#Scott has so many self inserts has anyone noticed that

[phoenixborn]

9, 10, 11, 12, and 14?

Spicy mun asks

9: What has been the biggest mistake you’ve made since you started RPing?

Maybe that on an another site before coming to Tumblr I wrote smut when I was a minor. Before the witch hunt begins along with callout posts: I learned 75% of my English through reading fanfictions then roleplaying. NOBODY during that time told me it was forbidden and I was like it's fiction, it's not even me who is having sex in the story so I didn't see any problems with this. I'm Hungarian. Here the age of consent is 14. Before Tumblr, I had no idea that people can get into legal trouble because of this and when I learned about it at first I thought it's a joke. Those who I written with also knew my age, I never made it a secret. Now I've grown up and realized long before this is indeed a mistake & I made all of my blogs +18 even to interact with due to my muses nature, backstories, topics.

And of course I have not and will not write smut with a minor.

I would like to add that I don't feel assaulted or exploited because of my inexperience and probably most of my past roleplay partners were minors too. The irl sexual harassment was much worse & impactful than writing stories with sex in them.

10: What’s something you really hate seeing on your dash that seems to be popular with almost everyone else?

I don't think there's a thing like this? If someone's writing doesn't entertain/excite/inspire me I simply don't follow. So my dash is perfect💖

11: What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to RPing?

Tumblr's inconsistency with notifications hands down. I get notifications of being tagged in something literal months ago. Or that my ask got answered. So far I haven't noticed a delay with reblogs.

Oh and people who shit on female OCs because, idk think before even reading the info that they are self inserts and only want to fuck the canon characters. That's not why I slowly built up a historical noble house woven so deep into Hungarian history, not why I spent more research for my pirate blog than I did for my literal matura exams combined, not why I watched hours of singing explaining by vocal coaches, not why I studied Scott Adkins' borderline impossible movements which are not CGI.

12: What’s your biggest pet peeve when it comes to the fandom you RP in?

As @winters-club has touched on the subject, those who are 'You MUST portray this character's CANON sexuality otherwise it's ERASURE and you're a terrible/homophobic person.'

Especially if those people actively harass writers instead of minding their own fucking business.

The most common victims of this are those who write Vaggie (also how come that I haven't seen many complaints that Alastor fucks when he's supposed to be asexual? This is NOT an attack on any Alastor muns, you write him however you want, I just noticed this.), Winter is not the only person I know who had a struggle with it. Curate your own dash if you don't want to see it, don't follow people who dare to defy canon, block tags and don't harass them. And as a bisexual who only felt romantic desire towards women irl, I find myself not giving a flying fuck. It's called creativity and so what if the writers want to explore other possible romantic plotlines? Let me tell you a secret: there's no erasure the slightest. Why? Because the sexuality of the character in question is CANON. A few independent writers on a site will not change that.

14: Without naming anyone specific, have you ever avoided someone simply because they RP with one of your RP partners? If so, why?

I didn't and don't avoid anyone just because they write with my rp partners. I actually don't even understand this question, everyone is free to interact, be friends with as much people as they want, it's not a choosing game and two people go to a separate corner to play.

[possiblyimbiassed]

The lying liars who lie

Years and years late to the party, I’ve finally gotten my hands on all the DVDs of BBC Sherlock, and I thought it would be fun to watch the extra material carefully, one piece after another, and also listen to at least some of the show makers’ commentary of the episodes. But at this point, after S4 where DVDs seemed to be a constant lying device in general, I tend to look at them with a bit more suspicious eyes...

I still love the show of course, but now that I’ve taken this deep dive into all the special features, I find them a truly hard thing to try to wrap my head around. Even this long after the fact, I’m amazed by the amount of shameless, self-congratulatory BS in the DVDs, where the people involved can’t have enough of complimenting each other and their show, while they skillfully avoid to discuss anything actually meaningful about the plot line. ;) For example, Moffat claims in the S2 DVD that “In fact, you’ll never see a more obsessively authentic version of Sherlock Holmes than this one”. But if we follow their light-hearted commentary, which basically takes the show at face value, I’d call that not just hyperbole, but an outright lie. If you want to see the ‘authentic’ stories from ACD’s work in this show, you’ll definitely need to go much deeper into the subtext and meta levels - neither of which are mentioned on these DVDs of course. Here’s my own (rather subjective) ‘review’ of the whole thing, trying to pinpoint why I view most of the commentary of the show from its own makers as an advanced art of deception. 

(My musings under the cut)

Series 1 - a wealth of extra material

First of all - as many of you probably knew already - the whole of the Unaired Pilot is added to the DVD of S1. In the extra material about the making of the series, they (Sue Vertue, Mofftiss and others) talk about what things they changed between the Pilot and ASiP, claiming that many changes were necessary improvements once they knew that they had a whole series and a lot more time at their disposal. 

Which I can perfectly understand and agree with in general. But I think what’s missing in their discussions is more interesting than what’s actually there (”Mind the gap” ;) ). Things that I would expect from the show makers when they go to the trouble of comparing the pilot version with the aired product. There’s not a word, for example, about the fact that they added both Mycroft and Moriarty to the story in ASiP - two characters who later turn out to play major roles and appear in almost every other episode until the end of TFP. Or about the choice that one of the screenwriters would play Mycroft. 

Neither do they discuss why they chose to relocate the place where Sherlock was challenged by the cabbie from 221B to Roland Kerr’s School of Further Education. Instead they focus on the details, like for example the new design of the interior of 221B.

Not to mention the fact that almost every scene in the Pilot is mirrored in ASiP (as pointed out long ago by @kateis-cakeis X), but at Angelo’s in the Pilot Sherlock follows the events with the cabbie while looking in an actual mirror. I even noticed that in the Pilot the cabbie is offering Sherlock dark-coloured bottles with the pills in them, while in ASiP those bottles are transparent, as if the cabbie is offering Sherlock to play Black or White in the chess game that he is simulating. What’s with all these mirrors, though? Not a word on the DVD... ;)

Now, even though these rather remarkable choices are neglected together with a great bunch of minor ones, I still think that the most interesting fact about all this is that they actually included the whole pilot version within this DVD, which is sold by the franchise. Why even do this, when it raises far more questions than it answers? The only logical reason I can come up with is that they’re laying out a track of little hints that anyone with a deep enough interest in the show to actually buy the DVDs can try to follow. And it seems to me that lying by omission is one of the first steps in the long line of cryptic and misleading author comments on this show. But at the same time, they clearly want the fans to have access to it all, even the abandoned version.

Moving on to Series 2, time for bigger lies 

In the extra material of this DVD Benedict himself describes how his character "faces one of his deadliest enemies in the shape of Love, and it comes in the form of Irene Adler, who is this extraordinary dominatrix [insert here a bunch of superlatives regarding Adler]...”. And then we see how Adler whips Sherlock with a riding crop (without any kind of consent, I have to add) while he’s lying on the floor, and we have Lara Pulver telling us how it was to have a go at Benedict on set. So Holmes whips dead bodies and Adler whips living; seems like a match made in hell! :))

Gatiss claims, grinning with his whole face, that “they’re clearly, absolutely made for each other”. OK, so I think we can see Sherlock being intellectually impressed by Adler, and even trying to protect her from Mycroft, and we can see John acting jealously. We can also see her being dressed and styled as a perfect, female mirror of Sherlock. But I’m still at a loss what all this has to do with love on Sherlock’s part? Especially since he’s not even responding in any fashion to her various attempts at seducing him. 

And there’s more: Paul McGuigan, the director of ASiB, claims that the scene where Sherlock has a conversation with Adler inside his Mind Palace about the crime case with the car that backfires "is a part of a kind of love story, if you like...” No, I don’t. Maybe it’s just me, but if their aim really was to convey to their audience a love story between Sherlock and The Woman, I think they failed miserably. All I see is a guy ’mansplaining’ to a clever woman how to use her brain, while she’s trying to flirt with him by expressing her admiration (to no avail, though) and make deductions at the same time. Nothing new under the sun, really. John did the same thing repeatedly in ASiP (without making own deductions) and got far more attention from Sherlock, but I’ve never heard any of the show makers call that ”a love story”. But by ’lie-splaining’ the scene with Irene to the audience, they try to manipulate us all to see it as such...

In all the direct commentary of this episode, where Steven, Mark, Sue, Benedict and Lara are present, I get the impression that every time they even touch on the relationship between Sherlock and John, they hurry to add the term “friendship” or “man love” or similar words in case they forgot them at first, avoiding even the tiniest possibility that there could be anything more going on between them. They even explain that when Irene calls them “a couple” she does not mean anything romantic. This whole approach feels almost paranoic in the midst of all the laid-back jokes and light-hearted talk about the filming. It’s as if a sort of restrictive, heteronormative filter or blanket is being constantly applied, to teach the audience the ‘no homo’ lesson of it all. And the more I listen to this, the more tiresome it becomes.

In the commentary Moffat does reveal an interesting detail, though: that the ‘Flight of the Dead’ in ASiB was inspired by a cut out scene in the Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service. To me this is just one more reason to question the ‘authentic’ quality of this scene, as opposed to possibly taking place in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. But I digress... 

Listening to the commentary in general, it’s like it’s aimed to distract the attention from what’s going on at the screen rather than highlight it and try to explain their intentions. They do mention that Irene didn’t actually ‘beat’ Sherlock in the end of ASiB, but there’s no explanation of this obvious deviation from canon, where Adler does indeed fool Holmes, taking advantage of his prejudices.

The rest of the extra material of S2 is mostly about technical stuff, special effects and such, and also about filming techniques and Benedict’s delivery of fast deductions. But the part I really do love is the one where Andrew Scott talks about how much he enjoyed playing the scene where Moriarty dances before breaking into the Crown Jewels. That’s one of my favorite scenes of he whole show. :) Also, the takeaway message from this DVD is Moffat’s words at the end: 

“These are still the formative years of Sherlock Holmes, and the most important thing about this series is not that it’s updated; it’s the fact that those two men are still young and they’re still at the beginning of what they don’t yet know is gonna be a lifelong partnership”. 

And then comes Series 3... 

...and its extra material, with the most blatant attempts at deception so far, I believe. At this point Sherlock is called a “psychopath” by both the show’s characters, John’s blog, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as if it were true, which is a big deviation from ACD canon. That simply doesn’t happen there; while Holmes is sometimes described as eccentric, no one in the books is ever claiming that Sherlock Holmes has some kind of mental illness leaning towards cruelty and egotism - not even his enemies say this about him. In the show, however, they begin in ASiP with making him torture a dying man for information (something that is not included in the Pilot). And in S3, where they avoid discussing the reason why they turned Mary Morstan into a ruthless assassin, this major shift is glossed over by the fact that in the same episode (HLV) they also turn Sherlock into a murderer, who cold-bloodedly blows the brains out of a blackmailer for threatening to make said assassin’s crimes public. 

But without ever getting into the “why” of it all, the cast and crew seem overly happy and smiling describing these rather morbid choices as something positive; “fantastic”, "fresh and new” and "amazing” are their choice of words. Benedict claims that Mary, who has literally shot and almost killed Sherlock in HLV, is now "a new best friend of Sherlock’s”. Amanda claims that Mary “is protecting John” when she shoots Sherlock in the chest. Now they’re both psychopaths, and poor little John is forced to stomach them both because he’s addicted to danger. In Amanda’s words, Mary also “kind of gets in between the two of them, but she wants them to be together as well”.  Which is a load of BS considering that Mary tries to kill the protagonist of the story.

Lars Mikkelsen thinks it’s “such a good script” because “you’re mislead as an audience”. But he never gets the chance to expand on what the misleading actually contains, because then Mofftiss cut in to express how much they love playing with “what ifs”. As if this whole mega-budget project of a show were just a big experimental playground without any actual story to tell. 

Benedict repeats his line from HLV that Magnussen “preys on people who are different” and Moffat also says he “exploits people who are different”. Which is really confusing, considering what we can see Magnussen actually do in the show. Lady Smallwood and John Garvie are two well-established, powerful governmental politicians whom Magnussen blackmails by finding their respective pressure points. In Garvie’s case his pressure point seems to be alcohol problems in his past, but according to media he’s later arrested on charges of corruption. Lady Smallwood is blackmailed on the basis of her husband having sent compromising letters to a minor many years ago, in spite of later claiming that he thought she was older and stopped when he found out the truth. And then Magnussen is blackmailing an assassin who recently threatened to execute him but shot Sherlock Holmes instead, in order to try to get at Sherlock’s brother Mycroft, another powerful governmental figure. 

But what does media seeking out dirt on certain people in power and their families have to do with “people who are different”? Despicable as the method may be, isn’t this unfortunately how political power play usually works in our society? Or are TPTB somehow a repressed minority group now? Unless this whole “people who are different” accusation is actually about something entirely different, something that none of the show makers even cares to mention... ;)

In these DVDs, none of the involved persons is ever discussing the change of roles with regards to canon, though, or the (lack of) logics in this turn of events, or even a hint about the narrative motivation behind them. It’s all about the great Drama, the extraordinary visual effects and the aim to endlessly “surprise the audience”. Which is fine by me to a certain extent, but when this is all that’s being said, it feels extremely superficial, as if the audience is merely seen as a bunch of consumers that have to be triggered more and more by horror, special effects and cliff hangers to be able to appreciate the show. (“Warm paste” indeed, like Gatiss has later criticized some viewers of wanting...) While the "why”; the idea behind this surrealistic adaptation, made by self-proclaimed fanboys of ACD, is not even touched upon. Around this, the silence is total and therefore totally confusing.

Maybe I shouldn’t even go into Series 4...

