#i want to prove to the naysayers that this has good bones

[sgiandubh]

Some people look for the most ridiculous reasons to base their hatred... have you seen that? Now Sam didn't create his products because he didn't 'develop the recipe', he just paid for it. Oh, for God's sake 🙄 https://www.tumblr.com/maximumwobblerbanditdonut/744755136698646528/excuse-me-are-you-the-creator-of-your-drinks-the?source=share

Dear Ridiculous Hatred Anon,

That particular blogger, whom I have long suspected (without being able or really caring to substantiate) to be one of the Mordor Sopranos' clone outlet, is particularly hateful towards S.

Like a dog with a bone, that page will obsessively focus on the tiniest details and feel compelled to have an opinion on just about anything you could think of, from hair transplants, to whisky blending, to sweating, to acting, to ghostwriting. Now, that is a mouthful and goes to prove Google research skills do not an intelligent person make. Not as long as you still generously place your commas between subject and verb, in your excruciating phrases.

If this blogger wants to show equanimity and fair play, I suggest to own her reasoning and bravely shout out her dissatisfaction to people like the Rothschilds, who simply bought the mythical Pauillac red wine Château Brane-Mouton and renamed it Château Mouton Rothschild. In 1853. Bottled and sold directly from the property since 1920, just because the Earth continues to turn around the Sun without all the naysayers.

It is one of the greatest red Bordeaux wines on this planet, indeed. But the Rothschilds had no part to play in that mysterious alchemy between soil, sun and water. And the names of its curators, called maîtres de chai, who meticulously take care of the whole process, while known, are never widely publicized.

I suggest you ignore that parochial fuckwit who thinks she is a sophisticated person just because she has access to a keyboard and the Internet. Things are not different when it comes to spirits and S did nothing wrong, this time.

And before she screeches back, let's have a look at this 1996 (an exceptional year, by the way) grand cru classé Mouton Rothschild AOC bottle, bearing the name and signature of the baroness Philippine de Rothschild:

PS: I know a thing or two about wine not only because I lived in France for a good while. I know a thing or two about wine because that was my grandfather's all-consuming passion, by family tradition (they hailed from the Pays Basque, a long and complicated story). An almost teetotaler who produced his own. Go figure.

[mellicose]

That Woman Over There

A You Me and Him Fix-it Fic

Rating: Teen, for some suggestive language

Word count: 3464

Warnings: none

Summary: ~ Set after the birth of Monty, Olivia’s baby ~ A dear friend of Olivia comes to visit for a week, and she disturbs the fragile peace between her, Alex, and John.

So, um, there’s been some drama about this wee likkle film. Maybe it will work to its advantage. There were some things that puzzled me in the writing, and this is my way to unravel the plot and weave it into something I might understand as a member of the tasty LGBT sandwich crew.

Chapter 1 | Read Chapter 2

She was still telling Alex stories of Livvie’s awkwardness when there was a quick rapping at the door. The baby bounced in his high seat - he seemed to recognize the knock.

“Uncle John’s here!” said Alex, and lifted baby Monty out of his chair.

Connie froze. Olivia grabbed her wrist as she stood from the table.

“Stay. Please. For Montmorency.”

“I still can’t get over the fact you named your little one after a cherry. Why don’t you call him Billy?” Connie said, referring to his first name, William. She sat back down slowly. Olivia stuck out her tongue. Connie winked.

“Monty’s a family name. I promised daddy,” Olivia said. She heard John in the foyer, cooing at the baby. He grunted, and Monty squealed with glee. Olivia popped up.

“You better not be throwing him up in the air again,” she said, heading out, and bumped into his chest. He had a goofy grin, and his eyes were huge with curiosity. The baby bounced in his arm, pulling at his sculptured beard.

“Is this her?” he said without preamble, holding his other hand out. She stood and stared at it. After a couple of seconds, he put it down, but his eyes moved up the long line of her body. “Bloody hell, you’re a tall gay.”

Alex slapped his arm. “Don’t fuckin’ curse in front of the baby,” she said through her teeth, then slapped her hand over her mouth. Olivia’s face twisted in distress.

“Jesus, Al!” she said, putting her hand on her hips. Alex blew her a kiss through her fingers.

Connie watched all this with a jaundiced eye. She loved Livvie, but this was almost too much to bear. It was weird. And she despised John already.

John’s eyes moved appreciatively over her body. It made her want to rip his beard out. Olivia gave her an importunate look.

“The higher the boots, the closer to God,” she said. Monty squealed as he got a solid grip on the beard and pulled. John howled. The baby giggled as Alex pulled him away, clucking at him softly.

Connie finally smiled. 

They sat around playing happy family for an hour or so in the living room. The baby lay on his stomach on the floor, rocking and kicking his chubby legs. They all took turns making funny faces at him to make him laugh his huge, almost adult laugh.

Connie was in love.

She took Monty in her arms and gave him a raspberry on his fat cheek. He grabbed the cloisonne rose barrette in her hair, fascinated by the gloss and color. He tore hair out of her head trying to get his prize, and still Connie kissed him.

He held up the pin to the sun and babbled happily.

“It’s a rose, darling,” she said, pulling it gently out of his mouth when he tried to have a taste of the pretty red thing. “Una rosa.” She wiggled his chubby legs. The baby squealed, as if trying to repeat it.

“It’s lovely,” John said, but he wasn’t looking at the barrette.

“She’s damn near the ambassador for the rose industry in America. I’ve seen the photos on Facebook,”  Alex said. She was referring to her business - a flower artist for the crème de la crème, coast to coast. She could cover a ballroom with complex swirls of colorful flora and transform it to a perfumed dream world.

And very rich people paid her a lot of money to do just that.

“Roses are the queen of flowers - not only graceful and gorgeous, but they exude their perfume for days after they’ve been cut, giving the exhibitions another layer of beauty,” she said. “I love creating with them.”

“What do you do with the flowers after?” John asked.

Connie’s smile faded, but she took a deep breath and kissed the baby’s tiny foot.

“What makes the installations so meaningful are their evanescence,” she said, as if speaking to a child.

“The band?” John quipped.

“Their short-lived nature,” she said. “No matter how large-scale, I must work quickly to make sure the client enjoys the flower’s beauty to the fullest. And the best part is knowing that such beauty won’t last forever - that they are standing in perfect moment in time, making a a memory…”

“Poetic. Is that in the brochure?” John said. Connie flipped him the bird with both hands. His eyebrows rose.

She put her hands over the baby’s ears. “Newflash, asshole - it’s a website,” she said, and picked Monty up and walked out of the room

Olivia punched his side. “Why d’you have to be such a twat?”

“I’m just following suit,” he said, crossing his arms.

Alex and Olivia sighed, but Connie came back in and lay the baby on the floor.

“It was about damn time you became a mum,” she said, and poked the baby’s swollen belly. “but what a crazy way to go about it. I know some rad New York gays who could’ve helped you. Artists. Musicians.”

“Dirty hipsters,” John whispered.

“You’d fit right in,” Connie said, not looking at him.

Olivia’s smile faltered. Connie crawled to Alex and took her hand.

“We both know Livvie’s high strung, but she’s a blessing isn’t she?”

Alex smiled. “I’m not used to all this Livvie talk. How exactly did you two meet?”

Connie sat between them and put her arms around them both. “She didn’t tell you?”

Olivia began to turn red.

Alex shrugged. “She said you met in New York, when she was there as an exchange student. That she had a crush on you, but it never went anywhere.”

Olivia bit her lip. Connie smirked.

“Imagine it - New York in the 90’s. Everyone’s wearing baby tees and parachute pants and Doc Martens and mourning Kurt Cobain…”

“Sounds rad,” Alex said, perking up. She was only in primary school in the 90’s.

“It was appalling,” Olivia muttered. They made terrible fun of her and her plaid skirts and pearls. Everyone except Connie, the girl next door. Her dad was a Nicaraguan diplomat, her mother bored and medicated.

“But Livvie never liked Nirvana or Oasis,” Connie said, smiling at her. She preferred N*Sync.”

John and Alex snorted in unison. Olivia went crimson, but she didn’t deny it. She still had a thing for Justin Timberlake music.

“I didn’t like Nirvana or Oasis either - I preferred New Order, Depeche Mode, or Verdi. So, it didn’t matter anyway.”

“Verdi?” said Alex.

“You know, La Traviata,” said John. Alex made an I-don’t-know face. “Opera music. Fat ladies singing?”

“Eww - but not at the fat ladies. Just the singing,” she said.

Connie patted her shoulder. “Anyway, I was bored out of my mind, sitting on my front stoop when this vision in pearls walks by. I mean, it was a sight - the longest pleated plaid skirt I’ve ever seen, poofy blond hair, clutching her books against her chest so hard her knuckles were white -“

John chortled. “Sounds about right.”

“Shut up,” all three women said in unison. John went back to playing with the baby.

“Anyway, I was listening to some Roxy Music on my boombox, and as she passed, she lifted her nose at my glam rock - but it was a very cute nose indeed - and it quivered, a bit like a bunny's-“

John whooped. They stared lasers at him, and he picked up the baby. “He needs a change. I’ll be right back,” he said, and walked quickly out of the room.

Connie sighed, as if a weight had been lifted.

“Why do you have him around?” she said.

“Because we do. No use in being so unpleasant,” Olivia said, then winced. She knew why Connie didn’t like him. And she understood. But she couldn’t deprive the baby of a male role model. Although she didn’t say it, John had grown on her. He only looked, and occasionally acted like an absolute twat. But his heart was pure gold.

At least, most days.

Alex poked her side. “You were saying. Her nose quivered like a bunny's,” she said, tugging at Olivia’s pony tail and wiggling her eyebrow at her.

“Oh yes. Well, she was acting all posh and snooty-“

“-It was because I was afraid you would yell something cruel at me.” Olivia interrupted.

“Never!” Connie said. She knew all about being different.

“I was a diplomat’s daughter with a shitty Spanish accent. Everyone at school pretended they couldn’t understand what I was saying. It was a hilarious joke. Even the teachers did it.” she said. She was freshly arrived from Managua, and at the time, she still had a strong Spanish accent. It didn’t make things easy.

“Me too,” Olivia said, and sighed.

“Speak American,” Connie said, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue.

“I hated when they said that,” Olivia said. “Even with an accent, you still knew more English that most of them.”

