#International Literature Competition

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cigna’s nopeinator

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THURSDAY (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Cigna – like all private health insurers – has two contradictory imperatives:

To keep its customers healthy; and

To make as much money for its shareholders as is possible.

Now, there's a hypothetical way to resolve these contradictions, a story much beloved by advocates of America's wasteful, cruel, inefficient private health industry: "If health is a "market," then a health insurer that fails to keep its customers healthy will lose those customers and thus make less for its shareholders." In this thought-experiment, Cigna will "find an equilibrium" between spending money to keep its customers healthy, thus retaining their business, and also "seeking efficiencies" to create a standard of care that's cost-effective.

But health care isn't a market. Most of us get our health-care through our employers, who offer small handful of options that nevertheless manage to be so complex in their particulars that they're impossible to directly compare, and somehow all end up not covering the things we need them for. Oh, and you can only change insurers once or twice per year, and doing so incurs savage switching costs, like losing access to your family doctor and specialists providers.

Cigna – like other health insurers – is "too big to care." It doesn't have to worry about losing your business, so it grows progressively less interested in even pretending to keep you healthy.

The most important way for an insurer to protect its profits at the expense of your health is to deny care that your doctor believes you need. Cigna has transformed itself into a care-denying assembly line.

Dr Debby Day is a Cigna whistleblower. Dr Day was a Cigna medical director, charged with reviewing denied cases, a job she held for 20 years. In 2022, she was forced out by Cigna. Writing for Propublica and The Capitol Forum, Patrick Rucker and David Armstrong tell her story, revealing the true "equilibrium" that Cigna has found:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-medical-director-doctor-patient-preapproval-denials-insurance

Dr Day took her job seriously. Early in her career, she discovered a pattern of claims from doctors for an expensive therapy called intravenous immunoglobulin in cases where this made no medical sense. Dr Day reviewed the scientific literature on IVIG and developed a Cigna-wide policy for its use that saved the company millions of dollars.

This is how it's supposed to work: insurers (whether private or public) should permit all the medically necessary interventions and deny interventions that aren't supported by evidence, and they should determine the difference through internal reviewers who are treated as independent experts.

But as the competitive landscape for US healthcare dwindled – and as Cigna bought out more parts of its supply chain and merged with more of its major rivals – the company became uniquely focused on denying claims, irrespective of their medical merit.

In Dr Day's story, the turning point came when Cinga outsourced pre-approvals to registered nurses in the Philippines. Legally, a nurse can approve a claim, but only an MD can deny a claim. So Dr Day and her colleagues would have to sign off when a nurse deemed a procedure, therapy or drug to be medically unnecessary.

This is a complex determination to make, even under ideal circumstances, but Cigna's Filipino outsource partners were far from ideal. Dr Day found that nurses were "sloppy" – they'd confuse a mother with her newborn baby and deny care on that grounds, or confuse an injured hip with an injured neck and deny permission for an ultrasound. Dr Day reviewed a claim for a test that was denied because STI tests weren't "medically necessary" – but the patient's doctor had applied for a test to diagnose a toenail fungus, not an STI.

Even if the nurses' evaluations had been careful, Dr Day wanted to conduct her own, thorough investigation before overriding another doctor's judgment about the care that doctor's patient warranted. When a nurse recommended denying care "for a cancer patient or a sick baby," Dr Day would research medical guidelines, read studies and review the patient's record before signing off on the recommendation.

This was how the claims denial process is said to work, but it's not how it was supposed to work. Dr Day was markedly slower than her peers, who would "click and close" claims by pasting the nurses' own rationale for denying the claim into the relevant form, acting as a rubber-stamp rather than a skilled reviewer.

Dr Day knew she was slower than her peers. Cigna made sure of that, producing a "productivity dashboard" that scored doctors based on "handle time," which Cigna describes as the average time its doctors spend on different kinds of claims. But Dr Day and other Cigna sources say that this was a maximum, not an average – a way of disciplining doctors.

These were not long times. If a doctor asked Cigna not to discharge their patient from hospital care and a nurse denied that claim, the doctor reviewing that claim was supposed to spend not more than 4.5 minutes on their review. Other timelines were even more aggressive: many denials of prescription drugs were meant to be resolved in fewer than two minutes.

Cigna told Propublica and The Capitol Forum that its productivity scores weren't based on a simple calculation about whether its MD reviewers were hitting these brutal processing time targets, describing the scores as a proprietary mix of factors that reflected a nuanced view of care. But when Propublica and The Capitol Forum created a crude algorithm to generate scores by comparing a doctor's performance relative to the company's targets, they found the results fit very neatly into the actual scores that Cigna assigned to its docs:

The newsrooms’ formula accurately reproduced the scores of 87% of the Cigna doctors listed; the scores of all but one of the rest fell within 1 to 2 percentage points of the number generated by this formula. When asked about this formula, Cigna said it may be inaccurate but didn’t elaborate.

As Dr Day slipped lower on the productivity chart, her bosses pressured her bring her score up (Day recorded her phone calls and saved her emails, and the reporters verified them). Among other things, Dr Day's boss made it clear that her annual bonus and stock options were contingent on her making quota.

Cigna denies all of this. They smeared Dr Day as a "disgruntled former employee" (as though that has any bearing on the truthfulness of her account), and declined to explain the discrepancies between Dr Day's accusations and Cigna's bland denials.

This isn't new for Cigna. Last year, Propublica and Capitol Forum revealed the existence of an algorithmic claims denial system that allowed its doctors to bulk-deny claims in as little as 1.2 seconds:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

Cigna insisted that this was a mischaracterization, saying the system existed to speed up the approval of claims, despite the first-hand accounts of Cigna's own doctors and the doctors whose care recommendations were blocked by the system. One Cigna doctor used this system to "review" and deny 60,000 claims in one month.

Beyond serving as an indictment of the US for-profit health industry, and of Cigna's business practices, this is also a cautionary tale about the idea that critical AI applications can be resolved with "humans in the loop."

AI pitchmen claim that even unreliable AI can be fixed by adding a "human in the loop" that reviews the AI's judgments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

In this world, the AI is an assistant to the human. For example, a radiologist might have an AI double-check their assessments of chest X-rays, and revisit those X-rays where the AI's assessment didn't match their own. This robot-assisted-human configuration is called a "centaur."

In reality, "human in the loop" is almost always a reverse-centaur. If the hospital buys an AI, fires half its radiologists and orders the remainder to review the AI's superhuman assessments of chest X-rays, that's not an AI assisted radiologist, that's a radiologist-assisted AI. Accuracy goes down, but so do costs. That's the bet that AI investors are making.

Many AI applications turn out not to even be "AI" – they're just low-waged workers in an overseas call-center pretending to be an algorithm (some Indian techies joke that AI stands for "absent Indians"). That was the case with Amazon's Grab and Go stores where, supposedly, AI-enabled cameras counted up all the things you put in your shopping basket and automatically billed you for them. In reality, the cameras were connected to Indian call-centers where low-waged workers made those assessments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

This Potemkin AI represents an intermediate step between outsourcing and AI. Over the past three decades, the growth of cheap telecommunications and logistics systems let corporations outsource customer service to low-waged offshore workers. The corporations used the excuse that these subcontractors were far from the firm and its customers to deny them any agency, giving them rigid scripts and procedures to follow.

This was a very usefully dysfunctional system. As a customer with a complaint, you would call the customer service line, wait for a long time on hold, spend an interminable time working through a proscribed claims-handling process with a rep who was prohibited from diverging from that process. That process nearly always ended with you being told that nothing could be done.

At that point, a large number of customers would have given up on getting a refund, exchange or credit. The money paid out to the few customers who were stubborn or angry enough to karen their way to a supervisor and get something out of the company amounted to pennies, relative to the sums the company reaped by ripping off the rest.

The Amazon Grab and Go workers were humans in robot suits, but these customer service reps were robots in human suits. The software told them what to say, and they said it, and all they were allowed to say was what appeared on their screens. They were reverse centaurs, serving as the human faces of the intransigent robots programmed by monopolists that were too big to care.

AI is the final stage of this progression: robots without the human suits. The AI turns its "human in the loop" into a "moral crumple zone," which Madeleine Clare Elish describes as "a component that bears the brunt of the moral and legal responsibilities when the overall system malfunctions":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The Filipino nurses in the Cigna system are an avoidable expense. As Cigna's own dabbling in algorithmic claim-denial shows, they can be jettisoned in favor of a system that uses productivity dashboards and other bossware to push doctors to robosign hundreds or thousands of denials per day, on the pretense that these denials were "reviewed" by a licensed physician.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

[metamatar]

In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People's Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideological auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India's past.

Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the dominant culture language of precolonial southern Asia outside the Persianate order. Hindutva propagandists have sought to show, for example, that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, and they purport to decipher Indus Valley seals to prove its presence two millennia before it actually came into existence. In a farcical repetition of Romanic myths of primevality, Sanskrit is considered—according to the characteristic hyperbole of the VHP—the source and sole preserver of world culture.

This anxiety has a longer and rather melancholy history in independent India, far antedating the rise of the BJP. [...] Some might argue that as a learned language of intellectual discourse and belles lettres, Sanskrit had never been exactly alive in the first place [...] the assumption that Sanskrit was never alive has discouraged the attempt to grasp its later history; after all, what is born dead has no later history. As a result, there exist no good accounts or theorizations of the end of the cultural order that for two millennia exerted a transregional influence across Asia-South, Southeast, Inner, and even East Asia that was unparalleled until the rise of Americanism and global English. We have no clear understanding of whether, and if so, when, Sanskrit culture ceased to make history; whether, and if so, why, it proved incapable of preserving into the present the creative vitality it displayed in earlier epochs, and what this loss of effectivity might reveal about those factors within the wider world of society and polity that had kept it vital.

[...] What follows here is a first attempt to understand something of the death of Sanskrit literary culture as a historical process. Four cases are especially instructive: The disappearance of Sanskrit literature in Kashmir, a premier center of literary creativity, after the thirteenth century; its diminished power in sixteenth century Vijayanagara, the last great imperial formation of southern India; its short-lived moment of modernity at the Mughal court in mid-seventeenth century Delhi; and its ghostly existence in Bengal on the eve of colonialism. Each case raises a different question: first, about the kind of political institutions and civic ethos required to sustain Sanskrit literary culture; second, whether and to what degree competition with vernacular cultures eventually affected it; third, what factors besides newness of style or even subjectivity would have been necessary for consolidating a Sanskrit modernity, and last, whether the social and spiritual nutrients that once gave life to this literary culture could have mutated into the toxins that killed it. [...]

One causal account, however, for all the currency it enjoys in the contemporary climate, can be dismissed at once: that which traces the decline of Sanskrit culture to the coming of Muslim power. The evidence adduced here shows this to be historically untenable. It was not "alien rule un sympathetic to kavya" and a "desperate struggle with barbarous invaders" that sapped the strength of Sanskrit literature. In fact, it was often the barbarous invader who sought to revive Sanskrit. [...]

One of these was the internal debilitation of the political institutions that had previously underwritten Sanskrit, pre-eminently the court. Another was heightened competition among a new range of languages seeking literary-cultural dignity. These factors did not work everywhere with the same force. A precipitous decline in Sanskrit creativity occurred in Kashmir, where vernacular literary production in Kashmiri-the popularity of mystical poets like Lalladevi (fl. 1400) notwithstanding-never produced the intense competition with the literary vernacular that Sanskrit encountered elsewhere (in Kannada country, for instance, and later, in the Hindi heartland). Instead, what had eroded dramatically was what I called the civic ethos embodied in the court. This ethos, while periodically assaulted in earlier periods (with concomitant interruptions in literary production), had more or less fully succumbed by the thirteenth century, long before the consolidation of Turkish power in the Valley. In Vijayanagara, by contrast, while the courtly structure of Sanskrit literary culture remained fully intact, its content became increasingly subservient to imperial projects, and so predictable and hollow. Those at court who had anything literarily important to say said it in Telugu or (outside the court) in Kannada or Tamil; those who did not, continued to write in Sanskrit, and remain unread. In the north, too, where political change had been most pronounced, competence in Sanskrit remained undiminished during the late-medieval/early modern period. There, scholarly families reproduced themselves without discontinuity-until, that is, writers made the decision to abandon Sanskrit in favor of the increasingly attractive vernacular. Among the latter were writers such as Kesavdas, who, unlike his father and brother, self-consciously chose to become a vernacular poet. And it is Kesavdas, Biharilal, and others like them whom we recall from this place and time, and not a single Sanskrit writer. [...]

The project and significance of the self-described "new intellectuals" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries [...] what these scholars produced was a newness of style without a newness of substance. The former is not meaningless and needs careful assessment and appreciation. But, remarkably, the new and widespread sense of discontinuity never stimulated its own self-analysis. No idiom was developed in which to articulate a new relationship to the past, let alone a critique; no new forms of knowledge-no new theory of religious identity, for example, let alone of the political-were produced in which the changed conditions of political and religious life could be conceptualized. And with very few exceptions (which suggest what was in fact possible), there was no sustained creation of new literature-no Sanskrit novels, personal poetry, essays-giving voice to the new subjectivity. Instead, what the data from early nineteenth-century Bengal-which are paralleled every where-demonstrate is that the mental and social spheres of Sanskrit literary production grew ever more constricted, and the personal and this-worldly, and eventually even the presentist-political, evaporated, until only the dry sediment of religious hymnology remained. [...]

In terms of both the subjects considered acceptable and the audience it was prepared to address, Sanskrit had chosen to make itself irrelevant to the new world. This was true even in the extra-literary domain. The struggles against Christian missionizing, for example, that preoccupied pamphleteers in early nineteenth-century Calcutta, took place almost exclusively in Bengali. Sanskrit intellectuals seemed able to respond, or were interested in responding, only to a challenge made on their own terrain-that is, in Sanskrit. The case of the professor of Sanskrit at the recently-founded Calcutta Sanskrit College (1825), Ishwarachandra Vidyasagar, is emblematic: When he had something satirical, con temporary, critical to say, as in his anti-colonial pamphlets, he said it, not in Sanskrit, but in Bengali. [...]