...but why not, since I’ve already started? :) 

First of all, there’s a lot of extra material on this DVD and I particularly love the parts about the music and composing and Arwel Wyn Jones’ work with the design and build-up of John’s and Mary’s flat and the interior of 221B. Those bits are truly enjoyable. What I could live without, though, is the leading commentary that kind of instructs us, the audience, how we should interpret the show. 

Benedict is on it again on this DVD, telling us that in TST they picked up where they left off in S3 and “It’s a very happy unit of three people that then become four.” Why does he feel the need to make this statement, considering how S3 ended? Actually, if there’s anything I totally fail to see in S4, it’s happiness. The banter between the three  of them may seem entertaining for a while, but who could have a relaxed, warm relationship with someone who tried and almost succeeded to kill you less than a year ago? Without any sign of remorse? Now there’s a dark tone of discomfort and mean jokes that feels forced and not even a bit happy to me. 

But Martin tells us how excited John and Mary are about starting a family and Amanda mentions how much they’re looking forward to the baby. Again and again it’s repeated, as though trying to rub it in: “they’re in a good place, they’re a loving, married couple”. Yeah, right - a child that (judging by TSoT) wasn’t at all planned and now with an assassin for a mother... Twice we see the new parents complain that their daughter has the mark of Satan on her forehead and debate which horror movie she’s from. The clichéd hypocrisy of it all is sickening, and I’m willing to bet that it’s really meant to be. ;) 

But Gatiss chimes in, deciding for us all that the christening of Rosie is “a funny scene” and “they’re enjoying each other, enjoying being on adventures as a three”.

An interesting detail is that Gatiss also tells us that the working name of this episode was “The Adventure of the Melting power Ranger”. So this little blue guy was that important? :) And - even more interesting - is when he says: “Cake is now the code for violent death”. So how should we interpret Sherlock, John and Molly going out to have cake in TLD then, on Sherlock’s (supposed) birthday? 

These might be jokes, though, but when they tell us that Sue cries every time she sees Mary’s death I strongly believe they must be joking. How could anyone feel truly moved by this overly sentimental long monologue where far more efforts are put into reacting to Mary’s speech than saving her life? And John’s mooing like a cow, is that also moving? :)

One thing Martin says about TLD that actually disgusts me is regarding the morgue scene where John assaults Sherlock and Sherlock lets it happen: “From there, really, their relationship can only sort of rebuild, that’s the absolute worst it can get”. As if outright physical abuse would be something that makes you want to rebuild a relationship? Wow - just wow... How far can they go with this crap?

Anyway, when we finally arrive at the absurdity of TFP and Sherlock’s ‘secret sister’, everything is of course discussed as if she actually does exist on the given premises, and everything she does is ‘real’, no matter how impossible it would be in real life. The abandonment of any attempt to have the story line make logical sense is skillfully covered up by more distraction with fascinating technicalities of the film making process. This is where Gatiss makes his now almost classic statement that after Sherlock and John jump out of the window at 221B when a grenade explodes there, it’s just “Boop! And they’re fine.” 

Of course there’s no serious attempt at explaining this logically. Except perhaps Gatiss claiming that they both landed on Speedy’s awning - whatever good that would do to them, since the awning is leaning downwards, but never mind... But we never even saw that happen, did we? A great deal of time is then dedicated to show all the precautions to have Martin and Ben jumping safely at low level onto a madras supported by empty cardboard boxes.

Sian Brooke did say something interesting about Sherrinford, however, that got me thinking. She said that Eurus “wants revenge for the years and years that she has been held captive” there, isolated, and that in TFP the Holmes children are now “lab rats” and “it’s an experiment”. On a meta level, I think we can indeed see this episode - and maybe the whole show - as a kind of experiment, but maybe we, the audience, are also lab rats? Since Sherrinford is slightly shaped like a film camera (not commented in the extra material, of course), it leads my thought to all the adaptations through the years and years where Holmes and Watson have not been allowed to be together. A whole century when Sherlock Holmes has been held captive, restricted by the very same sort of heteronormative filter that all this extra material imposes; it’s like Sherrinford, isn’t it? Which gives all the more meaning to Moriarty’s arrival to the island, accompanied by Freddy Mercury’s “I want to break free”...

I think I’ll let the final words in this little exposé come from Mark Gatiss in The Writers’ Chat (my bolding):

“Moriarty is a fascinating thing in that in our sea of ongoing lies, one thing we’ve genuinely been completely consistent about is telling people he’s dead. But no-one believes it! And it’s a rather brilliant thing.”  Again - self-congratulatory statements. But instead of providing some actual evidence of the death of this character, who has kept popping up in almost every episode since his supposed demise, they think that the more a confirmed liar repeats something, the truer it gets? And the more we’re supposed to believe them? Well, all we can do is wait and see. :)

Tagging some people who might be interested: 

@raggedyblue​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @sarahthecoat​ @gosherlocked​ @lukessense​ @sagestreet​ @thepersianslipper​

My earlier meta on a similar topic (X)

[princeescaluswords]

Maladaptive Daydreaming vs. Unreliable Narrator: FIGHT!

Since the far-fetched theory of “Scott was an unreliable narrator of Teen Wolf who twisted what happened to make himself look good” is still making its way through the fandom, I’d thought I’d talk about how accepting this theory as true requires its adherents to pretend certain scenes never happened and how that becomes a cover for a racist re-interpretation of the show.

It was prompted by a notorious pro-Hale member of the fandom arguing that the canon scene of Scott figuring out that Derek was kidnapped at the beginning of season four had to be twisted by Scott because Peter would have to have noticed that Derek was missing first, would be the one who told Lydia or Stiles, and would be looking for Derek himself.   There’s an amazing amount of speculation to wade through there with not a single supporting scene to back the fan’s interpretation up, but I have to admit that if you believe that a major television production would go to such lengths as to create an entire narrative sequence which is completely false and yet never reveal to the audience what really happened in any way … and why would the production do that? … you could perhaps, if you strain yourself, see it.

But there is an earlier scene which serves to point out the incredible incapacity of the ‘Scott the Unreliable Narrator’ theory, and that’s the scene at the end of Season 3B.  In it, Derek is attacked in his loft by the Calaveras and by Kate, and in his terror, he retreats into what I’ve heard some people call a maladaptive daydream, where he talks with Stiles in a locker room, only for him to realize it’s not real when Stiles has six fingers on one hand.

If we apply this particular fandom theory, the scene is being told to the audience by Scott and thus passed through the filter of his perceptions.   The concept presents several interesting questions that will probably go unaddressed by the proponents of this theory.

How would Scott know the contents of Derek’s maladaptive daydream?  If, as they like to conclude, Scott reinterprets his relationship with Derek to be far more positive than it was, why would Derek confide in Scott about his moment of psychological weakness in the face of enemies?   After all, they argue that Derek does not like Scott, does not trust Scott, and does not see Scott as his alpha. What would Derek’s motivation be then?  An alternative would be that Derek didn’t have this daydream -- what a blow for Sterek shippers -- and that Scott is the author of this sequence, cleverly imposing it on Derek to show his weakness.   What cunning!   Scott’s motivation remains ... obscure.

If Scott is an unreliable narrator who is twisting the story to make himself look good, why would he present the dream in this fashion? This scene sets up Derek’s relationship to a member of Scott’s pack. They often present Scott as being an Evil Moron Tyrant, constantly self-absorbed and making everything about himself, so why wouldn’t he make this about himself as well?   If he was going to turn around the next episode and steal the credit for noticing Derek was missing, why not claim that he was so important to Derek that Derek would turn to him in his dream?  

If the narration of this dream was not twisted by Scott at all, revealing that Derek looks to Stiles for emotional insight, what other scenes in the show are presented without Scott’s manipulation?  There would be no reason, by the proposed interpretation of how the show is biased, for a distrustful Derek to tell Scott about this for Scott to twist.  Unless they want to make the argument that this scene and only this scene was not tainted by Scott’s bias, conscious or unconscious, what other scenes fall under this category?  If the goal of the production was to throw doubt on every single part of Scott’s story, why wouldn’t they make it clear what parts of the story were free of his point of view?   I know that meta specialists (if you can call them that) have tried to point toward examples of t-shirt colors and the presence of mirrors, but none of these serve as consistent indicators.  What’s the payoff for the production to do this in the long run, especially if they never staged a reveal?

The proponents of this theory argue against every single aspect of Scott’s hero’s journey, presenting him as the primary villain instead of the lead protagonist by claiming – without a shred of external evidence and no internal evidence that is not the subbest of subtext – that none of the scenes presenting Scott in a positive light are true but all of the scenes presenting Scott’s flaws should be taken as honest depictions.  They ignore the inconsistencies of its application and the conclusions implied by their arguments.   If Scott and Deaton (and only Scott and Deaton -- this isn’t applied to Isaac or Lydia or Liam or even  frickin’ Chris Argent) are the oppressors of the Hales and Stiles, if all examples of Scott’s virtue are manufactured and Deaton’s benevolence false, then that implies that the Hales and the Stilinskis and the entire cast were victims of a Latino teenager’s and a black veterinarian’s malicious behavior.  Yet, the powerful and noble born wolves of the Hale Clan did nothing.   And yet, the amazingly intelligent and resolute Stilinski family did nothing.  No one did anything!  

Or, even worse, an alternative implication is that characters tried to do something against the vile tyrannical reign of the Tree Alpha, and they failed.   That Derek’s noble purpose faltered; that Peter’s ruthless efficiency was helpless; that super-mega-genius Spark Stiles was stymied.  Perhaps they were too distracted gazing into each other’s eyes.

Now, anyone who understands how stories work would realize that while it is entirely possible to have the villains win and still be a satisfying story, it has to be done a certain way.   There has to be an awareness of the consequences of the defeat of the protagonist.   Think about the ending of The Empire Strikes Back.   But Teen Wolf … doesn’t have that.   If, as these people believe, the walk off at the end of The Wolves of War was the triumph of a deluded monster, it was amazingly bad storytelling.  It would be like if in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, if John Walker had managed to remain Captain America due to the manipulations of a congressional subcommittee.   Possible, but the audience would have burned Marvel to the ground.

In the end, there has to be a motivation behind this elaborate and easily disprovable fandom theory. It’s not hard to imagine the utility of having a means by which you can simply dismiss every single positive action by a character by claiming that the audience is being lied to. It would certainly free parts of the fandom to create any sort of alternative history that they wanted, and many have taken advantage of this to promote a narrative of denied white male character supremacy.  They have decided that the Hales and their fandom self-insert are not only victims of a deranged, selfish Latino teenager, but of the very people who created all of them.  

They don’t know, nor do they care to speculate, what Jeff Davis’s and MTV’s purpose would be for creating a show whose truth is composed entirely of inconsistent subtext.  They can’t explain why this would happen, and they certainly can’t explain why they would go to elaborate lengths to transform the narrative into something that doesn’t match anything on the screen.

BUT IT’S NOT RACISM. 

[rogersstevie]

i wanna preface this by saying im a fan of bucky but christ bucky is the manic pixie dream 2015 wattpad self insert protagonist type character of the mcu cap fandom and i 100% think its bc hes a hot white cis man who's enough of a blank slate for ppl to both obsessively over analyze every little moment he's in and to fill in all the blanks with whatever they want. im not bashing anyone or saying its necessarily wrong to have a blank slate but i wish ppl would just. calm down abt him a bit lmao

(also as a continuation of the bucky anon i just wanna say that this is like something ive noticed over years of being in the stevebucky fandom with how many ppl esp in fic and stuff just make steve play second fiddle in his own relationship and either dumb him down and mischaracterize him so bucky can be the Smartest Best Special Boy or make him an all forgiving saint with no needs or desires so he can be bucky's crutch)

oh my god that last bit about mischaracterizing steve and bucky being a saint sdfks YEAH it happens a lot, i think especially when there's some sort of steve/bucky/peggy love triangle in the mix

but yeah it did get frustrating at a point bc it was understandable post catws when ppl were writing fics and all they really had to draw from was catfa and the flashback in catws to draw from, and post catws bucky wasn't gonna be exactly like that version of himself, even if he was getting his memories back. but post cacw it's like, okay bucky HAS a personality - and fandom has been saying for years that he doesn't, like you are right that he's just enough of a blank slate to take some liberties, but he DOES have a personality in cw, the problem is more that bc it wasn't actually a captain america movie, steve himself didn't get as much focus so bucky especially didn't get as much as he might have if we'd gotten an ACTUAL cap 3 - so it's like. come on y'all can write him as a real person, you don't have to write him as being more in love with steve, you don't have to write him as a perfect angel who's So Good for loving steve despite whenever steve fucks up, which like, again, in fic are often kinda like, would steve be dumb in that way bc i don't think he would! obvs there are different ways to be smart but steve IS smart

i think part of it also has to do with sebastian and that's another thing that does kinda bug me. like let me be clear i do like sebastian and he is a fantastic actor, but he's one of those ones where ppl just yell about how he's the best actor and i don't think it's actually that he's performing better than most of the actors around him in the mcu, it's just that the character he's playing has all the trauma - as if the other characters don't, we just don't see much of it onscreen lmao - so ppl think that makes him more talented than everyone else (kinda think it was the same thing with dylan o'brien on teen wolf he'd shed a tear and ppl would yell about how he's the best actor in the world and fandom used that to push the main character of color to the side and forget about him in favor of the white sidekick ANYWAY that's bugged me forever though i can acknowledge my fave teen wolf ship is half dylan o'brien's character)

but yeah i think it's gotten somewhat worse since endgame bc fandom really loves the narrative that steve is terrible and selfish and bucky is an angel now, even though......y'all like bucky bc you were fans of the captain america trilogy so how can you buy into the idea that steve would do anything he did endgame. but like so many of those supposed fix it fics? would have steve going back to peggy for a WHILE and coming back to be with bucky - i skimmed one bc i was wary of the summary or tags or both and it was like steve came back as an old man and was like "yeah i spent my life with peggy and now i wanna start over and do it with you, you guys can just de-age me like you did with scott in the time machine :)" (as if that wasn't an accident would they even have been able to figure out how to do it on purpose??) that one was horrible - it's like, at that point, if you think steve sucks and bucky is a baby angel with no spine, why do you even want them to end up together? why on earth WOULD bucky be with steve after these kinds of actions? i don't get it

another thing, like i know sebastian outright said he played it like steve and bucky had had a conversation about going back in time - i think he said the directors told him they did like it's not onscreen! come on! i know you don't have to see everything onscreen but...actors/directors saying it doesn't make it canon - so like yeah obvs watching it, it looks like bucky knows about steve's plan before it's revealed to the audience - and hello, endgame steve straight up lied to everyone else about coming back after he returns the stones like how do y'all think it would be okay for him to ONLY tell bucky and not sam, his other best friend - but like idk, my thing is, just bc they said steve and bucky had a conversation, does not mean it's true, you could just make the argument that bucky knew what steve wanted enough to know what he would do - though let's be clear, the endgame ending is NOT what steve ever wanted in mcu canon lmao - it doesn't mean this conversation actually happened because why else would they re-exchange the "don't do anything stupid till i get back" thing if they both knew steve wasn't going to come back unless it was just for show, which still, like, they're the only ones who knew what they said to each other before bucky shipped out in catfa? anyway this bit probs wasn't relevant to anything you said but it BUGS me

anyway yeah i love bucky but you're exactly right about how fandom interprets him and his relationship with steve it's all just Annoying