Alex was in between them, with a bemused look on her face. Connie didn’t have any accent - except an American one.

“Where did it go?” she said.

“I worked really hard to get rid of it. I got sick of people calling me Selma Hayek,” Connie said. “I even changed my name to make things less awkward.”

“What’s your real name?” Alex said.

Olivia giggled.

“You shut up,” Connie said, pointing at her.

“It’s … Encarnación,” Olivia said. “It means incarnation in Spanish.”

“Incarnation? Sounds goth,” Alex said.

“It’s a Catholic thing,” Connie said. “Like Jesus being the incarnation of God?”

Alex shook her head. “I don’t do religion.”

“S’okay. Neither do I, these days,” Connie said.

“That’s a lie and you know it,” said John, walking in with the baby cradled in his arms. Monty sucked placidly on a bottle of milk. “You leave the windows open a lot nowadays. I hear the name of God often enough at night.” He gave them crooked grin.

Alex chuckled, and Livvie blushed. Connie didn’t understand it. Why didn’t they want to snatch his perfect, seal-smooth wig right off?

Connie popped up. “I’m gonna see a man about a horse,” she said.

“What the f- does that mean?” John said, but he was amused.

“To powder her nose,” Olivia said helpfully.

“Nay, darling. Take a leak,” Alex offered.

Connie pointed and winked at her. “Bingo!” Then, she disappeared.

“Well, she’s nice,” John said, putting a burp rag on his shoulder and hoisting Monty up to tap lightly at his back.

“She hates you,” Alex said, picking up some errant toys. “Stay away from her.”

“Most women do when they first meet me, but I change their mind with my irresistible charm,” he said. The baby burped loudly. He giggled.

“I don’t know whether it will work this time,” Olivia said, holding her arms out for the baby. John gave him back reluctantly. “I think you should go. We’re about to head out for dinner.”

“And why can’t I come?” he said, sticking his lower lip out. “Or, better yet,  I can take care of Monty while you ladies are lesbian together as a group. What is it called … a preponderance, or a velvet box of lesbians?”

Alex laughed, and shrugged at Olivia. It had been over two months since they had some baby-free fun.

“Connie’s not a lesbian,” Olivia said. “And I don’t think so. She wants to spend time with the baby too. She’ll only be here a week - you’ll have Monty ‘till he’s 18.”

“But not when he’s soft and tiny like this,” he said, cradling the baby’s downy head in his hand over Olivia’s shoulder.

“It’s just five days. Don’t … rile her up. She has a temper,” Olivia said, putting the baby down in a play seat.

Connie sauntered back, holding an old bronzing lotion bottle. Alex yipped.

“I’m surprised you haven’t let John take this with him,” she said, throwing it underhand at him.

He caught it smoothly and stuffed it in his pocket. “For midnight mass.” He winked. Alex and Olivia rolled their eyes.

Connie glowered.

After coming back from dinner, they sat in the garden, drinking and laughing softly.

He could hear them through his open windows. He had been trying in vain to get the G flat scale on his guitar, but his fingers were failing him. He threw it on the bed and walked downstairs.

Connie. Although he had a clever quip for all her insults, they still stung. Why didn’t Olivia stick up for him? He was good enough to take care of Monty, but not good enough to demand respect from her tall, irritatingly clever friend?

Bull shite.

It was an unusually warm night, and his back windows were open too. He took a beer out of the fridge and sat at his painfully fashionable butcher’s block table in the kitchen, listening to the feminine sing-song of their voices.

“-Damn it why’d you even come back with us?” Alex said. “In another time, I would’ve gone home with ‘er, no questions asked.”

“Al!” Olivia squealed.

“I said in another time. Right now, I’ve got my girl. With the sexy quivering bunny nose,” she said. He heard the smack of kisses.

“Oi, you too. You got time enough for that after I pass out,” Connie said, but her voice was full of mirth.

“She was really into you,” Olivia said.

“I think it was the magic of Monty,” Alex said. They laughed. John smiled in his dark kitchen.

“It was kind of creepy. How are you gonna hit on a woman holding a baby?” Connie said. He noticed that since she was drinking, her accent was different. There was a bit of something else in there. It was … nice.

“I think she knew he wasn’t yours,” Alex said. “You look far too fresh-faced to be a new mum.”

John giggled.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Olivia said.

“I adore you, dark circles and all,” Alex said. “In any case, I’ve a got a nice set of my own.”

He heard clinking glass, and smelled wine on the breeze.

“I’m not in the mood for lady love right now,” Connie said, finally. “I’m kinda drained on lesbian drama.”

“What?” Alex said.

“The New York queer scene can get really weird sometimes. Too much politics,” Olivia said, quite matter-of-factly.

“And not enough pussy,” said Connie.

John wriggled on his bar seat. He didn’t want to be aroused by the thought of Connie rooting slowly between the thighs of another beautiful sapphic lady, but he still swelled and made his skinny jeans uncomfortably tight. Jesus, not again. At least it wasn’t about Alex and Olivia. He had gotten over that a while back.

“To pussy!” Alex said loudly. It must’ve been a toast.

“Without a side of politics!” Connie said, and glass clinked again.

“Hear hear!” Olivia added. It was adorably posh, and there was laughter.

“It’s been a while since you did anything, though,” Olivia said. “Don’t deprive yourself on our account. We can do without you a night or two.”

“I have plenty of time for single serving affairs in New York,” she said. “And I haven’t seen you in over two years.”

“But this would’ve been a guilt free vacation affair,” Alex said.

Connie laughed. “Nah. Not my thing,” she said. For some reason, John’s heart dropped.

He heard the canned sound of a crying Monty - the video monitor.

“I’ll see to him,” Alex said. He heard the soft smack of kisses again, then the sliding door clicked closed.

“Have you found anything on Ella?” Olivia said.

“Not really. PI is just about exhausted every source.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You warned me. I didn’t listen.”

He was lost. Ella? PIs? Sources? She must be an ex-lover. It sounded sordid.

“I’m sorry anyway,” Olivia said. Monty’s crying stopped, and they heard Alex softly singing to him.

“I’m so happy you made it up with her,” Connie said. “I told you to have faith. Not all artists are self-involved jerks. I knew Alex would come around. A strong woman, she is. I can’t imagine-”

The baby hiccuped, and started to sing himself softly to sleep.

“You should’ve dropped Monty off with Scoliosis Boy after dinner,” she said.

“Jesus, Con! I told you that in confidence!”

John frowned, and his eyes began to burn. He got up and sat on the counter, by the window. Although his first reaction was to walk away, he needed to know what Olivia would say.

“Squeak squeak. Squeak squeak,” she said, then snickered. He didn’t need any explanation. She was imitating the sound of a brace.

“Stop it, Connie. It’s cruel.”

“Fucker’s back is straight enough now,” she said. He didn’t comprehend her bitterness. He tried to be nice to her. He didn’t really succeed, but he tried. “He looks like a leather-clad pipe cleaner.”

The sound of Monty’s sleepy song cut out - she turned off the monitor.

“You seem more bitter about what happened that I am,” Olivia said. “And I forbid it. I’m over it. I’m happy. I’m sorry …  if your life hasn’t turned out the same.”

There were a few beats of silence.

“That was a low blow, Liv. And for that affected, misogynist asshole next door? Wow.”

“You don’t know him like we do-“

“-I know him well enough!” Connie said. “He ruined her life.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Olivia said. “but you can’t blame him individually for what happened. It’s not fair.”

“He put it out there. He poisoned him. It’s his fault.”

“It was a long time coming, long before John. And it’s not terribly surprising. Aren’t Latin men misogynist to begin with?” Olivia said.

There was silence. He stuck his head out to hear better. The window box heavy with potted herbs creaked with his weight.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said, so softly he could barely hear it. “Ella was a horror. You deserve better anyway. And you will find it. I know it, Con.”

“That man. He wheedled his way into your affection, and I don’t understand it. How about if he fills Monty’s head with that Mannism nonsense too?”

“I’ll eat his heart in the marketplace,” Olivia said. 

John gasped. The wood groaned, and the window box fell to the patio with a crash.

The women screamed.

“Good night, ladies,” he said, poking his head out fully and waving bashfully.

“Good night, John,” Olivia said.

Connie’s face was set in stone. “I’m going to turn in, love. Thank you so much for today. Tell Alex good night,” she said, and walked into the house. Olivia walked across to his yard and started picking up the broken planting pots.

“How long were you eavesdropping?” she said, handing him an intact pot of thyme.

“Just a little bit. Squeak squeak,” he said, giving her a hurt look.

“I was angry at you when I first told her about you. But I never said anything like that. I promise.”

“I told you that in confidence. Not even Alex knows the grim tale,” he said. “Not all of it.”

“She’s beyond my best friend. More than a sister. I tell her everything,” she said, kicking loam into the bed of irises just beneath his window. She looked at him. “I know that isn’t an excuse.”

“Did you guys ever…” he wiggled his brow. He inspected the rotting wood of the broken window box.

Olivia shrugged. “Not really.”

“What does that even mean?” he said. Already, he was designing a far stronger, more beautiful box in his head.

“We were young, and didn’t know what we were doing,” she said. She leaned into his window and rested her elbows on the sill.

“Even if you don’t know exactly what you are doing, you’re still doing something,” he said. He handed her a fresh beer. She drank, then burped quietly.

“We experimented. But she was my first love.”

His eyes widened.

“It was more than sexual. It was … a deep, intense, passionate friendship. The sex was … inconsequential.”

“That’s bull shite,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Sex is never inconsequential.”

“You say that to the steady stream of ladies who come through here?” she said, and took another drink. “Turn on the light, will you?”

“If you’ve noticed them, then you must’ve also noticed that there are many less lady guests since Monty,” he said.

“You don’t have to curtail your activities because of him. Especially if it drives you to listening for naughty noises at night through open windows.”

“I was joking about that,” he said, throwing the broken box on the table. He would start on the new one tonight. He had too much energy to sleep.

“It was crass,” she said.

“You know I don’t perv over you ladies anymore, right? That was before I really knew you. I wasn’t gonna let her have the last word, though.”

Olivia bit her lip. “That might be a losing battle, John. She’s clever, and has a very sharp tongue.”

“By what I heard, so do you,” he said. draining his beer. “Who’s Ella?”

