#Trapped in a loop of someone elses devising

[yumenosekai]

“Are you serious? You tricked a demon...For me?” I couldn’t believe it, Bianca wasn’t acting like herself at all. I took the dreams regardless knowing it would do no good to decline, and thanked her. “I honestly don’t know what to do now, I doubt I can just return to life normally.” 

[socially-awkward-chocobo]

Ok, so, the Corrupt Hylia au

Okay, so, out of the four art posts I've made, two of them have been tagged with "Corrupt Hylia au." An au I haven't really talked about that much. I should probably fix that. (Definitely. I mean definitely) Prepare for an info-dump

The Corrupt Hylia au was created when I was reading a fanfic at the same time I saw a post about how Hylia's existence made everything black and white. Some details of it were on my mind and I thought, 'hmmm, the story is too black and white,' and thus an au where Hylia is a manipulative b-tch controlling everything for her perfect hero villain story was born. Fabricating a curse, creating villains, capturing a certain someone to be the hero's "test," all with the Sheikah (but not the Yiga. They defected for a reason and Hylia is half of it.) I'll explain the 5,000 yrs ago plot, since I have that figured out but not the actual plot. It’s gonna be long and under the cut for those interested.

During one of the loops, one where she's there physically to make sure everything stays on track, a Shadow escapes and finds the hero. Lies are revealed, and all goes well until a Sheikah goes there "searching" for the hero and they have to interact with Hylia. Anyways, anyone can tell there's something wrong with Hylia, including the princess. The (corrupt) goddess just has that offsetting aura around her. Link meets here and they formulate a plan when they know they aren't being listened to. Anyways, it takes two years but they get a lot of people on their side. (Ganon, Vaati, Ghirahim, the Twili, Rito, Zora, Goron, and Gerudo) Vaati and Zelda (who have become research buddies) devise a spell to remember past lives - and that's how they learned the curse was fake, because Hylia f-cked around with the first hero's memories a lot, and the spell undid it while keeping those fabricated memories. You may have noticed, but things are going too well.

Anyways, at a parade or festival for who knows what (certainly not me) the Sheikah - who were sharing "experimental" (read: tech they've been hogging) so even people who aren't there can watch it happening. This was all part of a plan made by the Sheikah because (somehow) replaced Ghirahim's earing with one that would mind control him. (think what happened to Ingo in OoT manga.) The plan was to control him and make him wreak havoc, make people not trust him, and by extension, Ganon. That doesn't work, because Link (and Shadow) manage to break the jewel. Hylia tries to do some sort of "what an evil barbaric individual" speech, but Link cuts her off and calls her out on her bullsh-t. Not just about the parade, but about everything - the fake curse, messing around with the first hero’s memories, creating villains for the hero and princess to defeat, having the Sheikah do dirty work in the shadows, manipulating a darkling for the sake of “testing” the hero, controlling the king’s free will - EVERYTHING. And remember those speakers and cameras the Sheikah were sharing? They broadcasted all of it to Hyrule. And because Link had always been a good person, helping people out of the kindness of his heart, a lot of people believed he was telling the truth. This is the start of the war.

The ruined parade is the battlefield, they win and push back Hylia this time because she was caught off guard. But now she knows what's happening, and she is p-ssed. After the start of the rebellion, it is the first time she infuses her magic with malice. A few more battles later, a major one at Korok Forest that gets the forest children involved, and the crew makes the decision to split the Triforce into eight pieces. Ganon, Zant, and Ghirahim each have 1/3 power, Zelda, Midna, and Vaati all have 1/3 wisdom, and Link and Shadow each have 1/2 courage. If Hylia wants the entire Triforce,  they're gonna make her chances of getting it as slim as possible.

One year into the war, and the scales haven't really tipped to either side. But Shadow (who was incapacitated and couldn't come out), Ganon, and Link were up against Hylia. Hylia uses an illusion on Link to make herself look like either a Marin or a past Zelda, and it makes Link freeze up and give Hylia a chance to attack and try to kill Link. Except that Ganon took the hit instead. Link snaps out of it, stuns Hylia, and tries retreating with Ganon. He doesn't get to Ghirahim in time, and so by the time Zelda can heal him, it's too late. With the demoralizing death of Ganon, things start to spiral downhill. Over the next three years they lost Vaati, Zant, and almost Midna. The only small victory that happened was Shadow breaking the mirror the Sheikah had forced bonded them to, and would mean that the Sheikah wouldn't be able to just count on Shadow stumbling out of there when he died anymore. (Shadow thought this meant his next death would be his last.)

Four more years after that, there are more fights and they get pushed back more and more. Somehow (haven't figured out how yet) they get in contact with the main three goddesses (Din, Nayru, Farore) and Hyrule will be sealed underground by them, Hylia with it. They know this won't be permanent, and hope it buys them enough time for the next reincarnation cycle to happen. As they leave, they're being followed by Hylia and the Sheikah. Link and Shadow make a decision to stay behind and make sure Hylia stays underground until the sealing. They know they're going to die doing this, but the worse they hurt Hylia, the longer it will take for her to break the seal.

The other leaders try to argue to let somebody else do it (mainly Zelda and Midna), but Link argues back that Hyrule needs their leaders, and Ghirahim made a promise to Ganon, one he can't keep if he's trapped or dead. So Zelda caves and creates a bow of light with enough charge for five arrows. The other leaders (and Ghira) all add some of their own magic to it, and Link and Shadow head off. The next part is going to be ripped directly from my notes because I'm lazy I don't know how else to phrase it.

Once they get to where the Sheikah are, Shadow immediately starts using the shadows to teleport and starts killing large amounts of them. Link kills whoever is foolish enough to attack him head-on swiftly with the Master Sword. They carve a path to Hylia.

The fight with Hylia is long and brutal. It is clear now that Hylia is using malice and is clearly affected by it. Malice-like pink is spreading on her along with one of her eyes becoming a malice eye. And it has not done anything for her sanity.

Hylia sends a lethal blast of light magic into Shadow and Link is covered in Malice injuries

Link gets separated from the Master Sword. Hylia is about to land the finishing blow on him when Shadow - who is currently dying btw - picks up the Master Sword (which is actively burning his hands and speeding up his death) and stabs her from behind. Shadow says something and Link uses the Light Bow. One shot in the head, one shot in the throat, one shot in the heart, one shot in the stomach, and one shot right on the master sword - which causes a beam affect that they learned about in one of the war’s earlier battles. Hylia isn’t dead, but she won’t be recovering for a while.

Link and Shadow share some final words before dying.

I still need to figure out the actual plot and stuff, but uh, if you read to the end, I hope you enjoyed! ^_^ 

(Ps: if there’s anything triggering or stuff, ask for me to tag and I will)

[statticscribbles]

Mercy Quest

Summary: Kurtz/Reader; When you’re freed from the Sisters you return to the only thing you know TW: Violence, threatening language, bodily harm

You’re hesitant when Betty appears dressed as the Gryphon Queen, the cloak and her headdress are wrong but you decide the chance at getting out is worth following a liar. When you step into the night, seeing her smiling at Ethel, you can feel rage bubbling under your skin; you tense, stepping forward; you’re not sure what attacking her would accomplish but you know it will feel good. You’re about to move forward when a figure catches your eye, he’s hovering behind their line of sight smirking as he puts a finger to his lips. You step back, anger draining enough for you to see him clearer, you watch as he holds up a copy of gryphon’s and gargoyles; you look to where Betty and Ethel are trying to round everyone up; and you follow the boy into the shadows.

“What were you doing in there?” He hums fingers playing with your hair, you look up half asleep already and you shrug. “My parents said I had behaviour problems; and the doctors said I didn’t have anything wrong with me except when I got too sad I hurt myself; so I wasn’t allowed to be alone.” “Okay, so I wont leave you alone.” He grins tilting your chin as he kisses you.

You wake crying, to feel his arms around you, hand over your mouth; you know you’re being too loud. You sniffle trying your best to quiet as he pulls you against his chest hand moving from your mouth into your hair as you sob into his shoulder. “Hush, it’s alright; it’s alright. Just a bad dream; just a bad dream.” He repeats automatically and you can feel him jump when you start talking. “He took you; you died. You’re mine, not supposed to be taken; mine.” You hiss nails digging into back and he smirks. “Easy there, the king has a plan for us remember, he wanted us to ascend together.” “No. I want to stay here with you. Just us.”  He hushes you with a kiss and you pull away frowning.

“Don’t you want me?” His finger’s trace the scars along your arms. “You’re not mine to want. You’ve spend so much time trapped there; it’s not fair for me to keep you here like a pet.” “I want to stay with you. Please; please let me stay.” “Would playing a game help?”You nod and he pulls out his rule book. “Now; you’re the druid correct?” You nod scooting forward and Kurtz pulls you into his lap as he reads to you.

You spend most nights like this, curled in his arms reading the manuals and devising quests for each other; he offers you an off board quest; something to soothe your ‘druid nature’ he explains. “De-fang the wolf cub?” He grins nodding and you find the boy running through the woods; you must look as dishevelled as he does because he grabs your hands and leads you in a doubled backed loop until he comes to the abandoned house. You know he doesn’t know its yours. “We should be safe here.” He mumbles and you nod following him confused why he’s so trusting. “What’re you doing out in this forest anyways.” “The uh, Sister’s of Quiet Mercy they-“

“Oh right that creepy prison mental hospital church place that got shut down; Jesus you really look the part either way. So you play G&G?” He grins and you nod. “I’m a level seven Thief.” His smile darkens and your eyes light up. “I’m a level seven druid!” “Oh we match level’s I should see if we match other things.” His hand moves up your thigh and before you can say anything Kurtz has pulled him back shoving him on the ground foot over his throat. “You ever touch her like that; well, actually we won’t need to worry about that.” He grins and nods, you grab the plier’s he’d given you and nervously walk over to them. “You’re a little big for a Wolf-cub but beggars can’t be choosers.” You kneel down and watch as he struggles. You run your hand through his hair. “Shh; it’s alright, just a few fangs is all; just a few fangs.” You cover his eyes as you force his mouth open; you hate how sad he looks.

He’ll save us won’t he?” You turn watching Kurtz as he paces in the living room of the abandoned house. “Hmm, well your name is on the sacrifice list; maybe we can take it off if we exchange it for someone else.” “I put it there.” You smile triumphantly nervous as Kurtz jerks forward pressing you against the wall. “You said you wouldn’t leave me! Being a sacrifice; that’s leaving!” He snaps pulling you forward into a kiss before shoving you down on the mattress. You don’t struggle as he crawls on top of you. “I thought I was the Game Master. You need to follow my rules do you understand?” You nod as he pulls back before nudging your foreheads together so you look him in the eyes; you can feel one of his hands pulling your arms up straining them as he pins them down. “You follow my rules. Understand.”

“Yes.” “You will not be a sacrifice. You will not die unless I kill you myself.” His hand tightens around your wrists and his free hand moves shoving the dress you’re wearing up around your waist. “Don’t you want to be good for your Game Master? Don’t you want to ascend?”

You don’t argue when Kurtz tells you he’s leaving the house and you have to stay there. You know what will happen if you leave; Betty and the others will find you and you won’t get to ascend or ever play G&G again. So you stay quiet and you stay hidden. When the Gargoyle King himself appears, his hands reaching out for you, you curl into his chest and he hums as he directs you where to go. It’s the middle of the night; the safest time to travel. You avert your eyes when he removes his mask. “Look at me Y/N.”