[anadvanceddegreeinquiet]

What, Me Pandemic? A Boho Crowd Stakes Its Claim (and Claims Its $48 Steaks)

Fricasse Dubois, 21, lamented the decision to pull her latest concrete poem from The Codswalloped Pisspot as she passed one of the whimsical “Maine-ducks-in-flight” mailboxes that serve as newspaper bins for the red-hot downtown rag. But her friend and intern, Banshee Fitzgerald, 33, had made a good point: The Pisspot had been flirting with questionable taste for months now. 

First there was the ironic opera libretto by Steve Bannon, which cast Leo “KIDS” Fitzpatrick as a Muslim refugee in a Copenhagen no-go zone. Then there was the edgy faux-memoir from Terry Richardson, modeled on O.J. Simpson’s unpublished “If I Did It,” and accompanied by a portfolio of Juergen Teller ass-Xeroxes.

But now, the Pisspot hype was growing, and Dubois realized that she might miss the proverbial boat. Interest in the nascent publishing venture was at fever pitch; a SPAC had been formed by laid-off Gagosian and Perrotin directors eager to stage a hostile takeover of the irregularly published ‘zine. 

And a dash of infamy certainly helped—the paper’s co-editor, Stizzy Fugger, had just launched a Tumblr in which she tallied the number of people she had inadvertently infected with Covid-19, updated in real-time (12,617 at press time, if you’re keeping score, more than the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally).

Anyone who has witnessed a “Pisspot drop” in the Dimes Square neighborhood of Manhattan knows to expect pandemonium. But nothing could have prepared this reporter for the foamy-mouthed jubilee and ecstatic violence of the occasion. 

It was 11am on a Tuesday, and the editors appeared at the corner of Seward Park, bearing several cardboard boxes of the paper. They were trailed by the usual suspects: Pimple-necked sadcore rappers, sex-positive Zoom therapists, former Artforum critic’s pickers who now run content for Chipotle, and middle-aged men who really shouldn’t skateboard.  

It’s a truism that an issue of Pisspot isn’t really read so much as it is imbibed, absorbed via the osmosis of social media’s orgiastic frenzy. In fact, the Times had a great deal of difficulty locating anyone who had physically held a copy of the paper in their smooth, unlined hands; many preferred to experience it as a series of fuzzy, thumbnail-sized images posted ironically on MySpace. 

“People used to say they read Playboy for the ads,” said Kit Murano, a fish-eyed, forty-something member of a downtown-based Adderall (™) street team. “Pisspot doesn’t have ads. And no one who knows anything would be caught, like, just sitting there and flipping through the thing. It’s an attitude. It’s an essence. It’s a lifestyle.”

Okay, sure—but what about the actual content actually published in each issue? Imagine an early iteration of Vice cross-pollinated with Tiger Beat, and then add a splash of sexual-harassment-era Paris Review. It’s a bit silly, and a bit loose. Bret Easton Ellis contributes a crossword puzzle in which every answer is just another reason why millennials suck. A party report—‘Reamed & Furred’—diligently transcribes the coke-addled bon mots of the same group of six people all eating at the same restaurant every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening. 

If there’s an ethos gluing all of this together, it’s a passing-of-the-torch from an older bohemian guard to a younger demographic, with their laissez-faire attitudes about sex, drugs, and global pandemics. “It’s, like, we can all still party together, and age isn’t really ‘a thing’,” explains Murano, leaning out the window of a Mini Cooper wrapped in shiny SunGen Pharma adverts.

The entire scene revolves around the lopsided triangle known as “Dimes Square,” which borrows its moniker from the culinary hotspot Dimes. (The name derives from Cockney rhyming slang for ‘elongated pinky nail.’). Every New York story is also, of course, a story about real estate. In this case, that means the Connecticut country houses that this cohort has Airbnbed out while remaining to weather the storm in lower Manhattan. 

Parts of this scene are “white, but probably ambisexual-adjacent; they’re members of the creative class, but they possess enough self-hatred to seem authentic,” says Dash Johnson, a Dimes Square hanger-on who many suspect of running the Steak-Umms social media accounts. “Most of them used to work for galleries, or websites, or Garage magazine, but when those jobs dried up, they woke up one morning and said: Fuck it. Let’s stop pretending. Let’s just tweet.”

One essential element of any good scene is a gossip column to keep track—and to keep score. ArtWet’s “Wet Ass Pigment” plays that role for the Dimes Square cognoscenti. It’s a bleeding-edge social diary written by an anonymous, Gossip Girl-style correspondent who communicates solely via Signal, using a vocal transformer. 

“I was sick of trying to break into this world,” they said. “I was sick of meeting Anthony Haden-Guest at a dinner, for the 387th time, and having him introduce himself all over again, like we hadn’t both thrown up in the same toilet less than three days before. Fuck gatekeepers. I built my own gate, and then I started keeping it.” 

It was a Wet Ass Pigment column, in fact, which broke the season’s buzziest news: semi-disgraced first son Hunter Biden had bought an octoplex apartment directly above Dimes, where he’ll be staying as he prepares for a September solo exhibition that will open concurrently across Andrew Kreps, 56 Henry, Shoot the Lobster, and a pop-up space for Recess CBD seltzer. Unlike the gentle, “meditative” paintings that Biden had been making in recovery, the new work is brash and rudely vulgar—the product of an unexpected friendship Biden had struck up with Bjarne Melgaard and Jordan Wolfson. 

Meanwhile, the group’s literary face remains 29-year-old Katarina Klaus, whose razor-sharp prose skewers her surroundings with the acidic wit of a young Evelyn Waugh. “I’ll be honest, I fucking hate writing,” Klaus admitted, blowing her nose into a Telfar bag. “I’m both super motivated and super lazy. Sometimes I’ll just copy-paste random chunks of Speedboat into a column and no one will even notice.”

So what’s next for this ragtag crew? “Dimes Square will probably be over by the time this fucking article comes out,” Klaus laments. “You’re going to have, like, some TikTok influencer house on the corner of Canal and Essex, and all the coke will have fentanyl in it again because idiots from New Jersey just have no nose. You know what? I’m regretting this already. This is all off the record.”

Meanwhile, Klaus is already rethinking her involvement in Pisspot. With a current print run of 250 copies, the instantly iconic newspaper suddenly seems a bit too exposed. She’s in discussions with a new, unnamed venture that would distribute articles and essays in a serialized format, via fortunes randomly inserted into cookies at various Chinese restaurants within a three-block radius of the Square. “It’s all about ephemerality,” she says, sucking on a DMT vape she brought back from Mexico City. “It’s all about staying relevant.”

This article was lovingly rewritten from the original by Scott Indrisek.

CORRECTION: The above edition of this story mistakenly cites Kit Murano’s age as “forty-something,” based on our reporter’s visual guesstimation. She is actually 19.   

CORRECTION: ‘Dimes’ is in fact Cockney prison rhyming slang for the expression, “a bent knob is straight twice a day.”

CORRECTION: An earlier online version of this story mistakenly identified The Codswalloped Pisspot as The Duct-Taped Shitberg.

CORRECTION: An earlier, subscribers-only post of this story mislabeled the gossip blog Wet Ass Pigment as being a Spotify podcast called Wank ‘n Pose.

CORRECTION: Jordan Wolfson died in 2014. 

CORRECTION: An earlier Google Doc of this story referenced a non-existent ‘hardcore maternity diary’ by Chloe Sevigny, which most likely did not appear in issue 4 of the Codtaped Shitpot. 

CORRECTION: A version of this story that was sent to hapless print subscribers in Texas and Connecticut wrongly identified the geographic boundaries of “Dimes Square” as being East 45th Street, Central Park West, Freeman’s Alley, and Bedford Avenue.

[stetervault]

Has there been a "Stiles rescues Peter" rec list yet? I'm looking for anything from monster of the week to Eichen House to the Wild Hunt. The idea that I've already read them all is too terrible to contemplate. (Thanks for running an amazing blog!

Not specifically as far as I can remember. But it’s always a genre I can get behind :) Here are some I think fit that category, either as the whole fic or part of it. And thanks for following my blog!

A Moment, Then Silence by Therapeutic_Steter

anonymous asked: Stiles takes care of a heavy injured Peter, who has permanent damage since then. The pack doesn’t care, but Derek and Cora realise that he is family.

Scale Tales by Therapeutic_Steter

Connected drabbles revolving around Dragon!Stiles and his werewolf Mate, Peter.

Rhythm of the War Drums by HyperLittleNori (Shiguresan) (this one’s more them taking care of each other and saving each other)

The foreboding song of the drums rumbled through the stands above, made his heart, his blood pound with their increasing rhythm. He’d seen this so many times now, heard the sickening, morbid excitement of the rabble. He readied himself for the carnage, but even nearly a year after he’d first stood in this spot, it still filled him with dread.

As always, he watched the sandy arena through the barred steel gates. They vibrated with the movement, with the almost deafening sounds of the crowd and the drums. A sea of guards stood at his back, but they were not there for him…

Hooverville by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)

Town to town, train to train, tent to tent.

By 1932, the dust had begun to blow and the jobs were gone.

Anonymity was a byproduct of looking for work, which made it both necessary and convenient.

Stiles had enough secrets of his own to know to look the other way when he saw something that shouldn’t be possible.

The ghost of a tail giving enough balance to disembark a moving train.

Near silent Latin whispered on the edge of a tent encampment.

A flash of burning eyes.

He had more than enough to worry about without adding the oddities of others, and besides- having unusually sharp teeth certainly didn’t make a man worse than the ones running from the wife and kids they couldn’t feed.

So Stiles kept his observations to himself. He kept his everything to himself.

Until he met a man. One with eyes so blue they seemed to glow- and then they did.

Stiles tried to look away, but for the first time he was stopped.

“Don’t be like that sweetheart. Aren’t you curious?”

If I Could Kiss You Again by Triangulum

“Summer plans?” Peter asks, eyes on where Isaac is now trying to inch along the ceiling beam toward the wall where he can slide down a pipe.

“Leaving for Stanford in September. Saving the world and working in between now and then,” Stiles says. “Why, gonna miss me?”

“Considering I’ll be left alone with Derek? Yes,” Peter says.

“You’ll have Cora,” Stiles says. “And Isaac will be here to make up a few high school credits.”

There’s a shriek and a thud as Isaac loses his grip, falling on top of Erica and Boyd, sending them all to the ground in a heap.

“Yes,” Peter says flatly. “Thank god for that.”

OR

Five times Stiles kisses Peter and one time Peter kisses him.

Stravinsky by rightsidethru

Duke Orsino:If music be the food of love, play on,Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die.

Twelfth Night; Act 1, scene 1, 1–3

Wolf Within by wynnebat

Instead of convincing Scott to regain his humanity by killing the Alpha, Derek offers another possible solution.

Fashion. Police. by Bunnywest

In which Stiles is a cop with an interest in menswear, Peter’s the owner of a menswear store with a definite interest in Stiles, and why is there always some maniac running around throwing tins of red paint and making death threats?

Fashion, baby.

Under the Songbird’s Wing by mia6363

Captivity easily destroys the will of escape. It can break the fiercest of animal. It can strip the most regal man and woman down to nothing but animal needs.

Captivity can, if met with unwavering determination, shape a person into something unimaginable.

Stiles is sixteen when he’s captured. Stiles’s first thought is, “I won’t die here.”

The Promises Of Yesterday, The Pledges Of Tomorrow by ShippersList

Stiles is a kid with serious concentration issues and definitely not a guide—let alone a guide strong enough to calm down a feral Sentinel wolf. It’s just not possible.

Keep You (Safe) Within my Shadow by lavenderlotion

Stiles has never been scared of the dark. The shadows are his friends.

Dance Under the Moonlight by Therapeutic_Steter

Anonymous asked: Fae!Stiles saving Peter from Pack’s stupidity and washing his hands of them. Please?

Through Space and Time by MaroonDragon

When Stiles pulls the body of Peter Hale into his ship, he doesn’t expect him to be alive. He also doesn’t realise he might have gotten more than he bargained for.

Promises We Never Made by Green

Peter runs off to wreak havoc without telling Stiles where he’s going. Then Stiles has to rescue him.

