#performance measurement and evaluation

[psychopomp-namine]

I am about to start a neji route (because I feel that I need at least three playthroughs to fully understand neji and his plays, so I can't leave him for last). so my thoughts on this may change, but for the moment, my thesis is that neji and kisa are the same kind of thespian, just in different fonts.

(I am slightly exaggerating kisa'a character here. there are hints and I do think pushing the envelope of what her character could be is part of what makes kisa... kisa. as I'll explain later, for better and worse, kisa is constrained by the conventions of being an otome heroine.)

anyway. in essence. neji turns Other Persons into stories,

and kisa turns Other Persons into performances,

while they both simultaneously run away from, avoid, or sacrifice Becoming Persons themselves, for the sake of theater

or maybe it's the other way around. something something discovery if not recognition of the self through the other... except they're both unreliable narrators so who's to say if the recognition actually takes hold, really. kisa at least is a little bit self aware. neji, on the other hand, deals with realizations of the self through writing, without actually processing them (e.g. ms robin, domina, etc).

I keep thinking about (novel) kisa closing her eyes and feeling like her sense of self would melt away until tsuki centers her and gives her theater as a way to heal from the grief of losing her mother. it happens again during tsuki's univeil performance: kisa curling in on herself and tsuki pulling her back to theater as way to help kisa move forward with her dreams. pretending to be others is more fun than being herself.

and then there is neji (insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme). but in his case, he would rather play eccentric roles, caricatures, comic relief, than be a Person With Depth on stage. neji is always either a seer of some kind (a fortune teller, a ghost who sees 10 seconds into the future) or a bit character (employee A), or... whatever he initially planned for domina. he is the mechanic behind the stage, but never the lead actor. his vulnerabilities do not need to "stolen" for the story, though others' are fair game.

kisa does not think about gender as it applies to herself in her daily life (mostly) and only sees it through the lens of acting and theater. how does she act mukai vs maiden, charles vs chicchi? the same way that neji does not think about the motifs and characters he writes as a window to himself, but rather as objects to be put on stage. rukiora is based on a younger neji, mary jane is I Am Death: Revisited (mary jane is to takihime as gashadokuro is to jacob), sissia is always meant to be the foil to I Am Death. but neji doeen't really understand that just like how he didn't understand oh rama havenna. sissia (kisa route, jack jeanne ver) is to kisa as domina is to neji.

literally kisa at her most extreme is just theater thoughts 24/7

kisa "I don't like being me; I'd rather be other people" tachibana 🤝 kokuto "I need to experiment and witness visions I can't create or I'll die" neji: this is a totally sane and Normal way to cope with abandonment and grief 👍

(it is not implied in the game, but since kisa turned to theater to cope with grief as a child, I wonder if the reason she never looks too deeply into tsuki's disappearance is because she's once again using theater as an excuse to conveniently Not Think About It. out of sight, out of mind. tsuki must be doing well, wherever he is, whatever it is he's doing.)

there is also the meta perspective of how kisa in-game inhabits a role where the player can (and is expected to) self-insert. otome dictates that protagonist kisa must be malleable to the player (who can choose to focus on a variety of relationships in her stead), and the plot dictates that actor kisa must be malleable to her stage roles (jack or jeanne, maiden or hero, flower or vessel), and novel kisa dictates that kisa must malleable to pretending to be other people because it's more preferable to being herself.

every thought she has about herself must be tied to acting, somehow. kisa's personhood is defined through stagecraft. she is the maiden, and mukai, and charles, and chicchi, and sissia. she can romance anyone in the school, of the player's choosing. she can be jack, and jeanne, and jack jeanne. don't get me wrong; kisa is her own character and has a strongly defined personality, but the story also demands for her to be malleable. a painting and a blank canvass at the same time.

neji externalizes where kisa internalizes. where kisa Must Perform™ to function and to avoid herself, neji Must Create™ to function and to avoid himself. scriptwriter neji dictates that neji must use everything at his disposal — his memories, his classmates, his obscure knowledge — as inspiration for stories. director neji dictates that he must use everything he knows about his actors — their complexes, their relationships, their weaknesses and strengths — as inspiration for stories. from the cook (mitsuki) needing apricots for a recipe and wanting to harvest honey from a beehive, to mary jane (fumi) being good at sewing and wanting an equal in jacob. suzu and sou fighting and developing a rivalry leads to jire and fugio fighting over chicchi. kai limits himself as a vessel in hasekura, and kai learns to embrace his desires as the priest. from the water/ocean/drowning themes, to rukiora being based on neji's younger self, and her family life and relationship with domina.

every thought neji has must be tied to stories, somehow. neji's personhood is scattered through stagecraft. the more you read his plays and lyrics, the more you get a glimpse of who he is. it is to the point that neji himself doesn't... really see how his stories reflect himself. ms robin being a "random" song the jazz lounge singer sings that hasekura and ando can dance to, oh rama havenna being a so-so throwaway play that neji doesn't understand why it's entertaining. lmao. neji, please.

and this is why when problems arise, neji becomes a demanding director and kisa becomes a chameleon actor with a shaky sense of self (we don't really see this a lot because jack jeanne is not that dark of a story and kisa is still an otome heroine of an uplifting game, but it's a reasonable conclusion if you push hard on the kisa from neji's "good morning" exercise, or kisa going ham on method acting as charles. kinda wish the game explored more of that. I think a very stressed kisa can get lost in method acting, just as a very stressed neji is almost paralyzed by the fear of the death of talent).

idk where I was going with this. just. them. they have the same issues, just in different fonts. and I think that's actually what first attracts neji to kisa. kisa "steals" (to borrow neji's own words) just like him. kisa is a fountain of inspiration, an ever changing muse. and neji provides kisa with an endless amount of prompts and characters for her to inhabit. kisa does like to play pretend a lot. that's why she's in theater!

kisa and neji: Art Imitates Life people stuck in a Life Imitates Art video game

ANYWAY usual disclaimer that I'm jotting down liveblogging thoughts and I know some spoilers to neji's route but I'm only just about to actually start his playthrough so. yeah. this was drafted all the way back in may lol, opinions may change and all that

[thehrhelpboard]

Performance Management Tools & Techniques

Performance Management Tools and Techniques plays an important role in today’s Business. These software help in setting goals, Measurement, review and evolution of employee in the organization. Click the link for more information: https://www.hrhelpboard.com/performance-management/performance-management-tools.html

[marketxcel]

What Is Mystery Shopping: Types, Examples, Advantages & Workflow

Explore the world of mystery shopping with our comprehensive guide. Discover various types, real-world examples, and the advantages of this unique approach. Dive into the mystery shopping workflow to understand how it can enhance customer experience and benefit your business.

[jobs-in-education]

Trackable Important Teacher Performance Metrics And Their Benefits

Evaluating the effectiveness and productivity of your teaching workforce in educational institutions using employee performance measures is very critical. Measuring employee performance has advantages for both the  institution and the people involved in teaching jobs in it. The most effective method for conducting this analysis frequently combines qualitative and quantitative measures to monitor how well your staff performs their duties. In this post, we'll talk about some of the most popular performance indicators used to assess teachers in their professions.

Metrics and Measures of Effective Teaching

In higher education, measuring teaching job efficacy is a crucial yet difficult undertaking. The use of student assessments of instruction has increased during the past few decades. There is little doubt that a good teacher influences students' learning in a favorable way. However, gauging a teacher's effectiveness in their jobs solely on the basis of grades and test scores is ineffective. It's crucial to consider a variety of elements that contribute to a teacher's professional success. Although there are many different ways to evaluate teachers, they all need to be dependable, practical, effective, and efficient. Below are a few of the measures-

Observation of a classroom

The head of the school, vice-principal, managers, and subject heads are in charge of doing this. It is used to evaluate several areas of teaching, as well as the teacher's practice in a particular subject or setting. Specific instructor techniques, all-encompassing features of instruction, teacher-student interaction, classroom management, and other factors can all be observed and evaluated. The numerous evaluation criteria can be used to develop a customized form that the assessors can fill out while watching the teacher in the classroom.

Educative Artefacts

To evaluate the effectiveness of classroom instruction, structured protocols can be used to analyze classroom artifacts such as lesson plans, teacher assignments and evaluations, grading rubrics, and student work and correction. The evaluators can employ a wide range of criteria, including authenticity, adherence to standards, clarity, efficacy, comprehensiveness, and others.

Peer review

Other teachers are tasked with reviewing a teacher's lesson plan, classroom schedule, assessments, and assignments. It enables instructors to evaluate and comment on their peers. This is useful for learning more about instructors' work ethics as well as their conduct outside of the classroom. For this reason, specific peer evaluation forms with questions listed in accordance with the evaluation criteria may be utilized.

Self-Assessment

This aids educators in identifying their areas of difficulty and outlining their objectives and successes. It implies that they can assess their own knowledge, effectiveness, and production for room for improvement. They now have ownership and control over their own professional development as a result. The school may develop and offer guidelines and resources for self-evaluation to the teachers. The school may develop and offer guidelines and resources for self-evaluation to the teachers.

Student surveys and ratings 

Children are the final recipients of the services that instructors give, and they are able to offer feedback on how they view a teacher's performance. They can do this by responding to survey forms designed for this purpose. They may be permitted to do this anonymously in order to encourage the pupils to express their ideas and opinions without restraint or concern about retaliation.

Advantages of teacher evaluation in educational institutes

The evaluation of a teacher's performance and effectiveness as a teacher in the classroom is a methodical and well-defined process. Reviewing and examining the performance is part of this process in order to provide the teacher with constructive criticism that will help him or her advance professionally. The following are some of the main advantages of teacher evaluation-

1. Because it makes it possible to track institutional performance levels, stakeholders are better able to recognize and address institutional problems.

2. Teacher performance improves as a result of regular evaluations.

3. All of the teachers in the school may be granted specific ranks based on their individual contributions and capabilities, and additional tasks may be delegated to them as a result.

4. It gives management the ability to recognize and praise educators for their extraordinary teaching abilities and superior customer service.

5. It assists in locating any weaknesses in teaching-learning strategies that might be causing pupils to perform poorly.

6. It serves as the foundation for dismissing ineffective teachers from the system (after providing them with enough opportunity for improvement) and bringing in effective ones to uphold the standard of education.

7. Making educated decisions about evaluations and promotions is aided by it.

8. It provides useful insights for making data-driven choices in the education industry and aids in the construction of job descriptions for potential teachers.

9. When management interacts with instructors and expresses appreciation for their work, it motivates them to do better, which eventually results in ongoing progress.

10. The management is in charge of the overall development of the teachers, and "teacher evaluation" is a tool for enabling them in the same way that they are in charge of empowering the students.

[womenofnoise]

Mafufu Sejmet - "Neuro Noise" from Puebla, Mexico.

"Neuro Noise" is noise and ambient sounds created from the nervous system. All the sounds used in performances come directly from the artist's own body and are sourced from electromyography (EMG). EMG is a test that evaluates the health of muscles and the nerves that control them. It measures the electrical activity of muscles and the speed and efficiency of the electrical signals transmitted by nerves.

Mafufu graduated with a degree in Visual Arts from ENPEG "La Esmeralda". She's currently a psychology student at UNAM and works in a Neurology and Neurophysiology clinic.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sarah Schwartz

Test after test of U.S. students’ reading and math abilities have shown scores declining since the pandemic.

Now, new results show that it’s not just children whose skills have fallen over the past few years—American adults are getting worse at reading and math, too.

The connection, if any, between the two patterns isn’t clear—the tests aren’t set up to provide that kind of information. But it does point to a populace that is becoming more stratified by ability at a time when economic inequality continues to widen and debates over opportunity for social mobility are on the rise.

The findings from the 2023 administration of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, show that 16- to 65-year-olds’ literacy scores declined by 12 points from 2017 to 2023, while their numeracy scores fell by 7 points during the same period.

These trends aren’t unique in the global context: Of the 31 countries and economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that participated in PIAAC, some saw scores drop over the past six years, while others improved or held constant.

Still, as in previous years, the United States doesn’t compare favorably to other countries: The country ranks in the middle of the pack in literacy and below the international average in math. (Literacy and numeracy on the test are scored on a 500-point scale.)

But Americans do stand out in one way: The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing adults is growing wider, as the top scorers hold steady and other test takers see their scores fall.

“There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills,” said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees PIAAC in the country. (The test was developed by the OECD and is administered every three years.)

