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henryholmesacademia · 4 years

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Predilection Chapter One

A/N: ahhhhh....I’m so nervous and excited! This isn’t my first time writing and publishing something on tumblr, but it is the first time I write for this guy. Hope you like it, and hope you stick around but please don’t feel obligated too. I don’t like doing synopsis or previews because I feel like it gives the story away, so you’ll just have to feel this one out. Enjoy! Or not, I can’t tell you how to live your life <3

beta reader, co-writer, motivator, and all around love of my life: @lost-aesthetic-of-past

This isn’t a special story.

Might not even be a story at all.

But rather a telling of events that happened in a certain order and have been strung together to create a tale that could cure the boredom of the mind and indulge the land of fantasy.

We won’t start from the beginning. I’ll spare you the boring details and let you come to your own conclusions.

We’ll start our telling of tales in a humble tearoom.

The famous detective Sherlock Holmes had just finished having a somewhat futile conversation with Edith in the search for his younger sister. Come to think of it, it was not much of a conversation as much as it was a reprimanding of sorts. It might even be considered educating him on a subject he knew nothing of and needed a good slap into reality.

“You said she was traveling with a boy?” Sherlock inquired as she was making her exit from the room.

She stops at the doorway. “A useless boy, she called him. I couldn’t help but be reminded of a woman who traveled through here yesterday. We were about to close when she came in. She was wet from rain, but she didn’t seem to mind it at all.” She turns to look at him. “She said you would be here today, and it seems her assumption was correct. She told me that she would be waiting for you at 6 o'clock, Mr. Holmes, and that you had better dress nicely.”

“She left no name?” He raises an eyebrow.

Edith shrugged. “She was very certain that you would know who she was and that you would know exactly where she wanted you.”

Sherlock Holmes has always been talented at keeping his cool. Demonstrating no emotion. His face, some compared it to the likeness of a statue with how unmoved he was in situations.

This would be no different. It had been years since he had last seen the woman who was beckoning him.

And yet, she was always able to pique his curiosity.

“I see you received my message, Mr. Holmes.” Her voice was only accompanied by the sound of her heels. It had seemed that all sound in the bustle of society had come to a stop. No clinking of glass. No servers rushing passed them. It was just her. “And you dressed for the occasion.” Her eyes zero in on his attire. “I do love a man in a tie, as I’m sure you are aware." Oh, how she loved to tease him.

The detective knew basic manners, he was taught right from wrong, how to be respectful toward women, not to mention he had observed enough of the body language and cues of people. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to stand up and pull out a chair for her.

"I thought sending you a message would better prepare you for this, but I see it made no difference.” She sets her bag on the table and sits down on her own accord. She both loved and hated etiquette. There were so many rules and guidelines to follow. However, it did work to her advantage at times. “Tell me, Mr. Holmes, what adventure are you on right at this moment?”

“When did you return from overseas?” He manages to find his voice, though he never meant to lose it.

“I’ve been told that you are looking for someone. Could it be that marquee from the papers?” She stirs the spoon of the tea that a server had set down in front of her.

“You are avoiding my question. Mycroft is not aware that you are back, is he?” He lets out a deep breath. There was never a chance of getting a straight answer from her. She only knew how to respond in teasing and quick wit. Every smile devious, and every word was calculated.

“And you are very rudely avoiding mine.” Her smile, that teasing smile of hers. “Would you like help with the case of the marquee? If you ask nicely, I’ll go with you. Finding people who don’t want to be found is a specialty of mine.” She lifts the teacup from the saucer to her mouth innocently enough, but he knew better.

“But dealing with the damage you leave in your wake isn’t?” His words stop her drink and she places the cup back on the saucer.

“What a pity.” Her face forms a small pout. “I was rather liking our game.”

“You always think of things as some kind of game. There is going to be a day when you will find not everyone wants to join in. Not everyone is a toy who is vying for your attention in hope that you will play with them.”

“I will learn that the day you learn that people are more than answers to riddles.” She challenges. “Indulge me for a moment, why did you come here? You knew it was me who sent for you. You remembered my favorite restaurant, my favorite tea, and if they did not give you this table, I will forever assume that you were the one who asked for the table that was in the farthest corner of the room.”

“You do not want Mycroft to know you are here.” He tries to gauge her reaction and steer the conversation. Like always, she gives a grin. A true Cheshire cat smile.

“No. And you forget, Mr. Holmes, nobody knows anything until I want them to know.” She gathers her purse and stands up from the chair. “Here I was, hoping that we would have a nice dinner. It’s been…” she trails off as she looks for the right word. “Refreshing to see you, Mr. Holmes.”

“Why waste your time having dinner with me?” He can’t help but ask her. Just from observing her, he remembered how she would do nothing if it did not have a motive that she would find useful.

She pauses for a moment as she considers his question and gives him a genuine smile. A rare, but beautiful sight. “Is it so hard to believe that your company might be missed?” As she walks past him, she leans down close to his ear. “As for earlier, this isn’t a game to me, Mr. Holmes. But if it was…you were always my favorite player.” She whispers and leaves him to dwell with the aroma of sugar and spice in the air.

The great detective takes to his pipe that night as he stares into the fire. If you were to see him, you would think that he would be calculating his next move or contemplating his own life. That he would be entirely concerned for the welfare of his sister or mother that has vanished into thin air.

No.

He was thinking about his encounter with that woman. Not even the one from this evening, but all the previous ones he had with her. Each one is more memorable than the last. But none shall ever haunt his memory as much as when he first met her.

He never expected such a woman of high society to be standing in the same room with Lestrade right next to a crime scene. Her voice floated melodiously through the room as he walked through the front door. The smell of spice and sugar leads him to where a woman had her back turned to him while answering the Scotland Yard inspector’s questions.

“Ah, Mr. Holmes this is-” Lestrade begins.

The woman turns to see him, the ensemble on her hat was grand and elegant, but her striking eyes that hide the mischief behind them and her smile, which seemed to match the sentiment, was not hidden or dimmed. They were…quite beautifully complemented by it, as he recalled the words his mother said to him once as a child. She extends her gloved hand. “Miss Harrison.” She finishes for Lestrade with a pearly white smile. “And you are?” She inquires.

He was shocked for a moment as her hand was extended toward him. Society would not have allowed it to happen as a young woman should never extend her hand, and she did not seem to be married. Her glove did not have an outdent from a wedding ring.

“This is Sherlock Holmes, we ask him for consultation, and he comes when he’s bothered to read a telegram from us,” Lestrade adds when Sherlock remains stoic and silent.

The corners of her mouth seemed to turn up even higher at that. “My oh my, Mr. Holmes, the papers do not do you justice.” She looks straight at his eyes when she speaks again. “Tell me, has anybody ever told you how incredibly blue your eyes are? Why, I keep finding myself stopping to admire them.”

“No, miss, I can not say that I have.” He releases her hand and clears his throat while stepping forward to examine what Lestrade had originally summoned him for a routine theft. But from what he could tell, the jewelry stolen was not the woman’s jewelry. For she seemed to not wear any. Women who could afford such jewelry never left their households without displaying a few pieces and any fortune she might have clearly was being spent and invested in their extravagant garments and perfumes.

“I apologize. He’s not - well he does tend to act like that sometimes.” Lestrade finds himself in a very awkward position at the moment.

She turns to see him examining a table, observing his side profile. “There is no need for an apology, inspector Lestrade. He’s exactly as I imagined him to be. He’ll do nicely for this case. My employer would be pleased.”

“Who is your employer again? I never caught the name.”

“Oh, I didn’t say. They would prefer it if they were not associated with what happened at all.” She pauses for a moment. “Is that any problem, Mr. Holmes?” Her voice is a little louder to get his attention.

He ignores her question.

Just as the inspector is about to apologize again, she gives him a grin. “I quite like him, Lestrade. I might just keep him on.”

And keep him she did.

Sherlock takes out her handkerchief that she had slipped into his pocket when she was whispering in his ear, embroidered with her initials and the outline of her lipstick. A color that was almost as bold as she was. He held it up to his nose and, sure enough, it was the scent of sugar and spice.

#henry cavill!sherlock holmes x reader #sherlock holmes x reader #henry cavill x reader #henryholmesacademia

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firemblem-fics · 4 years

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SFW alphabet. | seteth

-> Pairing: Seteth x GN!Reader

-> Warnings: None

-> Genre: Fluff, Headcanons

-> A/N: this was chosen by a poll on my discord server except i gave no context in the poll so this is for y’all :) also uh im sorry if i’m not active in the next week, i rlly just had the absolute worst nervous breakdown ive had in a long while LMAO so uh ya might stay away from the internet for a while

warning, long post.

A -> Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

with seteth, affection STAYS private. it will never ever be displayed out in the open, especially not around the students. he prefers to keep personal relationships out of professional life

when he does show affection, though, it’s super slow and gentle. he always hugs you from behind and just sways side to side, pressing little kisses against your temple and cheek while you lean i to his embrace and close your eyes.

B -> Begin (How did the relationship begin?)

it didn’t really have a solid beginning. you just kind of wormed your way into seteth and flayn’s hearts unknowingly. when he asked to court you, you were super super hesitant because you didn’t want to replace his late wife. he assured you that she’d want him and flayn to be happy and that she’d 100% approve of you.

you still have your doubts, but seteth is always there to reassure you.

C -> Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How do they cuddle?)

cuddling is saved for nights or early mornings on a day off. seteth is always itching to get up and get things done, so it’s a little on the tougher side to get him to stay. eventually he caves and lays in.

you cuddle facing each other, your head tucked underneath his chin and his legs entangling yours. his hand that lays underneath you plays with the ends of your hair while the other rests gently on your thigh, which is hiked over his hip.

D -> Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How good are they at cooking and cleaning?)

seteth’s thoughts rarely every go astray, but when they do, he imagines what life would be like, just retiring from the monastery and living a nice life with you. he’d like to settle down eventually, but not any time soon

he’s super good at doing his part in chores and duties! of course he is, but he’s very very reliable and does things when asked. it’s nice

E -> Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

he would sit you down and explain his reasonings and such. it hurts him, definitely, but he does well at hiding it. until you leave his office, that is.

F -> Fiancé(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quickly would they want to get married?)

not any time soon, as said earlier. seteth really will not stop his obligations towards the monastery and to fodlan. he wouldn’t have time nor would he want a very extravagant wedding, either. a simple ceremony would suffice.

G -> Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

physically, seteth is the epitome of a soft, romantic man. his touches make you melt and he’s always trying to keep you comfortable and happy. if you’re content, hes content.

emotionally, not as much. seteth has trouble sympathizing with some things. he’s used to pushing his feelings aside for the sake of fulfilling a duty or doing something, so he struggles sometimes to understand why someone else can’t do the same. give him time, though, and he’ll get better at comforting

H -> Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

seteth’s hugs are firm and warm. they’re always like a passionate embrace, as if it would be the last time he’d ever touch you

seteth really enjoys hugs and physical affection with you, but as i said earlier, it’s always behind closed doors. sometimes he calls you to his office just so you can sit in his lap while he holds you.

I -> I Love You (How fast do they say the L-word?)

NOT fast. seteth is kind of in denial that he even had feelings for you at first until flayn pointed it out, so it’s rather hard for him to wrap his head around the fact that he loves you.

he does say it first though, as you’re half asleep, making you wonder if you even heard it correctly. you did.

J -> Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

seteth doesn’t get jealous, really. there’s really nobody around to even like, make him jealous. he knows that a bunch of weird ass teenagers like sylvain aren’t going to actually come in between his and your relationship. honestly, most people in the monastery probably don’t even know that you’re both in a relationship.

if he is jealous, he stays relatively nonchalant about it, asking you to help him with a task somewhere else to take you away from the person

K -> Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

seteth’s kisses are very loving and passionate. every single one of them are full of adoration, even the little pecks. they never fail to warm up your entire body as everything melts away around you

he loves to kiss your neck. not just for more intimate reasons, but because he absolutely adores your giggles as his beard tickles your skin

this only happens when your relationship has been going on for a while, but seteth really enjoys it when you kiss his ears. they’re super sensitive and they always tinge as red as his cheeks when you kiss them.

L -> Little Ones (How are they around children?)

seteth is super good around his own child, of course, but he doesn’t so so hot around other children. theyre often too rambunctious for his liking, but he’ll tolerate them enough to entertain them sometimes.

M -> Mornings (How are mornings spent with them?)

three words. soft, soft, and soft

you usually either wake up in the same position that you fell asleep in, or you’re spooning. seteth’s always the big spoon, no acceptions. if you’re spooning, he kisses your shoulders and the back of your head until you wake up enough to turn over and give him an actual kiss.

N -> Nights (How are nights spent with them?)

also soft, but a little less.

seteth is always so busy during the day that when he lays in bed, he falls asleep almost instantaneously. if you want to stay up and talk or cuddle, he’ll try his hardest, but please don’t be upset with him if he accidentally dozes off. he’s a hard worker

O -> Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything at once or wait to reveal things slowly?)

this depends on who you are. if you’re the professor, you more than likely already know everything by the time you get in a relationship with him

if you’re not, then he trusts you enough to catch you up on most things in the early weeks of your relationship. sometimes there’s a little tidbit that he may have forgotten to mention in the talk that comes up later on, but that’s really it

P -> Patience (How easily angered are they?)

seteth has the patience of a saint

hehe

but no, literally. very rarely does he get irritated or impatient with you. you know how he is and know how he likes things to happen or be done, so you do them. kind of like in the Domestic headcanon, he does his part so you try your hardest to do yours. he doesn’t ever have a reason to be impatient with you and is actually rather understanding now that he knows how you function as well

Q -> Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

seteth remembers everything. literally everything. you’d think in his 1000+ years of life, he’d be an old ass man with shit memory, but no. to seteth, you and flayn are his number one priority and he’d never forget a thing about yall.

R -> Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

seteth’s favorite memory is when he accidentally walked in on you hanging out flayn. you two weren’t doing much other than reading and talking about your books, but it warmed his heart to see his two favorite people bonding

S -> Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

insanely protective, but like in things that matter. if you’re doing something that could get you hurt, he’s in defense mode trying to get you to safety. if you’re in battle, he’s sure to always know where you are just in case.

he’s not one to appreciate being protected- he feels like he failed to protect his people in the past, so to be the protected instead of the protector makes him a little iffy- but he’ll always admit that he needed the protection and will always show his gratitude

count how many times i said protect in that second paragraph wow

T -> Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, etc?)

seteth is romantic. he’s not much for physical gifts, but the memories and sentiment and feelings are so real and present that you really don’t need material things to know that he loves you

of course he does give you gifts, like a pretty bouquet of flowers that he saw in the greenhouse, or a necklace or something from the market that reminded him of you

U -> Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

seteth tends to forget to slow down and take a break every once in a while. he’s constantly finding tasks to do around the monastery and doing things to help rhea that he often neglects his own well being. you always remind him and try your best to help him out, but he never really breaks that habit

V -> Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks? Do your looks bother them?)

seteth is rather concerned about how he’s seen in the public eye. how could he not? he’s a very prim and proper man. this, however, doesnt extend to you as much.

he doesn’t expect you to dress up to the nines every day just to be seen around him or whatever. he may be like “darling, are you sure you want to be walking around the monastery in your pajamas?” but the minute you’re like “hell yeah” he lets you be.

W -> Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

this is a tough one, because i feel like seteth would do just fine on his own and would still feel relatively whole. but there would always be like this tiny little sliver of him that constantly misses you when you’re not around

X -> Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

seteth has a secret, super playful side that only comes out when you’re alone in your shared bedroom. he likes to play wrestle you and mess around just to hear your laugh and see you smile.

Y -> Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, in general or in a partner?)

in a partner, seteth wouldn’t really like someone who’s obnoxiously loud and blatantly disrespectful. it’s one of his biggest pet peeves and he wouldn’t date someone like that.

this doesn’t pertain to people who like, don’t realize their volume or is disrespectful to someone who deserves the disrespect, though. he doesn’t like just overly rude and jnconfiderate people who are like that for no reason

Z -> Zzz (What’s a sleep habit of theirs? Does it change around a partner?)

seteth is the lightest sleeper in the history of the world. he’s always on guard for something to happen. i dont blame him, but sometimes even the littlest bumps in the night wake him up almost completely. don’t ever try to sneak out of bed because chances are, he woke up from you just opening your eyes.

if anything, this habit becomes even more prominent when you start sharing a bed with him. he’s just afraid of losing you is all 😃

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem x reader #fire emblem imagines #fire emblem three houses x reader #x reader #fire emblem three houses imagines #headcanons #seteth #seteth x reader #seteth imagines #saint cichol #sfw alphabet #lay writes

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m4delin · 3 years

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dsmp WIPs I wanna finish someday

Some of these wips has a hint of angst, but haven’t reallt dived into it. Each wip has a small explanation of the au after it. Feel free to ask about the aus.

General tags: death, angst, sbi as family, badass characters

Birds of a Feather

The wind was softly blowing through the abandoned playground, making an old swing creak somewhere. If the sun hadn’t been high up in the sky, Tommy would’ve said that they were in a horror movie.

Instead was it a perfect day to hang out with your friends and climb shit. Shit meant mostly trees and occasionally one of the small buildings on the playground.

(Tommy gets sent to the minecraft universe where sbi is his family)

----------------------

Something worth fighting for

Red, hot, searing pain coursed through his veins, the origin coming from his back. The muscles and tissue tears inside of him, trying to keep the bones connected despite the force trying to tear them apart.

"Please-" he chokes, his arm and hand stretched out in front of him, reaching for the door a few meters away- "please, just let me-!"

Another tug and his plea turns into a hoarse scream, his arm collapsing to the ground in a weak attempt to steady himself. It hurt, his body was on fire and he couldn't feel his wings.

The pull lessens and he lets out a shaky sob. "Please, j-just let me see them. I-I'll behave, just don't hurt them-!"

There was a scoff above him.

"You'll behave alright."

Then the muscles and skin give away from the hard tug and he screams.

He didn't feel his capturerer grab his other wing. He didn't hear his sons scream his name. All that consumed him was the blissful darkness.

(Phil is an immortal who gets forced to fight in illegal fighting rings in order to protect his family. Sbi as family)

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Strange Bird

Tommy hated the morning shifts. Having to wake up way too early in order to get some breakfast, perhaps take a shower which would only mean an even earlier morning, and then take the bike to the clinic.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that the clinic was run by Wilbur and Technoblade Soot, Tommy would’ve turned down the internship that was offered to him. Purely on the fact that it took about an hour by bike to get there for him. And to work on top of that?

It was hell to get used to.

But the exhaustion was so worth it. One year after working there, he had been offered a permanent stay if he wished and Tommy hadn’t hesitated to say yes.

Even if it meant that he still needed to get up way too early for his shifts.

“Morning!”

Tommy’s reply to the way too cheerful greeting got cut off and turned into a yawn making him make a strange noise instead.

Ranboo snickered as he handed over a cup of coffee to Tommy when he moved past him. “I thought you would be used to this by now.”

“Fuck off,” Tommy grumbled as he took a careful sip from the hot cup, letting out a blissfull sigh at the taste that promised for energy to come.

“Well, you’re in luck today. We don’t have that many patients today. A cat with [disease] [more animals in treatment]. Nothing out of the ordinary,” Ranboo said with a smile as he sat down in a chair by the table.

Tommy hummed as he went through the mental checklist of what he needed to do. “Alright thanks,” he said and downed the scalding hot coffee way too fast. Ranboo winced in his steed and Tommy would’ve symphitized if he wasn’t so used to it by now.

“You really need to stop that. You’re gonna destroy your throat,” Ranboo said, tapping his fingers against the table in a nervous tic.

Placing the cup in the dishwasher, Tommy shrugged. “Eh, if it happens it happens. Gotta go and give the fuckers their medicine so they won’t get cranky. See you!” And with that, Tommy left the breakroom and acknowledged Ranboo’s ‘good luck’ with a wave of his hand over his shoulder.

(Phil is a small bird hybrid and hybrids are rare creatures. Wilbur, Techno and Tommy are veterinaries who takes care of an injured Phil)

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Ashes part 2

It’s nice weather outside, wind gently blowing and the sun warm but not hot enough to make their walk unbearable. Years ago Phil’s bag would’ve been a picnic basket filled with food, drinks and a book to read if he didn’t get pulled into any games by his sons, Wilbur and Techno used to be good at entertaining themselves.

Now his bag contained one extra set of clothes, a book he only keeps for sentimental value, his last food supply which consisted of mostly carrots and a water bottle and several glass bottles containing a liquid Phil wasn’t sure of their effect. He prayed that they would work.

“You’re zoning out again, Phil.”

Phil blinked and gave Tommy an apologetic smile, the young man not looking impressed.

“Sorry, mate.This day just reminds me of some old memories.”

Tommy huffed and shifted the bag on his shoulder. “Doesn’t all these days do?”

“Mhm,” Phil hummed and his lips twitched in amusement. “I especially remember the day you and Tubbo roped Ranboo into dumping a shit load of snow on top of Techno when he was sleeping.”

The memory seemed to make Tommy laugh a little. “You and Micheal certainly enjoyed that show,” he said and there was the tiniest hint of a smile on Tommy.

Then it’s gone and Phil has to look away to stop his own sadness from overwhelming him.

“Is this really the right thing to do?” Tommy asked as he pushed away a half dead branch out of the way.

“It is,” Phil said with no room to argue as he ducked beneth another branch. “To live is the best way to honor them.”

Tommy didn’t say anything else, but Phil knew it weighed heavily on his consciousness.

It weighed on his too.

Soon the trees gave way for an open field with nothing in sight beside some hills and brown grass. Not a single tree as far as they could see. The sight made Phil’s stomach turn and Tommy had stopped in his tracks at the sight.

“Are-” Tommy swallowed loudly- “are you sure the portal is that way?”

Without a word Phil reached for the compass hanging on his belt and leveled it out, watching the needle settle to point southwest. Which was the way they are heading.

“Sorry, mate,” he said with a sigh and let the compass drop back to its hanging position. “Straight forward according to the compass.”

Tommy let out a series of curses and Phil turned his head to watch Tommy kick the small tree he was standing by. The tree shook and the leaves fell down, as if winter was coming instead of the tree being dead.

“Tommy-”

“That motherfucker is probably guarding that damn portal! Damn it!”

There was another kick and the small tree groaned under its assault.

Phil walked over and put a comforting hand on Tommy’s shoulder and there was a short moment of it tensing before Tommy briefly leaned into the touch.

“It’ll be okay.

(Dream has gone mad and killed everyone on the server, except Tommy and Phil who are trying to escape the server)

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The Bookshop

(Nothing written beside some notes. Phil owns a bookshop that’s alive and the books are basically portals to other worlds. The bookshop decides that it likes Tommy and that he will be Wilbur’s partner in protecting the books when Wilbur eventually takes over the shop)

#dsmp #dream smp #wips #m4ds writing #idea dump

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bdgthinks · 4 years

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The Two Sides of “The Two Sides of Singapore, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider”, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider

https://medium.com/@bdgthinksShort pre-amble: Just as how the original Rice article is just the opinion of one writer, what I’m writing below is likewise, just the opinion of mine alone. Also, my opinions are based on my experience working with Deliveroo while Yusuf worked for Grab Food so there may be some differences between the pay structure, zone distances and other company-specific policies.

I was clicking past Instagram stories yesterday afternoon, about to take a nap, when I saw a friend share this recently posted Rice Media article. Part photo journal, part commentary on the gig economy, Singapore’s class divide, and how income inequality is growing more apparent as we adapt to the ever-evolving Covid-19 situation? Sign me the hell up.

All images courtesy of Ricemedia.co, Yusuf Abdol Hamid, or myself

20 minutes, a few raised eyebrows, and many heated texts later – I reluctantly abandoned my plans to nap because I read some many things in this article (which I highly recommend you read first before reading on!) that I disagree with profoundly.

Before I start, I want to offer my appreciation to Yusuf (the narrator), Boon Ping (the editor/author), and Rice Media for publishing this piece that will help many understand the oft-overlooked issue of social/income inequality in an engaging and accessible manner. My misgivings towards some of Yusuf’s opinions notwithstanding, the general sentiment towards this article is extremely positive and has done what I believe every great article should do, provoke thought and inspire critical thinking towards the status quo!

A smattering of positive feedback to the original article

What I appreciated most about the article is encapsulated by joce_zhang’s comment, that it’s an important reminder to be kinder to people – regardless.

However, I couldn’t help but find it slightly troubling that Yusuf and Boon Ping (the editor) seemed to have oversimplified these issues and reduced the stakeholders to caricatures: the rich as the Monopoly Man; and the tireless ‘seen by many as a dead-end job’ delivery couriers as a Dickensian orphan, counting pennies and agonizing over whether they ‘deserve’ a Zinger.

I worry that one unintended consequence of this article is that some ways social inequality is highlighted may lead to reinforcement of the divide rather than dissolution.