Rainwater, Morning Dew, Ozone. by lavenderlotion

When Peter is kidnapped, Stiles is left to come to the rescue.

Peter ends up hard.

Fear (Doesn’t Mean I Can’t Fight) by azerblazer

Peter is the damsel in distress, the Sheriff is the hostage, random unnamed hunters are the bad guys.

Stiles has a bat, a hoodie and a willingness to do anything to protect those he’s loyal to.

Bring it on.

Bone Rot by neglectedtuesday

Stiles watches Peter from across the room, although he feels like he shouldn’t. Like he shouldn’t try to insert himself, even by proxy, into the moments Peter is experiencing. Autumn spills into the living room through the open doors, lighting Peter from behind. He is bathed in soft light and Stiles lingers in the shadows, ignoring the symbolism of that. He’s bored of all the different metaphors for longing.

Slice by syriala

Blood magic was dangerous magic, but Stiles’ teacher was one of the best, and Stiles wasn’t too worried that it wouldn’t work out. It would cost him, dearly even if his teacher was to be believed, but Stiles had learned all about the sacrifices for this and he couldn’t care less.

Not This Again by RebaK1tten

There’s a rumor that the last episode of the show will have Peter getting killed, again. Perhaps to give him a redemption arc or something.

So this is a fix it fic. I decided Stiles has finished one year of college. And Peter’s back again!

Cleanse My Soul by Mysenia

cywscross asked: “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?” + Steter? Thanks:)

Call My Name by KouriArashi

After moving to Beacon Hills, Stiles starts having recurring dreams of a man in some kind of prison, who needs his help. Things get so bad that he ends up in Eichen House, where he finds out that the man is real.

Shelter by ShippersList (more hurt/comfort than straight-up saving Peter)

A magical attack leaves Peter vulnerable and in agony, and it reminds him way too much of his time in a coma.

love me lights out by veterization

Stiles and Peter get snowed in together. (Or: what happens when you accept phone calls from people you haven’t spoken to in over five years.)

labyrinth by sinequanon

Stiles prefers goblins to werewolves. Except maybe Peter.

Til Death by Bunnywest

“How long do we have to find him someone?” Stiles asks.“Two weeks,” says Derek, eyebrows pulling down even further. The fierceness of his expression tells Stiles just how concerned he is.“He marries, or he goes to the camps. And you know what your father told us,” Scott reminds her.The camps……aren’t camps.Peter either finds a wife, or he dies.

Bigfoot Told Me You Were Coming by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (somanyofthekids)  (Stetopher)

Peter and Chris are on the run when they stumble across Stiles’ home in the woods.

You Got Me Now by syriala

Stiles stormed into the warehouse, eyes roaming around, desperate to find Peter. The pack was close behind Stiles, but he didn’t pay them any mind when his eyes fell on Peter.

He was on the floor, not even shackled, like someone had just discarded him without a second thought.

Peter was naked except for his pants, and Stiles could see the wounds that marred his skin. He decided not to think about why they weren’t healed.

Bittersweet Creek by Guede

When Stiles finally steps off the westward trail to California, he’s the last of his pack. He starts building a den, but then he finds a dying man next to a burnt-down house and it turns out he’s not really much of a settler, after all.

The Alpha by Therapeutic_Steter

An Alpha always protects what’s theirs.

…..

“Has anyone seen Peter?” Stiles asked at the next Pack meeting, trying to play his concern off as his typical curiosity. It wasn’t like he and Peter had been trying to keep…whatever it was that was developing between them a secret, but most of the Pack was notoriously self-absorbed and hadn’t noticed yet. As it stood, Stiles was only sure that Lydia and Derek knew about it; Lydia because she put it together and warned Peter off hurting Stiles and Derek because he came back to the loft to find them snuggled on the couch looking through an old tome and he’d also warned Peter about hurting Stiles.

Why did they not think Stiles could hurt Peter? Stiles could totally hurt him. If he wanted. Which he didn’t, but that was beside the point.

Let Me Run Away With You by Whispering_Sumire (Steterek)

“So,” Peter says, after an hour or so of driving in tense silence, “I assume we’re going back to your beloved Beacon Hills?”

“No,” Stiles tells him, without even looking up from the restorative paste he’s administering to Derek’s wounds. And isn’t that surprising?

“No?”

“I took the GPS out of Roscoe and I hacked into some of your accounts to get him travel-ready. I don’t care where we go Peter, but I don’t want to go back to Beacon Hills,” there’s a desperation in his voice that makes Peter’s skin crawl, though he has no idea why, “please.”

“Okay,” Peter agrees softly.

[Or: The one where Stiles is in a very bad place, and Peter and Derek manage to unwittingly save him from himself while he saves them from themselves.]

Hostile Takeover by kiranightshade

Alternate season 4 where Peter gains a new roommate in Eichen…for about five minutes. Then all hell breaks loose.

For Great Justice! by Green

Stiles is a vengeance demon, drawn to Peter just as he’s waking from his catatonia.

“Whoever did this? We will make those fuckers suffer. I promise you.”

Enemy Action by pprfaith

Once is chance, twice is coincidence and three times is far too many bodies on the ground.

Whiskey is My Kind of Lullaby by taylorpotato

Peter is a simple saloon owner on one of the outer planets between the Aaru Belt and the Olympus Galaxy. He’s done with trouble. Done with adventure. So fucking done with rustlers. That is, until a cute young outlaw named Stiles wanders into his bar. Peter has this problem where he can’t seem to resist charming narcissists (perhaps because they remind him of himself). And when said narcissists turn his life upside-down, the worst part is he’s not even that upset about it.

[liliaeth]

Also either it was a plot point or the characters just never cared about stiles but why did no one but his dad notice he was beaten I mean where wolves in the teen wolf universe can literally smell pain Peter is literally the only one who noticed but he did nothing

This is part of a pm a person just sent me, after I pointed out that stiles is the power fantasy on Teen Wolf. Which he very much is...(why do you think he’s so popular as a self insert in fanfic in the first place?)

I don’t have time to point out how wrong they were on everything else, but this bit is just... such a clear sign they either never watched the show, or forgot the parts that they did watch.

Let me go into what actually happened on screen shall we...

Right after the lacrosse game in Battlefield, Gerard nabs Stiles in the commotion of Jackson stabbing himself on Gerard’s orders. (this as part of a threat where Gerard tried to blackmail Scott into betraying Derek, aka telling Gerard where Derek is hiding, something Scott knew, but was refusing to tell Gerard)

Gerard’s men, grab Stiles and bring him to the Argent basement, where Gerard is holding Erica and Boyd, torturing them with electricity.

Scott and the sheriff instantly notice Stiles is missing, and after a short talk with the sheriff, and Coach, Scott and Isaac head to the locker room,w here Scott tears of the door of Stiles locker, with the intent of searching for Stiles. They are about to do so, when Derek (and Peter) show up (this is when Scott finds out that Peter is back to life) And Derek orders Scott (and isaac) to stop looking for Stiles because the Jackson situation is too dangerous to be ignored.

Meanwhile back in the Argent basement, Stiles sasses back at Gerard, Gerard isn’t amused by it, and either has Stiles beaten up, or does it himself, as a message to Scott. A threat, telling Scott what will happen if he doesn’t cooperate,and do what Gerard tells him to.

Stiles knows this.

So when Gerard released him, bruised up, Stiles doesn’t seek out Scott, doesn’t even send him a call to tell him he’s safe. This while Scott sends him at least 13 messages, still worried sick about Stiles. (even after the sheriff most likely already informed Scott that Stiles is home safe)

What Stiles does do is sit in his room and hide away from what’s happening, because he knows that his bruises are a message to Scott from Gerard,and that if Scott knows what happened, Gerard’s plan, of using stiles as a message might work.

It isn’t until Lydia comes to Stiles, upset about what they assume is Jackson’s death, that anyone other than the sheriff finds out what happened to Stiles. like Stiles told Lydia “do you think ‘this’ was meant to hurt ‘me’?”

So no, it’s not that the wolves ignore Stiles bruises, it’s that Scott (and the others ) don’t find out about them, until after the big fight, that involved Gerard using the kanima to threaten Allison’s life to make Scott do what he, aka Gerard, wanted.  (and this on top of Gerard’s threat to Scott’s mother and everyone else in the room.)

Stiles doesn’t show up for that fight until it’s almost at the end of it. And a lot was happening. So the show didn’t bother showing Scott’s or anyone else’s reaction to Stiles bruises, because by that point, they no longer served as a message, and had no purpose storywise.

The assumption that Scott just didn’t notice Stiles’ bruises is straight up bullshit.

It goes with the fanon nonsense of Scott supposedly not noticing that Stiles was missing... when the only reason Scott even stopped looking for Stiles, is because Derek made him do so. And even then only because Jackson was about to turn into an even bigger threat.

But even then Scott was still thinking of Stiles, still worried about him, while Stiles was refusing to pick up his phone.

See, thoughts like this person’s, are based on the notion that since they like Stiles, that Stiles must hence be the center of the universe. It doesn’t matter how many other things are going on, or how many things are happening to Scott (or the others), they must somehow be psychic and be there for Stiles at all time, even when Stiles is hiding what happened. Even if it means ignoring everything else.

But since to them, Stiles is the center, Stiles is not obligated to do so for others. That after all is part of the power fantasy.

[mons1erprom]

Could you write something for Scott, Brian, Damien, and Liam dating a cyclops boy with a stutter who’s really self conscious of his stutter and one large eye? (Pls love my shameless self insert oc son)

Your self-insert/oc sounds adorable oml

~~

Scott

>Scott loves you so fkn much

>So many compliments

>If you’re too self conscious about your stutter he’ll totally offer to speak up for you

>Will tell you how pretty your eye is, it’s colour and everything. He loves it.

>Doesn’t really understand why you’re so self conscious. He thinks you’re adorable n he loves you sm

>He’d never judge you for feeling this way though

>Does not stand for any type of bullying. This boy will be growling and everything, he hates seeing you hurt.

>If you’re feeling particularly upset, prepare for lots of cuddles and reassurances

>This boy just loves you so much

Brian

>Brian’s not as overly affectionate, he was always kind of a chill bf

>But when he finds that you’re self conscious, you notice more random kisses and compliments thrown your way

>He honestly thinks you’re super cute

>He’ll reassure you that your eye doesn’t make you unattractive

>”Babe how weird could that be?? I’m missing part of my face. You can see my teeth. Constantly”

>Never gets annoyed with your stutter, no matter how long it takes to get your words across

>Tbh, just him standing over you with a flat face can scare any bullies you may have away. He can be kinda threatening.

>Even though he’s kind of nonchalant most of the time, he’ll never let you forget how much you mean to him

Damien

>Damien is so protective of you dude it’s unreal

>Someone yelling at you over your stutter? He shuts them up

>Getting bullied over your eye? They’re hospitalized if not missing altogether

>Honestly with him no one has the guts to ever mess with you

>Even though he can be kind of overbearing in public, when you guys are alone he’s like the best bf ever.

>He can be super affectionate, lots of kisses and hugs

>Don’t call him out on it tho

>Hates that he can’t just take away your insecurities

>He’ll do whatever he can to make you feel better though

Liam

>So, Liam can seem kind of condescending at times. He doesn’t want to, but it’s just his nature

>But when he realizes just how insecure you are he tries his best to change that

>He’s super sweet in private

>Very well worded compliments

>He’ll write stuff for you if it’ll make you feel better

>To him you’re so fucking cute

>Super patient with you

>Can and will verbally destroy any poor soul who wants to pick at you

>Spine chillingly condescending looks sent to anyone who looks at you wrong

>He loves you so goddamn much

~~ 

Hope you enjoyed this! -mod green

[aziraphalesbookkeeper]

6, 13, 28

6. If you listen to music when writing, what were you listening to when writing what summer meant to you?

bestie i have already crafted a playlist what more do you want from me

no, but actually the song that birthed this fic is The Best Thing (That Never Happened) by the We Are the It Crowd. I distinctly remember it came up on my discover weekly as i was cooking and i got slammed full force with the image of Varian singing across a roaring crowd, aiming all the rage and pain at Hugo. then I had to figure out why he was so mad and the whole fic landed into my lap wrapped up in a bow. I wasn't planning on writing it, but then I rewatched Scott Pilgrim for my birthday and the whole scene of Black Sheep is just SO goddamn juicy (the ex you're kinda still hot for taunting you on stage while your current SO's ex plays right next to them?? HELLO????) that sealed the deal. tweet your thanks at Brie Larson

13. When did you start writing fanfic?

more like when didn't i write it am i right ladies

oh god so my first fic ever was a teen titans self-insert which was horrendous. i posted all my fics on some rp website called Teen Titans Girls which is so far buried in the trenches of early 2000s websites it'll never see the light of day again. pretty sure i was like 13 when i got my first FF.net account? i learned how to write there, then scooted my little butt over to ao3. At one point I said, "huh, i could probably write for a living" and went to college for it. worked in publishing for a hot minute. then i caught covid, completely burnt out, dropped writing creatively for money and rediscovered my joy for the craft by making up stories about gay little twinks on the internet. tldr: fic writing has always been a part of my life and it's shaped me as a person.

28. Is there a part of what summer meant to you you’re surprised no one has picked up on yet?

so i have this nasty habit of adding in crumbs of symbolism that are too small for readers to notice and then when it's time for the Big Reveal Moment it's not "AH HA" it's "wtf" so i've purposefully tried to avoid sticking in secrets...

i did almost have Ulla's jacket be a "reveal"...but Var has too many mommy issues to keep it a secret. Speaking of Ulla, can anyone guess the real reason as to why she tried to kill Varian? 👀

[avaquet]

A.N.D.R.O.M.E.D.A. Chapter 1

Prologue (Before the Storm)

Summary of fic:

"Adventures Night and Day, Roaming Over Miles, Exciting Discoveries Alight."

