, we're playing.

10 second deal instead of 30 minutes of SaaS horseshit. How about that.

The other time I had someone over and I wanted to play Rocket League with them. Been a while since I've played a video game with someone at home. Turns out WE COULDN'T PLAY ROCKET LEAGUE COUCH CO-OP BECAUSE YOU NEED TO SIGN INTO A SECOND PLAYSTATION NETWORK ACCOUNT TO PLAY COUCH CO-OP.

This bit me once when I wanted to play Call of Duty on XBO at another friend's place, too.

Again, this is incredibly insulting to me. It is incredibly demeaning that I've been stripped of the Joy of Co-Op Games. The Joy of playing with a friend is, bar none, one of the best things about videogames, by far, and if you dare remove it from people to walled-garden them, then you're soulless.

And let's not get started on Gatcha games.

Now, ok, sure, what are the benefits of SaaS applied to videogames? Sure, you get a constant influx of new content (Parentheses: I'm actually very wary of this, by the way; I don't think the human brain is made to constantly be endlessly entertained with a one-click never-ending feed of new things, and I actually think this is the root cause a lot of society's psychological ailments today, but I digress --that's a subject for another essay). And you get automatic updates (which are usually just anti-piracy and anti-cheat updates, but anyway).

In my opinion, the bullshit far outweights the benefits.

I think it's time we truly question our priorities and ask ourselves why are things going this way. We should recognize that, when Entertaining people, we have a personal relationship with the Entertainee, and we should uphold it. We should respect and value our customers and don't make them jump through hoops just to enjoy what we want to share with them, because if you do so you're giving them the finger, not to mention that you're losing most of your customers if they just wanna have a nice time and you present them with a 40 page EULA before they even get to see a smidge of your game.

Entertainment shouldn't be a brain soother in its most raw, brutal form, but instead, it should be substantial. I like good stories, deep, intricate games, and cool, fleshed out characters.

Games do have an industrial side to them and I'm aware of it, but I fell in love with Games when they were things of craft and upheld as such. Play a retro arcade game: it's a game of skill and energy, 0 bullshit. You just get right into the action, and if you lose, it was your fault and you know it. Clean, pure, of the essence. No gacha, red tape, and nickel-and-diming bullshit. And we seem to have traded such purity for an easy, one-click feed of flashing lights that demands nothing but the stupor of the consumer.

Girl Next Room: Motorbike Baby livewatching

(i made this list as i watched so i could share w/ my friend later. but then it got long so i decided to just post it) SPOILERS AHEAD!

Mile= the REAL consent king tbh, everyone else can go home (anyone who calls fighter consent king is so very Wrong it pains me)(no i will not be accepting criticism)

literally, the only questionable thing (that i remember) Mile doing was sneaking his nametag into her bag which made her uncomfortable?

the way Mile literally got beaten to a pulp for Sundae and she walked away.... just for him to drive her home... sundae pls

the way BOTH of these guys have bruises all over but are so concerned over her bandage-sized cut. i'll have what she's having

young Tan was such a cutie 😔 sucks that he grew up to be Like That, huh

can we discuss Tan's secret artistic abilities? those deer paintings look great, maybe he's an art student

idk if it's because they're dating in real life or just bc they're great actors but Tan and Sundae have really good chemistry

Tan's dad is so funny omg

you're telling me Tan waited SIX MONTHS into the official relationship, which started wayyy after he asked for her number, to KISS HER. is this chivalry, shyness, or stupidity, i can't figure it out

mm. love that she called out Tan for being a jerk, but notice how she didn't do the same when Mile was throwing money at a clearly-financially-struggling Tan. he took it in stride tho, good for him

(Side-note: glad they showed him working for once, i was wondering how his bills got paid if he's just trailing behind Sundae all day long)

wow ok this ep was obviously meant to show Tan in a better light but. he gets the most points NOT for buying her food or rescuing her from the elevator, but for not judging her crying abt a cockroach & also rushing to go kill it. I'll Have What She's Having

this girl is.... so dumb. two (2) cute boys wore black for her and she failed to connect the dots both times 🤦🏽‍♀️

did u really think someone else's boyfriend would kill your cockroach for u??? pretty privilege.

the way i caught wind of foul play in their last relationship and am willing to forgive tan for everything... hi my name is Ayesha and i'm a Tan simp

(side-note: who else thinks Sundae's mom said something? omg PLOT TWIST it was her brother 🤔)