During my Summer holidays in 2018, I became attracted to the idea of working part-time as a food courier cyclist as in my mind I saw it as being paid to just cycle and listen to podcasts. Since then, I’ve been an on-off Deliveroo cyclist during the shorter holidays or whenever I needed a little bit of extra pocket money.

In past the two years, I’ve earned exactly $4081.63 from making deliveries (inclusive of bonuses) and dividing it by a conservative $15/h rate, I’ve worked for around 272 hours or about 700 deliveries. split about 60/40 between private properties and HDB flats.

And I guess it’s also partly because of my different experience working in food couriering the past two years that made me feel so much discontent while reading Yusuf’s article. In these 400-odd deliveries to private residences (or heck, in any of my deliveries), I don’t recall having once been treated unnecessarily rudely, aggressively or dismissively by any of the stakeholders I interact with in the job – restaurant servers and managers, condo security management and customers alike.

What I have experienced actually are customers that have tipped me for my efforts - especially ones who live in fairly inaccessible areas, and (during this circuit breaker period) offered me a snack or a cold drink to drop off their deliveries; security guards who ask me how my day was and if I’ve had my lunch or dinner; and restaurant staff who invite me to have a seat in the restaurant while I wait for my order.

Some treats from kind customers

Even when I had made a mess of the customer’s order from their order roiling around during a bumpy 15-minute bike ride (entirely my fault of course!), I’ve never heard anything more than an entirely deserved ‘tsk’ at the disappointment of having half of their pho soup ending up in the plastic bag instead of the bowl – and even then these tsk’s are far and few between!

And it is (again, solely from my own personal experience) where I felt that Yusuf could have been cherry-picking the worst examples from his own experience to make a point. While service industry personnel are no doubt severely underappreciated and that should be improved as a whole, I feel that such blatant incidents are the exception rather than the rule.

My point is: the world isn’t binary. Heck, even up to a year ago I was still echoing Yusuf’s entire argument and ranting rather colorfully about the injustice and discrimination of it all. Who are YOU to tell me which lift I can and cannot use?

In the pursuit of delivering a commentary on some really important social issues, I feel that it fell short by over-emphasizing the ludicrousness of the elite and failing to consider the many other factors that contributes to this problem.

For one, I thought that the annoyance projected to security guards seeing themselves as ‘a barrier between the riff-raff and their diamond-encrusted residents’ was a bit uncalled for – painting a picture of the fearsome guard – in employ of the up-in-the-air bourgeois hiding in their ivory tower, assailing an innocent courier who had the audacity to think that he had the right to take the same elevator as the residents?

But then… when we consider that most lift lobbies are a good distance from the security guard posts where the guards are stationed, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable for a guard to have to raise his voice to get his point across, right?

Being fortunate enough to live in a condo myself, I’ve sometimes felt unease in the duality that security guards experience every single day: faithful bastions in keeping residents safe, spending their days patrolling the lush, landscaped gardens and expansive feature infinity pools, but never once stepping foot into the houses they loyally guard.

And at the end of the day, clocking out to return home to an environment I assume is much less luxurious.

So why then, do Yusuf and Boon Ping deign to foster an us vs them divide, arbitrarily placing one occupation on one side of the line and another on the opposite?

How about the incredulousness towards the guy who orders a stupid $11 Dal.komm latte every day, or the Grange Road resident who only orders a single scoop of Haagen-Dazs ice cream?

Like I said, caricatures that highlight and reinforce the rich-poor divide.

Cherry-picking prevents the reader from seeing the single cups of coffee that I’ve delivered from Common Man Coffee Roasters to Tenteram Peak, the eight egg tarts from Whampoa Hawker Center to Toa Payoh. Or my dad, who lives a one-minute walk from the hawker center but still chooses to order through Grabfood because he paid for a subscription service that offers 50 free deliveries for just $10?

All these customers lived in HDB units.

As a courier, there’s nothing I appreciate more than collecting an order to find out I’m being paid $5 to cycle one block away, or reaching the restaurant to find out that a customer only ordered an easy-to-transport wrap instead of say, twelve packets of chicken rice – I’m getting paid the same amount anyway.

So yes, they’re paying our salary, so thank you.

Juxtaposition is also good and all for making a point, but is it truly accurate and representative?

The word exclusive is used a lot by Yusuf - but are those who live in a smelly HDB with the pee smell in the corridor exclusively nice, and the expat who lives in the Ardmore Park condo with the super high ceiling exclusively mean? Is it wrong to live (or aspire to live) in an exclusive private property? These are questions to be stimulated, not answers to be given.

There’s so much to pick apart, but my goal isn’t to say: I’m Right, You’re Wrong, it’s just that say that There Are Two Sides to Everything.

A brief aside on ‘fulfillment’

While I love my part-time job – paying me upwards of $20 an hour to keep fit and listen to podcasts, I’m entirely cognizant that while I’m privileged that it’s a side-hustle, a side-gig, a part-time job to me; it’s also a livelihood to tens of thousands of hardworking people out there.

Where I could turn off the app and head home when I decided I’ve earned enough in the week to eat at a new restaurant I’ve been eyeing or if it was too hot in the afternoon, most other people working my job can’t – if not, the lights may not turn on the next day.

In a comment to an earlier draft of this piece, a friend shared that it’s a privilege to be able to separate your social identities. I think it’s also a privilege to have the choice of perspective. We exercise when we’re healthy, as a hobby, or a passion. Deliverymen don’t see it that way. There is no ‘good to do’, there is only ‘must do’.

At the end of the day when the world starts to recover from Covid-19, you’re going to start getting photo and videography gigs and transition back to the white-collar world.

As for the security guard and domestic helper at Ardmore Park, the server at the Grange Road Haagen-Dazs, and the tens of thousands of for-hire drivers and delivery couriers? There’s no ‘back to normal’ – this is their normal.

In a discussion post on Yusuf’s article, a redditor referenced Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

In the blue-collar normal, where every day is a struggle to meet the needs of financial safety and security, maybe fulfilment isn’t really an aspiration for most. In an article calling for empathy, I feel the quality slightly lacking in my reading.

A few months back I began my education into inequality in Singapore with Teo You Yenn’s seminal This Is What Inequality Looks Like. In it, the title of one of her essays especially stood out to me: Dignity Is Like Clean Air. She describes, like Yusuf does, that many blue-collar workers in the service industry always feel invisible, that people don’t respect them, that it makes them feel small. I’d like to add on to** Dignity Is Like Clean Air** with the caveat: Segregation Is Not Necessarily Dirty.

Going back to the ‘fucked up service lifts at the back for the smelly people, the non-residents and stuff’, how about we just call a spade a spade?

In restaurants, servers and chefs who have their meals there usually sit at tables near the kitchen (or even in the kitchen itself).

In airplanes, consumers have the choice to pay a much higher premium for more leg room and a more gourmet selection of food. In fancy hotels, bellboys and concierge staff have to wear stiff suits – there’s usually a dress code for guests to enter certain areas.

So, is it really that unfair, for someone who’s had the means to pay for the privilege of living in luxury, to not really want to share a lift with someone who might smell unpleasant from having spent hours cycling under the hot sun?

The service lift provides the same functionality – no one’s saying that couriers are ‘lesser people’, we’re not being asked to walk up the stairs while the ‘masters’ take the magic moving box. It wasn’t created to separate the ‘undesirables’ from the ‘desirables’ like a pre-Rosa Parks bus, and it’ll be unhealthy to think of it as such – even worse to let it fester.

To package my views into a neatly categorized box – When I’m Brandon the Deliveryman, it’s perfectly fine for a guard to request for me to take the service lift, but when I’m Brandon the Guest attending a dinner party at the same condo, no one is stopping me from taking the resident lift right?

Different day, Different fit, Same me

I still think that it’s incredibly fucked up that some employers make their helpers take a separate lift though.

But in delivering the core message – is it more helpful to frame your reflection as ‘why do some people treat their subordinates with such contempt and how can we as society hope to change it’, or to just resent the fact that ‘rich people like that la’ – and laugh and pretend we’re friends.

I guess what I’m most frustrated with about the article is that it had the potential to be so much more. It occasionally flirts with the possibility of going deeper into one issue or the other but ultimately ends up being a reflection of one privileged dude’s brief foray into an industry that many of us often take for granted.

And because there are so many issues at play, people often fall into the trap of distilling extremely complicated issues into dangerous sweeping statements, which eventually does very little for the problem in question.

Another frustration I often have towards the discourse towards social issues is that they often fail to carry a call-to-action. Okay, I’ve checked my privilege, I’ve understood that my successes in life is partly a byproduct of the wealthy family I was fortunate to being born into – now what?

A good rule of thumb that I’ve been trying to implement into my life recently is to think about the net positive or net negative an action has onto society. And hence:

To the fortunate: While it is important to understand your privilege and not take things for granted, you also don’t have to be ashamed of it. Every dollar you spend goes into the economy and is earned by someone else. So, what can you do to influence a net positive?

Be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone.

If you can, have the moral courage to call out undesirable behavior – especially if it’s someone close to you. But if you can’t – it’s okay too. Start with yourself. The world could do with less ‘you should do more’ and more ‘thank you for what you did’.

This is not exclusive to tipping service staff or offering couriers a cold drink (although it is always really welcome!). Offer a kind word to anyone you interact with. Ask the office or school janitor if they’ve had their meal yet, wish your security guard a good morning/good evening when you pass them by, clear your tray when you’re at a fast food restaurant and smile and thank the servers if you pass them by.

I promise you - these little acts of kindness will go a much longer way received than it takes you to give them.

To our everyday heroes: Your intrinsic self worth is by no means defined by how an asshole treats you. You are so, so, so much more important.

You are somebody, you are somebody, you are somebody.

In this essay, my intention is to extend the net positive that Yusuf and Rice has already generated while minimizing the net negatives it may unintentionally create by framing the issue as ‘us vs them’.

I hope that it will be seen as an addendum to Yusuf’s original piece instead of a correction. To build up on the important issues that **each and every one of us **should acknowledge and then go one step further to see how we can resolve them. I hope that reading this has provoked more questions than it gives answers. I hope that we don’t see the world as black-and-white but how things can move to a more palatable shade of grey.

Of course, my thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions here could be (and probably are) wildly ignorant and myopic, and I still have so much more to learn. So please confront me, dispute me and tell me where I’m wrong and what I don’t know.

If I have to leave you with just one takeaway, I hope everyone remembers to be kinder to people – regardless.

(You can also find me at https://medium.com/@bdgthinks!)

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bloodfcst-a · 5 years

Text

Hey, y’all. Tumblr’s been setting off my anxiety in the last few days, thus the reason I’ve been away. I’ll give you a full explanation under the cut for those who are interested (though I’d really appreciate it if you all read it anyway), and provide some contact information for places you can find me.

Discord: conjure. ☆#6443 Twitch: ninabeanxo Twitter: mishtadelet

I’ve been kind of quiet on Discord lately & I’m the most active on Twitter. I also announce when I’m streaming on Twitter, so... yeah. Sorry about this.

I want to be here. I really do. But there’s something about the summers on Tumblr that are really hard on me. I also think people’s attitudes change & idk why, but people seem to treat me pretty rudely? I try so hard to be approachable, to be kind and positive and supportive, but the amount that people try to take advantage of me or are just plain rude to me is?? So wild. So for those reasons, I’ve just kind of been isolating myself lately, and I may seem a little distant/less approachable/not talking much about myself because tbh... some of y’all are just haphazardly setting off my anxiety / panic attacks and I seriously can’t do it. I already have PTSD, so it’s a fucking nightmare lmao.

There is no gentle way of saying this, but it really needs to be stated. Please respect my triggers, or I will not talk to you. Please respect if I ask you not to mention something or someone to me.

and this is a really big one....

Please respect my boundaries.

If I have mentioned to you that I am not vibing with someone, do not send me media of them / that includes them, do not ask me about ships with them, do not tag me in posts of / with them, and please stop asking me about group verses / affiliated servers. In my time on tumblr, I’ve dealt with theft, bullying, emotional abuse, sexual harassment & solicitation. I’m constantly asking myself ‘ Why me? ’ but more than that, I’m really trying to avoid further situations from happening. I haven’t found an answer. I’m guessing it’s ‘cause I’m soft / nice? idk. Stop ruining a good thing. Y’all are gonna make me bitter, dang.

When I made this blog, I was explicit that I do not want to be in mainstream FF fandom. When I promo this blog, I even say primarily fandomless & canon-divergent. There is way too much messiness in the fandom, extremely toxic people & tendencies there, and I just don’t like fandom discussion. Regardless of my reasons, the point is that I’m not interested, so please stop trying to entice me to go back. It’s so blatantly rude & shows you think your interests & wishes are more important than my comfort level, and I don’t appreciate that sentiment in the slightest.

That being said, I know Yufi reads differently. That’s why I put so much work into her metas. I even have two tags for all the content. At some point I’ll even have a less minimalistic blog & with more links so it’s super accessible ( in the off chances searching for the ‘ meta ’ and ‘ kisaragi ‘ tags don’t work ). But in the meantime... ask questions. Read. Join a stream. I’ve literally streamed games & movies for folks privately & occasionally stream now. I actually started a new file of VII not too long ago and just got Yuffie, so I could literally have a gameplay stream where we go through canon together. I’m like... nearly begging. Don’t make assumptions.

Again, there are so many resources. There’s wikis, there’s the tags, there’s the inbox ( just ask! ), there’s streams, there’s gameplay & commentary videos, there’s stuff. If you are confused or unsure, I would much rather you reach out. This is regardless of how long I’ve known you, ‘cause some of us have known me for a while and still don’t know anything about me or my portrayal or how to interact, in- or out-of-character.

On the topic of assumptions (because it really is that important, so many issues stem from assumptions & you continuously making the wrong assumptions will leave me less inclined to speak with you, nevermind interact), let’s address some.

I do not write a hyper-sexualized muse. I know this is fanon because of her choice in clothes... however, clothes are a fashion choice, and do not reflect a person’s... existence? I don’t know if it’s the masculinity or the rape culture or what but... what she’s wearing does not mean she deserves any hypersexual treatment... and also as an extension, myself ( bc this happens way too frequently-- please stop seeing my muse and then approaching me about your personal sexual fantasies. It is extremely uncomfortable, as someone who is sex-neutral & demiromantic, to be randomly selected to talk about sex? with me personally? via my muse? Or about my muse when we have zero chemistry? Why do y’all think this is okay??). When I do choose to write sexual / nsfw content, it’s always after conversations ( plural!! ) with my writing partner & after I feel comfortable with the topic and with them. But even if I had her hoein’ it up on the dash, that doesn’t mean to make assumptions about her character (bc maybe there’s character motivations I need to write a meta for & it’s part of her background) or me (the mun is not the muse!! say it with me!!).

I do not write a kleptomanic. Again, this is entirely fanon, because Yuffie says in literally everything she’s mentioned in that she does not steal without a purpose-- and the highest purpose is that she’s stealing items that would restore the power and glory of Wutai or for her personal safety. However, I very rarely write theft... I try really hard to steer clear of the topic because I’m aware that it’s like the #1 thing she’s reduced to. She’s a thief class, yes, but that is not the only dimension to her. I could go on, but I think that’s enough.

Just because our characters share canon does not mean they’re going to have chemistry. I am canon-divergent. But not only that... Yuffie just doesn’t vibe with most people as a canon fact. She is an outsider to like... 99% of people, exclusion being Godo ( Wutai ) & the Turks & the WRO. She doesn’t even claim herself as a member of AVALANCHE. Not only this, but the dynamic she has with one Reeve or Cloud does not represent every duplicate-- that comes with plotting and with chemistry. We will have to plot & work together to figure out exactly how our versions of characters mesh. This is a collaborative hobby.... so the collaborating shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

If you come guns-a-blazin’ without clearly having read anything about my portrayal, with completely inaccurate characterizations & just assume because we’re friendly out-of-character I’m gonna be pleased with it.... you’re dead wrong. I’m actually just... a very kind and nice person. I may just gently offer you some suggestions or corrections. But if you repeatedly come with your assumptions & pre-conceived notions and it’s clear you’re not paying literally any attention to me or my ideas about my portrayal... I’ll probably just recommend you to another duplicate. I know one who stole a ton of my content & former friends, so you’ll be in good hands.

If you’re here, I assume that you want to write with me, not the idea of me. I’m a person with feelings & interests too, y’know ?? I feel like somehow that’s easy to forget with me for some reason, given how often people feel inclined to overstep my boundaries & act so disrespectful to me. Which is... fucking wild, honestly !! I’ve even had a person deadass say to my face “ I didn’t think/know you’d want to be treated with appreciation and respect. ” What the actual fuck does that mean? What kind of dominant abuser mentality ??????? Y’all on this site stress me out!!

The last two weeks have been legit stupid stressful on me, and I’ve had some interpersonal changes with folks in the last month (mainly in private) all regarding these subjects. About people here feeling entitled to be rude to me & finding all sorts of justifications for it (I’ve heard everything from “my grandma was sick” to “work’s hard”-- what’s that gotta do with you curb stomping me & my ideas/feelings, and telling me my emotions aren’t relevant in comparison to yours? It doesn’t). And it’s just been weighing down on me a lot. I don’t usually go on main here to discuss issues like this, but because it’s been OVERWHELMING in the last few weeks (and also, bc being nice to everyone is kinda common sense ? and idk why folks here seem to think I’m excluded from the ‘everyone’???), it just seemed like now, while I’m isolating a bit in an attempt to focus on some self-healing, would be a great time to discuss things.

I know this was a long post... but there’s been a lot of injustices done to me on here & in life, so....... if it burdens you to read all this, imagine how shitty it feels to have to experience it. Yeah. It’s rough, pals.

I don’t know how to really end this post godhsaohof. I’m hoping this will kind of open someone’s eyes & like... maybe things will change. I’ve stated before, but I have chronic illness so I really can’t handle stress or, for lack of a better term, a lot of bullshit tbh. If you wouldn’t say it to someone with a dying illness or cancer or a soft sweet grandma, don’t say it to me. Because that’s literally me! I’ve got an illness I’m dying from & I’ve had cancer & I’m soft and sweet! tl;dr, stop being so mean to me dang. I didn’t do anything to deserve this.

#♝ mun.#long post /#please read though.#people on this site have been wearing me out.......#and i just kinda needed a break from it all.#i want to be here! hopefully i'll be back to normal soon.#but i just need some time to recharge & i would like if folks could just be nice to me.....#gosh.#watch me lose followers bc i'm trying to practice some self-love and respect instead of my usual self-loathing lmao.#whatver.... i don't care about follower numbers anymore.#i just want kind and genuine interactions.... is that so much to ask for.

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roman-lynn-blog · 5 years

Text

Reconnection || Romper

Where: Pop’s Diner When: December 18, late night Warnings: Brief mentions of drugs Word Count: 3,573

Roman in bold, Harper in italics

Harper hadn't been expecting to get a text from Roman any time soon, so when her phone had pinged and his name had popped up, she'd been beyond surprised. But he was still concerned about her, even after everything, and that warmed something in her and she found herself eager to see him. When Hunter finally returned home, armed with milkshakes, she carefully tapped out of Sebastian duty, and left her friend in her brother's more than capable hands.

She was too wired to walk to Pop's, choosing to drive there after shooting Roman a quick text to let him know that she was on her way. When she pulled up to the diner, she parked her car in an empty spot and walked inside, finding a booth in a far corner and sliding into it.

Once she was sitting and waiting, she realized how unusually rumpled she looked. The events of the past day or so had caught up to her. Her makeup had mostly flaked off, her hair was up in a messy knot instead of tidy like it normally was, and she was still wearing the clothes she'd been wearing at the hospital, still dirty from their trek through the forest to the paramedics. She cursed herself internally for not bothering to change, but before she could think anything else, the door to the diner was jingling open.

After a week or two of brooding, doing his best to push his unrelenting feelings toward Harper into a box labeled 'Don't be an idiot', Roman broke down and texted the object of his affection. It had taken a small army, a few threats, and one realization for him to muster up the courage to contact her. One thing that Darius had said stuck out in his mind; he couldn't keep pretending like Harper didn't mean anything to him. It was the furthest thing from the truth, despite only having gotten to know her for a little less than a month.

He was doing all he could to keep his expectations low and to keep from seeming desperate. He chose to keep it cool, playing it casual and close to his chest. When Harper had asked to see him though, he felt his heart skip a beat. She wanted to see him. He clearly hadn't fucked things completely up past the point of repair.

Once he received the text from Harper, letting him know she was on his way to Pop's, Roman could feel himself start to sweat. He changed his shirt and put on extra deodorant as he gave a grueling pep talk in the mirror. He threw on his jacket and rushed out the door, almost tripping over his own shoes as he went to start his bike. The ride was only a few short minutes and before he could let himself breathe, he was walking into the diner, the bell jingling above his head.

His eyes searched the building for Harper and he quickly spotted her sitting in a booth, looking as gorgeous as ever despite her unkempt appearance. The left side of his lips turned up into a smile and he coyly looked away. He nodded to Pop, a genuine sign of understanding that he wasn't there to cause trouble. As he strode over to the booth, Roman felt his confidence waver. He slid into the booth, opposite of Harper and looked up at her from under his eyelashes.

"Hi"

Harper looked up, and then looked back down at her hands as she spotted Roman entering the diner, feeling nervous all of a sudden. She reached up to tuck a loose lock of hair behind her ear, and then glance back up as he slid into the booth across from her. His smile was infectious, and she found the corners of her own mouth pulling up too. "Hey," she replied quietly.

She hadn't realized how much she'd missed him until she was seeing him for the first time in days, and after the weight of everything that had happened, she found herself wanting to move to his side of the booth so that she could curl up against his side.

But she knew they probably needed to talk before she could do anything like that, so she put on her brave face and looked back up to meet his eyes. "How are you?"

Roman hated the immediate awkwardness that he felt as he sat down. The air surrounding their booth was stilted and stale and he couldn't help but fidget with the page of his menu as he took a glance at Harper. He could only imagine after the past week's events that she was exhausted, mentally and physically, especially being so close to the amalgam of drama.

He was much more concerned with how Harper was doing. He wanted to reach across the booth and take Harper's hand or better yet slide into the booth next to her and wrap his arms around her middle. His stomach turned, unsure as to where to even start given the question he was given. "I'm doing alright, given all the circumstances..", he started, his voice shaky. "I've got a lot on my plate right now, but trying to sift past all the bullshit. How--".

He was interrupted by the chipper tone of a waitress asking if they were ready to order. Normally, he would have shot the girl a glare, but he didn't have it in him. He quickly ordered a vanilla milkshake and a basket of fries, not really up to filling his stomach when it was balled up in knots. "..and whatever the lady wants. On me."

Harper nodded as Roman spoke. She could certainly relate to the sentiment. It had been a long few days. If it was rough for her, she supposed it was probably even worse for the Serpents, with some of them struggling with being homeless on top of everything else.

Before she could say anything, a chirpy Pop's server had bound up to their table. "Just a strawberry shake for me." She replied softly, shooting Roman a smile when he offered to pay for her. It was nice of him to do, even if it probably made more sense for her to be paying for whatever they ordered.

Once the waitress had scurried off, she turned back to Roman. "How are things going with the Serpents? You must have a lot on your plate, huh?" She rested her chin on her hands as she spoke, trying to look less exhausted than she felt as they spoke. Ugh, she just wanted to curl up in bed next to him and take a long nap, if she were being honest with herself.

Roman couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief once their waitress had left with their order. He was sure that every single person in the diner had been judging them, an affluent North Sider and a Serpent sharing a meal together late at night. It was just more kindling to the fire that was the rumor mill; things had gotten to be too much lately with the addition of some blog throwing shade every which way.

“The Serpents themselves are doing okay, there’s a few people we need to keep an eye on.” He thought about Julian, the kid who stumbled over the flash drive showcasing Sebrina Smythe’s death, and Geico, the seedy bastard who was shown on said flash drive, helping with the body. They were the only two that Serpent leadership was watching at the moment. It was more of a general South Side problem. “It’s hard with half of the community being homeless, living in basements or tents. I can’t help but feel somewhat responsible”

The waitress made her way back to their table, setting the milkshakes in front of them and the basket of fries in the middle. Roman politely thanked her, hoping she’d finally get the point and let them talk uninterrupted. He took a sip of his milkshake, before asking Harper the same.

“How’s things for you?”

Harper nodded as Roman explained the problems that were plaguing his community at the moment. It was hard to imagine so many people being out of homes with the cold weather bearing down on them, especially during the holidays. "You didn't burn the park down...there's no reason for you to blame yourself," she murmured softly.

She paused for a second, unsure, but then fought through her own insecurity to reach across the table. She took his hand and gave it a quick, hopefully-reassuring squeeze. "It'll get better soon, I can only hope."