“Kurtz.” You breathe out in awe and he smirks. “Game Master is king; remember.” He winks and you nod following him from the house towards what looks to be a hunting lodge. If you want to be a sacrifice; one you shall be.” He grins. “Hush Y/N. Hush. This will only take a moment; stop squirming.” Penelope looks unconcerned from the chair she lounges in. “Oh come now, you wanted this; don’t lie and try to get out of it.” She rolls her eyes; you watch nervously as the Gargoyle King moves from in front of the fire; the iron rod in his hands glowing a blinding orange. You’re surprised you don’t scream; confused that there’s no smell of burning; it’s not till you wake up that you even realized you passed out from the pain.

“We have to finish the game.” You nod to the rest of the Gargoyles who look around at each other. “Listen; Y/N you know it’s a game right? That it-“ “It’s real!” They quiet nodding as they cast a look as Kurtz walks in glaring. “Kurtz; sir.” You snicker and Kurtz rolls his eyes hand drifting around your neck as he leans forward arms incircling you as you sit on the chair as the Gargoyle speaks, muffled under his mask. “Yes?” “The Jones’ their; quest, has been set up.” “We have all the pieces?” He looks up as one of the gargoyles shoves a woman forward. “Penny is it?”

“Listen you little piss ant-“ Kurtz smirks when you shove yourself up towards her teeth bared. “You’ll forgive our Druid; a little too much time in the forest communing with the animals messes you up; as you can see.” Kurtz hums and you return to his side watching the woman who looks pale. “She’s one of the kids from Mercy isn’t she.” “You heard about all of ‘em getting taken to that chop shop yeah?” Penny swallows. “Wild animals don’t belong on farms.” He laughs and you grin with him tracking Penny who seems annoyed. “Listen kid.” She approaches you later that night and you watch her for a moment. “What they got you on. Fizzle rocks? Jangle? G? Some unholy combination of the three?” You grin shaking your head. “There’s no fuckin’ way you’re sober.”

“Why you think I was in Mercy’s? It’s a hospital to you know.” You grin more and step forward she looks unimpressed. “You know you can’t hurt me; I’m useful and-“ “To the quest; you can be useful and be injured before they play.” You grin darting forward her hand clamps over your arm and you yelp. You grin when she’s slammed back Kurtz snarling corralling you back towards the bed you share. You reappear to Penny hours later you try not to laugh when she backs up looking behind you to try to spot Kurtz. “Mercy ain’t the only one’s that keep animals; Gargoyles like having pet snakes too.”

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[richincolor]

The Rich in Color bloggers got together and compiled a list of some of our favorite YA books that came out in the last year-ish for Black History Month. How many of these have you read? What are some of your recent favorite books by Black authors?

Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett Knopf Books for Young Readers || Audrey’s review

In a community that isn’t always understanding, an HIV-positive teen must navigate fear, disclosure, and radical self-acceptance when she falls in love—and lust—for the first time. Powerful and uplifting, Full Disclosure will speak to fans of Angie Thomas and Nicola Yoon.

Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She’s making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she’s HIV-positive, because last time . . . well, last time things got ugly.

Keeping her viral load under control is easy, but keeping her diagnosis under wraps is not so simple. As Simone and Miles start going out for real—shy kisses escalating into much more—she feels an uneasiness that goes beyond butterflies. She knows she has to tell him that she’s positive, especially if sex is a possibility, but she’s terrified of how he’ll react! And then she finds an anonymous note in her locker: I know you have HIV. You have until Thanksgiving to stop hanging out with Miles. Or everyone else will know too.

Simone’s first instinct is to protect her secret at all costs, but as she gains a deeper understanding of the prejudice and fear in her community, she begins to wonder if the only way to rise above is to face the haters head-on…

The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis Tor Teen || K. Imani’s Review

Westworld meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this stunning fantasy adventure from debut author Charlotte Nicole Davis.

Aster, the protector Violet, the favorite Tansy, the medic Mallow, the fighter Clementine, the catalyst

THE GOOD LUCK GIRLS

The country of Arketta calls them Good Luck Girls–they know their luck is anything but. Sold to a “welcome house” as children and branded with cursed markings. Trapped in a life they would never have chosen.

When Clementine accidentally murders a man, the girls risk a dangerous escape and harrowing journey to find freedom, justice, and revenge in a country that wants them to have none of those things. Pursued by Arketta’s most vicious and powerful forces, both human and inhuman, their only hope lies in a bedtime story passed from one Good Luck Girl to another, a story that only the youngest or most desperate would ever believe.

It’s going to take more than luck for them all to survive.

I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest Roaring Brook Press || Jessica’s Review

When Chloe Pierce’s mom forbids her to apply for a spot at the dance conservatory of her dreams, she devises a secret plan to drive two hundred miles to the nearest audition. But Chloe hits her first speed bump when her annoying neighbor Eli insists upon hitching a ride, threatening to tell Chloe’s mom if she leaves him and his smelly dog, Geezer, behind. So now Chloe’s chasing her ballet dreams down the east coast―two unwanted (but kinda cute) passengers in her car, butterflies in her stomach, and a really dope playlist on repeat.

Filled with roadside hijinks, heart-stirring romance, and a few broken rules, I Wanna Be Where You Are is a YA debut perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Sandhya Menon.

Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds Katherine Tegan Books || K. Imani’s Review

Jack Ellison King. King of Almost.

He almost made valedictorian.

He almost made varsity.

He almost got the girl . . .

When Jack and Kate meet at a party, bonding until sunrise over their mutual love of Fruit Loops and their favorite flicks, Jack knows he’s falling—hard. Soon she’s meeting his best friends, Jillian and Franny, and Kate wins them over as easily as she did Jack. Jack’s curse of almost is finally over.

But this love story is . . . complicated. It is an almost happily ever after. Because Kate dies. And their story should end there. Yet Kate’s death sends Jack back to the beginning, the moment they first meet, and Kate’s there again. Beautiful, radiant Kate. Healthy, happy, and charming as ever. Jack isn’t sure if he’s losing his mind. Still, if he has a chance to prevent Kate’s death, he’ll take it. Even if that means believing in time travel. However, Jack will learn that his actions are not without consequences. And when one choice turns deadly for someone else close to him, he has to figure out what he’s willing to do—and let go—to save the people he loves.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi Make Me a World

Pet is here to hunt a monster. Are you brave enough to look?

There are no more monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. With doting parents and a best friend named Redemption, Jam has grown up with this lesson all her life. But when she meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colours and claws, who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and a drop of Jam’s blood, she must reconsider what she’s been told. Pet has come to hunt a monster, and the shadow of something grim lurks in Redemption’s house. Jam must fight not only to protect her best friend, but also to uncover the truth, and the answer to the question-How do you save the world from monsters if no one will admit they exist?

In their riveting and timely young adult debut, acclaimed novelist Akwaeke Emezi asks difficult questions about what choices a young person can make when the adults around them are in denial.

The Revolution of Birdie Randolph by Brandy Colbert Little Brown Books for Young Readers || K. Imani’s Review

Perfect for fans of Nina LaCour and Nicola Yoon comes a novel about first love and family secrets from Stonewall Book Award winner Brandy Colbert.

Dove “Birdie” Randolph works hard to be the perfect daughter and follow the path her parents have laid out for her: She quit playing her beloved soccer, she keeps her nose buried in textbooks, and she’s on track to finish high school at the top of her class. But then Birdie falls hard for Booker, a sweet boy with a troubled past…whom she knows her parents will never approve of.

When her estranged aunt Carlene returns to Chicago and moves into the family’s apartment above their hair salon, Birdie notices the tension building at home. Carlene is sweet, friendly, and open-minded–she’s also spent decades in and out of treatment facilities for addiction. As Birdie becomes closer to both Booker and Carlene, she yearns to spread her wings. But when long-buried secrets rise to the surface, everything she’s known to be true is turned upside down.

Say Her Name by Zetta Elliott Disney || Crystal’s Review

Say her name and solemnly vow Never to forget, or allow Our sisters’ lives to be erased; Their presence cannot be replaced. This senseless slaughter must stop now.

Award-winning author Zetta Elliott engages poets from the past two centuries to create a chorus of voices celebrating the creativity, resilience, and courage of Black women and girls. Inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, these poems pay tribute to victims of police brutality as well as the activists championing the Black Lives Matter cause. This compelling collection reveals the beauty, danger, and magic found at the intersection of race and gender.

Slay by Brittney Morris Simon Pulse || Group Discussion

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

[stattic-writes]

Mercy Quest

https://statticscribbles.tumblr.com/post/639099629845233664/masterlist

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[amethyst-noir]

Do you have any head canons for serious, hardcore Stephen angst? It seems so lacking in the fandom! Maybe, after Endgame (Tony lives AU) Stephen's mental health seriously deteriorates and after possibly 14000000 existences being in love with Tony (they're just acquaintances in their timeline), he uses a portal and Tony ends up with a delirious, crazed Doctor Strange in his workshop.

I’m horrible out of the loop concerning the latest WIPs in our corner of fandom - I’ve bookmarked at lot of them and now wait for the chance to read them. But it saddens me that there is a lack ofhardcore Stephen angst because that’s my favorite genre, along with h/c and a happy end.

I like your idea, anon! Very much! If you don’t mind I’ll keep it because now I kind of want to write a shortsnipped based on it. 💞

Back to your question - I have quitea few headcanons, actually. One of the ideas I had almost a year ago but put away because it’s sooo over the top goes as follows:

Stephen is a mental and physical wreck. The searching out of the one true timeline™ took a lot out of him and injured him on a soul-deep level and the fight against Thanos damaged his body pretty badly. The wounds have barely begun to heal but there is no rest forhim.

Thanos might be gone but now a lot of other, partly interdimensional threats, have woken up and started to pay attention to Earth. Stephen is the first in a very thin line of defense andhe’s ruining himself even further trying to stay on top of things but there is only so much even he can accomplish.

Wong - and the Rest of Kamar-Taj - do their best to help and support him but there’s no denying the fact that Stephen is the strongest and most inventive of all of them.

There has been no contact between Stephen and Tony since Thanos’ defeat since Tony exploded in his face afterwards because of pain and pent-up frustration. Stephen, of course, took itto heart and it hasn’t been helping his overall condition.

Tony, as soon as he had a little bit of time to process things and started thinking clearly again, felt bad for his harsh words but pride and the fact that he doesn’t know how to contact Stephen have kept them from meeting again so far.

A few months later “something” happens that’s so world-threatening that the current Avengers need all hands-on deck – including the retired Iron Man and all the magical help they can get. Stephen, of course, shows up himself. He’s not really himself and Tony is surprised at how quiet Stephen is and how he keeps in the background. The man barely manages to meet his eyes, for heaven’s sake, and only speaks up when directly spoken to. He’s distant and seems to be barely there. Tony is disappointed and forced to acknowledge that he missed Stephen’s particular kind of snark in his life and that maybe he was a little bit too harsh right after the dust hadn’t even settled on the battlefield.

They play hide-and-seek for a while because Stephen always vanishes the moment he can and seems to avoid Tony atall costs. Tony’s words have hurt him deeply, mostly because he knows that they are all true. He played with Infinity Stones and semi-gods, he doomed half the universe to death for 5 years and decades of grueling recovery now. He came out of 14.000.605 timelines deeply in love with Tony but every time he looks at him he’s reminded about what he did and how Tony condemned him for it. He half expects Tony to bring it up again, completely missing the signs that Tony wantsto talk to him one equal to another to try to sort through his complex mess of emotions and that there is not much if any anger left in him.

Tony realizes that Stephen isn’t well but before he can hunt the man down and ask questions the situation escalates into some big battle and Stephen uses most of his already very depleted reserves to help as best as he can. Nobody notices but FRIDAY, who isput on “watch the wizard” duty alerts Tony that Stephen’s life signs are slipping into the danger zone.