This is going to be an extremely long fic following my OC Sara Talia Ryder through her adventures in Andromeda. It does follow closely to realism and canon along with many different Headcanons. FPOV. It follows a lot of what happens in the game, but with a lot more 'meat' to it, and the things that happen between the loading screens or travel time. I do have proof readers but feel free to comment a critique or something that stood out, or anything that you liked!

Feel free to follow the journey of Sara Ryder!

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882625

2185, Luna.

I packed my personal crate with only a few items. The weight limit was strict, but some things can be overlooked being a part of the Pathfinder crew. My dad, Alec Ryder is the human Pathfinder for Ark Hyperion. About 20,000 people signed up for the Andromeda Initiative, and I am one of them. My twin brother, Scott, is also a part of the Pathfinder crew. We will all be meeting at the Luna shuttles soon. Today is the day. My final hours in the Milky Way galaxy before a frozen sleep. I've paced the room many times, fidgeting, and overthinking. As much as I love the adventure and exploration at my feet, I'm leaving everything behind.

I checked my packing list over and over again. Many memories I need to keep. A new multi-purpose journal that I handcrafted specifically for this journey. Along with a handmade scrapbook or photo album six pages long, or ten front and back with two covers. These are items that won't count against my weight limit because I told the authorities of the Initiative that it is for documentation. Items that do count include: an explosion paper box, extra clothes, headphones, art supplies, a necklace dedicated to my cat, Echo, and my alto saxophone. I could've carried a lot more if I didn't take the instrument, but my alto has helped me through many difficult times in my life. Been playing her for over ten years, ever since middle school.

Everything is in place and ready to go. I'm going to be fine, it's all going to be fine. I headed out the main lobby to the shuttle launch pad. The P.A. reminding everyone that as a safety precaution to put on a helmet, which requires armor. I slipped into both.

"Name and date of birth, please." A man standing at the security center stopped me.

"Sara Talia Ryder. 21st of March, 2163."

"Pathfinder team? You're assigned to the priority shuttle. We've been waiting on you." Another man took my crate and headed toward the loading bay.

"I'm that late, huh?"

"Not too late. The rest of the team is already on the shuttle."

I walked with him. "My dad included?"

"Pathfinder Ryder was already aboard the Hyperion before anyone else had arrived."

Great. Dad isn't even going to tell us good luck or something. "Ah."

"Alright. This is your shuttle. When you get on, I'll tell the pilot to take you all away."

"Thank you."

"Good luck, Ryder."

"You, too."

I stepped onto the shuttle and was greeted with a clunky hug from Scott. "Thought you bailed on us."

"Nah, adventure of a lifetime, remember?" I took my seat next to him. The shuttle was full of other people, helmets hiding their faces. I could tell one was a female, and she wasn't wearing as heavy as a suit as everyone else. Probably swift in battle.

"You'd think they'd at least give us better looking gear." He threw his hands up.

The shuttle took off. A slight jolt from the liftoff and we're in space. "It's their colors. White and blue."

"Yeah, but, too much white, you know?"

The female I noticed earlier stood up and walked over to us. "Ryder? Or should I say Ryder twins? Cora Harper."

We shook her hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Cora. I think I've heard your name a couple of times." I readjusted in my seat.

"Your father went on many journeys with me. I'm his second in command."

"Oh." Scott slumped.

"So, Cora, you excited?"

"Oh, definitely. You?"

"Nervous."

"Hey, come look outside. Might calm you down. Nice beautiful view of Earth."

Scott and I follow Cora over to the window, slightly tinted from our helmets. Other people on the shuttle moved closer to the window to get one last view.

A blue and green planet. Sprinkled and swirled with white. All against a black background with some glitter. This is the last time, my last view, of my homeworld, and then it's no longer home. 2.5 million lightyears away on Habitat 7 will be home. 600 years our biological clocks will be frozen as we venture out. Mom. My lips quivered. Suddenly, my view of Earth was solemn. Grief. A minor chord plays in the back of my head against the black and blue view.

"I miss Mom." I whispered out.

"Me too, sis. Me too."

Cora looked over at us. "Your dad told me that she died not too long ago. She'd be proud of both of you for making this journey."

"Thanks. And I hope so." I answered back. Silent and hidden tears rolled down my face, painted with loving memories. This will be a new start. A chance to start over in life. Wake up with a schedule and an organized life for once. My chin held up high. Mysteries to explore. New sights and sounds to associate with. A new song, a new painting, a new book.A quivered smile ran across my face.

The rest of the journey was silent. Thoughts clouded the air as Earth disappeared from view when we docked into the Ark. We all slumped to different armor lockers to take off our armor. All of us were in the same attire. White long sleeved shirt and pants with the AI Andromeda Initiative logo and a light blue as a secondary color. Except Cora, her colors were backwards on her.

A scientist helped us find our designated cryo bay, which also functioned as a medical bay. The closer we got to those cryo pods, the more my heart sped up. I felt slight tremors throughout my body. There was a giant hologram screen at the back of the med bay before the turn into the cryo room, sifting through different pictures of the worlds that await us. Seven golden worlds. Seven plans. The pictures ranged from tropical, to deserts, to highlands, and more. Beautiful views.

"Hey, sis."

"Huh?"

"You may want to take out your pony tail or it might get uncomfortable."

"Oh, right."

As we turned into the room with all the pods, I let loose my hair, feeling the freedom of movement against my shoulders. The room was chilly, long, and tall. Pods everywhere. The scientist divided us up into groups, Scott and I together, and the rest were away at different sections of the room. Scott and I were placed in the very back of the room next to the big circular logo that said Cryogenics on it. Two pods were summoned down and lingered in front of us while the scientist checked our vitals.

"Nervous you two? Don't worry. We all are. A team of engineers and scientists checked multiple times the ship and the pods. Don't worry, this part is safe." He pats us on the back.

"So, Scott."

"Sara."

"See you in a few hundred years?"

"You better."

He gave me a tight hug before we stepped into the pod. The inside was cold and frosty. There was a little window for me to look out of as the door closed. I leaned back up against the stiff cushions, feeling my heart pound in my chest. I grip onto the cushions and tried to take slower breaths, but the worry of things going wrong whilst I was asleep, or if something bad were to happen to Scott or Dad, kept my breathing rapid. It'll be fine. And hey, if we do die while in cryo, we wouldn't feel a thing. The scientist gave me a thumbs up before walking away and things started to become hazy and slow. Slower, hazier, darker, colder-

Silence.

Author's Note:

This was originally just going to be a private fic, but with support of friends and the recent events to fall upon BioWare and Andromeda, I have decided to do a public upload of this. Original characters are not a full self-insert but inspired by a lot of things that I do or have happened to me. A lot of things will be taken directly from BioWare's Mass Effect: Andromeda, all rights belong to them.

[letmewritemylife]

Final Fight - Part 1

Only you can finish the game…                                                                                                   - OOMPH!

A/N Not me using this and the next chapter as an excuse to be a simp for Lara

TRIGGER WARNINGS Canon-typical violence, Endgame fight but Lara is there being hot

Lara understands that something has changed even before opening her eyes. Bringing a hand to her neck, she confirms that her collar is not where it’s supposed to be. She sits up, scanning the cold floor for any sign of her missing restraint, and her sudden awakening wakes up Jonathan too.

“Have you seen Stark?” she immediately asks him without even giving him time to open his eyes.

He mutters something incomprehensible, before managing to mumble some words with a sense. “Should I have?”

Lara groans and gets up, slowly followed by her brother. Still complaining under breath about Jonathan’s total lack of consciousness, she walks into the kitchen, where she assumes a certain inventor is.

Tony is, in fact, leaning against the kitchen counter, drinking his first coffee of the day. He greets the two siblings with a smirk and offers them pancakes. “Turns out Lang is the only one here who can cook,” he jokes and Natasha rolls her eyes from the other side of the room before heading off to the main common area.

Jonathan doesn’t waste time, appreciating Scott’s food way more than even he expected to. Lara throws him a look before sneakily adding one of her pancakes to his pile. 

She turns to Tony. “Why did you take off my collar?” she asks directly, shocking even Tony.

Jonathan swallows a bite of food and turns to her surprised. “Wait, you don’t have that thing on anymore?”

Lara arches a brow. “No, I thought you’d noticed.”

“Sis, you could walk in with a whole new face and I wouldn’t flinch,” he replies lapidary before inserting another piece of pancakes dripping syrup in his mouth.

Lara sighs. “Yeah, that’s not really a brag.” Tony smiles, pleased to see the two in a more normal situation, but Lara is still determined to get what she wants. “Still waiting on my answer, Stark.”

Tony huffs before taking another sip of his coffee. “You don’t need it anyway,” he replies. If a look could kill, the inventor would be six feet underground by now. Honestly, Tony is quite sure Lara could do that - killing him without even moving a finger, - so he appreciates her not doing it. “Look at yourself,” he adds, “you look much better without it.”

Lara arches a brow and Tony smirks. “Plus the, and I quote, ʻself-righteous assh*le’ left this morning so I doubt anyone will have anything against it.”

Lara’s eyes follow Tony across the room as he jokes with Rhodey, comments something with Natasha, smirks at Rocket, describes how he built his nano-tech gauntlet to a rather interested Nebula. Steve fails to hide his attempts at studying her and she just shrugs, leaning against the glass table of the main common room.

The calm of that morning seems almost fake to her now and she struggles to believe that not so long before silence was normal. But things changed and silence became unbearable, suffocating. Because it wasn’t an unspoken accord not to ruin a precarious quietness anymore, it wasn’t the lack of need to speak either. It was inevitable. It was loneliness.

She breathes out deeply, enjoying the feeling of her muscles relaxing. Maybe Tony is right, maybe she’s really better left unrestrained. What is sure is that she kind of missed the light sparkle running through her veins, that fire burning inside of her.

A vigorous pat on her back brings her back to this world and she has to appeal to all her self-control not to immediately burn down the man standing beside her. Thor smiles, reminding her of a golden retriever Stephen had once showed her in the busy streets of New York. How the man could spot a dog in crowds of hundreds of people is still a mystery to her to that day.

“I remember where I first saw you!” he announces proudly, wrapping his hand around her shoulder. Her absent nod doesn’t seem to extinguish his enthusiasm. “You were friends with that wizard, the one who made me infinite beer.”

A gentle smile tugs at the corner of her lips. “If I ever see you again, this is gonna be your next nickname, magic man,” she thinks. “Yeah and?”

“Your friend helped me find my father,” Thor explains, patting her back just a little more gently than before. “So if you need anything, just ask, little witch,” he adds, handing her a Bloody Mary.

Lara takes a tentative sip and stares at him for a moment through her eyelashes before speaking. “I’m not a w-”

“Hey Doc,” Tony shouts from the other side of the room. “You think you’re ready to save the universe?”

She rolls her eyes, gulping the whole drink. Once the empty glass has met the glass surface to her side with a clink, she emits a low groan. This is going to be a tiring day.

The cold light of the LEDs on the ceiling hits the metal gauntlet in the right places to make it almost shine. Lara’s blood runs cold as she looks at it in front of her, lying useless on the table. “How many did we win?” “One.” One, only one, and it could be this one. It must be this one. She has no idea what she’d do if it’s not.

Heart racing in her chest, she struggles to calm down. Each Avenger’s gaze weighs on her and for a moment - just a moment though - she wishes Tony had never found her, dragging her into such an important mission. She knew it from the first moment, but now it’s even more clear that if something goes wrong it’ll be on her. She’s responsible for the good outcome of this mission. If they fail, it’ll be all her fault.

But they will not fail, she will make sure of that. Purple energy gathers around her fingers, dancing slowly like leaves moved by the wind. Bringing her hands in front of herself, she begs her hands not to shake and her magic not to escape her control. 

And like a well-trained dog, her powers fill the room, the world, the entire universe as she moves her hands to the sides little by little. They search everywhere, collecting even the smallest atoms of the infinity stones that Thanos tried to destroy.

“Steady breaths, you’re doing good.” Lara struggles to hold back a smile at that memory. Instead she channels that pleasant tingle in her chest into her spell. Her eyes fall closed and she bites the inside of her cheek. “Almost there,” she thinks. But not even she can hide her emotions when she finds the last remnant of the time stone hidden in a dark corner of Stephen’s room. Because of course it would be there.

Time seems to stop for a second. Her heart runs faster and faster in her chest and it is almost as if it were about to jump out. But it’s just a second.

Lara brings her hands back together, dragging billions and billions of atoms with her. The poor little things try to fight back, struggling against Lara’s dead grip, but little they can do against an Enchantress, and a stubborn one nonetheless.

A blinding light. A loud screeching. Everyone in the room is pushed on the floor. But not Lara. She stands motionless, hands still in the air as six whole infinity stones float in front of her and the brightest smiles she’s made in years paints on her face. Maybe this is really the one.

Once Jonathan has lifted slightly the debris covering him and his sister, Lara’s eyes meet the sight of Thanos and his army, huge and numerous. The titan smirks proudly, running his eyes over the ruins of the Compound. Lara’s stomach clenches. They were so close, so damn close to understanding what happened, if they had actually brought everyone back, yet there they are,  face to face with their worst enemy, brought back by God knows whom.

She forces herself to her feet and shares a look with Jonathan. But her face darkens when a well-known cold breeze hits her skin, filling her nose with its sulfuric stench. “Great,” she groans. This is definitely going to be a tiring day.