It’s a phenomenon that distinguishes the United States, she said.

“Some of that is because we’re very diverse and it’s large, in comparison to some of the OECD countries,” Carr said in a call with reporters on Monday. “But that clearly is not the only reason.”

American children, too, are experiencing this widening chasm between high and low performers. National and international tests show the country’s top students holding steady, while students at the bottom of the distribution are falling further behind.

It’s hard to know why U.S. adults’ scores have taken this precipitous dive, Carr said.

About a third of Americans score at lowest levels PIAAC is different from large-scale assessments for students, which measure kids’ academic abilities.

Instead, this test for adults evaluates their abilities to use math and reading in real-world contexts—to navigate public services in their neighborhood, for example, or complete a task at work. The United States sample is nationally representative random sample, drawn from census data.

American respondents averaged a level 2 of 5 in both subjects.

In practice, that means that they can, for example, use a website to find information about how to order a recycling cart, or read and understand a list of rules for sending their child to preschool. But they would have trouble using a library search engine to find the author of a book.

In math, they could compare a table and a graph of the same information to check for errors. But they wouldn’t be able to calculate average monthly expenses with several months of data.

While the U.S. average is a level 2, more adults now fall at a level 1 or below—28 percent scored at that level in literacy, up from 19 percent in 2017, and 34 percent in numeracy, up from 29 percent in 2017.

Respondents scoring below level 1 couldn’t compare calendar dates printed on grocery tags to determine which food item was packed first. They would also struggle to read several job descriptions and identify which company was looking to hire a night-shift worker.

The findings also show sharp divides by race and national origin, with respondents born in the United States outscoring those born outside of the country, and white respondents outscoring Black and Hispanic test takers. Those trends have persisted over the past decade.

[buckets-and-trees]

Point of No Return [Fine Line Collection]

Characters/Pairings: mean Alpha!Bucky x curvy Female!Omega!Reader Word Count: 4.5k Summary: Bucky has continued to honor your tentative new arrangement, allowing your presence while he conduct business, this time with the men he's selected to be part of his inner circle. (not a stand-alone read)

Content/Warnings: omegaverse: scenting, alpha-omega bond, attention to bond mark; power dynamics; some manipulation; explicit smut: oral (female receiving), vaginal fingering, vaginal penetration, male ejaculation/insemination; beefy and voracious Bucky (is a warning)

Author Notes: I thought I'd be writing something else for this week of HBS, but here we are! Tried two other ideas, but this was what the muse wanted to work on! So this is my offering for WEEK THREE of @buckybarnesevents' Hot Bucky Summer - "Now now!" and exhibitionism.

Previous: Under Siege | Series List

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

The first thing General Levinson does, upon entering Bucky’s office, is drop an unsealed manila envelope on the desk and say, “You’ll want to see page five.” 

Bucky only briefly glances up. He flips the envelope on one corner and extracts the neatly typed dossier, his thumb running briskly through the pages until the one marked “5.” He scans it in silence, eyes flicking left to right so fast you’d swear he wasn’t reading at all, but you know better. 

You watch Bucky’s face for the telltale sign of news—amusement, irritation, the faintest raise of an eyebrow. But he betrays no reaction until the very end, where his tongue presses against the inside of his cheek, and he hums, “Interesting.” 

Levinson sits—slouches, almost—legs crossed at the knee, hands steepled. He seems as comfortable behind enemy lines as he does in a penthouse drawing room. You remember, from your father’s own muttered warnings, that this was always the most dangerous sort of man: one who didn’t believe in sides at all, only outcomes. 

“Page six will interest you as well, but I’ll save you the suspense: your favorite little mayor has someone feeding her intel, and it’s not any one of the council rats who pissed themselves at last week’s performance.” Levinson flicks his gaze to you, but not in the way an alpha looks at an omega, or even a man looks at a woman. It’s a look of evaluation, the kind you’d give a high-value asset in an unreliable package. His gaze slides off you as quickly as it landed, but not before you register the calculation there: a curiosity about what you might know, or be, that no one else does. 

“Apparently, there’s enough chatter on the localized bands that she pulled at least three standing council members out of the territory before your men locked down the southern highways,” Levinson continues, voice bone-dry. “They’re regrouping in the Crescent District. Not an organized counter-offensive yet, but it’s only a matter of time.” 

Bucky closes the folder and drums his vibranium fingers against the lacquered desk. The sound is sharp, metronomic. “Who’s on the bankroll?” he asks. 

Levinson smirks, the barest twitch of his mouth. “If this were the old territory, I’d say probably Gowan, but the new seat of operations is running leaner than you’d think.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything for a moment, letting the silence expand—punctuated only by the measured taps of blue steel. Then he turns the folder so it faces you. “Tertiary sources?” he asks you, almost bored. 

You take the folder, or rather accept it as he slides it closer with one finger. The spine of the document is still warm from his touch, and as you begin to read, you’re aware of both alphas regarding you with identical, flat attention. 

The information is better than you’d expected: Cross-referenced wiretaps, heatmap overlays of encrypted comms, some social engineering so careful it could only be Levinson’s hand. You can feel your pulse quicken as you recognize names of old allies, family friends, people you thought had been cowed into irrelevance. But it’s the pattern of communication that draws you in—the subtle signals, the breadcrumbs of a resistance effort so careful it would have gone unnoticed had someone not been looking for precisely the right thing. There’s a kind of taut, ugly hope that blooms behind your ribs when you realize some of your father’s most trusted advisors are not dead, nor in exile, but embedded, alive, already building something. 

You bite back your reaction, keep your posture slack and your expression politely inquisitive. “If these contact points are accurate,” you say, tracing a column of numbers with your finger, “they’re not just regrouping. They’re triangulating.” 

Levinson raises his eyebrows, faintly impressed. “Exactly my thought. Most of the signals are low-velocity, until about two days ago. Then it’s all careful relays, little jumps from node to node, but always returning to one locus.” 

“The Ridge Market,” you say without thinking. 

“Bring in the others,” Bucky says. “We clearly have some priorities to discuss.”

General Levinson stands and moves to the wide double doors, opens them with a casual, proprietary ease. 

Nick Fowler, head of intelligence, is first through the door. He wears a perfect three-day stubble and a suit that, for all its perfection, appears to have never known a tailor. His eyes, pale as melting ice and twice as quick, land immediately on the folder in your hands, then flick to Bucky, who gives him a single, shallow nod.

Andy Barber, the new attorney general, lingers just behind him, hands deep in his pockets. 

Press secretary Ransom Drysdale rounds out the pack, today in a powder-blue blazer and gold watch, mouth already twisted into the preemptive smirk of a man who plans to lose no argument. 

The chairs scrape, the men settle, and Bucky—who does not stand for ceremony—simply waits them with a lazy crook of his finger. Levinson remains at his shoulder, half a shadow, half an extension of will.

"First order," Bucky says, his voice a weaponized monotone, "is this." He lays his palm over the folder. "Fowler, you’re lead on the Ridge Market situation. Devote as many assets as you need. Don’t burn them. I want to see what it grows into." 

Fowler nods, already two moves ahead in his head. "Soft touch, then. You want the inside of it, not just the edges?" 

Bucky glances at you. "She’ll consult on this. Knows the players and enough of their communication patterns." It is not a request.

Fowler’s eyes slide to you, and there is a visible recalibration, the shift from considering you a liability to seeing you as an asset. 

“So, Governor,” Drysdale says, “what’s our position, and has anyone told you lately you really need a chief of staff?”

Barber grunts, “If you ask me, that’s the real fire under your ass. Not the mayors or the market or even the threat of a counterforce. It’s the day-to-day. Things are running fine, but you will be able to do more with a chief of staff who can carry out your campaigns and keep things moving.”

Bucky gives Drysdale and Barber a look so flat and cold it would stop the hearts of lesser men, but these are the alphas Bucky has hand-picked to surround himself with particularly to have an inner-circle of strength. They wait for him to speak. 

“I already know who it’s going to be,” Bucky says, voice low, “I simply need him to agree to it.”

He doesn’t say the name, but you see the flare of amusement in Drysdale’s eye, the slight tic at the corner of Barber’s mouth. Whatever this private joke is, you are not yet party to it.

“There’s a bigger issue, though,” Levinson says, already on to the next battle. “With the territory stabilized, you need to address how people see you. The people expect the typical paradigm—Alpha as strongman, Omega as well-bred ornament. Half the territory saw their Omega heir offer herself up to you to save the people, and some of them liked the idea of her defeat. Some of them are angry as hell. Some of them don’t know how to read the new developments over the past few days with her by your side. If you want to keep the next wave quiet, you have to set the expectation of what an Omega is, and what a bonded pair looks like.” 

Fowler, who has been intermittently sketching something on his notepad, looks up and says, “He’s right. You can rule by fear, but you won’t get loyalty unless you give them something aspirational. The last three takeovers we’ve seen overseas, the territories that survived were the ones that adapted the fastest.” He glances at you, then at Bucky. “If you’re not going to put her in a box, you have to sell her as a new kind of asset. Otherwise, you’ll get the worst of both worlds. Everybody’s anxious.”

“We need to reshape what they aspire to, we need to make being an omega in this territory - this administration - look like a privilege. We need people to hunger for it, even as they fear it.”

Bucky’s metal hand opens, closes. The sound is like a slow gun cocking. "You want to sell her," he says, voice so mild you almost miss the threat. "As what?"

Fowler shrugs, a minimalist gesture. "The First Omega becomes an asset to the sitting governor. The only one with a real voice. You give her just enough leash that she’s not a hostage, but everyone is always watching for when, or if, she’ll snap it. This is how you recruit the next generation of loyalists."

Drysdale jumps in, "We can script it. It’s the oldest playbook in the world: dynasty, virtue, the taming of a prize. Public appearance with the both of you, minimum three minutes of live footage, no scripts. Let them see the bond. Touch her.”

“We do know,” Barber adds, “that the public display of her bonding initially and then the double bonding ceremony sent powerful ripples of perception through those who saw and additionally those who heard of it. The whispers about your recent council meeting are equally as alluring.”

The muscles in your chest are tight as you sit just off to the side of the circle, but you try to project as much impassivity as possible as Fowler, Barber and Drysdale discuss your fate like it’s any other marketing campaign. 

Bucky leans back, the sound of his chair creaking the only sign of his tension. "We'll do it. Schedule the public engagement for tomorrow at noon." He turns to you, a question in his eyes so brief only you catch it: Are you ready to play this part, or will you try to defy him with the world watching?

Bucky doesn’t wait for an answer. He crooks two fingers, summoning you to his side. The men around the desk barely pause. If anything, their attention sharpens, as if this, too, is part of the brief. 

You stand, approach, and he pulls you onto his lap without ceremony. You land astride his thigh, skirt riding up, the bare skin of your legs pressed against the wool of his suit. Bucky’s flesh hand settles on your waist, his vibranium palm spanning your entire upper thigh. The heat of his touch is a warning and a promise.

“This is what they’re talking about,” he says, not to you, but to the room. “The public doesn’t care about my policies or security protocols. They want to see us. To see her.” He runs his hand up, up, until his thumb is nearly under the hem of your skirt. “They want to see the bond. They want to see an omega who can take what’s coming, and stay hungry for it.”

You sense the performance in his touch. His hand trails even higher, the blunt edge of his thumb now grazing so close to the apex of your thighs that you hold your breath, waiting. 

Bucky’s voice is slow, deliberate, as he continues. “We learned something in that first week,” he says, his hand moving with lazy certainty ever closer, but not touching your clothed cunt yet. “She likes an audience. I like her like this. Everyone gets what they want, but, gentlemen, if we are smart, we figure out how to use it beyond the two of us. We need something for the masses, but we cannot be on display so freely, we have to be the rarity.”

His hand slides under the edge of your underwear, the pads of his fingers merciless as they slip under the waistband of your underwear and find your cunt, already slick and growing wetter by the second. The cool vibranium of his thumb settles on your hipbone, pinning you in place, while his two flesh fingers part your folds and begin to stroke, slow and unhurried, both a violation and a benediction. You gasp, the sound embarrassingly loud in the hush, and your other hand grips his shoulder, clinging to composure.

The scent of your arousal blooms in the room’s warm air, and the men around the desk catch it. You register it in the minute adjustments of posture, the softening of conversation, the way Fowler’s lips part and Barber looks away and then back, unable not to. 