Tony searches for but doesn’t find Stephen, who has created a portal into the enemy’s lair to defeat the evil at its root. He knows that he’ll probably won’t return but really? He hasn’t got much time left anyway. Magic is burning up his body at an alarming rate and this is a good way to go out.

Tony, of course, finds the portal and follows Stephen into another dimension before he can talk himself out of it. He finds Stephen engaged with the enemy - Stephen isn’t holding back because he knows that this will be his last battle and so he can throw everything at that thing without thinking about keeping himself safe.

The display of sheer power is amazing and Tony, who comes in right in the middle, realizes just how insanely strong Stephen is. Despite that he swoops in to help Stephen. They work together flawlessly, just like they did on Titan, and manage to defeat theirenemy.

Stephen collapses immediately afterwards and so does the portal home. Now Tony is trapped in another dimension with an unconscious, possible dying, Stephen and no way home.

Tony manages to stabilize Stephen and is horrified when his scans reveal just how bad Stephen’s overall state of health is. He remembers the way Stephen hid from him and how he didn’t even manage to look into Tony’s eyes and fears that he’s part of the problem. He barely remembers what he screamed at Stephen back while Stephen took his words to heart and flagellated himself daily with them.

When Stephen finally sort-of wakes up he’s confused and panics when he sees Tony. It takes Tony a while to calm him down enough to explain the situation but Stephen’s too weak now to conjure a portal home. Tony swallows down the bitter words that want to escape and tells Stephen to rest and gather his strength.

“Just one more time,” he promises Stephen. “And then you can rest and recover.”

Stephen doesn’t say anything to that but his whole face makes it clear that there won’t be any rest for him until he drops dead. But he closes his eyes, turns his head away and pretends to fall asleep before Tony can react. Tony doesn’t say anything on the off-chance that Stephen really fell asleep. But he scoots just a little bit closer and retracts his armor fully so that their bodies can touch.

Stephen flinches a little bit, which breaks Tony’s heart, but he doesn’t move away. He falls into an exhausted sleep shortly afterwards and wakes up with Tony’s hand on his arm and the man sleeping. When he tries to extract himself Tony wakes up.

Stephen panics and moves away. He refuses any help and forces himself to his knees, conjuring a portal. “Here. A way home for you.” Go and leave me alone, is left unspoken but Tony hears it anyway. “I don’t know how long I can hold it open.” Stephen’s alreadyshowing signs of collapsing again and Tony is at his side, holding him upright, in a heartbeat.

“Not without you.”

But Stephen’s already lost consciousness again. Tony gathers all his courage and carries him through the collapsing portal back to Earth. His plan is to give Stephen over into Wong’s safe-keeping - and yell at the man for not taking better care of Stephen - but instead of the expected battlefield he finds himself back in the Sanctum. Stephen conjured a portal to his home in his pain and fear. The Cloak leavesStephen’s shoulders to show Tony the way to Stephen’s bedroom and Tony’s stuck with Stephensitting duty until someone else shows up.

There’s no way he’s letting Stephen go now, he realizes while he waits for Wong to come back and Stephen to wake up. He only has to make Stephen understand that he doesn’t hate him and that he’s sorry for what he said back then.

Eventually, Wong shows up and Tonydiscovers just what a wreck Stephen really is. Wong sees how Tony looks at Stephen and his anger towards Tony vanishes completely when Tony tells him about what they went through.

Over the next few days and weeks, while Stephen is mostly sleeping and not really coherent when he’s awake, Wong and Tony devise plans on how to make Stephen’s burden lighter. Stephen needs someone to take care of him in a way Wong simply can’t and Tony loves nothing more than to take care of people while Stephen needs someone to take care of him. Someone who will make him his number one priority in life.

Tony can be that person, Wong realizes to his delight. No, Stephen doesn’t get a vote, they both decide, because he’s an idiot who’ll rather die than ask for help. Literally.

When Stephen’s finally awake enough to get what’s going on he has to discover that Tony fucking Stark more or less moved into the bedroom next to his and that he’s now benched from his duties as Sorcerer Supreme until Wong finds him fit for duty again.

He forgets all about being pissed because Tony proceeds to heap tons of attention on him and it quickly becomesclear just how compatible the two of them are. Tony tells Stephen over and over again how sorry he is and that he didn’t mean the things he said back then, that he was hurting and exhausted and begs for Stephen’s forgiveness on a daily basis while showing him casual affection that gradually becomes more and more intimate.

Stephen slowly begins to heal but the road to full recovery - or as full as he’s capable of - will be long. He still can’t quite believe that Tony will never leave, no matter what the man himself says.

Tony is by now just as much in love with Stephen as Stephen is with him. He doesn’t say anything because he realizes that Stephen’s not ready to hear and believe it yet. So he stays, takes care of Stephen and tries to show him that he’s worthy of love and affection.

The whole story ends when they finally share their first kiss after weeks if not months of mutual pining and slow recovery, with Stephen in Tony’s arms. Where he belongs.

💫

I think it’s crystal clear why I never wrote the actual fic version of this thing, right? 🤣 But hey, you wanted angst, anon, and angst you shall have…

[sagebaileyspeaks]

Dora and the Lost City of Gold

What can I say, this movie was fun (more fun than The Lion King.) Whoever cast Isabela Moner in the lead role deserves all the praise because she is PERFECT. I can buy into the unrelenting positivity and optimism because Moner just seems very happy to be there. She's exactly what I'd expect a teenage Dora to be. 

The best word to describe this movie is sincere. It would've been so easy to slap "Dora the Explorer" on a movie and make it a parody of what it once was but they don't and the movie never reaches that level of cynicism. 

Because let's be real here, as someone who is a person of color but not Latinx, I understand that Dora is a pretty significant figure to Mexican families. For the past twenty years, she has been (and hell, may remain) the most well-recognized figure in children's media that is focused on Mexican/Latinx culture. They could've sexualized her, downplayed her culture or any number of things to make it more profitable but they don't, and in this regard it is authentic. 

It feels like Dora. In the same way that The Rugrats Movie felt like Rugrats or The Spongebob Squarepants Movie felt like Spongebob. My point here being, it stays true to its roots. 

Now that said, this movie is better than it deserves to be. We all remember Dora. The premise of the show was that it was a computer game where Dora educates the viewer and is constantly talking to them. There's been many a joke made about this. And the movie plays with this expectation by immediately discarding it. I mean the opening scene is the theme song with Dora and Diego and holy hell did the talking backpack and map scare the shit out of me. They - very randomly - pop up and I mean literally. Dora is swinging on a vine when out of nowhere you see eyes appear on her backpack and it goes, "I'm a singing backpack" and then the map gets eyes and it says, "And I'm a singing map," then they go back to being inanimate objects. But of course, the backpack and map don't actually sing, it's made very clear that those are aspects of her imagination. But Boots is real and so is Swiper. Which begs to question, there are talking animals in this universe - and literal f*cking magic (more on that later) - but the backpack and map don't consistently talk? 

So Boots is in this movie. He does not wear boots, but at the end of the second act he talks. Not in a cute little monkey voice either. He is fully on Danny Trejo and it is hilarious. Swiper is also in this movie and looks exactly like his cartoon counterpart. He can talk and humans actually hear him which is bizarre because no one can hear Boots talk but Dora. Anyway Swiper is equally funny and omg, in the middle of the second act they sniff these hallucinogenic flowers and for five minutes the movie turns into the cartoon.

See the movie tricked me. In one scene, one of the characters almost dies (as much as one can die in a Dora the Explorer movie) and when he's rescued he says over and over, "I almost died. I'm a bad guy. I'm a bad guy." Now I thought this was a red herring, because, why else would they have him announce this in the middle of the movie? But no. After Dora saves this guys life - multiple times - he reveals that he is a mercenary after her parents. And it threw me for a loop because when he's first introduced I suspected he was a bad guy, but then after he says it outright, I thought, "okay no, he can't be." Way to subvert expectations (but also reinforce them) movie. Oh and, it is jarring to have Dora actually devise a plan wherein she realizes the bad guy WILL kill them and walks him into a trap where he essentially kills himself (but it's Dora guys, so he doesn't die.)

Oh and also, magic exists in this movie. It incorporates Mexican folklore and Inca language very nicely but that also means there is a literal goddess in this City of Gold and the movie never actually questions it. 

Did I mention this movie is better than it deserves to be? There are two things I didn't like: I think the relationship between Diego and Sammy is forced and I could've done without the poop joke but outside of that, this movie is a great adaptation (remake? reboot?) of the original cartoon. My seven-year-old certainly enjoyed it.   

And can we just applaud having more B movies with the cast being primarily people of color? Every movie does not have to be Boyz In the Hood or The Color Purple. We should be allowed fun, popcorn movies too and that's what Dora and the Lost City of Gold is. A family-friendly, fun, popcorn movie that everyone is sure to enjoy. 

B+ 

Definitely recommend. 

[jockedguy]

[Prime Directive] and you are nursing and encouraging the flames of your fetish to grow.  Immersed in the anodyne glow of a screen, your eyes hungrily darting over the pictures and the words - usually late at night, with your glasses off, so that you can focus.  And all that focus builds up inside your skull, like a cumulonimbus cloud reaching its anvil head - and maybe you jerk off to relieve the pressure, maybe you fall asleep and have turbulent dreams of transformation and change.  You wake up every day feeling like someone else.

Or perhaps every day you wake up and you are someone else.  Who’s to say what occurs in our bodies and minds while we are unconscious, vulnerable in our beds.  Our brain hums at a lower rate, but still it receives input, stimulus - and that stimulus is catalogued somewhere deep, down in the archives of your memory and your mind.  This is the vault which loosens and lets slip what you say in your hypnagogic state just prior to sleep, or what you might slur when having indulged with too much alcohol, while the stars are wheeling above your lolling head. 

And this is where you go when he puts you down.  When your hand is lighter than a balloon, lighter than air, and oh how it floats so easily, like a feather on a light breeze, up, up, up.  He slides into the vault, like a master thief, marauding the sub-basement of your brain.  He does it with ease and efficiency, with a casual smile.  He leafs through the pages of your desires, ingests them.  When he exits, he divulges nothing, but that casual smile is fixed. 

It makes you feel a little small, especially in his presence.  You find yourself liking the feeling, which is new.  You regard the feeling with a quizzical glance, examining it.  It’s not that he has suddenly grown taller, or that you have shrunk, but something fundamental has changed about your relationship.  You may not be actually looking up at him, but you are looking up at him.  Your gaze falls to his muscles more often than not.  The curve and sweep of his delts and traps, especially, like the foothills of giant, glacier-carved boulders.  The sturdy thickness of his neck and back.  You kiss with a little less trepidation, mouth opening where before the lips and jaw were wired shut.  He easily enters you with his tongue.

Casual conversation is never casual with him - every word is loaded with a depth charge.  A morning beginning at the breakfast table suddenly transitions to an afternoon laying in bed with one another, fingers idly tracing muscle contours.  Your brain is sluggish and your mouth is slightly dry, and you have no recollection of the hours between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM.  Before you know it, you are both in bed, suffused by the covers, and he is holding your shoulders down, eyes glinting in the dark.

Memory and time are foolish, fickle constructs - they shift like a house built on sand, beset by hurricane winds.  Your identity yesterday is different than your identity today.  You are a mirror, reflecting his desires.  You push and pull and strain and tear your muscles at the gym together.  Monkey see, monkey do.  You go about your workouts silently and with an implicit understanding of your primary directives.  If you are a drone, he is a programmer drone.  You are both machines, but he functions on a higher level.  You execute programs, he devises them.  You would fail the Turing Test - and, considering the notion,  a secret, dark thrill inside of you is both surprising and not, simultaneously. 