No doubt, additional factors conditioned this profound transformation, something more difficult to characterize having to do with the peculiar status of Sanskrit intellectuals in a world growing increasingly unfamiliar to them. As I have argued elsewhere, they may have been led to reaffirm the old cosmopolitanism, by way of ever more sophisticated refinements in ever smaller domains of knowledge, in a much-changed cultural order where no other option made sense: neither that of the vernacular intellectual, which was a possible choice (as Kabir and others had earlier shown), nor that of the national intellectual, which as of yet was not. At all events, the fact remains that well before the consolidation of colonialism, before even the establishment of the Islamicate political order, the mastery of tradition had become an end in itself for Sanskrit literary culture, and reproduction, rather than revitalization, the overriding concern. As the realm of the literary narrowed to the smallest compass of life-concerns, so Sanskrit literature seemed to seek the smallest possible audience. However complex the social processes at work may have been, the field of Sanskrit literary production increasingly seemed to belong to those who had an "interest in disinterestedness," as Bourdieu might put it; the moves they made seem the familiar moves in the game of elite distinction that inverts the normal principles of cultural economies and social orders: the game where to lose is to win. In the field of power of the time, the production of Sanskrit literature had become a paradoxical form of life where prestige and exclusivity were both vital and terminal.

The Death of Sanskrit, Sheldon Pollock, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Apr., 2001), pp. 392-426 (35 pages)

[brian-in-finance]

Twitter

KIN and Lies We Tell lead Irish Film and Television Academy Award nominations

Charlie Cox and Clare Dunne in KIN

RTÉ crime drama KIN and psychological thriller Lies We Tell lead this year's IFTA nominations.

The Irish Film and Television Academy Awards will take place on Saturday 20 April with winners being announced across 28 different categories celebrating the best of Irish film and TV drama. The Awards will be hosted for the first time by Emmy-winning broadcaster Baz Ashmawy.

RTÉ's KIN, which follows the notorious Kinsella family, has received 11 drama nominations including Best Drama, as well as Lead Actor for Francis Magee and Sam Keeley, and Lead Actress for Clare Dunne.

Michael Smiley plays a father on the edge in Obituary

Magee and Keeley are up against some strong competition with Michael Smiley (Obituary), Éanna Hardwicke (The Sixth Commandment) Daryl McCormack (The Woman in the Wall) also nominated. While Dunne competes with Sharon Horgan (Best Interests), Niamh Algar (Malpractice), Elva Trill (Northern Lights), Siobhán Cullen (Obituary) and Caitríona Balfe (Outlander).

The Best Drama category showcases a wealth of homegrown talent with Blue Lights, Hidden Assets, Northern Lights, Obituary and The Woman in the Wall also vying for the coveted award.

Agnes O'Casey stars in Lies We Tell

Over in the film categories Lisa Mulcahy’s gothic Irish tale, Lies We Tell, has received a whopping 13 nominations including Best Film, Lead Actor for David Wilmot, Lead Actress for Agnes O’Casey and Best Director for Mulcahy.

It will be a hotly contested battle for the Lead Actor award with Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), Andrew Scott (All Of Us Strangers), Barry Keoghan (Saltburn), Barry Ward (That We May Face The Rising Sun) and Pierce Brosnan (The Last Rifleman) also in the running.

Jessie Buckey stars in the romantic drama movie Fingernails

The same goes for the Lead Actress category which sees O'Casey compete with Jessie Buckley (Fingernails), Eve Hewson (Flora and Son), Saoirse Ronan (Foe), Bríd Brennan (My Sailor, My Love) and Geraldine McAlinden (Verdigris).

Also nominated for Best Film are pharmaceutical horror-thriller Double Blind, John Carney's Flora and Son, quirky sci-fi fable LOLA, John McGahern's That They May Face The Rising Sun and Patricia Kelly's debut feature film, Verdigris.

Stephen Rea will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's ceremony. The award will be presented to the Oscar-nominated actor for his outstanding contribution to the Irish and international screen industry over a career that has spanned five decades.

Responding to the Lifetime Achievement Award announcement, Rea said: "So much of Irish culture has been recovered and reimagined. Music, language, literature, theatre.

Stephen Rea will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award

"And cinema can be added to that list because of the special energy of John Boorman who produced Neil Jordan's first film Angel. And to my astonishment, my first film too. Neil thrust the script and a saxophone into my hands and suddenly I was in the movies. Well, one really original movie, which was at the beginning of a new confidence in Irish cinema.

"And now many films later, IFTA have, equally surprisingly, offered me a Lifetime Achievement Award. A lifetime of collaboration with the most generous and creative artists you could ever work with. And hang out with. Thanks to all of them. Thank you IFTA."

RTÉ 🎧 Radio News Cip and Full List of Nominations

Remember her 10th IFTA Nomination? ☘️

[bookaddict24-7]

I was doing my random scroll on Booklr looking for new bookish posts to queue, and I’ve come across a few posts saying stuff along the lines of “forget reading goals and read slower so you can fully take in and understand a book”. (Not those exact words, but basically the gist of it.)

While I agree that some people definitely read for the “goal” of it, others are just…fast readers? Others are also audiobook listeners.

I’ll say what I told an ex-coworker once, after she kept making snide comments about my reading habits: it’s not a competition. We all read at our own pace and enjoy what we read in our own way.

I read at my own speed because I am voracious and I genuinely feel like I have an endless TBR that I want to read before I die. I also work at a bookstore—so I treat it like product knowledge. Just because I can read a book I’m enjoying quickly, doesn’t mean I didn’t understand it/appreciate it/internalize it. I’ve been reading this way since I was young and have always dealt with people making these comments.

We are all different, and that’s the beauty of reading!

I get that these messages are meant to be empowering and positive, especially for those who feel like they’re competing or being judged for how much or how little they read, but in some aspects, they often feel like they belittle those who read things differently than others—as if your reading habits are wrong or less valued if you don’t follow the socially acceptable way of reading a book (i.e. not devouring a book, but lingering on it.)

You can linger, highlight, comment, and breathe the book in like it’s the most delicious piece of literature you’ve ever tasted. But you can also inhale it in gulps, feast on the words, and gorge yourself on the story and still capture the meanings and importance of a story.

This is all to say that everyone should read the way they want to. Who cares if someone else is reading for a goal? Who cares if x,y, and z read so and so number of books? Who cares if someone has found joy in reading by quickly reading a book and not remembering any of it? How is that affecting you?

Your reading is valid, my reading is valid, their reading is valid. Just let people enjoy themselves and stop shaming others for not following this strange and limiting standard that haunts the reading community.

Happy reading!

[scotianostra]

On May 2nd May 1901 The Glasgow International Exhibition in Kelvingrove opened.

The second of 4 international exhibitions held in Glasgow was opened on 2 May and ran until 9 November, covering roughly 73 acres of ground in Kelvingrove Park. Among the multitude of temporary buildings was this concert hall on the banks of the River Kelvin, with seating for 3,000 people. A full programme of concerts was organised for the duration of the exhibition, featuring performers from all over Europe.

Its centrepiece was the new Art Galley and Museum which appropriately housed the Fine Art section, including work by the “Glasgow boys” who were by now acknowledged as internationally important artists. But the exhibition’s main building was the temporary Eastern Palace; its architect was James Millar who won an open competition with his design which satisfied the extravagance demanded by the public. This Oriental fantasy, with its strong suggestions of 16th century Spanish Renaissance architecture, was topped by a grand dome adorned by an electric-torch wielding golden angel of light. There were also separate buildings for industrial and machinery displays, concert halls, foreign pavilions, numerous restaurants and cafes, as well as many minor buildings covering subjects such as agriculture and heating and lighting. Some idea of the sheer scale and grandeur of the enterprise can be realised in examining the exhibition plan in the first picture.

It’ hard to imagine the planning that went into this and the scale of the whole thing, for example, a whole Russian village of 7 buildings, there was a model farm complete with working dairy, windmill and grieve’s house, a Grand concert hall with seating for more than 3,000, and a new sports ground at Gilmorehill with a four-lap cement cycle track, cinder pedestrian course, football pitch and stand accommodation for 25,000 spectators. The suggestion of limitless resources was enhanced by the breathtaking electrical illuminations which lit up many of the attractions by night.

Although it lacked the novelty of 1888, Glasgow’s second major exhibition was still enormously popular, resulting in attendance figures of over a staggering 11,000,000.

Thanks to the railways, journeys were now relatively easy and inexpensive, and tourism was growing. Visitors from afar were encouraged to explore further, and the beauty of the surrounding countryside was heavily promoted in the publicity literature.

The Palace of Fine Arts at the exhibition remained as a permanent legacy, now known as Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

[polandspringz]

Chapter Summary:

The holidays are here, and MC has been promoted from managing multiple departments to multiple dates.

Story Summary: Set in a modern society, where there are no demons or angels, the Celestial and Devildom Corporations have held a longstanding rivalry as the two most wealthy and influential brands in this city. After years of competition, they surprised the public with news of a partnership. Their first joint effort: Sponsoring one special intern each who will work to unite the businesses using their outsider perspective and communication skills that the old CEOs, and their heirs, seem to fail at. You, MC, thought you were selected as one of them. Apparently someone misread the skill section of your resume though, and hired you as a family therapist and mystery detective too.

Chapter will be posted below, but please click the link to comment on AO3 and leave kudos!

Exams were over.

You breathed a sigh of relief when you finished checking over your Scantron for the five hundredth time, being sure-sure that you didn’t accidentally skip a question and fill in all the bubbles one off, and that your name was an actual word and not just the scribbles your sleep deprived and study-crammed brain believed it was. You quickly got up, handed your paper in, and as quietly as possible, scurried back to your seat where you grabbed all your belongings and escaped the classroom, unfortunately failing as you banged your shin on the doorframe in your haste.

Satan was waiting for you outside, sitting on a raised platform for a display in the art building. A book held open with a single hand, his thumb pressing against the inside of the spine and keeping it crisply open, he smiled and looked up when your shadow approached and cast over him.

“All done?”

“All done!” You stretched your arms in the air high and cheered. He chuckled at your childish moment and closed the book, tucking it away and standing up himself, pushing off his long and lanky legs until he was at his full height in front of you.

“Congratulations are in order then.”

“Don’t say that. I don’t know my grade yet.”

“MC.” He leveled you with a serious stare, incredulous at your statement, “You have almost a 4.0 GPA. You were spouting facts at me for the past two days, there’s no way you didn’t vomit all of that out perfectly onto your test.”

“Ugh, even if it's someone like you saying it, the word vomit still sounds gross. Don’t use it,” you said, slinging your backpack onto your back and making a disgusted face.

“Would you prefer retch? What about regurgitate?”

“I feel like regurgitate is the more appropriate one in this scenario, oh-mister-literature-major.”

“I’ll use whatever phrase gets you to walk faster. Come on, let’s get you home and to sleep already. I don’t want to have to carry you.”

“But my brain is soooo tired,” you whined dramatically, and he pushed you forward as you dug your heels into the ground.

“But not your legs. Besides, carrying you is Mammon’s job, not mine.”

You flushed, and rocked back onto the balls of your feet, hurrying out of the art building doors. Satan could be heard laughing softly behind you.

**

Although the holiday break for the D.C. didn’t start until the 29th, Diavolo had been kind and merciful to the college students among his employees and gifted Satan and you an early day off from the company. Although-although, from Lucifer’s perspective, only you had an official day off from work. Satan was just off from school, as he was still unaware of his more permanent position in the company at the moment. While he knew that his brother skulked around the company’s publishing department without authorization, and that Satan had adopted a uniform similar to what the rest of the department heads wore, he was still oblivious to the conspiracy that Diavolo and Satan had been enacting.  You tried not to dwell on it for too long, for fear that you would vomit the words out with anxiety.

Nonetheless, the two of you had the day off. So, while the rest of the brothers were suffering at their desk jobs so close to a holiday, you and Satan were spending the day sprawled across various surfaces, going from passed out in your beds to half asleep at the dining room table in your bowls of cereal, draped across arm chairs, to finally in a heap on the couch as a book lay discarded on the floor, slipped from the blonde’s fingers, and the television remote upside down and the batteries exposed as the drop popped the cover off the back.

You were fast asleep until your phone began to buzz, pinned somewhere on the couch between your pile of limbs and the cushions, and you both began to grumble and squirm in an attempt to find it. Satan ended up kicking you off in his annoyance, dropping you onto the floor directly onto your ass, but your phone slipped out and into your hands, so it all worked out in the end. You glanced at the caller I.D.

Levi.

Wait a minute. Levi was calling you?

Not texting?

Your sleep-addled brain jolted itself awake and you hurried to accept the call.

There was a moment of silence on both ends. You had expected him to say something first.

“H-hello?”

“...MC.”

“Yes, Levi? It’s me? Why are you calling? Are you okay?”

“What do you mean? Of course I’m okay. Why are you acting like you were worried about me or something?”

The defensiveness in Levi’s voice was harsh, but not unfamiliar. You knew he was hiding something.

“Levi,” you said calmly, “You know I won’t judge you or anything. It’s just that I know you hate phone calls, so I was surprised when you didn’t just text me instead.”

“It’s because… It’s because it’s important.”

You hummed in agreement, and crossed your legs, “I figured. What’s up?” You said sweetly, trying to coax him with patience.

“A-are you free tonight?”

“I am. Why?”

“B-because the- becausethemoviecomesouttonightandyoupromisedyouwould-”

“Wait, Levi, what? The movie?”

“See? I knew it was stupid. You stupid normie. Forgetting about the promise you made me and-”

The promise? Oh. You sat up, “The Ruri-chan movie, right? I didn’t forget, Levi. I just woke up a minute ago, my brain is still a little slow. Of course I’ll go with you. Can we still get tickets though?”

“...I bought them already. I bought them when they went on sale months ago.”

“Months ago, huh? You’re really excited about this, huh? Guess I better dress up then.” You rubbed your eyes sleepily, thoughts slowly coming together in your brain, “Wait a second, months ago?” Your brain pieced together images of your calendar, and Levi had only brought the movie up to you a few weeks ago. Did that mean then-?