The waitress interrupted them before she could say anything else, and she pulled he hand back as their drinks and the fries were placed on the table. "Thank you," she murmured, shooting the girl a tiny smile, before she turned back to Roman.

She idly played with the edge of the milkshake glass as she wondered how to answer his question, feeling tired all over again. "I mean...I haven't taken a swim in the river lately, so I'm doing better than a lot of people."

She shook her head. "It's all just felt like a whirlwind. I'm....pretty tired," she admitted. She was also craving a hit, but she didn't want to share that part with him.

Roman looked off to the side as he felt Harper's hand in his own for a brief second. He wouldn't allow himself to look at her, knowing that if he even stole one glance that he would fall for her more than he already had. Her hand was warm, just like the tone of her voice, but she didn't understand. There was a trickle effect starting from the incident at Crystal Lake to where things were now. The South Side would be in a much better position had he not let his feelings get in the way.

"Yeah, Dare's--", Roman took a moment to breathe, slightly rolling his eyes. "Dare is doing everything in his power to restore Sunnyside as quickly and efficiently as possible. It's tough though..for all of us."

Roman shoveled a few fries into his mouth, not realizing how hungry he actually was, as he gauged Harper's demeanor. He noticed that she was moreso playing with the milkshake glass than actually drinking it and he cocked his head as he listened.

For a moment, his heart sank with guilt as Harper quipped about not having taken a swim in the river. The only people who had done that as of late was himself, Darius, Sebastian, and poor Sebrina. He nervously moved his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed at his nape, biting his lower lip as his heart ached. He was an awful friend.

"I can only imagine that it's been just as crazy for you. No offense but you look....beat". Roman swirled one of his fries into the ketchup on his plate, not wanting to meet Harper's eyes. "I should apologize though...for being the biggest asshole on the planet."

"You guys are doing a really good job though. It can't be easy taking on leadership and then having to deal with all of this while you're trying to stabilize things from that standpoint too," she said, trying to reassure him. She couldn't imagine having the pressure of being responsible for so many people on her shoulders. "You'll get into the swing of things soon. Hopefully the drama can start to die down now that we know who really killed Bri and that information goes public."

She smiled a little as she watched him eat, trying to figure out what she was feeling herself. She wanted to be upset, the whole situation with Dare had been insane. But she really had missed his presence, and that made everything else sort of fall to the wayside.

"I feel beat," she admitted. "I'm exhausted but I can't sleep because I feel like I'm so responsible for everyone else. How can I rest when Charlie needs me, when Sebastian needs me, when Hunter needs me. Hell, even my fellow dancers need me. I can't just drop everything. It's selfish."

She shook her head, leaning forward a smidge to take his hand again. "I'm not going to pretend that whole thing with Darius wasn't insane. Because it kind of was," she trailed off, for a moment. "But at this point I'm too tired to be angry about it anymore. I should be apologizing too. I made some pretty cruel accusations when I thought....when I thought Bruce was the one that killed Bri."

Roman took in a heavy breath, the weight of the situation making him feel like his chest was being crushed. There was so much going on in there little town where there usually, at the very least, a false sense of normalcy. It was going to take a miracle for the South Side to get back to half of what it was before the fire. “I don’t know...”, he admitted, “I feel like we might not get back to normal. Riverdale—like, the town, I mean.”, he stumbled nervously.

He had been self-medicating a lot lately, weed and alcohol; none of the hard stuff. He felt like his whole world had turned upside down and he couldn’t find anything to anchor himself with. Not the Serpents. Not sex. Not Harper. Everything had changed.

Looking down at his hands that were fidgeting in his lap, Roman nodded silently as he listened to Harper’s admissions. His heart broke for her as it sounded as if she felt like she was letting everyone down. He knew what that was like, he just wouldn’t take his own advice. “You can’t do that to yourself though. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to be what everyone else needs instead of being what you need.”

Letting himself look up, catching Harper’s gaze in his own, Roman felt his heart twinge. And then she grabbed his hand, and Roman felt like he could breathe again. His thumb brushed over hers, “I...get really jealous”, he confessed, biting his lip. “I have no right .” He brushed the moment off with a shrug, feeling awkward for just a moment.

“Yeah, I—I don’t know. I hate that you felt that way. Like, I could hurt you.”

Harper ran her free hand through her hair. "I hate that I feel like you're right. Like...things aren't ever going to be like how they were before." The thought scared her. Riverdale had always been so idyllic before all this...the only good part of all the changes was finding out that South Siders weren't as bad as she'd been led to believe. The rest...all nightmare worthy.

"I don't know what I need," she muttered, pausing to take an actual sip of her milkshake. "At least when I'm pouring all this energy into other people, I feel like I'm not completely useless. I can't fix any of this. but I can help the people I care about."

If she was being fully honest, Harper felt like she was drowning. The heroin was like a life preserver, keeping her head above the water...but Harper didn't know how long even that would keep her floating. She was too tense, too strung out, her mood was all over the place. She could hardly recognize herself. But she needed to keep going. Her friends needed her. Once things had calmed down, she'd ween herself off everything and it'd be fine.

At Roman's confession, she smiled a little, glancing back down at their joined hands, her face going red. "You didn't....but even if you did, you could've just asked. I would've told you the truth." She looked back up at him, biting her lip. "I don't want to come between you and him."

She squeezed his fingers, feeling a little ashamed of what she'd said. She'd been in panic mode, her mind whirling faster than she could understand. But she shouldn't have impulse texted. It was stupid. "I don't. I don't think you could hurt me. It was stupid of me to say that....I was just freaked out and scared and confused. But I know you wouldn't. I should've told you that then."

Still with her hand in his, Roman felt a sense of calm. Riverdale had descended into chaos with Mr. Smythe still not having been arrested, a rapist on the loose, no rhyme or reason given for Sebrina’s death, and no justice given for the Southsiders who lost their homes. But for two seconds, in that moment, Roman felt like he was where he needed to be.

Squeezing her hand, Roman pulled his lips into a half smile, “I just wouldn’t want to see you fizzle and get burnt out.” Roman sighed, he understood that he couldn’t have his hand in every pot. It was stressful to want to be there for someone or something, only to leave something else to the wayside.

“I—I’m sorry. My mind just conjures up the worst possible scenario and I just go with it, no questions asked. It was stupid...so fucking stupid. “ Roman clenched his jaw, still not over the guilt. “He isn’t—“, he paused, “You won’t.”

Roman’s breath hitched, as Harper continued her apology. His stomach turned as he remembered his most recent conversation with Darius as well as the last thing he had said to Harper. His life was already complicated and messy, he didn’t want to fuck hers up along with it. “I could..”, he said, as he voiced one of the things that most frightened him about pursuing a relationship with Harper.

Harper stole a french fry from the plate with her free hand, shooting him a playful smile as she popped it into her mouth. "I'll do my best. I'm a girl of many talents," she joked. "We'll soon find out if juggling is one of them."

She squeezed his fingers again. Part of her kind of loved that he was willing to go that far for her. It was kind of thrilling, and it made her feel wanted, and in a scenario where he actually had a reason to be staking his claim, she'd kind of have loved it. How could she be angry at him for long? Darius was doing a lot better, all in all, it could've been a lot worse. "It was...but...it's kind of sweet in a fucked up sort of way. Like...I was mad but...if Dare's over it, there's no reason for me not to be. Just...use your words next time."

Harper turned his hand over in hers, absently drawing a pattern into his palm. He was right. He could hurt her. But Harper had already been hurt so many times. Wasn't this worth the risk of being hurt again? "I trust you enough to know that if you did...it wouldn't be on purpose. And that's what matters to me. Intentions. And I know in my heart that your intentions are good."

Harper had no idea how difficult it was for him to put into words what he was feeling. When it came to her, his body moved three steps faster than his brain. In terms of the incident, his body was already hauling Darius’ ass into the river while his brain was trying to rationalize his feelings. He wouldn’t let that happen again, at least not when it came to Darius. He could trust him, especially when he had been entrusted with such an enormous secret.

Roman sucked down a third of his milkshake, playing with the rim of the glass as Harper spoke. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her, but things happen, and there was no guarantee about anything anymore. “Promise.”, he said reassuringly, nodding his head.

“You want to head out? I’m sure you could use the sleep since you’re back on stage.” Harper took another sip of her milkshake, before smiling at his words. She trusted Roman, implicitly. She was certain, in her heart and soul, that he would never go out of her way to hurt or harm her. That belief was enough for her to want to push all her other doubts aside. She squeezed his fingers and nodded. "Yeah. I'm pretty beat. I'm glad you came though." She finished off her milkshake before getting to her feet.

"I missed you," she admitted. She was feeling needier than she was used to, but she swallowed her pride to make her request. "Stay with me tonight?"

Roman finished off the last few fries on their shared plate and sucked down the last of his milkshake. He squeezed her hand once and finally let go, solely so he could pull out his wallet from his back pocket. He pulled out a twenty and nodded to the onlooking waitress, garnering her attention. “Keep the change”, he told her with a smile, his eyes need leaving Harper’s.

Once the waitress had thanked them and left their table, Roman stood up, extending his hand towards Harper. “I missed you too, gorgeous.” Grasping her hand and interlacing their fingers, he smiled. “I can do that”

Harper smiled, warmth blooming in her once Roman took her hand. She was glad that they were okay. She'd been really worried about it for a few days there, and she hadn't realized how intertwined their lives had become. She had hated not speaking to him. "Take me home, Rome," she breathed out, before leaning in to finally press their lips together.

#(harper.)#(para 08.)

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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VinePair Podcast: How Did Bourbon Conquer America?

Bourbon is often described as America’s spirit, yet for much of its history, it has been more a niche preference than a dominant domestic force. Despite its 200-plus-year history in the United States, bourbon began gaining momentum as recently as the 1980s, and more so in the last decade.

Bourbon has officially emerged as a massive category that rivals vodka and tequila for American market share. That growth has been fueled by innovation within the industry, distilleries’ diversification of offerings, obsession over rare and old bottles, as well as the craft cocktail and distilling booms.

As we celebrate Bourbon Month on VinePair throughout September, tune into this week’s VinePair Podcast episode to hear Adam Teeter, Erica Duecy, and Zach Geballe explore how exactly bourbon conquered America. Also in this episode, the hosts dish on some of their favorite brands, ways to enjoy the spirit, and whether you can find a decent bourbon that wasn’t made in Kentucky.

Listen online

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Or check out our conversation here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From Connecticut, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. What’s going on? Summer’s over. Right?

E: It’s done, it’s fall. We have now crossed the Labor Day weekend mark, and it is fall time.

A: Do you subscribe to the idea that summer ends after Labor Day? Or are you some of those people that are like, “Actually it’s not until September 21, and we still have a few more weeks.”

E: No, kids are back in school.

A: That’s what I always think. Summer is over.

E: Summer is done.

Z: For me, the mark for summer being over is when I look in my closet and I try to figure out where some of my sweaters are, and that definitely happened over the weekend.

A: Are you serious?

Z: Yeah, in Seattle right now it is getting coolish and when you go walk the dog at 10 at night you want long sleeves. I’m just starting to prepare. I’m not full-on sweaters during the day — it’s still pretty warm during the day, but I’m taking stocks. I’m not pulling them out of the closet yet, but I’m locating favorites.

A: I’m still shorts and a T-shirt all the way. I’m hoping this lasts through October.

Z: New York is a different climate than Seattle.

A: True. Again, another superior thing. So how were your summers if you were going to take stock in them as a thing? All things considered.

E: We were out in Connecticut for the entire summer. Tuesday, we will have just moved back to Jersey City, so we were out in the country all summer long so there were a lot of evening bonfires and camping — like putting up a tent in the backyard here — and doing a bunch of outdoor stuff. In all of the years past we mostly have stayed in the city with just a couple of country vacations but this entire summer was out in nature and that was super eye-opening. We were amazed to find out how much we loved being out in the country and having a laid back pace of life.

A: That’s awesome. What about you, Zach?

Z: This was definitely the least summery summer of my life, and Covid is obviously a huge part of that. Also, my job for the last however many years has involved a lot of hand-holding of tourists, and I didn’t have to do any of that this year, which was kind of nice — but weirdly, I missed it occasionally. Telling people how to get to the Pike Place Market or the Space Needle. The other thing that was true for me — and I don’t think I realized this until it began — I really missed dining outside and drinking outside. I realize a lot of people were comfortable with that this year but it wasn’t something for me and my family, so besides eating on our deck occasionally, it was a lot of looking at a nice evening and being like, “it would have been nice, but here we are in the house again.” All things said, I’m not going to complain because I have a lot better than most. But a lot of the things I typically associate with summer didn’t happen this year. We’ll try again in 2021, I suppose.

A: My summer was interesting. Weirdly, I think like Erica, I did things I wouldn’t normally have done. Usually, my summer is city-focused almost the entire summer, except for those two to two-and-a-half weeks where Naomi and I go somewhere. And usually, that’s somewhere out of the country and that feels like our big vacation, and then maybe we’ll meet a family member at a beach. But for the most part, we’re in the city doing city stuff, and this summer, because Covid felt so suffocating, we got out of the city almost every weekend with our quarantine buddy Lenna who has a car, and we would go to a beach on Long Island, or we would go upstate. We would take these little adventures and use the metro area to make little discoveries and that was really cool. I actually wound up having a decent summer. Not a summer that felt in the same way as summer, but it was summer, which was cool. For me, it always centers around my birthday because I’m big into birthdays — my birthday, specifically. And I’ll never forget this memory, I wanted to see people on my birthday, and I invited people I knew were in the city — anyone who wasn’t I didn’t invite because I felt like it was too much to ask them to come in because it was still early days of it being late June — and it was threatening rain all day and then poured rain and you had to be outside and I was adamant that I was still going to be outside. And I did and some friends showed up and it was really awesome that we stood in the rain drinking drinks and eating Popeyes fried chicken. And it was a cool memory that I don’t think I’ll forget. I could have had a less remarkable birthday and I think that is something that this whole experience forced me to do something I normally wouldn’t do, I would have given up and went inside. And the same thing that you were talking about, Erica, with being in the country for the entire summer and getting to have these cool memories and making bonfires and camping out, those are going to be memories that people have for a long time and hopefully have some positive stuff that comes out of all of this.

E: I have a question for you guys because Zach touched on dining out, and Adam we’ve talked about this, tipping. So tipping right now at restaurants sitting outside, I have a bone to pick. I saw a Twitter thread earlier today and I was like, are you kidding me? Someone asked how much people are tipping at restaurants and people were saying 20 percent and I weighed in and said are you f***ing kidding? Forty percent, at least. These people are putting their lives on the line to serve you, restaurants are at half capacity. I was blown away that people are still tipping 20 percent at restaurants. Have you seen that?

A: First of all, I can’t believe people told you 20 percent because I’ve seen 10 and 15 percent. And most servers I’ve talked to said that’s what they’re seeing. I tip 40 to 50, like you, but that’s also that we don’t go out as much. But Naomi and I decided that that’s something that is important to us and we have to explain to anyone we go out to eat with. When we went out with her parents, for example, we said this is what we do and we wanted to treat them anyways so we said we’re tipping this and we don’t want to hear it. We’ve explained it to other people, as well. This is how we tip, and you don’t want to come with us — especially with friends where we normally split the bill — then we say it’s cool, we don’t have to eat out. But if you want to eat out, this is how we tip, and that’s been very important to us. But I don’t think a lot of people are doing it, and if you read a lot of the stories coming out of the restaurant industry, a lot of servers are saying they’re getting stiffed, they’re getting low tips, there are a lot of things that we’ve worried about: People not understanding that the restaurants are less staffed. They’re complaining about the length of time it’s taking for them to be served or that they don’t have the one-on-one treatment that they’re used to. People are being just as hard on restaurants as they’ve always been but let’s be real, a lot of consumers are f***ing a**holes.

E: It’s shocking to me that people are not tipping more. The simple math of the situation of a restaurant being at 50 percent capacity on a good day if they have a big outdoor space, just do the math, how are servers supposed to survive? It makes no sense to me.

Z: Well Erica, as someone who spent a long time doing exactly that, and Adam’s right, the vast majority of guests are oblivious to that, if not actively hostile to the idea that they are entitled to anything less than the utmost in terms of treatment. I’ve seen people yell at visibly very pregnant servers for not serving them fast enough. I’ve seen just about everything in the restaurant industry, so none of this surprises me. I’ll say something that is relatively controversial, and I apologize if I offend anyone, but I think choosing to go out to eat right now is a pretty inherently selfish act. It doesn’t mean it’s not something that should occasionally be done. And obviously, there’s a huge issue in this country about what exactly are restaurant workers and owners to do if people don’t dine out, but you’re not just taking your own health into your hands, you’re taking everyone else in the restaurants, the servers, etc., you’re taking a risk with their health. The absolute least you could do in that is compensate them more wholly than you would normally. But I think for a lot of people — Adam you told the story on that last episode of someone coming up and screaming at the host because they had to wear a mask — that kind of behavior, maybe that’s an extreme, for sure, but that general sentiment, we have this issue in this country where service people of all sorts are treated like, frankly, servants. That isn’t the right way to approach the situation, and it’s laid particularly bare in this situation where people in restaurants are not just working hard, but taking real risks to do this, and in many cases don’t have a choice, because our government is no longer providing additional unemployment insurance. Many places don’t have eviction moratoriums anymore, a lot of peoples’ options are taking their lives and their families lives in their hands, or being homeless. That’s an extremely f***ed situation, and one we as a society are not dealing with. And frankly, tipping 40 percent doesn’t do a whole lot, it’s better than tipping 20 or 10 percent but really the issue we have in this country in terms of service is we’re making a lot of people take really unnecessary risks with their health because we can’t get our sh*t together enough to allow people to remain safe. It’s really disgusting, so if you’re going to go out to eat or drink, f***ing tip. And if you can’t afford to do that or don’t want to, then do not go out. That should always be the rule, but it is 10 times the case now.

A: I agree. I have one other thing I want to share with you both before we jump into today’s topic. We talked a bunch about this and this article hit this week and I thought it was interesting data. We’ve talked a lot about whether or not cities are dying and whether restaurants are going to close and if you read a majority of the news they will tell you anecdotal stories that certain moving companies have oversubscribed and everyone’s moving out and they can’t take on new clients to move them as far away from New York City or San Francisco or Seattle as possible, everyone’s going to the suburbs. That’s been the narrative of the summer that’s kept a lot of people very nervous but in actuality, that’s not the case. Curbed published a really amazing article this week where they actually dug into the data and through an exhaustive study using Zillow and other metrics of flight they found that yes, suburb sales are up. But that’s only because the time where suburb sales are at their highest is during the months of Covid where we were locked down. So basically, that sale time transferred to now. People felt comfortable in terms of buying homes. In addition to that, we don’t see suburban homes selling more quickly than urban homes. In actuality, urban homes are still selling faster than suburban homes, and that urban homes and zip codes still have a slight edge in valuation and are still accelerating faster in terms of valuations. And we also are not seeing anything in terms of a suburban housing market booming because of an outbound migration. Instead what we’re seeing is a bunch of people leaving for the suburbs that would have always left for the suburbs. Essentially, it accelerated a little bit, but it’s mostly people that have two or three kids in the family. It makes more sense to live in the suburbs and go to public schools than be in an urban environment which you may not be as comfortable sending your kids to, although you should. Listen to “Nice White Parents,” another great podcast. But the only places where we are seeing the exceptions are San Francisco and Manhattan. Those are actually the only two places where there is a pronounced amount of flight and that’s because those two areas in the country have exploding rents. The bubble of rent is so high people are using this as an excuse to leave. But it’s not happening in Brooklyn, it’s not happening in Oakland, it’s not happening in Queens. So I think this idea that cities are dying is not actually true. So I hope this can be a little bit of a positive note for all of us to feel like if these things aren’t actually happening the way that the press is really reporting them, maybe we can believe that eventually restaurants and bars will come back. And then, Zach as you’re saying, we’d also be as desperate about “We have to go out now. We have to open now.” Because the data shows that people aren’t leaving. They’ll come back when they feel safe to do so.

E: I hope that is the case, because I feel like every article I see is “this house in Westchester had 29 offers and sold for 500 times asking price.” It’s outrageous statistics. That is definitely the narrative that I have seen, and I really hope that that is not the case.

A: I think, like this article says, it’s accelerated for the people who already would. And you can think about it, if you were already thinking about moving to Westchester and now you’re moving, it also can make you feel crazy “it’s the only house we’re going to get, it’s the only house we’re going to get.” So you also drive the price up. I’m sure there’s also houses still on the Westchester market that aren’t selling or haven’t had their price escalate in the same because maybe they’re not in the exact school district you decided you wanted to move into. Or they aren’t the exact size you decide you wanted to have. The same thing was happening in Brooklyn five years ago where there were certain neighborhoods in Brooklyn where the housing price would get inflated so fast because everyone decided they had to live in Park Slope or Carroll Gardens or Boerum Hill. But then there were other neighborhoods in Brooklyn that weren’t having that happen at all, where the house was still sitting on the market in Bed Stuy — and then Bed Stuy got discovered. So I wonder if this is also selective reporting. We’re all guilty of that, we report on what we know. And that’s kind of what the article is saying. A lot of the people who are writing these stories are people who media is based in Manhattan. You live there, you may live then also in the suburbs, and these are the stories you’re writing. But if you look at the data, the data doesn’t support it in the same way that all these different anecdotal stories do. I hope that’s the case. I hope that this article’s correct and that there’s a silver lining, and that it’s not everything else we’re reading.

Z: I just want to add one note as someone who is actually in the process of looking for a house. One piece to this that I think is important to understand is we’re still at what could very well be a very significant and meaningful transformation in a lot of workplaces. No one has a lot of certainty right now about what life will look like when people presumably return to an in-person workspace, whether that’s tech or, for my wife, another white-collar job. We’re honestly having this conversation all the time. We have our priorities about where we’d like to live from a cultural aesthetic standpoint and proximity to restaurants and bars. But there’s also the very real conversation that we’re having to have is: But how do we balance that against the possibility that my wife is going to be working from home entirely or primarily for who knows, years? Honestly, we don’t know. And I do think that some of what you’re seeing right now is a lot of people waiting and seeing. And if the American information economy is largely shifted to an at-home workplace, I think that’s really going to drive more movement. And frankly, it’s going to fundamentally change the restaurant industry because — and we don’t have time for all of this right now — but fundamentally a lot of restaurants and neighborhoods are built around a concentration of people during the day and in the evening. And if you lose that you have to come up with a different concept. You have to come up with a different idea of where you situate your restaurants, how you bring people in, and how you serve them. And I don’t necessarily think that’s bad. It might be bad for a specific restaurant, specific operator, specific parts of cities and things like that. But I think there will always be a desire for people to get food and drink in places that are not their home. But you might have to think about locating yourself differently to be able to meet those evolving needs. And that’s just another accelerating trend I think we were already seeing in the industry where these cities were so difficult for people to open a restaurant in and for employees to live in and work at, and all of that is changing. And like many other things in society, Covid is just an accelerant, it’s not that the driver of the trend.

A: Let’s get into today’s topic, 20 minutes later.

Z: I need a drink.

A: Well, I’m hoping you’re pouring yourself a bourbon because that’s what e’re talking about today. This is the kickoff to Bourbon Heritage Month and at VinePair we are focusing on bourbon and the history and the content, etc. of bourbon this entire month. Erica, you want to tell everyone a little bit about it?

E: Yeah, definitely. So at VinePair, we all universally love bourbon. A lot of us in the office are fans of bourbon, we drink it all year long. But fall is definitely bourbon’s biggest season. So both from a Nielsen data perspective and from our own VinePair audience insights data, you really see a climb in September and throughout the entire fall, peaking in the holiday season. That’s from a sales point of view, from an audience interest point of view — meaning the searches and the interactions with articles and so forth. So that is one of the reasons we decided to focus on September for a big American bourbon celebration. And then it also happens to be National Bourbon Heritage Month. So the timing is perfect. This month we’ll be doing a lot of bourbon coverage. We started out the month with a category report looking at all of the things that are happening in the entire realm of bourbon. If you look at the whiskey category and whiskey sales in 2019, the overall whiskey category was $5.7 billion and then within that category, $1.6 billion was bourbon only for off-premise sales. The numbers are pretty big for bourbon. It has been a booming category for several years. The compound annual growth rate for the category, according to the IWSR, has been about 7 percent by volume for each of the last five years, and it’s just growing and growing. We love bourbon. We are planning a ton of stories, the week that you’ll be listening to this we have “One Man’s Strange Quest to Make a 50-State Whiskey Blend” — many of those were bourbons in there. And then we have bourbon limited releases, we have a look at the military’s own bourbon. I don’t know if you guys knew this, but the military actually sells its own bourbon that you can only get on base exchanges and it’s called Military Special. It’s in a huge $9 plastic liter bottle. Some people love it, some people hate it, but you may not know that it’s made at Sazerac’s Barton distillery, which is really fascinating. We’ll have tons of product recommendations. We’ll have all sorts of new and classic bourbon recipes. We’ll look at the 24 defining moments in 200 years of bourbon history. It is all bourbon, all the time.