Oh, of course you both have our lives that you live.  Mask identities.  You work like any other person - go to your dayjobs.  You commute on the subway in a busy city.  Your eyes constantly scanning the peoplescape, identifying and cataloguing visual cues to fulfill your prime directive.  Corded muscle, emblazoned with tattoos.  Perhaps just a sick fit.  [Brand identity mask initiated.]  He’s more Nike, you’re more adidas.  Sometimes you both end up in black shirts, sleeveless to display the evidence of your prime directive.  You’ve been leaning out.  He tells you that you might be more Crossfit, and he’s more straight up bodybuilder.  You do not question the input, and when you wake up next, that piece of information and text is what sinks into place in the endless scrolling lines of your personality.  You are twins, though you look nothing alike, and your thought patterns scroll in largely the same way.

Your desires are beginning to dovetail.  The meals are all programmed to a purpose.  For growth.  The idea is to turn the human into a machine.  A machine which can serve a purpose and achieve a goal.  Endless scrolling lines of programming code.  No motion of the eye without a purpose.  Constantly scanning for more stimulus.  The program continues, as it was not conceived with an endpoint.  Only more growth, more change, more transformation, will continue to occur.  The anodyne screen-glow flickers, and your brain-mind ingests the content, the pictures, the text, the advice.  And all the while, he is whispering into the port genetically engineered in the side of your head, whispering more codes, more input

// LOOP TO START

[sukunakayo]

Iffy About Morality

> martial law sentiments and the modern anarchistic "activists"

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE, AND I AM BACK WITH A VENGEANCE. good day, folks. have a seat as i talk to you about how you are repeating the past, rather than changing it, and this time, you are the ineffable destroyer of humankind, from inside and out.

i often said that there isn't really any argument that is right or wrong, as everything has its own underlying factors as to why it came to a certain point, however, i was lurking around this one post at a group, and saw some rather distasteful comments aimed to "criticize" the owner of the said post which denotes the "good doings" of the former dictator president ferdinand marcos.

indeed, it's truly disheartening that there is a multitude of people humanizing a murderer, a dictator who stole lives from those who wanted to be the voice of the masses who are silenced by their own fear imposed by the government which was supposed to protect its constituents. but let me ask you this—tell me, what is a monster to you? why is that monster, a monster?

to me, monstrous is a being which silences a brilliant mind with a light so twisted that it burns rather than illuminates. monstrous is a being who feigns compassion, and argue with underlying slander. monstrous is a being who hides in a sheep's wool to rule in such a dysfunctional way, manipulating the minds of the easily controlled.

yes, in my eyes, marcos is also a monster, in the sense that he is a mass murderer, a silencer, a ruthless dictator whose rules only favored the rich and the wealthy, someone who is utterly off-kilter with his morals. however, god kills everyday, and aren't we all created in his image? but that's that. such monstrosity is already a detritus, nothing but a worm-feed.

"the sins of the father are not the sins of the son" is such a misused argument about bbm. that concept does not solely apply to politics, and it somehow makes those who try to create a better world and follows a path different from their parents irrelevant and just wayward by being linked to a person such as bbm. it's going to do nothing but create a domino effect, which would later on lead to being an argument regarding mental health and give the people who actually suffer from it a bad reputation, and create a new stigma. do not ever make it about that.

sure, it's somehow right, some arguments are, because it's not really bbm who did the laundering, he isn't the one who devised such plans. the thing is, he has his own sins he should be held accountable for, and it's not being macoy's son, making him take the blame for those things his father did. indeed, he was no longer a child when all of that happened, but it still does not justify the fact that you are making him pay for it. it will not change anything, it's just you reviving the past wherein macoy tortured the ancestors of today's activists. how true it is that history repeats itself, in the worst way possible, by unknowingly turning into the very monster you abhor in the name of vengeance and twisted justification of morality.

going back to the subject of today's commentary, yes, it's you, the commentors of that post—you are all repeating history, and in the darkest, most hypocritical way. i know a handful of people in that post, and most are "advocates" for mental health. what a shame to know you all, being the hidden villains within the society. your concept of vengeance and justice are so twisted and mislead, having never fully understood these things you claim you know of so well. there's so much that you had to see before you could claim that you are "putting it out there" again, exactly how it has been, in attempts of avenging the fallen freedom fighters. shouldn't you create something else than going back into a full circle?

bbm's sin is that he is an enabler. his mother was supposed to be in jail, but we all know where the old wench is. during his father's reign, there was a mapuan who told aimee marcos that she isn't fit to be a youth leader; that young mapuan never saw the light again. bbm knew things, but he did not do anything. that is what he should be crucified for. that is what you should hold him accountable for.

there is a shit ton of enablers in this country, yet i don't see you being just as pressed. i don't see you all doing so to your friends who do so in various ways and aspects. if you were to kill all enablers, you'd all die. after all, you cannot fully grasp the concepts of democracy, vengeance, and peace. you are all enablers in a sense. and yes, i am as well. we all die. isn't it in your best interest that we stand in equal grounds?

i saw a comment that said one does not need to prepare their mental health if you are open to criticisms and learning, especially that there are historical evidences presented. i kid you not when i say i cackled at that, because the person who commented it claimed to be an advocate of mental health. funny how you enable such distasteful arguments where your people diss the poster in the most humiliating way, calling them "tanga", "bobo", and the likes. is that how a student leader should act? you should be fighting for a proper argumentative debate. you should propose that.

what was that? oh, right. you lost. good riddance, because if i were to be someone forced to follow you for your advocacies, i'd be damned, being an enabler regarding the factors of deterioration of mental health. do you even know how the human mind works? i think not, because for you to say it, you seem to think that the slightest snide comments will not affect the mental stability of a person. enabling such a diss-filled argument is such a hypocritical move for a "mental health advocate".

anywho, you know what you all should focus on? your concept of "change". because the change you wanted to bring is a roundabout of what marcos did—silencing without a proper fight. if you wanted absolute change, you have to stray from the path that has made it that way. what you have to do is pay your ancestors forward, focus on helping those who were brutalized than yapping at those who does not give two cents at what you are fighting for. there was a tweet that said "sa lahat ng ibinabato nyo sa mga marcos, ni isa wala kayong narinig pabalik sa inyo." exactly. they do not care. focus your energy on something else. something more worthwhile.

your ancestors' sacrifices are meant to open the eyes of your generation to the fact that the cycle will never stop if you retrace the things exactly the way it was, as if turning tables. you are to see that there is so much more to be done, because those killers have a linear path. those who haven't tasted blood have a myriad of choices on what steps to take. blood is powerful, blood is binding. it is dark and addicting. no, i am not saying that their deaths are to be taken as a lesson, but rather clues to the path that should be taken and steps to be done.

you aren't meant to "turn tables". you are supposed to create new tables, because if you just turn it, it will just keep on turning. it is a round table in the world of politics and morality—it does not have any relation with each other at all, thus it is a circle, and has no corners to cut whatever's out there. you're the ones supposed to do the cutting, not turning it—it's never gonna cut anyone.

do not just turn the tables and trap yourselves in a history loop. cut it. destroy it. create a new table where you hold all the aces. that is where the change you want is at. that is where the revenge you seek is. do not touch the table where your ancestors' dreams were butchered on.

one does not heal in the place they were hurt and defeated.

[litlebluebirb]

What's Mornington Crescent? (You totally don't need to explain if you don't want to though)

Oh, anon, you have asked The Question.

Mornington Crescent is a textured, deep, ancient and much-loved British game, based on the map of the London Underground. It’s as strategic as chess, as versatile as go, and as competitive as late-night Magic: The Gathering after several pints of whatever that thing is they serve at the student union bar.

Or, if you ask someone else, the whole thing is a big joke started on a BBC radio comedy panel show, “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue”, a long time ago, and you just make it up as you go along.

Here’s a list of variations from the unofficial ISIHAC website, including such gems as the “Bethlehem Rules” (”All Shepherd, King, and Ass related connections count double”), and the “Watling Street Variation” (”Players may only take the direct route between any two given points. Thus, looped moves are disallowed, and the Circle Line is out of bounds. And you may Huff”). They also link a short example game with a novice, where all the moves were explained:

graemeThe traditional opener, like the King’s pawn really - Oxford Circus, well in the zone, and gives you limited access to Northern parallels. But I suppose it is technically laying an off-side trap there. Force the next player into Knip if he is not very careful.

timSo I have to go Vauxhall. Basically, things have changed slightly since the Millennium Bridge was put there, so you can back double. So it is basically a Reverse move.

barryI’m going Regents Street, because that is bridging Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus. So it is an absolute definitive Lateral, which you can reverse on if the situation is right, so you have a double value. It is a Bridger, it is a Lateral, a very useful one early on.

rossMornington Crescent!

Confused? Yeah, me too.

Here’s Wikipedia:

The game consists of each panellist in turn announcing a landmark or street, most often a tube station on the London Underground system. The apparent aim is to be the first to announce “Mornington Crescent”, a station on the Northern line. Interspersed with the turns is humorous discussion amongst the panellists and host regarding the rules and legality of each move, as well as the strategy the panellists are using. Despite appearances, however, there are no rules to the game, and both the naming of stations and the specification of “rules” are based on stream-of-consciousness association and improvisation. Thus the game is intentionally incomprehensible.

Here’s a much more maths-oriented site:

No one is really sure if the players are adhering to any rules or not, although they claim to, and the game has a bewildering number of differerent variations and conventions which poke fun at many other games. […]

The key to winning is now to devise a strategy which maximises your possible pay off F(n). If the pay off does not depend upon n, then your best strategy is to call “Mornington Crescent” on your first move. But this is far from the actual case. Instead F(n) increases as n increases, and this alters your strategy. As an example, consider the case where F(n) doubles with each turn. (We will continue to use this example for the rest of this article.) Now let’s suppose that we have a two-player game and it is your turn. You could say “Mornington Crescent” and you would win with a certain pay off. If, however, you DON’T say “Mornington Crescent”, and (crucially) your opponent also doesn’t say it on their turn, then your pay off has increased four-fold if you say it on your next turn. Thus you have signifcantly increased your winnings, with of course the risk that your opponent will say “Mornington Crescent” on their turn.

Here we start to see the real subtlety of this great game. The whole essence of the play is that to maximise their possible pay off, each player wants to wait for as long as possible before they say “Mornington Crescent”, but they still have to say it before the other player.

At this point you might be starting to understand how this is all exactly like figuring out social interactions with autism.

Let’s finish up with an actual game so you can get a bit more of an idea.

[theroseandcrown]

The Rose & Crown: Chapter Twenty-Three (Part One)

Rating: M Chapters: 23/24

Summary: The Doctor falls further than he ever has before in his quest to find the end of the loop. He has abandoned his name and everything that comes with it in the hope that Clara will stay with him in their altered reality. It is now up to Clara to bring the Doctor back to life before she loses him forever.

Read this story on another platform: Archive of Our Own Fan Fiction WattPad

The air felt frigid and damp upon his pale skin, bringing with it a sense of familiarity that only the oncoming storm could provide. Far off in the distance beyond the rigid mountainous highlands, a streak of lightning claimed the pale evening sky like splintering glass. The earth rumbled beneath his feet as the boom of thunder soon followed. His calculating eyes were fixed upon an unmasked figure standing several paces in front of him. Her long black cloak rustled with the howling wind. Neither of them made a move as the tension in the air grew between them. His hearts raced with anticipation at her benighted presence before him. Whatever reason for her ultimate quest to discover his location, there was only one thing he needed to know.