“It’s not what you think!” He squawked on the other end, “I just- I just accidentally bought an extra ticket, and then I needed to find someone else to go with. No- wait! I meant that I didn’t want to sit next to anyone weird so I bought the seats around me so that I would be left alone!”

“Does that mean you don’t want me sitting next to you?”

“No! That’s not- You’re-! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The movie’s at midnight so just be ready by ten o’clock! You better not fall asleep during the movie or I’ll never forgive you!”

“Aye, aye, captain Levi,” you saluted, “I’ll go back to my bed so I’ll be all rested up for later.”

“I’ll be home soon, so I’ll make sure to wake you up in time!”

“Thank you, Levi. Bye bye,” you shut your eyes as you waved at the wall across from you, slowly pulling the phone away as you pressed down on the power button, ending the call. Satan shuffled around behind you, sitting up. You looked back at him, seeing how his blonde bangs were sticking up in all different directions from being face down on the couch.

“You’re going out tonight?”

“Yeah, I had made a deal with Levi a few weeks ago. But I don’t mind. I just have to lose this headache.”

“Post finals exhaustion does that to you. To us, I guess. Come back to bed?”

“Don’t phrase it like that around Mammon, unless you want to get your head ripped off. And you were the one who kicked me off the couch.”

“Your phone was annoying me. Come on.”

It was rare for Satan to whine, but you guessed sleepiness did that to any of the brothers. You accepted his hand and crawled back onto the cushions, flopping down again. Satan remained sitting, reaching over and rattling with something before he held that something out in front of your lips.

“Tylenol. Open.”

You obliged and he leaned over to fetch one of your water bottles off the coffee table.

**

“Levi, you look fine! Come on, let’s go already-!”

You were tugging on his arm, careful not to pull on any of the ribbon tails and ruffles that were fluttering about between the game of tug of war.

“No! I can’t! Let me get changed first! It’s stupid! I look stupid! I know I do!”

“We’re going to be late-! Come on!”

You yanked with all your strength and stumbled backwards through the doorway into the hall, sending Levi tumbling with you, revealing his state to the rest of the household who had been watching your struggle curiously.

While you had opted for something comfortable for going to the movies, Levi had decided to go all out. Well, he wasn’t Levi right now, he was a perfect recreation of Ruri-chan, wig, contacts, and all. And while he looked stunning and made your jaw drop, he unfortunately mistook your reaction and began crying and slamming the door in your face.

But you had gotten him out of his room. So step one was done.

He was sitting in a heap of his skirt and petticoat, on the verge of tears now feeling all the eyes of his brothers on him, but you didn’t have time to dwell on that. You grabbed him by the wrist again and pulled him to his feet, marching down the hall to the front door.

“Do you have the tickets?”

“H-Huh? Yes, they’re on my phone-”

“Is your phone charged?”

“I have a portable battery with me!”

“And?”

“And a wire!” He said between sniffles.

You got to the entranceway, and stuffed your feet into your shoes without letting go of Levi, still worried he would bolt the moment you did, but he seemed too occupied sniffling and trying not to rub his makeup off his face as he stood there waiting for you. When you stood back up, you took a good look at him, and sighed.

“Wait right here. Don’t run back in your room, you hear me?”

You didn’t wait for his response. You went back to his bedroom and glanced around until you spotted it, grabbing the bag off of his dresser. You marched back past the stares until you reached the sniffles again, and squatted down so you could place the pouch on your legs as you fished around in it.

“What are you-?”

“Shush. I’m fixing your makeup.”

 You found the foundation he had been using and dabbed it on top of the eyeliner and mascara that was starting to blur underneath his eyes, and then found the brush he had been using and added a new swirl of pink on his lower lash line. You inspected his face for another minute, trying to see if anything else needed tweaking.

The makeup bag was heavy in your hands, and a distant part of your mind thought about if only Asmo was here, maybe Levi would be more confident.

But there was no time for that. And besides, Levi seemed pretty adept at makeup himself, based on what he had done before you walked in, and all the products in the bag seemed to be his own as well. If you didn’t think that before, well, the obvious Ruri-chan collaboration branding on all the products solidified it.

“Alright. We’re going out! We’ll be back late! Don’t wait up!” You called to the others, mainly to Lucifer, as you took Levi’s hand and opened the front door. You saw the eldest lift his hand in brisque acknowledgment, but you didn’t miss the smile that was pulling at his lips from just over the newspaper.

You and Levi walked through the snowfall, hurrying across town to the theater where the premiere would be happening. Levi was still panicking, begging for you to take a cab because of all the normies staring at the two of you, but traffic was terrible right now and-

You turned to him with your hands on your hips, clicking your tongue as you looked him up and down.

“Do you really want to wrinkle your dress before we get there?”

“H-huh?”

“If we go in a car your cosplay is going to be ruined! R-u-i-n-e-d. You hear me? You worked so hard on this, we want it to look perfect when we get to the theater in case people want to take pictures or something, don’t we? Now come on.”

You grabbed Levi’s hand again, but when you moved forward, he stalled, jolting you to a stop. He was standing there with his mouth agape slightly.

“What?”

“It’s just… You…” His mouth floundered over the words as he seemed caught in a daze looking at you, until…

“Asmo’s really rubbed off on you, huh?”

You swore you had been knocked off your feet.

You blamed it on the lighting. The damn snowfall, the warm glow of the streetlight, the atmosphere was all too alike some drama or something you had seen on tv. Levi’s smile was radiant, bigger than it had been in a while, his eyes shut and crinkled at the edges as he held the Ruri-chan wand clasped between his hands, and he just kept smiling. Damn, you were faithful to Mammon, but this feeling was different, was so overpowering, so kind and warm-

You smiled back, and slowly reached your hand out to retwine your fingers with his.

“He’s really done a number on me, hasn’t he? Now, come on. I want to show you off already.”

“Show me off?”

“Yes you big goof. You made the entire costume didn’t you? We have to show them who the ultimate fan is.”

**

Around three in the morning, the front door creaked open, sending a crack of light cutting across the apartment, and two figures slinked inside the darkness, their shadows swaying in the light across the floor. One of them guided the other towards the couch, where they collapsed in a heap while the other moved to the kitchen. The door was shut now, bathing them both in darkness, but even if their roles were reversed, they both knew the layout of their home by heart.

Leviathan brought two cups of hot chocolate back to the couch, stopping and glancing over the cups as he regarded you. Curled across the cushions again, your fingers were still holding onto some polaroid print outs you had been developing while waiting for him. Levi set the cups down and then picked one of them from your hand, smiling down at the selfie the two of you had taken before the premiere, blurry as you were running to get in line, but both of you still threw up peace signs, although only your eyes and up were visible in the shot, Levi more in frame as he was running somewhat behind.

He carefully removed the wig, sliding his fingers under the sides by his ears, finding which way the bobby pins were in and pushing the wig down and then up, carefully unclipping the pigtails and setting them aside (they would be a nightmare to untangle but he would worry about that later) before he knelt down in front of you. Your eyes were shut, and your chest rose and fell gently with each breath. He took the other polaroid from your hand and smiled at it before setting them both down on the coffee table. Then, he took your hand in his and whispered.

“Thank you.”

**

The next morning was back to work. And you were kind of regretting going on so late with Levi, as your headache from yesterday was back with an even stronger vengeance. Levi was no doubt accustomed to all these late nights, but you only had the endurance of a college student. The only blessing you had was that since it was the 24th, the Celestial Corporation was on their holiday, which meant you didn’t have to film anything today. Instead, you and Levi were in charge of managing the editing team as you began to work on piecing together the early episodes of the web series.

It should have been a simple day, it should have been easy on your eyes and your pulsing skull. Lowlights in one of the computer labs as you just let the editors do their thing, Asmo taking pity on you and deciding not to bother you while he went back to preparing for his collection. However, Mammon was either as oblivious as his brothers teased him to be or he just did not care, because it was the fifth time in the past hour he had snuck away from his desk to try and-

“Mammon! What are you doing here?” Lucifer had taken to guarding your door, waiting for the second eldest to slink back here.

“L-Luce! Come on, not you too!”

“MC is busy with a very important project for Lord Diavolo, as you should know. And shouldn’t you also be finishing up your end of year reports if you don’t want to ring in the new year locked in the building.”

“Come on, Luce! Please, just hear me out-”

As if sensing your pounding headache, Lucifer stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

**

Mammon and Lucifer must have talked, because towards the end of the day, Lucifer showed up in your doorway looking… fidgety?

“Is something the matter?”

He cleared his throat, and hid his expression behind his hand, “I would like to apologize for Mammon’s behavior earlier today.”

“It’s okay. Did he finish his reports?”

“Ahem. He will, however I have allowed him to leave early today.”

“Oh. That’s a surprise.”

“Yes, well. He will accompany you home. You are dismissed.”

And Lucifer staggered out of the office then. Something was up. He was like a robot. Or maybe the relief of the upcoming holidays had finally kick-started his body into shutdown mode, knowing he could relax for even a day. Just as your door closed, two things happened then. A text on your phone, and the door swinging open again.

“Uh, hey, MC.”

It was Mammon.

“Hi?” You crossed your arms and stood up, leaning against the front desk of the computer lab, “What’s been with you all day?”

“Uh… Nothing. Do you still have a headache?”

Hm. Well, points for noticing that. “It’s mostly gone now. I probably just need some more sleep.”

“Ah. I see. Then… ah, nevermind. You probably want to sleep, you just said so yourself. Come on, let’s go home-”

“Mammon, wait,” you stepped forward and grabbed his arm before he could rush out the door, “You’ve been acting weird all day. You don’t get to blow me off like that. Something is up. Tell me.”

“Argh. I wanted to do it smoother than this.”

“Well, you can’t. So just tell me.”

You let go of him, and he pivoted back to face you. He was standing stiff, arms at his side, and looking down at his feet. He seemed nervous, his mouth fighting itself to settle on an expression.

“It’s just… you know what today is, right?”

“Christmas Eve?”

“Yeah, and… do you know what that means?”

“Tomorrow’s Christmas?”

“Yes- but- well- argh!”

“Mammon. Just tell me.”

The man was silent, and you watched color bloom across his face, his skin darkening with warmth as he fought off his embarrassment.

“Well, in this city… they consider Christmas a l-lover’s day, is all… and I was thinking-”

Oh. You weren’t expecting that.

“I didn’t know if you wanted to go out tonight. You’ve been really busy, and then you weren’t feeling well so I was thinking even doing something small together would be fine. But-”

You leaned forward and pressed a kiss on his cheek, shutting him up.

“That’s sweet of you to think of me. Thank you.”

“Uh. You’re welc-”

“But, Asmo texted me. He wants me to stop by tonight.”

Mammon’s face fell.

“Argh! That idiot! It’s bad enough that he has you in his department, now he wants to take all your free time too?”

“Mammon, it’s fine. I’ll just stop by. You can come with me. And besides, does lover’s day only have to be on Christmas Eve? Can’t we do something tomorrow too?”

“But, Lucifer only gave me-”

“It’s fine,” The door opened again, and Lucifer re-entered, “Mammon, just finish your reports when you finish them. I won’t keep you tonight or tomorrow, or on New Year’s for that matter.”

“What? Really?!”

You noticed Lucifer’s posture was different. If he was listening outside the whole time, then he heard you mention Asmo. He had a far off look in his eyes, and he pursed his lips as he mulled over what to say next.

“Do you… not want me to stop by tonight?”

“Wha- no, no. That’s not it. I-” He sighed and covered his face with his hand. Uncharacteristically lax for him, especially while still at the office. Mammon relaxed too, moving closer to his brother with worry on his face, “I apologize. I don’t intend to put you on the spot, but if you are going over there anyway, could I ask you to deliver something to him?”

“Sure? What is it?”

Lucifer reached inside his coat pocket and, with shaking hands you noticed, produced an envelope. A card of sorts.

“A gift. For Christmas. Since I don’t expect him to be home to receive it, and it would be wrong to give him something this personal during work hours.”

“Personal? So it’s not the bonus checks?”

Lucifer frowned at Mammon, “No. And even though I am giving you a pass for the holidays, it is still being discussed whether your performance this year warrants a bonus at all.”

“Hey!”

“I’ll deliver it,” You reached out to take the envelope from his hand, “I’m sure Asmo will be happy.”

“Thank you,” Lucifer had the smallest smile on his face. It was weak, but not marred by his normal serious facade. It was genuine, but it was all he could muster. Even Mammon had gone silent, and seemed to be thinking something over. You turned to him to try and cheer him up.

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you too. We’ll just stop by, and I’m sure there will be time for us to do something afterwards. Okay?”

“Okay,” he grumbled, returning to his usual self, “But hurry up. Get your coat, let’s get going already.”

**

The walk to Solomon’s apartment was rather quiet. Mammon didn’t know the way, so he followed you the whole time. The wind was brisk, but it wasn’t enough to buffet you back. Still, you pulled your coat around you tighter, and only smiled when Mammon stopped to wrap his scarf around your neck.

You took the elevator to the familiar apartment. You texted Asmo that you would be up in a minute, and so when you got to the door, you only knocked once before it was pulled open, revealing Solomon’s smiling face.

“MC! Thank you so much for coming!”

“It’s nothing. I feel bad that I didn’t give Asmo enough attention today. I had a headache, so-”

As you stepped through the threshold, you saw Solomon’s eyes drift behind you, noticing Mammon’s presence.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I forgot to mention that Mammon was accompanying me. Is it okay if he comes in?”

“Of course,” Solomon said, smile never faltering. He stepped aside and gestured for you both to step inside, “I’m sure Asmo will be delighted to see one of his brothers.”

“We won’t be long, I promise. What did Asmo want me to come over for anyway?”

“He wanted to give you a gift. We do have some snacks set out though if you want.”

“Are you having a party?”

“Nah, just for us,” Solomon popped a cube of cheese in his mouth, “Although we’ll probably vlog and use it for some content of sorts. Here, sit down. Let me go get Asmo.”

