#i hope this is comprehensible to anyone other than myself. sometimes i completely lose track of my point when ranting about my blorbos | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

suspected-spinozist · 7 years

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[ooc: It’s @theunitofcaring‘s birthday! With love, always.]

I almost can’t believe it. Makel Alasi’s writing his memoirs, and I have a friend who works for his publisher, and she managed to get me an advanced copy! I don’t want to leak too much, but this is one of my favorite parts. (Tagging @colorjustice since I know she’s a fan, even if she sometimes has trouble admitting it).

“I could always write a movie soundtrack. I’ve never done one before, and it seems like it could be fun.”

“You know the difference between a movie and a music video, right?”

“Of course –“

“Because in a movie, the music’s generally supposed to stay in the background.”

“Not the way I write it.” – a matter of public record, incidentally. Just look up my film licensing agreements. “Anitami audiences have taste, Telkam. You can’t seriously believe they’d rather watch you than listen to me.”

“Yeah.”

There wasn’t really much I could say to that, so I just let him sulk for a couple of minutes. I did apologize, eventually, I’m not heartless.

“It’s fine.” (It obviously wasn’t. What my brother lacks in eloquence, he more than makes up for in emotional volatility).

“No, it’s not. You know how I get when people imply I’m not talented.”

“Yeah. Makel, I’m not you.”

That’s obvious, I’ve heard him sing. “You’re still an artist. Well, in a manner of speaking –“ “What I am is I’m employed, that’s what I am.” He turned away. I think he may even have grunted.

“You’re really not happy, are you?”

“Guess not.”

“I just thought it would be nice to collaborate on a project with my little brother.”

***

We were all so relieved when Telkam told us he was going to be an actor. So, it seemed to come out of nowhere, so – and it’s not easy for me to admit – he’s not even that good. He’d get better. My father is always saying any of us could excel at anything we set our minds to. Of course, it’s not like he tried especially hard to be the world’s best diplomat.

It was different with Aitim. I mean, when we first started to notice that Aitim wasn’t happy. Dad took it especially hard. He felt like he’d betrayed him; that is, like he’d broken the unspoken contract he’d signed when he bought his first credit that his children wouldn’t feel trapped the way he’d been trapped, and what’s worse, he felt like a failure. Failure makes him get all defensive, it’s not as if he’s had much practice. Mom just didn’t get it. She sees politics as a kind of applied psychology, and both my parents tend to think of the applied sciences as things other people do after all the really interesting theoretical problems have already been solved. But Aitim had passion, he had ambitions, and he was willing to move metaphorical mountains – or at least sidestep social institutions – to fulfill them. That’s something they both understood.

*** I decided to visit Telkam at work, since I was curious, but mostly to fuck with him. They were shooting on some backlot in the middle of – and I do mean – nowhere, three hours outside of Lina by train, one of those depressing exurbs full of identical row-houses full of identical purples. It’s still mostly apartments out there, but no more than three or four families to a building. They’re all a dingy sort of off-white – the buildings, not the families – with squares of patchy grass and the occasional optimistic swing-set. I’ve heard people move out there for the space, but I can’t imagine they’d need it. I didn’t see any children. Then again, it was school hours.

The lot was easy enough to find. Telkam was wearing something that looked like a couple of old laundry machines wrapped in aluminum foil. (“Astronaut or sentient household appliance?” “Radiation suit, obviously”). You couldn’t see his face, nor much of the rest of him, which meant either a surprising dedication to realistic radiation safety standards on the part of the producers or just plain stupidity – after all, they certainly aren’t paying him for his acting skills.

(You may think I’m habitually cruel to him – and I am, though not more than any older brother. Don’t misjudge me. The advance on my exclusive memoirs is going straight into a trust fund to pay for his first-born child. What? It’s not as if he’s going to earn one on his own.)

In any case, I snuck in the back during a take, and watched him flail at a kind of rubbery-looking facsimile of a post-apocalyptic mutant organism for a little while before someone caught sight of me. She was a little yellow with a clipboard, clearly some species of assistant, and I must say she made a valiant effort to squeal in absolute silence. But then an electrician noticed her, and had to nudge his friend, who had to nudge her friend, and – well, have you ever seen a very, very quiet mob starting to assemble itself? Until then I hadn’t either, and it’s an experience Eventually the man with the puppet joined in and they had to stop filming. It took another ten minutes to get Telkam out of the suit.

“Congratulations, asshole. They’re going to lose the whole day, do you have any idea how much that costs?”

“Not as such, no.”

“It’s not a high-budget operation, but there’s still about 200 people working here, and they’ve all got salaries. And equipment, and renting the space –“

“I know I can pay the difference.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Sure it is. Just point me in the direction of your line producer and see what happens.”

“Fuck you.”

Articulate, isn’t he? “How do you feel about abandoning the land of the living laundry machines and taking the rest of the day off?”

“I don’t come and bother you where you work.”

“Not for lack of trying. And we both know that that’s not strictly true.”

“Makel – “

“Remember that time, you would have been, what, one and a half? And I was recording something at home, when suddenly I heard this banging – “

“Makel! Don't talk about that where there are people!” (And so I won’t – but you should really look up the video on MyStream.)

In the end, he did leave for the day, and since I’d given them permission to play my latest single over the opening credits, the director even thanked me. (Thematically, it’s completely inappropriate, but don’t we all make sacrifices for the sake of family?)

“Feel like telling me what that was all about?” – we’d been on the train to Lina for about two hours at this point, but when Telkam feels like sulking – as in all his endeavors – he commits.

“I haven’t seen you for a while.” Which, for the record, is true.

“You’re not on a secret mission from mom and dad?”