“How did you find me?”

********************

Amidst the silence that had befallen the interior walls of the TARDIS main control room stood the form of her silver-haired Time Lord on the upper platform. A maroon-coloured velvet jacket hung on display upon the metal coat rack beside him. He hesitantly reached out and allowed his hand to run its course over the fabric of the sleeve as if searching for imperfections. Lifting the jacket by its collar, he removed it from its position of rest and gracefully placed on his armour. His fingers slowly traced their way down the seams of the lapels towards the buttons on the front as the garment embraced him like an old friend. Inhaling a deep breath in preparation of what was to come, he took hold of the railing and descended the stairs. He came to a sudden stop near the last few steps as his eyes met with Clara’s favourite chair, now empty and cold. He was alone. The memory of their last conversation from that very spot bled into his mind so clearly, it was as if she never left it.

The Doctor stood quietly at the console, his attention fixed to the view-screen as he manually updated the TARDIS interface with the data from his most recent maintenance. Though tedious and time-consuming, he rather enjoyed the distraction from the constant apprehension he felt towards their impending future. Patience had never been one of his strongest attributes. He was a man of action, constantly moving forward, the first to react whenever the moment called for it. His own personal agenda for any given circumstance had almost always paralleled each other; swoop in, save the day, rinse and repeat. But now, as the anticipation lingered in the air, he felt every bit of it tightening the rope bound around his hands. Unless all the cards were to suddenly play out in his favour, he had no choice but to hang up his coat in defeat. As strange and exposing as that felt, after everything he and his companion had been through so far, perhaps it wasn’t so terrible a thought after all.

Clara took to her reading while he worked, her legs comfortably propped on the railing as she took up occupancy in her chair. Her fingers softly grazed the familiar pages of Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice” for what felt like the hundredth time since coming aboard. The brief moment of descent into the world of a truly enthralling story was the closest she could come to exploring on her own without the threat of danger lurking in any given direction. The people she discovered there were oftentimes the only example of humanity she had left to cling to. Being the sole representative of the human race aboard the TARDIS, the only person qualified enough to remind her of where she came from was herself.

His wistful eyes shifted towards her for a brief moment before returning to the screen. “If you’re hoping to discover an alternate ending, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” he offered.

“I don’t read it because I know how it ends,” she noted, her attention drawn towards the page. “No matter how many times I’ve read it, I always find something I hadn’t noticed before. An unrealized emotion, a meaningful glance, a deeper understanding of the characters. It’s as if I’m meeting them for the first time all over again. I find it quite inspiring, actually.”

“If you say so.”

She frowned at his predictably apathetic response and did her best to ignore him, seeing no point in defending her obsession with the written word any further. Returning to the story, she tried to concentrate on the words and phrases in front of her but found her mind beginning to wander. “Can I ask you something?” she inquired from behind the pages.

“I assume you’re being rhetorical,” he replied, reluctantly engaging himself in her idle conversation between tasks.

She lowered the book and closed it neatly in her lap before swinging the chair around to face him. “Why were you so afraid to tell me how you really felt?” she asked delicately as if the question might shatter the illusion he had created around their friendship to protect himself. Though she bore a great appreciation for how far their relationship had come, she often found herself revisiting the memories of their past with an entirely new perspective. Every word, every touch, every glance in her direction had all been called into question ever since the day his true feelings for her were revealed. Perhaps the patterns had always been there but until recently had gone unnoticed. She wasted so much energy trying to decipher who they were to each other that she failed to realize she might have been searching in the wrong place.

“You want to discuss this now?” His brow raised at her inquiry as he continued to monitor the ship’s diagnosis. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m sort of in the middle of something,” he informed her.

“Well, can’t we do both?” she prodded further.

He sighed concededly and thought to himself, ‘Sure, why not?’ He took a moment to find the words to reply that would sound the most meaningful. It wasn’t often he thought about the parameters of their relationship nor felt the need to devise a scientific explanation to define it. They simply just... were. Though confident in his ability to express his love for her, he knew very well that it hadn’t always been that way. “If you must know, I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. I doubted myself and my ability to become the man I wanted to be for you. I still do, but I’m willing to try,” he answered, fully prepared to leave it at that.

“Have all your romantic relationships been this difficult for you?” she pressed on.

“Have I been trapped inside a paradox loop with all of my previous relationships? No, I’d say this is a first,” he answered, returning to his work.

“You know what I mean.”

Exhaling another exasperated breath, he had little choice but to accept the fact that she had no intention of backing down from the conversation. “Time Lord courtships work very differently from what humans are accustomed to. Genetically speaking, my people mate for life so they must be very sure of whom they wish to mate with.”

Her eyes lowered to the floor for a moment, unable to help but feel slightly disenchanted by his answer. Had their romantic involvement with each other not been forged by unfortunate circumstances, there would have been no way to know which direction their relationship would have gone. “It couldn’t have been easy for you then, not having a choice,” she replied.

He stood silently for several moments as he recalled the anger he felt after discovering the terms of their friendship had been violated by Missy’s hands. Though difficult to accept at first, over time it had allowed him to overcome his fear of letting Clara into his hearts. There had been no manual available to advise him on how to feel for her, but her patience and compassion for him were well worth the struggle it took to learn. He remembered the pain he once harboured as punishment for longing to be with her. A pain he was far more willing to suffer than face the devastating thought of her absence from his life altogether. “Some things are easier to live without than others,” he professed softly, his eyes stealing a brief glimpse of her before returning to the screen. “Nothing is ever easy when you’re truly invested in it enough. That’s what makes losing it so hard. Our friendship was far more complex than the choices we were forced to make. You still had your whole life ahead of you. You had the freedom to choose to stay with me of your own free will. Or you could have left the TARDIS and never looked back if you wanted to. It may not have been the choice I would have wanted, and I cannot say without a doubt that it wouldn’t have broken me severely to see you go, but it still would’ve been yours to make.”

Meeting his familiar form with her sympathetic expression, she finally came to understand all that he had sacrificed at the cost of getting too close to her. The love he had imprisoned inside himself was his only protection against the pain he’d endure if she ever decided to leave him for someone else. She could only imagine what that must have been like for him when they were apart. If only she had known sooner, things might have turned out much differently between them. “And how does it make you feel knowing that if I had to do it all over again, I would still choose you?”

Turning around to face her, he smiled warmly and gazed into her eyes. “Deeply honoured,” he answered tenderly. “I can only hope you feel the same. That you bear no resentment for what I’ve done to you. No matter what may happen to us in this cycle or the next, I promise to always love, cherish, and protect you for as long as you’ll have me.”

Charmed by his words, a coy smile formed over her lips. “Are you proposing, Doctor?” she teased.

The question caught him by surprise. “Is that what you want?” he asked, unsure of how to respond.

Taking a moment to consider her answer, she set her reading aside and lovingly glanced in his direction. “No,” she confessed as she stood and made her way towards him. She placed her hands in his and held them with delicate care. “I already have everything I could ever ask for. What we have is very special to me. I don’t want anything to change between us, Doctor.”

“Nor do I,” he agreed, not wishing to lose any part of what they were to each other.

“Besides, going into battle against a lunatic on a prison planet isn’t exactly how I’d imagine spending my first days as a married woman.”

“Ah, yes. I could see how that might spoil the moment,” he admitted, genuinely adoring every second she remained in his grasp. As he held her, he thought about how many times he tried to tell her how she made him feel yet the words would not escape him. He was so afraid of what she would say that he buried them deep inside himself. But now, everything they were before had been altered by their intense love for each other. The very nature of their relationship was the sole cause of his inner turmoil, the reason he’d been avoiding his pursuit of reaching the end. It was only a matter of time before he’d run out of excuses for keeping them there. Even the ship’s never-ending maintenance was just another unnecessary diversion from his original plan to save them. Though he knew he couldn’t lie to her forever, perhaps he no longer had to. Perhaps this was his chance to finally open her eyes to another possibility in front of them. An opportunity to show her what they could truly become together. “Although, there’s always the alternative,” he implied.

“Alternative?” she asked curiously.

Gazing into her eyes, he felt the strong sensation of nervousness rising within him. He found himself both scared and vulnerable standing before her, hoping that even the smallest piece of how far their relationship had come was worth risking what he was about to say. Glancing towards their held hands, he lightly stroked his thumbs over their surface and tried to find the courage to expose his greatest weakness for her. Though his apprehension in the matter made it difficult to find the right words, his hearts would not allow him to retreat from them now. “What would you say if I asked you to consider sharing a life with me here inside of this reality?”

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, unable to prevent her confusion from expressing itself on her face. “What are you talking about?”

Inhaling a deep breath, he pushed his fears aside and forced himself to continue. “What if I could offer you a reason to stay in the loop with me, a chance to create a future of our own together?” Hesitating for only a moment, he lowered her hand and gently placed it against her middle. “Starting here.”

She found herself taken aback by his gesture. As her mind began to process what he was asking, she quickly realized how bewitched he had become by her ability to carry for him. She believed his sudden increase in intimacy over the past few weeks was his way of savouring their last moments together. But in reality, it was all part of his greater purpose to seduce her into conceiving his child so she would agree to stay with him. “Is that what you’ve been doing to me? Bedding me night after night to ensure I fall pregnant again?” she accused him.

“Would it be wrong of me if I said yes?” he asked, attempting to mask any sign of guilt behind his endearing expression.

“Doctor, we’ve talked about this,” she scolded.

“I know, and I haven’t forgotten the risks,” he assured her. “But if you believe I’m prepared to throw everything we have away so easily, then you are greatly mistaken. How can you possibly expect me to give you up when I’ve become addicted to the happiness you bring to me? You’ve given me more to live for in this life than I ever thought possible. From the very first moment I felt our child’s warmth thriving inside of you, my craving for it has only grown stronger. And now that I’ve seen what we are truly capable of, can you blame me for trying?”

She sighed with mild confliction at his words, knowing how badly they both wanted this life despite what it would mean for the rest of the universe. They had set off on this journey together with the understanding that the path in front of them would be a difficult one. She just hadn’t realized how quickly he would slip away from being who he was meant to be the longer they stayed on it. Though it pained her greatly to see him so lost inside, she couldn’t bring herself to fault him for wanting so desperately to provide her with a family of her own. “I don’t blame you, Doctor,” she answered softly.

“I’m relieved to hear you say that. Because, in a way, this is all your fault if you think about it,” he added, smirking to himself.

“Wait, hang on. My fault?” she inquired defensively. “How so?”

He smiled and wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her closer. “You make it very difficult to resist you.”

Though flattered by his love-struck diversion, she rolled her eyes and attempted to bring him back to reality. “Very charming, but we both know the only way to ensure the future is to see this through to the end. I don’t see how getting me with child on purpose is going to help us defeat Missy.”

“Perhaps we won’t have to. As long as we can convince her you haven’t given birth yet, she’ll never know the difference. We could buy ourselves an eternity together,” he offered, amused by his misbehaviour.

“Right. Just so I’m clear, the new plan is to keep me pregnant forever, never age, and hope Missy doesn’t catch on,” she frowned, realizing how even more ridiculous that sounded out loud.

“You’re right, that’ll never work. Two of those things can be easily maintained. The other would require a miracle worker,” he teased.

Her eyes narrowed at his attempt at humour. “Not all of us have the luxury of being a two-thousand-year-old stick insect. You’re lucky I still tolerate you.”

“Admit it, this isn’t the first time you’ve been swept away by my charm,” he remarked bearing a wide flirtatious grin.