Solomon left the room, leaving you and Mammon on the couch with the charcuterie board. Mammon was still silent, but he was leaning with his arms over the back of the couch, his head rolling as he sized up the place. You searched for the envelope in your bag, finding it just as Asmo’s singsong voice sounded.

“Darling~! Oh thank you for stopping by! I know it’s out of your way, but I simply had to-”

He had run into the room and immediately rushed you in a hug before you could fully stand up. You barely saw his outfit, only a flurry of fabrics of purple and pink and fuzzy textures in your vision before his arms wrapped around you. When he pulled back, you saw his face decorated in makeup, including little stars and glitter over his blush. His golden eyes were accentuated by the shimmering eyeshadow he had on, and you watched those golden eyes go from happiness to confusion when they spotted the person behind you.

Asmo pulled away, his arms falling to his sides as he went silent. Mammon stood up and just stared at his brother, and you felt their gazes boring into you, so you looked to Solomon for support. He was standing back, watching with an unreadable expression. You fumbled with the envelope.

“Oh, sorry. Mammon was walking me home. We won’t stay too long. Why did you want me to come over?’

That seemed to snap him out of it, at least enough to slip his mask on, “Oh, yes! I have a gift for you!” He turned to Solomon and took several shopping bags from his lover’s arm, moving to hand them off to you, “Here!”

You nearly dropped the bags as their string handles slipped into your hands, “You said a gift! This is plural!”

Asmo laughed, “Well I just couldn’t decide! Consider it your new wardrobe for spring! But not for the fashion show. I’ll custom make your outfit for that!”

“Will you have time for that? You really don’t have to-”

“MC.”

Mammon took the bags from you, but he kept his gaze leveled on his brother, “The card.”

“O-oh. That’s right,” You fumbled again with the item in your hands, flipping it over twice before handing it to Asmo, “Uh, this isn’t from me. I’m sorry, I didn’t think to get you a gift, but I’ll make time to hang out with you or buy you something you want in the future or-”

“Honey, you making the show for me was already my gift. Don’t worry about it.”

Asmo turned the envelope over in his hands as well, looking over his name written elegantly in cursive on the front, and the wax seal on the back. He traced his fingers over the indent on the wax, his eyes half lidded as he recognized it.

“This is from Lucifer, isn’t it?”

“Yes. He asked me to deliver it.”

“What, is it my bonus?” He laughed, but it was airy. Fake, “He could’ve just dropped this on my desk. No need to rope you into it-”

Asmo lifted his arm, tilting the envelope carelessly as he held it loosely between his two fingers. He could be throwing it, or motioning to toss it aside in a moment’s notice without even opening it. You didn’t like the look in his eyes, so distant, the way his smile was too wide, his lips twitching to control his expression into one of indifference, of false amusement, of-

“Asmo,” Mammon pushed past you, dropping the bags on the ground, and stepped right in front of his brother. He raised his arm and rested his fist on his brother’s chest, making the other lean back in surprise.

“W-What do you want?”

“Lucifer took the time to write that. Read it. I mean really read it. I don’t know what's inside but-” Mammon looked away, biting his tongue for a moment, “Look, if Lucifer decided to still be a dick then I get it, but I don’t think he wrote another tirade or scolding in there. It might seem like that at first, but you know him- I know him- better than anyone. I know you can read between the lines to figure out what he means, if he decides to still be a pompous bitch about expressing it.”

“What’s this all about?” Asmo rolled his eyes, and Mammon opened his palm against his chest, sinking his fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

“Come home, Asmo. Please.”

Asmo was silent.

“Not just for us. I mean, I want you home. And so does Levi, and Satan, and the twins. It’s not the same without you. We all miss you. But, for yourself too. Staying away, running away, it’s hurting you too, I know it is.”

Asmo pushed Mammon off of him.

“I’m not running away. I came here because I’m done running away-”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that.”

“Mammon.” You warned, but he continued.

“No, MC! He needs to hear this! I get the whole ‘not hiding anymore’ thing, Az, I do. But listen, you’re still running. You’re running on fumes and leaving messes in your wake. Getting outsiders caught up in this,” He jerked his head towards you, and you flinched when Asmo’s gaze met yours, melting with realization and hurt, “running everyone ragged because they don’t fully understand. They can’t fully understand! They’ll never fully know what we went through.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? When the people who went through it don’t even want to talk about it with-”

Mammon grabbed the envelope and waved it in front of his face, “This. This is them trying to talk about it. Just like how for you it's making videos and posting on Devilgram. And for me? This is me talking about it. You may not like it, but if you want to talk about this, you’ll have to accept that we all are processing differently, taking steps differently. And we can’t take a step forward together if you keep running on ahead, okay?”

Asmo was silent. Solomon was still in the background, but when Asmo turned to him nervously, looking for reassurance, he was shocked to see the small smile on his lover’s face.

“Not you too-”

“I think it’s worth considering,” Solomon shrugged, “It would be a shame to throw away the letter without giving it a cursory glance, at least.”

Mammon drew Asmo’s attention back to him, handing him back the letter. Then he surged forward, wrapping him in a hug.

You saw Mammon’s arms come up and brush Asmo’s hair, pulling his brother in closer as he mumbled-

“This is a family problem, right? So it's up to the family to solve it, got it?”

Asmo didn’t respond. Mammon pulled away after a second and then turned around, scrubbing his eyes with the back of his arm before moving to grab the bags on the floor.

“Come on, MC. Let’s go.”

“Oh. Okay. Uh, thank you for the gifts, Asmo. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

The two of you moved towards the door, tripping over yourselves, when-

“Wait.”

You turned around and watched as Asmo slowly opened the envelope, unfolding the card and tucking the envelope behind it as he began to read it over. It took a minute, and you were terrified of the letters on the page until-

“Solomon. Pack up the charcuterie. Get your coat.”

Mammon gasped next to you, and you saw his eyes glossy and wet as he stared in disbelief at his brother. Asmo didn’t raise his gaze, but he smiled down at the card.

"I can't wait to see the look on their faces."

**

You and Mammon opened the door to the penthouse and called for the others. It took some  shouting, and Mammon running down the hall to bang on all the doors, and a few of them came grumbling, but it was worth it to see their faces when you stepped back to reveal-

Beel was the first to move, tackling Asmodeus before dissolving into blubbering tears. He slammed into his brother with such force that Asmo’s feet slipped off the floor but it was Beel’s strong arms that kept him steady and upright.

You saw Asmo’s face as he slowly reached a hand up and patted the muscular arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, big guy. I won’t do it again.”

Levi dropped his game system on the floor, nearly shattering, but he ignored it and rushed in to join the hug, also crying. Belphegor was next, and he shuffled his feet quickly to meet everyone at the threshold. You wouldn’t have expected tears from him, but he was smiling, and he showed his younger sibling-ness by being equally clingy and tugging on Asmo’s sleeve to get his attention.

Then came Satan, who moved close, but waited for the others to stop swarming Asmo before greeting him. Although he didn’t initiate, Asmo did, and glomped his brother, nearly knocking him backwards.

“Oh how I’ve missed you! Look at you!” He smushed Satan’s cheeks together, pulling at the skin, “Look what finals did to you! My gift to you will be a full spa treatment to get rid of those dark circles!” He then pointed towards you, “That includes you too!”

You moved to welcome Solomon into the room as well, and the brothers were more properly introduced to him. Although they had observed your meetings with him, the formalities were shed and when the man called himself Asmo’s boyfriend, there were hands shaking and claps on the back all around.

That just left…

Lucifer stood at the end of the hall that led to his office and the bedrooms, and had been watching the reunion silently. His arms folded, he did not react when the group turned to him and waited anxiously. You didn’t know what had been in that letter, you did not want to breach their privacy (anymore than you had already done), but since Asmo decided to come home, you had hoped it was something honest. Plus, there was what Mammon had said. So surely…?

Asmo smiled and walked languidly towards the eldest. He folded his arms behind his back, and took long steps that made him bounce cheerfully. It was teasing, exaggerated, but it was calculated. When he got close, there was no hug, no open arms. Asmo merely stopped in front of his brother and craned his head up to look at him.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome home.”

And that was all that was said. But Lucifer then swiftly moved to the kitchen, where he moved to set the table for two more seats.

Well, it was a start. Or so you thought, but Lucifer’s cool behavior did not seem to put a damper on the evening, as the brothers broke out the New Year’s champagne early, and partied and laughed for Asmo’s return. Although you and Mammon did not get to have your date, you sat next to him on the couch and he threw an arm around you as you watched the shenanigans- such as Levi and Asmo battling it out in racing games- and you promised him that you would do something tomorrow.

Eventually, you all passed out. Lucifer had somehow prepared a huge feast for Asmo’s return despite the short notice, and it had knocked all of you out. Mammon and you were lucky to be on a couch when it happened, but when you came to in the middle of the night, you saw the others- Levi, Belphie, and Beel- not so lucky as they were piled on top of each other on the floor. Although maybe they were lucky, since Beel was probably a heater himself, and someone had been kind enough to put blankets on all of you. Satan was taking up an entire couch by himself, as whoever was sharing it with him must have vacated it. You didn’t see any sign of Solomon, and when you sat up and saw the clock on the television display 2:07 AM you figured he must have gone home at some point. But did Asmo-?

You pushed yourself off the cushions, sitting up and rubbing your eyes while you tried to be careful to not jostle Mammon awake. You gained your bearings, trying to figure out what had been to wake you. You didn’t particularly have to go to the bathroom, so what did-

“Thank you.”

You flinched and ducked below the couch, not wanting to draw attention to yourself. The voices were coming from the kitchen area, and you could see a small yellow light breaking up the cool blue of the moonlight from the back door. You slowly peeked over the couch to watch.

Asmodeus laughed behind his hand, and paused making something- a drink, probably not coffee, it was too late (unless it was for Lucifer of course, but that was a bad decision, and you winced as you thought about how that man was probably developing ulcers). Lucifer meanwhile, was undistracted, focused solely on his younger brother.

“I mean it, thank you.”

“You really don’t have to, Luce. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. I- I missed you.”

Asmo laughed again, “You don’t have to force yourself. I know what’s going through your head. I always do,” he poked him in between the eyebrows.

“I should have greeted you better when you first came home. I was just… overwhelmed.”

“I know, dummy. I read your letter. Don’t worry. You got through to me.”

Lucifer’s hands moved. He started to lift them, and you saw them shaking. His breath was stuttering too. He seemed nervous, on edge, vulnerable. The light cast shadows across his face that he worked so hard to hide, his own stress and dark circles and guilt eating away at his looks.

“I was… I was so worried. So scared. When you left. And then. When I heard about what happened on set, I-”

“It’s okay, Luce. Like I said. I know what’s going on in your head. You don’t have to voice it. I know it’s especially hard for you. Since I still don’t even know the whole story. But-”

He turned to Lucifer and held out the mug.

“That’s why I did what I did. I was the one to voice it. I was the only one who could. I had to be the one to get the ball rolling.”

Lucifer surged forward and pulled Asmodeus into a hug. It was tighter than the one Beel had wrapped him in earlier. Lucifer was curling around him, protecting him. The shadows wrapped around them like wings, embracing Asmodeus entirely.

“But you shouldn’t have to bear that burden. You shouldn’t have to be the one to do it alone.”

Asmodeus didn’t say anything. You looked away and moved to lay back down next to Mammon. The last thing you heard was:

“Please stay. I can’t bear-”

“Don’t worry. I will. I’m sorry I was gone.”

**

In the morning, you surprised all the sleepyheads and hangover brains with breakfast. Despite the circumstances, Lucifer was still insisting everyone go in since it wasn’t the holiday for the office yet. Your tasks at work today were the reverse of yesterday. Instead of everyone being kind to your migraine, you made rounds to the different departments, making sure all of your housemates were taken care of and surviving. Diavolo seemed sympathetic to the situation, learning of Asmo’s return, and let everyone leave early. You were called to his office to be the messenger to deliver the news.

“By the way, MC,” Diavolo said from behind his desk, “Are you free on the 27th?”

“The 27th? Why?”

“Milord presumed you would have plans tonight, as it is still the lover’s holiday-” you choked on your tea as Barbatos spoke, the knowing gaze of both men making you flushed.

“And I assumed the other brothers would be vying for your attention the day after, so I thought the 27th would be an odd enough date that you might not have any plans yet.”

“I… guess that makes sense,” You were surprised he had put that much thought into it, “I know I’m going to eventually do something with Satan over our winter break, but we haven’t made plans yet. So, I think I’m free on the 27th.”

“Good. Then, would you like to join me for dinner that evening?”

“Huh? Uh, what?”

“Of course, if you find out you do have plans that day, we can easily reschedule.”

'No, it’s not that, just- What do you mean by dinner?’

“What do I mean?” He smiled behind his folded hands, “What do you think I mean?”

“It’s just that… whatever you have planned might be out of my price range-”

“Ah, I should have been more clear. This would be my treat. It would be a thank you for all the work you’ve done these past few months.”

“Of course, the place Milord has picked out is upscale, so maybe you should have Asmodeus help dress you. Just as a fair warning,” Barbatos leaned over the chair you were seated in, his gloved hands close to your shoulder as they pressed down on the back cushion. It was the most casual you had ever seen him act around you, act in front of Diavolo. Still, it wasn’t the first time he had gotten this close to you. Your heart stirred a little as you glanced at his gloved hands, remembering him coming to your rescue that night in the park.

“I would say we are both looking forward to spending time with you!” Diavolo gave a hearty laugh, “I do hope you won’t disappoint us.”

“Wait, Barbatos will be joining us too?”

You turned around to face the butler. He was unphased, “Of course. Unless you would prefer-”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” you waved your hands to clear up the misunderstanding, “I just thought I would get to try your cooking again. I thought that was all Diavolo ever ate, it didn’t fully click in my head until now that we would be eating at a restaurant-restaurant.”

“Do you hear that, Barbatos?” Diavolo was laughing even heartier now. Barbatos smiled at you, and gave a small bow.

“I am happy to hear you think that highly of my cooking.”

“I do! It’s five stars!”