“Shit,” Olivia said. “It’s not your business.”

“And yet…” he said.

“What did you hear?”

“Stuff about a private investigator and running out of sources,” he said.

Liv sucked her teeth. “She’s an ex-girlfriend. Ex-fiancee, actually.”

“I thought you said she wasn’t a lesbian.”

“She’s bi,” Olivia said.

“Oh. Is Ella why she doesn’t want to be with a woman now?”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “You really got stuck in, didn’t you? Ass.” She put the beer down and walked away, but John stuck his hand out the window and whistled at her.

“Wait!”

Olivia stopped, but she didn’t turn around.

“I like a difficult woman. You think she’s in the mood for some guilt-free, vacation man love?”

“Good night, John,” she said, and walked into the house.

Next Chapter

[lucadina]

What’s Wrong With Me?

A/N: ereannie, intimacy issues

'You always look a little sad.'

It's an observation Eren had made in passing; it shouldn't bother Annie much, but it does— probably because it's the first time she's felt seen.

Although, being seen is never a good thing when all you have left are your secrets, the broken bones beneath the scars that burst into wildfire whenever someone cares just enough to look at you.

'When you space out,' he had said, 'That's when it's like you're about to cry. But you never do.'

Because I don't want to cry in front of you.

Annie sometimes wonders why that is.

The answer feels right at her fingertips, tangible when the realises that he's too good to be true. These moments are brief and unexpected, creeping up on her like morning mist and dissipating to reveal an untold, personal dream of hers: how insane would it be, if someone could love her for real? Past the excitement of her scathing words, beyond the tease of a pale, perfumed neck— how crazy would it be if he actually loved her for all that she is?

He may not love her, but he sees her.

Once in a while, when they're facing each other over dinner or laying side-by-side in bed, he'll look at her with intent, with morbid fascination, until the verdant veil of his gaze lifts, and suddenly she's confronted by his firm judgement.

The verdict is always the same: You think too much, you hurt too much.

'But if I didn't, then I wouldn't care about you.'

That always gets him to shut the fuck up, because it's true. He doesn't give her much to love and yet she cares for him; she can't help it. And that works for him; he doesn't need to be loved for who he is; he likes himself and that is more than enough. He's with her because having another person feel for him proves to the naysayers that he isn't unworthy of affection. That he's normal, he can do it, he can have it— he's normal.

Yet at the back of his head, her low voice whispers that he isn't special. That she chose him not because he's godly, not because he's extraordinary— but because he's familiar.

He is proud and places himself over others; he doesn't have the tools to love her back; he's her history reflected back at her without promise of anything better.

He's honest, and that's refreshing. She's tired of disappointments.

So she can do it. She can tough it out where others have cried themselves to sleep.

Bitch was crazy, he had said about the women he'd left torn and grieving.

And that pisses her off because he doesn't know. He doesn't know what it's like to have a broken heart, a real one. To have that flutter in your chest ripped out, twisted, and trampled over till it's smashed back into you as this resilient ache, tortuous till you start thinking: maybe it'd be better if it stopped beating.

So she says:

'There must be something wrong with you then, if you fall for crazy over and over.'

'I haven't this time, though.'

And you never will, she thinks, because you'll never see all of me.

It's why she's so confident. She's certain that he's kept at arm's length, that he doesn't pay attention when her thoughts throb in her mind's eye, that he doesn't think about the reasons as to why she begs to be alone at random intervals in the day. He never asks questions; but she makes the mistake of allowing him to collect too much intel on her tricky character.

In Annie's preoccupation with distance, she can't see when he's close enough to peer into the cracks of her skin. And he sees how she bleeds every day, how wounds never close, and how she stays silent because she thinks she's ugly when she screams.

Eren watches. Even when she thinks he isn't, he is.

He catches her when the mask slips. In the bright afternoon, with the light filtering in through the window she leans her forehead on— yet her eyes are midnight.

Eerily still, corpse-white and barely breathing.

He leans forward, a rough palm on her knee: 'Snap out of it, honey.'

Annie startles— 'Huh?'

He tries to smile.

It's an intimate memory; it should be venerated, just how close they've come to each other. Up close, all their (especially her) flaws in full view— it's spilling out of her like boiling tar. Not sweet or sophisticated— instead, bitter and aching.

She can't care. He's just going to leave anyway, and she wishes he'd do it soon before he takes too much of what's left.

Except, he takes nothing and gives her all he has.

When she pulls away, he doesn't let go.

When she's barely holding it together, he looks the other way so she can cry.

When her mind goes a million miles an hour, when she's thinking herself into circles— his tender touch brings her back.

It starts to tire her out.

Because she begins to wonder if maybe he actually does love her.

That's impossible. It can't be reality, it can't be true, because people don't know how to love anyone other than themselves. They would if they could, but they can't; that's just how it is, and so suffering is a nimbus cloud looming overhead.

And Annie's fine with that, because it explains everything.

It all makes sense now— why it hurts, why it has always hurt, why it can't stop hurting.

With each passing day, she teeters on the precipice of heartbreak.

She shares this with him; it moves him. Somehow, he changes, he desires change. And while he likes himself and wants for nothing, he thinks he can do with a little less of what makes him superhuman.

It starts as an effort to be close to her. In the end, he decides it's better to be flawed and imperfect— it means that there's space for someone else, even if that someone deems herself too jagged to ever fit properly with another person.

They're at the beach when he tells her he loves her; they're lounging on the oat-sand prickling their bare legs, the faraway thunder of the crashing waves lulling them into daydream. As they gaze at the dull stars fighting for brilliance against the maddening colours of a somber sundown, his confession rings inside of her with the steady force of church bells.

Annie feels a surge of heat in her chest; she realises she doesn't want to be here, next to him, looking on at the endless ebb of ice-water.

She wants to burn with the stars above, to flicker and fall and fade.

She wants to ignore this moment. To get up, turn her back, and forget she ever met him. She doesn't want to give him the chance to hurt her. But to lose him? She doesn't want that either. There's an invisible fear coiled tightly around her throat; she can't speak. What is she even supposed to say?

And he's so good, so gracious and understanding, that he tells her that she isn't obliged to say anything at all— I just wanted you to know, he whispers, and means it.

Her voice is shaky: 'You don't understand how hard this is for me.'

'I do understand,' he purposely softens his tone—, 'What I don't get is how you don't understand where I'm at.'

'Where you're at,' she echoes, 'Where you're at...?'

'I feel that I've earned the right to say I love you. That I've proven, in every way I can, that I do— why don't you believe me?'

'Because you don't even know me.'

Eren extends his hand, demanding hers (which she doesn't give): 'I don't have to. You won't open up to me, and I won't make you— despite that, I still want you— doesn't that mean that I love you?'

She can only watch in silence as he finally takes her hand in his. He thumbs over her knuckles, and her gut coils as it dawns on her that she has never loved or needed anyone the way she does him. It's worse that he isn't cutting her open, that he's waiting patiently for a response, that he sees her for what she is and chooses anyway to commit to what they have— even if it's a nightmare; and it nauseates her, the idea that there are no more secrets, that she's fully exposed and for once, she is neither judge nor jury—

'What's wrong with me, Eren?'

And it's surprising how much he knows.

[jiangchengrights]

i wake to you at dawn

also available on ao3

“Alright, I get it,” Wei Ying mumbles to herself from where she lays, half of her face shoved into the pillow beneath her head, the other half just barely illuminated by the screen on her phone, “This dog is friends with that other dog now. Whoop de-fucking-do.”

Usually, these soft animal videos on Instagram don’t annoy her that much, even when they are about dogs, but she’s seen this specific post about fourteen times tonight. She can recite by memory the posts that come after it (a celebrity laying out in the sun, the tagline only the sunflower emoji, followed by one of Wen Qing, looking stern but fond as her lap is completely covered by both Wei Ying and Wen Ning, the tagline for that being ‘Reluctant jie’, and so on and so on) because she’s been frenetically refreshing all of her social media apps in order; she now knows the current lineup of instagram posts and tweets in her feed and has seen every godforsaken not-actually-that-interesting story of all of her friends (which isn’t fair to them, really, considering all of the important ones are here trapped in this same hotel as Wei Ying).

“Oh my god,” Jiang Cheng grumbles from the other side of the room where he lays on his bed (because of course he’s a part of her bridal party. Kind of. He’s walking her down the aisle tomorrow which, okay, makes him technically not a part of her party but she wasn’t about to let him skate free the night before her wedding)(or any of her bridal functions)(not that she needed to worry: he’d taken all planning rights away from her for her bridal shower and bachelorette party, he’d only tolerated the help of shijie) and throws his extra pillow at her, “If I have to hear that fucking dog video one more time, I swear to god, I’ll break your kneecaps. Do you hear me? I’ll have to drag you down the aisle tomorrow because you won’t be able to walk.”

“I thought you liked dogs, Shidi,” she replies, shifting ever-so-slightly so that she can squint at him past her phone.

“Wei Wuxian-”

“A-Cheng, A-Ying,” Shijie hums soothingly, from the other side of the room, “Please rest, for me. Your Shijie needs sleep too.”

“And if you don’t,” Wen Qing pipes up, “I know other ways to make you shut up.”

“Okay, okay,” Wei Ying whines, locking her phone with an audible click and resting it on the pillow next to her head, “I’ll try to sleep. For Shijie.”

Wei Ying does not sleep. She tries, she really does. Turns off all the lights and all the sounds and everything shiny that could keep her just engaged enough to stay awake. She tries to listen to the steadying breathes of her bridal party around her; Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang lay on the bed to her left, Shijie and Wen Qing to her right, Wen Ning passed out on the floor (he’d been invited, truly, to sleep in the empty spot next to her, only he’d fallen asleep long before everyone else and moving him to an actual bed proved to be very difficult when all the adults in the room were half (three fourths) wine drunk and giggling, so they’d just put a pillow under his head and wrapped him in their softest blankets and left it at that). She practices all the meditation tricks Lan Zhan had taught her; tries to calm her mind and her breathing and her heart.

It doesn’t work.

God, she wishes to herself, regardless of however illogical it may be, I wish Lan Zhan was in my bridal party.