“To, what, make sure you’re still alive. They’re not that neurotic, and they’re definitely not that subtle.”

“Aitim, then. But he probably already has spies.”

“Oh, Telkam. You’re assuming he cares.”

The thing about Telkam is that it’s impossible to guess what’s going to upset him. Most things that would reduce a reasonable person to tears just roll right off him, but he can be surprisingly vulnerable. Especially when it comes to family. So – “They all want you to be happy,” I say eventually. “They love you. For reasons that pass comprehension, admittedly – “

“I know I haven’t been home in a long time.” He hasn’t. I’m not even sure where he’s living right now, in fact, which is why I had go and kidnap him at work – “How’s Kantil?”

“He’s doing well. Math track, says he wants to do something practical. Dad’s hoping he’ll be an engineer, of course, but mom thinks economics. And Kefin’s talking.”

“I thought Kefin was talking months ago.”

“He was, but only in Anitami, and you know dad, that barely counts.” (My father raised all of his children to speak at least six languages – to varying degrees of success – and I’ll have you know that I translate all my own lyrics in four.)

“I’d visit more, but – “

“Yeah.”

“They might ask me how I am.”

***

I remember when Aitim went off to live with our grandfather (you may have heard of him?). I’ll never forget what it was like after he left. I don’t think the house has ever been so quiet, and that’s before or since. I did a lot of singing. My parents worked, somehow, even more than they usually do, and if I hadn’t been there I don’t think they’d have remembered to come home – this was just before Telkam.

The only people who gossip more viciously than blues are green academics (and I know whereof I speak), so if you’ve had the misfortune to move in those rarified circles, don’t believe what they tell you – dad never tried to force him to stay. Once he was sure that it was what Aitim really wanted, he didn’t even try to persuade him. My father doesn’t understand why anyone who could be green would ever choose to be anything else, but he knows what it’s like to be forced to be something you’re not. Yes, it’s an unusual way of looking at caste, and for all I know it may be unique to my family, but I’ve always considered myself the better for it. Patrilineality be damned, I’m green. I know it. You know it, too – would you have picked up this book if you hadn’t heard me sing?

Aitim himself says much the same – not that he won’t deny it if you ask him. At least he did one night a few months later, at dinner with just grandfather and his wife and the two of us and our cousin Kan, age three seasons, because sometimes even Fen Neli wants to see his grandchildren without having to smooth over some sort of familiar conflict.

“You’re not blue,” I told him between courses. “It doesn’t matter who our grandfather is. In our family we’re green.”

“Poor grandfather! Someone will have to tell him we’ve stopped being related.” This all happened years ago, six or seven at least, and I can’t recall if grandfather laughed, and ruffled Aitim’s hair. I like to think he did. “Besides, I don’t think I’m blue because our father is really blue – it’s just that some people will be more willing to work with me if they think I do, so that’s how I explain to them.”

“That’s not what dad thinks.”

“Really?”

(Grandfather, not paying attention: “No, Kan, we don’t eat the flatware, yes, yes, that’s the way, or grandmother’s necklace – where did he get that? – Kan”)

“Really. He said so. And he’s so angry he’s not going to let you come home and you’re going to have to go live with Uncle Nolime ‘cause you think he’s so much better than us.”

It would have been a fairly transparent lie even if you didn’t know our father well, or weren’t Aitim, but he did, and he was, and of course, being Aitim, he smiled. “If that’s so, then I suppose shall live with Uncle Nolime, but I’m afraid I should miss you all terribly.”

“Don’t you miss us now?” I think I mentioned, before, that father felt like he’d somehow betrayed his firstborn son. I was two years old, my big brother had just left for what seemed, at age two, to be forever, and I just felt betrayed.

“I know I’ll come back, Makel. And if I lived with Uncle Nolime, I don't think father and mother would visit me nearly as often.”

“He puts up with Entis” – Entis, thankfully, being too occupied by Kan to notice – “so why’d you do it, then?”

“Do what?”

“Be a blue, if it’s not because of dad.”

“Hmmm. Makel, why do you think we have castes?”

“Historical contingency, right? Societies that had castes hundreds of years ago did better than the ones that didn’t, and now we all have them. Except – well, I’ve always thought, we can’t know if they did better because they had castes, or because they matched particular castes to particular niches, or they just happened to have more resources to begin with, or something else entirely. There must be archeologists who know something about it, but it was so long ago – “

“There were confounding factors.”

“Right, that. And greens really are smarter than other people, even if they weren’t always, and grays really are stronger and faster, and blues are –“ Kan, seated directly across from me, was gnawing on the edge of the table – “well, blues are something, probably, but we don’t go around saying that especially smart people are really greens. Unless they’re dad.”

Aitim nodded. “What they’ll teach you – at least in blue school – is tat heredity obviously isn’t infallible, and sometimes people really might be more productive in different caste than the one they’re born to. But that’s so vanishingly rare – especially compared to the number of people who’d want to switch for more power, or prestige, or cheaper credits, or something else like that – that it’s a waste of resources to try and sort out all the valid claims. So we just don’t allow it.”

“Except for dad.”

“That’s right. And father didn’t get away with what he did because he was talented enough to justify it. He is, of course, but that isn’t why it worked.”

(I’m going to have to interrupt my brother, here – just for a moment – because most of you don’t know him, and have consequently never heard him speak. I don’t remember his exact words, and I can’t explain how the looks in his eyes, and his gestures, and his tone made them seem so perfectly, irreproachably reasonable. People say I have the magic voice.)