Tony blasts away yet another alien, damning the day he chose to break his retirement to save the world one more time. A muffled scream from behind him makes him turn around and stare at an alien, contorting their greenish face at him as purple ropes of energy tighten around them. He doesn’t have the time to say anything that the alien has already been thrown away like a piece of litter.

He smirks. “Thanks, Earthquake.”

She rolls her eyes. “Shut up, Stark.” Her eyes widen when a glimpse of black magic enters her field of vision. “I’ve got to go,” she says, walking past the inventor and clearing her way of any Child of Thanos.

Oreish grins at her from the hill of debris he’s standing on. Showing his fangs dripping blood like a lion anticipating the taste of his prey, he widens his arms and from the black smoke forming around him emerge two demons. They shake their heads, as to wake themselves up, and start walking wobbly towards Lara, their muscular legs weighing them down.

But Lara doesn’t flinch, masking her surprise as well as she can. With just a movement of her hands, she opens the ground under them and the two newborn demons are quickly covered by dirt.

Her response seems to catch Oreish unprepared, even if the demon refuses to admit it. However, he tries his best to fight her. It should be easy, he has dealt with some of the most powerful sorcerers to ever exist, even the Sorcerer Supreme herself struggled for a moment to defeat him. 

Yet for some reason this time it’s different. Oreish puts all his mind to understand what is going on in Lara’s mind, to identify the pattern in her attacks, to study her body and her magic. Damn, he’s been inside her mind, he has read her thoughts for days and days. But now, her mind seems unreachable to him. What is she doing?

It’s only when Lara manages to restrain him that he finally gets it and sees the pure anger that is moving her, the reason why moisture is gathering in the corner of her blue eyes.

He swallows hard, fighting the grip around his body and holding more tightly to his vessel, the titan that is currently slaying his enemies not far from there, in hope not to be locked up in some other dimension again. 

“If you do this,” he mutters as a purple light obscures his sight, “there is no going back.” He knows that, he’s been there. The little witch has no idea what she is unleashing.

She smirks, leaning forward just enough for him to feel her cold breath on his skin. “I don’t care.”

Oreish can do nothing but let his jaw fall open when a power, stronger and more intense than any other he’s ever seen, washes over him, makes its way inside him, rips him to pieces. Painfully slowly, his own magic leaves him and goes to Lara, who does nothing but grinning smugly as the power and knowledge of “the devil’s best warrior” is passed to her in the form of purple energy.

When the blinding light connecting the two fades away, Oreish is gone, all that’s left of him being a black stone. Lara smirks and looks down at her body, now covered by brand new, deep purple robes. “I must look damn good,” she thinks, before leaning down to collect what remains of the sorcerer turned demon.

The small stone is cold to the touch, a tiny bit shiny. She moves it between two of her fingers, noticing how smooth it is. After a moment of pondering, she places it on her index finger and uses a hint of magic to make a ring out of it. “Rest assured you’ll never get out.” She turns around slowly to Thanos, who is putting up with Steve, Thor and Tony, and her face darkens. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a debt to collect.”

The titan’s grin widens as he pushes Stormbreaker down to brush Thor’s chest. Just a few more inches and he’ll cut through his chest and-

A furious scream leaves his throat when Stormbreaker escapes his control, stolen from him mere moments before he could kill the god of thunder, and he looks down to see his wrist bleeding copiously where his hand used to be. He turns around, looking for whoever dared do that to him, and narrowly avoids another hit from the same axe, this time directed straight to his head.

Someone finally lands before him, a little woman that barely reaches his shoulder. She opens her arms wide open and Thanos’ dear Children start floating in mid air, screaming and groaning as her magic slowly chokes them. She keeps her palms towards the sky and turns to Thanos. “Thanos, we meet again,” she says, her voice raw and perfectly unknown to the titan.

He scans his memory, trying to remember if he ever heard of a witch being part of the Avengers. That damn demon from the future never mentioned her. “And who the hell are you?” he asks, talking more with himself than with her.

She smirks, leaning her head slightly to the side as a purple light covers her eyes. “You’ll see.”

She clenches her fists and, with one last collective scream, the dozen of aliens she was holding are killed and fall on the ground. Thanos reserves them but a glance before the witch attacks him personally. A ball of energy and then another one hit him, forcing him to retreat. All his attempts to defend himself are futile and in a matter of minutes he’s floating, his body hurting in an inimaginable way, almost as if all his atoms were exploding one by one. Not even his screams can wash away the grin of mad pride from her face.

“Rain fire!” he orders Corvus Glaive at the top of his lungs. Her protests go unheard. “Just do it!” And just as quickly as she came, the witch is shoved away by a cannon.

[connorrenwick]

How Designers Are Working Through This New Reality

COVID-19, or the Coronavirus, seemed to disrupt things overnight requiring people and businesses to alter how everything was done. The creative community has especially been hit hard with people’s priorities shifting to focus on how to stay employed, and more importantly, alive during these uncertain times. Regular fairs and festivals have been shuttered, showrooms and manufacturing facilities have closed up shop, and projects have been pushed off until the dust settles and some sense of normalcy returns. No one knows when this pandemic will end, so designers and small and independent businesses have had to re-think and re-strategize everything in order to stay afloat on a day-to-day basis. With so much uncertainty, we wanted to reach out to some favorites in our field – Bobby Berk, Kate Balsis, Scott Fellows, Nick Cope, Angie Myung, and Robert Highsmith – to see how they’re doing, how things have changed, and where they see things going.

And in case you missed Design Milk’s day of talks called “The Brave New World of Design,” where design experts weighed in on how life might be different after COVID-19, you can watch all of them now on @designmilk IGTV!

Bobby Berk, interior designer and star of Queer Eye

On navigating the disruption- I’m not sure anyone’s lives haven’t been impacted in some way but our only choice is to figure out which way is up, push on, and stay as positive through all of this as we can. When anyone’s norm gets shaken, so do our day to day routines – even something as simple as getting gas or walking outside to retrieving the mail. We’ve never had to think about that to this extreme. Things are very different now, but that is ok. I’m so grateful that I’m with Dewey under the same roof, but also grateful we’re in a space that has separate rooms. We are both able to work remotely and we know our boundaries for one another which makes for any healthy co-habitating situation and a productive workflow while this is all going on.

On making business changes- No one knows how to get through this. Normally in business when you hit a roadblock, you figure out the answers, try solutions, and seek advisors. Now, there’s no playbook. For my business, we are working efficiently and effectively to be a resource for those who need it most. We have existing content and ongoing partnerships built out but have made the decision to shift our editorial and social calendar to focus on resources, tips, and hacks on how to be healthy and productive at home as well as constantly giving people an inspirational place to land to find respite from all of this. We aren’t steering away from what we know best (design) but right now it’s a balance of being a go-to for those who need it creatively as well as emotionally.

My entire team is working from home until further notice as my first priority is their safety and comfort. We host video conference calls and remain positive (insert sending gifs via mass text here). The first week we made a decision that video conf calls vs phone calls would give everyone a sense of community and social distance, and it’s allowed us to connect in a way we never have before. Seeing my team’s faces every day is something that always brings a smile to my face and I love connecting with them in that way to work through what is on the daily agenda.

On reimagining his business- My wheels are constantly churning as an entrepreneur and now beginning to think about what it will look like for “re-entry” post pandemic. When Dorothy landed in Oz, she didn’t know where to go but she got up with those red slippers on and figured her way through uncharted territory. It was new and unusual but she had to navigate her way through obstacles and learn how people were working along the way. I’m not quite there yet in terms of reimagining my business (or having my ruby slippers to click together to bring me back home), but I know that we will hit some forks in our yellow brick road.

On staying positive- It’s been overwhelming to see the “good” happening both locally and around the news. The news can be overwhelming, but if you are able to shut off the noise around Covid-19 for a minute, you can see all of the offerings people and businesses are sharing. Celebrities are banding together to create awareness and raise money, businesses are supporting small businesses, and our earth, for the first time is getting a breath of fresh air to exist without daily pollution. The bravery and efforts from all those in the medical field can also not go unnoticed. These professionals put their lives on the line every day and work so hard through all of this and it’s inspiring to see.

On hope for the future- Good things take time and this is no exception to the rule. A lot of hopes are being had from political to personal. I hope people continue to support small businesses, continue to see the importance in taking care of themselves and their team mentally and emotionally, and see the effects this has brought to our environment. Lessons can always be taken from every situation both good or bad and I hope that people pause to regroup during all of this and bring a focus back to what is really important in life.

Kate Balsis, partner + co-founder of Concrete Collaborative

On navigating the disruption- I think we are in the same boat as a lot of other privately-owned, small businesses where this type of economic uncertainty can be really stressful for owners. I haven’t been able to sleep and had this knot in my stomach of will we have enough revenue to make payroll? For us that meant scaling back and closing the New York and San Francisco showrooms temporarily.

On making business changes- I feel like I’m only finally getting my head above water after weeks of damage control and navigating all this new territory. My partners have been all hands on deck and jumped into action. It definitely brings you together as a team to navigate a true crisis. We have a truly supportive team that have stepped up in a big way through this.

On what she’s experiencing personally + professionally- Personally I have found the time to be quite tough with additionally juggling my kids’ school. I have three boys in 4th, 2nd, and kindergarten and they all have school full time online. I’m juggling their zoom calls with mine. It’s nearly impossible to run a business and get their work done at the same time. However, like many, I have no choice but to adapt. Shift my work schedule. Make the kids be as self sufficient as possible. We are in this together.

On staying positive- Ultimately I’m grateful we are safe and healthy. That perspective keeps me going, well that and coffee and wine. I am lucky to have a close network of friends, family, and work colleagues that keep me sane and laughing. In times like this especially you realize those relationships that matter the most.

On hope for the future- Coming out the other side, for all the negative, it has forced me to slow down. I don’t think I will ever take for granted the time I get out of my house, time I can dedicate to specific things and get breaks from others, in person meetings and being able to travel and eat out.

Scott Fellows

Craig Bassam

Scott Fellows, creative director + co-founder of BassamFellows with Craig Bassam (architect)

On navigating the disruption- I think, like everybody else, we are trying to take things one day at a time. We have the very real problem of some of our factories being temporarily closed, so we are navigating client expectations and trying to keep everyone informed on an on-going basis. The biggest challenge is the uncertainty of the length of the disruption. Once goods are flowing again, how long will it take for business to return to normal and what does the new normal look like?

On making business changes- Since the beginning of our company, our core team of employees and collaborators have always worked remotely/virtually, from Verona, to Milan, to London, to Connecticut, Pennsylvania – even Hawaii, so the remote working has not been a shock to the system. Now, clients are increasingly comfortable with online communication. We have several virtual client presentations and talks scheduled over the next several weeks and I’m really enjoying them. It is a way for us to connect with clients that is perhaps even more personal.

On reimagining the business- Before the pandemic we were planning for the biggest launch in our history in Milan at the Salone del Mobile. We were launching a new chair series called Petal, a chair that pushes the boundaries of 3D wood veneer and has much wider application in contract as well as residential settings. This product was developed over three years with top engineers and developers in Germany, the US, and Italy – each contributing to part of the manufacturing of each piece. Now, those global connections are being disrupted. How do you launch product without the global stage and a global design audience all immersed in design experiences? How do you continue to develop products, such as Petal, that leverage global expertise when supply chains are being disrupted?

We don’t want to retreat to “smallness” and we don’t think it is possible to shrink to greatness. Instead we are thinking about the “localization of the global.” We may be losing the world stage but we can still create powerful experiences such as a product launch event at our new headquarters building in CT – the former Schlumberger Administration Building, designed by Philip Johnson. We can also continue to invest in high quality craft here in the US, as we always have, but marry that with technical expertise and engineering that may exist elsewhere.

On what they’re experiencing personally + professionally- I remember when we first moved to CT from NYC more than 20 years ago, a friend commented to us that we chose “lifestyle.” To me, he was implying that we chose lifestyle over hard work and the success of a city life, which I found irritating at the time. The truth is that the decision to leave the city changed our lives. It set us on a journey where we began to blur the boundaries between life and work to the point that now they are virtually indistinguishable. We prioritize and invest in our physical spaces whether it is at home or at the office because we believe that physical environments are extremely important – light and space and uncluttered simplicity have a direct impact on our happiness. So I guess we did choose lifestyle after all.

During this crisis we are staying focused and productive and enjoying the space and nature that we are fortunate enough to have around us.

On staying positive- I think it is important to dedicate at least some of the time to visioning or imagining the future. The time to stop and think and work “on” the business, rather than “in” the business has been in short supply lately. We are relieved by the slower pace and are finding inspiration and ideas from our imagining of the future.

On hope for the future- I read somewhere about the origins of the word quarantine – that it is a spatial and temporal buffer. That got me thinking about adding a space and time buffer to our decision making and our buying decisions. I think most of us in the design world take a highly considered approach to purchases. Is it well designed for its function? Is it well made? Does it fit my life and my style? Do I really need it? For us, we ask ourselves whether it will be durable and desirable for decades. We hope the “fast” trend in fashion and design will be replaced with a new, “slow” trend – buy less, buy better, and use longer.

Rachel and Nick Cope

Nick Cope, co-founder of Calico Wallpaper + Cope with Rachel Cope

On navigating the disruption- These times are certainly unusual, fortunately, due to many of the digital systems we have in place we were able to move to remote work fairly quickly and seamlessly (good wallpaper pun!). Rachel and I are upstate at our house in Hudson because our kids are out of school and this affords them a lot more room to run around. Of course, we are having to share duties spending time with the kids so our combined work output is a little reduced at the moment.

On making business changes- The business is humming along and we are still designing, sampling, printing, and taking orders without much change at all. Our team has been excellent in handling these sudden changes heroically! We are so grateful that they are working hard to keep the company vision moving forward.