With a sigh, she spends some time reflecting. She’s made so many bad decisions in her life, ones that have resulted in no less than three broken arms (sorry A-Cheng), many school detentions, almost getting expelled from university, a car accident that had left Shijie with seatbelt burns and a black eye from the airbag and Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, had left Lan Zhan, who’d been sitting prim and proper in the back seat, with scars that still lingered across the expanse of her back in the shape of all of Wei Ying’s nightmares. She’d chosen to hide away after that for three years in a different city with different hair and a different smile on her face and pretend like she didn’t feel a bone crushing loneliness in her entire being every time she thought of her Shijie, and didi, and her Lan Zhan who wasn’t really hers anymore, and that fact that in her self imposed exile she would never seen any of them again. That was, until Lan Zhan found her and dragged her back home and made her whole again.

Wei Ying was always whole, Lan Zhan would say, has said, I just helped Wei Ying find a way back. Will always bring Wei Ying back.

But with all that behind her and mostly wrapped up, this, tonight, right here, feels like her worst idea yet. She’d been so confident too! Had fought every naysayer, including Lan Zhan herself, with a cocky smile and a wave of her hand.

Brides shouldn't see each other the night before the wedding! She had laughed, and then laughed harder when Lan Zhan’s fingers had tightened where they dug into her hip, Besides, we’re not one of those couples! We can handle one night apart!

And she had been right, for the most part. Of course she missed Lan Zhan, but a night spent apart, having fun with her little family, all of them basking in the shared excitement of her impending nuptials. What she hadn’t anticipated was trying to sleep without Lan Zhan beside her, not when she’s this nervous, hadn’t thought about how deeply she would miss Lan Zhan’s warm weight behind her, her steadying arm firm around her waist, holding Wei Ying together like she did every night. She feels the absence with every shift of her hips that press backwards into nothing, every time she throws an arm out to rest on an empty pillow and the fact that there are no warm, soft, calves to ruthlessly shove her cold toes against.

By the time she picks up her phone again, everyone in the room is peacefully asleep and the  clock on her bedside table blinks 2:36, proud and red and rude, if you ask Wei Ying. She gives up on sleep and starts mentally calculating exactly how much concealer she’ll need to cover the bags under her eyes. After all, she wants to look her absolute best for Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan who is so steady and warm and beautiful, Lan Zhan who could open her mouth wide and eat Wei Ying’s entire heart in one bite but doesn’t, instead offering her own heart up on a silver platter for Wei Ying.

Wei Ying opens their messages on her phone, reads through the last few, laughs at the pictures she’d sent earlier in the night of Nie Mingjue, eyes half lidded with alcohol, laying messy kisses to the side of Xichen-ge’s face, who seemed to be accepting them with grace and only slightly tinged red ears. She taps her fingers on the screen, starting a message, lan zhan i can’t slee-

She doubles back, erasing it, deciding she doesn’t need to be whiny the night before their wedding, when Lan Zhan is surely asleep anyways. Again she starts, good early morning, lan zhan! i can’t wait to see you in your-

Too much, that is utterly too much. i love you, she types, hesitates with her thumb over the send button. What if the sound of her phone wakes Lan Zhan up? What if then Lan Zhan can’t fall back asleep? What if Lan Zhan tosses and turns all night and ends up with a headache, overtired on their wedding day of all times? What if this texts absolutely ruins everythi-

Her phone sounds, the little swooping noise it makes when she receives a new message on the thread she’s already looking at. She looks down and finds a link from Lan Zhan to a video of baby bunnies playing together with a message that says, When we return from our honeymoon, I think it is time we get another bunny. Possibly two.

And well. Her decision is made for her really. If Lan Zhan is awake, laying in her own bed in a room on the other side of the hotel, fighting off insomniatic boredom with bunny videos, there’s no way Wei Ying can stay here and allow them both to suffer.

She finds herself glad that Wen Ning is on the floor, though it looks a tad uncomfortable, because she’s able to slip out of bed with ease, bare feet silent on the carpeted floor. The only thing she grabs is her phone, not even bothering to try to find her shoes in the colossal mess that is her dark bridal room, littered with take out and bottles and stripped off clothing. Her nose crinkles, amused, when she thinks of the look of reprove she’ll surely get from Lan Zhan when she realizes Wei Ying walked around barefoot.

She manages to zigzag her way to the door without stepping on anything or making any noise, a feat she will congratulate herself on later. The door opens slowly, making the barest hint of noise as yellow hotel-hallway light floods the entrance to the room. Wei Ying pumps her fist, gloating at being able to sneak out without a single one of her party-poopers (read: caring family) waking up to ruin it for her and make her climb back into her own bed.

That is, until she catches Nie Huaisang’s eyes, watching her from where he lays next to Jiang Cheng. The most dangerous opponent, really, because with one shove of his arm he’d have Jiang Cheng up and yelling, alarming the whole room before she’d even make it to the elevator. She’s not sure she knows the layout of the hotel well enough to make it safely inside Lan Zhan’s room before one of them caught her.

Silent, slow, she moves one finger up to place over her lips, keeping eye contact with Nie Huaisang the whole time. She pleads with him from across the room, imploring him to be cool. He blinks, once, twice, slow like a cat in the sun, and then closes his eyes a third time for good and raises one, slow, thumbs up to her.

Her sigh of relief is the last noise in the room before she shuts the door and power walks to the elevator at the end of the hallway. She is going to buy him the biggest fruit basket. She dances by herself once inside the elevator, suddenly feeling cold and exposed in her red silk sleep tank and shorts, goosebumps prickling her arms and thighs. If only Lan Zhan’s room wasn’t so stupidly far away.

Of course her room has to be far away! Jiang Cheng had yelled when Wei Ying whined about it, the second you start drinking all you want to do is sit in her lap! You’re lucky I’m letting her party stay in the same hotel as yours!

And well, he hadn’t been wrong, per say, she thinks to herself as she tiptoes off the elevator and down the maze-like hall to get to Lan Zhan’s room. She still didn’t appreciate the distance though. She quietly tap taps on the door with one hand, pressing send on a text with the other that reads, lan zhan let me in lan ZHAN!!!

The door opens before her hand has even fallen back to her side. And there is her Lan Zhan, in soft cloud print pajamas pants and a white t-shirt, hair drawn up into a neat bun, eyes tired but awake.

“Wei Ying,” she says, the smile in her voice all Wei Ying needs to know about her welcome. She slides closer, wrapping her arms around Lan Zhan’s neck, grinning when she feels the others arms sneak around her waist.

“Mmm, Lan Zhan,” she hums against Lan Zhan’s neck, moving up to her tiptoes so she can nuzzle her nose against the corner of Lan Zhan’s jaw, “I’m tired, let’s go to bed.”

“I thought I was not supposed to see the bride the night before the wedding,” Lan Zhan replies, but she’s already inching backwards into the room, dragging Wei Ying along with her.

“Who ever said that?” Wei Ying asks, knowing full well she was the one who said that, a smile on her face when she lets Lan Zhan drop her into bed.

“Besides,” she says, once Lan Zhan is settled beside her, reaching one hand up to pet the side of Lan Zhan’s face, thumb rubbing gentle circles across the expanse of Lan Zhan’s cheekbone, “Does it count if there’s two brides? I don’t think so, we cancel each other out, see? If anything we have to do the opposite, you know, we have to see each other extra hard tonight.”

“Hmm,” Lan Zhan hums, her lips pulling up ever so slightly on one side as she leans in to rest her forehead against Wei Ying’s, legs tangling together, one hand sliding underneath Wei Ying’s shirt to spread warm and wide and firm in the valley between her shoulder blades, “Is that so?”

“Yes, tonight we have to,” Wei Ying nods, finally allowing her eyes to close as she presses further into Lan Zhan’s embrace, sleep finally weighing on her shoulders. She lets her head drop down, lips brushing against Lan Zhan’s collarbone, breathing her words right into Lan Zhan’s chest, “And every night too. I’ll tack that on for free, Lan Zhan, every night.”

“Yes, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan sighs against her hair and melts under Wei Ying’s nimble fingers, relaxed at once with the promise of forever, “Every night.”

“I love you,” Wei Ying whispers, one final thing, around a yawn and finally, finally settles for the night. She almost misses Lan Zhan’s whispered reply, I love you too.

But she doesn’t. She never wants to miss a single thing Lan Zhan has to say.

Coda:

For all of fifteen seconds, the world is warm and bright and everything good when Wei Ying wakes up. Toned legs tangle with her own and a soft hand pets her hair away from her face, gentle and comforting again and again. She herself is pressed messily against Lan Zhan’s chest, quite possibly, embarrassingly, drooling ever so slightly. She does not have time to register this, however, before the banging starts.

“Wei Wuxian, I know you’re in there!” comes a belt from the other side of the door, that has her shooting up in an awkward half sitting position, splayed on one-fourth on the bed and three-fourths in Lan Zhan’s lap. Lan Zhan’s hands act as a steadying force, one on her hip, the other on her back, as she blinks deliriously around the room.

Nie Mingjue seems to be in a similar position, probably blinking off a hangover and propelling up from his sleeping position, glaring around the room like he might find the source of their disturbance somewhere inside. Jin Zixuan, on the other hand, groans loud and long, pressing his pillow over his ears.

“I see you are up,” Lan Xichen smiles from the little table where he sits, drinking his cup of tea peacefully, unperturbed by the pounding on their door, “I hope you rested well.”

“I did, thank you Xichen-ge,” Wei Ying tries to laugh around the blush high in her cheeks, only now really registering the fact that Lan Zhan was also sharing a room and not, in fact, alone just waiting for Wei Ying to traipse her way in.

But when she looks down at the woman laying beside her, she sees none of her own embarrassment reflected there, only a fond smile and a soft hand reaching out to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ears. Huh, she thinks, revising her earlier thoughts, maybe not alone but definitely waiting for me.

“Wei Wuxian!” comes again from outside the door, though this time it just has her laughing, pushing into Lan Zhan’s hands like a cat.

“When did you get here?” Nie Mingjue asks, rubbing at his eyes. But he stands and stumbles his way over to Xichen and the tea and doesn’t seem particularly hard pressed for an answer, so Wei Ying ignores it.

“Hi, we’re getting married today,” she says instead, meeting Lan Zhan’s smile with her own.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan hums while the banging on the door stops. Finally, Wei Ying sighs, leaning down to press her lips against Lan Zhan’s, chaste because they are still in front of Lan Zhan’s brother and her brother in law. She’s still there when the door pops open, revealing a quietly furious Wen Qing.