“Father got away with it,” Aitim continued, “because there’s a certain way that people expect greens to act, and part of that – for better or for worse – is that they really don’t think they should have to follow the rules so long as they’re clever enough to get around them. All the things that would have made him a terrible blue – his impulsivity, his single-mindedness, his, ah, – “

“ –complete lack of social skills?”

“Yes, that – they’re not exactly virtues, in a green, but they make him seem more consistent with himself.”

“I don’t think dad cares about that.”

“Really? I think he cares a great deal. And other people care even more.”

“Is that why you want to be a blue? Because it makes you more consistent with yourself?”

“Yes. And no one really thinks that there’s anything ontologically significant about patrilineality or matrilineality, in a mixed-caste marriage. We simply need a way of deciding edge cases – that is, of determining who we should think of as blue. They’ll think of me as blue. That’s what matters.”

Grandfather must have gone upstairs to put cousin Kan to bed, because I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have had something to say to that.

“So it’s all in people’s heads?”

“The most real things usually are. You know –“ Aitim was looking at a framed photograph of our father as a child of one or two, sitting in grandfather’s lap and looking desperately unhappy – “the only thing that could have made the caste system look more arbitrary than letting father switch would have been making him stay. Can you imagine? It would have seemed so cruel, and so stupid –“

“It’s a good thing he left.”

And, after a while – “I think so too.”

I took a few moments to digest that, along with my dessert. “It sounds like you’re saying that it’s fine to ignore your birth caste, as long as you can get enough people to take you seriously.”

“I never said that.”

“You pretty much said –“

“Well, I won’t acknowledge it.” Even then, you see, he was already running for office.

***

“I don’t see why you had to tell me all that.”

We’re getting off the train in Lina, in my neighborhood, which is mostly green, when I start to notice the strange expressions on people’s faces. Of course, Telkam’s hair. Either he’s wearing a wig or he’s bleached it for the part.

“Why do you think the leads in action movies are always gray?”

“What?”

“Your hair, I just noticed – I mean, it would make sense if you were playing an astronaut or a soldier or something, but you’re the last survivor of a nuclear holocaust, it could really be anybody.” “I guess it’s just what people expect.”

“I suppose so.”

“Besides, if action hero were a job, it would definitely be gray.”

It’s a beautiful night, perfectly clear. The city sparkles, forty, fifty, a hundred stories tall, with little cracks of sky shining between the buildings in the hazy, reflective darkness. If you live near the river – and I do – you can see the lights reflected in the water, quavering and sinking and surfacing as the little waves calm, like the stars it’s always just too bright to see.

“I think you have more in common with Aitim than you’d like to admit,” I said.

“Oh?”

“That’s why I told you that story earlier.”

“Aitim’s blue.”

“Only because he wants to be.”

“He dyes his hair. I know he wants us to think it’s naturally coming in teal, but he last time he was home, I saw his roots showing.” A girl with pale jade-colored hair walks by, gives us a funny look, and scurries off. Telkam tosses his hair and blows her a kiss. “You know, I think I just might keep the gray? It suits me.”

#amenta #the really sad thing: this is not the highest context silm fanfic I have ever written #misadventures in arda

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anghraine · 7 years

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so in your rogue one au, how did the proposal happen? what's their marriage like?

Their marriage is basically … two troubled and uncommunicative people who love each other very much.

So there’s a certain amount of confused flailing and a lot of emotional dependency (they could probably count on one hand the number of other people they trust), and when things go wrong between them they go really wrong. But there’s a deep bedrock of affinity and trust that keeps their relationship on a pretty even keel. Jyn, Cassian, and the Rebellion are all far better off for them being together.

As for the proposal:

“I think we should get married,” Jyn announced.

She tried to sound matter-of-fact about it. She felt matter-of-fact about it. And a little nervous, maybe—that was why she blurted it out as soon as she barged into Ice Chamber Exactly-the-Fuck-Like-All-the-Other-Ones, where Cassian was repairing Kaytoo.

Cassian’s hydrospanner didn’t drop, of course. But it went completely still in his grip. “What?”

“All of us?” said Kaytoo. “No. I might consider Cassian, but not you.”

She’d thought him still powered down. Or she would have, if she’d thought about him at all. It was almost a relief to fold her arms and scowl in his direction.

Maybe she was more than a little nervous.

“Do you even know what marriage is?” she demanded.

“The establishment and formalization of permanent association between individuals,” he said promptly, “which is legally binding and widely acknowledged. Often, but not always, the intended result is reproduction, though that is obviously untenable in this case.”

“All right, you know.” She squinted up at him. “But don’t jump to conclusions. I’ve cobbled droids together before. I could build a bunch of tiny KX units and Cassian could program them and you’d correct all the mistakes.”

“What is the purpose of a small KX unit?”

“Metaphorically tiny,” said Jyn. “They’d have to be around your size to properly terrorize stormtroopers.”

“Yes,” he said, mulling it over. “That would be satisfactory. However, I still do not wish to marry you, Jyn Erso.”

“But you’ll marry Cassian?”

“No,” decided Kaytoo. “I just find that prospect somewhat less distasteful.”

Very carefully, Cassian set down the hydrospanner. Jyn’s pulse, already thrumming a quick, shallow beat, pounded in her head and throat. Even her ears rang, and her chest hurt. She was going to deck anyone who called it romantic.

“What’s wrong with you, anyway?” she asked Kaytoo. “You just had an update.”

“I was deactivated for repairs after our last mission, if you recall.”

She did recall. In fact, she might never forget, though she hadn’t been there herself. Jyn and Cassian worked together more often than not, but not when it came to delicate negotiations with informants. Instead, she’d been training some of their recruits in hand-to-hand combat, something vastly more suited to her tastes and skills. It seemed a fairly routine operation by Cassian standards, in any case, but he went MIA for ten days and came back with ruptured organs, half his bones broken, and Kay barely functional.