“Barbatos is my trusted employee and I would be nothing without him, however, I must do without him at times,” Diavolo sighed dramatically and rested his head on his fist as he watched the two of you, “And to repay him for all his hard work, I do like to treat him as well.”

“It just so happened that we both wanted time to spend with you. We knew you were short on time, and so our interests happened to align,” Barbatos circled around to sit in the chair beside you.

“You will join us, won’t you?”

The two men were practically batting their eyelashes at you, or at least it felt like, with their smarmy smiles and enamored glances. You had no choice but to say yes, and when you finally left them, you sighed in relief.

Barbatos escorted you out of the office, but motioned for you to lean in once you were at the elevators.

“I’m flattered by your words. If you find yourself with more free time, I would welcome the chance to personally spoil you with my cooking.”

It was illegal for your heart to have to put up with this many handsome guys.

The elevator door opened, and you stiffly moved inside, giving Barbatos a cursory wave before he disappeared from view. You tried to calm yourself before you reached the lobby, and when the doors finally opened, your eyes landed on a head of white hair standing near the glass doors as snow fell behind the pane.

Well, they would have to keep trying, because in the end you only had room in your heart for one.

“Yo, MC!” Mammon waved as you approached. You hurried to meet him. Tonight was his night, afterall.

**

You woke up the next morning to knocking on your door. Through bleary eyes, you grabbed your phone to check the time, and saw it was only nine. Who would-

“Coming in now! We’re covering our eyes though so if you’re not dressed you still have five seconds to-”

The exaggerated, teasing tone was reminiscent of Asmo but too nasally and low to be him. You recognized it as Belphie, when he was in a good mood, which was rare. You sat up as the door broke open to reveal Belphie and Beel, and true to their word the two walked in with their hand in front of their faces and looking away, but you were in pajamas, so it was fine. You sat up and swung your legs over the side of the bed and looked up at them as you rubbed crust out of your eyes.

“It’s fine. I’m dressed. What do you want?”

“Are you doing anything today?” Beelzebub asked. You reached for your phone again.

“Uh, what day is it? Saturday?” You looked at the calendar app, seeing the 26th back at you. Tomorrow was dinner. “Uh, no. I’m free. Why?”

“Come shopping with us.”

“Shopping?” No offense, but last time I did that with you guys, it ended really badly. You remembered Beel’s crying face and Belphie’s scowl. Why did they want to go out with you again? Well, Beel, you understood. But why Belphie-?

“There’s a cool market that pops up before New Year’s. There’s a lot of cool artist shops, and also food trucks,” Belphie pointed at Beel, “I need someone to help me supervise him.”

Ah, so that was it. Well, you could work with that.

You rolled your shoulders and popped your joints, “Okay, just let me get dressed and-”

“Also, I want to thank you for getting Asmo to come back.”

You opened your eyes and looked at Belphie. He had his hands in the pockets of his jacket, put his beanie was helping him hide even more of his face than his hair already did, but you could see the frown fighting to stay on his face along with the flush of embarrassment.

Belphie had acted rather baby-ish when Asmo returned, sticking to his side and clinging to him, which was a side of him you had never really seen before. Around the other brothers, he was obviously the youngest, but he was aloof and sarcastic, and seemed empty and missing entirely if he was not stuck to Beel’s side. But, you knew that he and Beel, being the youngest, had it the roughest.

“You’re welcome,” You said, standing up and deciding to take a risk. You walked forward and wrapped an arm around both of the boys in front of you, figuring that Belphie wouldn’t lash out if you were only hugging him half-way. You felt him stiffen for a moment, but Beel accepted your embrace easily, and soon, Belphie relented and accepted it as well.

“I’ll be ready in a few minutes. Wait outside, okay?”

“We can get breakfast on the way. I have enough money to cover you even if Beel takes out two entire trucks.”

Once the boys were gone, you turned back to the lump hiding under your blankets.

“I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Mhm,” Mammon grumbled in response.

Belphie was not lying about the market. It was a beautiful little place made more beautiful by the glowing, warm lights that hung from post to post, even in the daytime. The snow on the ground made the scene beautiful without being terrible cold, still you and Belphie stuck close to Beelzebub who acted as your personal heater. While a lot of your morning ended up sampling the different food trucks as Beel’s eyes were certainly not bigger than his mouth, you did have time to browse the wares from the small business booths that lined the rest of the bazaar.

What surprised you even more was Belphie caught you eyeing some jewelry at one stall, and pulled out his wallet.

“Do you like that one?”

“Yeah. Look at how the light hits it,” You held up the piece and let it spin, reflecting all the colors bouncing off the snow and the white tents, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“...Yeah. Excuse me,” he turned to the owner, “We’d like to buy this one please. Here-” He started to fish through the several bills in his wallet.

“Belphie, wait! You don’t have to.”

“I said I would thank you for bringing Asmo home. This is part of it. I didn’t give you anything on Christmas anyway, so consider this a thank you.”

He nudged your hand away when you tried to stop him from pulling out the money. He gave them to the owner and had them box up the gift.

“Besides,” Belphie handed you the box, “Not just for Asmo. For Beel. And everything else since I met you.”

You looked at him strangely, “I hardly think I’ve done anything that-”

“You have.”

He shoved the box into your hands more forcibly, his one eye looking at you with something… strange.

“Now let’s find Beel. If we’re not careful, he’ll destroy another truck,” he sighed. Dramatic, he strolled away, but you were left staring after him for a moment. Your fingers flexed around the small box, remembering the force he shoved it at you with. The force with which he nudged your hand away, that it was almost a slap. The brothers had strength despite their appearances, you had learned that long ago, but something about Belphie’s behavior was still off, still not adding up.

You were certain he was thankful for Asmo being back home. But you couldn’t say you were close with him yet.

**

“Asmo, I need your help,” you approached him once you were back home. He was lounging on the couch, with Levi and Satan sitting on either side. Beel and Belphie, after dropping their shoes off and placing the takeout bags on the kitchen counters, also moved to the couches. Everyone was being pulled to Asmo like a magnet since his return. It had only been two days, and even though they had seen him at work, the relief they all felt was obvious. The fact that Beel was going to him over the food he had just brought home said volumes. You felt bad to take him away, even for a moment.

“Anything for my lovely assistant!”

“Well, I was wondering if you could help me style an outfit before tomorrow night?”

“Oh? I thought you already went out with Mammon~”

“This is-” You felt nervous because of the others’ eyes on you now, “Diavolo and Barbatos invited me to dinner. They said it would be upscale. Barbatos was the one who suggested I talk to you.”

Lucifer had come down the hall coincidentally, and stopped and stared at you.

“Diavolo invited you?” He seemed surprised. No, wary?

“He said it was just to thank me for my work so far. That’s all!” You tried to assuage his concerns.

“Well then, that obviously calls for a stylist’s work!” Asmo clapped his hands together and stood up, “Thank goodness you told me now and not tomorrow morning! Let’s get to work right away.”

Asmo started to march you towards your room. Lucifer stepped in your way.

“Where are they taking you? What time? How long will you be gone-”

“What are you, their dad, Luce?” Levi shouted from the couch. Lucifer’s eye twitched, and he folded his arms.

“They didn’t tell me. I texted them earlier today to confirm, I’m sure they’ll get back to me soon.”

“They?”

“Barbatos is also a guest. Not working.”

“Oh, then we have to dress you up extra special if it’s his day off too!” Asmo pushed you further down the hall. As the door closed, you heard one of the brothers yell-

“Don’t dress them too nice or Mammon will be jealous!”

**

Around six p.m. on the 27th, Barbatos and Diavolo came to the apartment door to escort you. It felt a little silly, like they were coming to ask Lucifer for permission. The man in question was standing behind you in the entranceway, tapping his foot, and looking anxious as Diavolo stepped inside and clapped him on the back, promising to take good care of you.

“It’s just dinner, my good friend! Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn in a few days' time,” he then leaned in and whispered, poorly since you could still hear him, to Lucifer, “This is mainly a treat I arranged for Barbatos’ sake.”

“MC and I do not get many opportunities to talk besides work,” Barbatos smiled at you. He was out of his uniform, but wearing a gray suit with a teal overcoat, “I admit, I am a bit jealous of the seven of you who get so much of their time.”

“As am I,” Diavolo laughed. He was dressed in a black suit with a red vest, and his coat- or was it more of a cape- had fur trimming. You were sure it must be real fur, “Now, come along, MC. As much as I would love to stay and chat with everyone, we do have reservations!”

Lucifer still looked a little off, so before you walked out the door after them, you turned to him and asked outright.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.” He immediately said, but at your continued stare, he shut his eyes and sighed, “I just do not want you to exhaust yourself. You’re still recovering from your finals and… other stressors.”

His eyes were nervous, flickering from your face to looking away at some corner of the room. You felt strange. You were flattered that he was worried about you, and it was not the first time he had shown such concern for you, but… so publicly, especially in front of Diavolo? He must be feeling rather relieved and thankful from you returning Asmo home.

“Thank you for worrying about me,” you said, reaching out and patting his arm, which made his eyes shoot back to you. You thought he was going to flinch or pull away, but he resisted and remained still, “But I promise I’ll be okay. I’ve been sleeping, for one. And, if it makes you feel more at ease, I promise I’ll text at least one of you tonight if anything happens. Alright?”

“...Very well.”

“Alright then. I’ll be back later.”

Barbatos and Diavolo stood on either side of the door, framing your path as you stepped over the threshold and out into the hall. Lucifer watched as you made your way into the elevator, and you waved at him as the doors closed. Once downstairs, there was an expensive, black limo waiting for the three of you, and to your surprise, someone else was in the driver’s seat.

“You’re not driving today?” You asked Barbatos.

“It’s my day off, remember?” He said as he opened the door for you.

“If it’s your day off, then you shouldn’t be doing that either,” You moved to take the door from him, and dramatically gestured for him to enter first.

“Apologies, a force of habit,” he laughed.

Diavolo had you climb in next, and although the limo was spacious, you still felt seated “between” them. The car had cushy seats, and some colorful lights that pulsated softly throughout the interior. There was a minifridge, which Diavolo wasted no time opening to pop open a bottle to serve. Everything was already ritzy, and you had not even pulled away from the apartments yet.

“I must say, Asmodeus is truly an expert at his craft,” Barbatos eyed you up and down, and while you felt a little nervous, his gaze, nor Diavolo’s once he turned to look at you as well, was not lecherous at all.

“I must agree. You look wonderful. Thank you for joining us.”

“Thank you for having me,” you said awkwardly, shrugging before folding your hands and staring out the window. The two men were still smiling at you, but you weren’t quite sure what to say, “So, where are we eating tonight?”

“Oh, you will adore the place,” Diavolo took a sip of his glass and leaned forward, talking excitedly, “My father always took me here as a child. It’s very upscale, but the staff is wonderful and…”

**

“I still feel like an intern doesn’t deserve all this treatment,” you said bashfully as you took a sip of your own glass before setting it back down on the table. You were in a beautiful room of marble and Greek columns, with a dome in the ceiling decorated with a piece meant to rival the famous frescos. The wait staff did everything here, pulled the chairs out and folded and unfolded your napkins, and remained on standby for the moment your glass got a drop less full to refill it. At first, it was a bit overwhelming, but the smiles and reassurances of your companions helped you relax.

“But you’re not just an intern,” Diavolo smiled at you from across the table again, “You’ve already gone above and beyond my expectations, MC.”

“Indeed.”

“It was the right choice to hire you.”

“Well, I guess it was just luck.”

“Luck?”

“That I got scouted. I would never have known about the internship otherwise. You knew that I was really clueless about the D.C. and C.C. when I applied, right?”

Diavolo and Barbatos glanced at each other, but Diavolo smiled and spoke first.

“Yes, but I believe I told you that made you an asset, didn’t it? You didn’t know of our status or fame, and so you were able to approach everything with a fresh perspective. I suppose I should find out who scouted you and give them my highest praise.”

“I wouldn’t call it luck, per se,” Barbatos added, “I believe it was more fate.”

“Fate?”

“Yes. Especially the way you’ve wormed your way into the brothers’ hearts, that is not the work of mere luck.”

“I agree. It would be luck if you were only someone skilled. But you are also kind, compassionate, and inquisitive. You go above and beyond what is expected of you. That is why it must be fate that you came to work for us.”

You smiled, but there was something in his statement that negged you. You had been riding on the high of Asmo polishing you up, the fancy treatment, the compliments, so it did not sink in before, but that word- inquisitive- it pierced something, cracking the mask of the scene- of their smiles. And then it made you think of Barbatos' line. Wormed your way into the brothers’ hearts…

“...And that is why tonight is a celebration of you,” Diavolo continued, from some statement you didn’t quite fully hear, “and of course, Barbatos,” Diavolo laughed behind his glass, a little drunk, “I do my best to take care of my own.”

“We must do what we can to take care of our own.”

You stood up suddenly, knees banging into the underneath of the table and sending your glass nearly knocking over. Diavolo looked at you curiously, but Barbatos was more perceptive, less under the cloud of alcohol. He noticed the allure of the night had shattered, he probably saw you shaking, your eyes burning with rage.

“MC?” Diavolo asked, “Is something the matter?”

You had forgotten. You had been so overwhelmed with Asmo, the project, the production, that you had forgotten weeks ago. Forgot what had happened when you were just entering Beel’s department. Forgot all the frustration you felt from the cold gazes, the smug, secretive smirks the two shared when you were in their office months ago, demanding what was going on with your phone, your laptop, the whole city with information just missing.

Wormed your way into the brothers’ hearts? You wanted to laugh. These two manipulative- They hid information, yet dangled pieces in front of you to keep you just interested enough. Just enough to get you to work in a roundabout way. How could you forget?

Even this whole conversation. Luck? Fate? You bet there was more to the conversation here tonight too. Was this whole invite just another set up? Another way for them to-

“MC,” Barbatos tried again, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m leaving.”

“MC!”

You turned and started to storm out the way you had entered, but Barbatos moved quickly and caught your arm. You moved to shrug him off, but his grip was strong too. That’s right. Everyone is a fucking bodyguard around here. You glared at the waiters. Probably these guys too.