Mile made her a homemade tiffin now that he knows she's a picky eater 🥺🥺 you poor boy, they're gonna do u so dirty 😔

the way i forgot Tan went to school too LMAO

the guitar serenading during dinner is tacky, but at least he's self aware

she said she doesn't wanna see his face, so he came back the next day with his helmet on 🤦🏽‍♀️

so much gremlin behavior today Tan

actually he's gotten worse ever since she said she'd see Mile instead, that staircase bump was so juvenile

and still Mile has never reacted rashly, this boy can do no wrong

was the "Sunday" helmet bit an ultimatum? it felt like an ultimatum and also a game of hot potato asdfghjkl

OOP spoke too soon abt Mile. he kinda pressured Sundae into looking like a couple in front of Tan, knowing full well that she needs more time

I mean tbh compared to allll the strikes Tan has gotten, Mile would still be ranking higher- in a normal situation. Alas, I can't figure Tan's rank until i find out what the deal is about that "promise" he made also i'm a Tan simp but at least i can admit my favoritism

oh. the part where she comes back for the helmet... hits different

okay sundae is LYING to herself if she doesn't think she's been into Tan this whole time. like yeah she likes Mile too but c'mon we all know you never forgot abt Tan

Wait noooo not the dad i love him

LMAO the way Tan's life flashes before his eyes right when he realizes his brother is a loudmouth & will absolutely mention the post-breakup comfort session they had earlier 😂 true siblings

i thought Mile was gonna be pissed and petty, but he wasn't? he just listened to her and trusted her explanation and communicated how he felt?? only recommended cutting Tan off after Sundae asked for his opinion?? i stan one (1) second love interest

did i mention i love Tan's dad and brother like! yes call him out! knock some sense into him!! we stan honest, kind, and emotionally intelligent men

that confession 🥺 the yearning-from-afar Tan montage 🥺 the scene with his dad and brother after 😭

if i could forget about my pain from 5 mins ago i'd say this date scene is actually super cute

WOW OK I TAKE IT BACK ALL OF IT i had a feeling he'd be a cheating player. and he made her go gift shopping for his real girlfriend?? yikes

feels like a low blow to write him off as a love interest tbh, they just made him too perfect and had to backtrack 😪 rip mile's character

OH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT IT WAS HER BROTHER OMGGGG WHAT NO WAY NO WAY

okay her brother shouldn't have blamed Tan for either times bc once it was also out of guilt/grief for her mother, and the other it was Mile's betrayal plus her grief for losing Tan. he just happened to find her both times

looking back, the way Tan kept that paper so he could control his emotions 😭 so he wouldn't close enough to break his promise, but also close enough to potentially hurt her again 😭 And when he said "i can't control my emotions anymore" he was actually so torn and felt super guilty and selfish bc he couldn't stay a "safe" distance and keep his word, i-

WAIT WHEN HE SAID "I'M A MAN OF MY WORD"... THE FORESHADOWING OMG

ALL CAPS BC WE CRYIN IN THE CLUB WOOHOO

wowowow Tan on a normal day is cute and and sweet and endearing, but furious Tan is.... hot

Sundae WHY are you depriving me Tan and your brother the chance for them to jump Mile, it's what i deserve!

asdfghjkl this bitch boi said "i hate confrontation so i decided to two-time :)". electric chair.

Tan's reaction to that was like "babe should i kill him or should i kill him", and her brother's was "are u done did u say your piece great MY TURN"

cute scenes are nice but decent apologies and explanations are a balm to the soul 😌 his dad raised him well

did y'all see the way he still gets nervous before kissing sundae even after all this time 🥺

and then they lived happily ever after! this was fun, maybe i'll do another sometime

Xbox Game Pass and EA Access: too much of a good thing?