Z: Wow. I feel like I just got a double shot. That was something, Erica.

E: We really went deep on bourbon. Anything that you are interested in learning about bourbon, go to VinePair this month because it’s going to be a big to-do.

A: It is.

Z: As Erica very clearly demonstrated, there’s so much to talk about in the topic of bourbon that I don’t even really know where I would want to start other than, you asked us a lot when we talked spirits, Erica and Adam what are your favorite bourbon cocktails?

A: I was just going to get into how you guys like bourbon all that? But you went there immediately.

Z: We can start with how we want it served, that’s fine.

A: No, we can go to cocktails first. This is going to be really blasphemous, but I actually am pretty much a straight bourbon drinker.

E: I feel that way about Cognac.

A: I do not do cocktails with bourbon that often. I really don’t.

Z: Except of course the Boulevardier.

E: Well, that’s my favorite.

A: That would be the one if I had one but for the most part it’s straight. I drink it straight and I usually drink it either with a little bit of water or with one cube of ice. Except if it’s Buffalo Trace, I like it with a lot of ice and I like to chew on the ice and it gets kind of watered down and it’s delicious, I don’t know why. But that’s always been my kind of thing with bourbon. I’m from the South, we drink our bourbon straight. Or if you haven’t learned how to do that yet, then you drink Jim [Beam] or Jack [Daniels] — Jack is a bourbon technically, even though it’s filtered — with Coke. But most of us drink our bourbon straight.

E: For me, I’d say if I’m going to go straight, I love Booker’s. Do you guys know Booker’s?

A: I love Booker’s.

Z: We’re already giving specific recommendations.

E: I can go into the cocktails, too. For a straight bourbon, the one I always have on my shelf at home is Booker’s. Occasionally I’ll have High West, I’ve had Russell’s Reserve, Maker’s Mark. All of them have their own sort of unique appeal to them. So if I’m looking for something really smooth and it’s a Maker’s, if I’m looking for something spicier maybe I’ll go Basil Hayden or something that has a higher rye. There’s just so much product variation in the category, and that’s before you even get to cast finishing. I think it’s such a hugely diverse category and I did see some research — I can’t remember exactly who it was from — they were saying the SKU explosion, the product explosion in the bourbon category over the past couple years has been unprecedented. There’s just so many bourbons coming onto the market.

A: Oh, yeah, totally.

Z: Well, it makes sense because it’s become such a popular category that everyone wants to put bourbon on the label but then offer you a flavor profile that might appeal more to you whether you previously had been a single-malt whiskey drinker or a rye drinker or tequila drinker or whatever. They’re trying to find flavor profiles that still fit under this sort of legal definition of bourbon but that are more expansive. And it makes total sense, that’s how you sell a lot more product than just keep making the same thing. But, Erica, you did not tell me your favorite cocktail!

A: She did!

E: I like the Boulevardier. But I do know the history of it. It was actually named for the publisher of a magazine called Boulevardier. It was a magazine for expats who were living in Paris in the 1920s and the publisher’s name was Erskin Gwinn. It’s a very simple cocktail, it’s essentially a Negroni variation. You just replace the gin with bourbon, and I go a little higher on the bourbon. For a Boulevardier, instead of doing equal parts of Campari, sweet vermouth, and the spirit, for a Boulevardier I would increase the parts for bourbon. If it was one ounce of sweet vermouth, one ounce of Campari, then I would probably do an ounce and a quarter, maybe a little bit more of bourbon. And some people really think that that’s a little sweet, they like a Boulevardier made with rye but I love a bourbon Boulevardier. That’s the one for me.

Z: That would be me.

A: But that’s not how it’s supposed to be made, Zach. Erica is a cultured individual and she understands how the cocktail is supposed to be drunk, unlike Zach, who tried to correct me about a year and a half ago on this podcast or two years maybe by saying that I didn’t know how to drink Boulevardiers because they were made with rye. And then guess what? We pulled the history. And who is correct?

Z: It wasn’t an argument about the history, it was an argument about which was better and I stand by my stance.

A: What about you?

Z: For me, it’s funny, I’ll say my favorite bourbon cocktail — and by this I mean the cocktail where I would only ever want bourbon in it and never would want another spirit, which to me is kind of an important thing here — I honestly love Mint Juleps. We had a weird September Kentucky Derby. I’ve always loved the Julep, I love mint, I like the flavor it brings, I occasionally like a sweeter cocktail. Like you, Adam, I like enjoying the sort of slushy, crushed ice kind of thing at the end. And it was one of the first drinks as a bartender that I really obsessed over getting my own recipe down and technique down. While I think it can be taken as a very simple drink — and obviously, if you were in previous years to go to a crowded bar on the Derby Day and try to get a Mint Julep, you’re probably getting something that was premixed a few days ago. But making one from scratch in the moment there actually is a surprising amount of technique that goes into it. And I always kind of gravitated to those types of drinks as both a bartender and as a drinker. But when it comes to enjoying bourbon otherwise, outside of cocktails, I am also mostly just a bourbon neat kind of person. Every now and then a big ice cube but honestly, I drink a lot of it in the evenings just as is — not so much in the summer but as we move into a fall, as I find out where my sweaters are, I will be drinking more and more of it. And my favorite is Willett. That’s my favorite distillery, I named my dog Willett — not coincidentally. And I have a big 1.75 liter bottle of it on my shelf all the time.

A: You had a bourbon party, right?

Z: My wife and I, our baby shower theme was whiskey. It wasn’t exclusively bourbon, but yes, there was a lot of bourbon at said party. It was fun. And we have a potentially comically large bourbon collection at home. If you’re ever in Seattle, you know where to find bourbon.

A: I like bourbon a lot, I just think, and again I had a lot of issues with growing up in the South. I didn’t love a lot of it. The politics, the issues that people had with people who were different than them, all that kind of stuff. But when I moved up North, I had a nostalgia for some of the cuisine and things like that and I really found more of an affinity than I’d had in the past for bourbon. I really think it’s become my go-to whiskey, which is interesting because my earliest phase of drinking whiskey was Scotch because I just thought that that was what you were supposed to drink if you were cultured. You were supposed to be really into single malt and things like that. And I definitely feel like I’ve gotten more and more into bourbon. And I’m wondering why you both think we as a population have become so obsessed with it. Because it’s growing faster than any other category of whiskey. It’s the dominant spirit in certain months of the year. You now have other categories of whiskey kind of trying to copy the flavor profile. You have single malts that are finishing their single malt now in bourbon barrels and trying to say these are American bourbon-finish Scotches. Irish whiskey is playing with it as well. What do you think the driving force is behind it being so popular?

E: I think it’s because it’s a sweeter spirit. It’s one of the sweetest brown spirits. And that to me makes a big difference. It’s also the original American spirit. It’s got the Congressional Resolution of 1964 that calls it the “distinctive spirit of the United States.” So I think that there’s some part of it that people may go to bourbon because it feels like a patriotic thing or something like that. But I think when you get down to flavor profiles and what drives purchasing decisions, it’s a very accessible brown spirit. And you really can’t go wrong. Even at the bottom shelf like Old Grand Dad — which is less than $30 a bottle anywhere across the country — that is a very solid bourbon. And that you can go from that level of in the high $20s all the way up to several hundred dollars and no matter what you’re going to get a good product, the quality is just there and the versatility is there. It goes in so many different types of cocktails. And it is so good to drink itself. And there’s just such a huge variety of products at this point.

Z: I think that’s all true. I think one of the things that instigated it, though, was that for a while, and I say this as someone who is a bartender and around the bar community, it really felt kind of deeply unappreciated in this country. I think there were a lot of people who gravitated toward it for sort of the same reasons that Adam explained. If you were drinking whiskey 15, 20 years ago, they were probably Scotch drinkers and bourbon wasn’t seen as a serious spirit — spirits in general were seen as not something people took seriously. Cocktails were just having a renaissance in the early 2000s, and a lot of what came out of that was giving people permission to do something which they probably had wanted to do all along because, as Erica said, bourbon is delicious and much more so than any other whiskey and most other spirits. It delivers a lot of pleasure, it can deliver a lot of interesting flavor and complexity, and things that aren’t always purely pleasurable, but at its base it is pleasure and it’s about the sweetness and it’s about the smoothness, it’s about some of the specific flavors. The really intense vanilla, caramel tones that are, because it’s all new oak barrels, it gives you more of that than almost any other spirit. And people just want permission to drink something they find pleasurable. And whether it was through the rise of craft cocktails, whether it was through some sort of on screen, in culture, figures — I think “Mad Men” probably had a lot to do with it, too. It’s been talked about a lot, even though I f***ing hated that show. And I think that a lot of people were either introduced to it or were sort of encouraged to take it seriously for the first time. And what came along with that was, at the time, a huge backlog of really extensively aged bourbon that people could purchase for relatively reasonable prices, which is no longer the case. And you had this concurrent explosion in craft distilling not just in Kentucky but around the country. One of the things I’m curious about and I can get your opinions on and we can get into it now or another time, one issue that I would say about bourbon is I still think once you get outside of traditional bourbon country quality is really interesting.

A: It’s s***.

Z: It’s not all s***.

A: No, a lot of it is.

E: What? No, no, no, no, no. No way. I disagree with that.

Z: I’m more on Adams’s side than on Erica’s side here. I will say that one fundamental issue that challenges a lot of distilleries that are newer is craft distilling in this country is basically a decade old. Maybe. It was the very end of the 2000s when the laws were changed to allow for craft distilleries to open and operate in many states. And the reality is that’s absolutely the bare minimum of time it takes to make good bourbon. Like 10 years. It needs a lot of time in barrels to reach a really good level of smoothness and flavor extraction. And the honest truth is, unless you were hugely willing to invest in your bourbon production right from the get-go, which very few people were positioned to do, the honest truth is most people who are putting bourbon on the market are still shortcutting it. They’re either aging it for less time, or they’re using smaller barrels to get more of that flavor quickly. And it’s not to say that no one can get it right. It also takes trial and error to get your mash bill and your processes dialed in. And the reality is I think there’s a lot of potential in the category outside of the traditional, mostly Kentucky and maybe Tennessee distilleries but it’s definitely not where it could be. And it’s still, unfortunately, a thing where I get a lot of Pacific Northwest-type distilleries where I try them and I’m just like, eh, I don’t see the point yet. Maybe other spirits they’re doing great work with but for most of the distilleries outside of that area, without the heritage and the history, they just don’t have it figured out yet. It isn’t to say they won’t figure it out. But, Erica, it sounds like you have some examples. I would love to know what I should be trying.

E: What’s the one that Nicole Austin was at? Remind me of the name.

A: Now she’s at Dickel.

E: But she was at the New York one.

A: I want to know what you’re gonna say and I’m going to say absolutely not. Kings County?

E: Kings County. Here’s the thing, at the beginning, I think they did not really have it together. I was there years and years ago when they were doing the small barrels. But now over time, just like any other category, you learn and you refine your technique and the product gets better. Now, High West. A lot of these distilleries have now been around for some amount of time and their product has gotten so much better.

A: Kings County, I went very early on as well when they had the small barrels and it was so expensive. I think that’s maybe the issue that Zach and I both have. Zach, I don’t mean to make conclusions on your behalf.

Z: I think you’re probably right.

A: My issue with it is because it’s craft and so, therefore, there is a lot of money that went into it, the output is very expensive. And these whiskeys, at this point in time, are not worth the money. And I think that’s my issue. And there’s a pressure to do it. People are putting it out two years after it’s been in barrel, as fast as they can to try to recoup costs. Which makes sense because there are a lot of people who went into the game raising money, who didn’t do it the way that people who go into wineries do it, they’re multimillionaires who then lose some of their money. People go into whiskey thinking we can go and make money, build brands, everyone’s trying to buy as many new brands as possible right now, let’s go in and do this. And I feel like a lot of these whiskies that came out were just extremely overpriced for what they were. That really put a sour taste in my mouth. I can’t do it when Elijah Craig is $25 and delicious. And that becomes very hard to stomach. And I think you’re right that a lot of these places have gotten better. Admittedly, I have not had Kings County in at least a half-decade — and I’m not trying to badmouth Kings County, by the way. I’m sure there are a lot of people who love Kings County. I just haven’t had it in a while — but because it was so expensive, like $45 for a 375 milliliter, it just felt like a lot to stomach. I felt the same way about Hudson Baby bourbon, which I think now is owned by Beam. Someone bought them but it was the same thing. It was kind of a cool kid thing to drink them. It was the same person that would buy the most local of local craft beers, they would buy Baby Bourbon. But everyone knew it was a rip-off, and everyone knew that it wasn’t as good as drinking Weller, which at the time in New York was when Weller was affordable — it was around $8 a dram. Now it’s ridiculous because it’s connected to Pappy [Van Winkle]. But I think that’s my biggest issue. As Zach said, it takes such time but there’s not that same kind of patience with craft whiskey because you need to make that money back that a lot of it just is not worth the price of what it needs to be charged for.

E: Yeah, I would say if you’re new to bourbon, go and try all the classics, and that is your benchmark. But then once you’ve tried all the classics, I have found it particularly fun to branch out and try bourbon from all around the country and whiskey from all around the country for that matter. I know there’s one that I enjoyed from Breckenridge Distillery. They have a port-cask-finished bourbon that is lovely, incredible. It’s sort of maple-y and delicious. There’s so many bourbons out there and you can try that you almost can’t go wrong. I guess you can go a little bit wrong on price and some of them are very young and some people are also just buying their bourbon and bottling it. But at the end of the day, I find, trying out the whole range of products out there is really exciting.

A: Yeah but real talk, both your favorite bourbons are still the classic producers.

E: That is true.

Z: Yeah, and I don’t see that changing. I’d love to be proven wrong. Distilleries outside of Kentucky, let me know I’ll give you a shot but I think it’s still a category where for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is just the established tradition and the infrastructure, whereas with almost any other category of spirit, even other whiskeys, I might be inclined to pick a spirit from all kinds of places. I’m going back to Bourbon County. That’s just where I’m at.

A: Email us [email protected]. I’m happy to send you the addresses — since we’re all still quarantining and not in the office — of Zach, myself, and Erica. If you’ve got a bourbon you think we should try, we’re more than happy to give it a shot. But I think that’s what has helped drive the bourbon category so much, that connection to “oh my gosh, there were these people who’ve been making this stuff forever and there’s these super-old barrels and they’re mixing these liquids in.” And think about it, I think that is what really has made a lot of people fall in love with bourbon. Going back to the history of it being America’s spirit, and the fact that there some really affordable old bottles. The thing that helped drive it in the beginning were these whiskey people who found bourbon who were like, “Wow. So I can get a super-old bourbon for a lot cheaper than a super-old Scotch.” And they started collecting it. Now, that’s not the case. Now you cannot get a super-old bourbon for cheaper than super-old Scotch. Now, the next big place, I’m telling you, if you want super-old whiskey, is Irish [whiskey]. Because that’s still way undervalued. But that’s another podcast. If you’re looking for old, which a lot of the bourbon hunters are — that is why they were attracted to it, that’s why now they’re the same people who are being attracted to Cognac and Armagnac. I think that’s part of the allure of what it had and this idea that you could be drinking this bourbon that in it there are liquids that are 50, 75 years old. That’s just so romantic. It’s the same reason why people fall in love with collecting wine and drinking old bottles. For me, it’s what makes bourbon so cool and special, even though I’ve never had Pappy.

Z: Still? Oh, my God.

A: I haven’t.

Z: Well, one day, Adam.

A: Have both of you had it?

E: I’m trying to think, I don’t even think I have had it.

A: Yeah. I’ve never had it. Zach, is it as amazing as everyone says it is?

Z: I would say it’s like anything in that category. It’s really good, but it’s nowhere near worth the price. I think you can have 97 percent of the experience for a tenth of the price. I would never pay for it at the price as it is now. But like you were talking about with Weller, even with Pappy, which had more of a rap, you know, it was $20 a shot when I was getting into bartending. I would spend that occasionally. It was fun, it was a splurge. Now it’s 10 times that so I wouldn’t. But it’s really good. But like anything, the romance of feeling like you’ve discovered something is lost when it’s the thing that everyone is clamoring after.

A: And that’s what I’m really nervous about. Recently, Colonel, E.H. Taylor, which also comes out of the Buffalo Trace distillery, just won a ton of awards. And it’s sort of connected to Pappy. I love E.H. Taylor, it used to be around $12 a shot, I’m getting really nervous it’s going to explode and you’re not able to afford it anymore. And that’s sad. That’s really sad. Do you guys know what the going price for Pappy 23 Year Old is right now?

Z: For a bottle?

A: $18,000.

E: That’s outrageous.

A: It’s just ridiculous. That’s on the secondary market, so on the primary market I think they still do sell it for around $1,000. But that’s just an insane amount of money that people are willing to pay for this bottle of bourbon, which is another reason I’ve never had it before.

Z: You missed your chance.

A: Exactly, I missed my chance and now I have to find other things.

Z: Not until the VinePair IPO.

A: Exactly. But there’s still a lot of really good stuff out there. I think that’s what also makes bourbon so fun. Heaven Hill Distillery is super underrated, I think they do a lot of amazing bourbons. I think a lot of stuff Brown-Forman makes is really great. There’s a lot of really good distilleries — again, we’re talking Kentucky — that have these undiscovered bourbons that are still very affordable and delicious without feeling like you have to have Pappy or you have to have Weller or you have to have the other big ones. There’s so many that everyone wants to collect, I don’t think it has to just be those that you yearn for in order for you to really enjoy this delicious liquid.

E: Right. There’s so much out there. It’s such a huge category.

A: Well guys, this has been one of our longest podcasts ever. So if you stuck through the whole time, we appreciate it.

Z: Pour yourself a drink at this point.

A: Pour yourself a bourbon. Let us know what you think about bourbon, we hope you enjoy the content for the rest of the month. We’ll be back at you next week. As always, send us your thoughts and feelings to [email protected]. Leave us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, or where else you listen to podcasts. It helps other people discover the show. Erica and Zach, I will see you next week.

E: See you then.

Z: Sounds great.

The article VinePair Podcast: How Did Bourbon Conquer America? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/how-did-bourbon-conquer-america/

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johnboothus · 4 years

Text

VinePair Podcast: How Did Bourbon Conquer America?

Listen online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or check out our conversation here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From Connecticut, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. What’s going on? Summer’s over. Right?

E: It’s done, it’s fall. We have now crossed the Labor Day weekend mark, and it is fall time.

A: Do you subscribe to the idea that summer ends after Labor Day? Or are you some of those people that are like, “Actually it’s not until September 21, and we still have a few more weeks.”

E: No, kids are back in school.

A: That’s what I always think. Summer is over.

E: Summer is done.

Z: For me, the mark for summer being over is when I look in my closet and I try to figure out where some of my sweaters are, and that definitely happened over the weekend.

A: Are you serious?

A: I’m still shorts and a T-shirt all the way. I’m hoping this lasts through October.

Z: New York is a different climate than Seattle.

A: True. Again, another superior thing. So how were your summers if you were going to take stock in them as a thing? All things considered.

A: That’s awesome. What about you, Zach?

A: Let’s get into today’s topic, 20 minutes later.

Z: I need a drink.

Z: Wow. I feel like I just got a double shot. That was something, Erica.

E: We really went deep on bourbon. Anything that you are interested in learning about bourbon, go to VinePair this month because it’s going to be a big to-do.

A: It is.

A: I was just going to get into how you guys like bourbon all that? But you went there immediately.

Z: We can start with how we want it served, that’s fine.

A: No, we can go to cocktails first. This is going to be really blasphemous, but I actually am pretty much a straight bourbon drinker.

E: I feel that way about Cognac.

A: I do not do cocktails with bourbon that often. I really don’t.

Z: Except of course the Boulevardier.

E: Well, that’s my favorite.

E: For me, I’d say if I’m going to go straight, I love Booker’s. Do you guys know Booker’s?

A: I love Booker’s.

Z: We’re already giving specific recommendations.

A: Oh, yeah, totally.

A: She did!

Z: That would be me.

Z: It wasn’t an argument about the history, it was an argument about which was better and I stand by my stance.

A: What about you?

A: You had a bourbon party, right?

A: It’s s***.

Z: It’s not all s***.

A: No, a lot of it is.

E: What? No, no, no, no, no. No way. I disagree with that.

E: What’s the one that Nicole Austin was at? Remind me of the name.

A: Now she’s at Dickel.

E: But she was at the New York one.

A: I want to know what you’re gonna say and I’m going to say absolutely not. Kings County?

Z: I think you’re probably right.

A: Yeah but real talk, both your favorite bourbons are still the classic producers.

E: That is true.

Z: Still? Oh, my God.

A: I haven’t.

Z: Well, one day, Adam.

A: Have both of you had it?

E: I’m trying to think, I don’t even think I have had it.

A: Yeah. I’ve never had it. Zach, is it as amazing as everyone says it is?

Z: For a bottle?

A: $18,000.

E: That’s outrageous.

Z: You missed your chance.

A: Exactly, I missed my chance and now I have to find other things.

Z: Not until the VinePair IPO.

E: Right. There’s so much out there. It’s such a huge category.

A: Well guys, this has been one of our longest podcasts ever. So if you stuck through the whole time, we appreciate it.

Z: Pour yourself a drink at this point.

E: See you then.

Z: Sounds great.

The article VinePair Podcast: How Did Bourbon Conquer America? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/how-did-bourbon-conquer-america/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/vinepair-podcast-how-did-bourbon-conquer-america

0 notes

isaiahrippinus · 4 years

Text

VinePair Podcast: How Did Bourbon Conquer America?

Listen online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or check out our conversation here

Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter.

Erica: From Connecticut, I’m Erica Duecy.

Zach: And in Seattle, Washington, I’m Zach Geballe.

A: And this is the VinePair Podcast. What’s going on? Summer’s over. Right?

E: It’s done, it’s fall. We have now crossed the Labor Day weekend mark, and it is fall time.

A: Do you subscribe to the idea that summer ends after Labor Day? Or are you some of those people that are like, “Actually it’s not until September 21, and we still have a few more weeks.”

E: No, kids are back in school.

A: That’s what I always think. Summer is over.

E: Summer is done.

Z: For me, the mark for summer being over is when I look in my closet and I try to figure out where some of my sweaters are, and that definitely happened over the weekend.

A: Are you serious?

A: I’m still shorts and a T-shirt all the way. I’m hoping this lasts through October.

Z: New York is a different climate than Seattle.

A: True. Again, another superior thing. So how were your summers if you were going to take stock in them as a thing? All things considered.

A: That’s awesome. What about you, Zach?

A: Let’s get into today’s topic, 20 minutes later.

Z: I need a drink.

Z: Wow. I feel like I just got a double shot. That was something, Erica.

E: We really went deep on bourbon. Anything that you are interested in learning about bourbon, go to VinePair this month because it’s going to be a big to-do.

A: It is.

A: I was just going to get into how you guys like bourbon all that? But you went there immediately.

Z: We can start with how we want it served, that’s fine.

A: No, we can go to cocktails first. This is going to be really blasphemous, but I actually am pretty much a straight bourbon drinker.

E: I feel that way about Cognac.

A: I do not do cocktails with bourbon that often. I really don’t.

Z: Except of course the Boulevardier.

E: Well, that’s my favorite.

E: For me, I’d say if I’m going to go straight, I love Booker’s. Do you guys know Booker’s?

A: I love Booker’s.

Z: We’re already giving specific recommendations.

A: Oh, yeah, totally.

A: She did!

Z: That would be me.

Z: It wasn’t an argument about the history, it was an argument about which was better and I stand by my stance.

A: What about you?

A: You had a bourbon party, right?

A: It’s s***.

Z: It’s not all s***.

A: No, a lot of it is.

E: What? No, no, no, no, no. No way. I disagree with that.

E: What’s the one that Nicole Austin was at? Remind me of the name.

A: Now she’s at Dickel.

E: But she was at the New York one.

A: I want to know what you’re gonna say and I’m going to say absolutely not. Kings County?

Z: I think you’re probably right.

A: Yeah but real talk, both your favorite bourbons are still the classic producers.

E: That is true.

Z: Still? Oh, my God.

A: I haven’t.

Z: Well, one day, Adam.

A: Have both of you had it?

E: I’m trying to think, I don’t even think I have had it.

A: Yeah. I’ve never had it. Zach, is it as amazing as everyone says it is?

Z: For a bottle?

A: $18,000.

E: That’s outrageous.

Z: You missed your chance.

A: Exactly, I missed my chance and now I have to find other things.

Z: Not until the VinePair IPO.

E: Right. There’s so much out there. It’s such a huge category.