“Maybe,” she smiled amorously and wrapped her arms around his neck. “But now I have the advantage. You’ve revealed your true intentions to me. All I have to do is resist you.”

“You can certainly try,” he cheekily replied, bringing his hands to rest upon the sides of her waist. “But I must warn you, I’m very resourceful.”

“Is that so?” she asked, concealing a small laugh behind her smile.

“You should probably surrender now. It’ll save time,” his grin brightened.

“Oh, I see. And this is the part where I’m supposed to let you win, is it?” she wondered, raising a curious brow at their light-hearted role-play.

“Perhaps I already have,” he suggested, his eyes lowering to the space between them. His hand slid from her waist and pressed against her belly, holding her body firmly to the console. “It could already be too late for you.” He allowed his fingers to spread between her hips as he searched deep inside of her for any sign of life. Though it was still too early in her development to determine how far along she might be, he remained hopeful it wouldn’t be much longer before he had caused her to swell for him again. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”

She closed her eyes and gasped from under her breath as he applied a deep pressure to her womb. The sensation of it quickly ignited the fire within her as he worked to stimulate her maternal appetite for him. His power over her was exhilarating. She felt every beat of her heart as it quickened in rhythm. Her breathing deepened the more control he placed over her. Unable to help herself from falling hopelessly under his spell, she opened her eyes to meet his tender gaze. “Be careful what you wish for, Doctor,” she whispered, pulling him towards her to embrace him with a passionate kiss.

His body pressed against hers as he became lost in her arms. His strong desire to protect her was made even more aware by his unrelenting hunger for her conception taking priority in his mind. It gave him a sense of vitality knowing that as long as they remained entrapped together, his claim over her fertility would forever be bound to him. Her incessant longing to fill the void inside of her with life consumed him. He could feel her desperation for it pulsating beneath his palm. He would do anything to provide her with the relief she required. He knew the battle to save themselves from the virus’s control over them had been lost long ago, and he no longer cared. Slowly removing himself from her lips, he leaned away to see her face in every detail. “I want this life with you, Clara. A chance to prove to you that I have what it takes to protect you and our children. A chance to care for you and stand by your side as they grow within you. What we are capable of creating together has only happened between our species a handful of times in the entire history of the known universe. Don’t you see? We are compatible, you and I.” His glance returned to her middle where he stroked her delicately, his fingers grazing over the thin fabric of her dress. “I can make you happy in this new life, just as you have made me. All you have to do is say yes.”

Her heart fluttered so fiercely in her chest it was almost frightening. The moment between them became still with anticipation as she searched inside of herself for an answer. He was offering her a choice. A choice he no longer felt he could be trusted to make on his own anymore. He was asking to be released from the terrible burdens he’d been harbouring within him all this time. As she peered deeply into his eyes, she could see how utterly torn he was inside. The man she knew him as before never would have allowed himself to become so divided by which decision was easy and which was right. Whatever demons had been the cause of his internal battle with himself, he no longer had the strength to fight them. It had taken her until this very moment to realize that the man standing before her had been drowning in the sea of his addiction for her longer than he would ever dare to admit. If she had any hope of rescuing him, she would have to be strong enough for both of them. Her eyes fell to where his hand caressed her middle and gently placed her hand over his. “You know how badly I want this, Doctor. I want more than anything for us to be a family, to have a life of our own we can share together. You’ve seen inside my mind. You’ve been inside my dreams. You don’t need to prove yourself to me to know that I would carry your child in a heartbeat if you asked me to.” Taking a deep disheartened breath, her eyes met his again. “But is this the world you truly wish our children to be raised in? To be trapped here on the TARDIS forever because someone out there will always want to hurt them? Have you forgotten about our daughter or what must happen to her if we were to stay?”

His eyes narrowed as they passed back and forth to each of hers, studying her expression with guarded precision. “Of course I haven’t,” he answered defensively, suddenly realizing his terrible mistake in assuming she would be on his side in this. Releasing her from his grasp, he slowly stepped away and took a moment to find the words that would explain what had been eating him up inside. He ran a hand down his face and attempted to mask his increasing disappointment as his thoughts began to reorder themselves. Once composed, he looked to her more sternly. “Have you any idea what you are asking of me? Do you not realize that I am being forced to make an impossible choice? Either Quynn becomes everything she was raised to be, or never exist at all. You might as well be asking me to kill her. Is that what you want?” He watched as his companion’s eyes lowered to the floor in conflicted silence. He sighed heavily and tried again to appeal to her heart. “I reached through to her, Clara. I know I did. Somewhere out there our daughter is trying to find us. For all I know, we could be walking straight into a trap. But if I’m wrong, then there’s still a chance she could be a part of our lives. As long as she is on our side, there will be no army for us to run from. Her terror will be at an end. Together we could be sparing countless species across the universe from death and destruction. And in return, we could have everything we’ve ever wanted right here. We would never have to leave this reality. Can’t you understand? We’ve been given a chance to start a new life together, a chance to have a family of our own. Isn’t that winning enough?” he pleaded, desperate for her acceptance.

“Winning? Is that what you think this is?” she responded, her eyes lifting from the floor to meet his. “When we first started this, I knew there was a chance I would never see my friends or family again. That they would never know what happened to me. But I chose to stand by your side because you made me believe we were going to change the future together. That the lives of those who had suffered at the hands of Quynn and her army would be saved. If we stay, then you will be condemning the billions of people she has killed to their fate. They will die over and over again for all of eternity because of her.”

Turning his back on her, he approached the edge of the platform and gripped the railing to steady himself. It took everything in his power to calm his emotions. “Everyone dies eventually, Clara. I can’t save them all,” he replied solemnly.

“Yes, you can,” she insisted, taking a step towards him. In his silence, her underlying heartbreak began to take its toll on her. “What happened to you, Doctor? What happened to the man I fell in love with?”

Losing all control of himself, he quickly turned around to face her and allowed his voice to rise with intensity. “He became a coward! Is that what you want to hear? That I’m afraid of things going back to the way they were before, spending my days pining away for you, unable to tell you how I feel?”

“What are you saying, that you want Missy to win?” she insinuated, astonished by his confession. She caught herself staring at him in disbelief as his expression quickly shifted towards that of ineradicable defeat at her inquiry. “Oh my god. You are, aren’t you? You’re giving up. You intend to put a child in me so you can give up being the Doctor,” she accused him.

“Maybe so,” he confessed without the slightest hint of hesitation.

“But you are the Doctor. There is no one else,” she replied imperatively as if the man standing before her had died leaving no trace of his former existence behind to be saved.

“Maybe I don’t want to be the Doctor anymore!” he shouted angrily as he approached her. “What if everything I ever wanted is right here in front of me?!”

She backed herself against the console and attempted to swallow her intimidation of him as he came closer. It took every bit of courage she had left to stay strong in his presence. “Have you fallen so hard for me, Doctor?”

A short cynical laugh escaped him at the question. “Is that so wrong?” he asked, raising his arms from his sides and allowing them to fall limply into place. “After all this time, after everything I’ve done, don’t you think the universe owes me this? Do I not deserve happiness?” He waited for a response from her as she silently stared at him through her stilled expression. Turning away, he paced for a few moments while trying to gather his emotions as they bled all over the floor. Once calm, he turned to face her again. “The life you carried inside of you, the life I helped bring into this world, I desire more of that feeling with you. Please, all I’m asking is that you at least consider what we could have together,” he begged her.

Having lost herself in the heat of the moment, she allowed her defensive nature and disappointment in him to take control. “This isn’t about me, is it? This is about what you failed to do as a father all those years ago,” she declared harshly, then immediately felt the sharp pain of regret after saying it. Her mouth dropped open in shock over her own words but it was too late to take them back. She watched helplessly as he placed a hand over his shattering hearts and turned from her, utterly crushed and saddened by her painful accusation. The sight of it was unbearable. “I’m so sorry, Doctor,” she confessed softly as tears welled in her eyes. “That was cruel of me.” She felt her stomach turn at how sick she felt just then, her arms coming around to hold herself tightly. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath to clear her mind and find another way to reach through to him. “I know you miss them, but I will never be able to replace the children you have lost.” After a moment, she opened her eyes and lifted her gaze hoping he would turn to face her once more. He remained silent in her presence, unwilling to abandon his outward glance. She sighed and tried again to gain his acknowledgement. “You once told me that as long as they still lived within you, you would never give up fighting to save those who would suffer the same fate. No matter what happens, we will still have each other. We both know Missy will never stop until every star and planet has burned by her hands. If you allow her to win, then this world you so desperately wish to create with me will become a very small place. How can we teach our children about the wonders of the universe if there is nothing left of it?”

Placing his hands on the console, he braced himself upon it and hung his head in devastation. “Are you saying no then?”

Her tears making their way down her face, she felt every bit of her heart breaking for him. As unfair as it was to bear the weight of this decision on her shoulders alone, deep down she knew she had made the right choice. “I’m sorry, Doctor. But we cannot hide ourselves away watching from a distance as the rest of the universe falls apart all around us. No one else should have to die for our love.”

Fighting his tears, he slowly gathered himself to a standing position and attempted to regain himself in her presence. “You’re right, of course. Always right,” he spoke softly, turning around to face her one last time. “Forgive me. I was being selfish.” He forced a weak smile to his face before lowering his eyes to the floor and removing himself from the room.

Tearing the memory from his thoughts, he approached the console and began buttoning the cuffs of his sleeve to prepare himself for the ultimate battle against his enemies. His expression remained stern and focused as his mind plotted out exactly what was to happen next. The sound of his infant daughter cooing from her bassinet beside him drew his attention. He silently peered down to observe his child’s small form in every detail as if taking one last look at her before offering his final farewell. Retaining his distance, he returned to the view-screen. The man staring back at him from its reflection was far from recognizable. His eyes had become cold and calculated. The lines on his face had deepened with unwavering concentration. His moment of truth had arrived. The time had come for him to show his enemies what he was truly capable of, no matter who stood in his way. The darkest hour was finally upon him. There would be no turning back from it now. There was no way to know what the future had in store for him in the end. All he knew for certain was that his Clara was gone. And no matter if he won or lost, he was going to get her back.