February saw Microsoft announce its Xbox Game Pass service which will allow subscribers to access an initial library of more than 100 Xbox 360 and Xbox One games for a nominal monthly fee. Set to launch this coming spring, Xbox Game Pass follows on the heels of a similar subscription model from developer EA launched in 2014 granting access to an extensive back catalogue of EA titles. The positives have been well documented: unlike similar services offered by the likes of Amazon Prime and Netflix, Microsoft's service does not involve streaming. Games are downloaded and remain in situ. If they are due to be removed from the available library, as often happens with any of these subscription services, the subscriber will be given the option to buy at a discounted price. Not a bad compromise, especially if you're not keen on condemning umpteen hours of progress to the virtual scrap heap, without having even seen the credits roll. And let's not forget the bloody obvious: you're getting 100 plus games for around the same price as a trip to the cinema or a beer and burger. What's not to like? Well, for me it's just not the most attractive proposition. But the reason for that is purely circumstantial. The old adage has never been more true (fuck, I feel old even saying this): quality over quantity. I'm not talking about individual titles on offer being better or worse than others or that the bulk of what's on offer is crap. I'm sure there's something for everyone here, even if games by some big developers like Activision and Ubisoft aren't (yet) present. What I'm getting at is that I already have, or certainly had until fairly recently, what seems like almost 100 games amassed over the years, ripe for play thanks to my own little subscription service: regular and sometimes ill advised outgoings from my wallet. Forking out for the latest titles having not fully explored the other 99 games waiting patiently on my shelf. With an already extensive backlog to contend with, adding another 100 or so games on top of that is certainly not the answer. Ok, you're probably already saying, 'Chill out, it's only £8. You'd hardly be aiming to play all of the games on Game Pass anyway. You wouldn't go into a restaurant and order everything. And equally, if you had eaten your fill at a buffet but not tried everything, you wouldn't necessarily walk out feeling short changed.' Yes, I get this but does anyone really need this much choice? I'm a Netflix subscriber and watch a series or the odd film as often as the life of a new parent will allow. When the bill comes in I'm never fizzing with rage because I've paid the best part of £8 to watch half an episode of Stranger Things in one given month. That's life, especially now that I don't always come first these days. But having this much choice when I actually do have a good block of time to sit down to properly enjoy something like this still has the uncanny ability to frustrate. Often I've found myself logging onto my PS4 or Netflix, only to be abruptly reminded of how many PSN games I've downloaded and never touched or how many series I've got marked on my video watchlist which I know I'll probably never get into. It's overwhelming. Like staring into a big black hole. Do I watch this? Do I play that? More often than not I turn heel and leg it the other way, like a shite Indiana Jones, leaving all of these untouched treasures for another day and instead opting to play/watch something that I've played or seen twenty times already. Something I could walk or talk through in my sleep. All because it's familiar and comfortable. There's nothing wrong with that necessarily. But it niggles. In that moment the hole may be filled but in the end, it's still a hole. So is choice to blame? In my heart of hearts I know that the answer is no. The many horned backlog monster is of my own making and choice has meant that that monster has now grown a few more horns. Perhaps my own solution should be to bury my wallet in the back garden, cancel my subscriptions and enjoy what I've got. Unlikely. Despite all of my gripes, I do want to be clear though. I'm also aware that not everyone is privileged enough to boast of a backlog and that for some affording one game every once in a while is reality. I wholeheartedly respect that and am not bemoaning what may seem like first world problems. If eight pounds per month is what you can afford and it gets you a tonne of content which you have time to access and are happy with, fire on ahead. If you are a parent who will use Xbox Game Pass to give your youngster a variety rich but financially more controlled gaming experience, that's fantastic too. If there's just one game you are burning to play which would cost you more that £8 on the high street, by all means. Bargainous! To reference another adage (I'm full of them today), variety is supposedly the spice of life. I'm not going to argue with that as in many circumstance it is but depending on whose life we're talking about, not everyone has the palate for spice. I like to think I lead a varied existence thanks to a loving family, close friends and a rewarding job. But purely from a gaming perspective, depending on your circumstances, subscription services like this may just be turning the heat up too much, leaving some gamers with a burning niggle that can never quite be satisfied.

