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wovenstarlight · 3 years

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rambling thoughts about hyj (canon vs ywbk)

yoojin is so so fascinating as a character to me... i think about him 24/7 he occupies every available inch of brainspace i have. like this man and his issues am i fucking right. so i’m going to talk a bit about how i see him working and how i chose to portray him in my time travel series

so canon hyj, right. he’s like. he’s such a funky narrator. he’s like if i occupy my mind with endless work i will avoid falling into the pit of depression and immense grief from all that i went through pre regression. but also what i went through pre regression wasn’t even that bad. but also everyone who hurt me back then is assholes. but anyway ignore all that because i have work to do.

and on top of that the way he interacts with people is very... i won’t say it’s utilitarian but he’s very focused on what he can do for people and what they can do for him. in a currently-unpublished but translated chapter, he says that (SPOILERS!) he’s asked his thoughts on shj, and he answers that sung hyunjae is a useful man, and yoojin has to be polite to him on the off chance he needs to rely on him in the future. a very “he’s useful” kind of answer. this despite the obvious chemistry he and shj have-- not even in a romance way (though i do like jinjae), they just? get along? they banter easily and they have similar senses of humour and even though sometimes hyj gets exasperated at his behaviour, he still chats with him in a friendly way all the same.

and yet he’s also like SHJ Is Useful And That’s It. I Don’t Like Him At All. and he saves him in his contacts as “skill” and generally acts like he’s completely uncaring. which, compared to how much love he has for hyh and then for byr, i understand- shj at the moment quite honestly does not rank up there at all compared to those two? but he does rank somewhere, i think, because then hyj gets annoyed and upset when shj doesn’t show up to help him, and past a “shit, i needed his specific skillset for this situation and now i’m not sure how to manage this”, he does react in a very... i’ve been let down by someone i had high hopes for, kind of way.

so basically he’s got this whole, i don’t care about people1, thing going on, but then he also very much does care. and hyj is a caring person! fuck, shj even says to hyh at one point that han yoojin-gun has a bad habit of letting people into his heart too easily. what that tells me is that hyj has like.... SEVERE trust issues. he won’t allow himself to care about people, to be aware of any feelings he holds towards people- he makes himself only think about the skills people offer him, about how he can use them. and even then, whenever possible, he does things himself and he avoids relying on others, sometimes because he “doesnt want to bother them [with adult matters]” (that one talk with yoohyun) and sometimes because he just doesn’t really trust them with whatever needs doing

1. as an aside i do think hyj’s moral sense is very funny because like. if anyone touches his fucking kids they’re as good as dead! he’ll kill them! he cares about no one but his kids and everyone else can die! [the world is in danger] ah, fuck, maybe he cares about people who aren’t his kids. he doesn’t want the world to die. but don’t BRING IT UP!!! JEEZ!!! HIS PRIDE!!!! but also if you get blacklisted for whatever reason then Die literally Die he will kill you himself. it’s a very funny, he’s a good person but oh, he’s also a little bit insane, actually. that sort of situation. i love him. go crazy go stupid, sweetie, you’re doing great.

WHICH IN CONTEXT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE, WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT PRE REGRESSION! like hyj was raised with the experience of his parents, the people in the world whose unconditional support he was meant to have, being tossed down the drain because he chose to take care of yoohyun. so he’s already like, yeah, i gotta rely on myself. he has that understanding that.... he’s gotta rely on himself first and foremost, rather than trusting people who are supposed to be taking care of him. not just caring for him, actually, caring for him and yoohyun, because then he basically has to dedicate his life to yoohyun growing up. he’s been acting as yoohyun’s primary guardian from age Baby. and age 17 to 22 was literally just him dropping everything he was doing for himself in favor of getting a job and making sure yoohyun stayed in school and was fine. yoojin himself dropped out of school so he must’ve lost his whole friend group and support system. and then post-dungeon shock, he gets thrown aside and pretty much discarded by yoohyun without so much as a goodbye from the kid, which-- wow! ouch! that shit must have hurted! talk about being fucking burned, jeez. and even after that, spending three years running after yoohyun, trying to “regain” his trust and love, yoojin would’ve seen his Unawakened self as ‘not good enough’ for s-rank yoohyun. and therein comes the “if it’s not useful it’s worthless” mindset. and then he Awakened as f-rank-- already a blow!-- and then on top of that he gets backstabbed by the dozens of people who were like “you’re an s-rank’s brother! go get Awakened, i’ll bet money on you Awakening to a good rank!” and then pulled out on him, leaving him with idk how much debt (this is all mentioned in early chapters somewhere, i’ll pull citations later). man, i’m not surprised he has trust issues.