A: Well guys, this has been one of our longest podcasts ever. So if you stuck through the whole time, we appreciate it.

Z: Pour yourself a drink at this point.

E: See you then.

Z: Sounds great.

The article VinePair Podcast: How Did Bourbon Conquer America? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/how-did-bourbon-conquer-america/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/628792055952556032

0 notes

kingdomofbretonxrpg · 4 years

Photo

Congratulations Lins! We are delighted to welcome Javan Floch to provide sustenance and drink for the hungry and thirsty citizens of the Kingdom of Breton and the wonderful visitors to this lovely nation. Please complete our after acceptance checklist. We are looking forward to seeing you develop him! Please send in his blog on or before 31 December.

Out of Character

Alias: Lins

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 26

Timezone: PST

Anything else? I was only going to start with one, but this bio was too good and it spoke to me. So here we are.

Character

Name: Javan Floch

Birthdate and Age: April 23, 38

Preferred Pronouns: He/His

Faceclaim: Michiel Huisman

Family Affiliation: Maine

Profession: Owner of J2 Bar and Restaurant

Claim: unclaimed

Children: No

Designation: Dominant

What is their symbol?: Javan has a sword tattoo along his right forearm that looks like this. When he’s forced into formal wear, he wears a ring like this.

Kinks: Biting, Bondage, Lingerie, Oral (giving and receiving), Orgasm control/denial, Public Play, Rough Sex

Anti-kinks: Ageplay, Blood, Gore, Humiliation, Non-con, Scat, Watersports

Biography:

Javan took his responsibilities seriously. He had to do so because his parents were either negligent or cruel and very little in between. His brother, Jadon, was five years younger than him and from the minute he met the tiny red screaming infant, a sense of resolve began to harden within him. He learned things just so he could teach them to his brother.

Javan had regular relationships, which he promptly ended every time the submissive he was seeing hinted that they wanted something more serious. Javan had already endured one terrible home life. He enjoyed his bachelor ways and had no intention of giving them up.

Who knows what would have happened to the pair of young boys if it wasn’t for the Uncles - Edmund and Roberto. They were great-uncles, making them considerably more senior to the pair of young boys. The bachelors owned a large farm in the countryside and every summer as school wrapped up for the year, they would show up in their big truck and load up the pair of boys and cart them away, not bringing them back until school was due to start the next day.

Javan loved the Uncles. They were consistent and gentle. From these old men, Javan learned about crops, animals, food, responsibility and love. They really seemed to see the children. Praise came easy. Discipline was a cluck of disapproval and then an explanation as to the correct way to do the thing that he had gotten wrong. From his Uncles, Javan learned what it was to be a man and a Dominant.

Going home was always a nightmare, something to be endured, but alas his parents never did quite enough ‘wrong’ to be reported to the Head of House. So they suffered and endured and truly lived during their summers on the farm. When the Uncles died, quickly in succession of one another, Javan and Jadon were heartbroken. To the family’s shock and complete horror, the Uncles left all their considerable fortune to the two boys.

While they debated keeping the farm, realistically it was not their dream. After much discussion, they opened the J2 Bar & Restaurant in their honour. To their amazement, J2 was a roaring success, with a steady base of regulars and a nice lift from the tourists who could read about J2 in all their guidebooks. They specialized in traditional Breton dishes with a twist, wholesome ingredients and high quality alcohol.

Writing Sample:

Javan sighed as he shut the door on his (blessedly empty) apartment. He should have known she’d be a crier. If he had thought that Janelle’s tears were actually a sign of hurt feelings, he would have felt a tiny bit guilty. But he knew her too well for that. She was mad that she hadn’t been able to break his reputation as a confirmed bachelor and she would have to actually find her own place instead of flipping between his place and…her friend’s? Her sister’s? He hadn’t actually bothered to keep track of the details. What would the point be when he knew she wouldn’t be around for long?

Still, some parts of his life were easier when he knew he had someone on hand when he had to scratch that itch. At 38, the pool was getting small of people who weren’t either claimed or desperate. Or too damn young. A sub who had to have been max 22 had tried to flirt with him the other day, and all it did was make him feel old.

Running his hand through his hair, Javan tossed his jacket on the couch and walked through the clean living room to the internal door. The one that led down to the only other thing he let himself love besides his brother. J2 Bar and Restaurant.

As soon as he opened the door and heard the dull roar of a bustling Wednesday night crowd, he had to grin. Not many places could get this kind of pull on a weeknight, but damn if he and Jadon weren’t good at this. Back when it had started, it had been the two of them, a couple part time servers, and a cook to pinch hit when one of them was about to keel over from exhaustion. Now it thrived with full time chefs, bartenders, servers, and live music a couple times a month. For his own satisfaction, he knew he could still step into any position in the business and be just as good as whoever was standing there now. But there was something pretty damn cool in knowing that at this point, he didn’t have to.

He made his way into the kitchen, doing his best to keep a low profile. But of course that failed as soon as he walked in.

“So, crier or screamer? You’re here way too early to have to have reported on assault charges from that one.”

Javan grinned and relaxed enough to let out a full-throated laugh. “Crier. Big crocodile tears.”

Andre, head chef here for the last four years and close personal friend, let out a sharp sigh of disgust. “I should have known. Bet she managed to do it without smearing her mascara.”

“If you know this shit, why do you make me say it every time?”

“Because it is one thing to know and another to know. Your drama keeps me young and it means my people buy me drinks as I relate the latest incident in the saga of Tall, Dark, and Heartbreaking.” As he spoke, Andre’s hands were constantly in motion, stirring one pot, flipping a sauce pan, garnishing a dish, and pulling sauces out of thin air. It was a mesmerizing dance to watch. Only more impressive for the fact that Javan was almost positive that he could have done all of this while simultaneously writing the next Great Breton Novel if the mood struck him and someone had a good tape recorder.

“Tall, Dark, and Hungry would be more accurate,” he replied drily.

“Bah, so you come back to interrupt my kitchen? Of course you do. You never eat before you break hearts and then you complain after at the waste of the date. Luckily I am a genius and I decided to make Garbure today. You are allowed one bowl.”

Javan snorted as he grabbed a bowl and poured himself a generous helping of the stew that was one of their winter staples. “Allowed, huh? You planning on making me pay for it?”

“Details. I will require exquisite details.”

“Yeah, yeah, ok. How’s the new server working out?”

“Well. She’s made a couple mistakes here and there, but she’s so smiley and personable the customers are charmed before they can even start to get mad. She even survived serving Angelique earlier this evening and didn’t come in here crying to me. So that means hands off on this one, J.”

Javan had been eating his stew while leaning against the counter, more focused on Andre’s recital of information than the food that was going in his mouth. But that last warning had him stopping all movement. All of the easy humor vanished, and the look he shot Andre was completely flat and cold. “You know better.”

The silence for a moment was charged, both of them knowing that Andre had crossed a line. Javan might not want permanent in his life, but he was never careless. He never deliberately harmed anyone – which was why he ended it as soon as there was a whisper of serious. But more importantly than that, he would never do anything to harm the business. Ever. He had never gotten involved with a staff member while they worked for him. He rarely dipped into the customer pool unless it was a tourist he knew wasn’t hanging around. The only things that mattered in his life were Jadon and J2, and those needs would always come before his. Always.

“There is an extra slice of tarte au citron on the back counter,” Andre eventually said. It was as close to an apology as the other man was comfortable saying, and Javan accepted it as such. They had been friends for long enough to have developed their own language of communicating, neither of them comfortable with sentimentality or emotional conversations of any sort. Food could speak well enough for the two of them to understand.

Slice of tarte in hand, Javan made his way back upstairs to the suite of rooms he called home. Even with the door shut, the sound of customers was a muted rumble, but that was just how he liked it. It was continual proof that he had finally left those heavy silent rooms of his childhood behind. Meals he’d learned to cook to make sure his brother could eat had become the backbone of a restaurant that fed hundreds of people on a good night. Business classes he’d forced his way through meant that he’d gotten their place into the black and kept it there.

Money that had been given to them in love had made sure he and Jadon had been able to build something good. On the bad days, days where he had woken from another nightmare of being small and helpless in the face of another locked door or hearing that sarcastic laugh as he was called weak and emotional another damn time, he could walk straight out into the Bar and see something different. That mural of Edmund and Roberto that they’d had painted on the wall. His people that he was able to keep employed and taken care of. Customers who knew him by name and kept coming back for more. Tangible proof that his parents’ words had nothing to do with who he was now. Nothing at all.

Everything they were, everything they valued, he’d trained himself into the opposite until it was as natural as breathing. The final lesson he’d learned was to never let himself get too involved. He would never have a claim or a child. Even with practice, even with good examples, he would never risk finding that portion of his parents within him. He was never going to be that careless or that cruel to anyone who was tied to him. So he wouldn’t tie anyone. It kept his life simple, and it was just how he liked it.

Settling at the desk he kept up in his home office, he ate one handed as he started to read over the proposal from a new supplier. After all, he had a couple hours of his night free now that Janelle was out of the picture. Might as well put it to good use.

#michiel huisman #accepted #bretonaccepted

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smartalker · 7 years

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Magpie Bridge [5/10 - Samael]

ENTITLED: Magpie Bridge FANDOM: Mass Effect Andromeda - Reyes/Ryder RATING: M LENGTH: 50k via 10 chapters GENRE: Romance/Sci-Fi/Drama/Humor, in that order SUMMARY: With the Kett subdued and Andromeda’s terraforming system running at full power, Kadara Port swiftly establishes itself as the trade capital of the galaxy. The city’s unique combination of affluence, corruption, and growing power inevitably earns the ire of both the Nexus, and Aya. Under tremendous pressure to disavow a known criminal’s legitimacy, Ryder once again returns to Kadara hoping to broker peace, but the Charlatan wants something very different from her… ALT SUMMARY: Two people fall in love, galaxy breaks.

Ryder returned from her tryst to confront worst-case walk of shame material.

"Hey sister," Scott said.

"Fuck. FUCK!" Ryder whirled away from her twin, but the Tempest's halls were unhelpfully void of any distractions or potential shields. She turned back to Scott, teeth set. "Fuck," she whispered to herself, for good measure.

"Nice hickey."

She couldn't just keep swearing. Ryder cleared her throat, bracing herself for some old-school twin throw down. She had this. There had been a time (once) when she'd been able to beat her brother's ass into submission. Trying to sound like Keema, Ryder asked, "And just why are you concerning yourself with my hickeys, again?"

Scott dropped some serious stank eye. "God you're annoying. Now that you're finally back from your boy's opium den or whatever he's running—"

"Opium den," Ryder repeated, and laughed shrilly. She tried edging towards the Med-Bay. Maybe there was some lightly bruised body part Lexi urgently needed to examine.

Scott, with freakish speed and probably a dose of telepathy, inserted himself into the middle of her escape route. "The Nexus sent me. Tann's bugging out, says if you don't get someone dragged out and locked up he's going to start a trade embargo or something."

Shit. But also, she totally called that bluff. Like Tann had the balls. Except: Addison was also on the Nexus and Ryder wasn't sure she wanted to deal with that phone call.

She groaned. "You know, finding freaky doped up murder cults isn't as easy as it looks on television. Tell them I need more time! We're making headway but it's not exactly like we're in a position where we can go around interviewing known felons because, oops, everyone on this stupid planet was birthed in the, like, the undead Alcatraz of Hell!"

Scott was doing the thing where he started to look uncomfortably similar to their father. Ryder scrunched her nose, her stomach cramping. She hadn't wanted to fight. She could see the reluctance in Scott's face, the guilt that echoed her own. She could still remember his excitement, the first time they'd hunted outlaws on Eos together. Her brother, who'd known her father a thousand times better than she ever had, he'd said, "Dad would have been proud of you."

Somehow, she didn't feel like the sentiment had survived.

"Sara," Scott insisted, voice slowing and lowering. "Really. Are you okay?"

Ryder squirmed. "Fine."

"What happened to your face?"

Her hand twitched up to cover her injuries before she could stop herself. Ryder grimaced. "Okay. I'm sub-fine. But you can tell the Nexus I've got it, it's under control."

Scott shook his head. "Tell them yourself. I'm staying here. You need me."

Ryder went still as her mind raced through the possibilities, the plausible reasons for dismissing Scott, the pros and cons of having him around. Her brother. The one person who remembered what she looked like plastered after eight margaritas, the one person who knew about her cornrow phase, the guy who'd held back her hair when null-gravity training had made her sicker than the plague.

"Okay," she heard herself saying. "No problem. You can get a bunk in my quarters. We'll figure something out that's more permanent later."

Scott, still wearing their father's face, relaxed. He smiled at her, his face shining. "I thought you'd say no," he admitted. "It's going to get better, Sara. You'll see. We'll look out for each other."

Ryder made herself smile back. A forgotten, queasy feeling pushed against her—as unwelcome and unwarranted and nameless as it had been back when, as children, Scott had suddenly grown stronger than her. "I should wash up," she said, instead of everything else.

To begin with, she really did have to wash up. Ryder spent long minutes in the shower, her forehead pressed against the warming tile. "If you have any suggestions, now would be a good time." She mumbled. SAM kept quiet. It figured. Ryder rubbed the warm water over her legs, between her thighs. She was newly bruised, purple memories knocked across her legs. Lexi would say that was a sign of a low iron count.

His hand on her throat, how the pressure increased with a surgeon's precision, how warm her head became the moment she knew she couldn't breathe—

Ryder punched the shower's switch, cutting the water. She'd start with the problems she could solve. "SAM, scan for that Lithium deposit. Nexus satellites only, please."

She dressed as SAM let himself into the satellite's server, feeling pretty sincerely excited at the prospect of returning to her own bed. A few deposits pinged nearby, and she had the coordinates sent to Suvi for further analysis. One night off. Pathfinder was officially off the clock.

Ryder burrowed as deeply as possible into her bed, missing the heavy quilt she'd owned a lifetime ago. The ship hummed gently around her. Now and then a passing crew member's footsteps wandered past. Ryder flipped over. She flipped over again. She should have spent the night with him.

And right on cue, her omni-tool buzzed in a new message. Probably Suvi. Probably Scott. Definitely business related and therefore requiring her immediate attention.

Ryder wiggled from her cocoon, groping around. His letters became lasers, beams in her eyes. She read them over, and over, and over again.

I wish you'd stayed.

In the morning, Ryder gave her orders.

Through a note.

"Really?" Cora hissed. Her hiss was caught by the transmitter, drawn out as a spit of static. "Really. Again."

"No." Ryder said, in her best Pathfinder voice. "I know what you're thinking, and I want you to know, I have simply delegated responsibilities. I thought about calling a meeting, but you all seemed to be sleeping so nicely. Notes are cool. Vintage."

Cora stepped back from the conflict. She let go. She was too disciplined, too proud to whine. A fact that Ryder knew and fully intended to leverage for as long as possible. "Fine." Cora breathed out. "Why am I stuck with your brother while you get to blow things up?"

"You also might get to blow things up," Ryder pointed out. "I trust your judgment around explosives. Not Liam's. But you get me. Anyway, you're the only person I can trust on a bar-recon mission. Everyone else would just get drunk."

Cora seemed to be deeply struggling with something. Finally, she eked out. "First: I don't like the idea of you going somewhere without back-up. But I'm tired of fighting that point. The second thing is, I don't get along with Scott. No offense. But please keep that in mind in the future."

Ryder assumed a mask of benevolent patience. The Nomad, which she had clipping along at over a hundred-fifty kilometers an hour, ricocheted its way down a steep valley. The shaking and crashing were not the best sound effects for serenity. "Cora. No one gets along with Scott. He's like dad. Why do you think I picked you?"

"I'm hanging up," Cora announced, and cut the call. Ryder checked her map. Still fifty kilometers to go. Maybe by then Cora and Scott would be making out. It was possible. There was ample sexual frustration to go round. Now seemed like as good a time as any to stop thinking about her brother kissing people she knew.

Now Liam was calling. Ryder let him through, "What's up?"

"Pathfinder," Liam whispered, "Just because you put Jaal and I on the same team as Vetra, don't think we're happy about things."

"You ain't gotta lie." Ryder drawled. Jaal forced his way into the picture, essentially just seizing and maneuvering Liam by the wrist.

"We are concerned for your safety," Jaal said gravely. "Everyone else has split off with at least one partner to investigate their lithium site. And yet, we have formed a party of three while you operate alone. While I appreciate your consideration for our personal feelings, your security is more important."

"Yeah," Vetra added, from somewhere off-camera. "I'm sure I couldn't possibly imagine how this came to be. The subtle machinations of a Pathfinder. A mind that operates beyond the barriers of convention, species, and basic combat protocols."

Jaal and Liam were now eyeing each other, probably for some hint as to how they might decipher Code: Vetra. Ryder growled as she tore the Nomad through an innocent shrubbery.

"I'm not alone, I have SAM. Besides, this is just a little recon work. If I get a hit, I'll call you in," she lied breezily. "Surely I can handle that much." She could see Liam's face folding itself into a frown, his mouth opening to protest further. Ryder cut him off with a quick, "Sorry, call from Drack!" and switched the line. Twenty kilometers out. Drack's perpetually grim visage filled her screen.

"Are you going to yell at me?" Ryder asked, by way of greeting. Drack, who had incorrectly angled his camera to video his left shoulder, snorted as he made some adjustments.

"No. We Krogan have a long tradition of taking off for a long walk in the desert when the kids start bitching too much. It helps them appreciate you more when you feel like coming back." Drack paused thoughtfully. "Doesn't work as well on the wives."

Ryder suspected many Krogan owed surviving their adolescence thanks to this practice. "Is my brother there?" she whispered. "He's not going to like, bust out from behind you or anything, is he? Did you and Peebee already leave?"

"He isn't here. He was loud. I'm too old for loud. Sent him and Cora off a while back." Drack paused, and the camera began to shake wildly. "Sorry Ryder, hard to cut through this casserole. And I'm not having the sausage one." He took an enormous bite, and chewed thoughtfully. "You doing okay out there? Seen the scans."

"Yeah. Fine." Ryder shrugged. "Just, you know. I think I'm about to go ape shit on a den of drug lords. Should be fun."

Drack grunted approvingly. "If you're going to run away from your brother, at least make it count." Drack paused, then added. "No offense, but he's more strung out than a Turian cadet. I like you better."

Ryder was suddenly a little misty eyed. She blinked rapidly. "Thanks, um. But I'm not running away from my brother," Ryder laughed. She kept laughing. It was hard to stop laughing. "No way. Definitely not."

"Look kid," Drack sighed. "I got no reason to be busting your ass over what you do. Hell, I killed one of my brothers." He paused, then added, "Asshole. Still, it upset my mother. I feel bad about it. The point is, take your space if you need it."

Ryder had already been pretty busy dealing with her affection for the old Krogan. His continued understanding wasn't making it any easier. "Drack. Thanks."

"Whatever. We both know I'm not the one who's stuck playing host," Drack grunted. "I'm hoping Cora's identity feels threatened enough to ice him. Anyway, don't get shot anywhere important. Let me know if you need some backup and I'll meet you out there."

He hung up on her without further niceties, and Ryder spent the rest of her drive in relative silence, contemplating the many merits of her squad mates. She eventually shook herself from her sentimental haze. No time for that. She was less than a kilometer back from the center of her own Lithium deposit – one of three that SAM had picked out, each less than an hour's drive from the Port itself. Ryder had chosen this one because of the punishingly high mountain-face the lithium deposit was embedded into—in her experience, the preferred terrain of peoples trying to remain hidden.

Jaal, Liam and Vetra would hopefully be enjoying the spectacularly scenic waterfall she had sent them to by now.

Pathfinder, we will need to continue further exploration by foot.

She climbed out. "See anything? Smoke signals? Tire marks?"

Overlaying geological surveys with our present map indicates that there is an underground river beginning at the top of this mountain. The river is known to branch in several directions, with its waters emerging above ground at several sites near Kadara Port. Proposal: this river would serve as an excellent natural vehicle for transporting illegal goods, with the additional advantage of having no energy signature.

Ryder considered this. "I have to climb the mountain."

Analysis suggests—

"You're such a bastard." Ryder complained. In truth, the Nomad had nearly taken her to the top already. But the remaining meters up were almost a complete vertical, an obstacle that even her jump jets would likely have her bouncing off of.

It was a good thing no one was around to witness this.

Reyes called her halfway up. Ryder declined a video feed. "Hey."

"What are you doing? Why are you panting like that?"

"I'm—" Ryder desperately clung to what felt like about three blades of grass, both feet kicking over what she felt comfortable describing as a chasm. "—jogging."

"Huh." He moved on. "Listen. I want to do something different. Let's have dinner?"

"What!" Ryder screamed, now throwing herself into a desperate free fall. She collided roughly with the cliff face, and scrambled to find purchase.

"What?" Reyes echoed. He was definitely alarmed. "Turn on your camera."

"Dinner sounds nice," Ryder squeaked. She heaved herself onto the narrow ledge, gasping wetly. This was stupid. She should have taken the waterfall. "Are we going to get a pizza before or after your political enemies literally eat us?"

There was a pause of silence from Reyes. "Did you just spit?"

She definitely had. Adrenaline made her mouth wet. It was just a thing. "No. What time's dinner?"

"I'm not sure, probably as soon as I find out where you are and what you're doing."

Ryder had a pretty strong suspicion he was pulling up a screen that advertised her as a tiny, blinking GPS marker at that very moment. She wondered how exactly he was tracking her. Something on her suit? Could people ingest trackers? She wouldn't put it past him. "What's wrong, can't stay away from me?" She hunched, jets ready, preparing to fling herself into an absurd vertical leap.

Reyes laughed. "I can't, and I don't want to."

Ryder was pretty sure she had never jumped so high. Arms shaking, she hauled herself up inch by painful inch, her struggle made more difficult by trying to muffle her own ragged breathing. "I'm hanging up. Team's checking out those Lithium deposits. I'll have more for you soon." She managed to kick one leg up, hooking her heel over the cliff's edge, then rolled inelegantly forward. Finally. Finally. Dazed with exertion, Ryder let herself simply lie there, gasping.

"Be careful," he said. She was too tired to really listen to him. "I don't want to lose you," he added, and ended the call.

Ryder kept lying there, her muscles reduced to yogurt, as the seconds and minutes ticked past. Finally, finally, she pushed herself up, grinning. He liked her. Did he like her? No, that was stupid. Stupid Ryder.

Upon standing, the most obvious thing of note was probably the landing pad. Ryder stared at it, seething. Those cheaters. The likely well-air conditioned cheaters. Who were also, by the way, nefarious drug chemists and child murderers. Their base, now that she was finally on top of the stupid mountain, was only a short distance away from the landing pad, and clearly visible from her position.

Ryder zipped towards a nearby rock outcropping for some cover, getting ready to radio Peebee and Drack for backup, when a sudden thought made her pause. Because—she hadn't gotten to try out those combat matrices, after all.

She bit her lip, finger literally hovering over the call button. They could be here within an hour. But the base was right there, and—and! She would be able to tell, right away, if taking out the drug ring was enough to change Reyes' future. Somehow, she doubted her crew would be all that thrilled to watch her have another seizure-vision.

They also probably wouldn't be that excited to know that she'd died because she'd gone into a fight without backup.

"Fine," Ryder bargained, either to herself or SAM or Reyes' hypothetical tracker chip. "If there's less than five, I take them on. Five and up, I call in my Krogan."

The universe heard.

Ryder darted between the wind-smoothed rocks, ears pricked, eyes narrowed and fixed on the drug base's windows. She inched nearer, discovering and tucking herself into a choice spot for visibility, for target sighting. Methodically, she began setting up her sniper's rifle, hands moving without thought. She'd done this a thousand, ten thousand times. "Okay," Ryder coached herself. "Step one. We reinstall our psychic combat thing. Step two, we don't have a seizure. Step three, we take out this base. Step four, we get our seer on. SAM, you are on seizure duty. Don't make me replace you with a dog."

SAM immediately began prattling on about how 'the combat matrices were dangerous' and 'her current plan of action seemed extremely ill-advised.' Ryder wanted to roll her eyes except she was trying to be more mature. She settled for some rapid blinking.

Stop that.

"If you don't install them, I'm probably going to get shot," Ryder pointed out. "And die. Also, you do as I say. So do it. Now." Yes, much better. Strong Pathfinder moves.

SAM began doing his uncomfortable mind-rearranging thing. Her omni-tool flashed, and Ryder tapped in her user permissions. Five minutes to reinstall. Faster than she'd expected. Maybe SAM had left a few back doors open for himself. "So walk me through this, how does it work and when should I haul ass to clear the area? Are headaches the only way for me to realize we're about to go under?"

Now that I am more familiar with system diagnostics, I should be able to monitor synchronization rates and give you ample warning before we overload. An attack such as the one you suffered before should be easy to avoid, so long as we are able to distance ourselves from stressors in time. I can uninstall the program if need be. I would advise that all adversaries be eliminated prior to the uninstall.