You can feel how Bucky registers their reactions to. He noses at your throat, his breath hot against the mark at the base of your neck. You feel the wet drag of his tongue as he licks it, sending a pulse of heat through your body. There’s a deliberate showmanship in the gesture; he holds your eyes for a fraction of a second, then flashes his gaze around the table, daring anyone to flinch.

He finds your clit and presses, circles, until your hips twitch against his hand in a silent plea. His lips graze your ear, intimate and low for you alone: "Good omega." 

He doesn't slow, doesn't shield it from view. The men around the table do not look away. The pull of what's happening is gravitational, inescapable. You become the locus of the room, the axis of power and desire, as he works you with an exquisite, infuriating patience. 

"The new order," Bucky says conversationally, as though he is discussing the weather, "is not about fear or brute force. That's old thinking. It's about making something so compelling no one wants to tear it down." His fingers move more insistently, and you bite your lower lip to keep from whimpering. "You put a real omega in the public square, bonded to the Governor, not just a trophy but a weapon. You show them a pair as volatile and as bound as any mythology. They watch for the cracks, for the moment she breaks, and it never comes. The absence of failure is its own propaganda." 

"You want her to be a martyr," says Barber, his tone flat. 

"Not a martyr. A miracle," Bucky corrects. "She survives everything. Every humiliation, every pleasure, every blow. That's how you teach a territory to crave order. You become their darkest appetite." 

Levinson studies the tableau, his head tilted. "No other region has ever pulled that off, not for a generation. Old world, maybe. Here? It's a dangerous bet." 

Bucky's hand never leaves your cunt. By the way he holds you, you think he could make you come right here, right now, with the whole room watching, and all you'd be able to do is arch against his hand, because your omega instincts purr with satisfaction at being so thoroughly possessed, at being the focus of such raw, possessive desire. There's power in this submission, you realize - in knowing that the most dangerous alpha in the territory wants you so badly he won’t wait for privacy. 

“We are the bright opening, but we manufacture this,” he explains, ”rarity. A singularity. You make it clear the only way to aspire to what we have is through total loyalty to order. To me. To us.”

He slips his fingers out, and you whine at him leaving you empty. Then he brings his wet digits to your lips as though offering communion. “Open,” he rasps, and you do, parting your mouth so he can swipe your essence across your tongue in full view of the assembled men. Your taste is sharp, salt and want, and for a queasy instant you wonder how it must feel to be the living center of a cult, adored, sacrificed, remade again and again.

His hand rests heavily at your throat. “This is how we win forever, not just for a year or a decade,” Bucky says. “We reprogram the appetite of the territory until even our enemies cannot imagine another way of wanting.”

Drysdale leans back in his chair, and for the first time since he entered, he looks you straight in the eye. “You’re going to make her the center of envy.”

“Not just envy. Obsession,” Fowler says, untwisting his pen and rethreading it in slow, thoughtful turns.

Bucky locks eyes with you, and you feel the raw current of his need, not just to possess you but to make your bond an epoch. “This is about the animal in everyone. Give them something to fixate on, and their unrest will stay all teeth and no bite.”

You feel a spike along your bond, some mixture of anticipation and heat, and you realize Bucky is as close to the edge as you are. He wants to push you, to make you shatter, but to do it in a way that will become legend, a story retold in every district until even the most resistant omega dreams of being you. 

He stands with abrupt, predatory grace, lifting you with him. Your skirt is bunched at your hips. He slips out of his suit jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, exposing the gleam of vibranium and the roped muscle of his right arm. His flesh hand presses your chest down onto the lacquered wood, pinning you with the effortless strength of a war god. The cool air hits the exposed backs of your thighs. 

You sense every eye in the room: the generalized hunger, the predatory curiosity, the inescapable knowledge that you are about to be shown, again, exactly whose you are.

He doesn’t bother with your underwear; he simply rips it, the elastic popping against your skin. His hand spans your lower back, pinning you down, and without warning his cock—already hard from the spectacle—pushes between your legs, breaching you in a single, blinding thrust. A cry wrenches from your throat, sharper than anything you’ve made for him before, and the men around the table shudder in answer, an audible ripple of breath and muscle contracting. 

He fucks you at a brutal, unhesitating pace, each drive of his hips jarring your body forward, forcing your abdomen against the unforgiving edge of the desk. There is no gentleness, no pretense; he is using you, claiming you in an act of pure theater, and you sense the precise calculation in every movement. You are a weapon and a message. You are his. 

Your eyes blur with the force of it, pleasure already cresting inside you, and somewhere in your mind you feel the atmosphere in the room change: a tightening, a collective focus that neatly telescopes down to the hinge of his hands at your hips and the point of his cock spearing you open.

There’s a howl somewhere—it takes a moment to realize it’s your own voice, torn raw as he pounds into you. There’s nothing left of the careful, self-possessed woman who started this meeting. You are shaking on the edge, bent to the shape of his will and the angle of the desk. Every thrust drums the breath from your lungs, every wet slap of skin is punctuated by the guttural rumble of his satisfaction. 

He doesn’t break rhythm as he twists your head to the side—his vibranium fingers gentle for only this, maneuvering your face so you look out, directly at the audience of men with their masklike faces, their barely leashed hunger. Some of them have their hands fisted in their laps, cocks swelling obvious behind the thin wool of their trousers. All of them are breathing too fast, eyes wide. 

You come, and it’s not quiet, not contained, not modulated for the benefit of civilized company. It’s a noise from the animal core of you, a breaking of all protocol, a shudder that garlands the room with the velocity of your need. You think you might black out for a second, so total is the pleasure, so shocking the shockwave as your inner muscles seize and clamp around Bucky’s cock. 

He does not stop. If anything, he intensifies, using the leverage of his hands to wrench you against him, an exultant violence that makes your soul shiver. You are aware, distantly, of the men at the table, how their rigid silence has given way to a kind of seizure—rubbing, shifting, the rasp of wool and the pop of a button as someone’s restraint shreds under the force of what they’re seeing. 

You’re still spasming when Bucky slams in, his cock driving so deep it feels like he’s fucking the soul out of your body. You are nothing but light and wetness and his name scraped raw from your lungs.

Bucky spends himself in a handful of punishing thrusts, hips bucking against your aftershocks. He empties inside you, the heat of it flooding you so suddenly you groan, and the sound is so feral, so lost to dignity, the men in the room instinctively look away. 

He stays inside you for a moment, cock still twitching, his hand never leaving your nape, as if anchoring you to the desk is now a metaphysical rather than mechanical need. Then he draws your back against his chest. You’re reeling, legs unsteady, vision swimming. His mouth finds your ear. “Remember this,” he says, low and soft so only you can hear.

Then, to the men, he says in a cool voice, "You saw what I wanted you to see. Go figure out how to manufacture it for the public."

There is a scrape of chair legs, hands smoothing down pant legs, a flurry of wordless compliance. Levinson is the last to linger, studying you where you sprawl, debauched and splayed, equal parts ruined and remade. His eyes flick to Bucky’s; there is a nod, the simplest of compacts between predators, and then the office empties.

You can’t move for a long minute. Bucky does not speak, does not offer you comfort or reproach. Instead, he gathers the slack of your body up in his arms and sits you on the edge of the desk, your skirt bunched at your hips, your thighs still trembling from the aftershocks.

You study each other for nearly a full minute of silence. Then, finally, you say, “I don’t know what to think.” 

Bucky, eyes still glazed with the aftermath of violence and pleasure, says, “For now, that’s the point.”

Then Bucky pushes your knees apart and drops to his haunches, mouth level with where you leak his come onto the polished wood. His hands are on your thighs, pinning you in place, but it's not necessary—there is no possibility of you moving, of protesting, of wanting anything else.

He licks you as though nothing and everything is at stake. Slow, deliberate, the broad plane of his tongue scraping up every trace of his last act of dominance, tonguing his own saltiness from your folds and then deeper, insistent, flattening you against the desk with the weight of his hand on your sternum and the brutal pressure of his lips at your core. The office, the world, the entire narrative curve of history, narrows to this: the cool afterglow inside you, the hot abrasion of his mouth as he eats you out with the same focus he brings to violence or governance. You are nothing but pleasure, raw nerve and wetness. 

He doesn’t just tongue you to another orgasm—he makes it a series, each one more fractal and helpless than the last. By the fourth, you are wrecked and the wood under your back is slick with sweat and your own slick and tears you didn’t know you’d shed. Bucky is merciless in this too, his hands mapping every inch of your thighs, your sides, your breasts still clothed in the blouse you’d chosen for this day and now ruined, buttons pulled askew, your bra wrenched above the bruised arch of your nipples so you spill heavy and trembling for him.

He feasts on you. There is no other word for it. He unravels you, makes of your body a single, quivering animal moment, repeatedly tasting himself in you, letting you hear it—the wet, obscene melody of his wanting—until you can’t contain the noise in your throat. 

And when you come yet again, you muffle the scream in the crook of your arm, sobbing out the last of your composure to the empty office. You have no desire to stop him, and you can feel through the bond how insatiable he is for you, in return. It feels at the same time more feral yet more concentrated than it did before, and you wonder if it’s possible that he’s becoming as lost in you as you are in him.

There’s a short knock at the door, and Bucky barks, “Not now!”

But the door hisses open anyway. Nick Fowler enters, phone jammed to his ear, voice urgent but composed. 

“Sorry, Governor, but it’s Curtis is on the line, says they’ve gotten a positive. He found our man.”

For a moment, Bucky does not move, does not even look up from where he still holds you pinned to the desk by one trembling thigh. You see the flicker of calculation in his eyes, the split-second assessment of whether to finish what he started—whether to drag you through one more climax, to show Fowler that there is no force in the universe that can interrupt the Governor’s pleasure—or to pivot, to let the moment stand as a promise of what you will return to, and answer the call of power instead. 

He chooses the latter, or maybe only delays the former. With a last, bruising kiss to your cunt he stands and quickly, adjusts his tie, then efficiently rearranges your skirt and blouse so you’re somewhat decent. Bucky hoists you off the desk and onto your feet. He moves you with so little warning that your knees try to buckle, but his hands are sure and unyielding. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then runs his vibranium palm up your thigh one last time, a silent claim.

"Give me the phone," he says, his voice clean, crisp, as if the past ten minutes never happened. 

Fowler hands over the cell, glancing at you only once, then looking studiously at the floor.

"This is Barnes," Bucky says, and his eyes flick to you as if daring you to turn away before he's ready.

The voice on the other end is tinny but urgent. "I've got him, sir. Overnight, he cut through the northwest perimeter, he didn't know about the new surveillance we installed at the borders. He’s holed up at the freight depot, just over the border. Visual confirmation says he’s armed. Likely has a support crew of two, maybe three. Window’s closing before he moves again."

Bucky’s eyes flash in satisfaction, the momentary glaze of pleasure replaced by diamond-edged focus. He says, "That’s why I sent you, Everett. Bring him in. Discreetly.”

Who has been the target of the manhunt Curtis has been on?

And what will the inner circle propose to manipulate and seduce a society to bring them fully to submission?

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

I do not do tag lists, but FOLLOW @buckets-and-stories and TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS to be updated any time I publish a new work!

[silverhairedsovereign]

Jacked and Kind

Their reaction after you ask them to do the TikTok trend "Slim Pickins" where they had to lift you on their shoulder.

content: soft, fluff, teasing, playful love

you can request, just comment! ( I'm still

trying to get the hang of tumblr)

now playing: Out Of My League by Fitz and The Tantrums

—SYLUS—

“You already know I’m the only one who can handle you.”

The moment you even mention the trend to Sylus, he doesn't just smirk—he practically grins. The look on his face is the kind that makes your stomach flutter in the worst—and best—ways.

“Oh, this?” he says, waving his hand dismissively, already sizing you up. “I could do this with my eyes closed.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh, really? So you think you can lift me?”

“I know I can,” he replies, his tone dripping with arrogance.

Without another word, he steps toward you, his fingers brushing yours for just a moment before he pulls you into his arms. You have no time to protest or even think—he just does it.

His grip is firm, like a confident god of strength who knows exactly what he’s doing. When he lifts you, it’s with a fluid, almost lazy motion that has you gasping. The way he spins you, though? Pure grace—a showman, a professional. He moves like a man who’s done this a thousand times, completely in control.

And then—he looks at you. Really looks at you, his eyes narrowing in a playful challenge as he spins you once more.

“Told you,” he says with a cocky smirk. “I’m built different.”