so that’s already part of his difficulty trusting other people. but then it gets compounded when you think about it further because like, His Fucking Skills, Man. he has a whole skill focused around “if you make an emotional connection with someone and then they die, it’s useful to you.” holy fuck! no wonder he’s allergic to bringing people into battle alongside himself! no wonder he throws himself into dungeons solo just to get freebie skills that allow him to be some semblance of independently combat-ready! every time he makes a connection with people he’s wondering if one day he’ll get their dying memories! you ever wonder how many people he had on his list of “keyworded individuals” pre-reg? he’s stated that he used to be at the back of dungeon parties with a spear (the need for weapons with a longer reach because of his low defense, obviously) and so someone else always died before he did? how many teammates that he cared about has he watched die in front of himself, how many times has he gotten the dying memories of those teammates, how many times have the rest of his living teammates turned on him after finding out his ability and accused him of getting the dead person killed on purpose so that he could have their skills? like hyj brings it up when he’s first explaining last repayment, and hyj cares about people so easily that he’d never do it and yet he still thought of it. which means other people would undoubtedly think of it very easily. and they wouldn’t be as forgiving when there’s a body count right there.

just, last repayment basically took hyj’s (largely yoohyun-induced) fear of losing the people he cared about and slammed his head directly into a concrete wall. thanks for that, king. so now hyj forces himself to constantly asses people on a “what skills do they have? how useful are they to me?” basis if they try to get close to him, rather than allowing him to just go “friend :-) i care them“. and it makes him reluctant to get close to and rely on people, because again, Danger Lies Therein

and all of this also must have made him be used to... being unloved, i guess (from his perspective- yoohyun cared, even when he left, but yoojin didn’t know that until yoohyun died). because most if not all of the people who have cared about or pretended to care about him have later left him. he’s got abandonment issues up the wazoo. when people say they care about him (stw, shj) he reacts with distrust. when he reveals the slightest imperfection he’s convinced they‘ll leave him, regardless of how much kindness he’s shown them in the meantime-- remember when he told myeongwoo he’d lied about them being childhood friends? complete confusion that myeongwoo didn’t immediately renounce their friendship. (SPOILERS FOR UNPUBLISHED CHAPTERS!) and later, it happens again with yerim- he tells her that he wasn’t actually a friend of her parents, he just wanted to poach her for haeyeon-- and then wonders why she doesn’t react with betrayal, when what she says is “i’m glad! ahjussi was so kind to me, i was worried i’d bewitched him somehow. i’m glad he actually cares about me. it makes me happy you were so kind”. he expects to lose the people he cares about, if not by outside causes, then of their own volition.

though on the outside causes front, i suppose it does help that like, all the people he’s growing close to now are hypercompetent high-rankers and therefore less likely to get themselves hurt. versus last timeline’s f-rank and e-rank friends, who’d probably routinely get killed, rip. but then there lies the possibility of yoojin thinking “if i pull them into danger then they’re in that much more danger” (see: Literally The Whole Reason Pre-reg Yoohyun Died. he went to help hyj and got in over his head trying to defend hyj and keep hyung alive, when he should’ve been able to defend himself with ease. hyj and diarma both acknowledge this.) which, again, plays into the reason he tries to avoid relying on other people.

tl;dr hyj’s interpersonal relationships are fucked!

but anyways moving on to talk about my fic versions of canon yoojin (hyj): han hyunjae (hhj) and han yoojin jr. (hyj jr). and how i’ve given them both problems disorders based on hyj’s issues

so like right off the bat we have hhj’s major issue, repeatedly brought up in-fic-- his issue with relying on people. let me pull a quote about this from the author notes of ywbk chapter 11:

some of you might be wondering why the yoojins are so [pretends to be okay and centers self on taking care of others], particularly [hhj]. my thinking for that part was mostly... in canon we see yoojin surrounded by people he knows are competent and capable, almost all of them adults. even when he's "raising" them, he has some degree of confidence in their ability to watch out for themselves. plus he's had time to grow out of being the only one in charge of the family; he's seen his brother come into his own and he's pulled back from his caretaking role

but here, [hhj]'s been directly thrust into raising two kids (and yeah even if [hyj jr]'s 18 he's still very much a child). not only that, but his knowledge of the future makes him (in his eyes) more knowledgable than just about all the folks around him, even the adults. mostly, he doesn't want to drop all his baggage on them when he knows they won't be able to relate (and in some cases, he doesn't want them to live with that knowledge). so he kind of distanced himself from everyone and pushed himself further into the caretaking thing as a way of coping, without realizing that's what he was doing.