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

6 Reasons Why You Should Never Glorify Failure After You've Failed

http://tinyurl.com/y229y9jv Highly successful people have tasted failure more than success. Whether its Nikola Tesla or Michael Jordan, everyone had his/her fair share of failures before rising to the pinnacle of success. Yet, most people I know are averse to the idea of failure. When ambition fuels your desires, you become so conscious about avoiding failure that you forget to learn how to cope with it when you actually experience it. So, when you come face-to-face with adversity, it often overwhelms you. This brings us to the question, how can you train yourself to overcome these difficulties and use them to your advantage? Here’s how: 1. Acceptance is important to overcome failure When the going gets tough, one of the most frustrating things you may get to hear is “stay positive.” The idea of positive thinking has been misconstrued, misused, and abused continuously. Contrary to popular belief, positive thinking has nothing to do with smiling and being happy with everything that happens to you all the time. Anyone who preaches that is either lying or crazy. Use positive thinking to learn, grow, and evolve from the experiences we gather in life. Positive thinking simply means that if you are faced with a setback, you work hard to overcome the challenges. When you experience hardships, it is alright to feel upset and disappointed. Our objective, however, is not to stay down. 2. Be honest with yourself The most crucial part of dealing with a failure involves pausing for a couple of minutes and pondering over what happened. You need to be completely honest with yourself on why it happened. It is easy to pull out the Smartphone, turn on the laptop or find other forms of distraction. Most people would do anything to distract themselves and keep their eyes shut to the mistakes they have made. However, if you don’t confront, you don’t learn. And if you don’t learn, then you are setting yourself up for failure again. Albert Einstein famously stated that it was insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. If you don’t derive a lesson out of mistakes and failures in life, then you are doomed to keep repeating them, whether you realise it or not. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford 3. Don’t beat yourself up over a temporary setback When you have experienced a setback, many of you may succumb to the feeling that you’ll always keep failing. It is easy to convince yourself that you are indeed a failure. Don’t let such destructive ideas or thoughts creep into your head. Instead, keep reminding yourself that just because you failed today, it doesn’t mean you’d fail the next time as well. It is also important that you treat your failure as a passing phase. When you keep moving forward, focus on the right things, and keep learning. Perceiving the setback as a temporary phase rather than something permanent is vital to developing an optimistic attitude in life. 4. Focus on nurturing and improving yourself Failures don’t discriminate, and it comes to everyone at some point. The trick lies in learning to deal with it and what you do about it that makes all the difference. In many cases, failure happens because a person wasn’t prepared, didn’t invest time on planning or was ill-equipped. It can also be because Lady Luck decided not to shower her favours. Except for the last one, the rest of the issues can be fixed. Prepare a list of all the things that you think resulted in your failure. Start working on them one at a time. Do everything in your capacity to rectify, improve, resolve, and develop. 5. Find inspiration and support in abundance Interacting with someone close can be more helpful than you think. You can also learn from people who have been through similar situations and have achieved what you hope to. Gain insights on how they managed to sail through the setbacks or low-points before and during the moment of success. Or you can gain the motivation or enthusiasm by listening to someone else from an audiobook or podcast for maybe 30-60 minutes. It doesn’t have to be focused on your current setbacks.  Change your mood and mindset back towards optimism again. 6. Adopt a constructive approach and learn from the adverse situation Consider it as valuable feedback and take home something you can implement in the process of overcoming your failure. The following are some of the questions you need to ask yourself: What is the lesson for me? How can I rectify myself to avoid making the same mistake and do better next time? What can I do to enjoy guaranteed success? You don’t need to rush through the process. Some of the answers may be immediate, while others might take an hour, a day or even a week to pop up. The significant thing is to start thinking about the situation from this perspective. Also, you need to be constructive about things rather than getting stuck with denial, negativity and apathy. 7. Stop mulling over and move on Processing the situation and accepting it is the ideal way to deal with failures. Any individual who has experienced failures will know that it is quite easy to stay stuck in the loop of similar thoughts. In fact, this may go around and around for weeks or even months. Now, in order to be free from this trap, the one habit that might help you is the set of questions like the ones shared above. You can also create a rough plan for how you wish to move forward from here. So, take some time to sit down and write them down. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill 8. Purge out all the negativity Another impactful way to handle the emotional meltdown and the thoughts that emerge from experiencing failure is to purge out all the negativity. In order to let everything out, you need to confide in someone close to you. There are two ways to go about it: Engaging in a conversation with someone will allow you to see it from a different perspective. The person you talk to can assist you in grounding yourself in reality again and motivate you to look for a way forward. Or you can simply vent about it while the other person who is listening can sort things out for you. He/she can help you accept what happened and boost your spirit by instilling a sense of hope. The significant thing to remember is that while you can’t stop obstacles from appearing in life, you can devise smart ways to handle them. If you persevere, you can easily discover opportunities that have been waiting for you on the other side. Now, as you become more efficient at dealing with the failures, you will allow yourself to see the positive side in even the toughest of scenarios. Source link

[ber39james]

5 Things You Must Do Every Morning to Be More Productive at Work

On waking up, your bleary eyes note that your phone’s alarm presents two options: “Snooze” and “OK.” Both buttons are the same size, but somehow the word snooooooze seems not only longer but vastly more alluring than the resigned okay you muffle into your pillow, followed by a pleading Don’t make me do stuff to no one.

Getting out of bed and hauling yourself to work can be unfun. There’s good reason you insist on getting paid to do it, after all. Once you’re there though, it might not seem so terrible—particularly on days when you find your flow and get a lot done.

Establishing a way to do this consistently—devising a morning routine that’s high on accomplishment and low on dread—is worth making some adjustments for. Here are five tips to make your mornings more productive.

1. Wake up refreshed.

Surprise! The secret to not feeling drained from the moment you wake up actually starts the night before as you’re making your way toward bed. There’s a lot to be said on ways to get a decent night’s sleep, but here are a few highlights:

Be mindful of how much caffeine you’ve had, especially later in the day.

See also alcohol, which can undercut the quality of your sleep.

Life’s too short to wonder why your upstairs neighbor rearranges his entire bedroom every night around 11:45. Tell him to cut it out, or invest in some earplugs or a white noise machine.

Also look into getting a blackout curtain, for that one light across the alley that’s somehow angled to shine directly at your headboard.

It might also be wise to consider what kind of content you ingest as you’re winding down. Alas, Monday night might not be the best time to binge three straight episodes of Stranger Things, lest you trigger a febrile can’t-sleep-better-watch-more-addictive-programming feedback loop. It’s worth noting some folks swear by putting away anything with a screen an hour before bedtime to focus on reading actual paper books or magazines.

2. Give yourself something to look forward to.

You have to get out of bed. It helps to have an enticing reason besides needing a paycheck.

Maybe every morning you fry two eggs in your favorite cast-iron skillet, and this small ritual comprises 60 percent of your willingness to get moving. Or maybe the draw is a fancy coffee system.

Then again, maybe you prefer to skip breakfast. (It’s fine.) Maybe if you rise early enough, you’ll have time for a run before wrangling your kids. Whatever the case, it’s good to build something into your morning routine that helps you feel more like a person and less like an extremely grouchy cog.

Also, if the thing you’re looking forward to is pre-gaming for work with The Daily or some fresh trap beats in the car to get amped for that sales call, you already have a head start on the next item…

3. Make your commute matter.

For many people, commuting is the least enjoyable part of the day—the part where the implacable whimsies of traffic steal away crucial increments of everything else you’d rather be doing.

Depending on where you live, you may be able to mitigate some of your frustration by giving some folks a ride and enjoying the carpool lane—or use your time on mass transit to tackle emails, study up for a pitch meeting, or mentally rehearse that presentation you have to give.

If none of that is realistic though, you can still dedicate some commute time to thinking through Step 4—which applies even if you’re one of the lucky souls who regularly works from home.

4. Set goals for yourself. Make a list.

You probably have some idea of what you’ll try to achieve before you sit down to work, but listing it can be a clarifying exercise, and research suggests putting it in writing goes a long way toward making sure it gets done.

This process can also help you set priorities and organize your day. If useful insights or creative possibilities come to mind as you dash off everything you hope to accomplish, jot them down as well.

Where possible, it’s good to set benchmarks you can measure against, so you can hold yourself accountable. Budgeting time for each task is worthwhile, but be practical as you do so: offices are distracting places, coffee makers and printers are not always paragons of efficiency when you need them, and meetings scheduled to last fifteen minutes that are actually done that quickly are tiny, beautiful miracles.

In other words, make a list, use it to forge ahead, and go easy on yourself when you’re suddenly called upon to put out someone else’s fire. One of the advantages of writing down everything you mean to get done, after all, is that you’re less likely to lose track of it altogether.

5. Eliminate distractions where possible.

While you probably check your notifications on social media at the start of each day, if you’re not careful, the churning, time-sucking back-and-forth ha-haha-hahahah of comments and replies can sabotage your whole gameplan for the morning.

Consider logging off for a while if you can. If not, say, because monitoring social media is part of your job, then treat it like one and partition time for it so it doesn’t devour your productivity.

Another culprit in the case of You vs. Lost Time is email, and it can be a savage force. Psychologists have found if you’re constantly managing emails on top of whatever task you’re trying to focus on, you’re probably not doing either very effectively:

An unfortunate limitation of the human mind is that it cannot perform two demanding tasks simultaneously, so flipping back and forth between two different tasks saps cognitive resources. As a result, people can become less efficient in each of the tasks they need to accomplish. In addition to providing an unending source of new tasks for our to-do lists, email could also be making us less efficient at accomplishing those tasks.

The solution? Be deliberate about when you’ll spend time on your inbox.

Finding a morning groove that works with the demands of your career and your life takes time and experimentation. And while it may never be perfect, it’s worth practicing and continually tuning. Once you start to get it down, you’ll be able to see the difference in the form of results by lunchtime.

The post 5 Things You Must Do Every Morning to Be More Productive at Work appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/morning-productivity/

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

How to Keep Your Mind Away From Distractions in This Tech-Loaded World

http://tinyurl.com/y5uujlbl Highly successful people have tasted failure more than success. Whether its Nikola Tesla or Michael Jordan, everyone had his/her fair share of failures before rising to the pinnacle of success. Yet, most people I know are averse to the idea of failure. When ambition fuels your desires, you become so conscious about avoiding failure that you forget to learn how to cope with it when you actually experience it. So, when you come face-to-face with adversity, it often overwhelms you. This brings us to the question, how can you train yourself to overcome these difficulties and use them to your advantage? Here’s how: 1. Acceptance is important to overcome failure When the going gets tough, one of the most frustrating things you may get to hear is “stay positive.” The idea of positive thinking has been misconstrued, misused, and abused continuously. Contrary to popular belief, positive thinking has nothing to do with smiling and being happy with everything that happens to you all the time. Anyone who preaches that is either lying or crazy. Use positive thinking to learn, grow, and evolve from the experiences we gather in life. Positive thinking simply means that if you are faced with a setback, you work hard to overcome the challenges. When you experience hardships, it is alright to feel upset and disappointed. Our objective, however, is not to stay down. 2. Be honest with yourself The most crucial part of dealing with a failure involves pausing for a couple of minutes and pondering over what happened. You need to be completely honest with yourself on why it happened. It is easy to pull out the Smartphone, turn on the laptop or find other forms of distraction. Most people would do anything to distract themselves and keep their eyes shut to the mistakes they have made. However, if you don’t confront, you don’t learn. And if you don’t learn, then you are setting yourself up for failure again. Albert Einstein famously stated that it was insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. If you don’t derive a lesson out of mistakes and failures in life, then you are doomed to keep repeating them, whether you realise it or not. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford 3. Don’t beat yourself up over a temporary setback When you have experienced a setback, many of you may succumb to the feeling that you’ll always keep failing. It is easy to convince yourself that you are indeed a failure. Don’t let such destructive ideas or thoughts creep into your head. Instead, keep reminding yourself that just because you failed today, it doesn’t mean you’d fail the next time as well. It is also important that you treat your failure as a passing phase. When you keep moving forward, focus on the right things, and keep learning. Perceiving the setback as a temporary phase rather than something permanent is vital to developing an optimistic attitude in life. 4. Focus on nurturing and improving yourself Failures don’t discriminate, and it comes to everyone at some point. The trick lies in learning to deal with it and what you do about it that makes all the difference. In many cases, failure happens because a person wasn’t prepared, didn’t invest time on planning or was ill-equipped. It can also be because Lady Luck decided not to shower her favours. Except for the last one, the rest of the issues can be fixed. Prepare a list of all the things that you think resulted in your failure. Start working on them one at a time. Do everything in your capacity to rectify, improve, resolve, and develop. 5. Find inspiration and support in abundance Interacting with someone close can be more helpful than you think. You can also learn from people who have been through similar situations and have achieved what you hope to. Gain insights on how they managed to sail through the setbacks or low-points before and during the moment of success. Or you can gain the motivation or enthusiasm by listening to someone else from an audiobook or podcast for maybe 30-60 minutes. It doesn’t have to be focused on your current setbacks.  Change your mood and mindset back towards optimism again. 6. Adopt a constructive approach and learn from the adverse situation Consider it as valuable feedback and take home something you can implement in the process of overcoming your failure. The following are some of the questions you need to ask yourself: What is the lesson for me? How can I rectify myself to avoid making the same mistake and do better next time? What can I do to enjoy guaranteed success? You don’t need to rush through the process. Some of the answers may be immediate, while others might take an hour, a day or even a week to pop up. The significant thing is to start thinking about the situation from this perspective. Also, you need to be constructive about things rather than getting stuck with denial, negativity and apathy. 7. Stop mulling over and move on Processing the situation and accepting it is the ideal way to deal with failures. Any individual who has experienced failures will know that it is quite easy to stay stuck in the loop of similar thoughts. In fact, this may go around and around for weeks or even months. Now, in order to be free from this trap, the one habit that might help you is the set of questions like the ones shared above. You can also create a rough plan for how you wish to move forward from here. So, take some time to sit down and write them down. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill 8. Purge out all the negativity Another impactful way to handle the emotional meltdown and the thoughts that emerge from experiencing failure is to purge out all the negativity. In order to let everything out, you need to confide in someone close to you. There are two ways to go about it: Engaging in a conversation with someone will allow you to see it from a different perspective. The person you talk to can assist you in grounding yourself in reality again and motivate you to look for a way forward. Or you can simply vent about it while the other person who is listening can sort things out for you. He/she can help you accept what happened and boost your spirit by instilling a sense of hope. The significant thing to remember is that while you can’t stop obstacles from appearing in life, you can devise smart ways to handle them. If you persevere, you can easily discover opportunities that have been waiting for you on the other side. Now, as you become more efficient at dealing with the failures, you will allow yourself to see the positive side in even the toughest of scenarios. Source link