The Benchmark – Overview Geek

http://tinyurl.com/y3yvdfdt Ranking: 9/10 ? 1 – Absolute Sizzling Rubbish 2 – Sorta Lukewarm Rubbish 3 – Strongly Flawed Design 4 – Some Execs, Heaps Of Cons 5 – Acceptably Imperfect 6 – Good Sufficient to Purchase On Sale 7 – Nice, However Not Greatest-In-Class 8 – Unbelievable, with Some Footnotes 9 – Shut Up And Take My Cash 10 – Absolute Design Nirvana Worth: $670-750 Benchmark: noun; The usual by which all others are measured.  Cameron Summerson The OnePlus 7 Professional is among the most spectacular Android units I’ve ever had the privilege of utilizing. It’s glossy, quick, beautiful, and—most significantly—gives unbelievable worth. It units a brand new commonplace for Android units transferring ahead. This is What We Like Unimaginable efficiency Beautiful show Lovely aesthetic and wonderful construct Unprecedented worth And What We Do not It is large No wi-fi charging No official IPA ranking Whereas the OP7 Professional’s predecessor, the OnePlus 6T, is a wonderful telephone in its personal proper, the 7 Professional reveals how far OnePlus has are available in a really quick period of time. That is probably the most mature, refined, and forward-thinking machine ever launched by the corporate, and it does all of it whereas preserving the low worth level (comparatively talking) the corporate is thought for. To place it as bluntly as doable: that is the most effective Android telephone you should buy proper now. I’d even be keen to guess that this would be the greatest Android telephone of 2019. With a beginning worth of $670, no different producer will have the ability to compete at this worth level. Interval. Specs and Efficiency: The Quickest Android Telephone I’ve Ever Used I’ve used numerous Android telephones, however by no means have I been so shocked at how insanely quick one is true out of the field. After I first began utilizing the OP7 Professional, I used to be nearly satisfied that it was studying my thoughts—it’s so quick it nearly looks like it will possibly execute duties earlier than I even contact it. It’s mind-blowing. I swear I believe it is aware of what I will do earlier than I do it. Prefer it anticipates the place I am on the point of faucet and pre-emptively masses it up. It is mind-reader quick. — Cam 🤔 (@Summerson) May 26, 2019 Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 RAM: 8GB or 12GB Storage: 128GB or 256GB Show: 6.67-inch edge-to-edge notchless QHD+ AMOLED panel (56PPI) w/ 90Hz refresh charge and pop-up entrance digital camera Cameras: 48MP fundamental digital camera, Eight MP telephoto lens, 16 MP ultra-wide lens; 16MP pop-up entrance digital camera Ports: USB-C Headphone Jack: No Battery: 4,000 mAh Fingerprint Sensor: In-display Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/b/ac, 2.4GHz/5GHz; 2×2 MIMO; Bluetooth 5.0; NFC; AT&T, Verizon, and T-Cell help Colours: Mirror Grey, Nebula Blue, Almond Worth: $670-$750 (relying on configuration Specs as reviewed: 12GB RAM, 256GB storage, Nebula Blue, $750 As quickly as I popped it out of the field, one factor was clear: this telephone is particular. The sting-to-edge show is gorgeous, the Nebula Blue end on my assessment unit is killer, and the general match and end is next-level. It wasn’t till I beginning utilizing the 7 Professional that I used to be actually blown away, although. As I stated earlier, it’s the quickest Android telephone I’ve ever used, which is spectacular sufficient by itself. However there’s one thing else, one thing rather less tangible, that makes the OnePlus 7 Professional such a powerful piece of {hardware}. There’s one thing that sits between the efficiency and the aesthetics that may’t be quantified.  The expertise supplied by any handset is a make or break element that usually will get neglected (or relatively, not emphasised), which is the place there 7 Professional actually comes into its personal. It gives an expertise not like another Android telephone—in some way acquainted like a current-generation smartphone (so there’s no studying curve or characteristic hole), however concurrently like one thing new and futuristic. I nearly wish to name it a stopgap between present smartphones and the upcoming shift to one thing new, however that will be a disservice to the 7 Professional. To name it something aside from spectacular, merely put, feels mistaken. Construct and {Hardware}: Large, Daring, and Lovely Cameron Summerson Whereas I’ve already talked about that the 7 Professional’s aesthetic is beautiful, it’s equally as spectacular in its construct. It is a $750 flagship telephone, and I’ll inform you proper now: if one other firm launched a product on the identical stage because the 7 Professional, it could simply value $1200+. No query about it. The 7 Professional’s construct is rock strong from high to backside, entrance to again. The sides of the show meet the seams of the telephones so completely it’s nearly as in the event that they don’t exist—one materials melts into one other like they had been made to be this shut to one another all alongside. It’s an attractive piece of {hardware} in each means. If you realize something about me, you realize that I’ve a coverage about smartphones: if it comes in black, buy it in black (additionally, sure, I do have a red iPhone XR—I typically break my very own guidelines). Properly, my 7 Professional assessment unit is Nebula Blue—a coloration I didn’t assume I