“Wei Wuxian,” she seethes, taking calculated steps closer, “You were supposed to stay in your bed.”

“I did!” Wei Ying says, smiling wide to prove her innocence, “Lan Zhan is my bed!”

“I am going to-” Jiang Cheng barges through, leaving no one to hold the door open; it swings heavily back straight towards Jiang Yanli.

Before Wei Ying can even shout a disgruntled hey! Jin Zixuan, who was already on his way to the door, catches it with his hand and leads Jiang Yanli inside with a gentle hand and a soft smile that makes Wei Ying want to puke.

But Yanli-jie smiles back, big and happy and unashamed, leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek, “Hello, husband.”

“Good morning, A-Li,” he says back, wistful and dopey as he leads her inside with a soft hand on the small of her back. Right in that moment, Wei Ying decides maybe she doesn’t hate him. For now.

“Sorry, Shijie,” Jiang Cheng responds, automatic when he looks back but Jiang Yanli waves him off with a forgiving smile.

“I know it wasn’t on purpose A-Cheng.”

The commotion leaves Wei Ying relaxed in a way she should have known better than to be, because all too soon she is being hoisted away from her warm spot on the bed and dragged out of the room.

“You promised, Wei Wuxian!” Wen Qing snaps, but Wei Ying can already hear the forgiveness in her voice, the amusement. Wei Ying lets herself be dragged along, barefoot again, back to her own room. And then because honestly she’s a little on the edge of too-excited and too-in love she shouts over her shoulder:

“I’ll see you at the end of the aisle, Wife!” and maintains vision of the room just long enough for Lan Zhan, who’d pushed herself into an upright position, turn red and drop back down into the bed with a gasp, like all of the air had been knocked out of her.

Wei Ying’s cackles are only rivaled by the quiet, but pleased chuckles from Lan Xichen.

“Do you have to be such an annoyingly sweet couple every single day?” Wen Qing huffs, letting go of her (fake, Wei Ying is pretty sure) anger entirely, sliding her arm up so they can lock elbows, walking arm and arm back to Wei Ying’s room.

Wei Ying thinks of Lan Zhan, warm around her and ever inviting, even if it was 2AM, even if Wei Ying looked like a ragamuffin, even if, even if, and smiles wide, cheesy, deliriously with all the right decisions she’s made in this life and says, “Yes.”

[bloodydavvn-blog]

3, 14, 21, 28, 33, 41

3. How do they position themselves in a group? Dothey like to be the center of attention, or do they hang back at theedges of a crowd?

Answered here.  

14. What do they care deeply about? What kind ofloyalties, commitments, moral codes, life philosophies, passions, callings, orspirituality and faith do they have? How do these tend to be expressed?

Rory cares deeply in general, to bequite honest. It’s not that she doesn’t have her own ideals, it’s that she’seffusively empathetic (and rather gullible) and she’d easily fall for prettywords and also embellish them with her own imagination so that everything is afairy tale in her head. I don’t mean this in the romantic sense – she is not aromantic at all – but she is highly idealistic and optimisticand truly believes anything can be improved upon if one really desires that.She sets her expectations quite high and suffers greatly from disappointmentwhen they’re trashed because the real world does not work like that. Shequickly gets taken in by ideas, and later on when they don’t fit the tall ordershe’s created for them in her head, she abandons them.  It’s a relativelyfast process when viewed from the outside, she’s not the type to harbourgrudges, but no matter how quickly her hopes dissolve, it’s still bitterlydifficult. She wears her heart on her sleeve – if she feels something, shefeels it to the very core of her, even if it’s only for hours, or mereminutes.  

Her loyalty to people is slightly morestable than her flitting about from fleeting idea to ephemeral hope. If sheloves someone (and to be loyal to them, to her, will primarily mean to lovethem) it is extremely difficult to break that bond. A person would have toconsistently be horrible to her, for an indeterminate period of time for her toeventually decide they’re not worth it. Once she’s hooked, she’s willing to putup with a tremendous amount of emotional strain and crushed hopes in them.However, once she’s decided she’s done, that’s it – it’s final, and she wouldturn from staunch defender to resentful enemy without qualm.  

Her life philosophy, though on a rathershallow level, is: do no harm but take no shit. Because of who she is as aperson, the latter would invalidate the former, as she’s far more concernedwith it than being nice. She’s never violent without cause, however she is theone to decide what that cause is, and her bar is set quite low for it. She iseasily angered and impulsive and could be set off by anything froma misinterpreted comment to something that most other people wouldreasonably agree would warrant an explosive response.  

Low-key, Rory grew up in a spiritualcommunity. It was also very small, and they had no delusions of grandeur, soher own faith is informed by that and is quite nonintrusive. She believes thatthe universe gives back what she puts in it, more or less. She has a vague ideaof a deity, but it’s not in the biblical sense of a punishing god. It’s more alaw of attraction – certain patterns of behaviour inspire certain responses inreturn. Penalty for wrongdoing is never guaranteed, but it does increase thechances of something unpleasant happening in retaliation; just as good deedsdon’t promise a positive response, but at least encourage the possibility ofone. Basically, she’s a mix of “what goes around, comes around” and “the worlddoesn’t owe you shit”. Quite a few of her guiding principles are vaguelycontradictory in nature, which is, ultimately, what makes her so adaptable.

21. What kind of relationships do they tend tointentionally seek out versus actually cultivate? What kind of social contactdo they prefer, and why?

FRIENDSHIPS!!! Friendships all around.But it’s also the sort of relationship she actually cultivates. She seeks whatshe’s willing to put effort into, and she isn’t concerned about things likestatus, so if she likes you, she won’t care who or what you are, more oftenthan not. She does have some built-in bias – it’s not very likely she’d try tobefriend an Upyr for example – but it wouldn’t be too hard for her toget over it if she deems the other person worthy of it.  

Of late, she prefers to stick to her ownkind, because she still suffers from disillusionment in Sanctuary as a whole,but after she’s worked through her issues, she would return to being all bubblyand hopeful with anyone who crosses her path.  

28. What are they likely to do if they have theopportunity, resources, and time to accomplish it? Why?

This might be a bit sci-fi at themoment, given the logistical and natural impediments she has to overcome, butif there’s one thing to remember about Rory is that she has an adamantium gradestrength of will. To call her obstinate would be a gross understatement and nomatter how flighty she is in general, if she decides something is worth it, sheis like a dog with a bone. Before she was turned, she was well on the way of becomingher tribe’s healer. Even as a human, Rory was not squeamish. She demonstrated anatural aptitude towards healing from a young age, easily remembering plantsand their uses, and despite her general whimsical personality, her approach tofixing all the ways a body could break was pragmatic and practical. Consideringthat quite a lot of the world’s medical knowledge was lost with the wipeout ofmost of the human population, she revealed an almost intuitive understanding ofhow infections bloom and fester, and how everything may be bound together inorder to function. She appreciates the importance of cleanliness when treating openwounds, and knows how to set a broken bone back in its place, and how to soothea fever.

Vampires don’t have much use for healersand in the past five years or so she has not been given much of a chance to plyher skills, but with her newfound access to old knowledge, she wants tocontinue studying and improving her knowledge on the matter. Given enough time,and enough stability, she dreams of reviving the modern concept of hospitals inall permanent human settlements that the founding of Sanctuary will inspire.She wants to work in an environment that would enable her to return to heroriginal life choices (mainly because she refuses to be told what she can andcannot do). The fact that this will prove to all naysayers that vampires aremuch more than savage, blood-hungry beasts is most certainly a bonus, ofcourse.    

33. How dothey learn about the world–what is their preferred learning style? Hands-onlearning with trial and error? Research, reading, and note-taking? Observationor rote memorization? Inductive or deductive reasoning? Seeking patterns andorganization? Taking things apart and putting them back together? Creativeprocessing via discussing, writing about, or dramatizing things?

It’s a mix of research, reading andhands-on trial and error. Rory likes to learn new things, she prefers to do soby interacting with another person and have them tell her about it, but if thetopic really interests her, then she will start looking up things on it on herown. She’s not organized enough to take notes, or memorize by rote. She readssomething, remembers things from it and the rest of it is cemented bypracticing what she’s learned from manuals. She relies a lot on her intuitionand does have a tendency to jump to conclusions but she will correct herself ifshe’s shown she is wrong (she just has to agree that this is the case). Shedoes tend to learn faster by taking things apart and having to put them backtogether again, but she would have to be interested in how they work in thefirst place. Mechanical objects might grab her attention for a while, but shedoesn’t find them particularly fascinating in the long run. She might amuseherself with simpler mechanisms, but she wouldn’t really wish to study anythingoverly complex.

She’s the type of person who knows alittle about a lot, when it comes to general knowledge. In terms of acquiringpractical skills she is a fast learner. By this, it doesn’t mean she reachesutmost artistry, but she does become capable. She’s naturally dexterous and theheightened vampire senses help in this regard, as well.

41. Whatassociations do they bring to mind? Words or phrases, images, metaphors ormotifs? Why?

The idea forRory (in her most primitive form, when she wasn’t so much a character, morelike a question mark in my head) came from a Catherynne Valente quote “I do so love my witches and wicked queens. Ifind myself drawn to feminine archetypes that previous generations have foundthreatening or dangerous: crones, oracles, madwomen, Amazons, VIRGINS WHOAREN’T HELPLESS, bad mothers. I love togive the vagina dentata voice. It so rarely gets to speak for itself.” (theemphasis being the seed that eventually grew into her).

She isinspired by children’s stories, but the old-fashioned kind, those in which thewitch is killed by being forced to dance on coals, and where the disobedientchild dies at the end, the cautionary tales of old, rather than the cleaned-upversion of Disney. She’s not the princess trapped in a tower, she’s the one whoeither befriends the dragon, or slays it – she’s someone who can do both, if she feels she has to.

LISTEN I couldprobably write about the myriad of inspirations I have for her until my fingersfall off and still miss LOTS of things – so here’s her pinterest board: quotes,images, metaphors, edits etc.