we have hhj who, as hyj’s au twin, has the same trust issues and forced utilitarian attitude rising from pre-reg experiences. and then we dropped him into a situation where that “prioritize work and handle all issues myself” attitude is-- i don’t want to say rewarded, exactly, but it’s definitely useful for him in the timeline he’s in. he’s the oldest han brother, so handling issues naturally falls to him anyway as the head of the family; with both boys in school, he’s the breadwinner of the family, so prioritizing work is good! he becomes a super-efficient worker and it satisfies the needs of everyone around him!

unfortunately yoojin is a caring person, so hyj jr realizes that hhj is very much overreaching when he’s not even begun to address the effects of the Very Obvious In A Non-Dungeon World pre-reg trauma. so he’s like. hyung. what the FUCK, dude. take it easy and rely on people once in a while.

and physically, sure, hhj can rely on them. he can get yoohyun to do chores, he can get junior to take on a part time job so funds aren’t a constant worry. he gets better at trusting them to manage regular life stuff, honestly! he’s pretty good about that sort of thing now!

but then it comes to emotional needs, and like, hyj jr is a kid? and hyh is a kid? so any trust hhj builds there is going to be a little one-sided, since he can’t dump all his emotional worries on children. whatever yoojin is, he is a good caretaker who addresses his kids’ needs, and the kids do not need to be hhj’s therapists.

and hhj doesn’t really have friends his own age, and even when he does (hello jiyeon and hamin and orv gang), none of them can quite- Get it, because there’s not really an easy way to explain “i have deep-seated trauma about my family leaving me and about the people around me dying brutally” without, uh, (a) a LOT of trusting them to take you seriously and not snitch (b) explaining some Context about his youth and also the dungeons. (like yeah he could say “i’m scared everyone i care about will die on me in horrifying ways, particularly if they try to get close to me”, but that’s an irrational fear (because why would everyone die horrifyingly, why would getting close to hhj be a death sentence)-- unless you know that “everyone i care about” consists of Hunters and getting close to hhj involves getting involved with dungeons, and then his fear is very real and very understandable, even without knowing about pre-reg. there’s a reason why, even though hhj had four years to grow close to jiyeon, it still took the dungeon shock occurring for him to finally tell her even the smallest bit about pre-regression.

(from jiyeon’s perspective, she doesn’t notice much amiss, because the things hhj is keeping from her are mostly pre-reg related. he doesn’t mind talking to her about his current life, though he is reluctant to talk about some personal issues with her. hamin is a little more distant, because he is still hhj’s boss, so hhj tries to stay mostly cordial with him. orv gang is a more casual relationship- not really the type where he can dump his personal issues on them; and anyway, they’re a tight-knit friend group themselves, so hhj feels a little more on the fringes, not excluded but not fully included, either. a little like hsy does, but without the whole “i have to play the bad guy of the team” mindset.)

and this distance he creates without anyone realizing, this inability of his to fully trust them with all the details of his life, is what results in the freakout around the dungeon shock. the whole, You Are Actively Dying, if you don’t explain yourself right now i’ll finish the job. (though i don’t blame him for not trusting them with his trauma! i don’t really think he’s ready to talk about it. especially with people who don’t yet have any context for even the start of the story. hopefully this’ll change post-dungeon shock, though.)

unfortunately even with his newfound ability to talk about things more freely, he’s still in a sticky situation-- over the years, he’s developed his ability to rely on people for non-life-and-death situations like “earn money on the side”. but sending his brother to take out the trash is very very different from sending his brother to fight dungeons and other Hunters without backup. is very different from needing to risk a life and choosing his brother’s. so despite his hard-won Relying On Others abilities, they don’t extend to dungeon world situations.

and what does this mean, practically? it means, like canon hyj, hhj is going to persistently overreach himself in trying to fight alone-- he’ll try to be competent, to take on adversaries, to build strength in every possible avenue so that he can keep yoohyun and hyj jr and the rest of his family out of danger. he’ll try to be a one-man army, just to defend the people he cares about.

(ONE DAY. one day he will learn that it may not be safe to care, he may still be hurt, but that doesn’t mean he should cut himself off in advance. he’s still allowed to care. he’s still allowed to be cared about. oh, hhj. i want to beat him up but more than that i want to hug him.)

and then there’s hyj jr. oh, junior, you’re a delight. i love the concept of a yoojin who’s never had the trauma of being left behind by yoohyun, who’s gotten to flourish and become everything he has the potential to be, fighting at yoohyun’s side and being amazing. it’s too bad the method i chose to achieve this through also left our prodigal son with extreme issues.