The way he says it, you almost believe him. And when he sets you down, he doesn’t release you immediately. No, he holds you a moment longer, as if savoring the power he has over you—he knows how you feel. He knows you’re already slipping deeper.

When the video’s over, Sylus doesn’t bother to check it for perfection. He already knows it’s flawless. Instead, he watches it back, not for the usual reasons, but to admire the way his jawline looks when he lifts you, and the way you’re gazing up at him. The look on your face? It drives him crazy.

“I might let you try again,” he says casually, tossing the phone aside, “but you’ll have to earn it.”

—XAVIER—

“I’ll always catch you.”

When you mention the “Slim Pickins” trend to Xavier, there’s a long pause. He tilts his head, evaluating you like you just gave him an equation to solve, but with a flicker of curiosity behind his eyes. It’s not so much about whether he can do it—it’s about how effortlessly he can dominate the moment.

“Lift you?” he says, voice almost amused, “If I’m going to do this, it’ll be right. You’re not going to just spin around like some amusement park ride.”

You grin, but the look in his eyes tells you he’s not playing. He’s calculating. There’s a certain type of precision Xavier brings to everything, and this won’t be any different.

Without asking for further instruction, he strides toward you, grabbing your waist in a way that makes it feel like it’s both deliberate and instinctive. No warnings. No dramatic buildup. Just his firm, steady grip on you as he effortlessly lifts you off the floor, bringing you flush against his shoulder.

Your breath hitches, but you can’t even be surprised. The man doesn’t do things halfway. When he spins you, it’s smooth. Measured. You can tell by the way he moves, the way he holds you, that this isn’t about performing for an audience—it’s about you.

He keeps his eyes locked on you the entire time, his gaze softening just slightly—because this moment is just for the two of you. You can feel it in the way his hands don’t falter, even as he twirls you once, slow, savoring the moment.

“I’ll always catch you,” he murmurs, voice barely above a whisper, his lips almost brushing your ear.

The spin ends. You’re dizzy, breathless, caught in the gravity of Xavier’s touch, but it’s the quiet look he gives you after that leaves your heart hammering. You swear you see something soft in his eyes, just for a second, before he’s back to his usual cool composure.

“Perfect,” he says, straightening himself up. “That’s how it’s done.”

Later, when he watches the video, Xavier doesn’t act overly impressed—of course not. But he does run his fingers through his hair, catching a glimpse of the way his jawline looks in the frame, and then you catch him replaying it, just once more. His eyes linger on the way you looked at him, his lips twisting into a small, satisfied smile.

“I told you,” he mutters quietly to himself, “I’ve got this.”

But when he turns to you, there’s no smugness, no cocky grin. Just a quiet confidence, the kind that only Xavier knows how to wear.

—RAFAYEL—

“Don’t tempt me if you’re not ready for the consequences.”

When you mention the trend to Rafayel, he just grins. That grin. You know it’s coming—the one that means he’s already making a plan in his head. A plan where he’s the center of attention. He’s the star, the drama, the flair, the whole damn show.

“You want me to lift you? Spin you? Sweetheart, you’re gonna need to be ready for me to make this unforgettable.”

You laugh at his cockiness, but it’s clear—he’s all in.

Without another word, he takes your hand and pulls you toward the center of the room. His eyes shine with mischief as he shuffles his feet, getting into position, and you can’t help but notice the way he’s casually flexing—like he’s preparing for a performance.

“Stand still. Let me show you how it’s done.”

You barely have time to blink before his arms are around you. His grip is secure, but there’s still a fluidity to his movements, like he’s done this a hundred times in his head—but now, it’s for real.

He spins you with the smoothness of a dancer, his laugh melodic as your feet leave the ground. The camera shakes slightly, but it’s nothing compared to the way your heart beats as you look up at him. That look he gives you? Pure mischief and challenge, like he knows you’re already falling harder. And you are.

“I told you,” he murmurs, his lips brushing your ear as he spins you again, just a little too fast. “No one can lift you like I can.”

And then, with one final dramatic flourish, he dips you low—so low you’re sure he’s about to kiss you. Instead, he pulls away just as quickly and gives you a teasing smile.

“You’re welcome, babe.”

The video is pure art, and when it’s posted, it gets way more attention than you anticipated. Rafayel doesn’t care, though. He adores it. Every comment, every heart. But more than that, he loves the way you look at him, like you’re seeing him for the masterpiece he truly is.

Later that night, he’s already planning the next “performance.” He looks at you with that grin.

“You’re doing it with me next, right? You wouldn’t want to miss out on the magic, would you?”

—ZAYNE—

“Don’t fall for me. Too late.”

You bring up the "Slim Pickins" trend, and Zayne doesn't immediately react. Instead, he raises an eyebrow like he's trying to figure out if this is a joke or a test of some kind.

“You want me to spin you?” he asks, voice flat. “I don’t know... sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

But his eyes are already scanning the room, sizing up where he’ll stand, making sure the space is clear. He crosses his arms, leaning against the wall, but it’s clear that he’s not going to let this go untested.

“Fine. But don’t expect me to do some over-the-top move. This isn’t one of those ‘show-off’ TikTok trends.”

You grab your phone, get into position, and wait for him to come closer. He studies you for a second, then steps into the right stance—his usual controlled precision showing as he holds out his hand. You take it, feeling the strength there, but there’s no teasing smile, no playful taunt. Just a simple, low key statement from him:

“I don’t need to be flashy. Just trust me.”

And when he lifts you, it’s effortless. His grip is firm but not overbearing, his stance calculated as he holds you easily. You don’t feel a single ounce of uncertainty, only the surprising softness in his expression that he rarely lets anyone see.

As he spins you, slow and steady, you realize this isn’t just a casual lift—this is his version of intimacy. No fanfare, no public displays—just you, him, and the soft whisper of his breath in your ear as he keeps his gaze focused on you the entire time.

“You alright?” he asks, voice quiet.

You nod, breathless. The TikTok ends, and he sets you down with a gentle ease that feels almost too gentle for the Zayne you know.

Afterward, he doesn’t act like it’s a big deal—no smug smile, no victory dance. But later, when you're going over the video together, you catch him rewinding the clip, watching it closely. His lips twitch upward slightly, the faintest hint of pride, before he looks away quickly, as if trying to hide it.

“Next time, warn me when you’re going to ask for something ridiculous.”

But you see it. The way he looks at you in the video, like he’s ready to fight anyone who dares challenge his place beside you.

—CALEB—

“This is the best day of my LIFE!”

When you mention doing the “Slim Pickins” trend, Caleb practically jumps off the couch. No hesitation. No questions. Just excitement.

“Wait, really? YES! I’ve been waiting for something like this!” His voice is so full of energy it makes you laugh.

He’s already in motion, practically dragging you to the center of the room before you can even explain what you need. The excitement is infectious, and you can feel your own heart start to race as he pulls you closer.

“Okay, okay, okay—here we go! Hold on tight!” he says, his voice just a little too over-the-top as he lifts you like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

There’s no fear, no hesitation, just sheer joy as he spins you—fast, maybe a little too fast—but it’s all in good fun. His laugh is contagious, and when you both stop, slightly dizzy from the spinning, you realize he’s absolutely beaming at you.

“Did you see that? Was that good? I swear, I could lift you forever.”

The video is a mess—you're both laughing too hard, the camera shaking, but that doesn’t stop Caleb from loving it. He insists on redoing it because, as he puts it:

“I didn’t get my hair right. Let me try again.”

Every time he spins you, he gives you the biggest grin, his eyes practically glowing. This isn’t just about the trend—this is Caleb, enjoying the moment, living in it with you. And when the final video is done, he posts it, captioning it with:

If you think this is fun, just wait until I pick her up for real.

You can’t help but laugh. He’s so genuine, so infectious in his energy. And when you watch the video together, you notice how incredibly proud he is—like he’s just won a trophy, and you’re the prize.

Wazzup, thanks for reading! If you have any suggestions, comment down bellow:) (been experimenting with them banners, lmao) byeee - Zane 𖹭

[antoncore]

mean!professor eunseok wc: 906

you regretted taking professor song eunseok’s management accounting class, wondering why you’d even chosen it. what was supposed to be easy became a nightmare, with his strict demeanor making every class suffocating. you’d sit at the back, trying to avoid his attention, but the more you hid, the more he seemed to single you out.

you were now sat in the packed tutorial, weighed down by a sense of dread as he began, the ticking of the clock only heightening your anxiety. his sharp gaze swept the room, and despite your attempts to focus on your notes, you couldn’t shake the fear of being called on. your palms started to sweat, and just when you thought you might be able to slip by unnoticed, he paused and turned towards you. “what do you think about financial performance measurement?” he asked, his gaze unrelenting.

the whole class turned to look at you, waiting for an answer you weren’t prepared to give. “i think, u-um-” you stuttered, in fear of how he may react to your lack of confidence. he furrowed his eyebrows at your hesitation, clearly displeased.“speak clearly…” he paused, looking at the attendance sheet to find your name. “y/n, we don’t have time for stuttering. i expect you to understand the content by now,” he said in a condescending tone as he stepped closer to your desk, towering over you. the rest of the class held their breath, sensing the tension. “perhaps you need a refresher, hm? let me ask you again, slowly this time so you can comprehend what i’m trying to ask you.” the way he spoke to you made you feel as if you were unintelligent, incapable and unworthy of being in his class.

“so, what’s used to evaluate a company's financial stability?" he crossed his arms, awaiting your response. “not very sure, sir,” you replied, knowing he’d be disappointed. he scoffed, shaking his head. “not sure? you’re falling behind. keep up.” he glared at you sternly before turning to address the class again. as he ordered them to discuss, his eyes quickly flicked back to you, his expression cold. “see me after class,” he demanded and you nodded, looking down. a hint of a smirk played on his lips, noticing the change in your demeanour.

after 20 more minutes of group discussion, the bell rang and eunseok promptly dismissed the class, everyone rushing to leave the room as you approached his desk. “so,” he said, his voice low and commanding as his hand went on yours. “we’re gonna need to do something about your lack of preparation.” you got all embarrassed, cheeks bright red at the slightest touch from him. “aw,” he says, a hint of amusement in his voice, “being alone with me gets you all worked up, hm?” he leans in closer, his face inches from yours. “well, come sit on the desk.”

you obeyed him in an instant as he stepped between your legs, looking down at the wet patch that formed in your panties. “such a slut, aren’t you? all wet because of me?” you nodded again as he smirked, reaching down and pulling your thighs apart roughly. he slapped your clothed cunt, making your body jolt. “stop fucking slacking!” you moaned in response, loving how both the slap and his words had you. he yanked your panties down impatiently, tracing a finger along your slit. “mm, such a pretty cunt for such a pretty whore,” he purred. “almost like you’ve been waiting for this.”

he didn’t even bother waiting for your response before slapping your now bare cunt, making you flinch from the sudden contact. “sir!” you whimpered as he laughed, the sound echoing through the classroom, “sound so cute when you call me sir.” he brought his hand down hard against your wet folds again, slapping it as you squirmed under his touch. he grinned as he watched your reactions, enjoying the sight of you looking up at him. “you’re gonna answer the question from earlier now. i’ll reward you later,” eunseok said, his eyes focused intently on you.

“yes sir,” you replied, ready to do whatever he asked of you. he smacked your pussy again, earning another flinch from you. “good girl. now tell me, what do you use to analyse a company’s financial performance?” he waited for your answer, his fingers tracing circles around your clit teasingly. “revenue?” you replied, unsure if you were correct. eunseok went harder on your cunt this time as he cooed, “that’s right, revenue. keep going.” you tried to think, trying to keep the notes you’d written earlier that day in mind. “net income, earnings, return on investment and return on equity?”

eunseok nodded approvingly, laughing to himself as he took his hand away from your cunt. “yes, that’s correct. not as dumb as i thought, are you?” you whined in frustration at the fact he didn’t give you what you wanted. you’d been good, hadn’t you? he crossed his arms, a cruel smile forming at the corners of his mouth. “you really thought i was gonna give you a reward? come see me in my office tomorrow. i’ll make sure you learn the content properly, then you’ll get what you want.” his tone was so firm, so mean and it had you in his grip. he stepped back, leaving you sat on the desk, on the verge of tears from how frustrated and desperate you were.

[woradat]

HALL OF RECORD

SUMMARY – once he was chief advisor, once you were archivist. Now they are not

PAIRING – sentinel prime x reader

NOTE – I read this fanfic and oh my god, the concept is so awesome?? I really couldn't help but have to write this one out after I finish reading

—

“You always talk this much?”