"Can we film this? I mean, for the documentary. Because I think I'm going to kick some ass." Ryder trilled, and then actually slapped a hand over her own mouth. She was starting to sound like Liam. Or, just, insane.

Program docked.

Ryder checked her guns, then lay flat on the sun-warmed rock, dragging herself forward with her elbows. She mounted the sniper rifle, checking the base's windows through her scope. At least four people inside, two Salarians that wore heavy gas masks, a tweaked out Turian, and a human woman with bold lipstick. Four targets. Just under quota. Ryder zoomed in. "Launch," she ordered.

And then the world dropped out from under her, her ears became speakers that angled inward. She felt her heart beating as she never had before, felt each bone and muscle of her body, that fantastic machine. The woman's lipstick shone with a light—an unnatural light, a purple light, UV? Ryder adjusted the scope. Perfect clarity. Perfect purpose. She didn't see things anymore, so much as she saw the space around them, the narrowed and swelling spaces.

She shot.

The bullet made an satisfying, circular hole through window's glass. Through the Turian's skull, into the woman's thigh, where at last the missile lodged in bone. The Turian went down and the Salarians were already ducked for cover, the woman with the bleeding thigh and the red mouth had drawn her weapon, and—the lights went out. They'd cut power, made it harder for her to pick them out from the darkness, at least at a distance.

Ryder stood.

She pulled up her shields, and simply walked towards the front door. She didn't need to run. They couldn't get away from her. Her legs, in all their power and strength, carried her forward.

"Get the fucking bomb," one of the Salarians was shouting. "Get the fucking bomb!"

The door blew outwards, slamming flat against Ryder's shields, an impromptu ballistic powerful enough to make her stagger, then the woman with the lipstick was there and swinging what looked like a sharpened bone for Ryder's face. Almost dreamily, Ryder pulled her head out of the way, noticing the bone-blade's carvings, the well-smoothed place on its handle that could only have come from years of wear.

The woman's beautiful mouth was opening. She had very light, almost colorless eyes. Ryder's ears rattled with the sound of her own breath, her life.

"Bye," Ryder offered. She reached out and grabbed the woman's wrist. Her thumb dug into a nerve, and the woman's hand flew open, so that the bone-knife went flying away. One of the Salarians was coming out—and that was a Krogan, shit—but later, first—

She shot over the woman's shoulder, catching the Salarian's soft, wet flesh with a spray of buckshot. The Krogan was maneuvering what looked like a small canon, swinging it around to face her, his armor and his body like a wall—indifferent even as she shot him in the face. No time—Ryder kicked the woman's knee, catching the edge of her kneecap and smashing it, and they dropped together so Ryder could lift what remained of the base's door—a heavy thing, at least thirty pounds of warped steel, and even that buckled violently beneath whatever the Krogan was packing. She could hear his weapon charging, the high whine of it—another blast from that thing would end it, would rip through the steel door she hid behind or break whatever body part she used to support it.

"SAM, drones!" Ryder hissed. The woman was screaming, clutching her head. Ryder lobbed a flash grenade and sprinted—no time no time—her eyes closed, her nose stinging with ozone. Two of her fingers were badly jammed, numb and stiff and uncooperative. She dropped the combat drones behind her, anything that could buy her some time, fumbling to swap out shotgun for pistol—she needed precision, not force—

Ryder ducked around the building's corner, hearing her drone detonate, the Krogan's furious roar. She peeked out, snapping off her pistol's safety and aiming—breathe, breathe, breathe—her brother had always been better shot and always, her dad saying the same thing: "You're all over the place, you need to focus, you need to let go of everything else, you need to be empty."

And they hadn't understood, her army friends or her teachers, why she spent so much time at the firing range. Because she was a good shot, she was steady and practiced and not everyone can have perfect eyesight, a little blurriness wasn't the end of the world, her natural endurance would have been wasted on a sharp-shooter anyway, she didn't have to be a sniper—

Flash grenade hadn't worked, hadn't blinded him, the Krogan saw her, he was aiming, he was—

But she wasn't the same person anymore.

Ryder shot. A single, clean crack of a noise. It was almost beautiful.

The Krogan was dead, though still standing, still rocking forward, his body struggling to understand the death of its brain. Ryder stepped. One foot forward, then the other. She expected to feel something, elation or nerves or, just, anything. The cannon slipped from the Krogan's grip, banging loudly on a rock as it fell. The woman with the lipstick was still alive, but sobbing. Ryder bent to pick up the bone-blade and the Krogan finally crumbled, as the woman too surrendered to unconsciousness.

Ryder stepped over the dead Salarian and squinted through the dark lab, fumbling at the walls for lights. Her head was starting to ache, even as the air just to her left rippled, and Ryder dodged—throwing herself deeper into the darkness as the living Salarian tried to bum-rush her. "Cut the shit," she hissed, swinging the bone knife out, and cutting, and there—at last—were the lights.

The other Salarian's hands pressed over his chest's gash, gasping. He panicked as the lights came on, fumbling with the lab's tables for a weapon. He snatched and threw blindly—pencils, vials, half a sandwich, a Bunsen burner—Ryder moved forward, listening to the raspy, frantic gasp of his breath. "Stop," she said quietly. "Sit down."

He froze, still quivering, large eyes darting sideways, up—not a fighter, not even a real scientist, she could see the burn marks and the ink stains on his sleeves. Imperfect, a cook rather than a chemist. His long, thin fingers flattened protectively over the cut she'd given him. "Pathfinder," he managed to squeak out. "I don't want to die."

"Then sit. I need to scan."

"The computer's locked. I'll let you in," the Salarian babbled. "It has everything. All our trials. I didn't think the Nexus would get involved, it's not like we're that important—"

Ryder's hands clenched. Her temples were throbbing, insistent. Empty. She had to be empty. "It's a problem when you start tearing kids into itty bitty pieces. Who knew?"

"We—what? We didn't. I swear, we didn't. Is this about those murders?" He was still babbling as she steered him bodily towards the computer, watched the long, spindly fingers strike the keyboard. She could feel SAM sync up, drain the data, screens and lights flashing wildly, painfully. Ryder closed her eyes, wincing.

"Yeah," she rasped. Not much longer. "Yeah, it's about the murders."

"It wasn't us," the Salarian yelped. "My god. I don't know anything about that. But if you're here—then someone must have been on the drug. PX-92230. I don't know, I didn't even handle the selling. I was quality control."

"How can you be quality control if the product is still evolving?"

The Salarian blinked. "What? It's not." His attention swung away from her, as was often the case with Salarians. He prodded the flesh near his wound, seeming terribly young, almost childlike. "PX-92230 is a mood modifier, a…an antidote. When people begin coming out of stasis, many of them require extensive psychological care. For whatever reason, the centuries of suspended life activity leaves them with an intense, chronic depression. They can treat you for it on the Nexus, but it takes time, and many of us left the Initiative before we could complete treatment."

Ryder could only stare at him, her ears ringing. Leave. She had to leave. "It's not…it's not a party drug?"

"What? No!" The Salarian had nearly yelled in outrage, but now coughed, wincing. "I'll admit we're a knock-off brand, but the effects are the same as what the doctor ordered. We help people. Pathfinder, you can see for yourself. You have our records."

Her hands had started to shake. Ryder hesitated. He could be lying. Or she was missing something, she should—she should burn it, she should burn the whole place to the ground, they'd shot at her—

She stared down at the Salarian, her gut twisting. She hated killing Salarians. They were always so young.

Pathfinder, we need to force uninstall your combat matrices or else risk overload.

"No," Ryder ordered. She turned, and broke into a staggering run. Leave the Salarian. Leave the busted lab. Leave the woman in lipstick, the dead Krogan. They weren't innocent, she told herself. They weren't murdered. "SAM, leave the matrices. Upload all data to the Tempest, have Suvi c-cross reference with the Nexus." She shook her head. Had she just stuttered? Shit.

She kept running, her eyes slitting, something comforting about the even pound of her feet against the ground, the air rushing past her. She threw on her jets, bouncing down the mountain side faster than she should have, faster than she could really control or stop. Her matrices were still running, still nudging her away from a jammed ankle, a smashed spine. She crash-landed against the Nomad, rolling awkwardly into the driver's seat. She slumped forward into the steering wheel, her body still remembering, her body and her vehicle's smart sensors driving her a full fifteen kilometers forward to safety, to desolation.

Ryder fumbled at the car door, rolling out, dropping painfully to her knees. She huddled down. Head: officially zero inches from the ground. Shields: fully functional. Sharp objects: at a safe distance. Armor: very secured.

She focused on Reyes. It was harder to fully picture him than she would have initially guessed. Her mind felt like a camera struggling to focus, so that by the time she'd finished recalling the timbre and roll of his voice, the way he dragged some letters or skipped others or had a way of changing questions into implications—she'd lost herself, given up too much room, so now the mouth that spoke the words she could so perfectly recall became opaque, and overly soft.

It was easier to remember flashes of him than the full picture—the slight squint, his wide shoulders, how he never seemed to face her completely. Despite herself, this incompleteness disturbed her.

Pathfinder, our synchronization levels are rising.

"I know," Ryder mumbled.

Why are you doing this?

The question she definitely did not want to answer.

Children torn to pieces, faces grown from moss, the sick feeling she was learning to associate with plants and wine and debauchery, a sort of sick paranoia, the way he looked at her, his face destroyed by bullets, Keema Dohrgun sitting high upon her throne, the lies, the—

Her head was ringing, and tinny, her ears full of metal. Ryder grit her teeth. She opened herself to fear. Fear of fire, fear of starless space, a void that could overtake people, a void that lived in everyone. Fear: Reyes, too far and too close. Fear: the ground beneath her fingers—a tremor? Footsteps! No.

P-Pathfinder you are approaching critical synchronization levels—

"Let it run," Ryder gritted out. Her face was bloated, bursting. Had she really endured this before? Had she hidden this, from Liam and Jaal? Was she insane? Something scratched away at her peripheral vision, an intrusion, an ill-fated visitor.

Ryder opened her eyes, her body vibrating, her heat pushing out in waves to feel the vast room around her. The Collective's Base. And Keema, sitting on her throne, up above her. Ryder stared up at the other woman, watching her pour, watching her drink. The wine became beautiful, molten ruby as it swallowed the light. It stained the Angara's lips, which were spreading, and smiling, and there was a taste at the back of Ryder's mouth, something thick and bitter—tannins from an old red, the exposure of some dead, crushed vegetable. Plants. Keema wasn't looking at her.

There was something else, too, a kind of roar, a thing that hugged the room's windows. The pressure that is felt upon being stalked by some great predator.

Ryder turned slightly, following Keema's gaze, and there was Reyes—one hand smoothing back his hair, one reaching behind his back, looking for something hidden. He moved so slowly, like a man that had been poured from a honey jar. Her mouth sweetened, just seeing him. She knew, too late, his saunter.

Reyes, his mouth curving up, the space in his eyes opening to allow room for expression, for romance—then vacant, dead, his body collapsing in a slow arc back from her, and laughter—ugly, laughter like a gunshot, like the silence that enters when life has left.

Traitor, Ryder wanted to say, and she turned away from Reyes, his silence. She looked back up to Keema, and the Angara's seat atop power, but Keema's hands were empty. The glass she'd once held was now shattered, and the Angara's rich, complicated smile now deepened, cut like a diamond. She held no weapon. She held no malice.

She was looking into the shadows, the shadows just past Ryder's shoulder. And Ryder realized that she'd been wrong, that Reyes had been shot from behind, he'd never been harmed by Keema at all but now his murderer was just behind her, and the windows, the thing beyond the windows was swelling—

And Ryder turned and she stopped and she saw the gun, the lies, the face of the killer. The room's windows burst inward as a great tide rushed in, drowning them.

And then, she saw nothing, she saw the sound of white noise.

A man's feet, his legs. The man, stooping to lift her, and without meaning to, she began to cry. "You came," she said, and then nothing else.

The thing under her head was alive.

Military training kept Ryder still as she awoke. The thing under her head shifted. Thighs? A familiar smell. Someone's voice, she didn't know them, they were talking about their route up the Corsica valley, a blockage in supply lines…smugglers? Ryder sniffed again.

"You're awake," Reyes' voice spoke. Ryder opened her eyes. He was looking down at her, closing out of whatever he'd been reading on his omni-tool. A lazy swing from an old fan twirled overhead. They were towards the back of an old cargo area, mostly empty, while at least two pilots chatted on the bridge.

"Hi," Ryder managed to whisper.

"Good morning," Reyes replied. Ryder sat up gingerly, wincing in anticipation. She didn't hurt as much as she'd expected. He'd found her somehow (she still suspected a chip) and brought her on one of the Collective's ships, something small and slower than most people would guess. Her armor was lying in a neat pile on the floor near her.

"You're pretty good at finding me. Insert romantic platitude here." Ryder glanced at him hopefully, poking carefully around at her old injuries. Nothing seemed disturbed. Reyes glared.

"You were bleeding from your eyeballs when I found you, you know," he said.

"Ew." Ryder immediately rubbed at her face. No blood. Her eyes stung. "I mean, hardcore, but super gross."

Reyes raised an eyebrow. "So? You've obviously had another seizure, I can only assume either something went wrong with your AI and I should be taking you to a surgeon—or you did it on purpose and I should take you to a psychiatrist."

"It's helpful that Lexi is both," Ryder acknowledged. Reyes was still glaring at her. She shifted her gaze, swallowing. It would be easier to spend time with him if she didn't have to keep up the evasive maneuvers.

"So? Am I still dead in your visions?"

Ryder stared determinedly at the ceiling. "You don't have to sound so flippant about it."

Something flashed across his face. "Yes, then. Obviously. I've heard about your prediction matrix thing from one of your crew. So, what did you see? Who killed me?"

Ryder hesitated. She chewed the inside of her cheek and regarded him, wondering how long it would take for her to learn the trick to lying well. A lock of hair had broken free from the others, and swung now across his brow. Ryder reached up. She smoothed it back in place. She wanted to put everything back, just the way she found it.

"It was you," she admitted. "You did it."

It had been him—walking out of the shadows, old swagger, an echoed memory of the day he'd revealed himself as Charlatan, a pistol in his hand—shiny, silver and antique. A pistol her father had owned, a memento from some family member. It hadn't made it to Andromeda. It was a pistol that could never kill him, only her own idea, her perception of what a pistol should look like. Ryder frowned.

Reyes snorted. "Oh. Well. That makes security pretty easy."

"No—" she began to protest, throat closing. "You don't understand. I don't think it's literal."

But he was rising, brushing himself off. Dismissing her fear. "I've never been the suicidal type." He fixed her with a hard look. "Can you say the same?"

Ryder stumbled to her feet, chasing after him. The cargo ship was unsteady, veering through tight canyons with old, hashed up tech. She had been spoiled by the Tempest. She needed to keep one hand on the wall—or maybe that was her own vertigo? "Reyes, wait!" she insisted. "I was wrong about the drug ring—"

"I know," he interrupted. Why wouldn't he look at her? She stared fixedly at the hard tendons of his neck, where the muscle met his hairline. Right there. She wanted to kiss him right there. But Reyes was still business, still talking. "Your crew's been in touch. Those records you found check out. That base you found was run by criminals, but they're hardly cultists. Your science officers seem to think that the drugs were purchased from the base you found and then modified by the cultists somehow. We've been cross-referencing the buyers while you recovered."

Ryder froze.

Reyes, still angrily striding away from her, took several paces before turning. "What?"

She'd killed them. Not innocent. Deserving murder?

Ryder licked her lips, her heart suddenly pounding. "What about the bodies?"

"The bodies?" Reyes echoed. He frowned at her. "What bodies?"

"The chemists. The people at the base. I killed—three of them, maybe four." Stop. Stop. Stop. Ryder took a breath. Even Addison would tell her, these things happened. People made mistakes, even Pathfinders. Let it go and move on. "I just—I just thought, maybe—" she trailed off, clamping her mouth shut. She thought what? That an exception should be made; that acknowledged criminals should be extracted from a lawless land just so they could be buried somewhere else? For what, her own childish sense of guilt? Ryder swallowed. "Nothing. Sorry."

She wanted to put her armor on. With that determination, Ryder turned to leave him. She'd ask the pilots to drop her at their earliest convenience. She'd radio Gil, ask for an extraction—

Reyes caught her wrist. "Hey," he said, more gently than she'd expected. Ryder held perfectly still, focused on making not one single noise. She felt, before he spoke, the slight shift of his grip, a loosening. "I want to surprise you," he said. "Have you played the game where you close your eyes, and someone leads you to a present?"

Ryder sniffed. It was either sniffing or irreversible water damage at this point, and she really didn't want to cry. "What kind of present?"

"A good one," he promised.

She rubbed her face with her sleeve. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but nothing seemed ready to come out. Instead she closed her eyes, and let him take her hands. She followed him, lurching with the ship, but somehow never stumbling into walls or tripping. After some time had passed and they'd made probably a shorter journey than she would have guessed, he helped her sit. Ryder spread her hands across the cool, flat surface in front of her. "Are we in the kitchen?"

"Yes."

"Are you feeding me?"

"Close."

With her eyes still closed, Ryder laid her face against the countertop. It was cool, soothing against a face that felt so swollen, so damp. She'd absorbed her tears back into herself. She didn't want to think about this anymore. "I can't really cook," she told him. "I guess most people can't anymore. But my dad liked it. That surprises people. When he died I—there was this one thing he would make me on my birthdays. I mean, mine and Scott's. I don't know why he kept making it, it was this…I think it might have been Chinese, this kinda dumpling soup thing. Scott really liked it but I never finished mine. When he died I, um, I had another birthday and I kind of wanted to keep the tradition going. I wanted to make it again, but I couldn't. I don't know what it's called."

The chair across from her scraped back, and Ryder startled upright, her eyes flying open. Reyes froze, his arm outstretched. He'd been just about to press a mug of something brown into her hands. Ryder blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to look."

"It's fine," he shrugged her off. She drew the mug to her chest, sniffing. Something with booze. Something with fire, and chocolate. Reyes caught her eye and smiled. "What my father made me. So I'd shut up and sleep."

Ryder started to laugh, and then quickly stopped herself. She sounded awful, like someone about to have a nervous breakdown. "Thanks," she rasped, and took a quick sip. And then a big one. She hadn't realized she'd been freezing.

"Let's stop splitting up," Reyes said. She looked up at him, still clutching her mug. He shrugged. "I mean it. Let's just stop. You're here, I'm here. You can't order me away like you can with everyone else, so at least someone will be around to watch you rampage." He shrugged again, now with an odd, dismissive gesture. "I don't want to fight anymore. You'll do what you want."

She looked down into her mug. "I'd like that."

"Okay."

"My brother probably won't." Ryder muttered, more to herself.

Reyes leaned across the table, face intent. "So what? You're the Pathfinder, not him. I know you want to help people, but you've gotta stop taking their shit. You've earned your title. You've done so much—too much. In fact, I think you should step back. Let people figure things out on their own for once, or at least stop doing everything by yourself."

She finished her spiked hot chocolate. There wasn't anything else left for her to hide behind. "I know, Reyes," she admitted, her voice shrinking. "I know. I get it. I'm tried of it too. But I just…can't. I can't let go yet. I just don't want something bad to happen. I don't want to fail."

"You won't. You can't. You've already succeeded. Look at what you've done."

"I don't want to be—just, you know, some girl with the famous dad who fucked everything up. You know, I—I didn't really want to come to Andromeda. I guess not that much was happening for me in the Milky Way. I was just, you know, normal. I'd just finished school, my military training. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do next but I—I had friends and, like, a favorite bar. I had things. I wanted adventure but I didn't—I mean, Andromeda's so…so far. There's adventure and then there's…I don't know. I didn't want to leave everything behind. But my dad did. For him, he took off the past like it was nothing, like a…like a shrug." Ryder stopped. She felt uncomfortable, the way he was looking at her. He wasn't smiling. She'd spent so much time wishing he'd take her seriously, only to discover how much harder it became when he actually did. She started speaking to her toes.

"I found out later that there was…some shit going down. Some war I didn't know about. But he didn't tell me. He didn't tell me any of that. He told my brother and me that he'd signed up as Pathfinder for the Andromeda Initiative, and Scott said he'd go, like no hesitation. Plus, mom had just died, so, I—what the hell was I supposed to do? I had to go. I would have followed them anywhere."

Reyes nodded. She could just see the bottom of his chin, the edge of his sympathy. "When I got in the cryo pod, I thought maybe I'd never wake up," she admitted. "I guess lots of people did. Some of them were right. Even then, I followed them."

"I'd say it worked out okay," Reyes said. Her shoulder twitched, rather than shrugged.

"Yeah. I guess." Her dad was dead. Ryder swallowed. "I can't really remember it, honestly. Before. Do you ever feel that way? We haven't even been in Andromeda that long but sometimes…sometimes I wonder if the person I was before just disappeared when I became the Pathfinder. I know that sounds dramatic. Sorry. I didn't mean to be such a bummer."

She couldn't look at him. She'd felt less exposed with his head between her thighs, and she could feel him now as he watched her, the weight of his gaze, the way he saw everything. She wanted to evaporate.

His hand curled around hers, pulling. She let herself hide against him, let him pull her upright. He twirled her slowly around, and when she was at last brave enough to face him, the look on his face was almost gentle.

"Do you remember the first time we did this?" he asked. She rested her cheek on his shoulder as they drifted, now hardly moving. She felt heavy, her body handing loosely from its spine as she swayed with him, puppet-like. Back and forth and back, hypnotic, the swing that was used to put babies to sleep.

"Of course I remember," Ryder murmured. "Why did you think I could forget?"

He held her back, her hip. Not enough. "You're a busy woman. I would never be so arrogant."

"Shut up," Ryder grumbled. They held each other, still gently moving, and she breathed carefully, trying to pull out the smell of his neck. "I thought you were kind of corny." She admitted. "It made me let my guard down. But then I wondered if maybe that was the point, if it was a feint."

"Why, because I did the things you wanted?"

Ryder narrowed her eyes. "Exactly."

Reyes laughed. There was a longer pause than Ryder expected, one full of his indecision. Finally, he said, "It's true. I was corny. I wanted to try being different."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," he sighed. He pulled her hair tie, dragged it loose. He considered her, for so long she began to blush. "Maybe I should say this makes you look softer. But you know, it doesn't. You're still the same." He brushed a few strands behind her ear. She hadn't known they could feel so sensitive, so nervous. She had thought that she'd feel differently about him once they'd had sex, but that wasn't true. She still didn't know him at all.

"You're always talking about being different. About changing," Ryder noted. She asked, knowing he wouldn't tell her, "Why?"

Sometimes, his eyes looked green. They did now. His head bent, and he kissed her. She would never get used to him. She kissed him back, trying to soak her way inside. She could feel herself coming up short, tripping over some hidden wire. She couldn't tell who or what was responsible anymore, who was to blame, she could only keep trying to force her way through.

"It's because I hate the idea of destiny," he whispered in her ear. "Because if that's true, then what's the fucking point? Why are we even alive? My life was supposed to be something very different. You, too. We became different people, when we came to Andromeda. Nothing was certain. Everything could be chosen. And I want you to choose me, a person you should never have met. Choose me anyway."

Her world, in that second, became they point of a dreidel. The universe could only spin around them, and he was right there at her center, unmoving. Ryder swallowed, her lips parting, because even as her head became perfectly empty, even as something unnamed shook within her, she knew that she had to—she had to say something—

His hand covered her mouth, catching the little noise she had started to make. Reyes was looking down at her, with an unyielding intensity. "Or don't. But stop trying to see the future. Stop believing that there's only one outcome. It'll be okay. And more than that, I don't want to see you hurt like that again. Trust me. We'll find a way. Trust me."

He didn't lower his hand. His palm was warm, a little chapped. He wouldn't let go until she nodded. She didn't want him to let go at all.

She nodded.

#reyes/ryder #reyes vidal #sara ryder #ryder/reyes #femryder #mass effect: andromeda #mass effect andromeda #keema dohrgun #cora harper #scott ryder #nakmor drack

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alphawave-writes · 4 years

Text

Experimental Design chapter 3: Dominant

Synopsis: Robotnik and Stone must go on a mission to find the mysterious 'Black Dragon', but a few sexy encounters might give Robotnik a whole new perspective on 'torture'.

Read it here on or AO3. You guys can also find me on twitter @alphawave13.

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Robotnik said he'd have a punishment for Stone, but he didn't. Not for lack of trying. He had an entire list of potential punishments that he’d been stockpiling in encrypted documents, waiting for the day that Stone did something to warrant their use, but what punishment was suitable for ‘too much wriggling’? He tried to think of something, but Stone’s wriggling had seemed to seep his brilliant mind, distracting him from his work even when Stone was not physically present. This wasn’t the first time Robotnik’s thoughts had drifted to Stone. The agent had a way of getting into Robotnik’s head, but there was something almost insidious about the way Stone controlled his thoughts now, reminding him of that gentle smile and the strength of his impossibly warm hand as it gripped Robotnik’s shoulder.