Jyn was not informed. Not officially. Not unofficially, either, until Luke Skywalker—convinced of their relationship before they were themselves—took it upon himself to pass the news. Jyn, did you know that Commander Andor’s back? Pretty rough shape, but it looks like he’s going to make it. I probably shouldn’t be saying anything, but I figured you’d want to know.

He definitely shouldn’t have mentioned it, as far as regulations went. Luke had the news from Princess Leia, who had it from General Rieekan, who had it from Draven himself, concerned in a Draven sort of way over the near-loss of his best agent. Jyn didn’t care. By then, Cassian was out of bacta and healing, though near insensible with exhaustion and painkillers. Jyn and Bodhi only got to see him at all by shamelessly exploiting the memory of the Death Star.

He was too sleepy to say much, but they’d long since figured out what the droids and doctors never did, for all the countless times they patched him up. Cassian, himself quiet when not silent, liked to hear people talking around him. All the more when he was injured. So Bodhi and Jyn chatted about the small accomplishments and squabbles on the base for well over an hour, until Bodhi got called off.

Without him, without Kaytoo, everything wrong seemed to swell up in her, beyond any containing. She wanted … she didn’t even know.

The longer she stayed with the Rebellion, the more her feet itched, yet the more determined she felt to stay. Even beyond the fight, the Rebellion gave her more than she’d had in years: family, in the remnants of Rogue One, and friends, and a sanctuary of trust. But more to lose, too—fear ate at her, sometimes, with the Empire’s net closing and their forces spread thin. Missions grew more desperate and often more solitary, particularly Cassian’s unofficial ones.

Honestly, she couldn’t even keep track of those. It was easier to guess by his state when he returned: injured, or merely tired, or bleak-eyed and toneless for hours afterwards.

Jyn herself came back from her rougher missions restless and eager for fighting, drinking, anything. Once, Cassian took her flying after a single glance at her; somehow he managed to sneak them both away, and they flew through obscenely narrow, jagged passages in the ice until she felt human again. But when it came to him, she didn’t really know what to do, except stick around. It seemed enough; he’d hold her with his face pressed against her shoulder or neck, and either returned to something like himself or managed to sleep. But she still felt useless and furious at herself for it—herself and Draven and the Empire and the nameless clonetroopers who had driven him into the Rebellion.

(Whenever she tried to imagine them, Krennic’s troopers flashed through her mind. A village of Lyra Ersos dropped to the ground, right before Cassian-Jyn’s eyes, and they fled into the darkness.)

Sometimes she longed for nothing so much as an end to it all. Cassian never talked of a future after the war. Jyn didn’t know if he even considered it. But she did. She didn’t pin anything on the hope, but hoped nonetheless, clinging to the dream of something beyond this. At least for awhile. Bodhi, he’d like to go legit again. Maybe Han would figure out how to stop tripping over his own tongue around the princess. Jyn and Cassian and Kay could go fight crime or something. Anything but this.

“We might live,” she whispered. Cassian was awake, though out of it. “After. What would you even want?”

He turned his head towards her, blinking. More alert than she’d thought, but not by much. Despite the dim light, his eyes were almost uninterrupted brown, each pupil a small black point.

He mumbled, “What everyone wants.”

“And what do you think everyone wants?”

His eyes closed again. “Peace, family, marriage.”

Jyn started.

“Democracy,” added Cassian, because of course he did.

Her mouth twitched. “Everyone wants democracy, huh?”

“They should.”

She didn’t quite laugh at him. But if the Jyn of two years ago had known that she’d end up loving a man who babbled about democracy while higher than the stratosphere—well.

The bay was empty. She leaned down to kiss him.

“Go to sleep, Cassian.”

When he woke again, he didn’t remember any of it. But Jyn’s mind kept winding back, to laughing as they careened through some hellish ice canyon, and I figured you’d want to know; to family, marriage, and Cassian hiding his face in her neck. To how much she wanted to claw out of this life, and how much she wanted to stay.

“Of course you don’t recall,” Kaytoo was saying. “You weren’t there. But I took sufficient damage to require a shift to low power, and during my repairs, some incompetent lifeform put a restraining bolt on me.”

“What an idiot,” said Jyn.

He studied her. “Your comprehension of the situation is surprisingly accurate.”

“I’m not much for shackles, myself.”

Cassian pulled the bolt off. “There you are, Kay. A free droid again.”

“Thank you,” he said, the robotic tones somehow carrying a wealth of intensity. Then he added, “I am still not marrying you, however.”

“I should hope not. You can leave,” said Cassian. He looked at Jyn, irritatingly neutral. Among others, that would mean nothing; it had long since become his resting expression. With her, though … with her, it meant he was either concealing his real thoughts or confused. Either seemed probable enough at the moment. “Jyn, I—”

“Don’t answer yet,” she said quickly. “I have reasons. Hear me out.”

Cassian glanced back at Kaytoo, who had not budged beyond turning his head to examine Jyn.

“Kay. Go.”

“How am I to evaluate her reasoning if I am not here?” he demanded.

“I can evaluate on my own,” said Cassian.

“Yes,” Kaytoo allowed, “but with far less accuracy, and certainly less efficiency.”

Well, she definitely wasn’t going to have to deck anyone. But while she’d intended to wait until one or both of them managed to kick Kay out, some vague instinct reminded her that divided attention could be an advantage.

“First of all,” said Jyn, raising a finger, “officers’ spouses have full access to their quarters at all times, and a commander’s quarters are much warmer and more comfortable than a lieutenant’s.”