“Only when I’m not being appreciated properly”

—

The restricted archives of the Hall of Records didn’t have doors

Instead, a shimmering energy curtain flickered in the threshold—neither entirely solid nor passable without resistance. It hummed faintly, a curtain of containment and silence, casting the interior in a calm, undisturbed glow

Inside, You was standing at the center of a semi-circular array of holographic control panels. The light from them cast soft reflections across your plating, washing your frame in gentle hues of blue and gold. Your optics were narrowed, fingers dancing across the controls as lines of Proto-Cybertronian text hovered and rotated before being carefully sorted into branching timelines. Names, eras, battles—entries from the Age of Origins that most bots only heard of in myth or prayer—floated across the air in spectral luminescence

You were so focused you didn’t notice the energy curtain shift. Didn’t hear the quiet approach of footsteps echoing off the polished floor outside. But you did hear him “It’s so quiet in here, I half-suspected you'd unplugged the whole room just to keep people like me out”

That voice. Smooth as always, laced with that specific flavor of smugness only one bot had perfected into an artform. You didn’t turn around, just kept your optics on the console

A voice followed. Predictable as clockwork “You know, if you're trying to make this place uninviting, you're doing an excellent job. It feels like a tomb in here"

“Then do us both a favor and leave the tomb” You tapped a glyph to dismiss a particularly long-winded transcript, expression unreadable – the tone was dry as sand

The kind that scraped slightly on its way out

“Oh, temping” Sentinel replied easily, his silhouette now visible beyond the flickering field. He stepped closer, the energy parting around him in a faint shimmer. Every movement he made was deliberate—graceful in a way that suggested performance, not necessity. His arms folded behind his back as he glanced around, as if pretending to study the room when it was obvious who had his attention

“but I’m waiting for Alpha Trion. He told me to collect a report from you” He paused, letting silence settle, then added in a quieter, almost conspiratorial tone “Though... I suspect he meant for me to wait. Probably figured you wouldn’t hand anything over unless someone stood here breathing down your neck”

You sighed—long and theatrical—and flicked a glowing folder through the air toward him. It hovered just beyond arm’s reach, daring him to step through the last layer of distance

“Fine. Take it” But instead of grabbing it, Sentinel stepped into the room. Through the field. Through the silence. He walked with the sort of casual confidence that suggested he was used to testing boundaries—and getting away with it

Your shoulders stiffened “I said—”

“I heard you”

He smiled that smile—the one that never reached his optics but somehow always reached your nerves

“I just had to wonder... Do you archivists actually read all this? Or is the dramatic lighting part of the job description?”

That made you turn

You pivoted slowly, lifting your gaze with the kind of patient menace that suggested this was not the first time you’d had to deal with him while resisting the urge to throw a data-pad. Your voice, however, was calmer than expected — not fast, not irritated. Just a calm, evaluating glance—like a scholar measuring a hypothesis before entertaining it

“Sometimes we don’t have time”

You glanced past him at the glowing panels, timelines shifting silently in the background “But I make time. Because if we don’t read the past... the ones building the future will start thinking they were the ones who invented counting"

Something in your voice held weight. Not anger, not sarcasm—but purpose. A quiet kind of conviction that echoed beneath the words. Sentinel, for once, didn’t speak right away. His optics dipped to the floor for a breath, then lifted again—expression softer. The faint smile remained, but it was... tempered. Less a smirk, more a trace of something else. Maybe thoughtfulness

“Tell me this, then. All these hours poring over the past—do you honestly think it’ll change what happens next?”

“No. But if we don’t remember where we’ve already walked, we’ll keep falling into the same holes. Just with better boots”

“You sound like Alpha Trion when he hasn’t recharged in a week"

“That’s rich” you muttered “Coming from someone who thinks leadership is about dramatic speeches and hero poses"

"I do not pose”

"You paused in the middle of a battle to stand on a cliff"

“It was tactically advantageous!” Sentinel protested “The high ground—”

“It was sunset, Sentinel"

He made a strangled noise—equal parts indignant and caught "…Alright, maybe the lighting was good"

The silence that followed wasn’t sharp. It was still. Reflective. As if the room had paused with them—time stretching between two minds not in agreement, but in rhythm

“You know.." Sentinel finally reached out and took the data-folder from the air, fingers brushing the edge of the projection with practiced ease

“You’re probably the worst assistant Alpha Trion’s ever had…”

He turned the file over in his hand, optics skimming the surface—but he didn’t leave “ and he once told me you’re the only one who reminds him he’s not a god. I thought he meant it as an insult. Now I think it might’ve been gratitude”

You blinked. Your gaze flicked to him, surprised—but not in disbelief, didn’t say anything. But your stance eased. Just slightly. Like a string that had been pulled too tight for too long had finally loosened a notch — Sentinel turned then, walking toward the exit. He passed through the energy field, static dancing across his armor—but paused, halfway through. One foot out, one still in

“Next time, could you maybe not sound like you hate me so much? ease up on the open hostility? Some of us bruise easily” He turned his helm slightly, optics glinting with that old familiar mischief

You raised an optic ridge, mouth twitched “Is that what you’re calling your ego now?”

Sentinel chuckled—low, and far too pleased with himself “Among other things” he replied, already vanishing into the shimmer

“But good luck getting rid of me, I haunt well" with that, he disappeared through the barrier and the room was quiet again. But it wasn’t the same kind of quiet anymore. It lingered differently. Like the space between pages, before you turn to the next

Like a history book left open

Still waiting to be finished

—

The Hall of Records was supposed to be a place of reverence

KEYWORD: SUPPOSED TO

Vaulted ceilings soared high above, ribbed in glimmering alloys and etched with flowing script older than most functioning civilizations. Stained-glass data channels cast shifting patterns of cyan and violet across the marble floor, and the soft hum of ancient servers echoed like distant chanting

It was a place meant for quiet awe, for scholarly silence. It was not designed to accommodate Sentinel’s ego. Ever since he’d discovered that the shimmering energy curtain at the entrance didn’t shock intruders—merely issued a stern sonic warning in a disapproving librarian voice—Sentinel had made it his personal mission to stroll in whenever he pleased. No authorization. No warning. No respect for the rules of spatial awareness

Usually mid-shift. Always mid-sentence

“You changed the lighting layout again”

His voice preceded him, gliding in a split second before his tall frame breached the energy field with a dramatic flicker “What is this now, mood lighting for monologues?”

You didn’t look up

You sat in the central alcove, surrounded by a web of holographic panels arranged in concentric arcs, your fingers flicked through three overlapping treaty records—each with footnotes, post-conflict amendments, and suspiciously contradictory date entries. A headache wrapped in bureaucracy, topped with illegible seals "It adjusts based on optic strain”

“You wouldn’t know anything about that"

Sentinel grinned as he sauntered in, clearly unbothered. His stride was the kind that echoed on purpose—heels angled just enough to produce a satisfying click with every state

“You wound me” he said, placing a hand over his spark in mock offense

“I have very sensitive optics, thank you"

He attempted to lean against one of the translucent crystal data pylons that jutted from the floor like frozen lightning. There was a sharp snap of static, and he jerked back with a hiss as a warning glyph lit up in disapproval

Again

You didn’t even flinch

“Stop touching things” you muttered, still scanning through sub-clause annotations

“Every time you lean on one of those, it reroutes a quarter of the data flow”

“Oh?” Sentinel said, perking up like a mech who had just found a big red button labeled Do Not Press

“So this one messes with the stream?” he asked, already reaching toward a pulsing glyph marked in ominous red. A symbol that all but screamed catastrophic protocol override — You looked up, finally. Your optics widened “Sentinel—!”

Too late

His fingers brushed the glyph. There was a soft ping, a hum like an engine hiccuping, and then— All the lights dimmed to a dull amber. The panels around you flickered, rippled... and then recompiled. All at once. Every menu, every label, every command—rewritten in looping, sharp-edged characters

You stared “You rewrote the interface in Old Vosian" It wasn’t even a living language anymore. Not really. Mostly used in ceremonial inscriptions and bad poetry

Sentinel blinked, stepping back with a shrug and zero remorse “…You’re welcome?”

“GET OUT" Your’s shoulders tensed like they were physically restraining themselves from launching a stylus across the room

“Too late” Sentinel said, lowering himself into the spare console seat like he absolutely belonged there “I live here now”

He leaned back with that satisfied sigh he always made when he thought he was being hilarious. One foot kicked up against the base of the pylon. The interface flickered again, this time turning the archive’s auto-index into a rotating wheel of Vosian proverbs. You slowly, very deliberately, pinched the bridge of your nasal ridge

There was no reverence left in the Hall of Records today

Only Sentinel

The worst part wasn’t that he kept coming back It was that somehow, he always managed to bring food This time, it was a ration cube with what looked suspiciously like hand-scraped energon drizzle—artisanal he’d claimed, from a street vendor in the lower spires “Do you even like these?” you asked, eyeing the cube on their desk with wary suspicion

“Not particularly” Sentinel shrugged “But you get weird when you don’t recharge or eat”

“I don’t get weird”

“You cataloged two hundred years of war records in reverse chronological order because you were cranky”

“That was for cross-referencing purposes—!”

“You growled at a light”

Some days, Sentinel brought things that absolutely, unquestionably, did not belong in the Hall of Records

One cycle, it was a cleaning drone the size of a knee joint, scuttling around your workstation with a high-pitched hum and a sensor that kept mistaking ancient dataplaques for dust "To help you declutter” – Sentinel had said, setting the bot down with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn’t read a single regulation about archival containment. Another time, he’d arrived with a battered datapad in one hand and a suspicious grin on his face

“Found this under a floor panel. Probably cursed. Or priceless. Or both"

You barely looked up from indexing screen “You can’t just bring things into the archives without logging them"

“What if it’s historically significant?”

“It’s a receipt for wing wax. From a Seeker bar"

Sentinel had held it up like a trophy “Exactly! Cultural anthropology"

You pinched the bridge of your nasal ridge and sighed, the kind of sigh one developed only after multiple encounters with the same brand of madness “One day you’re going to knock over a whole building”

“Then you’ll just have to yell at me until I help you rebuild it" He said it with a smile so falsely innocent it could have been carved from polished smugness. You didn’t respond—not with words, anyway. The silence you gave him was honed, practiced, and about 80% ineffective now and yet. For all the chaos he trailed behind him—misfiled reports, rerouted light fixtures, at least one energy spike traced back to an extremely suspicious pastry— You had long stopped trying to keep him out

Somewhere between the first complaint logged and the thousandth ignored intrusion, his presence had settled into something else

Routine

A break in the quiet

A reminder that not everything needed to be orderly to be valuable

That cycle, the ambient light had dimmed to its evening hue, fading into soft golds and purples that streamed through the stained dataglass and washed over the polished floor. The archive felt half-asleep, hushed and slow – Sentinel’s voice came from the doorway, framed by the low gleam of the setting shifts “You’re staying late again"

He leaned one shoulder casually against the frame, his figure lit from behind in dusky silhouette “Trying to impress the scrolls?”