[perksofwifi]

Top 10 Best Japanese Sports Cars on Sale Today

Japanese cars are known for their reliability and approachable pricing, but automakers in the land of the rising sun know how to have fun, too. Over the years there have been some legendary Japanese sports cars, including the original Datsun 240Z, Mazda RX-7, Mk IV Toyota Supra, first-generation Acura NSX, Nissan Skyline GT-R, Toyota MR2, the original Mazda Miata, and many more. Those Japanese classics delivered precise handling, respectable power, and supreme driver involvement—not to mention that aforementioned reliability and approachable pricing. Some of today’s sporty Japanese cars are favorites among MotorTrend editors, and we’re eager for any chance to get behind the wheel. These Japanese performance cars are worth a look.

Nissan GT-R

Even more than a decade into its sales cycle, the R35 Nissan GT-R continues to be a formidable opponent, especially among other Japanese sports cars of today. Godzilla remains one of the quickest all-wheel-drive sports cars we’ve ever tested, with a 0–60 time matching that of the Bugatti Veyron. Through corners it demonstrates face-bending grip, hanging on with up to 1.06 average lateral g on the skidpad. The GT-R may be as fast as it is old, but it remains one of the best Japanese sports cars of all time. We’re hopeful Nissan will follow through with an epic R36.

Acura NSX

The exotic-fighting Japanese performance legend lives on in hybrid form. Acura put everything it knows into the NSX’s modern revival, creating a carbon-trimmed masterpiece with a battery-enhanced twin-turbo V-6 in the middle. All in, that setup is good for 573 hp and blistering acceleration. Purists might lament the loss of the original NSX’s lightweight body and available manual transmission, but as we found on a drive in its home country of Japan, today’s car provides “joy on the track” and proves “technology and emotion can happily coexist.”

Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ

You know how it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow? Get behind the wheel of a Toyota 86 for proof. This small, sporty Japanese car makes around 200 hp, and crawls from zero to 60 mph in about 7 seconds; many of today’s crossovers are quicker. But want for acceleration evaporates as soon as you show the 86 a winding road; its chassis is sublime, communicative, and steadfast in its pursuit of making its driver smile. “I love that it has just enough body roll to make a 30-mph corner feel like a 60-mph corner,” we said of the 86 TRD Special Edition. Hey, slow car fast over fast car slow, right?

Subaru WRX STI

Today’s Japanese rally car for the road may not be as tech-savvy as some competitors, but that means it’s perhaps less digitally filtered than the others. A slightly laggy turbocharged flat-four engine, notchy six-speed manual shifter, and trademark all-wheel drive are starting to feel a bit dated in today’s world of hybrid assistance and lightning-shift automatics. Still, those traits make it fun in a refreshingly old-school way. Is it a Japanese sports car? That remains debatable, but we think it certainly inherits the spirit of the Japanese performance cars of old.

Nissan 370Z

The Nissan 370Z has built a strong fan following around its rakish looks and sporty driving dynamics. Although it’s pretty fun and has posted some solid numbers, it has a bare-bones interior and lacks modern safety technology. That’s no surprise considering its age; it debuted in 2009. There’s been no official word on a 370Z replacement, either. Other rear-wheel-drive performance coupes seem to offer better value, but if you love the Japanese sports car ethos and the 370Z’s raspy exhaust note, it’s still here for you to enjoy.

Toyota Supra

We know what you’re thinking: Is this really a Japanese sports car? We say yes; it’s got a Toyota badge on the bumper, BMW-stamped parts behind it be damned. Regardless of nationality, it’s an awesome car to drive, with a turbocharged inline-six and fantastically balanced chassis. The naysayers will be there as long as the Mk V Supra remains on sale, but we’ll simply point to the numbers and remind them that it beat out esteemed competitors born and bred in the land of its, ahem, cousin.

Mazda MX-5

Light weight, rear-wheel drive, and infinite headroom: That’s the secret recipe that makes the Miata great. The MX-5 has never been the fastest, or the most powerful, and definitely not the most luxurious Japanese sports car out there, but it’s definitely among the most fun. We’ve boldly proclaimed that “This remains the best sports car for the money in the world, full stop. You cannot have more fun per dollar spent.” For a shade above $30,000, that’s a prospect plenty of people have discovered for themselves—well over a million, in fact.

Lexus RC F

Lexus’ RC F is something of a segment bender; it’s somewhere between a luxurious grand tourer, brawny muscle car, and (supposed) track-focused tool. In a bubble, this Japanese performance car is great, but then comparisons against the lightness or speed of European rivals start to come in for the pop. The RC F Track Edition shaves a few pounds here or a few tenths there, yet we’re not quite convinced it’s meant for hard days of hot lapping. That said, it’s still fast, loud, fun, and a unique offering in a segment crammed with storied nameplates.

Honda Civic Type R

Civics get a bad rap. Front-wheel drive gets a bad rap. Drive the Honda Civic Type R, however, and you’ll wonder why either of those is considered a bad thing. The CTR is superb, with all the grip, balance, power, and involvement you could ever really ask for. Plus, it’s still a Civic hatchback, so beneath its wing-clad rear liftgate is plenty of cargo space for life’s daily needs. Its Civic Si sibling delivers its own set of thrills, too, sharing a turbocharged punch and sweet-shifting six-speed manual. We’re big fans of these affordable sporty Japanese cars.

Infiniti Q60 Red Sport 400

Infiniti’s current sportiest car veers more toward the grand tourer end of the spectrum, but its 400-hp twin-turbo V-6 makes it a compelling option for customers shopping for sporty Japanese cars. The Q60 Red Sport 400’s engine feels strong and responsive, and its swoopy styling is quite distinctive. However, show it some corners and the Q60 Red Sport falters. Our take: “It feels very sporty driven to about eight-tenths, but after that it all starts to fall apart.” Infiniti’s unpredictable adaptive steering system doesn’t help, either. These may not be issues for those who want a quick, comfortable coupe to drive every day. For the rest of us, we’re eager for Infiniti to join the true Japanese performance car ranks with something like the Q60 Project Black S.

Top 10 Best Japanese Sports Cars on Sale Today

Nissan GT-R

Acura NSX

Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ

Subaru WRX STI

Nissan 370Z

Toyota Supra

Mazda MX-5

Lexus RC F

Honda Civic Type R

Infiniti Q60 Red Sport 400

The post Top 10 Best Japanese Sports Cars on Sale Today appeared first on MotorTrend.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/top-10-best-japanese-sports-cars-sale-today/ visto antes em https://www.motortrend.com

[thesexfiles]

Carol of the Narcissist and the Naysayer by thesexfiles MSR | (2/3) | Hard R | Pure fluff, not a plot in sight | Part 1 Note: This was meant to be a quick PWP holiday fic, but I took a while to write part two, so even though it’s no longer Christmas, it happens during Christmas. Also unedited so sorry for any mistakes (hmu if you’re a beta though)!

“Can it really be this easy?” she wonders aloud. Her hand finds his, their fingers interlace. She sits back and exhaustion hits her. Physical, existential. They have both been running for so long. To sit in silence like this and really ponder their future together is to lose all momentum and collapse. 

Would this have happened sooner if she’d just said something? If she’d bought him a pornographic VHS earlier into their partnership? If she’d quit ignoring his stolen glances to her lips sooner on and made him put his money where his mouth is?

“Mulder,” she says, turning her head and opening her eyes. His mouth crashes against her jaw, undeterred from having missed its mark. In the last three and a half minutes (or so she assumes without having looked at her new watch), she has learned that Fox Mulder is a very good kisser. “Mulder!”

He stops kissing her, sits back, peels off his jacket. She’s feeling a little hot, herself. “We still haven’t actually discussed our feelings,” she says.

He looks at her with eyes half-lidded. She doesn’t know if it’s exhaustion or desire. Knowing them, it’s a healthy mix of the two.

“What’s there to say?” he says, leaning forward to kiss her again. She gently pushes him back with one hand, and he obliges.

“Plenty, Mulder. I can’t deny that I’m…attracted to you,” she says, “but we work together. That complicates matters. Besides that, we’re both tired and probably feeling a little more sentimental than normal because it’s Christmas. Are we thinking rationally?”

“Well, I’m Jewish, so it’s definitely not Christmas sentimentality on my end,” Mulder says, putting his hands up. “My thoughts have been clear as air since Hanukkah ended last week.”

Scully laughs. “You don’t even celebrate Hanukkah.”

“Exactly. So I’m thinking as rationally as anyone who doesn’t have any major winter holidays to stress out over.”

He smiles at her and her stomach twists. She has wanted this, wanted him, for so long, and denied that want every time it resurfaced. Now here he is, offering himself to her, lips wet and red as poinsettias.

“Can it really be this easy?” she wonders aloud. Her hand finds his, their fingers interlace. She sits back and exhaustion hits her. Physical, existential. They have both been running for so long. To sit in silence like this and really ponder their future together is to lose all momentum and collapse. And yet here she is, and here he is, and if they allow themselves to collapse now, it is into each other.

“Scully, you know so many things,” says Mulder. “You know Beethoven from Bach. You know the name of every bone in the human body. You know how to listen and what to say. How is it that you don’t know how easy this could be?”

Scully sighs. “It’s never been easy for me, Mulder. I’m 34 years old and the most serious relationship I’ve ever had was with a married professor. I don’t know how to do it.”

“You say that like our relationship up to this point has been fun and games,” Mulder says. She can’t tell if he’s serious or not, only that he’s looking at her with an intensity he usually reserves for the stars.

“That’s not what I mean, Mulder.” She shifts her body toward him, crosses her legs underneath her so she can see him. So she can let herself be looked at. “You know what I meant.”

"Well… I guess the question is whether we allow our relationship to reflect our feelings, or if we continue working strictly in a professional manner,” he says. She’s surprised by his pragmatism, although it’s been a long time since she’s considered their relationship strictly professional. Strictly professional would be calling only during office hours, no lingering touches, no roundabout scenic drives on their way to investigate a case. Strictly professional ended the day she dropped her robe so he could check her lower back for supposed alien death spots. Strictly professional lasted for a day, and they’ve been running together in limbo ever since.

"How do you feel?” Scully asks. “What do you want?”

“I don’t think there’s any question of what I want,” he says sadly. She furrows her brows, tries to find the source of his sobriety. Has he already given up on her? When she just spent the last few minutes practically in his lap, her tongue in his mouth?

She uncrosses her legs. Leans into him and plants a soft kiss on his lips, her hand coming to rest on the back of his neck.

"It isn’t my only pleasure in life,” she says, “to prove you wrong.”