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

Don't Wait for Permission to Chase Your Dreams

http://tinyurl.com/yybkxwub Highly successful people have tasted failure more than success. Whether its Nikola Tesla or Michael Jordan, everyone had his/her fair share of failures before rising to the pinnacle of success. Yet, most people I know are averse to the idea of failure. When ambition fuels your desires, you become so conscious about avoiding failure that you forget to learn how to cope with it when you actually experience it. So, when you come face-to-face with adversity, it often overwhelms you. This brings us to the question, how can you train yourself to overcome these difficulties and use them to your advantage? Here’s how: 1. Acceptance is important to overcome failure When the going gets tough, one of the most frustrating things you may get to hear is “stay positive.” The idea of positive thinking has been misconstrued, misused, and abused continuously. Contrary to popular belief, positive thinking has nothing to do with smiling and being happy with everything that happens to you all the time. Anyone who preaches that is either lying or crazy. Use positive thinking to learn, grow, and evolve from the experiences we gather in life. Positive thinking simply means that if you are faced with a setback, you work hard to overcome the challenges. When you experience hardships, it is alright to feel upset and disappointed. Our objective, however, is not to stay down. 2. Be honest with yourself The most crucial part of dealing with a failure involves pausing for a couple of minutes and pondering over what happened. You need to be completely honest with yourself on why it happened. It is easy to pull out the Smartphone, turn on the laptop or find other forms of distraction. Most people would do anything to distract themselves and keep their eyes shut to the mistakes they have made. However, if you don’t confront, you don’t learn. And if you don’t learn, then you are setting yourself up for failure again. Albert Einstein famously stated that it was insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. If you don’t derive a lesson out of mistakes and failures in life, then you are doomed to keep repeating them, whether you realise it or not. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford 3. Don’t beat yourself up over a temporary setback When you have experienced a setback, many of you may succumb to the feeling that you’ll always keep failing. It is easy to convince yourself that you are indeed a failure. Don’t let such destructive ideas or thoughts creep into your head. Instead, keep reminding yourself that just because you failed today, it doesn’t mean you’d fail the next time as well. It is also important that you treat your failure as a passing phase. When you keep moving forward, focus on the right things, and keep learning. Perceiving the setback as a temporary phase rather than something permanent is vital to developing an optimistic attitude in life. 4. Focus on nurturing and improving yourself Failures don’t discriminate, and it comes to everyone at some point. The trick lies in learning to deal with it and what you do about it that makes all the difference. In many cases, failure happens because a person wasn’t prepared, didn’t invest time on planning or was ill-equipped. It can also be because Lady Luck decided not to shower her favours. Except for the last one, the rest of the issues can be fixed. Prepare a list of all the things that you think resulted in your failure. Start working on them one at a time. Do everything in your capacity to rectify, improve, resolve, and develop. 5. Find inspiration and support in abundance Interacting with someone close can be more helpful than you think. You can also learn from people who have been through similar situations and have achieved what you hope to. Gain insights on how they managed to sail through the setbacks or low-points before and during the moment of success. Or you can gain the motivation or enthusiasm by listening to someone else from an audiobook or podcast for maybe 30-60 minutes. It doesn’t have to be focused on your current setbacks.  Change your mood and mindset back towards optimism again. 6. Adopt a constructive approach and learn from the adverse situation Consider it as valuable feedback and take home something you can implement in the process of overcoming your failure. The following are some of the questions you need to ask yourself: What is the lesson for me? How can I rectify myself to avoid making the same mistake and do better next time? What can I do to enjoy guaranteed success? You don’t need to rush through the process. Some of the answers may be immediate, while others might take an hour, a day or even a week to pop up. The significant thing is to start thinking about the situation from this perspective. Also, you need to be constructive about things rather than getting stuck with denial, negativity and apathy. 7. Stop mulling over and move on Processing the situation and accepting it is the ideal way to deal with failures. Any individual who has experienced failures will know that it is quite easy to stay stuck in the loop of similar thoughts. In fact, this may go around and around for weeks or even months. Now, in order to be free from this trap, the one habit that might help you is the set of questions like the ones shared above. You can also create a rough plan for how you wish to move forward from here. So, take some time to sit down and write them down. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill 8. Purge out all the negativity Another impactful way to handle the emotional meltdown and the thoughts that emerge from experiencing failure is to purge out all the negativity. In order to let everything out, you need to confide in someone close to you. There are two ways to go about it: Engaging in a conversation with someone will allow you to see it from a different perspective. The person you talk to can assist you in grounding yourself in reality again and motivate you to look for a way forward. Or you can simply vent about it while the other person who is listening can sort things out for you. He/she can help you accept what happened and boost your spirit by instilling a sense of hope. The significant thing to remember is that while you can’t stop obstacles from appearing in life, you can devise smart ways to handle them. If you persevere, you can easily discover opportunities that have been waiting for you on the other side. Now, as you become more efficient at dealing with the failures, you will allow yourself to see the positive side in even the toughest of scenarios. Source link

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

Your Gut Feeling Is More Important Than You Think

http://tinyurl.com/yxmwj5qy Highly successful people have tasted failure more than success. Whether its Nikola Tesla or Michael Jordan, everyone had his/her fair share of failures before rising to the pinnacle of success. Yet, most people I know are averse to the idea of failure. When ambition fuels your desires, you become so conscious about avoiding failure that you forget to learn how to cope with it when you actually experience it. So, when you come face-to-face with adversity, it often overwhelms you. This brings us to the question, how can you train yourself to overcome these difficulties and use them to your advantage? Here’s how: 1. Acceptance is important to overcome failure When the going gets tough, one of the most frustrating things you may get to hear is “stay positive.” The idea of positive thinking has been misconstrued, misused, and abused continuously. Contrary to popular belief, positive thinking has nothing to do with smiling and being happy with everything that happens to you all the time. Anyone who preaches that is either lying or crazy. Use positive thinking to learn, grow, and evolve from the experiences we gather in life. Positive thinking simply means that if you are faced with a setback, you work hard to overcome the challenges. When you experience hardships, it is alright to feel upset and disappointed. Our objective, however, is not to stay down. 2. Be honest with yourself The most crucial part of dealing with a failure involves pausing for a couple of minutes and pondering over what happened. You need to be completely honest with yourself on why it happened. It is easy to pull out the Smartphone, turn on the laptop or find other forms of distraction. Most people would do anything to distract themselves and keep their eyes shut to the mistakes they have made. However, if you don’t confront, you don’t learn. And if you don’t learn, then you are setting yourself up for failure again. Albert Einstein famously stated that it was insane to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different outcome. If you don’t derive a lesson out of mistakes and failures in life, then you are doomed to keep repeating them, whether you realise it or not. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” – Henry Ford 3. Don’t beat yourself up over a temporary setback When you have experienced a setback, many of you may succumb to the feeling that you’ll always keep failing. It is easy to convince yourself that you are indeed a failure. Don’t let such destructive ideas or thoughts creep into your head. Instead, keep reminding yourself that just because you failed today, it doesn’t mean you’d fail the next time as well. It is also important that you treat your failure as a passing phase. When you keep moving forward, focus on the right things, and keep learning. Perceiving the setback as a temporary phase rather than something permanent is vital to developing an optimistic attitude in life. 4. Focus on nurturing and improving yourself Failures don’t discriminate, and it comes to everyone at some point. The trick lies in learning to deal with it and what you do about it that makes all the difference. In many cases, failure happens because a person wasn’t prepared, didn’t invest time on planning or was ill-equipped. It can also be because Lady Luck decided not to shower her favours. Except for the last one, the rest of the issues can be fixed. Prepare a list of all the things that you think resulted in your failure. Start working on them one at a time. Do everything in your capacity to rectify, improve, resolve, and develop. 5. Find inspiration and support in abundance Interacting with someone close can be more helpful than you think. You can also learn from people who have been through similar situations and have achieved what you hope to. Gain insights on how they managed to sail through the setbacks or low-points before and during the moment of success. Or you can gain the motivation or enthusiasm by listening to someone else from an audiobook or podcast for maybe 30-60 minutes. It doesn’t have to be focused on your current setbacks.  Change your mood and mindset back towards optimism again. 6. Adopt a constructive approach and learn from the adverse situation Consider it as valuable feedback and take home something you can implement in the process of overcoming your failure. The following are some of the questions you need to ask yourself: What is the lesson for me? How can I rectify myself to avoid making the same mistake and do better next time? What can I do to enjoy guaranteed success? You don’t need to rush through the process. Some of the answers may be immediate, while others might take an hour, a day or even a week to pop up. The significant thing is to start thinking about the situation from this perspective. Also, you need to be constructive about things rather than getting stuck with denial, negativity and apathy. 7. Stop mulling over and move on Processing the situation and accepting it is the ideal way to deal with failures. Any individual who has experienced failures will know that it is quite easy to stay stuck in the loop of similar thoughts. In fact, this may go around and around for weeks or even months. Now, in order to be free from this trap, the one habit that might help you is the set of questions like the ones shared above. You can also create a rough plan for how you wish to move forward from here. So, take some time to sit down and write them down. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill 8. Purge out all the negativity Another impactful way to handle the emotional meltdown and the thoughts that emerge from experiencing failure is to purge out all the negativity. In order to let everything out, you need to confide in someone close to you. There are two ways to go about it: Engaging in a conversation with someone will allow you to see it from a different perspective. The person you talk to can assist you in grounding yourself in reality again and motivate you to look for a way forward. Or you can simply vent about it while the other person who is listening can sort things out for you. He/she can help you accept what happened and boost your spirit by instilling a sense of hope. The significant thing to remember is that while you can’t stop obstacles from appearing in life, you can devise smart ways to handle them. If you persevere, you can easily discover opportunities that have been waiting for you on the other side. Now, as you become more efficient at dealing with the failures, you will allow yourself to see the positive side in even the toughest of scenarios. Source link