You didn’t glance up—still combing through a data tangle from the war of the Thirteen Clades, most of which seemed written in ego and coded pettiness. But your voice lacked its usual bite

“Trying to make sense of a thousand years of ego and bad handwriting" There was a pause, and then— “You’re included in that”

“Naturally”

Sentinel stepped inside

This time, no jokes, no data pylons knocked over. Just the quiet tap of his footsteps and the warm scent of a synth-brewed energon cube he placed gently beside them. You looked at the cube first—steam curling into the low archive air – then at him – then... they just shook your helm with a faint huff, like amusement trying not to be seen “…You’re not as intolerable as you were”

Sentinel smirked, folding his arms and leaning slightly closer “I’ll take that as a heartfelt declaration of affection”

“Take it as a warning. You’re wearing me down”

“Good” Sentinel murmured, pleased “Makes it easier to sneak into your schedule”

You didn’t tell him to leave

And he didn’t ask to stay

They just worked. Side by side. Occasionally brushing data windows toward each other, occasionally sharing quiet that didn’t feel like silence. Like this was normal now. Like somehow—without anyone announcing it—he’d become part of the footnotes in your day

—

The archives had always been quiet. But this… was too quiet

You sat before the central validation terminal, optics narrowed as lines of processed data ran across the screen. Normally, your work involved verifying temporal consistency, cross-referencing source authenticity, and cleaning up language input from field bots who treated historical reporting like casual gossip — but this wasn’t gossip

This was a timestamped field report. From a Prime-tier outpost. And it didn’t match the report Alpha Trion had handed them this morning

Same event. Same operative. Different wording. Different outcome

And this was the fourth time this week

You brought up both documents—parallel, floating side by side. At a glance, identical. But not quite. The phrasing was just clinical enough to avoid suspicion. The numbers… just plausible enough to escape casual audit. Some were altered more subtly than others. Some inserted new information. Others erased things. Patterns began to form—certain names vanishing from records. Certain decisions scrubbed clean of dissent. A slow, deliberate redirection of narrative

But You didn’t read casually, you read like the future depended on it. Because sometimes, it did

You leaned closer. Opened the metadata. Something flickered – an override signature

Sentinel

Not the full one. Not overt. But his code was in the chain. A sublevel authorization ping—probably buried deep in a rerouting command. Too clean to be a mistake. Too careful to be a coincidence

And why is that? That is the question

—

The chamber was silent but it wasn’t the silence of order and it wasn’t peace. It was the kind of silence that came after something broke— Suddenly – Violently —So completely that even the echoes didn’t know where to go

You sat alone in the central atrium of the Hall of Records. The room—once alive with soft lights and quiet, rhythmic humming—now felt vast and hollow, like the inside of a broken bell. The archive’s main lights had dimmed themselves hours ago, following protocol that couldn’t tell the difference between motionless focus and simple absence. Holographic glyphs still hovered faintly above the console. Fragmented, flickering. Half-rendered thoughts waiting for a directive

They pulsed softly in the darkness, as if uncertain whether their purpose remained

You hadn’t moved. Not since the message came through. Not since the declaration hit them like a blade made of code and finality

The Thirteen Primes have been lost

No battle. No footage. No grand sacrifice — Just... a report. One sentence. Cold, clean, absolute and a follow-up notice:

They will not return

Not “they cannot” Not “they may not” they will not. Your hands had been still on the console ever since. Locked in place. Not gripping—clutching, with pressure that only now began to tremble from strain. You hadn’t moved. Not from disbelief. You had seen enough in your long life to know that nothing—no matter how vast—was immune to destruction. Not even from grief, not yet. The pain hadn’t taken shape. It was numbness. Cold, static-lined void. Not like losing a person. More like watching the stars themselves turn off, one by one, and not knowing if you were next

If someone had asked you yesterday whether the Primes could die, you would’ve said no. Not because you were naive. You had never been one to place blind faith in divine myth. But the Primes were not just icons — They were anchors — Mountains, carved into the structure of Cybertron itself. Fixed points around which history rotated. You didn’t believe in them, the way you believed in stories

You relied on them and now? Gone

Gone, without a trace. Without a last word. Without even a record. Like they had never been

You hadn’t noticed the way your joints had locked until you finally loosened your grip on the console. One finger twitched first, then another. The sensation returned slowly, pins and needles rippling down your arm as you exhaled for the first time in what felt like megacycles. The silence pressed back in

And then—

Footsteps. Slow. Unhurried. Too measured to be uncertain. Too composed to be innocent You didn’t need to turn. You knew

“You’re still here”

The voice came low, as though reluctant to break the stillness—but unable to resist doing so. Controlled, almost gentle but not quite — Sentinel stepped past the edge of the darkened corridor and into the atrium, his frame outlined in the cold ambient glow of the failing terminals. Even his footsteps sounded louder than usual here, every contact with the stone floor ringing too sharp, too deliberate “Everyone else has gone to the Spire"

You didn’t answer, didn’t even blink. Your gaze remained fixed forward, eyes dim and distant, staring through the projections as though trying to read something that hadn’t yet been written

Something that should have been there

Sentinel’s footsteps echoed again as he moved closer—slow, even, deliberate

“The official rites are being drafted” he said, after a moment “They want you to verify the final accounts. For the records"

He didn’t phrase it as a command. Not exactly. But the weight behind it was undeniable. At that, Your helm dipped slightly. Not in obedience. Not in agreement. Just… acknowledgment. Your voice came a moment later. Quiet. Hoarse in a way that had nothing to do with their vocalizer

“They’re dead..” A beat “All of them”

The words didn’t echo, simply fell, flat, lifeless, like corrupted data hitting a locked node

Sentinel didn’t respond right away. He stood behind them now—just a few paces away—but made no move to reach out, no pretense of comfort. Only the silence, shared “Yes”

One word. Heavy as a headstone

The word lingered. Not in grief. Not in reflection. Just—confirmation. Neatly clipped. Perfectly balanced. As if he had been waiting to say it

You didn’t move at first. Only optics shifted—quietly tracking the flickering remains of the central display. The soft wash of light from the terminal painted shifting glyphs on the metallic floor, but no new data came. No emergency alerts. No last pings from the outer sectors. No autologs from the Primes. Nothing — Your hand moved slowly, brushing a few dormant glyphs back into focus. The last outbound transmissions. System traces. Anything

But the logs were clean

Too clean

“They didn’t send anything” you murmured, the words soft, but weighter “Not one of them. No burst signal. No fail-safe ping. Not even a corrupted echo"

The words turned brittle. The disbelief was not loud—but it was cutting. You turned—just slightly. Enough to glimpse him standing behind, his figure still and controlled, as though carved from the archive walls themselves. Hands clasped behind his back. Shoulders squared. That same unreadable expression he always wore like armor

But now… it felt wrong —Too smooth. Too complete. Like a statue placed just a little too soon after the funeral

“And you…”

“You’re very calm”

There it was: a twitch

Not obvious—just the faintest narrowing of Sentinel’s optics as he turned his helm slightly toward them “Would you rather I fall to my knees?” he said. Tone level. Not mocking—but not grieved, either

If it was meant to soften the moment, it failed

Your optics didn’t waver “I’d rather you look like someone who just lost everything"

The air between them was thin now. Like atmosphere stripped bare. Sentinel stepped forward, one pace only. Careful. Measured “The rites must be prepared. The Council needs stability. Cybertron needs structure. If I crumble now, what will they cling to?”

“Structure..?” The word tasted sour on your tongue. You turned to face him fully. The low light caught the edges of your frame, casting a faint halo over the lines of wear fatigue had etched over long hours

Your voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to “Funny how fast structure came together... considering how sudden this all was"

Something flickered across Sentinel’s face. Too brief. A pause, like static between signals. He recovered quickly. But you had seen it “You think I planned this?”

“No" They took a step closer, boots clicking softly against the stone floor “I think you expected it”

Sentinel didn’t reply. So you pressed forward, calm as a scalpel’s edge “The sealed Spire. The rites drafted before the message even reached all districts. The in memoriam archives already preloaded" your optics glinted now, cold and sharp

“You don’t prepare that fast, Sentinel”

Silence. A heavy one

Sentinel’s gaze held steady—but his stance had shifted. A subtle set to the jaw. A flicker of tension behind the shoulders “There are contingency plans” he said at last

“But you didn’t react like this was a contingency – You moved like someone whose schedule had simply... advanced" you weren’t shouting. This wasn’t anger. Not yet. This was worse. It was the kind of quiet that cracked glass — you took another step forward. Sentinel didn’t move “You knew”

You said it not as a claim—but as a data point “You knew something. And you didn’t say anything. Not to me. Not to the Archives. Not to anyone who might have asked why”

Silence stretched again, pulled thin between them like a wire ready to snap. Even the terminals seemed to hold their breath

Then— “Knowing…” Sentinel said slowly “isn’t the same as choosing”

“Then whose choice was it?”

That stopped him. His expression didn’t break—but it no longer looked composed. It looked constructed and still, he said nothing. Which, perhaps, was the loudest thing yet

The Spire bells had long gone quiet. The mourning banners were still up, but the tones of grief had already begun to shift—less raw now, more ceremonial. Official. Muted into symbols

In the weeks that followed

Sentinel did what he had always been best at: He moved forward. Quietly. Confidently. Like a mech simply answering a call no one else could. No one declared him the new Prime. Not at first. But decisions began flowing through his office. Emergency coordination. Transition logistics. Security restructuring. Public reassurance. Every corridor that once ended in silence now echoed with orders signed in his glyph. And no one stopped him. Because no one knew what else to do

At first, it was small. A council meeting held without you—an oversight, you were told. A briefing rerouted to a secondary terminal—misfiled, the assistant claimed. Requests for archival access began to be reviewed then delayed then quietly ignored. One by one, your permissions shifted. Not revoked—restricted. Not banned—just... paused, pending Sentinel’s authorization “Just protocol” he said with that same calm smile “We’re all adjusting to new parameters”

And yet—those parameters always seemed to shift in one direction. His

The chamber above the New Arc Circuit was always cool, always dark. A half-circle of open air overlooked the hall below—a place once alive with debate, bright with the thrum of Prime-forged voices. But now, like so many places in recent cycles, it stood hollow. The ancient lighting had dimmed itself to a low ambient hue, cool silver washing over the stone and metal in shadows and soft reflections.

You stood near the edge, hands resting on the curved railing polished smooth by centuries of counsel. Below, the great speaking floor stretched wide and silent, a ceremonial space untouched since the Spire bells fell quiet. You didn’t turn when you heard the footsteps. Didn’t need to

They had learned the cadence of his walk. Smooth. Steady. Never rushed. Never loud. The stride of someone who believed he already belonged in every room he entered “You’ve been reallocating my permissions"

No anger in your voice. No shock. Just cold, deliberate observation — The kind of truth that left no room for denial. Sentinel didn’t slow. He crossed the polished obsidian floor behind them, his reflection a ripple of dark armor and gold filigree beneath their feet

“Temporarily” His tone was light. Gentle, even. But too balanced to be mistaken for casual

“You didn’t inform me” your gaze fixed on the empty floor below—an echo chamber now. The ghosts of the Primes no longer stirred. Sentinel stopped a short distance behind you

“I didn’t need to” he said quietly “The system recognizes my authority now — Your position, on the other hand, is being... redefined”

That made you turn. Sharp. Controlled. But sharp, optics caught the low light, glowing brighter than he remembered—like you had finally reawakened from grief, only to find anger waiting behind it

“Redefined?”

“By whose decision?”

“By necessity” he replied so so simply

“Your role was constructed under the old paradigm. The Primes are gone”

He took a step closer—not threatening, but deliberate “You served history well”

He meant it. He did. He had watched them work for vorns—methodical, incorruptible, brilliant in ways few ever saw. You had been the voice behind the curtain. The invisible measure by which even the Primes were kept honest. He respected that even… envied it.. But it couldn’t remain

"But I am building something new”

Now he looked at them fully. Not like a subordinate. Not like a rival. Like a problem that used to be a person “And history… isn’t what we need right now.”

You didn’t respond. Not with words

But he saw the tension in your jaw. The stillness in your hands—too still. Like someone holding a thought so tightly they feared it might shatter if spoken aloud. He waited a breath. Two. Then smiled. Just barely “Let it go” he said, voice low. Not mocking. Not cruel. Just… final

“Let the past rest” He took one step more. Just near enough to stand beside you. His voice dropped even lower. Almost a murmur and for a moment—just a moment—he thought they might yield. That the weight of it all—the grief, the isolation, the slow, quiet cuts to your place in the world—had finally worn you down “You don’t want to turn yourself into a relic chasing ghosts”

He didn’t want to erase you

Not like he had erased others

He remembered the way you used to speak in the early days, side by side during cross-era briefings. He remembered the dry wit. The spark of challenge in your optics. You had once made him feel watched. Not in the paranoid way—but in the way that reminded him to stand taller. To be better. But this wasn’t then and if you couldn’t see the necessity of what he was doing…

He would have to act, eventually

But not yet

“Let the archives sleep a while” he added, almost soft “We’ll find a better use for you”

He turned then, the floor catching his reflection as he walked back across the chamber and you remained behind, silent at the rail, watching as your world—your work—shifted underfoot like sand in the tide. They said nothing. But in your chest, something clenched. Because they could hear it now. You quiet, subtle shape of a lie forming in every document you weren’t allowed to see

And it carried his glyph

[csuitebitches]

The Charisma Myth: things that I liked

Three quick tips to gain an instant charisma boost in conversation:

Lower the intonation of your voice at the end of your sentences. Reduce how quickly and how often you nod.

Pause for two full seconds before you speak.

The very next time you’re in a conversation, try to regularly check whether your mind is fully engaged or whether it is wandering elsewhere (including preparing your next sentence).