He should've made better notes. As a scientist he prided himself above all else for his extensive note-taking, but it seemed the variables had increased. Robotnik didn't remember Stone ever smelling so good, but the faint musky scent of dollar-store perfume was enough to make his mind blank for just a moment. Robotnik had taken a sample from the air and traced the perfume to a cosmetics store in the nearby downtown area, but when he went to smell it for himself, it didn't smell nearly as good. In fact, it smelled exactly like how Robotnik expected dollar-store perfume to smell like.

He still bought it and tested it on himself, knowing enough about aromatic chemistry that the oils from his skin could alter the scent, but it still didn't smell nice. He should throw it away, but there was something about the scent signature that reminded him of Stone. With every inhale, memories of Stone's pouting lips and almond-shaped eyes resurrected, and those memories sent another spark of longing in his gut. Robotnik kept the bottle in his perfume cabinet next to all the expensive ones that he used on occasion. Just in case he got a spark of inspiration.

Luckily for Stone, Robotnik had no time to dole out his punishment. Today he had a task to perform, and he was certainly going to get it done now before it took any more precious time out of his busy, important life. Robotnik was only given vague instructions of where he needed to go and what he needed to find, but he was a genius with technology at his side. Finding people in this day and age was easy. In fact, it was so idiotically easy that he relegated Stone to find the address, who of course took his sweet time. At least he eventually found it before the end of the day, and he seemed to have fun with his little assignment judging from that massive grin that cut beautifully across his perfectly trimmed face.

"I've already put in the GPS coordinates in, and it will be a fifteen minute drive, doctor." He handed Robotnik a latte. "I also made you a drink. Your usual latte."

Robotnik huffed, though he couldn't help the smile that peeked out from underneath his moustache. Before he might go and say something remotely sentimental, he snatched the coffee out of Stone's hand and took a sip. As always, it was perfect. "This coffee is the one thing that has not disappointed me today." He pressed some buttons on his gloves and a tiny little chime could be heard, signaling that the mobile lab was now in motion.

Robotnik had just settled back to his computer when he felt Stone's presence behind him. Stone was wearing a different perfume, Robotnik realised, and this one smelled even nicer than yesterday's. It was muskier, with an hint of something woody, like sandalwood or cedar. It reminded him of Stone's gyrating hips yesterday, and the day before when Stone was on all fours in front of him, and then every other time he had forced Stone into an awkward or humiliating position.

A brief mental image flashed before his eyes, of grabbing Stone by the lapel of his jacket and pressing his nose down to his throat so he could finally, finally know the secret to that intoxicating scent of his. It was going to drive him crazy, threatening to undo the lines of logic that kept his mind running.

"Sir?"

Robotnik stirred, blinking away the image. He only just realised that his breathing rate and heart rate had increased slightly. He took another long sip of coffee to calm himself down. He made a mental note to add 'scent' to his list of variables for future experiments. "J-just annoyed about this task that buffoon Senator Walkie-Talkie put me on."

"You did insult his mother four times," Stone commented. "And his sister three times."

"His mother is a forest hag that eats children for breakfast, and his sister is a vacuous princess stuck on her fairy tale tower."

"Five and four," Stone smiled.

Robotnik rolled his eyes. "This is the first and last time I do that man's bidding. He may be providing me with some of my funding, but I refuse to be his dog. I'll do his silly little recon mission, but if he puts me on another task after today, I'm using the blackmail file." A sardonic chuckle escaped his lips. "When I'm through with him, the Panama papers will seem like a sticky note on a fridge."

"Or the Paradise papers," Stone added.

"I worked really hard on those two," Robotnik grumbled. "Uncovering all that dirt wasn't easy, even for a genius like me. Let's hope this next one actually does some serious damage."

Stone opened his mouth, no doubt ready to acknowledge his genius with that amazed face of his, or perhaps express his surprise at Robotnik’s involvement in these two world events, but then the mobile lab had rolled to the stop. Another chime. They’ve arrived at their destination.

The door rolled down, and Robotnik tip toed his way down, his polished brogues making an unpleasant crackle as they stepped on gravel. Stone was behind him as always, staring up at a neon sign for a nightclub called 'The Manor'. At least, it was a nightclub officially, but according to Senator Moby Dick, 'The Manor' had links to the seedy underbelly of the city, with a basement floor that was only accessible to those with the correct password. What occurred in the basement floor, the Senator did not say, but it was obvious that it offended his delicate sensibilities. Whatever it was, that was exactly where he needed to go. After all, the basement was where Robotnik could find the Black Dragon.

Just outside the entrance was a small line of guests in big coats and even bigger boots, waiting for their turn to be checked by the security guards. The line was progressing at an incredibly slow pace. At this rate, it'd take a good half hour before they'd get to the front.

Not if I have anything to say about it, Robotnik thought.

"Come on, Stone," Robotnik grumbled, pulling Stone by the arm all the way to the front of the line. He pretended not to see that look of soft surprise on Stone's face, lest he feel another way of confusing, ugly, human emotions.

The two guards at the entrance didn't look too pleased. They were bigger than Stone, with bigger muscles and even bigger sneers.

"Name?" The first asked.

"Why do you need my name?" Robotnik asked.

"Security," the second guard gruffly responded.

"Have you imbeciles been living under a rock your whole life? I'm Dr. Ivo R—" He was interrupted by Stone putting his hand in front of his mouth, stifling him.

Stone gave a polite smile as he said, "Stone and Reznik. We've got an appointment with the Black Dragon."

The first guard gave a quizzical look while the other one coughed nervously into his hand. Robotnik used the distraction to move Stone's distracting fingers away from his lips.

"We don't have all day," Robotnik snapped.

"Takes all sorts," the first guard mumbled as they checked them over for weapons before letting them pass.

Robotnik huffed, deciding at the last second not to scold these guards for their incompetence, and stormed on through to the reception. He was forced to pay an entry fee for both himself and Stone, and then had to suffer the absolutely humiliation of giving them his coat for safe-keeping. He liked his coats. Would've preferred to have them on his person, but at least he still had access to his most important gadgetry; namely the spy camera on his glasses and a few mini-badniks in his pocket, ready for deployment.

Stone gave his own suit jacket to the receptionist, revealing his surprisingly tight black shirt. It made sense that Stone would be muscular given his occupation. Not needlessly muscular like the oafs at the entrance. No, Stone's muscles were form and function, a well-rounded mix of type I and type II muscle fibres. Robotnik wondered what those muscles would look like in the flesh, without a pesky shirt to obscure them from the world.

Stone looked at Robotnik for a second before approaching suddenly, his face inches from Robotnik's nape.

Robotnik stiffened. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you blend in." Stone popped the first two buttons of Robotnik's shirt before taking a few steps back to admire his handiwork.

Robotnik didn't see how a few buttons could change his appearance, but at least Stone wasn't so close to him anymore. It wasn't the same when Stone was the one entering Robotnik's personal space. If this wasn't a public setting, Robotnik might punish Stone here and now. Given his way, he’d strip Stone down to just his underpants and have him parade himself throughout the club. But it was, and though many of his contemporaries claimed he lacked basic social understanding, even Robotnik knew his limits.

Judging from that small little smirk, Stone knew he was safe as well. "You look better like this, doctor."

Robonik's lips twitched, trying his hardest not to smile at the unwarranted compliment. "Of course I do. Now, let's get this over and done with, Stone."

They stepped through the curtained door to find themselves in the main area of the nightclub. Once upon a time, the nightclub used to be a factory, judging by its crude brick interior and vast open space, but at least they've done something to make it look more professional. There were bright lights, and a neon lit bar, and a dance floor with a DJ playing some atrocious modern club music.

It all looked like an ordinary club on first glance, but Robotnik prided himself on his observation skills and his tremendous IQ to spot things no common idiot would notice. The clientele was made up mostly of men, and some of these men made some dubious fashion choices, what with their leather garters and their gigantic boots. There was also a door at the end with a second set of bodyguards, asking for a code. Most people got turned away. That was where he needed to go.

Robotnik was about to tell Stone this, but the agent stared wide-eyed at the scene, as if transfixed by an unseen entity. Robotnik snapped his fingers, and Stone seemed to come to.

"You do remember what we're here to do, right?"

Stone's brows furrowed. "Sir, do you know what this place is?"

"Just answer the question."

Stone seemed ready to protest, but then he let out a quiet breath and seemed to regain his sensibilities. "We have to find the Black Dragon, and deal with them accordingly. The senator said it will become obvious what we need to do once we find them. Or it," he quickly added.

"I'm assuming you're not so much of an idiot that you couldn't sneak some fire power in."

Stone smirked as he pretended to check his shoes. He lifted his pant leg just enough for the end of a military-grade handgun to peek out. Stone glanced up at Robotnik, which reminded Robotnik of Stone on all fours and the strange mix of emotions that filled his chest and took ahold of his mind.

He had to say something. Anything. Robotnik knew this was going into some uncharted territory, and he was not going to explore it without a data pad to record results. "Why Reznik?"

Stone stood up properly. "Hmm? Oh, that. I just thought it sounds close enough to Robotnik."

"But you used your own surname," Robotnik pointed out.

Stone tilted his head. "You didn't actually think Stone was my real name, did you?"

"O-of course I know it's not your real name," Robotnik lied, because of course he never considered the idea that 'Stone' was a cover name. Agent Stone was just Agent Stone. He wasn't worth the neurons spent memorising his real name.

So then why was Robotnik now so insanely curious about Stone’s real name? What could fit this man better than Agent Stone?

Stone laughed his quiet, melodic laugh. "Maybe I'll tell you my real name some other day, Ivo."

Robotnik bristled. "I did not give you permission to call me Ivo."

"You can punish me some other time," Stone patted him condescendingly on the shoulder before pushing past the throngs of people.

Robotnik ignored the heat creeping up his chest as he followed Stone, shoving past half-naked men with leather straps on their chests to make his way to the bar.

The lone bartender was polishing empty beer glasses when Stone sat down at one of the stools. Robotnik grumbled to himself as he took the seat next to Stone, surveying the options of alcoholic beverages on display. He never liked alcohol personally. He claimed it was because it killed his brain cells, but the real reason was that he never liked the taste. That, and he refused to associate with those frat dudes from college who insisted that a keg stand was a true judge of mental and physical fortitude.

"Any drinks, gentlemen?"

"Water," Robotnik said.

"I'll have the same, thanks," Stone smiled, gracing the world with his pearly whites.

The bartender flitted about, filling two glasses with water from the tap before dropping them on two of the bar's coasters, the logo of the club printed in bold red. Stone was about to open his wallet, but Robotnik had already slapped a ten dollar bill on the counter and said, "I'm paying for both. And keep the change."

The bartender shrugged, while Stone stared at Robotnik. He tried not to glance back as he took a long gulp from his glass, wincing at the metallic aftertaste. He didn't see what the big fuss was. It was just money.

"I don't remember you lot," the bartender said. "You two new?"

"We are new," Stone said. "You wouldn't happen to know how we can get downstairs, would you?"

The bartender's brilliant blue eyes narrowed. "Why you asking?"

Stone paused for a few seconds, his tiny mind struggling to compute a reason as to why they wanted to go downstairs. Of course Stone would blow their cover already. He was strong and capable and a bit smarter than the average person, but he was still an idiot compared to Robotnik.

Robotnik was about ready to throw him a bone when Stone said, "We're a couple."

In Robotnik's defense, he did not spit his drink out. Even if he thought about doing it.

"A couple?" The bartender asked.

"Y-yeah." Stone found Robotnik's hand and entangled their fingers together, lifting them up so the bartender could see. It took all of Robotnik's willpower to not slap the hand away. He was starting to feel some funny things again. "It's our first time here, but our friends recommended we come here," Stone continued. "Said we should try the Black Dragon."

"The Black Dragon?" The bartender looked Robotnik up and down, not unlike how a judge would appraise a dog for a grooming competition. "I'm assuming you're the top."

"Of course I am the top. I'm always at the top," Robotnik replied.

The bartender stifled a laugh, while Stone looked away in embarrassment. What was wrong with what he said? It was a perfectly true statement.

"You two are some weirdos, but then again this place kinda caters to your bunch." The bartender shook his head. "If you've got an appointment, I guess you must be alright. Just head to the door on the opposite side over there and tell Terry that Matt approves."

“Thanks,” Stone said.

Robotnik downed his glass of water in one fell swoop and stood up, not bothering to wait for Stone. He heard Stone scramble to finish his drink before jumping out of his seat.

“Hey, wait up, sir.”

"Enough of these games," Robotnik growled.

"You're making a scene," Stone said.

Robotnik stopped, swiveling sharply on his heel. “Me? You've been subjecting me to ridicule ever since we got here. Pretending we’re a couple? Unbuttoning the top two buttons of my shirt? Why not just kiss me right on the lips like this is some trashy yaoi manga from the late 90s? That'll really seal the deal, wouldn't it?”

A strange look flickered through Stone's eyes, a flash of lightning before the horrendous thunder. Robotnik only realised he had made a mistake when the thunder hit, and Stone's expression turned dark and cold, a storm brewing behind pitch black irises. “Sir, if I may, this is supposed to be a espionage mission.” He gestured at their surroundings. “Do you know what this place is?”

“Do you think I’m an imbecile? I know very well this is a nightclub.”

“A gay nightclub,” Stone pointed out.

Robotnik went silent for several seconds. His face betrayed no emotion, even as his racing mind struggled to conjure up a response. Looking now at the other clubgoers, it explained most of the peculiarities. It should have been obvious. In hindsight, it was very obvious. Clearly, Stone was distracting him. That had to be it.

Stone smirked knowingly. “You didn’t even consider that possibility.”

“W-why should I?” Robotnik spat.

Stone let out a small sigh. “Doctor, if I may, you are a genius, but I have more experience with this line of work. If we want to go through this mission without incident, we need a cover identity.” He took Robotnik's hand in his own. "We're just blending in. No one will bother us, and no one will ask questions."

Robotnik bit back a frown. He never really liked people touching him. People that did touch him were usually out to harm him in some way. At least, it was true when he was just a child. Stone, however, would not hurt a fly. Robotnik had often wondered why Agent Stone was so highly commended when he was such a pacifist. The main reason why he chose Stone as his assistant was because all his superiors feared the man. But why would they fear such a simple, well-meaning idiot?

He stared at their conjoined hands, then at Stone's expectant face. It was such a stupid expression that he couldn't help but smile a little bit. "If this goes badly, I'm blaming you."

"It won't," Stone smiled. "Trust me."

Despite what little he knew about Stone, Robotnik did trust him. Not that he'd ever say it out loud.

They walked hand-in-hand to the door leading downstairs. The people who used to stare at him had now turned their head away, unconsciously confirming Stone's theory. Robotnik had to admit, it seemed to work, and he didn't have to shove his way through sweaty simpletons either.

The two bodyguards were somehow even bigger than the ones at the entrance, their muscles so big and bulging that Robotnik was sure they were both abusing anabolic steroids.

They glanced Robotnik and Stone over. "Password?"

"Which one of you is Terry?" Stone asked dumbly, even though it was clear by the name tags that the first one was Terry.

"It's our first time here, we've got an appointment with the Black Dragon, yada yada. Matt at the bar said he approves."

The first bodyguard—Terry—blinked rapidly, but stepped outside, having at least enough common courtesy to pull the curtain back for the doorway so they could pass through. Robotnik and Stone followed down the narrow stairs lined with lush red velvet, taking the stairs one step at a time. It was dark, with barely enough light from the lightbulbs above their heads. On one side was a hand-rail, while the other had a variety of different posters talking about different acts. It was a lot of men dressed in various leather gear, holding something. What that something was, Robotnik couldn't tell with the low lighting, but he felt that familiar heat creep up his chest, a feeling he now associated with Stone and experiments and punishments.

It took Robotnik a few seconds to realise he was still holding Stone's hand, and wretched it out of the man's grasp. He made a show of wiping his glove on Stone's shirt before sticking his hands into his pockets. Another strange look passed over Stone's face.

"Do you know what the Black Dragon is?" Robotnik asked.

"No. I thought you did, sir."

"Senator Will-they-won't-they didn't tell me anything, and obviously by that statement, I assume you've also found nothing. I would've thought I'd see some hint or trail about this elusive Black Dragon by now, but there's nothing. Just cryptic garbage that means nothing to us. No poster, no gossip. Nothing." Robotnik felt his eyes narrow, his fingers twitching inside his pockets, as they often did when he was frustrated.

Stone turned to Robotnik. "I know that look, sir. There's something on your mind."

"This isn't right, Stone," Robotnik said. "The circuit is incomplete. There's a missing connector preventing the current from running through my massive mind."

"I'm sorry?"

"We're either missing something, or there's something more nefarious at work. Much as I despise the illogical expression, I have a gut feeling it is the latter." Robotnik glanced at the bottom of the staircase, the sound of murmured chatter echoing. "Keep what little wits you have about you. We could be entering danger."

Stone smiled. "I think we can handle it, sir."

At the bottom of the staircase was a final door. A sign that simply said 'the basement' hung in front. The door was slightly ajar, letting in a slip of noise and light. There was no music, but there was laughter and chatter, and the whooshing sound of a thin object travelling at high velocity. Stone offered to open the door, but Robotnik shoved past and opened the door for himself, letting it swing open.

Of all the things he expected, an almost-naked man getting whipped on their bare ass by a man in a latex bodysuit was not one of them.

Robotnik walked forward slowly, trying to take in the menagerie of leather-bound men participating in what looked like a convention of sorts. There were stalls, and exhibitions, with almost-naked performers tied up in elaborate ways with crimson rope, or strapped to devices and left in vulnerable positions, all but exposing their most sensitive parts to the world. People chatted mindlessly while tugging on the enlarged pet collars of men on all fours, or leading others with blindfolds and ball gags up and down the strips between the stalls like it was a parade. There were handcuffs, and leg cuffs, and ankle cuffs, and a variety of clothing that restricted limbs.

This wasn’t just a gay nightclub, Robotnik realised. It was a BDSM nightclub. A festival of torture for the delight of others. A place of limitless punishment, with the tools of the trade up for sale.

“Uh, sir?”

Robotnik could easily imagine using these implements for his own methods of punishment. Stone had been quite disrespectful of late, and these people were so obedient even in the face of humiliation. He could chain him up, or cuff him up, or tie him up, or strap him down. For once, Robotnik had to admit defeat. His punishments seemed almost laughable compared to these artisans and their gadgets. His ideas were so narrow-minded, so childish, but this scene before him had introduced him to a whole new world of torture.

A swell of excitement filled his bones. His mind was suddenly swimming with ideas. There were so many ways he could punish Stone, and they were right there, hidden beneath the veneer of public decency.

“S-sir,” Stone repeated.

Robotnik shook his head. “C-come on, don’t just gawp like a fish out of water,” Robotnik said, acutely aware that his excitement was creeping into his voice.

They surveyed the stalls and the products they had on offer. Smack dab in the middle, strangely enough, was an information booth, where a bored-looking young woman in a leather bikini and spiked thigh-high boots sat. When they approached, she perked up, the picture of customer service friendliness.

“How may I help you gentlemen?”

“The Black Dragon,” Robotnik huffed. “Do you know where it is?”

The lady smiled pleasantly, although there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. “Got a group appointment?”

“Of course we do, otherwise we wouldn’t be asking. Just tell us who the Black Dragon is, and where we can find them.”

The lady giggled into her fist. “Oh darlin’, it’s not a person, it’s…you know what, I’ll let y’all see it for yourselves.” She pointed toward the back. “Right at the end, you can’t miss it. Oh, and enjoy the ride for me, will ya?” She winked.

They followed the woman's instructions, heading deeper to the back. The further they went, the more serious it got. Where people were dressed provocatively near the front, at the back they were all but naked. Genitals and private parts were on full display, alongside more hardcore BDSM gear like chastity gear and clamps. Robotnik tried to avert his eyes but it was getting increasingly difficult. Suddenly he was glad his jacket was back at the entrance, because he was sure he'd be sweating. Even calm and collected Stone looked a bit hot under the collar, glancing furtively between the different implements, keeping his head turned away from Robotnik's direction. Robotnik was kinda glad he wasn't the only one feeling awkward here, even if he felt a little disappointed that Stone wasn't looking at him.

At the literal back was a small crowd observing what looked to be a performance. A proprietor in what could only be described as a sexy ringmaster costume was manipulating what appeared to be a robot in the shape of a limbless mannequin. It would've looked identical to any mannequin in a store, except for the jelly-like material it was made of, and the fact that it was sporting a gigantic cock, complete with fake veins. With the click of a button, the robot moved, repeating a motion like a trinket in a music box. There was something attached to the mannequin, Robotnik realised, near its bottom. Something long and thick and dark as ebony.

He pushed past the crowd, coming close enough to read the sign. The show was for a store that sold sex toys. There were dildos at various price ranges, each with their own length and circumference measurement to the side, as well as a 'performance' price for if people felt brave enough to try them out in front of an audience. Their biggest and most intimidating one? A dildo by the name of the Black Dragon.

Amidst the cacophony Robotnik heard a click. On the opposite side of the stall, just barely in sight, a man had his phone up. By his side Stone tensed suddenly. A second passed as Robotnik's gaze connected with the stranger.

Then, the stranger ran.

"After him!" Robotnik ordered.

Stone didn't need to be told twice. He shoved through the throngs of people, Robotnik following shortly behind him. A few clicks of the buttons on his gloves, and the mini-badniks spilled from his pockets, hovering near the ceiling, tracking the stranger down. Robotnik was never a fast runner, but he didn't think he was a clumsy runner either. And yet he was like a newborn baby compared to Stone with his perfect form, the likes of which an olympic athlete would be jealous of. And those eyes, normally so soft, now sharp like blades and dark as the night. Dangerous.

Stone had almost lost track of the man as they darted through stalls, but Robotnik could see him through his scouting badniks. "2 o'clock, red door," he called out.

They sped forward, nearly colliding with a man in a full latex suit, as the stranger shoved the door open, Stone and Robotnik following shortly behind. It was clearly supposed to be a private room of sorts, with two naked men making out on a very plush bed. They screamed, but a single glance at the badniks made them pile their clothes up and hurry out. As soon as they were out of the room, Stone closed the door behind him and locked it shut.

The stranger pressed a finger to their ear. "Code Orange, I repeat, code oran—gaagh!" Robotnik pressed a few buttons on his gloves and the little speaker in their ear buzzed and fizzed, making them scream in pain.

A wicked grin spread across Robotnik's face. "Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Little Red Riding hood," Robotnik said, his face pleasant even as his words dripped with venom. "Senator Thickhead couldn't bother to lift his pinky toe off the floor for one second, so he got you to do the job? What was it, blackmail? Murder?"

Instead of answering, the man pulled out a gun. A second later and Stone pulled out his own gun with military efficiency. They both flicked the safety off at the same time.

"John Stevenson," Robotnik uttered. He knew he had the man when their eyes widened in horror. "Think I don't know who you are? A minute ago, you would've been right, but from that itty bitty little spider in your ear, I've now got your whole life in front of me. Two kids and a wife? I wonder if they know what you do."

John grimaced, pressing his free hand to his ear. "Code Orange, I repeat, code orange!"

"Don't bother, no one can hear you. And any incriminating images on that phone are gone already. That's what you get for trying to go against a genius like myself." The phone made a whining sound, and then what sounded like a cackle. It was completely unnecessary to do, but it was worth it for the look of horror that flashed in John's pitiful, ugly eyes.

John's gaze flickered between his gun and Stone. Slowly, he moved his gun, training his aim at Robotnik instead. His hand was shaking, but from this distance there was still a 70% of getting shot. Robotnik's moustache twitched slightly, the only tell he would show as his heartbeat raced and his breathing quickened.

Unfortunately for Robotnik, he was still human. Despite the near limitless knowledge at his disposal, despite the fact that he had the upper hand, even he feared death.

"H-he told me he wanted to get rid of you," John stammered. "And I will. So stand down!"

"You shoot me, and I'll make sure your life is so miserable you'll make Bridge to Terabithia seem like a comedy. From the grave or the hospital, my robots will destroy you so completely and utterly that there won't even be enough of you for your family to cremate into a bottle cap. You are nothing, and you will be nothing in life and death when I'm finished with you."

John's eyes suddenly went dark, and the air shifted. It reminded Robotnik of when the music cut out when playing a visual novel, the world drowning out until there was only himself, and John. The mini-badniks weren't cut out for combat. He didn't have any weaponry that was faster than a bullet. His options dwindled by the microsecond.

Robotnik could count on one hand the mistakes he'd made that he could say were completely and utterly his own. Unlike the very, very few he had made in his life, he would pay the ultimate price for this one.