“MC, please, whatever is wrong- sit. Let us discuss it,” Barbatos said. You really wanted to shrug him off, but you knew it as fruitless, so you let him guide you back towards the table. You huffed, but refused to sit back down. Diavolo appeared to have sobered up a bit, because he was looking at you with concern. Was that also a farce too?

“I remembered something.”

“Something you had to do?” Diavolo cocked his head.

“No. Something you both did. Something I forgot because I’ve been so busy and exhausted lately. ‘Worming my way into the brothers’ hearts’ as you so put it.”

You crossed your arms, and suddenly you felt overwhelmed. They were both just looking up at you, innocently, and even though you knew they were anything but innocent, you felt stupid, and anxious, doing this in the middle of such a fancy place. For not just shutting up and enjoying the night. But how could you enjoy it if it was just another tactical move?

You rubbed the back of your hand across your eyes to brush away the tears you felt. Words from weeks ago were coming back to you, feelings you had fought with Asmo, Beel, Belphie, Levi, and Mammon. We take care of our own. At the time those words had meant to keep you out, keep you separate. Ostracize you from the brothers. But then Asmo had confided in you. Mammon had reassured you. You weren’t an outsider. You did belong. At least in the brothers’ lives.

You sniffled again, and looked up, trying to not let your tears ruin the makeup Asmo had done, but you had already wiped your face, so it was probably smudged anyway. You saw something black on the back of your hand, so that was that, and you felt the tears come faster with frustration at how stupid you were.

“MC, please, sit down-”

“You know,” you said, voice shaky and resigned, “I really wanted to enjoy tonight. But I don't know what the two of you want from me. What you are planning. What you want me to do. You obviously know everything I’ve been up to, so stop playing dumb. Stop acting like-”

“I also wanted to enjoy tonight,” Barbatos cut you off, his expression tense but… nervous? His lips pursed like they didn’t know what face to make, and his eyes looked to the ground before he gained enough confidence to look you directly in the eye.

Diavolo spoke to the servants, “Leave us for a moment.”

They left the room quickly. Barbatos continued.

“You are right. I do know what you’ve been up to. I work the security cameras. I keep tabs on all the employees. I’ve been watching Asmodeus very closely. I know about what he told you, and I know what the others have told you too. I also know how all of this- the brothers, Milord and I- have drained you.”

He grabbed you again, this time, your hand, but this time gently. He took the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off the smudge, but when he was done he didn’t let go. He massaged your fingers as he spoke, almost like a nervous fidget, and it was then you realized Barbatos wasn’t wearing any gloves.

“I meant what I said about being jealous of the brothers, who get so much time to grow close to you. To fight and then learn to forgive and you learn to do the same with them. The last two times we spoke, I felt our relationship was tarnished. I wanted to fix it. To move forward.”

Barbatos continued to knead your hand, almost like he was pleading with you to forgive him. He looked so different, so vulnerable, compared to the version in your memory that had lied and played ignorant with a smile on his lips. You turned your angry gaze to Diavolo, who had been silent during this confession.

“And you?”

“I instructed Barbatos to act to keep the brothers’ history a secret from you, because that is all they have ever desired since that day. They’ve lived in fear, MC. I had to act to protect them. At the time, you were still an outsider in that regard to most of them. So, if we had to play the villains, then so be it.”

“But censoring information like that-”

“You have heard much of the story already, MC,” Diavolo sighed, “Your emotions right now are making you forget. Stop and think for a moment. It is not just me who would stand to gain from protecting that information.”

Barbatos let go of your hand. You took a breath, and did as he said. The C.C. was the one who faked their deaths, so it did make more sense for them to do that over Diavolo. And if both companies were working together because of some deal made then, all the more control they would.

“I’m sorry. You were right. I had forgotten about that,” You took a breath again, “Truthfully, it’s not the censorship I’m really mad about now. That’s just… one part of it. I don’t know who you both are. What you want from me. If this dinner is supposed to accomplish anything.”

“All we want- is to let you know the real us,” Diavolo and Barbatos looked at each other again, “It was my orders that made Barbatos the villain in your eyes, and this, is my apology. To both of you. I understand that before that incident, you two were on the path to becoming good friends. Or, at least, friendly co-workers.”

“Is that truly all this is?”

You wanted to believe it. You wanted to believe it so bad.

“Yes,” Diavolo said, “I still won’t give you information if you come to me for it. I’ve put it in the hands of the brothers now, and if the rest of them choose to tell you, then so be it. My job has always been to protect them, regardless of what they choose to do.”

“MC, please,” Barbatos was pleading. It was wrong. Your stomach twisted itself up in guilt. You sighed.

You finally sat back down.

“I… am sorry for ruining dinner.”

“You didn’t ruin anything. This is what tonight is for.”

“No, I ruined it. It’s okay. I’m sure there… was a million more mature ways for me to go about that without acting like that. I really don’t belong in a fancy place like this.”

“Then we’ll take you to a million more places like this until you feel comfortable,” Diavolo smiled, and signaled for the waiters to come back into the room, “Now, are we ready for dessert?”

You stared down at your lap and tried to steel yourself. Barbatos, still holding your hand, gave you a reassuring squeeze to draw your eyes up to him. He was smiling softly, and it made you feel a little bit better, like the night wasn’t completely ruined after all, but your eyes still stung.

**

After dinner, Diavolo had the driver drop you off a little ways away from the apartment so that you could walk off any of the mixed feelings still lingering. Barbatos was the only one who kept pace with you. Diavolo remained a few steps ahead each time.

“I hope you understand that… I was only doing my job at the time. I must act in accordance to what-”

“It’s fine, Barbatos. Really. Let’s just drop it. I’ve forgiven you already.”

“But you still are hostile to me.”

“It’s going to take some time, okay?”

“I apologize.”

Silence. Except for your footsteps. The silence was weird. Not off putting, but… familiar? The last time you had been with Barbatos like this was that night he had rescued you after you nearly froze to death from a dissociative episode.

You stopped walking.

“Thank you for rescuing me that one time… When I was in a bad mental state. I mean, I guess you probably knew what that was about too!” You laughed airly, and Barbatos frowned at your ill attempt at a joke, “But… Thank you. I probably would have frozen out there if it wasn’t for you.”

“The thanks should go to Lord Diavolo, for sending me. Or for the brothers, for alerting him to your abse-”

“But it was you who found me.”

Barbatos stopped walking and turned to face you.

“It was you who came to get me. Who knew what to say to get me to move again. So, the thanks goes to you.”

And with that, you took a step forward. A small one, but it was one that Barbatos followed after nonetheless.

**

The two men returned you to the apartment around nine. And although you did end up enjoying the meal, you were thankful when goodbyes were had. You closed the door and ran through the entryway to the living room where everyone still was, and practically threw yourself onto the couch on top of Asmo.

“Welcome back- oh Darling you look a mess! What happened?”

“I’m fine. Just tired, is all,” you said, burying your face in a pillow. You were thankful none of the men decided to push it, and were grounded by them all of them brushing a hand over your back or smoothing over your hair as they resumed whatever show they were watching or game they were playing. You even felt Lucifer’s hand, he was the one who chose to comb through your hair gently, and you could tell by his sigh that he was relieved you were home too.

[polyamzeal]

do u have any advice on how to deal with and work through internalised monogamy-standards and like related jealousy and selfesteem issues? i also take recs for literature or something if it's too much.

thanks, i appreciate ya <3

I did a small polyam book recommendation list recently.

Unlearning internalized behaviors and beliefs is always hard and never happens overnight. It takes time and even long after you will slip up from time to time. Have patience and be gentle with yourself.

I honestly don't know if it works for everyone so take with a lot of salt. But to me a lot of mono-normativity and jealousy stems from toxic competition. The inverse of this is constructive cooperation. For example if a partner shows an interest in someone else you might feel like that person will 'steal' away your partner but instead try thinking about how that person might be a fun person to work together with to plan a gift for your partner. Or even from a more parallel sense maybe that person would be interested in going with your partner to that event that you really didn't want to go anyways. Look for ways to realize that a potential "enemy" could actually be a helpful ally that you can get along with.

[one-divides-into-two]

"[T]he classical debate seems almost to attribute a secondary importance to the extraordinary historical significance of the active role of institutions in the late-joiner countries (signally in Germany) – initially in the forms of an accentuated centralization of the operations financing industrialization, and then, subsequently, with equipment intended to directly or indirectly govern the structure and composition of supply – when compared to the tendencies of the state-development relation, which is instead treated as essential. On the other hand, if a politics of fierce protections and then of imperialist expansion, which tends even to destroy the world market as simple area of exchange, corresponds to the anything but “parasitic” role of the state within second-comer industrialization, in this very phase the conditions, which had up to that point impeded the evolution of the international market from a mere moment of simple circulation to becoming the direct center of the accumulation process on a world scale, are changing radically. But concerning the whole process of internationalization, the classical debate performs a reading by all means conditioned by what has just been said.

The international movements of labor-power in this phase are events which largely remain to be studied. What is certain, however, is that they repeat on an enormous scale, though in different forms, the “originary” movements of the “slave trade” [tratta]: let it suffice to recall the massive extractions of labor-power from India and China, both towards other colonial areas (Africa) and to the metropolis, or to recall the waves of transoceanic immigration to the United States. If all this does not eliminate the existence of closed national markets of labor, still less is the relative international immobility of capital overcome by the waves of “capital export,” which the classical debate on imperialism rightly places at the center of its attention, and which constitute in fact the first massive historical phenomenon of “internationalization” of capital. In other words, this is still a hybrid form, so to speak, of transition, of the process of internationalization: this does not therefore represent a real qualitative leap of the system. As the recent literature on foreign investment has put into relief, this is dominated in this phase, quantitatively and qualitatively, by the figure of the investment “portfolio.” Although the nature of the latter cannot be made clear but in contrast to “direct” investment (a distinction that is not necessarily fully perceived in this moment), the phenomenon appears reconstructed, even then, in a substantially correct manner.

[...]

The adequate theoretical figure that encompasses [ricomprendere] the nature and dynamic of this specific mobility of capital is already totally developed in Marx: it involves capital as commodity – the loan capital market. In the 5th section of the third book Marx unfolds the general lines of his theory of this market, albeit in a rather fragmented manner:

On the money market it is only lenders and borrowers who face one another. The commodity has the same form, money. All particular forms of capital, arising from its investment in particular spheres of production or circulation, are obliterated here. It exists in the undifferentiated, self-identical form of independent value, of money. Competition between particular spheres now ceases; they are all thrown together as borrowers of money, and capital confronts them all in a form still indifferent to the specific manner and mode of its application. Here capital really does emerge, in the pressure of its demand and supply, as the common capital of the class, whereas industrial capital appears like this only in the movement and competition between particular spheres.

Whence the Marxian theory of the rate of interest and its critique of the existence of a “natural rate”:

As far as the permanently fluctuating market rate of interest is concerned, this is a fixed magnitude at any given moment, just like the market price of commodities, because on the money market all capital for loan confronts the functioning capital as an overall mass; i.e. the relationship between the supply of loan capital on the one hand, and the demand for it on the other, is what determines the market level of interest at any given time.

The rate of profit – which exists uniquely as a tendency, as a movement tending to equalize the particular rates of profit – constitutes only the external limit of the determination of the rate of interest, but the laws of formation of the one are in fact different from those of the other – their connection clearly resides only in the movement of the cycle. But the different nature of the two rates has a fundamental importance in this context, precisely for that aspect from which Marx’s analysis seems to want to abstract:

In stressing this distinction between the interest rate and the profit rate, we have so far left aside the following two factors, which favour the consolidation of the interest rate: (1) the historical pre-existence of interest-bearing capital and the existence of a general rate of interest handed down by tradition; (2) the far stronger direct influence that the world market exerts on the establishment of the interest rate, independently of the conditions of production in a country, as compared with its influence on the profit rate.

Exactly as the rate of interest historically anticipates the formation of the rate of profit, so it anticipates, at the level of the world market, the tendential movements of the rate of profit. The influence of the world market on the national rates of interest is in fact only an appearance [faccia] of the inverse process. Marx affirms this explicitly at the end of his analysis of credit:

The credit system hence accelerates the material development of the productive forces and the creation of the world market, which it is the historical task of the capitalist mode of production to bring to a certain level of development, as material foundations for the new form of production. At the same time, credit accelerates the violent outbreaks of this contradiction, crises, and with these the elements of dissolution of the old mode of production.

Capital export and the process of capitalist internationalization preceding the first world war are largely the practical realization of this anticipatory function of the movement of capital that is productive of interest. As such, they reproduce on a broad scale the characteristic ambivalence of this movement. The “classical” literature is aware, even without systematizing it, of this ambivalence. Thus, the Leninist emphasis on the contrast between export of commodities and export of capitals does not change the fact that, in the last analysis, for Lenin as for almost all the contemporaneous literature, the second is still a direct function of the first, on the “strictly economic” plane, according to the unchanging schema: export of manufactured goods against import of raw materials. And it is in this light that one should also read and appreciate the twofold polemic developed by Lenin: on the one side, against anyone who unduly extends the moments of anticipation of that form of international mobility of capital (against Kautsky, but also against Bukharin); on the other, against anyone who elides them within a “normal form” of the cycle and within the schemas of enlarged reproduction."

Luciano Ferrari Bravo, "Old and new questions on the theory of imperialism." (1973)

[camillasgirl]

The Queen's speech at The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2023

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a huge pleasure to welcome you to Buckingham Palace today to congratulate and thank all of you who have been part of this year’s Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition - and to celebrate the Competition’s 140th birthday.

Remarkably, the QCEC is the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools. For 14 decades, it has given young people the opportunity to express themselves on the issues that matter most, bringing communities across the Commonwealth closer together.

The Competition, as Gyles [Brandreth] has told us, was launched during the reign of Queen Victoria: herself a published author and a passionate lover of literature. We know from her diaries and letters that she was particularly fond of the works of many authors, including Jane Austen, Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and Lewis Carroll. Legend has it that, having admired ���Alice in Wonderland”, the Queen wrote to Lewis Carroll to request first editions of any of his other books. By return of post she received a copy of his “Syllabus of Plane Algebraic Geometry”. Probably not what she was after!!