would really like as a result of, actually, I don’t like blue. I’ll be the primary one to confess after I’m mistaken, and in the case of this end, I used to be mistaken. It’s a stunning kind of chameleon paint that seamlessly flows via numerous shades of blue and purple as the sunshine hits it in several methods. The end is matte, giving it a really silk-like look. As a bonus, it doesn’t entice fingerprints the best way shiny and even matte black telephones do. It’s so properly accomplished. Cameron Summerson Whereas the again of the telephone could be very good to take a look at, the actual star of the present is round entrance: the large, edge-to-edge show. At almost seven inches (6.67 to be precise), the 7 Professional’s display is among the greatest on a smartphone in the present day. Pair that with a pixel density of 516 PPI (pixels per inch) and HDR10+, and you’ve got all the suitable items for a wonderful panel. However that’s not the most effective a part of the 7 Professional’s display—that title goes to the 90 Hz refresh charge. Due to the elevated refresh charge, the 7 Professional is a lot smoother than different telephones (which typically have a 60 Hz refresh charge). The draw back is that this does use a bit extra battery, however the silky-smooth transitions between screens are properly well worth the tradeoff. It’s such a delicate distinction that makes a really dramatic influence. For the reason that display is a chic edge-to-edge panel with no notches or digital camera cutouts, OnePlus had to determine a brand new method to maintain the front-facing digital camera accessible. The answer? A pop-up digital camera. It’s nestled contained in the telephone whenever you’re not utilizing it, then slides up as quickly as you open the entrance in any software (just like the digital camera or Instagram, for instance). It’s not solely sensible, nevertheless it seems rattling cool too. Not notches, not cutouts, no bezel. Properly, minimal bezel. Cameron Summerson After all, the massive issues with one thing that has transferring elements like this are longevity and sturdiness—what number of occasions can the digital camera pop up earlier than it breaks? How fragile is it? OnePlus needed to set customers’ minds comfy on this one, claiming that the digital camera is “designed to resist sliding out as much as 300,00 occasions.” That’s sufficient to “take over 150 selfies every single day for five.5 years.” That’s so many selfies. As for sturdiness, OnePlus took a video of the entrance digital camera lifting 49 kilos of concrete to indicate its robustness. I assume that might come in useful in case you need assistance lifting just below 50 kilos of one thing round 5.5 millimeters. Anyway, the purpose is that there in all probability isn’t so much to be involved about the place the pop-up digital camera’s sturdiness is anxious. Whereas the {hardware} is gorgeous and properly made, it’s not excellent. There are a few omissions within the 7 Professional’s design: it’s lacking wi-fi charging and doesn’t have an IP ranking. Whereas the previous isn’t a large deal (most individuals I do know who’ve telephones with wi-fi charging don’t even use it), the latter is a little more of a difficulty. Properly, form of. First off, what’s an IP ranking? “IP” stands for Worldwide Safety, which covers a tool’s water and mud resistance—that is one thing that you really want. However the 7 Professional doesn’t have an IP ranking as a result of OnePlus didn’t wish to pay to get one. The corporate claims this retains prices down, however notes that the phone is water resistant. It’s actually form of bizarre, however no matter. It’s additionally price noting that if it does get water injury, the guarantee gained’t enable you. So there’s that too. Software program: Near Inventory With out Being Inventory One factor OnePlus does properly with OxygenOS is to maintain issues clear. The OS is fairly just like inventory Android, although there are a number of touches right here and there to make it barely totally different. These are considerate add-ons, although, and never a bunch of superfluous crap thrown in simply because. When it comes all the way down to it, the software program on the OnePlus 7 Professional is just about similar to the OnePlus 6T. As a substitute of re-wording what I’ve already stated, I’ll point you to the applicable section of my 6T review. Cameras: No Magic Cameron Summerson After I reviewed the OnePlus 6T, I stated the digital camera was “ehhhhh.” Whereas I finally took some good pics with that digital camera, I nonetheless say it’s not nice—it simply okay. And had I gone to the OnePlus 7 Professional straight from the 6T, there’s an opportunity the 7 Professional’s digital camera would’ve been extra spectacular. However one thing occurred in between the 6T and seven Professional utilization: somewhat plastic telephone known as the Google Pixel 3a. The Pixel 3a jogged my memory of what Google can do with digital camera software program, even in a $400 telephone. Regardless of being nearly half the worth of the 7 Professional (and fewer than half the worth of different flagship telephones), the Pixel 3a’s digital camera wipes the ground with all others. As a result of it has that Google Magic. Actually, regardless of having three cameras that may take good footage, it’s onerous to really feel something except for upset with the 7 Professional’s picture output. Don’t