(FAIR WARNING: THIS PART WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR LATER PARTS OF YWBK VIS A VIS SOME CHARACTER DECISIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS. mostly since hyj’s time to shine hasn’t come through quite yet, so we don’t have as much of him)

so our boy junior may not have the various traumas induced by pre-regression, but he does start off with the same parental neglect that makes him hesitant to rely on seniors. and when his parents die, it’s about a week or so before hhj shows up, which junior spends realizing that he’s really going to have to give up his life and completely dedicate himself to guardianship, huh? and then hhj appears, and rips that role out from under him-- not just the “head of the family” role, even the “primary guardian of yoohyun” role. because yoohyun trusts him instinctively, and looks to him with just as much respect as hyj jr. junior becomes desperate to regain that role he’s lived all his life, in whatever form he can, resulting in the chapter 11 blowup. and past me already covered this:

as for junior, he's suddenly gained a new brother out of nowhere who is demonstrably bad at taking care of himself; on top of that, the "head of house + reliable caretaker" role junior's played almost all his life has been stolen out from under his nose without his realizing, and he's not really been able to adjust to suddenly being made to depend on yoojin (and, to a degree, jiyeon). yeah it helps a bit that yoojin's his elder self but even so. so he's attempting to re-assert himself in the role he's familiar with, particularly now that he's due to [go to mandatory service and] not see any of these people for months

he’s trying to figure out where he fits in this new family setup, trying to figure out what he can do for his family. and he would’ve started out on a track similar to hhj, trying to be everything for his family, except then the dungeons start appearing.

and what does hhj reveal? that hyj jr is destined to be an f-rank. that most of the useful skills hhj has, the hard-won power that he has, it’s all earned from other places that hyj jr won’t be able to replicate, most likely. and hyh-- hyh is going to be the pride of the family, as always. s-rank, top of the nation, worldwide hero, peerless and amazing.

hyj jr starts feeling like he’s falling behind. he starts feeling a lot of pressure to keep up. as the dungeon shock hits, he decides he’s going to keep up, one way or another.

and then there’s the aftermath of the shock, and all hyj jr can do is- is sit in the hospital room and wait for hhj to be okay. there’s monsters on the streets, yoohyun is out there killing them and making a difference, and all hyj jr is doing is sitting around. all he can do is offer yoohyun emotional support when he gets back, all he can do is keep jiyeon sane when she calls for daily checkins, all he can do is wait for the nurses to check that hhj is still alive. all he can do is support the people around him without actually acting out himself.

all that determination he had during the shock doesn’t get killed by the realization that he can’t actually do much, with his strengths; by the realization that he can’t be a one-man army like hyung is, sometimes. he decides, instead, that he’s got his handful of things he can do, so obviously the only path left is to do them perfectly.

he throws himself into learning to fight; he throws himself into playing support whenever possible (though allowances are made for being bratty, sometimes, the remaining anxiety from the aftermath of the shock leading to him acting out); he throws himself into working for haeyeon, to the point of becoming the deputy guild leader. he throws himself into perfection so hard that he takes the slightest failure to meet his sky-high expectations hard. (”Why can’t i fight high-ranks without being afraid like hyung can,” says local E-rank without his hyung’s L-rank Fear Resistance) because he only needs to be good at these few things, he can’t do anything other than these few things, so why can’t he at least do this perfect, y’know? why can’t he keep up with his family? why is he never good enough?

(what if he gets left behind again for not being good the way they want him to be? he’d only wanted to take care of yoohyun, and look where that got them.)

so basically, hyj jr winds up with the same Need To Be Enough that hhj has-- but where hhj needs to be able to do Everything, hyj jr needs to be able to do Perfectly at his (self-assigned) Roles. where hhj wants to do whatever he decides needs doing, hyj jr has no illusions about his abilities; he knows he can only be the supportive brother, the hard-working guild leader, the caring friend, the perfect whatever. everything else is something he won’t dare to try for, because he Knows he’ll never be enough. and if he ever fails even slightly at the things he can do, it’s an instant game over, anyway.

congrats, junior, you’ve given yourself clinical anxiety!

but yeah, that’s. yoojins.