But back to the authors in this room! Well done to each and every one of you – you are quite brilliant and I have, as ever, enormously enjoyed reading your entries. Always remember that you are in impressive company - past entrants to this Competition have gone on to become teachers, doctors, lawyers, novelists, journalists and even, in one case, a Prime Minister! I shall be following all your achievements and adventures with the greatest possible interest.

The QCEC has a wonderful history. Yet this year’s topic, “A Youth-Powered Commonwealth”, reminds us that your future will be even better, as the next generation takes up the baton of using the written word to promote and unite our worldwide family.

In the last decade alone, more than 140,000 young people have entered the Competition. On my travels, I have been lucky enough to meet entrants in Ghana, St Vincent and the Grenadines, New Zealand, the Gambia, Malaysia, Rwanda, the United Kingdom and, earlier this month, Kenya. In a library in central Nairobi two weeks ago, I was delighted to be reunited with the 2021 Senior Winner, Kayla Bosire, whom I had last seen two years ago at the Awards Ceremony here at Buckingham Palace. In her winning essay, she wrote a strikingly beautiful paragraph that has stayed with me since, as it underlines the value of our Commonwealth and that of the QCEC:

“The Commonwealth, among other associations, had one goal: peace and security. And when they tossed their differences aside and joined hands - when they looked past one’s beliefs or the colour of their skin - they achieved it. Together. They advanced and progressed together”.

So, ladies and gentlemen, let us advance and progress together towards the next 140 years of the amazing Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition! 

[fakerobotrealblog]

### Psychology of Learning a New Language:

1. **Cognitive Benefits:**

- Learning a new language engages various cognitive functions, enhancing memory, problem-solving, and creativity. The brain's plasticity allows for the development of new neural connections, improving overall cognitive abilities.

2. **Cultural and Social Connections:**

- Language learning fosters an understanding of different cultures, as language and culture are interconnected. The process involves not just linguistic aspects but also social nuances, promoting cultural empathy and connection.

3. **Motivation and Positive Emotions:**

- Motivation plays a crucial role in language acquisition. Positive emotions, curiosity, and the desire to communicate with others contribute to a more effective learning experience. A positive mindset enhances language retention.

### Hardships of Learning Multiple Languages:

1. **Interference and Confusion:**

- When learning multiple languages simultaneously, interference can occur. Similarities between languages may lead to confusion, affecting vocabulary recall and grammatical structures.

2. **Time and Commitment:**

- Learning one language is a significant commitment, and adding more languages requires even more time and effort. Juggling multiple languages demands effective time management and sustained dedication.

3. **Language Dominance:**

- A challenge arises when one language becomes more dominant than others. It may lead to uneven proficiency levels, impacting effective communication in each language.

### Strategies to Learning New Languages:

1. **Immersive Learning:**

- Immersing oneself in the language, through conversations, media, and cultural experiences, accelerates learning. This approach enhances both linguistic and cultural understanding.

2. **Use of Technology:**

- Language learning apps, online courses, and multimedia resources provide interactive and dynamic learning experiences. Technology aids in improving listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.

3. **Regular Practice:**

- Consistent and regular practice is crucial. Daily exposure to the language through reading, writing, speaking, and listening helps reinforce learning and build fluency.

### Benefits of Learning Another Language:

1. **Career Opportunities:**

- Multilingual individuals often have a competitive edge in the global job market. Many international businesses and organizations value employees who can communicate in multiple languages.

2. **Cognitive Flexibility:**

- Learning different languages enhances cognitive flexibility, the ability to switch between tasks and adapt to new information. This mental agility has benefits beyond language acquisition.

3. **Cultural Understanding:**

- Language is a gateway to understanding different cultures. Knowing a language allows individuals to engage with diverse communities, fostering cross-cultural communication and appreciation.

### Examples in Languages Other Than English:

1. **Spanish (Learning Multiple Languages):**

- Learning Spanish and Italian simultaneously might pose challenges due to their similarities, leading to lexical and grammatical interference. However, with focused practice and exposure to both languages, proficiency can be achieved.

2. **Mandarin Chinese (Immersion):**

- Immersing oneself in Mandarin Chinese involves engaging with native speakers, watching Chinese movies, and reading Chinese literature. This immersive approach deepens understanding and fluency.

3. **French (Career Opportunities):**

- Knowing French opens doors to career opportunities, especially in international organizations like the United Nations or multinational corporations. Proficiency in French is highly valued in diplomatic and business contexts.

4. **German (Cognitive Flexibility):**

- Learning German, known for its compound words and complex grammar, enhances cognitive flexibility. The ability to navigate intricate language structures contributes to improved problem-solving skills.

In summary, the psychology of learning a new language involves cognitive benefits and cultural connections. While the hardships of learning multiple languages exist, strategies such as immersive learning, technology use, and regular practice can mitigate challenges. The benefits of learning another language extend to career opportunities, cognitive flexibility, and a deeper understanding of diverse cultures. Examples in languages like Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, and German illustrate these principles in practice.

[bulletproofscales]

BTS sfw oneshots

jinnie's piggies (ot7 , feeder jin , drabble)

pampering the leader (minjoon , chubby namjoon , hurt and comfort)

they are all staring at you (yoonmin , chubby yoongi , poping buttons , public space)

chp2  (yoonmin , fat yoongi , bdsm , dom sub dynamics , hurt/comfort , use of safe word)

stubborn Yoonie (yoonkook , chubby yoongi , shaming)

zumba at 6:30pm (sope , chubby yoongi , zumba instructor hoseok)

miss the gym? (could be ot7 , jungkook centric , chubby jungkook)

his baby, his stuffed, gassy baby (taekook , chubby jungkook , gassy)

chp2  (taekook , chubby jungkook , gassy )

weird oportunity (could be ot7 , jungkook centric , chubby jungkook , insecurities)

stress eating (ot7 , fat hyung line , stuffing , hurt comfort)

teeny tiny house (2seok , fat hoseok , breaking furniture , hurt comfort , use of safe word)

MAMAs presentation doesnt have to be perfect (namseok , double gaining , hurt comfort kinda)

Jinnie’s...piggies? (ot3 , namjinseok , fat namjoon and fat hoseok , getting stuck in chairs , breaking the couch)

a 6 month hiatus does that to you (jungkook x reader , chubby jungkook , hurt/comfort)

Coca Cola and beer (hopekook , gassy jungkook , pinning , light angst)

the realest of selves (namkook , not feederism , established relationship , fluff)

“namjin evidence” (namjin , not feederism , established  relationship , fluff and crack )

literature can be interesting? (sope , not feederism , uni professor au , fluffy , happy ending , pinning )

chairman sized (vminkook , fat jimin , getting stuck in chair , public space , wg denial)

bts x mcdonalds (ot7 , word dump , furtniture breaking , they all gain weight )

the gentler touches (trans guy hoseok , namseok , fluff , gender dysphoria , hurt comfort)

monthly charity carwash (bottom heavy seokjin , public space , carwash , word dump?)

how to train your hybrid, sorta (yoonkook , mutual gaining, fluff , stuffing

admiring you is a full time job (hopekook , drunken confessions , ripping clothes , pinning, NSFW BONUS IN SECOND CHAPTER)

a king's banquet, pocket sized (jinkook , royal au , king jungkook , chef seokjin , stuffing , fluff)

room to change (namjin , hurt/comfort , internalized homophibia , anxiety , making out , dry humping , chubby seokjin)

skinny boy big dreams (jungkook solo , feedee jungkook , small drabble , bodyshaming)

not yet afterhours ( jinkook , obese jim seokjin , muscle chub jungkook , stuffing , bakery au)

a higher gpa and a higher bmi (namkook , taejin , sopemin , fat maknae line )

a fu(filling) challenge (yoonjin, gainer seokjin, wg , fat seokjin, competitive eating , public space)

heavyweight champion of the mile high club (taekook , fat kim taehyung , feeder jeon jungkook , in public , mile high club (i guess) )

[liltumgrum]

Modern aMerican Football au Stormlight

Kholin: a family notorious for their skill, domination and violence in professional football

Dalinar: a retired player turned coach. Has had many scandals including drugs/alcohol, a wild divorce case, suspected murder, and constant brawls. In his older age he has been attempting to change his public face and prioritizing the health of his players. He has high expectations for his two sons... all that Dadlinar stuff.

Adolin: a college football player who is widely liked. He plays the part of perfect son, but dreams of transferring to fashion school. All of his attempts to be apply have been denied because of his family reputation and how everyone kind of assumes its a practical joke. They don't take his genuine interest and intelligence into consideration. They think he would be wasting his athletic potential by pursuing anything else. Dalinar also probably shuts down or intimidates anyone that might consider letting his son change career paths.

Renarin: basically a bench warmer on the team. or a water boy. They only let him on because of his family name. He deserves better and is majoring in philosophy/literature.

Kaladin: His family are war refugees. He suffers from ptsd and depression from the violence he experienced and the death of his younger brother. He was raised with the expectation of being a doctor, but fell in love with sports and the teamwork after moving to America. It served as a coping mechanism. His high school coach, Amaram, sacrificed his teams safety to win a bet during state competition. Kaladin won the game for them, but was injured and cast out of the team. His record is permanently tarnished because of a fight he had with said coach. Now he is a field paramedic for his college's team and fighting to make more safety regulations for young players.

Shallan: A transfer journalism student from Europe. She thinks American football is stupid. But she also thinks some of the players are hot and makes fan art of them. Shes interning under Jasnah, a football commentator, and general critic. Who she also totally doesn't have a crush on.

Syl: I like the idea people have for her in a modern au being Kaladin's long distance internet friend.

Pattern: I think Pattern could basically be the same but rather than a magic spren thing, he is another part of Shallan's psychosis.

Moash: Came from a similar situation as Kaladin and they bonded heavily. He became extremely jaded upon seeing the privilege shown to certain players, Elhokar, and general racism in society. Infuriated with what they could get away with, he decided to take justice into his own hands. This led to a falling out with Kaladin, an attempted murder, a warrant for his arrest, and getting in with the wrong crowd. He now suffers from drug addiction, and is unable to seek help. He regularly harasses and stalks Kaladin.

Teft: a physical therapist/chiropractor hired by the college team. Has taken Kaladin under his wing.

Wit:... I cant decide what for him. I think it would be funny if he was like a frat boy, but isn't actually enrolled in the school. He's just strangely there. Everywhere. Also somehow was in Europe and knows Shallan. Is Jasnah's boyfriend bc that's too cursed not to include. He could also be a commentator.

Maya: lol what if she was Adolin's lucky football? Poor maya

That's all i got for now. Would appreciate any ideas on Szeth. Maybe he's an unprofessional football (soccer) player? They scrimmage against him and he kicks their butts solo. Russian assassin? Both? I have no idea ya'll

[babydipper]

the whole conversation about remus belittling sirius's intelligence in incorrect quotes drives me nuts. it shows exactly that some people have never seen highly and naturally intelligent teenagers. I can assure you, I have spent six years with teenagers who did international science competitions and more - always came back with medals (one of the three best schools in the country). they are the stupidest people I know. we always made sure to tell each other that we are, in fact, idiots.

I was the president and I set a cotton candy machine on fire in the literature classroom and then, put it out by myself

remus calling sirius stupid is a little bit out of the character, but sirius not being stupid is just insane

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Tumblr's Guide to Shostakovich- Part 4: Establishing a Star

It's been a while since my last Tumblr's Guide to Shostakovich; I'm so sorry! I've got a ton of projects I'm working on and I just haven't had time for this one. But now that I'm back, it's time to cover the late 20s and early 30s, which is quite a bit of ground.

So, after the composition of his First Symphony in 1925, Shostakovich was quickly becoming noticed, both within the USSR and internationally. 1927 proved to be a consequential year for him, as he began performing as a concert pianist and participated in the First International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, although he did not place among the winners. Nonetheless, he regarded the competition as a success in a letter to his mother, from February 1, 1927. The pianist Nathan Perelman characterized Shostakovich's pianistic style as such:

Shostakovich emphasized the linear aspect of music and was very precise in all the details of performance. He used little rubato in his playing, and it lacked extreme dynamic contrasts. It was an ‘anti-sentimental’ approach to playing which showed incredible clarity of thought. You could say that his playing was very modern; at the time we accepted it and took it to our hearts. But it made less impression in Warsaw, where [Lev] Oborin’s more decorative, charming and ‘worldly’ approach, albeit somewhat militaristic, was the order of the day. However, Shostakovich seemed to foresee that, by the end of the twentieth century, his style of playing would predominate, and in this his pianism was truly contemporary.

(Participants and jury of the First International Chopin Competition, 1927. Shostakovich can be seen third from the left in the second row.)

1927 also saw an event that would once again change the course of Shostakovich's life- in addition to the composition of his Second Symphony (subtitled "To October"), we see in correspondence his first mentions of a foray into operatic composition. While Shostakovich had set words to music before (for instance, "To October" includes an ideological text by Aleksandr Bezyemensky), he decided to choose a work familiar to him as the subject of his first opera, The Nose by Nikolai Gogol, which he mentions in a letter to his friend, the critic Boleslav Yavorsky, on June 19, 1927. (Yavorsky was one of Shostakovich's primary correspondents until August of that year, when he met the polymath and scholar Ivan Sollertinsky, who was to become his closest friend. For more on Sollertinsky, I have a whole post on him here.)

Shostakovich was a lifelong Gogol enthusiast and even had many of his stories memorized by heart, which he was often fond of quoting, both in correspondence and conversation, so it should come as no surprise that he decided to adapt a Gogol story as his first opera, even writing the libretto himself and adapting long passages of the original short story into it (as well as references to other Gogol stories as well!). However, to those unacquainted with Shostakovich, The Nose seems like an unlikely choice for an operatic adaptation, especially considering the great canon of Russian-language literature that has historically been used for operatic adaptations, such as Tchaikovsky's Evgeny Onegin and Pikovaya Dama (or The Queen of Spades), both adapted from Pushkin. The Nose, on the surface, is a bizarre and comedic story, in which the main character, Collegiate Assessor Kovalyov, wakes up to find his nose removed from his face. The Nose is later found walking around Saint Petersburg, where it has gained sentience, talks, and even receives a promotion, much to the status-obsessed Kovalyov's chagrin. Kovalyov is unsuccessful in getting people to believe that his nose is now sentient, shenanigans ensue, and by the end, he wakes up once again to find his nose reattached, as Gogol's narrator remarks on the absurdity and ridiculousness of the story.