get me mistaken: it’s an improve from the 6T (or any OP telephone earlier than it). In case you’re coming from one OP telephone to the 7 Professional, you’re going to be proud of the picture output. It’s effective! Good, even! It’s simply not nice. This realization was like hitting a wall for me: as I used to be thumbing via Google Pictures to see the 7 Professional’s picture output, I instantly knew after I received to the timeframe the place I used to be utilizing the 3a. And it wasn’t as a result of I remembered the photographs—it’s as a result of there was a sudden and dramatic shift in high quality. What Google does in software program is unmatched on different telephones. Interval. If I might take the Pixel digital camera’s software program and put it on the 7 Professional, then we’d be in enterprise. (And sure, I’m conscious of GCam, the mission to port the Google Digicam to different telephones, and it’s janky at greatest, so I don’t think about it a “resolution.”) However because it stands, the 7 Professional is lacking the magic that you just’ll discover on a Pixel digital camera. Now, all that stated, it’s price noting that the 7 Professional’s three-camera setup is a wonderful addition to the telephone. It has a regular 48 MP digital camera, an Eight MP telephoto lens, and 16 MP ultra-wide lens, the latter of that are fairly rad to make use of. The telephoto lens is at all times going to be higher than digital zoom (even with Google’s photo-fu), and the wide-angle lens is an effective way to get extra into the shot with out it wanting distorted or typically janky. Listed here are some check photographs evaluating the three cameras (high to backside: broad angle, common, telephoto): As you’ll be able to see from the final picture, the telephoto lens washes the photograph out—it has a definite coloration distinction in comparison with the opposite two lenses, which look very related. Listed here are some extra photographs, all taken with the telephone’s main digital camera, save for the final two which used the telephoto lens.   Battery Life: With the Proper Settings, It Can Be Insane The OnePlus 6T had a number of the greatest battery life I’d ever seen in an Android telephone, so I anticipated extra of the identical for the 7 Professional. Having seen loopy screenshots with 8+ hours of display on time from this telephone, I had excessive expectations. And whereas I’m not upset in what I’ve seen, I’ll say that I haven’t been capable of recreate almost double-digit display time numbers. The percentages are that each one these loopy numbers I noticed earlier than I received into the nitty-gritty of utilizing the telephone had been all utilizing best-case-scenario settings, which suggests dropping the display decision from QHD+ to FHD+ and switching to the 60 Hz setting. Neither of these issues is enabled by default (Auto-Swap for decision and 90 Hz are set out of the field), which I left alone. I thought of switching to 60 Hz, however after getting used to the buttery smoothness of 90 Hz, I might deliver myself to do it, battery life be damned. In order it stands, I used the telephone with all of the inventory settings. I didn’t optimize something to enhance the battery life and used the telephone as I often would. On common, I noticed about six hours of screen-on-time, which is nothing to scoff at for an Android telephone—particularly one with a large and delightful 6.67-inch show. In order it stands, I’d say the OnePlus 7 Professional has wonderful battery life with the choice to make it actually unbelievable in case you’re keen to surrender a few of its nicer show options. That’s your name and one thing you could simply change on the fly. Know you’re doing to wish prolonged hours out of your telephone on a given day? Drop all the way down to FHD decision and 60 Hz refresh charge. Whereas that in all probability gained’t get you a number of hours of additional use, it should assist squeak a bit extra out of the already-good battery life. Conclusion: The Greatest Android Telephone You Can Purchase Cameron Summerson So right here’s the factor: is the OnePlus 7 Professional the proper Android telephone? Nah—nevertheless it’s rattling shut. In case you had been to slap Google’s digital camera software program and wi-fi charging onto this telephone, that’s just about all it could take to name it the most effective Android telephone of all time. However because it stands, it’s the most effective Android telephone you should buy proper now. At a beginning worth of $670, there’s nothing else that even comes shut. Actually, even in case you had a pair hundred to that price ticket, you’re going to search out compromises someplace alongside the best way. The one different telephone you’ll discover available on the market that may examine to the OnePlus 7 Professional is, undoubtedly, an iPhone. Particularly, the iPhone XR—however in case you’re an Android consumer, you don’t need an XR. And I perceive that. In order for you the most effective Android telephone you should buy proper now, although, that is the one. Ranking: 9/10 Worth: $670-750 Right here’s What We Like Unimaginable efficiency Beautiful show Lovely aesthetic and wonderful construct Unprecedented worth And What We Do not It is large No wi-fi charging No official IPA ranking !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');fbq('init','1137093656460433');fbq('track','PageView'); Source link