“A valid reason,” Kaytoo said, with cool approval, “but inadequate.”

“You already have access to my quarters,” said Cassian, and now she felt certain that his blank expression was one of genuine bewilderment.

“Someone”—she shot a meaningful look at Kaytoo—“keeps changing your passcodes.”

“There is a fourteen percent chance that Cassian’s security could be compromised, while the likelihood of your death by hypothermia in your own quarters is less than two percent.”

Cassian rubbed his temples. “You want to marry me for my passcodes?”

Not dignifying either with a response, she ticked off a second finger. “Also, spouses are entitled to disclosure about serious injury, death, imprisonment, and so on. You have the clearance for my status, but I don’t have it for yours, and I’m tired of finding out on someone’s whim, if at all. And even with the clearance, you’re not automatically informed—you have to know enough to check.”

“Yes,” Cassian said quietly, a faint but familiar softness touching his mouth and eyes. He studied her face, as she’d seen him study so many faces, searching for answers. Not for the first time, she wished that hers expressed more; she couldn’t switch her guard on and off at will, and reserve had sunk deep in her bones.

“Another valid consideration,” said Kaytoo. “You surprise me. However, you could simply list each other as emergency contacts, if you were not so foolishly intent on subterfuge.”

Still skittish, Jyn stiffened her spine. “Thirdly, you already want to get married.” Before Cassian (or, more likely, Kay) could question that, she added, “You said so in the infirmary.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Picking his words, Cassian said, “I do not remember, but I would not have meant … have expected—”

“You never expect anything,” she said dismissively. “And you’re not denying it, are you?”

“That is not proof,” said Kaytoo. “Nor is it proof that he referred to a marriage with you, specifically.”

“Of course he did,” she said.

Had she ever thought about anything like this, in those years before the Rebellion caught her in its net, she would have expected to doubt. She always doubted people; she always had to, if she didn’t want to get robbed or betrayed at every turn. Cassian himself had come within a hair of betraying her, too—reluctant tool of the Rebellion’s betrayal, but still. He was a spy and an assassin and a liar who’d regarded her with the same suspicion she did him, yet a month from meeting, they trusted each other with their lives. By the time the Death Star exploded above Yavin, they clung together as neither had done since childhood. And they never so much as considered the possibility of betrayal afterwards.

“I’m sure I meant you,” said Cassian.

Kaytoo made an irritable metallic sound. “If you don’t remember, then you can’t be sure of anything.”

“Kay,” he said, eyes unwavering from Jyn’s face, “you definitely need to go away now.”

The droid, truculent as ever, demanded, “Why?”

Jyn rolled her eyes, but sobered the instant that Cassian took one of her hands. She’d felt ungainly about them, unsure whether to leave them dangling awkwardly by her sides or fold her arms, but—this was okay. This was good.

“We’re going to be sentimental,” he told Kay. “You won’t want to witness it.”

“Oh.” With another indecipherable droid sound, Kay stalked off. Even the clatter of his limbs managed to sound judgmental.

As soon as the door sealed shut behind them, Jyn raised her brows. “Sentimental, are we?”

With a hint of a smile around his mouth and rather more than a hint around his eyes, Cassian said, “I assume you have real reasons.”

She lifted her chin. “I assume you do.”

They both looked down at their linked hands. For herself, Jyn felt rather martyred. They could and did read each other at a glance, all the time—during missions, debriefs, everything. It seemed decidedly unfair that the ability should desert them now. It also seemed unfair that her thoughts scattered as Cassian’s thumb traced absent circles, her entire body warm, even though they regularly did far more than hold hands.

“I’m not used to us needing explanations,” she said at last, torn between exasperation and assurance.

“Neither am I,” said Cassian, his voice milder, but with the same edge of frustration.

Their hands tightened. After another long pause, he said,

“Marriage is … safer.”

“Safer?” Jyn repeated. If she didn’t perfectly understand her own reasons, she felt sure that safety hadn’t entered into it.

“It is not that I distrust you, Jyn.” She heard him took a deep breath, exhale through his teeth. “You know how I am. I always prefer stability, where I can get it.”

“You want to marry me for stability?” Jyn nearly laughed. “Me?”

“No, I—” Cassian made an inarticulate noise that perfectly expressed her own feelings. “Marriage has protections. Laws and customs and rights. Wherever we go, whatever we do, our oath would go with us.”

The idea of an oath alarmed her, a bit. She hadn’t really thought of it that way. But, of course, marriage would be an oath, that was the whole point of it. Not unspoken understanding, not ready promises, but a contract, sworn and inscribed. Others might not honour it, but they could never take it from them.

Jyn could see why that would appeal to Cassian. On consideration, it appealed to her, too, little as she cared for laws and rules in general. She still didn’t care about them for their own sake. But if he preferred stability, the formalities that made order out of nothing, she preferred security, things nailed down every way that she could think of, signed and sealed and backed by as much force and legitimacy as possible.

“And you?” he asked.

At that, they both looked up, both flushed. He’d gone solemn, while Jyn felt a smile trembling on her mouth. Even as she succumbed to the smile, she hung onto her composure.

“I believe in this war,” she said, trying to strand her thoughts into some sort of sense. “In fighting the Empire with all we have. You know I believe it.”

Bewilderment blanked out Cassian’s expression again. “Yes.”

“But I’m not you.” Jyn had to be cutting off the blood in his fingertips. She couldn’t bring herself to care. “I can understand and fight for a cause. I do, everyday. Just—”

Not as Cassian did, not as the fire that animated her life. She would risk her life for the galaxy, but that was something she chose, not who she was.

“I fight hardest for myself. I live for myself, me and mine. I don’t care if it’s selfish.”