It seems like impossible subject matter for an opera, and yet, Shostakovich makes it work. With his penchant for sarcasm and the grotesque, as well as his use of inverting conventions of comedic and tragic music with the effect of making tragic situations seem ridiculous and ridiculous situations seem tragic, Shostakovich enriches Gogol's original Nose (assisted by the author's trademark skaz literary style) in his adaptation, while keeping it distinctly Gogolian. The Nose would be completed in 1928, and premiered in 1930, although it was not a success among the general public at the time, largely due to the avant-garde music and absurdist themes. It would not be performed in the USSR again until 1972.

(A poster for the premiere of The Nose at the Maly Opera Theatre, Saturday January 18th, 1930.)

In 1928, Shostakovich would make a strong connection with the theatre director and playwright Vsevolod Meyerhold, and wrote music for his theatre in Moscow. Shostakovich's stay with Meyerhold, as evidenced from letters to Sollertinsky, was less than ideal- he found Meyerhold and his wife, the actress Zinaida Raikh, to be at times obnoxious in the way they fawned over each other and their two children, and their nanny made unwanted advances on him- but found a career writing music for stage plays, most notably in collaboration with the poet and playwright Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose play The Bedbug he composed accompanying music for.

Shostakovich accepted a position at the theatre collective TRAM (Russian: Театр Рабочей Молодёжи, or Worker's Youth Theatre) in 1929, where he composed music for a number of ideological plays. Scholar Elizabeth Wilson notes that while Shostakovich enjoyed writing music for some of the TRAM plays, he also joined TRAM in an effort to shield himself from criticism from the RAPM (Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians), a more conservative musical branch that was, at the time, amassing power. The RAPM was in opposition at the time to the ACM (Association For Contemporary Music), and encouraged many elements that would later be incorporated into the Socialist Realism style that would take effect in the mid-30s. However, neither organization was around for long; the ACM was dissolved in 1931, while the RAPM was dissolved in 1932. While we know that Shostakovich was growing increasingly aware of the gradual restrictions being placed on music, in the coming decades, the intersection between Soviet politics and music would become unavoidable, and the next opera Shostakovich would compose in just a few years' meant he would find himself straight in the crossroads.

Thank you for reading! In the next entries, we’ll get further into the 30s, where there’s a lot to cover!

[wtficedance]

hi! i don't necessarily follow women's football but i know some things and i noticed there's a high percentage of ACL injuries in female footballers. i wonder if there's a similar case of ACL injury in women skaters as well? do female footballers and female skaters use their legs differently, biomechanically speaking?

Q #203:

Hi Anon,

First of all, apologize for taking this long. This has been sitting in my notes and I’ve been adding to it for a few weeks. You have come to the right place to talk about the biomechanics of injury, especially in footballers (as someone who grew up playing competitively for over a decade). Football, basketball, volleyball are all lateral impact sports. There’s lots of landing and pushing off to the side and hard planting to quickly change direction. The planting, that really sharp force and change of momentum, is often where athletes tear their ACLs. It’s almost always non-contact, the ligament just experiences too much torsion and shear stress and tears. Skating is less of a lateral sport, because of the glide (in comparison to running where there’s an impact with the stride) so while stroking uses some exterior rotators (the glute medius, piriformis, etc) there’s not a jolt of force in the knee like there is without skates.

In field sports (football, American football, lacrosse, field hockey, rugby) there’s an element of cleats having too much traction with the turf, and getting stuck while the body’s momentum goes another way that wouldn’t happen in a sport like volleyball or basketball. This is also more of a factor on artificial turf than grass, which is why there’s been a major push in women’s football for international games on grass, even in the NFL there has been an increase in demand for grass. That’s not as much a factor in skating.

For female skaters, like Kaitlin Hawayek, who are unlucky enough to tear their ACLs it’s a lot more likely that it’s a contact injury, with a force being applied on the outside of the knee so it caves in and the ACL tears trying to stabilize it. This can happen coming out of a lift or a freak fall, but it’s less likely to a routine stroking motion like a crossover or turn like it is for field athletes. I’m guessing that Kaitlin’s ACL happened on a curve lift dismount gone wrong where her skate got caught and then lots of outside force was applied to her knee.

Female footballers have a uniquely high rate of ACL tears (and other ligament injuries) compared to peers in other sports and their male peers in football. Here’s a few of the reasons that researchers point to as risk factors:

- There’s a social factor that female athletes are more discouraged from strength training which helps balance the strength of the quads and hamstrings which is often a contributing factor to knee stability. And generally female athletes begin puberty earlier and are at a critical part of their musculoskeletal development when they’re most insecure about their body’s and most discouraged from doing resistance training for injury prevention.

In this 2020 literature review [2] of 12 studies on injury prevention protocols in women’s football, they found that “there is low-level evidence that multicomponent, exercise-based programmes reduce overall and ACL injuries by 27% and 45%, respectively.” It should be noted that this literature review included 9/12 studies focused on adolescents (9-18yo), which is that critical period for musculoskeletal development & a time period of extreme social vulnerability.

Across all sports, protocols using agility, plyometric, balance, mobility, and strength protocols are very effective at preventing injuries. “Systematic reviews confirm the efficacy of such programmes to reduce ACL injuries,35 for all athletes and all sports (OR=0.50; 95%CI 0.41 to 0.59), and female athletes specifically (OR=0.33; 95%CI 0.27 to 0.41).“ OR means “odds ratio” so for all athletes/all sports the protocols halves the risk of injury per incidence of risk and for female athletes it reduces it by 67%! Which is huge. And shows that well-rounded training programs are more-so important for female athletes because of general social attitudes that deter strength/plyo/agility training in favor of cardio.

Here’s a little chart of their multi-component studies just for comparison.

- Female athletes are more likely than their male peers to have eating disorders and to deal with malnutrition because of general social expectations. This can lead to weaker muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones that are more prone to injury at the same impact forces that wouldn’t injure someone not suffering from malnutrition.

- Female athletes are given fewer resources when it comes to training centers, facilities, artificial turf/grass etc. Additionally, more female athletes work at least part-time if not full-time jobs which leads to greater fatigue, less sleep and recovery time, etc.

- Only 6% of orthopedic and sports exercise research is done exclusively on female athletes, so a lot of current sports and recovery science is done on male athletes and just generalized across populations, which ignores female-specific factors. And a lot of papers available on this matter that attempt to derive a conclusion about causality/risk are from reviews not necessarily cohort or longitudinal studies.

- I’ve talked about this previously but the Q-angle, the angle the hip socket sits from the sagittal axis relative to the knee, is more exaggerated the wider your hips are. And it’s almost always larger in women. The additional lateral force makes the knee more likely to bow in and causes shear strain in the ligament. This bowing makes the ligament more vulnerable to tearing than in male athletes who have narrower hips. Strength training with emphasis on external rotation, foot position relative to knees, and weight distribution is important to account for differences in bone structure, and why sports science that’s centered around only male athletes results in a flawed approach for injury prevention in female athletes.

- Football is an extremely fatiguing sport because of the length of games as opposed to sports like basketball and volleyball where there’s more natural stoppage of play. In addition to just endurance, explosiveness is needed in the 89th (and 119th) minute, and the intra-joint forces necessary to create that explosive power are quite large, and when fatigued incorrect body mechanics can lead those intra-joint forces to be applied to weaker structures in the knee.

From a 2021 study [2] focused on changes in biomechanics under fatigue in female footballers w/ 20 participants from 20-31yo: “Knee extension moment decreased in 8, knee valgus moment increased in 5 players. A subset of participants showed a drift of pivoting limb kinematics that matches the known ACL injury mechanism; other players displayed less definite or even opposed behaviors.” 

Valgus is a description of a pattern of movement in the knee other than extension/flexion. Particularly with regards to internal rotation from the hip, where internal rotators or ADDuctors (the inner thighs) overpower external rotators ABDuctors (gluteus medius), causing the knees to cave and rotate to face each other as opposed to forward.

This is an example of NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III landing from a standing broad jump, you can see as opposed to directing his knees outwards and forwards, he exhibits knee valgus. Griffin was known for his short, injury prone career. Including torn right ACL in college; right LCL sprain in 2012; torn ACL, LCL, meniscus in 2013; ankle issues, and a whole lot more. 

General consensus was that he was so injury prone in college and in the NFL (in non-contact situations) because of his excessive knee valgus that was never corrected.

There has been some general thought that the menstrual cycle (menstruation, follicular, ovulation, and luteal phase) potentially play a role in ACL vulnerability though there is no real consensus.

  A 2017 review [3] about the relationship between ACL laxity, menstruation, and contraception attempted to collate studies that relate the 3.

“Twenty-one studies totaling 68,758 participants were included: 5 on the menstrual cycle and ACL injury, 7 on hormonal contraceptives and ACL injury, as well as 13 on menstrual cycle and ligament laxity”

The literature collated suggests that the oral pill potentially reduces risk of tear by 20% but the strength of the evidence in these studies is low, related to overall bias and robustness of research methods/study design.

“Specifically, laboratory studies have found that exposure of the ACL to estradiol results in a dose-dependent reduction in fibroblast and collagen synthesis and that this effect is attenuated by the addition of progestins” estradiol is low during menstruation, peaks during the luteal phase, and then has a secondary, smaller apex halfway through the luteal phase (see pic below). Basically, estradiol peaks during the menstrual cycle create certain periods of time where fibroblasts-cells responsible for the creation of connective tissue-have their proliferation rates decreased, so connective tissue and collagen is being replaced and reinforced significantly less than during the rest of the menstrual cycle. In contrast, progesterone increases fibroblast rate of proliferation, creating a protective effect. 

So as you can see in the graph below, in the luteal phase the simultaneous rise of the two hormones cancel one another out whereas in the ovulatory phase, the peak in estradiol with no protective progesterone creates a window of vulnerability for all connective tissues in the body.

“The identification of estrogen receptor positive fibroblasts in the human anterior cruciate ligament strongly suggests female sex hormones may have an effect on the structure and composition of the ligament” [5]

“The proper function of a ligament depends on the appropriate type, synthesis, assembly, crosslinking, and remodeling of collagen. This complex interplay between synthesis and remodeling of collagen is influenced by hormones, exercise, and immobilization. Thus, it is clear the amount of collagen bundles and the individual types of collagen influence the ability of the tendon to withstand loading.”

Progesterone’s protective effect explains why the oral pill (either combined estrogen/progesterone or progesterone only) correlates to fewer ACL injuries. Progesterone essentially tricks the body into never entering ovulation, and prevents development of the follicle which is responsible for estradiol production. So even in the presence of estrogen, there is no massive increase in native estradiol concentration which weakens connective tissue. 

All of this to say, a lot more research needs to be done but we do have a preliminary understanding of how certain risk factors can be ameliorated, and that can help us understand what is potentially going wrong at clubs that have had a slew of injuries (looking at you Arsenal women). I love talking about this kind of science, because it is so understudied, so if you want to chat more anon I would love to! But also if this was too much info I’m very sorry I just find it fascinating.

And here’s all the papers cited:

1. Making football safer for women: a systematic review and meta-analysis of injury prevention programmes in 11 773 female football (soccer) players. Kay M Crossley, Brooke E Patterson, Adam G Culvenor, Andrea M Bruder, Andrea B Mosler, Benjamin F Mentiplay.

    1. https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/18/1089?ref=performancesporthacks 

2. Fatigue induced by repeated changes of direction in élite female football (soccer) players: impact on lower limb biomechanics and implications for ACL injury prevention. Matteo Zago, Sina David, Filippo Bertozzi, Claudia Brunetti, Alice Gatti, Francesca Salaorni, Marco Tarabini, Christel Galvani, Chiarella Sforza, Manuela Galli.

    1. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2021.666841/full 

3. The effect of menstrual cycle and contraceptives on ACL injuries and laxity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Simone D Herzberg, Makalapua L Motu’apuaka, William Lambert, Rongwei Fu, Jacqueline Brady, Jeanne-Marie Guise.

    1. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2325967117718781

4. Report on sex-related factors in sports medicine at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting, Mary K. Mulcahey, MD, of Tulane University School of Medicine

5. Combined Effects of Estrogen and Progesterone on the Anterior Cruciate Ligament. Warren D. Yu, MD; Vahé Panossian, MD; Joshua D. Hatch, MD; Stephen H. Liu, MD; and Gerald A. M. Finerman, MD

https://journals.lww.com/clinorthop/Fulltext/2001/02000/Combined_Effects_of_Estrogen_and_Progesterone_on.31.aspx

[scotianostra]

April 30th 1891 saw the formation of An Comunn Gaidhealach a vehicle for the preservation and development of the Gaelic language.

Founded in Oban, it has supported the teaching, learning and use of the Gaelic language and the study and cultivation of Gaelic literature, history, music and art for over 100 years.

Through the organisation and running of the Royal National Mòd and a network of provincial Mòds across Scotland, An Comunn Gaidhealach furthers the aims of supporting and developing all aspects of the Gaelic language, culture, history and heritage at local, national and international levels.

This year the Royal National Mòd returns to the Aryll town where it all started in 1890 with one of the biggest shake ups in its history. Choir competitions are among the most popular events and this year we coud see some modern songs included for the first time, albeit translated into Gaelic of course. It has suggested possible genres could include barbershop and songs from musicals. men could potentially sing in a women’s choir, and singers would finally be encouraged to dance on stage. All very radical for the society.

Some modern music has already been a feature of the contest, with a choir singing a song by Skye-based Scottish folk/electronica band Niteworks.

An Comunn Gàidhealacwill take place from 11th to 19th October 2024 in Oban.