Expensive clothing leads us to assume wealth, friendly body language leads us to assume good intentions, a confident posture leads us to assume the person has something to be confident about. In essence, people will tend to accept whatever you project.

when you can project both power and warmth together, you really maximize your personal charisma potential.

charismatic behaviors must originate in your mind. Knowing how to skillfully handle mental discomfort is even more important than knowing how to handle physical discomfort. Anxiety is a serious drawback to charisma. First, it impacts our internal state: quite obviously, it’s hard to be fully present while you’re feeling anxious. Anxiety can also lower our confidence. Anxiety, low presence, and low confidence can show up directly in our body language, as well as reduce our ability to emanate warmth.

 The single most effective technique I’ve found to alleviate the discomfort of uncertainty is the responsibility transfer. Pick an entity—God, Fate, the Universe, whatever may best suit your beliefs—that you could imagine as benevolent. Imagine lifting the weight of everything you’re concerned about—this meeting, this interaction, this day—off your shoulders and placing it on the shoulders of whichever entity you’ve chosen. They’re in charge now. Visually lift everything off your shoulders and feel the difference as you are now no longer responsible for the outcome of any of these things. Everything is taken care of. You can sit back, relax, and enjoy whatever good you can find along the way.

Golfer Jack Nicklaus said that he never hit a shot, even during practice, without visualizing it first. For decades, professional athletes have considered visualization an essential tool, often spending hours visualizing their victory, telling their mind just what they want their body to achieve.

“There is good evidence that imagining oneself performing an activity activates parts of the brain that are used in actually performing the activity,” Professor Stephen Kosslyn, director of Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, wrote me. Visualization can even physically alter the brain structure: repeated experiments have shown that simply imagining yourself playing the piano with sufficient repetition leads to a detectable and measurable change in the motor cortex of the brain.

Silvia recently confided that visualization is one of the secrets to her success. Before key meetings, she’ll imagine “the smiles on their faces because they liked me and they are confident about the value I’m bringing them. I’ll imagine as much detail as I can, even seeing the wrinkles around their eyes as they’re smiling.” She visualizes the whole interaction, all the way through to the firm handshakes that close the meeting, sealing the deal.

A twenty-second hug is enough to send oxytocin coursing through your veins, and that you can achieve the same effect just by imagining the hug. So the next time you’re feeling anxious, you might want to imagine being wrapped up in a great big hug from someone you care about.

Self-confidence is our belief in our ability to do or to learn how to do something.

Self-esteem is how much we approve of or value ourselves. It’s often a comparison-based evaluation (whether measured against other people or against our own internal standards for approval).

Self-compassion is how much warmth we can have for ourselves, especially when we’re going through a difficult experience.

It’s quite possible for people to have high self-confidence but low self-esteem and very low self-compassion.

Types of charisma:

Focus: Focus charisma requires, of course, the ability to focus and be truly present. Good listening skills are nonnegotiable, as is a certain degree of patience. To develop focus charisma, cultivate your ability to be present.

Visionary charisma makes others feel inspired; it makes us believe. It can be remarkably effective even though it won’t necessarily make people like you. We assess visionary charisma primarily through demeanor, which includes body language and behavior. Due to the fact that people tend to accept whatever you project, if you seem inspired, they will assume you have something to be inspired about.

kindness charisma comes entirely from body language—specifically your face, and even more specifically your eyes. Kindness charisma is primarily based on warmth. It connects with people’s hearts, and makes them feel welcomed, cherished, embraced, and, most of all, completely accepted.

Authority charisma is primarily based on a perception of power: the belief that this person has the power to affect our world. We evaluate someone’s authority charisma through four indicators: body language, appearance, title, and the reactions of others. you’ll need to learn how to “take up space” with your posture, reduce nonverbal reassurances (such as excessive nodding), and avoid fidgeting. You may need to speak less, to speak more slowly, to know how and when to pause your sentences, or how to modulate your intonation. Look expensive. 

Avoid holding a drink in your right hand, especially if it’s a cold drink, as the condensation will make your hand feel cold and clammy. Before shaking someone’s hand, whether you are a man or a woman, rise if you’re seated. And keep your hands out of your pockets: visible hands make you look more open and honest. Make sure to use plenty of eye contact, and smile warmly but briefly: too much smiling could make you appear overeager. Keep your head straight, without tilting it in any way, and face the person.

Ask people open ended questions, focus on questions that will likely elicit positive emotions. With your questions, you have the power to lead the conversation in the direction you want. In fact, even when you’re speaking, the one word that should pop up most often in your conversation is not I but you. Instead of saying “I read a great article on that subject in the New York Times,” try “You might enjoy the recent New York Times article on the subject.” Or simply insert “You know...” before any sentence to make them instantly perk up and pay attention.

Another way to exit a conversation with grace is to offer something of value:

Information: an article, book, or Web site you think might be of use to them A connection: someone they ought to meet whom you know and can introduce them to

Visibility: an organization you belong to, where you could invite them to speak

Recognition: an award you think they should be nominated for

When someone has spoken, see if you can let your facial expression react first, showing that you’re absorbing what they’ve just said and giving their brilliant statement the consideration it deserves. Only then, after about two seconds, do you answer. The sequence goes like this:

They finish their sentence

Your face absorbs

Your face reacts

Then, and only then, you answer

The next time you’re given a compliment, the following steps will help you skillfully handle the moment:

1. Stop.

2. Absorb the compliment.

3. Let that second of absorption show on your face. Show the person that they’ve had an impact.

4. Thank them. Saying “Thank you very much” is enough, but you can take it a step further by thanking them for their thoughtfulness or telling them that they’ve made your day.

It’s not just metaphors that can paint the wrong picture. Some common phrases can have the same effect. When you tell someone, “No problem,” “Don’t worry,” or “Don’t hesitate to call,” for example, there’s a chance their brain will remember “problem,” “worry,” or “hesitate” instead of your desire to support them. To counter this negative effect, use phrases like “We’ll take care of it” or “Please feel free to call anytime.”

You can deliver value to others in multiple ways:

Entertainment: Make your e-mail or meeting enjoyable.

Information: Give interesting or informative content that they can use. 

Good feelings: Find ways to make them feel important or good about themselves. 

The longer you speak, the higher the price you’re making them pay, so the higher the value ought to be. 

If your goal is to communicate power, set the pitch, tone, volume, and tempo of your voice in the following ways:

Pitch and tone: The lower, more resonant, and more baritone your voice, the more impact it will have.

Volume: One of the first things an actor learns to do on stage is to project his voice, which means gaining the ability to modulate its volume and aim it in such a targeted way that specific portions of the audience can hear it, even from afar. One classic exercise to hone your projection skills is to imagine that your words are arrows. As you speak, aim them at different groups of listeners.

Tempo: A slow, measured tempo with frequent pauses conveys confidence.

To emanate vocal warmth, you need to do only one thing: smile, or even just imagine smiling.

Charismatic people are known to be more “contagious”; they have a strong ability to transmit their emotions to others.

The most effective and credible compliments are those that are both personal and specific. For instance, instead of “Great job,” you could say, “You did a great job,” or, better yet, “The way you kept your calm when that client became obnoxious was impressive.”

Here’s one specific—and surprisingly effective—recommendation for phone charisma, courtesy of author Leil Lowndes: Do not answer the phone in a warm or friendly manner. Instead, answer crisply and professionally. Then, only after you hear who is calling, let warmth or even enthusiasm pour forth in your voice. This simple technique is an easy and effective way to make people feel special. I recommend it to all my business clients whose companies have a strong customer service component. The gains in customer satisfaction are impressive.

Charisma takes practice. Steve Jobs, who appeared so masterful on stage, was known to rehearse important presentations relentlessly.

Retain at least a certain measure of equanimity. Most charismatic leaders are known for their ability to remain (or appear) calm even in the midst of turbulent circumstances.

[chaosandcandies]

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CHAPTER Ⅰ: Insert Member Here

trope: fem!9th skz member warnings: angst, drama, insecure oc, cyber bullying, slow burn pairings: hyunjinxfem!oc next chapter

ISEUL STOOD IN THE CENTRE, chest heaving as she finished the last note of her vocal performance. She stood in the center, heart thudding, as J.Y. Park watched her from across the room, arms crossed, a pleased expression on his face.

The instructors scribbled notes on their clipboards, murmuring among themselves, but she barely heard them — she was still coming down from the high of nailing every run and hitting every pitch perfectly.

“This is why she’s still here,” one of the instructors muttered. “Her voice is a weapon.”

Iseul let out a shaky breath, wiping her hands against her sweatpants. Maybe this month’s evaluation wouldn’t crush her like the last one. Maybe she was finally getting somewhere.

“Now for the dance portion,” the head instructor announced, switching the music.

The moment the soft, cutesy beat of a typical K-pop girl group song filled the room, Iseul’s stomach sank. Still, she pushed through the choreography, forcing herself into the bubbly, delicate movements. But her body resisted — her limbs stiff, her motions lacking the fluid grace they wanted from her.

The song ended. Silence fell.

“You haven’t improved at all since last month,” one instructor said, voice laced with disappointment. “Your dancing is still awkward. Do you even practice?”

“I do,” Iseul said, heart pounding. “But... my style is different. I feel uncomfortable dancing like this.”

“That doesn’t matter,” another snapped. “Being an idol means adapting to uncomfortable situations.”

Before Iseul can defend herself, JYP himself interrupted. “Freestyle,” he said, voice low but commanding.

Iseul froze. “W-What?”

“Freestyle. I want to see what you’re actually comfortable with.”

He walked to the speaker, fingers hovering over his phone. “Pick a song.”

“Anything with a strong beat,” she blurted out, pulse hammering.

His lips twitched in amusement, and a moment later, the room exploded with Bruno Mars "Uptown Funk".

Iseul didn’t think. She moved.

Her body flowed like water, hips snapping with the beat, hands slicing through the air in sharp, controlled motions. She blended belly dance rolls with the gritty aggression of hip hop, commanding attention with every step. For the first time that day, she felt alive.

The music cut off, leaving her panting in the center of the room.

Her chest ached as she tried to catch her breath, sweat dripping from her temples. She could feel her legs trembling from exhaustion, her body swaying slightly as she tried to stay upright. But she refused to show weakness.

JYP remained silent, letting the weight of her performance hang in the air. Iseul’s lungs burned, but she didn’t dare move. She searched his face for a reaction, her fingers twitching at her sides.

Finally, he clapped — slow, measured. “Your style is... unique,” he said carefully, stepping forward. “But raw. It’s instinctive, not refined. If you were debuting in a boy group, this might work better. For a girl group, we usually aim for something more polished and sophisticated. And you aren't cut out to be a soloist.”

Iseul flinched, her heart sinking, but she quickly masked her disappointment. She’d heard those words before. Too rough. Too intense. Not feminine enough. Her style had never fit the mold.

“How long would it take me to refine it?” she asked, voice steady despite the storm in her chest.

“Because if I don’t debut this year, I will have to quit,” she said, voice unwavering.

He blinked, caught off guard. “Why the rush?”

Her gaze dropped to the floor for a beat before she looked back up. “I’ve trained for too long,” she said simply. “I can’t keep waiting.”

It wasn't technically a lie.

This was the promise she had made to her grandparents — a compromise forged in the aftermath of countless arguments and tearful conversations. If Iseul couldn’t debut within three years, she would leave the K-pop industry behind. No more training, no more chasing a dream that seemed to shrink further away with every rejection. She’d return home, bury her ambitions, and resume her studies to become a lawyer, just like they wanted.

A "real" career, as her grandfather had put it. A stable, respectable path that wouldn't leave her hanging by a thread of uncertainty.

His expression softened slightly, curiosity flickering in his eyes. “Is it about proving something to someone? Or to yourself?”

Iseul hesitated. “Both,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

There was a long pause before he finally nodded. “Come to my office tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll talk.”

The next day, Iseul sat stiffly in a chair across from Bang Chan, who kept glancing at her like he wasn’t sure if she was real. His hand rested around his coffee cup, knuckles turning white from how tightly he gripped it. J.Y. Park leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping on the desk.

“We’ve decided,” he said. “Iseul will be joining Stray Kids as the ninth member.”

Chan nearly dropped his coffee, setting it down with a shaky clink.

“Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’re still recovering from...” He trailed off, jaw clenching. “Another scandal could destroy us.”