On reimagining their business- The sudden change has reminded me how fragile we all are in this complex ecosystem. Rachel and I have begun to discuss new goals and milestones for our business and although these are private at the moment, we hope to unveil new initiatives soon.

On what they’re experiencing personally + professionally- I feel like my life has done a bit of a 180 in the last month! Rachel and I are in a unique situation too because we are both partners in business and life. We are trying to balance these rapid personal and professional changes without friction and I feel like we have been doing a good job. I would say that it is nice to be upstate with a view of the Catskills out my window, however, I am pretty much glued to my computer at the moment and I miss the interactions with the team or even little trips to the cafe for a break.

On staying positive- Taking walks and spending time with the kids has been the best way to stay positive. Obviously, Tiger King on Netflix has made all the difference too.

On hope for the future- At the moment, I am just hoping for the other side to become clear. There may be some significant lasting impacts to this crisis and hopefully some of them are positive. For instance, attention to health insurance in the United States must become a priority. The system is totally nonsensical and should have been nationalized a century ago like much of the industrialized world. Also, climate change is another crisis that will be an increasingly disruptive force in our lifetime so maybe this crisis will remind us that it is time to act.

Angie Myung, chief creative officer + co-founder of Poketo with Ted Vadakan

On navigating the disruption- Doing the best we can to navigate this new territory. This crisis has upended the entire design and retail industry. We have closed all our our brick and mortar locations temporarily. We are directing business to www.poketo.com which is now the sole revenue channel. The outpouring of support by our customers has been amazing. People are shopping, we want to continue to provide joy to our customers in this time of crisis. Fortunately, so many of our products are perfect for #workfromhome.

On making business changes- We are now working remotely for much of our staff. We do frequent video chats via Google. We have directed our efforts to online and doing regular promotions to make shopping easier for our customers.

On reimagining their business- It has given us time to rethink. We will most likely emerge from this different, but stronger. When you get into a routine, it’s autopilot and you constantly are on the move. This time is allowing us to think about what’s important, how do we streamline, what do we want this new version of the business to look like. We don’t have the answers yet, we are taking things one day at a time.

On what they’re experiencing personally + professionally- It has been really tough. Especially with our team. We are a small, tight-knit group. We are used to seeing each other every day. Adjusting to remote working and not seeing each other face to face, to brainstorm together, to celebrate small victories together is different. Personally though, it has been nice to remember what is important, which is good health. Without health, what is there? So staying mentally and physically sharp is important. We’ve been taking longs walks with the dog, doing yoga, cooking meals at the house. It has been nice that way to reconnect with simple things.

On staying positive- Just knowing that the world is in this together, we are all in the same boat trying to navigate these unchartered waters is reassuring. Something I remind myself is that humans are like grass, we bend with the wind, we don’t break. I try to remember that.

On hope for the future- A healthy business, a team back to work, a strong community ready to create, love, do, make…. We miss our friends, our family, our community… we look forward to celebrating life, art, design, and creativity together once again (sans screen).

Robert Highsmith

Robert Highsmith, co-founder of WORKSTEAD

On navigating the disruption- By coming together – as a company and community. The disruption has inspired our team to be more collaborative and creative than ever. We have also been in close touch with many of our customers and clients – all partners in the design community – and projects, particularly large-scale residential and hospitality in the concept phase of development, are progressing. Supporting one another is crucial in this environment.

On making business changes- Our priority – on both the studio and product side of our business – has always been to provide design solutions and inspiration to our customers and clients. We had long planned on a monthly launch of light fixtures in 2020 and feel very fortunate to be in a position to proceed with that schedule, to continue adding to our assortment.

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/27/how-designers-are-working-through-this-new-reality/

[coachingreviewsite]

How To Unlock Your Potential Fast And Easy

New Post has been published on http://personalcoachingcenter.com/how-to-unlock-your-potential-fast-and-easy/

How To Unlock Your Potential Fast And Easy

You are a better person when you constantly seek to reinvent yourself. The advice in this post will help you to take the first steps towards a new you. It only takes a few simple life changes to vastly improve your life. You might be shocked by how easy it actually is to set these ideas in motion.

A great self help tip is to get in touch with people that are going through the same thing as you. You can also go to a support group. Getting in touch with people that are going through the same things, can help you because you won't feel so alone.

    It can be tempting to vow that we will never do _____ (insert bad habit here!) again, but such a mentality can often set us up to fail. Rather than vowing never again to engage in your bad habit, vow not to engage in it for the next 24 hours.

  When it comes to keeping "your world" in order, that should also include your wallet. People place a lot of unnecessary stuff in their wallets that makes finding what you need almost impossible. Try using a smaller wallet to start with. Try keeping it free of garbage you accumulate. Also, go through it regularly to ensure that it remains clean.

5 Unexpected Ways to Decrease Anxious Thoughts

blisspot.com

"You might find it hard to believe that simply putting pen to paper to write could give you peace of mind, groundedness, and increased vitality. Yet it's a fact. Through clinical research, James Pennebaker, author of Opening Up: The Healing Power of E…" https://blisspot.com/blogs/7898/1348/5-unexpected-ways-to-decrease-anxious-thoughts

A key to success is learning how to take personal responsibility for mistakes. Instead of playing the blame game, acknowledge your mistakes, learn from them than move on. Taking personal responsibility for your actions is actually very liberating. You will soon feel like you are the one in charge of your own future and it will be easier to make decisions.

  Sometimes finding a faith to devote oneself to is a great self-help idea. During hard times we tend to dwell on what is troubling us and lose sight of the bigger picture. A religious faith helps one focus on that bigger picture while altering the focus from hardship to a higher power.

  You cannot make any progress with respect to personal development if you have not outlined a goal or set of goals. For example, you may be wanting to lose weight. Without a goal in sight, it is near impossible to progress or feel like you are making progress. So, establish a goal now.

  You need to stop procrastinating if you want to have a less stressful life. If you procrastinate often it means that you carry a lot of stress because you are constantly feeling as though you have to hurry up and get something done. It can be easy to stop procrastinating if you schedule your day properly.

Avoiding a Victimhood Mindset in a Long-term Illness or Chronic Condition

theselfimprovementblog.com

"The Self Improvement Blog | Self Esteem | Self Confidence

There are some things we just don’t want to face or talk about, and one of them is a long-term illness or chronic condition that impacts your lifestyle in a drastic manner. We all have to make peace with the unpredictability of life. Admittedly, it’s much easier to process this when health serves you well. […]

 Avoiding a Victimhood Mindset in a Long-term Illness or Chronic Condition" https://theselfimprovementblog.com/self-improvement/featured/avoiding-a-victimhood-mindset-in-a-long-term-illness-or-chronic-condition/

Therapy is indicated if you feel you cannot deal with your problems. Though self-help books and online resources are great, they typically will not offer as much as a one-on-one therapy session can. Beyond the professional expertise, one-on-one therapy offers the opportunity for real communication. Reading a book won't let you have a dialog the way therapists do.

  A great way to combat depression through self help is to have a cup of coffee with a friend. This is a great way towards building and improving relationships which has proven to be extremely effective when dealing with depression. Not only will you help yourself, but you will also strengthen your relationship.

  Low self-esteem problems are often part of a vicious cycle. We do not wish to draw attention to ourselves, so we slouch and slump our way into oblivion. Break this habit! Standing up straight and practicing good posture projects a confident image, tones muscles, and increases our sense of self-image in a way that is immediately noticeable to ourselves and to others.

  Be true to who you really are. This is very important. You can't work to better yourself if you lie about who you really are. You need to accept that you are you, and that is a wonderful thing! Many people are not happy with who they are, but we can take responsibility for that, and improve who we are once we acknowledge the truth.

First Look: Leadership Books for August 2019

www.leadershipnow.com

"Here's a look at some of the best leadership books to be released in August 2019. Don't miss out on other great new and future releases. Transforming Legacy Organizations: Turn your Established Business into an Innovation Champion to Win the Future by Kris Østergaard Transforming Legacy Organizations provides real-world advice and research-based information on how to grow innovation by employing new technologies, improving processes, and establishing a culture of creativity and forward momentum. Conventional business wisdom views innovation as the biggest advantage startups have over large, established organizations, often referred to as legacy organizations. This belief is false, especially when considering that 70% of all startups fail within 20 months of their first venture round. The truth is innovation initiatives of legacy organizations have far better chances of succeeding.

Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott Young

In these tumultuous times of economic and technological change, staying ahead depends on continual self-education—a lifelong mastery of fresh ideas, subjects, and skills. If you want to accomplish more and stand apart from everyone else, you need to become an ultralearner. The challenge of learning new skills is that you think you already know how best to learn, as you did as a student, so you rerun old routines and old ways of solving problems. To counter that, Ultralearning offers powerful strategies to break you out of those mental ruts and introduces new training methods to help you push through to higher levels of retention.

The Chaos Parallel: How To Overcome The Life-Altering Effects of Insecurities by J Alex Geesbreght Everyone has insecurities. Like with most insecurities–especially those that are not self-inflicted–we don’t tend to “fix” or “get over” them; they are always with us and a part of who we are. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we can recognize them, understand them, and seek to find a way to live our most authentic lives free from the chaos they often create.

Flip the Script: Getting People to Think Your Idea Is Their Idea by Oren Klaff Oren is throwing out the old playbook on persuasion. Instead, he'll show you a new approach that works on this simple insight: Everyone trusts their own ideas. If, rather than pushing your idea on your buyer, you can guide them to discover it on their own, they'll believe it, trust it, and get excited about it. Then they'll buy in and feel good about the chance to work with you. That might sound easier said than done, but Oren has taught thousands of people how to do it with a series of simple steps that anyone can follow in any situation. And Oren has been in a lot of different situations.

The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age by Bina Venkataraman Instant gratification is the norm today—in our lives, our culture, our economy, and our politics. Many of us have forgotten (if we ever learned) how to make smart decisions for the long run. Whether it comes to our finances, our health, our communities, or our planet, it’s easy to avoid thinking ahead. The consequences of this immediacy are stark: Superbugs spawned by the overuse of antibiotics endanger our health. Companies that fail to invest stagnate and fall behind. Hurricanes and wildfires turn deadly for communities that could have taken more precaution."

https://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2019/08/first_look_leadership_books_fo_125.htmlhttp://www.leadershipnow.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=1748

One of the hardest tips to swallow is to accept blame. Take the responsibility for everything that goes wrong in your day-to-day life. Don't make excuses, just own the moment. It is you that has paved the way to this moment and it is important to be in the driver's seat, no matter the reason. With this, you will gain the respect of your friends, family and peers and open the door to some enormous personal growth.

  Learn how to moderate your activities. Self control is an early lesson in personal development, and it can be one of the most difficult to learn. There are many things in your life that can harm your overall health like smoking, excessive drinking and overeating. Learn how to moderate these bad habits or even kick them completely. By succeeding you are giving yourself more time on the planet to achieve your personal development.

  There are seven secrets to success that will bring about true personal development. They are direction, destination, action, reaction, acceleration, completion and reproduction. Go through these steps in order and make sure to share your success with others. Success becomes more real to you when you can talk about it.

  A great personal development tip is to recognize and admit to yourself that there is a large gap between where your life is currently and where you want it to be. If you do not accept and acknowledge your current situation, you will have no chance of changing and improving your life.

  Define what's most important to you, and let go of the rest. You can be trying really hard to do everything, when the truth is that no one can. When faced with something, ask whether it relates to what is most important in your life. If it isn't, you don't need it.

  Set these tips in motion today to get the greatest benefit out of life. Now that you know some of the best strategies for making a difference in your life, you are prepared to go out and do something new. It is time to reinvent yourself and become the person you've always wanted to be.

[personalcoachingcenter]

How To Unlock Your Potential Fast And Easy

New Post has been published on http://personalcoachingcenter.com/how-to-unlock-your-potential-fast-and-easy/

How To Unlock Your Potential Fast And Easy

You are a better person when you constantly seek to reinvent yourself. The advice in this post will help you to take the first steps towards a new you. It only takes a few simple life changes to vastly improve your life. You might be shocked by how easy it actually is to set these ideas in motion.

A great self help tip is to get in touch with people that are going through the same thing as you. You can also go to a support group. Getting in touch with people that are going through the same things, can help you because you won't feel so alone.

    It can be tempting to vow that we will never do _____ (insert bad habit here!) again, but such a mentality can often set us up to fail. Rather than vowing never again to engage in your bad habit, vow not to engage in it for the next 24 hours.

  When it comes to keeping "your world" in order, that should also include your wallet. People place a lot of unnecessary stuff in their wallets that makes finding what you need almost impossible. Try using a smaller wallet to start with. Try keeping it free of garbage you accumulate. Also, go through it regularly to ensure that it remains clean.

5 Unexpected Ways to Decrease Anxious Thoughts

blisspot.com

"You might find it hard to believe that simply putting pen to paper to write could give you peace of mind, groundedness, and increased vitality. Yet it's a fact. Through clinical research, James Pennebaker, author of Opening Up: The Healing Power of E…" https://blisspot.com/blogs/7898/1348/5-unexpected-ways-to-decrease-anxious-thoughts

A key to success is learning how to take personal responsibility for mistakes. Instead of playing the blame game, acknowledge your mistakes, learn from them than move on. Taking personal responsibility for your actions is actually very liberating. You will soon feel like you are the one in charge of your own future and it will be easier to make decisions.

  Sometimes finding a faith to devote oneself to is a great self-help idea. During hard times we tend to dwell on what is troubling us and lose sight of the bigger picture. A religious faith helps one focus on that bigger picture while altering the focus from hardship to a higher power.

  You cannot make any progress with respect to personal development if you have not outlined a goal or set of goals. For example, you may be wanting to lose weight. Without a goal in sight, it is near impossible to progress or feel like you are making progress. So, establish a goal now.