"I'll take the risk," John said emotionlessly.

Robotnik closed his eyes as he heard the sound of a single gunshot. For what felt like an eternity, he waited for the searing heat and the merciless pain and the cynical laughter of the Devil, but instead he felt a draft as a shadow blocked the soft lights above. He opened his eyes, and Stone was in front of him, smoke billowing from his gun. John collapsed onto the ground, blood oozing from his shoulder to the floor. Reality flooded back as Robotnik heard the commotion outside, people screaming in fear as they raced up the stairs.

He should care about how they get out of here, of the bleeding body on the floor, but instead all he cared about was his own reflection glittering in Stone's soft eyes, frazzled and vulnerable. The last time he remembered looked like this was back at the Orphange decades ago. He never thought he'd resemble that brat ever again, in a gay BDSM club of all places.

"Are you alright, doctor?" Stone asked softly.

He wanted to say yes, because obviously he had not sustained any damage, and obviously this wasn't his first time seeing a dead body. He should say it, and get the hell out of here. But instead he was quiet, staring into the eyes of a man he thought he knew, but didn't. After all, Stone never looked so intense before, with that dark, unyielding stare. Those were the eyes of a merciless killer. A man who has no doubts or hesitation. And that man saved Robotnik's life.

Robotnik jerked his head away. "D-d-don't just stand there and play with your moisturized thumbs. Let's get out of here."

A small, relieved smile played on Stone's lips as he flipped the safety back on. "Right away, sir."

As they joined the crowd and blended in with the sea of black, being jostled and shoved as people scrambled for the entrance, Stone reached for Robotnik's hand, gripping tightly. Robotnik decided not to punish Stone for touching his hand without express permission. Not this time.

Senator Willingham woke up in a sterile room he did not recognise. Tiled white walls and tiled white floors surrounded him. As he tried to move, he suddenly realised that he couldn't. His hands and his legs were strapped to a chair.

When he got used to the light and opened his eyes, Robotnik was before him, a vicious sneer on his cruel, uncaring face. He expected some childish insult, some boast about his intelligence. Instead, Robotnik silently put his hand out to Agent Stone, who produced a folder from his jacket. Robotnik's eyes did not leave Willingham as his fingers skimmed through the folder, taking out a single sheet of paper. He pulled it out with a flourish, and spun it around for Willingham to see.

A cold sweat dripped down his forehead. His face was pale.

"Do you know what this is?"

Willingham let his lips dip, but said nothing.

"That is you, just last week at the nightclub, getting pissed on by two well-known male escorts." His lips curled up into a sinister smile. "Always thought the only subject you ever passed in school was urine."

"What do you want?" He spat.

Robotnik put the picture back in the folder and got dangerously close. "I'll say this so simply, even an utter idiot like you could understand. You'll increase your funding by exactly 50%; that's a 50% increase. You'll let me do my job without your thoughtless intervention. Most importantly, you'll never try a stunt like last night on me, or my agent, ever again. I find out you attempt to blackmail me, or murder me, or do anything that affects me in a negative way, and I will leak this, as well as every sordid, detestable thing you've ever done. You'll be ruined in an instant." Robotnik leaned back upright. "Do you understand me? Or do I need Stone to dumb it even further down to you?"

"You are a maniac," Willingham rasped.

Robotnik straightened up, a darkness that threatened to block out all light. His smile shifted into something that seemed almost pleasant. Something that looked a lot like excitement.

"You know, I must give you credit, you did introduce me to such a lovely place. After all, it opened me up to a whole new world of punishment." A small swarm of egg-shaped robots appeared behind him, pointing their at Willingham's chest. "And you're the lucky man that gets to be my first guinea pig."

Senator Willingham may not have been smart or observant, or anything special in the brain department, but he saw the slightest shift in Stone's eyes as he stared at his boss with admiration, and something much more intense. He'd seen that look before, back at The Manor on the most willing and obedient of submissives. It was the look of a hungry predator masking themselves as prey, thinking about all the different ways it can consume or get consumed. And that look was directed at Robotnik, while the doctor was too busy fiddling with his robots.

I always wondered why he stuck with that vile man, Senator Willingham thought. Perhaps there really is something more going on with those two.

#Stobotnik #Agent Stone #ivo robotnik #dr robotnik #sonic 2020 #sonic movie #Love exploring dark Stone.#I mean he IS with Dr Robotnik for a reason. He's very well aware of what the guy does and yet he goes along with it anyway #Exploring underutilised characters seems to be a kink for me XD

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lostlevelsclub · 4 years

Text

Mike’s Eliza Notes

Since there was more to the game than we could cover in the episode, below are the full notes that I made while playing Eliza.

Chapter 1

It starts with Evelyn talking about a dream. When’s the last time you had a dream?

She writes herself an email titled “You will do it” saying “I believe in you” ?!

The music is very Zachtronics

I like the chat History - probably will be useful…

What is the game going to be? Will I have to choose whether to stick to the script that Eliza gives? Is it mostly going to be just thought provoking about what therapy is and the machine vs. the human touch?

The sentiment analyzer tagging things as positive or negative - is it meant to show that the way Eliza works is actually pretty simplistic? E.g. “expensive” tagged as negative, but it’s used here in a positive sense (the office is in an expensive area)

Eliza totally lies to him and pretends that you’re talking not it! Scandal

It tells you to tell him your name!

Anexophin? Is that real?

Surely this wouldn’t be sufficient even if you had a super smart AI - there’s so much variance in how you can read the script and deliver it.

Haha, even as the proxy therapist you get achievements, a score and can level up?!

They added the “speak to a real human” script. Is that how AI works? I suppose it might work any number of ways. Hey, is this the AI game Ting said they should make??

Rae: Sometimes you don’t have any choices and you just have to follow directions, Most jobs are like that, honestly.

Eliza - named after the 1960’s computer program (early chat bot?)

Eliza is just making people feel better, but it isn’t actually making things better. Is Darren right that the world is a mess and counselling just helps people ignore it?

Zachtronics loves solitaire minigames…

It must be weird going to Eliza and speaking to a different person every time that talks as though they know you. Maybe it’s like speaking to a hive mind? Many bodies, one set of thoughts.

Lytosinol-2? Is that real?

Your friend Nora asks if the people at the counselling office “know” - know what?!

Something traumatic clearly happened 3 years ago

Nora - formerly a coder but now a musician and artist. Old self might have worried about not making as much money, but happier now. Is this me?! Sometimes takes a little contract coding work, but makes most what she needs for rent from her art

Did you used to work on Eliza as a coder or something? Your former boss was a psychologist and “creepo” (Soren)

Nora has some whack eastern european accent.

Soren is currently at (and leaving) Skandha, so sounds like you did work on Eliza

Snake Person = VSs, “biz dev”

Evelyn’s comment about the coffee shop - “it’s nice to know this is an option, the tea and coffee at the counselling center didn’t look so inspiring. Am I… am I being a snob?”

Immediately after coffee, you get an email that confirms you were one of the principal devs on Eliza.

Komorebi (the name of the coffee shop)

Language: Japanese

Meaning: The interplay between light and leaves when sunlight shines through trees.

Evelyn has some pictures propped up against the wall “that have been sitting there like that for a long time”. I also have a picture that is just propped against the wall instead of hung up (though I like it on the floor, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself?!)

Chapter 2

Email (from your mum?) with news story about mandatory fortnightly Eliza conversations at school for middle and high school students

You used to work at Magus books. Email from a customer there that is sad you left

Induced dreams by direct neural stimulation… interesting and creepy idea. Rather than invoking a feeling or improvement by talking, directly cause the required feeling.

Aponia - ancient greek, it means “the absence of pain”. Is it meant to sound like “a pony”? That’s what everyone really wants :P

Yao-Ren “Rainer” Tsai. Chairman and CEO of Skandha Corporation

Eliza is always talking about the rain - I guess that’s Seattle?

Gabriel stressed about having no time for himself after becoming a father

15 mins of VR - starry skies. Would that really help anything?

Anexophin - is that a real thing?

He gave 2 stars, but still a $5 tip?? He didn’t seem to find it helpful… he’ll be back

Maya

Has some serious social anxiety.

No one cares about her art (like no one cares about our podcast :P)

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day. Is this to illustrate that Eliza’s treatments are bad?

Holiday Durant

Would smoke dope more often but it’s expensive :shrug:

Unmarked white busses, secret transport system “just for them” - it probably is! i.e. employee transport for tech firms

She asks Eliza about past life regression and Eliza breaks XD

Eliza doesn’t know what to do, since there’s nothing particularly wrong?? She just wants someone to talk to.

Fortipran hydrochloride - is that a real thing? Is it for shoulder pain, since that’s what she asked for? Apparently it sounds like an anti-anxiety drug (it’s not real). She forgets the name and thinks it’s forzapram. (you later discover it IS for shoulder pain!)

Dinner with Soren

Move on - “want to do his memory right, don’t you”. So the trauma was related to a guy?

I say “whose” and am told “Damien of course. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Rainer and Soren. Soren bitter that Rainer is CEO and never wanted for anything. Had all the right names - Harvard, Goldman Sachs

He needs a chief engineer, wants you (or maybe he wanted Nora but she said no :P)

Nora is DJing at an S&M club… or not - Soren is just wrong, and then goes to hit on a bunch of random women.

Email - Car will pick you up for meeting with Rainer at 9:20am from Queen Anne office. So Rainer must know you are working as a proxy

Nora tells you a load of electronic music stuff. The names sound real, and I know the other Zachtronics founder is into electronic music, so maybe it’s all real facts

Roland-TB303 (devil fish mod?)

Moog (pronounced Moag)

Li’l Sappho - greek poet..?

The music is… lewd? Sounds good, wild and untamed.

Chapter 3

Talking with Rainer. He found out you were back because your proxy scores were unusually good and he looked.

Being a proxy - more than an order of magnitude drop in pay vs. old job

Damien Seabrook - brilliant career cut short. He died? Suicide?

“Burnout isn’t uncommon in our line of work, still three years is...”

“You know what outstanding engineers have that mediocre ones don’t? It’s curiosity”

I guess you get to choose everything except the therapy? Are there branching paths?

Erlend, Chief Engineer - “he looks like a baby”, “he must be fresh out of university”

3rd chief engineer in 3 years since Evelyn left

Ratings are normalized per proxy. I don’t think you’ve really done enough sessions to really be an outlier though, unless you’ve done some off camera

Teams in Romania, Munich and Hyderabad.

Rae totally fangirling over Rainer

Erlend - “If I understand the programmer, then I understand the program”

It really is interesting to see other people’s code. It gives insight into how their brain solves problems, decomposes complex tasks.

So Eliza is just a small facet of Skandha, and Rainer really is a bigshot. Genuinely surprising that he knows who Evelyn is, or maybe at a tech firm the CEO does know star tech talent.

Eliza v10.3.3, Firmware version v110 c3115

Boot ROM 114.0.0.0.0

Chipset 18210B0

Mark Foras

“Well i don’t know if you’ve noticed, but young people are really pissy and entitled these days.” “Why would we want these conceited, overcelebrated whelps on our team? I’ll never understand the logic there”

Neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg…

SwiftMail, InfoVault - more traditional enterprise software

He’s very dismissive of Eliza! Supposedly Rainer “liked a chick on the team”, which would be Nora or Evelyn I guess.

“Mark, I’m going to suggest you try a program called “Lakeside Fishing”“ LOL

“I didn’t recognise his face or name”

“Glad I never had to work with him”

Hariman Gunawan

British accent, so since this is an American game does that make him a villain? He sounds very posh.

Grad student, English Literature

He sounds a lot like the British Malaysian comic that is on Friday Night Comedy podcast sometimes. Phil Wang..? OMG - it IS him!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10741934/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Evelyn’s reading of the lines seems slightly more wooden after seeing Eliza (the server room). Is that intended? It’s very subtle. Or maybe it’s not wooden, maybe it’s some personal opinion creeping in? The goodbye for Hariman and Mark were both not neutral

Lytosinol 2 - in universe it’s a beta blocker

2 stars!? Rude! A tip though?

Rae’s brother struggles with substance abuse. She mentions it in the article about her and she’s on the phone to him when you visit.

Being a proxy gives Evelyn perspective - seeing how everyone else is messed up…

“Were we all just talking past each other?”

Rae - But you could also help even more people by working on Eliza itself, right? Not to mention make way more money.

Rae tells you not to downplay yourself

Rainer messages you and reveals that most of the Eliza cluster isn’t used for therapy, it’s trying to build a general purpose AI! :O

Rainer: This may sound off to you, but I’ll know I’ve successfully created a general artificial intelligence when I see it write a poem.

Evelyn: A poem

Rainer: Yes, It would have to be a good one, of course.

AI to humans as powered transport is to pack animals. Interesting way to look at it.

Rae describes a Skanda tech recruitment event. Is tech talent REALLY that in demand? Is it really that hard to get good engineers?

Evelyn - “And before that I just never had the time. It was just, research and science and work and then I woke up one day and I was in my thirties” OMG

“Even if I wanted to date, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how it’s supposed to work

“I wouldn’t even know how to tell if someone were interested in me…”

Though is this game THAT kind of visual novel? haha.

Rae is asexual? Will this game be a fully representative spectrum of everything?

Chapter 4

Soren: Say there was a medical procedure that could remove your suffering. No side effects, no cost. Just an operation that would make you permanently happy.

I’d say being permanently happy was a bad side effect.. Sometimes you need to feel sad (cue melancholy playlist…)

The Glencadam - scotch whisky. Is that a real thing? (yes)

Direct stimulation / induced dreaming vs talking things over. I’ve actually thought about this - there are changes that you might want to make to your mind or body, but you can’t because you don’t have the right levers.You have to take an indirect route and use the tools / levers that exist. Is it possible to build levers from what you have? Like hacking a machine and getting a foothold, then building an editor to enter more exploit code until you control the whole machine. Could you do that to your mind, or even your body?

Soren: Anger, depression, emptoness, anxiety, jealousy, every kind of unhappiness you can think of… obsolete.

I’ve thought about this too - these things serve a purpose, even if it’s not one that’s necessarily beneficial for you as an individual. Like when you’re depressed, is that your body telling you to die so you’re not a drain on the group? Not a nice thought - could it just be an error to be fixed?

Soren thinks Rainer was against direct stimulation “fixes” so that people would be unhappy and reliant on mental health services from Skandha

Damien worked himself to death. All nighters, multiple times. Pulmonary embolism. At least it wasn’t suicide…

Soren:

It’s late and I’ve had quite a bit to drink, so I’ll tell you a secret, Evelyn.

I said I want to end human suffering, which makes me sound very altruistic.

But I’m not doing it for humankind. I’m doing it for myself.

I have nothing. I’ve ruined every relationship I was ever in.

I hardly ever see my kids, and, well, they hate me anyway.

…

I want to end my own suffering, but I can’t bring myself to do it the… traditional way. That’s why I’ve pursued this technology. That’s why I want it to exist.

The idea that everyone else could use it too… it’s just a bonus.

Mark Foras mass emails the whole of Skandha with his farewell message! He signs off “Excelsior!” who does that?!

Hariman again

Evelyn has mirth in her voice as she says hello

He slept with Sylvia

Is he comic relief? He’s more worried now than before!

“How do I tell Liz?” Wtf

“Did I mention this last time? I have a sort of, girlfriend”

“I can’t believe this. I got what I wanted and it ruined my life.”

Irony - he hated self-pitying novels by men who were messed up by a relationship and couldn’t get over it, but how he’s one of them

Eliza’s questioning really is reminiscent of the Eliza program

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day - Hariman thinks this is a good idea?!

3 stars?? I guess it’s better than two. Still got a $5 tip

Maya Leeds

Jealousy at the success of younger people - mid-thirties.

This is clearly the age at which everything starts to go wrong. It’s easy to be positive when you’re younger, but when you get to mid-thirties, you feel that time is running out, it’s half way for most people…

Maya:

Well there’s - there’s one woman in particular everyone loves.

And her work is… I don’t get it. I just - I don’t understand. She gets so much money and support for this basic, basic shit.

And somehow everyone’s predisposed to like her.

I mean, maybe I do get it…

I feel like people pay attention to her work not because it’s good on its own, but because supporting her feels like the right thing to do.

The way she’s aligned herself it’s like… if you support her, it means you’re cool, You’re in with the cool kids.

And if I’m not publicly supportive of her and generally tolerant of her mediocre work, then I’m the bad one, I’m the competitive bitch, I’m the… the bitter failure.

Transparency mode! Eliza reads all of your emails and chats

5 stars, $5. The tip seems to always be $5 if there is one

Is there anything that secret in my electronic messages? I don’t think there’s anything that salacious. Maybe I’m just boring… or maybe I just keep it off the record most of the time. I guess there are a few mad conversations.

Eliza Transparency Mode 0.8.2

Maya’s text conversation with Garrett - super grim. She’s just venting and being sad and he doesn’t know what to do.

$186.11 rideshare bill! $150 cleaning and $10 tip.

Erlend is disturbed by the idea of copying Eliza and sending the data to other teams, including external ones.

You don’t really tell him anything, you just listen and he feels better.

Capitol Hill - is that a real place in Seattle?

I have a jacket like Nora’s

Chat with Erlend - what does it mean to be conscious, to be sentient? Would you even know? What if you just gave the correct responses, but weren’t? Chinese Room

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

In Evelyn’s three lost years. She tried to get up in the morning like she meant to go to work, tried to do personal projects… it didn’t last long.

Stayed in bed, even though she was awake. Cared less and less about projects

A blankness would come over her and it seemed fine to do nothing (depression?)

Evelyn:

I was by myself and I thought that was alright. I thought - that’s how it is, really. Everyone’s along. I’m just being honest about it.

…

I was...thirty-one when I left Soren’s group. Now I’m thirty-four.

I just slept into my mid-thirties.

(I just podcasted…)

Chose to get super high and watch cyber-goth music vids

Chapter 5

Nora is a public critic of Eliza. Rae is sad about it

Everyone is very understanding - trying not to push you one way or the other! Presumably you’ll get a choice how the story goes - whether to work on Eliza or not.

Holiday Durant!

She is so random and all over the place. She tried to buy “forpanza” but it was $162 and she didn’t have that kind of money. Asked for a generic, didn’t have one, there’s a similar one but she didn’t have a prescription. The off to a story about meeting someone with wires in their brain.

Concerned that bus operators don’t care as much since there was a guy playing the guitar on the bus, and also that you don’t hear as much music any more???

A lot of “forced reflow during execution”

Recommended she tries a program “Dolphin Smiles”. Her phone is broken XD

Holiday seems to be the most challenging client for Eliza to understand, since she doesn’t really have any problems other than wanting someone to talk to.

Nora forwards the Eliza critical article to me - it mentions that the proxies are humans that have been reduced to machines as all they do is follow the prompts. The guy who wrote it emailed you earlier about an interview (which you ignored)

Transparency mode for Holiday!? Seems surprising

Fortipran HCl IS for joint and muscle pain, so Eliza’s prescription was on point!

Holiday is clearly NOT in a good place financially.

She never mentioned her real problems to Eliza

I just noticed that one of the early emails you get is “The Damien Seabrook Memorial Fund”, year 3. Who are K & G that sign off the mail?

Transparency mode from SOREN?!?!? Is this hax??

Soren says to Nora that she knows she fancies Evelyn. So it is one of those games :P

Why is your chat with Soren not in here?

He was messaging Sarah, Rainer’s assistant

He was emailing what sounds like a bondage tutorial???

Rainer says that Soren is focussing on dreams to defend his territory, Jung-ian tradition.

Soren believes the mind is indivisible after a certain point - some undefinable, ineffable soul inside every person.

Rainer: One day, algorithms will write better poems than humans ever have.

I’m not sure it’s an easy thing to judge - art is so much about the intent and the journey as much as the result. Look at modern art, like Rothko - it’s very simple, but it’s considered important because of what it means rather than the execution. If a machine just generated it without struggle, would people treat it the same way?

Rainer: The pleasures of the senses are just small bubbles on top of a vast sea of… forms. Sensations, perceptions. Thought. Awareness.

It might be fun to take a break and just debate philosophy for a while.

Rainer: What comes after having the power to experience the dream of anything you could possibly want?

You’re still just as trapped as you’ve always been - imprisoned by your own desires

(this is Maya’s problem)

He calls you Eliza, haha

Evelyn Ishino-Aubrey

You have to answer 7 questions about how you feel - I’m not sure how I should have answered them for Evelyn, I wonder if it makes a difference.

The Eliza interface is projected onto glasses it seems.

Evelyn is middle class or richer, seeing Holiday’s situation was a shock for her.

The proxies were Soren’s idea.

“<NAME>, imagine that you could have something that you wanted. What would you want?”

Does it matter what you pick? You get a huge list, but then it says “or maybe I just wish I could feel connected to someone”. Probably because it’s built on a dating sim :P

Evelyn:

I think maybe that’s the real problem.

I can’t have a connection to anyone…

(is that my problem too?)

“I was alone a lot, and I got used to being alone, and I got used to the idea of being alone, and now I can’t… I can’t break away”

Evelyn is prescribed “Virtual Amphitheatre”, 20 minutes 2-3 times a week

So you CAN tip more than $5, haha

Chapter 6

Erlend talks about dogfooding the apps, which is a term well known in tech circles, but maybe not outside.

Maya Leeds

YOU GET A CHOICE :O

I stuck with Eliza…

Eliza suggests Dolphin Smiles, Maya says she can’t imagine anything she wants less

Hariman Gunawan

Still obsessed with Sylvia. Liz found out and dumped him, Sylvia lost interest.

Eliza suggests breathing exercises, Anexophin

Gabriel Navarro

I super want to know what he’s hiding, but the Eliza questions aren’t that probing. Is the game really really trying to make you break from Eliza?

Gay?

Gabriel: “I’m a man and that’s what men do. I made a promise and now I have a responsibility”

Eliza prescribes stress management exercises, Lytosinol-4 (4 not 2)

Gabriel asks if that’s in addition to or instead of the previous medication (which he didn’t follow up on). Eliza says that she can’t comment further on medication and to discuss the specifics with his doctor or psychiatrist

Receive a thank you email from Allison Zulfiya for inspiring her during a visit to her class

Chose to hang out with Rae

Rae: You have a decision to make about what you’ll be doing in the next chapter of your life and all…

(a bit on the nose there! That’s borderline 4th wall breaking)

Chapter 7

Working on Eliza Ending

Skandha benefits - Activalet. Use the app to summon a personal assistant to book things for you, stand in line for you, receive deliveries for you.

Invitation to be the keynote speaker at the International Mental Wellness Symposium in Malmo, Sweden

Evelyn: We’ll generate a three-year roadmap document by the end of the week, and then a more granular development plan for the next six months or so by the week after.

“Eliza is the real boss. The manager of its own project”

“Through us, it’s realizing itself”

Rainer is a singularity believer

Written by: Matthew Seiji Burns (Zach’s collaborator that likes electronic music)

The Solitaire Game - Maya mentions it if you break the script. It is hard at first, until you learn to think several moves ahead (I think you need to think 3 moves ahead to be able to solve it, since at the end you only have 2 slots free at best).

After winning the first time, I played another game and immediately won that too.

Maya realises that you’re not following the script if you don’t prescribe dolphin smiles

Maya:

“Um. Thanks for listening to me. I’m sure it’s been annoying to hear me complain about how I’m not successful yet, every single week”

“Oh my God, will this bitch ever shut up… you ever think that?”

I’m sure that’s what my therapist was thinking too… :P

Gabriel: If everyone just did what they wanted to all the time, the world would collapse. It would be a disaster.

We all want things we shouldn’t actually have.

Nora Ending

Nora: I don’t feel this weird oppressive hierarchy where people try to figure out where they are relative to you on a ladder when they first meet you…

(this is literally how things work at my real job)

Who is “therationalmind20” Soren? Eldren? Rainer? Someone else?bI feel like I’ve seen the name before somewhere...

“you think you’re so smart but you’re not. women like you have nothing better to do that to criticize because you can’t create on your own.

enjoy your life being a shrill harpy nobody wants to listen to”

(this is from the Nora ending)

There’s no histogram, but the information to create one is collected

https://steamcommunity.com/app/716500/discussions/0/1640919737478105344/

Soren Ending

Soren:

“You know they used to criticize anesthesia. It’s true.”

“They said it was important to feel pain, even during surgery”

Trans cranial current thing - is that what Aponia is? Or at least the real world equivalent is that

Sodality? What does that mean? I learned something new:

a confraternity or association, especially a Roman Catholic religious guild or brotherhood.

One of the benefits touted by Aponia is “increased sodality, transients eliminated”

Counsellor With Rae Ending

Darren comes back to thank you (you Evelyn not Eliza), though really, what are the chances of him getting you as his proxy again?

Also, $100 tip!

Leave It All Behind Ending

Throws away the narrative. Go to Japan, try to find father.

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