Jyn searched his face. His eyes, she thought, looked soft again. Maybe. He was frowning.

“I don’t follow.” At her sigh, blowing her fringe out of her face, Cassian said quickly, “That is, I understand. I know you. I simply don’t see how it … relates.”

She relaxed.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she told him, squashing the urge to drop her eyes again, “but you’re mine, all right?”

To her relief, his confusion faded into a slow smile. It was a familiar one, by now, a mix of delighted and unsteady. Who cared that neither of them went in for endearments or chatter about love, when Cassian looked at her like that? And Jyn suspected her own expression did … something, at these moments. They were the only times her guard really cracked; she’d feel that instinctive, irrepressible something heating her cheeks and curving her mouth, though nobody seemed to notice but Luke and Cassian. The former smugly insisted that she went all bright and surprised, Jyn, it’s nice. The latter caught his breath, which honestly said more.

She felt pretty sure her face was doing the same thing now.

With his free hand, Cassian reached out and tucked her hair behind her ears. “What is the wrong way, exactly?”

His voice had dropped several registers, his thumb lingering at her cheekbone. Jyn laughed in her throat.

“It’s not that I distrust you, Cassian,” she said, smiling back. “I don’t suppose you’ll disappear without—shackles, say.” Jyn thought of Draven and nearly wrinkled her nose. “I never think that. But you know how I am. Verbal agreements are … they’re broken all the time.”

I’ll always protect you.

Stay in the bunker until daylight. I’ll be back then.

“I know you won’t,” Jyn added hastily. Cassian didn’t look offended or hurt, just thoughtful, eyes studying her and fingers resting lightly against her jaw. But with him, she never knew what would sail past and what he’d torment himself over for weeks.

Cassian did keep his word, with her. Jyn trusted him to keep it. But a more general wariness lingered in her.

She fumbled for words. “It’s just …”

“Safer?”

“Oh, fine.” Jyn scowled. “Safer. You were right. Are you satisfied now?”

“Yes,” Cassian said readily. In one of the great injustices of the universe, he had dimples, when he was happy enough to show them. Like now.

As always, though, he quickly turned grave.

“I try not to think of the future,” he said, each word slow and careful.

She narrowed her eyes. As she did, Jyn realized that if they stood another inch closer, they’d be colliding. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, which one had moved. Probably both; they’d done that from the first. Cassian seemed to notice at the same time, his eyes very dark as he searched for words.

“We have cheated death so many times, but I—” He shook his head. “But sometimes I imagine, anyway. Jyn, I never picture a life without you in it.”

Her mood flashed to absurdly cheerful. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Jyn,” he murmured, only just audible, his entire body tilted to her. They’d be kissing already if she were taller. But she straightened up as he leaned that bit down, and he was whispering against her lips, “Jyn, Jyn.”

They pressed together, accustomed enough that it was easy, natural: a familiar language in the slide of his fingers down her throat and her hands in his hair, the parting of their lips and uneven breaths. Not enough for it to feel ordinary, for her to think anything for a few long seconds beyond Cassian and I want, I want—

When they separated, breathless, she collected herself enough to remember her one reservation.

“We’d give up our secrecy, though,” she admitted. “And Command wouldn’t let us serve together.”

Cassian hesitated, then looked into her face and said, “They don’t have to know.”

“What about all those rights?” said Jyn, putting his hair back into order with the ease of long habit.

“Leia,” he said instantly.

It took a moment to follow that particular leap of thought. Only a moment, though.

“You think she’d help hide this?”

“I think she already is,” said Cassian. “One way or another.”

Luke, of course. He told her everything. And odds were good that Leia had figured it out on her own, anyway. She had the same sort of uncanny sense about people. Though she never said a word, she’d always treated them as a package arrangement, you and Erso need to embedded into every order she gave.

Jyn grinned as Cassian straightened her vest. “She does owe us a favour.”

“I don’t imagine that will be necessary. But if it is …” He gave an eminently Cassian shrug, then touched his thumb to her bottom lip. Another repair: the thumb came away smeared with a drop of blood.

Is that a yes? she almost asked, but she had some pride.

“You need to drink more water, Jyn.”

She decided it was.

#anon replies #respuestas #jyn erso #cassian andor #kaytoo #otp: welcome home #luke skywalker #star wars #fic talk #esb au #the instant i got this (months ago sorry anon) i thought ... omg it would be terrible. amazingly terribad. i love my failboat children

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oovitus · 6 years

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Opening June 2018: Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach. Where expert coaching, world-class curriculum, and innovative software meet.

Tested with nearly 100,000 clients, ProCoach makes it easy to deliver research-proven nutrition and lifestyle coaching to anyone who needs it… from paying clients and patients, to family, to co-workers, to loved ones.

Want to coach in-person? Online? A combination of the two? Whatever fits your ideal lifestyle, it’s all possible with ProCoach.

With the ProCoach curriculum, coaching tools, and software, you’ll be able to turn what you learned in the Precision Nutrition Certification into a thriving practice, getting better results with dozens, even hundreds, of people while working less and living life on your own terms.

++++

Wondering how you can handle more clients while still giving them a high-quality experience?

Wishing you could grow your business, work fewer hours from wherever you want, and still be a great nutrition, health, and fitness coach?

I once asked myself these exact questions.

To learn how I answered them, check out this short video. It highlights some of the key frustrations I had as an early coach, the strategies I used to overcome them, and how you can benefit from what I learned.

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JB shares his early coaching struggles and how PN went from 20 to nearly 100,000 clients with ProCoach.

Want to know exactly how the ProCoach software works? Then check this out.