She crawls onto his lap, straddling his legs. Biology is funny. She knows she can’t conceive, and yet her body still wants. From an evolutionary standpoint, an infertile woman had no need for the continued production of hormones, pheromones. And here she is, wanting him. She sits up on her knees and looks into his eyes, waiting for a response.

“Will it change the way we work together?” Mulder says. “If we do this?”

“Probably,” Scully says, running her fingers through the short cropped strands of hair at the base of his scalp. His legs shift under her. “No.”

“No?” he repeats.

“Well, it’s not like this is casual for either of us.” She watches his chest rise and fall, a silent breath of relief.

“I don’t want to assume anything,” he says. “I’ve made plenty of assumptions about how you feel and what you want without asking you.”

“You can assume I’m not going to just fuck you and then ask for a transfer,” Scully says. “Mulder, you’re my best friend. And I… I do love you.” She grimaces at how young the words sound coming from her, how clumsy. But the beaming smile Mulder gives her washes all her self-doubt away.

"The truth comes out,” he says.

She’s mid-”shut up, Mulder” when he kisses her, pulling her to him with his fingertips in her hair, cupping her face.

He doesn’t need to say it now; he’ll say it another time. His lips are put to better practice kissing hers. Truth be told, she’s known he loved her long before she ever realized the feeling was mutual.

The song from the grocery store, the one she can recall from every midnight mass and every caroling trip, plays in her head now as she kisses him back. Silent night. Her tongue slides along his. They’ve always found just as much comfort in silence as in speech. Just as much tension. The only sound in the room is her breath mingling with his. She breathes him in like an animal, presses a kiss to his neck and licks off some of the sweat that has accumulated there.

Holy night. His hands grip her thighs. She presses down onto him. She’s always pressing him for hard evidence, and here she has it between her legs. He wants this just as much as she does. Wants her. Butterflies rise up in her stomach. Did she ever think this was really going to happen? Did she ever think she would let it?

All is calm. Her heart pounds against his chest. She begins to grind her hips, growing frantic. Their kisses turn sloppy, two open mouths panting in unison. His fingernails lightly scratch along her side, drawing goosebumps.

All is bright. The only light illuminating the room is the streetlight outside of Mulder’s window. A sliver of moonlight hits his face, and he stares at her with reverence. They move together, fully clothed, like teenagers on his couch.

“Is this okay?” she whispers. She means this, this desperate act of frottage. She could take off her shirt, could lead him to his bedroom, but she’s so tired and this admission of love was so poorly planned. If she’d thought she was coming here tonight for this, she’d have taken a shower, shaved, changed into nicer underwear. She’s not physically prepared for sex tonight. “I mean, tonight I don’t think…”

“This is great,” he pants. “This is…”

He can’t finish his sentence, a fact that turns her on even more. She hasn’t dry-humped since she was probably 17, but she doesn’t have it in her to be embarrassed about it. He is rock-hard between her legs, his hands gripping her hips to push her down on him harder. She adjusts her legs, finds the right angle that will make this actually happen for her. Begins to let out quiet moans, little breaths of encouragement.

It’s quick and sloppy, the way they move together, they way they kiss. The rise and fall, the way he kisses her neck and whispers, “come on, Scully, yes” and palms her ass. She grows louder, her voice joining the rusting sound of cloth rubbing against cloth and his own quiet breaths, puncturing this otherwise silent night. She clutches his shoulders when she comes, rocking herself against him with every wave that rocks through her body.

Now she is whispering, “Come on, Mulder,” her fingers at the nape of his neck again, pulling his hair. For once, he does what she tells him to do, coming with a shudder. She watches his face, the look of concentration she’s seen so many times applied to this primal act. The way his eyes close and his mouth opens. She watches a dark wet spot appear at the front of his jeans.

Now that they’ve finished, she doesn’t know what to do. She’s never been good at this part, which is probably why she’s had so few (okay, one) one-night stands. How long does she stay like this, her legs beginning to cramp on either side of his? Is Mulder a cuddler, and is there room for that on his couch?

He saves her from having to make a decision on what to do. “Uhm, I’m going to go clean myself up.”

“Okay,” she says, climbing off his lap. It’s been too long for her, and even this will leave her legs stiff and sore tomorrow. Or maybe she’s just getting old. She admires his back as he walks away, unused to the strangeness of being allowed to openly look at him without fearing he’ll see her checking him out. It’s liberating. It’s terrifying.

She sinks into the couch and waits for him, and the exhaustion returns. She closes her eyes, just for a second. She’ll just doze until he comes back. This really is a very comfortable couch, she thinks. She understands now why he falls asleep on it so often.

“Scully?”

Bleary-eyed, she lifts her head, disoriented. “Hm?”

"Uh, you fell asleep.”

She opens her eyes fully. It’s still dark out, but that means nothing. The short days make it impossible to tell what time it is. “What time is it?” she asks.

“It’s 5:30,” he says sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I know you said you were due at your mother’s at 6.”

“Shit,” she says, sitting upright. “I have to go.” She looks down at herself, at her work pants and her blazer. She can’t imagine what her hair must look like right now, or her makeup. “I, uh - I have to run home and change.”

“I know,” he says. “Will you call me later?”

He looks so young, so vulnerable. She smiles even though his fragility makes her sad. She works hard to not let any trace of emotion slip through the cracks of her shell, and he wears everything on his face, completely unaware of his own intensity. She loves him, so she loves this about him.

“Of course,” she says, and he follows her to the door. She kisses him chastely, acutely aware of her morning breath but even more aware of the way her lips tingle as she pulls away. “Merry Christmas, Mulder.”

“Merry Christmas, Scully.”

[type2diabetestreatments-blog]

Meet Dr. Whitehouse: Historical Endo Extraordinaire

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/meet-dr-whitehouse-historical-endo-extraordinaire/

Meet Dr. Whitehouse: Historical Endo Extraordinaire

It's not often you get to meet someone who actually worked directly with Dr. Elliott Joslin, "the father of diabetes care," back in the day. But lucky for us, fellow D-blogger and journalist Mike Hoskins lives in Indiana, very near the Eli Lilly HQ and a gentleman who's made an incredible impact on treating diabetes over the past 74 years. Don't miss his (somewhat lengthy) historical perspective today:

Special to the 'Mine by Michael Hoskins

You might call him an Endo for the Ages, someone who connects the past to the present and moves us toward the future in the world of diabetes.

For Dr. Fred W. Whitehouse, his first encounter with diabetes came at the age of 12, when his 8-year-broth

er was diagnosed during a family car trip from Arizona and California. This was long before the idea of adding "Dr." to the front of his name was even on the mind -- before a career in diabetes, and before he'd find a place in the diabetes history books as an endocrinologist who's been at the forefront of D-care for more than a half-century.

Now 85, Dr. Whitehouse practices three days a week at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

He took some time recently for a chat with us at the 'Mine, and our 90-minute discussion hit on just about every topic in the diabetes world, from his own family connections, to his humble medical career beginnings at the Joslin Clinic — working directly with the legendary Dr. Joslin himself! — to the evolution in care and research he's observed and helped shepherd in through the decades, his American Diabetes Association presidency, and even D-Camp, the Diabetes Online Community and his thoughts on how close we are to a cure. I'll do my best to summarize his exceptional journey here for you:

In fact, his journey unofficially began in August 1938 on that summer drive with his family, when his younger brother Johnny suddenly needed frequent stops to use the bathroom. Mom knew it was diabetes because one of her cousins had been diagnosed young and died in 1919 after slipping into a coma in Connecticut while on the way to see a "famous doctor" in Boston. Thankfully, Whitehouse's own brother's diagnosis came more than a decade after insulin's discovery, and a young Fred was determined to help take care of him.

"I was the resident chemist in our family because I had an amateur chemistry set and would boil the urine, trying to get the color blue because that meant no more sugar in the urine," he said. "That was my initiation into diabetes."

But then, years went by and he didn't think about diabetes as a career-influencer. Instead, he wanted to go into obstetrics. "There's nothing more delightful than delivering babies," he says. But Whitehouse soon found himself at Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, where Dr. Rollin Woodyatt was the leading physician for patients with diabetes, who most docs of those days weren't comfortable caring for. His own days caring for his brother Johnny came back, and his destiny seemed to fall into place.

After a stint as a Navy flight surgeon in the Korean War following his residency in Detroit, Whitehouse took a fellowship in Boston, MA, at the New England Deaconess Hospital — which shared space at 84 Bay Street with the Joslin Clinic at the time, about three miles from the site Joslin would later make its home. It was there that Whitehouse spent 15 months, working not only with a lineup of trailblazers from diabetes history but Dr. Eliott P. Joslin himself.

At the time because of his age (mid-80s), Dr. Joslin and spent most of his time in his office, but Whitehouse and the others would accompany him on the rounds when Joslin did see patients. Whitehouse recalls talking with Dr. Joslin about his entry into the D-field in the late 1800s, how his aunt had diabetes and motivated him to focus his medical career on the condition. And thank goodness he did!

"The old gentleman was still hale and hearty, and worked every day at the hospital doing his rounds every Saturday morning starting at 8 a.m. He really was a remarkable man," Whitehouse says of the legendary Joslin.

Whitehouse actually practiced with the "Big Four" of the time — Drs. Joslin and Howard F. Root who administered the first insulin delivery in the '20s, Priscilla White who revolutionized pregnancy and diabetes care, and Dr. Alexander Marble who focused on DKA and research. Later, Drs. Robert F. Bradley and Leo P.Krall and Joslin's son Allen joined the historical group that Whitehouse witnessed firsthand.

"Really, the strength of Joslin was the distinguished group he accrued who were high-quality, experienced, and specialized people in diabetes, not just some physicians who saw it on the side," Whitehouse says. "That team approach, the idea of focusing on high control of treatment, was what Joslin became known for. There were no clinical trials then and the thought was that complications may be hereditary, but that it could be controlled by intense care. But that wasn't proven by data for almost 40 years."

Back then, about three decades before home blood meters came onto the scene, it typically took about an hour to take a BG test in a clinic. At Joslin, Whitehouse said one could get that done in as quickly as 30 minutes. In those days, the color blue (dark blue, to be exact) was the goal because it suggested "normal blood sugar" and no glucose in the urine. He laughs now how many in the diabetes community advocate for the color blue and the International Diabetes Federation's Blue Circle, since it has a significant part in the pages of diabetes history!