“She’s a vocal powerhouse,” JYP said. “And she won’t make it in a girl group. This is her best shot — and yours.”

Chan rubbed his face, fingers digging into his temples. “With all due respect... this could destroy us.”

“Or save you,” JYP said, standing. “It’s up to you.”

Chan looked at Iseul, who met his gaze without flinching. She didn’t look nervous, just... resolved. Like she’d already accepted whatever fallout might come her way.

“I’ll work hard,” she said quietly. “I don’t expect you to like me right away. But I won’t let you down.”

Her voice didn’t waver, but Chan saw the way her hands curled tightly into fists on her lap, her nails digging into her palms. She wasn’t fearless. She was just stubborn.

Chan sighed, defeated. “I hope not,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face.

He didn't get paid enough to deal with this shit.

After the meeting, as they walked out of the office, Chan slowed his steps so he was walking beside Iseul. She didn’t look at him, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

“You really okay with this?” he asked finally, voice low.

Iseul’s jaw tensed. “I don’t have a choice,” she said, her voice quieter than before.

Chan studied her for a moment, something heavy settling in his chest. She reminded him of himself — the way he’d been when they were still just trainees, desperate to debut, willing to carry any weight to make it happen.

But desperation didn’t mean she belonged with them.

They reached the elevator, and just as the doors slid shut, Chan turned to her, voice sharp.

“Why Stray Kids?” he asked, crossing his arms. “Why do you want to debut with us?”

Iseul blinked, caught off guard. “I... I didn’t choose —”

“No, but you could’ve refused,” Chan cut in. “You know how the fans will react, how the members will feel. So why stay?”

Iseul pressed her lips together, fingers curling around the hem of her hoodie. “Because this is my last chance,” she admitted. “I’m not trying to replace anyone. I just... I just want to debut.”

Chan’s gaze hardened. “Wanting it isn’t enough.”

“I know.” She looked at him, voice quiet but steady. “I’ll prove it.”

Chan didn’t respond. The elevator doors opened, and he stepped out, not waiting to see if she followed.

He wasn’t convinced yet. Not even close.

TAGLIST: @leewritesstuff

Yea started with a new project lmfao. Comment if you wanna be added into permanent taglist! Don't forget to comment and like. Reblogging helps a ton too! Stay safe!! ~Candy

[tswiftupdatess]

Taylor Swift Still Due to Perform at London’s Wembley Stadium Amid Enhanced Security as U.K. Police Evaluates Intelligence.

As of Thursday noon, U.K. local time, the shows had not been cancelled.

Sources tells Variety Swift’s team are currently working closely with both tour promoter AEG and Wembley to review the situation, including any additional security measures that may be implemented. (August 8, 2024)

[wolfylady]

Salvation

Summary: It started with a look and then a smile. She was just another name on a continuous list of rotating faces. But then she smiled and it wrecked his world. He would lie, cheat, and kill, just to keep her in his orbit.

Trigger Warning ⚠️: Obsession and Manipulation

Word Count: 621

Chapter 1: The First Smile

Enjoy!

Story Poll!

Series Poll!

The first time John Price saw her, the world didn’t tilt. It didn’t shift. It snapped.

Clean. Silent. Immediate.

It started with a smile.

One he hadn’t earned.

One he didn’t expect.

One that detonated something buried deep in his chest like a forgotten landmine.

She stepped onto base with a duffle slung over her shoulder, boots caked in dust, stride purposeful—measured. A transfer from MI6, if the morning report had anything useful in it. Her name barely registered then. Just another addition to the Task Force. Another operative shaped by war and secrecy.

Until she smiled at him.

Not out of protocol. Not forced.

It was real. Warm. Uncalculated.

He was standing near the edge of the training field, arms folded, half-listening to Soap and Ghost bicker over a faulty sim round. The sun was high. Heat clung to the concrete. Standard chaos on base.

And then she walked into view—sharp-eyed, tightly wound, her stance reading like someone who knew how to follow orders but hated doing it. Her file would say discipline, structure, performance metrics. But her mouth said otherwise.

That mouth—God, it curved too easily.

She caught his eye.

Held it.

Smiled.

And just like that, he forgot whatever Ghost had just said.

It wasn’t like the others.

It wasn’t the stiff respect of a subordinate.

It wasn’t the flirtation he usually shut down cold.

It was recognition. Familiarity without history. Like she saw him—not just the rank, not the legend, not the weight of all his years—but him.

And then she was gone.

Turning to speak to Gaz, laughing at something stupid. Probably a joke. Something light and forgettable.

But her laugh chased him for the rest of the day.

He told himself it was nothing.

A flicker of interest in a sea of rotating faces.

But he felt it.

All damn day.

During debrief, during comm checks, during sparring evaluations—her voice echoed. Her name stayed on his tongue like a habit he hadn’t formed yet.

That smile sank in like a blade beneath his ribs.

He didn’t sleep that night.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it again. That smile. That impossible warmth. And it made something in his chest feel unstable.

Like he’d swallowed something live.

At 01:13 hours, the glow from his desk lamp cut through the dark.

Her file lay open across the table.

Name: Crowley, Veronica Elise

Callsign: CROW

Rank: Sergeant First Class (E-7)

Branch: SAS, Tier One Operator

Former Affiliation: Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)

Clearance Level: COSMIC TS/SCI

Languages: English, Russian, French, Spanish

DOB: 14 January 1994

Age: 30

Height: 5'6"

Place of Birth: York, England

Blood Type: O+

Religious Preference: Non-disclosed

Next of Kin: Crowley, Daniel (Brother)

He read everything.

Deployment history. Former handlers. Every operation with her name in the margin. He studied commendations, psychological profiles, redacted summaries with words like precision and unstable potential and asset recovery.

He traced her path from intelligence to black ops to special recon and finally, here.

To him.

It should have been enough.

Knowing her record. Understanding her skill set.

Filing her under “high-performance operator” and moving on.

But it wasn’t.

Because he didn’t want her service history.

He wanted her tells.

What made her pause in a fight.

What songs she played when she thought no one could hear.

What she dreamed about when the war faded from her eyes for a moment.

He told himself he just needed to know.

So he could get her out of his head.

If only it were that simple.

Because when he finally shut the file and turned off the lamp, his hands were still shaking.

And in the quiet, the memory of her smile haunted him like a ghost.

wolfYLady: Just got into Call of Duty—and wow, I’ve got brainrot bad. So naturally, I decided to write this. I'm planning a whole series centered around obsession with Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Keegan, and König. The main character is basically a self-insert (y/n) placeholder—so have fun projecting. I just love the idea, in fiction, when something so simple as a passing smile, or kind word, can just bring them to their knees. Shout out to Bluegiragi and Kathy Ifnt, whos amazing artwork have singlehandedly doomed me to a life of crippling COD brainrot, I am now feral for all their COD work. If you can, go support them, and we can all join a "COD but make them slutty" support group.

Chapter 2 🔜

Link to: Ao3

Master List of Twisted Sin Series🔜

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

⚕️GASS (Gallifreyan Assessment Scoring System)

Sick Gallifreyan just crossed your path? Here's how to assess their condition using the Gallifreyan Assessment Scoring System. Just remember, 'Gallifreyan life's a GASS'.

BIGGER - Google Drive: PDF / Image JPG / Image PNG

This guide is for use on Gallifreyans and Time Lords only. Always seek your human advice from human health providers.

✨ What is GASS?

The Gallifreyan Assessment Scoring System (GASS) is a tool designed to rapidly evaluate a Gallifreyan's condition. By monitoring vital signs and unique Gallifreyan indicators, it prioritises emergency responses while accounting for their distinct physiology, such as dual hearts and regenerative abilities.

Just remember, Gallifreyan life's a GASS.

📈 What's New in GASS?

This updated version of GASS includes critical refinements for more precise assessments. New categories have been added, such as Heart Rate Differential (HRD) to flag discrepancies between the two hearts and T = Responds to Telepathy in the level of consciousness scale. Adjustments to thresholds for vital signs and regenerative glow visibility also improve detection of emergencies like fibrillation or post-regenerative trauma.

📝 How to Use GASS

1️⃣Initial Observations

Ensure the environment is safe (e.g., no stray Daleks).

Observe for immediate signs of distress: skin colour, breathing effort, or lack of responsiveness.

2️⃣Evaluate Vital Signs and Assign Scores

Refer to the GASS table to assess each category:

🌬️ Respiration Rate: Count breaths per minute. Adjust for respiratory bypass if present.

🫧 Supplemental Oxygen: Note if oxygen support is in use.

🌡️ Temperature: Measure orally.

💓 Systolic BP: Record using a normal sphygmomanometer.

💖 Hearts Rate (Combined): Count the total bpm across both hearts.

🔄 Hearts Rhythm: Sequential beats (thud-thud, thud-thud) are normal; synchronous beats (thud-thud together) indicate fibrillation.

⚖️ Heart Rate Differential (HRD): Calculate the bpm difference between hearts; large discrepancies suggest possible singular heart failure.

🧠 Level of Consciousness (AVPTU): A = Alert, V = Responds to verbal stimuli, P = Responds to pain, T = Responds to telepathy, U = Unresponsive

✨ Regenerative Glow: Check for visible energy on the skin.

3️⃣Check for Healing Coma

If 8+ healing coma criteria are met:

Cease active interventions.

Monitor closely for changes.

Avoid premature waking to prevent neurological damage.

4️⃣Calculate Total GASS Score

Add up the scores from all categories:

0: No concerning changes. Continue routine monitoring.

1–4: Mild to moderate changes. Perform an ABCDE assessment and increase monitoring.

5–8 or 3 in single score: Severe changes. Perform ABCDE, escalate care, and consider sepsis.

≥9 or Glow = 3: Extreme changes. Initiate emergency intervention, constant monitoring, and prepare for sepsis protocols.

5️⃣Reassess After Interventions

Following each intervention, reassess the GASS score to adapt care and ensure stability.

🚨 When to Escalate

Critical signs: Synchronous heartbeats, extreme HRD, or GASS score ≥9.

Sepsis or Specific Emergencies: Use respective protocols for management.

📌 Key Points to Remember

Combine GASS results with clinical judgement.

Healing comas are protective states—let them run their course.

Escalate care if in doubt.

Medical Guides These are all practical guides to assessing and treating a Gallifreyan in an emergency or medical setting.

⚕️💕Gallifreyan CPR

⚕️👽Gallifreyan Assessment Scoring System (GASS)

⚕️👽ABCDE Assessment

⚕️⚠️Sepsis Emergency Response (SER)

⚕️⚠️Severe Trauma Protocol

⚕️🌡️Gallifreyan Thermoregulation and Emergency Response

⚕️🔮Psionic Emergency Pathways

⚕️✨Post-Regeneration Management

⚕️💤Gallifreyan Healing Coma Management

⚕️🩸Interpreting Gallifreyan Bloodwork

⚕️👶Gallifreyan Paediatric Emergencies

Any orange text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →📢Announcements |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts → Features:⭐Guest Posts | 🍜Chomp Chomp with Myishu →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired 😴

[tanadrin]

I know there is a G factor because I cannot become great at anything no matter how much work and study I put into it while others can achieve greatness. If G didn't exist then all my study and practice would pay off because I would share a common starting point with the great people.

we do not waste time trying to model a single A factor of general athletic ability. we recognize that though many kinds of athletic ability may be loosely correlated, it makes much more sense to evaluate those abilities more or less separately, and that different athletes with different skills are suited to different kinds of athletic performance. but talking about an A factor would not be useful if we wanted to understand why some people are good at running, nor would it be useful if we wanted to generate advice on how to run farther or faster. it might, for instance, lead us to advocate lifting weights to promote A, when in fact we know that weightlifting ability doesn't have much to do with performance at cardio-intensive exercise like running.

and while i could not become a professional soccer player if i worked really hard at it, i definitely could improve my running ability if i trained correctly.

(we might even envision an AQ test that measures stuff like body fat percentage and maximum duration of sustained cardio-intensive activity that captures obvious truths like "Tanadrin is a lousy athlete" but can't reliably predict the difference in performance between someone who exercises a lot and is in very good health, but is otherwise ordinary, and someone who is an Olympic-level athlete)

similarly i think as we come to understand intelligence better as the interplay of many distinct faculties like memory, creativity, ability to visualize, etc, etc, we may both better understand the actual relationship between genes and intelligence (e.g., the way genes that influence the development of the hippocampus affect ability to remember information) and even how to train those cognitive faculties better.