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See how other health and fitness pros are using ProCoach with their clients.

Want to learn even more? Join the Presale List Today

The most reliable and effective system for coaching nutrition.

On Wednesday, June 6th, ProCoach becomes available to all Precision Nutrition Certification students and graduates.

With ProCoach you can quickly, easily and effectively deliver — to your own clients or patients — the habit-based nutrition coaching you learned (or are learning) in the Precision Nutrition Certification program.

Maybe you’re an established health and fitness pro looking to go from 20 to 200 clients. Or perhaps you’re just starting out in this business and hoping to get your first few clients, in-person or online.

Regardless of your goals, ProCoach solves a central problem…

How can I coach more people and make more money — while working fewer/more flexible hours, and still helping people get amazing results?

Grow your business and work less.

Whether you want to start a new coaching business, or add nutrition coaching to your current business, ProCoach will help you:

Market and sell your services to the people who need it.

Coach more people while delivering exceptional results.

Work with people in-person or online.

Spend less time on the admin things that drive you crazy.

Spend more time on the coaching things you enjoy.

Work on your own terms, from anywhere in the world.

A proven curriculum, created/organized for you.

ProCoach automatically delivers — to your clients or patients, on your behalf — an online nutrition coaching curriculum that helps them:

practice new eating habits,

troubleshoot their biggest challenges,

stay consistent, motivated, and accountable, and

radically improve their nutrition, lifestyle, and health.

With you as their coach — answering questions, offering encouragement, and tracking progress through a special dashboard —ProCoach helps you get more people to their goals, reliably and effectively every time.

Develop your coaching expertise.

ProCoach will also help you:

Assess clients quickly and efficiently.

Deliver daily habits, lessons, assignments from our curriculum.

Review client consistency and habit adherence at any time.

Track clients’ physical, mental, behavior changes every week.

Communicate clearly and expertly when clients are stuck.

Attract new clients with photos, data, testimonials, and straight-up, irrefutable, hard-data evidence of your success as a coach.

Want to learn even more? Join the Presale List Today

What’s new with ProCoach?

Since releasing ProCoach in June of 2016, we’ve been working on some really exciting additions, enhancements, and options to make the program even better. These include:

Community of like-minded people + top experts

With our ProCoach Facebook group, you can now work alongside an extremely supportive group of more than 2,500 ProCoaches — including trainers, nutritionists, sport coaches, researchers, therapists, and other healthcare professionals from all over the world.

With case studies, lessons, daily tips, and more, being part of this community will help you expand your network, grow your business, and strengthen your coaching skills.

You’ll also get daily access to me, as well as some of our revered experts and coaches like Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon, Kate Solovieva, Craig Weller, Adam Feit, and more. Ask questions, get feedback and advice, and nerd out on all things fitness and nutrition.

$20,000 in prizes for you and your clients

Every year, we invite our ProCoaches to submit photos of, and stories about, their most successful clients. Prize categories include Best Transformation and Best Story, and are organized by age and gender.

Winners in each of the 8 categories take home $2,000 USD — $1,000 to the ProCoach and $1,000 to the client. (Plus, we give away some fun bonus prizes to selected runners-up.)

ProCoach prize money winners.

Done-For-You marketing

With help from Pat Rigsby, master marketer, we created online and offline campaigns to help you save time, attract clients, and grow your business without diverting time from the biggest marketing tool of all: Client results.

ProCoach’s marketing campaigns come complete with design assets, copy, and deployment instructions, so you can easily spread the word about your business without needing to be a marketing guru or advertising wizard to do it.

Done-For-You Marketing is now built into ProCoach.

Quick-Start guides

After a client submits their initial intake questionnaire, ProCoach generates a personalized Quick Start Guide, a slick, custom packet of advice on portion control, workout nutrition, grocery shopping, and meal prep.

You, the superstar coach, get the honor of presenting this personalized guide to new clients, getting all the credit for their excitement, and for the progress they’ll be making starting on Day 1.

Personalized Quick Start Guides are also built into ProCoach.

Comprehensive Learning Center

Questions always come up when you’re learning. That’s why we created a comprehensive Learning Center with articles on every imaginable topic and an awesome search feature to help you find what you’re looking for.

The comprehensive Learning Center included in ProCoach.

ProCoach Workouts (optional)

After working with thousands of ProCoaches to deliver comprehensive nutrition and lifestyle coaching, many began asking us to unlock our vault of expert-designed exercise programs so they can deliver a more holistic, single-platform experience.

As Precision Nutrition’s own coaching programs have offered integrated exercise, nutrition, lifestyle advice for years, we decided to make available our 28 client-proven exercise tracks for you to use with selected clients.

You now have 3 options when using ProCoach. For each client, you can:

Use ProCoach for nutrition coaching only,

Use ProCoach for both nutrition and exercise coaching,

Use ProCoach for exercise coaching only.

The choice is yours.

ProCoach Workouts is now an option you can use with selected clients.

Want to learn even more? Join the Presale List Today

My story: Once, I wanted to help more people. But I couldn’t.

As mentioned in the first video above, I started coaching clients about 25 years ago. Back then, there was no such thing as “automated” or “online” coaching.

It was old-school: You met clients in person, you carried a clipboard, and after sessions you’d store handwritten programs on card stock paper in an organizer off to the side of the gym.

I have so many fond memories of my time training clients. But when I think back, there’s one frustration that always jumps out.

I consistently had between 15 and 20 full-time clients. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t find time to add more.

On top of working 45-60 hours every week on the gym floor training these clients, I needed to write programs, organize nutrition habits, do record keeping, manage billing, and nurture new leads.

I needed some time back, but I felt stuck.