Whitehouse left Joslin in September 1955 and went to work at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where he remains today. He served more than 30 years as chief of the Endocrinology Diabetes Bone Mineral Disorders Division from 1962 to 1995, and has long been regarded as one of the nation's leaders in the field of diabetes. He served as ADA president in 1978-79, and during his presidency the concept of ADA professional section councils — subgroups of members focusing on such specialties such as foot care, youth, pregnancy or complications. His honors include: the Banting Medal, Outstanding Clinician Award and Outstanding Physician Educator Award from the American Diabetes Association, and the Master Physician distinction from the American College of Physicians. The Henry Ford endocrinology division website says this about him: "Over the course of 60 years, Dr. Whitehouse has helped change the face of diabetes management and treatment." The Detroit hospital has even named a distinguished service award after Dr. Whitehouse!

He was involved in testing human insulin in the late 1970s, and along with one of his colleagues in Detroit, treated the patient who was the second-ever person to take human insulin (the first was in Kansas). He also treated some of the earliest patients ever treated with insulin who would utilize new tools such as the first-ever blood meters and insulin pumps, as well as those who had transplants of various natures. The first patient with diabetes to receive a transplanted kidney at Henry Ford Hospital did so on Oct. 31, 1974, and he says it was a great success — that woman lived a full life for 14 years before succumbing to a massive heart attack.

One of his other D-patients was Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, diagnosed at age 11 in 1919 and one of the first to ever receive insulin from Dr. Fredrick Banting in 1922. She married William T. Gossett, who was general counsel for Ford Motor Company and lived in southeast Michigan. Before her death from pneumonia in 1981 at the age of 73 (totaling an estimated 42,000 insulin shots before her death), she saw Dr. Whitehouse but actually kept her health and diabetes a secret from the world. She was a "closet diabetic," Whitehouse says.

That was perhaps the way then, but now with the advent of the Internet and the diabetes online community, PWDs tend to be more enthusiastic about sharing their stories and are looking to connect. Whitehouse thinks support and mental health is important, and though he's not sure if there's enough follow-up data to judge the clinical significance of something like the diabetes online community, he does think it sounds like a positive influence — much like diabetes camps.

"There are far less closet diabetics than there used to be, and people are more open. That's a good thing because you can learn from others who are going through similar experiences."

(DBMine: EXACTLY!)

Whitehouse was also one of the initial endos participating in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trials (DCCT) in the 1980s — government-funded clinical trials that led to the proof that better managed diabetes could delay or even eliminate complications. Whitehouse says not everyone in the medical field supported that theory or thought the study was worthwhile. Those naysayers got a big "I told you so" years later when the A1c became the standard to gauge a person's management.

"They thought the question had been answered in their own mind and they didn't want to be bothered," he said. "But we had to be able to prove this with science and data for everyone, rather than it being one doctor from one or two places saying this was their opinion. The time for scientific proof had come."

Looking back, Whitehouse describes the DCCT as the most remarkable study ever supported by the NIH, which is ongoing and now in its 30th year. (See the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study that has continued following most of the original DCCT participants).

Whitehouse says he's amazed to have witnessed all the technological and daily care changes that have happened since he began in 1955, and that patients and physicians have much more basic knowledge about management. He believes the next leap forward will be just as amazing — prevention of type 1 and helping type 2s avoid complications with better management.

As far as moving toward a cure, Whitehouse has some thoughts on that, too.

"I think prevention of type 1 diabetes will come first," he said. "Then, better control of daily swings in blood glucose and better control over low blood sugar spells. Perhaps third will be better control of overweight and obesity. Last in my view will come the 'cure of the insulin-dependent diabetic person.' This will require stem cells from the diabetic's own tissues developing into beta cells, then preventing these 'personal' beta cells from being killed off as they initially were. This will be the crowning achievement. That's all coming, but I think diabetes will be around for a spell."

Unfortunately, that seems pretty clear. But we hope there'll be new Dr. Whitehouses in each generation, to help us take leaps forward in research and improving D-care.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

[perksofwifi]

Top 10 Best Japanese Sports Cars on Sale Today

Japanese cars are known for their reliability and approachable pricing, but automakers in the land of the rising sun know how to have fun, too. Over the years there have been some legendary Japanese sports cars, including the original Datsun 240Z, Mazda RX-7, Mk IV Toyota Supra, first-generation Acura NSX, Nissan Skyline GT-R, Toyota MR2, the original Mazda Miata, and many more. Those Japanese classics delivered precise handling, respectable power, and supreme driver involvement—not to mention that aforementioned reliability and approachable pricing. Some of today’s sporty Japanese cars are favorites among MotorTrend editors, and we’re eager for any chance to get behind the wheel. These Japanese performance cars are worth a look.

Nissan GT-R

Even more than a decade into its sales cycle, the R35 Nissan GT-R continues to be a formidable opponent, especially among other Japanese sports cars of today. Godzilla remains one of the quickest all-wheel-drive sports cars we’ve ever tested, with a 0–60 time matching that of the Bugatti Veyron. Through corners it demonstrates face-bending grip, hanging on with up to 1.06 average lateral g on the skidpad. The GT-R may be as fast as it is old, but it remains one of the best Japanese sports cars of all time. We’re hopeful Nissan will follow through with an epic R36.

Acura NSX

The exotic-fighting Japanese performance legend lives on in hybrid form. Acura put everything it knows into the NSX’s modern revival, creating a carbon-trimmed masterpiece with a battery-enhanced twin-turbo V-6 in the middle. All in, that setup is good for 573 hp and blistering acceleration. Purists might lament the loss of the original NSX’s lightweight body and available manual transmission, but as we found on a drive in its home country of Japan, today’s car provides “joy on the track” and proves “technology and emotion can happily coexist.”

Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ

You know how it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow? Get behind the wheel of a Toyota 86 for proof. This small, sporty Japanese car makes around 200 hp, and crawls from zero to 60 mph in about 7 seconds; many of today’s crossovers are quicker. But want for acceleration evaporates as soon as you show the 86 a winding road; its chassis is sublime, communicative, and steadfast in its pursuit of making its driver smile. “I love that it has just enough body roll to make a 30-mph corner feel like a 60-mph corner,” we said of the 86 TRD Special Edition. Hey, slow car fast over fast car slow, right?

Subaru WRX STI

Today’s Japanese rally car for the road may not be as tech-savvy as some competitors, but that means it’s perhaps less digitally filtered than the others. A slightly laggy turbocharged flat-four engine, notchy six-speed manual shifter, and trademark all-wheel drive are starting to feel a bit dated in today’s world of hybrid assistance and lightning-shift automatics. Still, those traits make it fun in a refreshingly old-school way. Is it a Japanese sports car? That remains debatable, but we think it certainly inherits the spirit of the Japanese performance cars of old.

Nissan 370Z

The Nissan 370Z has built a strong fan following around its rakish looks and sporty driving dynamics. Although it’s pretty fun and has posted some solid numbers, it has a bare-bones interior and lacks modern safety technology. That’s no surprise considering its age; it debuted in 2009. There’s been no official word on a 370Z replacement, either. Other rear-wheel-drive performance coupes seem to offer better value, but if you love the Japanese sports car ethos and the 370Z’s raspy exhaust note, it’s still here for you to enjoy.

Toyota Supra

We know what you’re thinking: Is this really a Japanese sports car? We say yes; it’s got a Toyota badge on the bumper, BMW-stamped parts behind it be damned. Regardless of nationality, it’s an awesome car to drive, with a turbocharged inline-six and fantastically balanced chassis. The naysayers will be there as long as the Mk V Supra remains on sale, but we’ll simply point to the numbers and remind them that it beat out esteemed competitors born and bred in the land of its, ahem, cousin.

Mazda MX-5

Light weight, rear-wheel drive, and infinite headroom: That’s the secret recipe that makes the Miata great. The MX-5 has never been the fastest, or the most powerful, and definitely not the most luxurious Japanese sports car out there, but it’s definitely among the most fun. We’ve boldly proclaimed that “This remains the best sports car for the money in the world, full stop. You cannot have more fun per dollar spent.” For a shade above $30,000, that’s a prospect plenty of people have discovered for themselves—well over a million, in fact.

Lexus RC F

Lexus’ RC F is something of a segment bender; it’s somewhere between a luxurious grand tourer, brawny muscle car, and (supposed) track-focused tool. In a bubble, this Japanese performance car is great, but then comparisons against the lightness or speed of European rivals start to come in for the pop. The RC F Track Edition shaves a few pounds here or a few tenths there, yet we’re not quite convinced it’s meant for hard days of hot lapping. That said, it’s still fast, loud, fun, and a unique offering in a segment crammed with storied nameplates.

Honda Civic Type R

Civics get a bad rap. Front-wheel drive gets a bad rap. Drive the Honda Civic Type R, however, and you’ll wonder why either of those is considered a bad thing. The CTR is superb, with all the grip, balance, power, and involvement you could ever really ask for. Plus, it’s still a Civic hatchback, so beneath its wing-clad rear liftgate is plenty of cargo space for life’s daily needs. Its Civic Si sibling delivers its own set of thrills, too, sharing a turbocharged punch and sweet-shifting six-speed manual. We’re big fans of these affordable sporty Japanese cars.

Infiniti Q60 Red Sport 400

Infiniti’s current sportiest car veers more toward the grand tourer end of the spectrum, but its 400-hp twin-turbo V-6 makes it a compelling option for customers shopping for sporty Japanese cars. The Q60 Red Sport 400’s engine feels strong and responsive, and its swoopy styling is quite distinctive. However, show it some corners and the Q60 Red Sport falters. Our take: “It feels very sporty driven to about eight-tenths, but after that it all starts to fall apart.” Infiniti’s unpredictable adaptive steering system doesn’t help, either. These may not be issues for those who want a quick, comfortable coupe to drive every day. For the rest of us, we’re eager for Infiniti to join the true Japanese performance car ranks with something like the Q60 Project Black S.

Top 10 Best Japanese Sports Cars on Sale Today

Nissan GT-R

Acura NSX

Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ

Subaru WRX STI

Nissan 370Z

Toyota Supra

Mazda MX-5

Lexus RC F

Honda Civic Type R

Infiniti Q60 Red Sport 400

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