  You need to stop procrastinating if you want to have a less stressful life. If you procrastinate often it means that you carry a lot of stress because you are constantly feeling as though you have to hurry up and get something done. It can be easy to stop procrastinating if you schedule your day properly.

Avoiding a Victimhood Mindset in a Long-term Illness or Chronic Condition

theselfimprovementblog.com

"The Self Improvement Blog | Self Esteem | Self Confidence

There are some things we just don’t want to face or talk about, and one of them is a long-term illness or chronic condition that impacts your lifestyle in a drastic manner. We all have to make peace with the unpredictability of life. Admittedly, it’s much easier to process this when health serves you well. […]

 Avoiding a Victimhood Mindset in a Long-term Illness or Chronic Condition" https://theselfimprovementblog.com/self-improvement/featured/avoiding-a-victimhood-mindset-in-a-long-term-illness-or-chronic-condition/

Therapy is indicated if you feel you cannot deal with your problems. Though self-help books and online resources are great, they typically will not offer as much as a one-on-one therapy session can. Beyond the professional expertise, one-on-one therapy offers the opportunity for real communication. Reading a book won't let you have a dialog the way therapists do.

  A great way to combat depression through self help is to have a cup of coffee with a friend. This is a great way towards building and improving relationships which has proven to be extremely effective when dealing with depression. Not only will you help yourself, but you will also strengthen your relationship.

  Low self-esteem problems are often part of a vicious cycle. We do not wish to draw attention to ourselves, so we slouch and slump our way into oblivion. Break this habit! Standing up straight and practicing good posture projects a confident image, tones muscles, and increases our sense of self-image in a way that is immediately noticeable to ourselves and to others.

  Be true to who you really are. This is very important. You can't work to better yourself if you lie about who you really are. You need to accept that you are you, and that is a wonderful thing! Many people are not happy with who they are, but we can take responsibility for that, and improve who we are once we acknowledge the truth.

First Look: Leadership Books for August 2019

www.leadershipnow.com

"Here's a look at some of the best leadership books to be released in August 2019. Don't miss out on other great new and future releases. Transforming Legacy Organizations: Turn your Established Business into an Innovation Champion to Win the Future by Kris Østergaard Transforming Legacy Organizations provides real-world advice and research-based information on how to grow innovation by employing new technologies, improving processes, and establishing a culture of creativity and forward momentum. Conventional business wisdom views innovation as the biggest advantage startups have over large, established organizations, often referred to as legacy organizations. This belief is false, especially when considering that 70% of all startups fail within 20 months of their first venture round. The truth is innovation initiatives of legacy organizations have far better chances of succeeding.

Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott Young

In these tumultuous times of economic and technological change, staying ahead depends on continual self-education—a lifelong mastery of fresh ideas, subjects, and skills. If you want to accomplish more and stand apart from everyone else, you need to become an ultralearner. The challenge of learning new skills is that you think you already know how best to learn, as you did as a student, so you rerun old routines and old ways of solving problems. To counter that, Ultralearning offers powerful strategies to break you out of those mental ruts and introduces new training methods to help you push through to higher levels of retention.

The Chaos Parallel: How To Overcome The Life-Altering Effects of Insecurities by J Alex Geesbreght Everyone has insecurities. Like with most insecurities–especially those that are not self-inflicted–we don’t tend to “fix” or “get over” them; they are always with us and a part of who we are. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we can recognize them, understand them, and seek to find a way to live our most authentic lives free from the chaos they often create.

Flip the Script: Getting People to Think Your Idea Is Their Idea by Oren Klaff Oren is throwing out the old playbook on persuasion. Instead, he'll show you a new approach that works on this simple insight: Everyone trusts their own ideas. If, rather than pushing your idea on your buyer, you can guide them to discover it on their own, they'll believe it, trust it, and get excited about it. Then they'll buy in and feel good about the chance to work with you. That might sound easier said than done, but Oren has taught thousands of people how to do it with a series of simple steps that anyone can follow in any situation. And Oren has been in a lot of different situations.

The Optimist's Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age by Bina Venkataraman Instant gratification is the norm today—in our lives, our culture, our economy, and our politics. Many of us have forgotten (if we ever learned) how to make smart decisions for the long run. Whether it comes to our finances, our health, our communities, or our planet, it’s easy to avoid thinking ahead. The consequences of this immediacy are stark: Superbugs spawned by the overuse of antibiotics endanger our health. Companies that fail to invest stagnate and fall behind. Hurricanes and wildfires turn deadly for communities that could have taken more precaution."

https://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2019/08/first_look_leadership_books_fo_125.htmlhttp://www.leadershipnow.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/blog_id=1/entry_id=1748

One of the hardest tips to swallow is to accept blame. Take the responsibility for everything that goes wrong in your day-to-day life. Don't make excuses, just own the moment. It is you that has paved the way to this moment and it is important to be in the driver's seat, no matter the reason. With this, you will gain the respect of your friends, family and peers and open the door to some enormous personal growth.

  Learn how to moderate your activities. Self control is an early lesson in personal development, and it can be one of the most difficult to learn. There are many things in your life that can harm your overall health like smoking, excessive drinking and overeating. Learn how to moderate these bad habits or even kick them completely. By succeeding you are giving yourself more time on the planet to achieve your personal development.

  There are seven secrets to success that will bring about true personal development. They are direction, destination, action, reaction, acceleration, completion and reproduction. Go through these steps in order and make sure to share your success with others. Success becomes more real to you when you can talk about it.

  A great personal development tip is to recognize and admit to yourself that there is a large gap between where your life is currently and where you want it to be. If you do not accept and acknowledge your current situation, you will have no chance of changing and improving your life.

  Define what's most important to you, and let go of the rest. You can be trying really hard to do everything, when the truth is that no one can. When faced with something, ask whether it relates to what is most important in your life. If it isn't, you don't need it.

  Set these tips in motion today to get the greatest benefit out of life. Now that you know some of the best strategies for making a difference in your life, you are prepared to go out and do something new. It is time to reinvent yourself and become the person you've always wanted to be.

[gaiatheorist]

Grant me the confidence...

There’s another round of internet whack-a-mole on the go. Early yesterday there was what the young people call a ‘self-own’, with some man bizarrely stating that he’d never known a hetero woman to be an ‘enthusiastic participant’ during sex. My initial thought was “Well you’re doing sex wrong.”, I suspect many of us came to that conclusion, before the ‘but...’ crept in. If she’s not enthusiastic, is he still continuing? That’s bleak when you think about it, full disclosure here, I have had sexual encounters so awful that I’ve completely detached, and just waited for them to be over. It’s a learned response to previous trauma, relaxed muscles are less likely to be damaged than tensed ones. ‘Brad’ is possibly an example of Germaine Greer’s very poorly articulated line between unsatisfactory sex, and rape. An analogy was used frequently when I was growing up, “It hurts when I do *insert stupid action, like banging your head on a wall.*” “Well stop doing it, then.” My parents, in their misguided way, trying to explain the futility of repeating an unproductive action, and hoping for a different outcome, their version of “If you always do what you’ve always done...”

There are many possible reasons that ‘Brad’ doesn’t feel his female participants are enthusiastic. The most probable is that he’s insensitive to their wants and needs, prioritising his own, and then wondering why he’s not producing ‘When Harry Met Sally’ performances. The second most probable is that he has unrealistic expectations, sit down, Brad, Meg Ryan was acting in that scene, it wasn’t a real orgasm. Some women, in some circumstances, might genuinely react that way, I’m going to make a sweeping generalisation, and assume that most of us don’t, most of the time. (Or, it could be me ‘doing it wrong’, I’ll accept that, if that’s the case.) 

The proliferation of pornography is a part of it, too. I remember when all this was fields, and, yes, you’d occasionally find a discarded porn magazine in one of those fields. The boys would say “Phwoar!”, the girls would say “Yuck, that’s disgusting!”, because that’s what we were supposed to do, conditioned that sex was all about the in-and-out-for-making-babies. Our Mums didn’t like it, they only put up with it because our Dads wanted it, it was a dirty thing, lights off, pull my nightie back down when you’ve finished, and don’t wipe your dick on the curtains. Now, there’s all the porn, none of us are more than a couple of clicks from a dick, and it’s moved on from soggy magazines under hedges, and mysterious unlabelled VHS tapes. I ‘came of age’ during that period, and the less-than-now availability of pornography was still impacting expectations, I have a very clear memory of an ex-boyfriend’s best mate assuming he was ‘in’ with a girl, because ‘everybody’ said she was a slag. They’d decided to have some good, old-fashioned P-in-V on someone’s driveway (classy), and his recount of the experience was “I had to spit on it to get it in.” Vile. I was 17 when it dawned on me that some boys had absolutely no understanding of the mechanics of the female anatomy, and expected us to be ‘ready’ when they were. The women in porn are ‘ready’ straight away.

We’re not the women in porn, though, and I think that’s where the ‘enthusiasm’ misconception has crept in. There’s a gulf between the Penis Beaker people, and the pornography-expectations, as was demonstrated by ‘Scott’ joining the debate, with his insistence that women ‘claim’ to enjoy sex, but are biologically programmed only to do so when they’re fertile. Sit down, ‘Scott’, there’s this not-so-little structure called the clitoris, its only purpose is sexual pleasure, and it doesn’t have that silly old ‘recharge’ period like your apparatus, we can go all day if we want to. (Don’t get me started on the type of bloke who does know where the clitoris is, and demonstrates this by jabbing away at it like he’s trying to re-ignite a dodgy boiler pilot-light.) I’m not here to provide an anatomy lesson to the ‘Scott’ and ‘Brad’ types, the reproductive ‘insert tab A into slot B’ part of their school biology lessons might well have given them the impression that’s all there is to it. 

So, we have ‘Brad’ at one end of the spectrum, repeatedly hitting his own thumb with a hammer, and complaining that his pictures keep falling off the wall, and ‘Scott’ at the other end, insisting that women don’t *really* enjoy sex. I’d like to sit them all down in a room, with Penis Beaker woman, and ‘The correct word is vagina’ Paul, and then just lock the door, and walk away. Human right to freedom of expression, though, even when the expression is quite clearly deluded. ‘To each their own’, she thinks, wrestling with the conundrum that I’m complaining on the internet about other people having differing opinions on the nature of sex and sensuality, when mine haven’t always been clear. 

My opinions and preferences are more clear now than they have ever been, cruel timing on nature’s part, but at least I managed to catch it while my tits still point out, rather than down. For a very, very long time, I had thought that I was ‘broken’, that there was something wrong with me, because not every sexual encounter was full-on bells-and-whistles, and some were worse than that. I had a very long period of being that mute receptacle, waiting for him to finish. I resent that it took me so long to find my ‘no’, and start sleeping in my clothes to deter his demands. I’d been raised to think of sex as something that wives ‘put up with’, and he was very much of the opinion that ‘wifely duty’ was an entitlement. It wasn’t. Especially the way he did it. Some of the responses to ‘Brad’ and ‘Scott’ touch on that, the way some-men whine that partners go cold, or leave, and it just KEEPS happening. Back to “It hurts when I do *this.*”  

I haven’t had ‘many’ sexual partners, but it was always very clear which ones were ‘pre-formatted’ and which were actually responsive. Some of the replies to ‘Brad’ and ‘Scott’ have covered that, just because ‘Susan’ liked it when you did ‘that’, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be a magic wand for every future partner, I hate one-trick ponies. I’m shuddering at one ‘participant’ who seemed pre-programmed to keep doing something after I’d tried to push him away, and told him it wasn’t working for me. In that scenario, I became the ‘unenthusiastic hetero woman’, because I’d backed myself into a corner. Lessons have been learned. 

We learn what we enjoy, and don’t enjoy through experimentation, and communication, not through restrictively-sticking to the same repetitive routine, or by suddenly pulling a ‘new trick’ without checking, especially if it’s one that might cause your partner to scream, and climb out of the window. I’m not advocating pre-fuck agreements in writing, nobody wants that degree of additional admin, but consent is a process, not a single tick-box. ‘Brad’ has done well to notice that his partners haven’t been particularly responsive, he’s one step more evolved than the blokes-in-the-pub I’ve heard, complaining that “It’s like shagging a sack of spuds.” Lads, you can explain the offside rule in infinite detail, but you’re still aiming for the wrong goal if you think porn-sex is how the real thing is going to be.  ‘Scott’ has pulled the “Women don’t enjoy sex.” argument out of his arse, or he might just be having sex with the same women as ‘Brad.’, OR they might both be sleeping with members of the Penis Beaker club.  Women can and do enjoy sex, when we’re active participants, rather than passive receptacles. The whole ‘sex ban’ furore has illustrated how many people still perceive sex as ‘insert tab A into slot B’. “That ain’t it, chief.” as the internet says.

I’m as sorry for ‘Brad’ and ‘Scott’ as I am for the people who think that sex, and sexual intimacy is purely a reproductive function. I can’t imagine ever being enthusiastic about only having sex when the calendar says so. I’m sure some people genuinely do have fulfilling sex lives ‘within the sanctity of marriage’, but to reduce something that can be utterly phenomenal to a purely procreative function saddens me deeply. I won’t criticise people who choose to ‘do it with the lights off’ just because that’s not my personal preference any more than I’d state that anyone who doesn’t is a pervert. (Perverts are brilliant, as long as everything’s consensual and legal.) I will criticise the Brads and Scotts, for stating their skewed opinions as facts. The ‘confidence of a man on the internet’ irritates me, I’ve had an entire lifetime of being ‘told’, mostly by men, frequently by men who don’t know what they’re talking about. The world is a scary, messy place right now, I’m not having Brad and Scott tell me I’m doing sex wrong.