I was working my butt off, but not making much money once the gym took their 50% cut of my coaching fees.

I realized that to make even a little more money, I’d have to find more time… which meant sacrificing my own workouts (and health) or the few hours I had left for socializing and sleeping.

After a few years on this merry-go-round, I finally came up with a solution:

I started supplementing my in-person training with online coaching.

It began really well. But whenever my roster reached 25-35 clients, I bumped up against new problems.

Problem 1:

With online clients, I didn’t have much time left for in-person coaching. I ended up doing a ton of administrative work for my online clients: program writing, record keeping, email responses, phone calls, and other routine client management tasks.

I was surprised; online coaching wasn’t the time-saver I had imagined.

Problem 2:

I started losing track of my clients.

Because I had more clients than ever, I started forgetting who was on what program, who had what goals… I sometimes felt like an idiot, asking people “So what program are you on again?” during a session.

The interesting part? Lots of other fitness and health coaches were experiencing the same things. They felt the same frustrations.

I wasn’t a lazy, disorganized, “bad” coach.

I just needed a system.

We all did.

We needed to find ways to do the “human” work of creating programs, listening, connecting with, and motivating our clients.

But we were constantly bogged down by administrative work, like paperwork, scheduling, and receipts.

So I got to thinking:

Couldn’t technology handle much of the repetitive “busywork” of day-to-day administration?

Couldn’t it keep us organized and on track? Monitor clients, even when we were sleeping or doing other things? Send us reminders and alerts?

I started asking: Could I “outsource” all these annoying and time-wasting administrative tasks so that I can take on more clients and do what I do best… coach?

So we built a dream solution to make coaching easier.

One of my best friends, Phil Caravaggio, had an answer.

Trained in systems design engineering, Phil showed me real-life examples of how IBM, Dell, and Apple were using software to simplify and amplify their businesses.

At that moment, I knew exactly what we had to do.

We set out to build a coaching platform that would allow coaches — starting with me — to deliver the highest quality coaching experience to larger numbers of clients.

One year later: Success!

We built a beta version of ProCoach and started testing it with a new batch of clients. Immediately I was able to go from coaching 25-35 clients to 100-150 clients at a time.

All while working the same number of hours — or even less — in a given week.

Want to learn even more? Join the Presale List Today

15 years later, that early prototype has become ProCoach.

That was the first prototype of Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach.

Since then, we’ve consistently and relentlessly refined the technology, the software, and the curriculum.

We’ve tested its max limits. We’ve broken it on purpose and rebuilt it so it’s stronger. We’ve found all the sweet spots.

For example:

Since we built the beta version of ProCoach, our in-house coaches at Precision Nutrition have coached an average of 5,000 clients per year with the software.

Today we’re able to coach these clients with 20 full-time Precision Nutrition supercoaches (and a group of part-time interns and mentors) who work wherever they want in the world, living life on their own terms.

You’ll notice that’s an average of about 250 clients per coach — and they get amazing results.

What kind of results are we talking about here? Check this out.

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See what 365 days of ProCoach can do.

And this video shares some amazing behind-the-scenes client stories.

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Bodies, and lives, are changed with ProCoach’s habit-based nutrition coaching.

As you can see, our clients are a diverse bunch. They come in all ages, shapes, and sizes. In fact, they’re probably a lot like your clients.

Which means:

The results you see in the videos above are the exact same results your clients can expect when you start using Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach.

Want to see more? Check these out:

Precision Nutrition Coaching – Men’s Hall of Fame

(225+ men’s before and after photos. Ages 21-70)

Precision Nutrition Coaching – Women’s Hall of Fame

(375+ women’s before and after photos. Ages 21-74)

Want to learn even more? Join the Presale List Today

The ProCoach reviews have been stellar.

In June of 2016, we opened ProCoach up to our Certification students and graduates. We wanted to let them test drive the program in their own businesses.

The response has been amazing.

We sold out all available ProCoach spots in a matter of hours — and the same thing has happened each time we’ve opened up new spots, ever since.

To date, our ProCoaches have:

enroll nearly 80,000 new clients,

help them lose over 640,000 pounds (and counting), and

collect over $38 million in revenue.

Yep, that’s all within just 18 months!

If you want to try this research-proven, client-tested, reliable system for coaching nutrition with your own clients — join us on Wednesday, June 6th.

Want to learn even more? Join the Presale List Today

Save time, increase your effectiveness, get better results, and work on your own terms.

By incorporating ProCoach into your business, and coaching practice, you’ll:

Add habit-based nutrition coaching to your existing services, easily.

Add a highly profitable revenue stream, immediately.

Deliver habits, lessons, assignments from our proven curriculum.

Review and track your clients’ consistency and progress every week.

Set clients up for long-term, sustainable success.

Attract even more new clients with photos, data, testimonials, and straight-up, irrefutable, hard-data evidence of success.

You’ll save time while making more money.

Your clients will get world-class results.

You’ll look like a rockstar coach.

And you’ll feel more in control of your time (and your work) than ever before.

Want to learn even more? Join the Presale List Today

Interested? Add your name to the presale list. You’ll save 30% and secure your spot 24 hours before everyone else.

On Wednesday, June 6th, 2018, ProCoach becomes available to all Precision Nutrition Certification students and graduates.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list. Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated professionals, because they always make the best students and clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you 30% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach.

You’re more likely to get a spot. Remember, last time we sold out within minutes. But by joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

If you’re ready to help more people live their healthiest lives, grow your business, and worry less about time and money… ProCoach is your chance.

The post Opening June 2018: Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach. Where expert coaching, world-class curriculum, and innovative software meet. appeared first on Precision Nutrition.

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