Saint James Infirmary 423: Engaged.

[Daphne]

[mns_95125]

"We're engaged."

"Well, disengage and get back to your stations!"

[jmundt29]

More fun, huh?  I thought this might be morning after blues.  Excellent!

[jmundt29]

Fun interrupted by nerves.  Okay.  So, when he said he'd get back to them, he meant he'd get RIGHT back to them.  Hmm.

[Haight]

I do wonder if we'll get clued in to more of Adrian's formative years, tho. Daphne's played those cards pretty close to her chest, even for her. Like why the heck Adrian is so ambivalent about having an enthusiastic harem of sex kittens.

[jmundt29]

Ambivalent?  Why is he ambivalent?  He cares for them, loves them, makes their fantasies and his own reality.  He gives them as much freedom as they want and actively looks to improve the situation.

If anything Jakob is the one who's ambivalent.  That's a pretty toy...oh, I broke it?  Who cares.  I can always get another.

Why is Adrian not eager?  Yeah, that might be something we learn about as we hear from Pat and Miel about their wilder days (unless those wild days are still happening, in which case it's just their chosen lifestyle).  Personally, I think Adrian grew up around a phenomenon like this and saw some of the problems that can occur.  So, he doesn't have a "kid in a candystore" attitude.  We'll see.

Or, he could just have ataraxia (which is a kind of clinical permanent ambivalence) though we have seen him moved by strong emotion, so that's unlikely.

[Haight]

It's more that I get the impression that he would put it all back if he could. Which seems crazy, but then again he *has* gotten caught up in an international murder/slavery plot, so his caution may have been justified. And while we know that his parents are, or at least were, swingers, we don't have any indication that mind control has played a part in their sex life past their initial meeting. They might just be an old swinger couple that have embarrassed their son during his teenage years enough that he has an instinctive aversion to that kind of behavior. Some of my friends growing up were in that boat, heh.

To be fair, though, mind control can solve a lot of the problems that might result from that behavior. The complete lack of jealousy the sji girls experience, for example. Adrian can still experience it, though. I wonder if he'd feel jealous of, say, Mallory and Marliese's connection? Could be interesting drama.

[GodWilling]

What can make Adrian look, er, ecstatic? The news that Erin loved him before the mind control (397). He didn't ask for this. He's not a mind controller. And, yeah: guns, drugs, murder... I'll tell you what isn't sexy, etc.

Another shot of Erin looking like a vampire here. And now naturally I'm thinking of Andrea Rau in Daughters Of Darkness. It doesn't take much.

[jmundt29]

Yes, that was happy news.  More often we see sadness break through his cool.  Grief in Destiny Dice Roll #2, aka Dear God, NO!!!

and Dani getting run down by Cherry and Julien.

I'm not sure we've seen him truly angry yet.  He looked frustrated about the news (or at least the timing of the news) on Pearl.  Clearly not a line he meant to cross.  But he's still not angry.  You wonder if in high school he was just the coolest guy in the room without trying.  He rolled with everything.  Listened.  Observed.  Tried to make things better.  And was a good musician.

Does all this make him the next generation Dos Equis spokesman?

[GodWilling]

Ambivalent may be overstating it, but Adrian has mixed feelings about the harem. If it matters to him that Erin really loved him before the watch intervened then he can't view its intervention as an entirely positive thing.

Rain to Adrian in 397 on the subject of hubris: "It falls to you to keep it from happening again."

That could mean that it's Adrian's role to keep the watch (and other objects of power) out of the hands of those who might exhibit hubris. But it also presumably means that it's his role not to exhibit hubris himself. In which case Adrian may have been selected, or selectively bred, for that role. If you're looking for someone who won't be corrupted by power, start with people who don't want it. Because anyone who wants power has already been corrupted by it.

With great power comes great responsibility. I think Adrian sees the harem simply as his responsibility.

[jmundt29]

It could also mean it falls to him to prevent the Kuplers from continuing or restarting their current enterprise (though that's a subset of the larger objective you stated).  The ideal person for the job would be someone who doesn't covet the power, knows how to use it judiciously and knows enough and cares enough to nurture all those in his or her orbit.  I honestly don't know if Rain has been guiding the Cavanaugh line toward someone like Adrian or if she's even fully aware of Adrian's potential (even as carefully as she observes him from the shadows).  I guess we'll see.