#star.txt #hyj let me study you [hand emojis]#my first exam is tomorrow and yet i wrote an essay for an hour and a half. time to do statistics now #i don't claim to be good at character meta. but i will still write it.#ugh i guess i should tag this with the fandom tags #han yoojin #my sranks #work: yesterday will be kinder

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tsarisfanfiction · 3 years

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Cartographer (Tales From The Heart)

Fandom: One Piece Rating: Gen Warnings: None Characters: Law, Bepo

Bepo took to navigation like he'd been born to it. As far as the other Heart Pirates knew, he may as well have been. While a compass had taken him a day to understand the concept, and a week to master, he didn't need them to know which way was which, and consequently where they should be heading.

What he couldn't do was draw a map. It was hardly a requirement for a navigator to also be a cartographer, but it was useful and Bepo despaired at his inability. Maps could only be bought (or otherwise obtained) from certain places, and in the grand scheme of things they covered very little of the seas. None of the other three could draw a map, either, despite the fact that they, too, could read maps with little trouble and (more importantly, in Bepo's opinion) had hands that could hold a pen properly.

Paws were not designed to hold pens. Bepo couldn't even make a fist with his paws – at least, not in the human idea of a 'fist' – let alone keep a grip on something as small and slippery as a pen. It was frustrating, because unlike his nakama he understood how maps were constructed, but for all their skills with a pen, no matter how much Bepo tried to describe to them what he wanted, they could never get it right.

It disappointed them, too. He could see it in the slump of their shoulders when he shook his head with a mumbled sorry, only for them to mumble sorry back and that wasn't right because his nakama didn't apologise like that – not as if they were a disappointment. They wanted to help him make the maps, so he could chart where they were and where they had been, but their individual skillsets couldn't come together in the necessary way.

Bepo didn't find a solution for well over a year after they set sail. Law had ended up banning him from touching pens eventually, after he continuously sprained his paw trying to force it into unnatural positions.

"You'll cripple yourself," he'd said firmly, taking the pen away from a crooked paw and gently rubbing some sort of balm in before lightly wrapping bandages around it. "No more pens." His response had been to cry, tears of frustration soaking into his fur uncomfortably as an uncertain Law continued to treat him.

"We'll find something that works!" Shachi had said confidently, before wilting under Law's withering gaze.

"Something that doesn't mean you hurt yourself in the process," Penguin had clarified, appeasing their doctor, who let go of the bandaged paw with clear reluctance.

The answer, in the end, had been almost laughably simple. Bepo couldn't hold a pen, but his paws were steady and he'd often shown routes on already-existing maps with a single claw dragging along the parchment.

Just because he couldn't hold a pen, didn't mean he couldn't use ink.

A small pot of black ink caught his eye one time he left the Tang – for once not on guard duty, because he'd begged Law to let him out on land, and with a hat jammed on his head to hide his race from casual observers he followed his captain around the marketplace.

In a corner, there was a calligraphy stall. The man sat, cross-legged, with parchment in front of him and a brush in his hand, and Bepo watched, mesmerised, as he dipped it in a pot of ink before sweeping strokes left clear black lines in their wake.

He didn't even stop to think, grabbing Law by the hand and dragging him over to take a closer look. His captain had protested, but wasn't strong enough to break free. Not that he protested for long, once he realised what had caught Bepo's attention so avidly.

"Could I do that?" the mink asked him quietly, and Law's lips pulled into an appreciative grin as he surveyed the artist with a gleam in his eye.

"Jii-san," he said, catching the man's attention. He probably wasn't that old, but Bepo wasn't one to question his captain's sparse attempts at manners. "Are you selling any ink?" The man frowned, glancing not so subtly towards his completed works on one side, and Law's smile hardened.

"No," he said, and Bepo watched Law's back straighten. If he'd had fur, the mink was certain his hackles would have raised. "Is what I'd normally say," he continued, "because kids usually want it for making a mess." His gaze landed on Bepo, and the mink squirmed uncomfortably. "You're the one that wants it, right? Come here."

Law tensed further, a hand reaching out to stop Bepo, but Bepo smelt no ill intent from the man, so he nudged past his captain. He jumped when a small vial of ink was pressed into his palm, almost giving the man a shock in the process.

"Thank you," Bepo said, when he realised what the man was doing, and the man shook his head with a wry smile.

"You won't be thanking me later, when you're trying to get that ink out of your fur," he said in amusement. "Now, I'm not in the business of taking money from kids, so you two run back to your ship before I decide to make my money by telling people there's a mink on this island."

Law bristled, but Bepo couldn't hear any malice in the man's voice, so he grabbed his captain's arm once more and began to haul him back to the Tang, where Penguin and Shachi were messing around on deck instead of keeping watch obediently.

"What you got there, Bepo?" Shachi asked after a moment, spotting the small container in his paw, and Bepo showed it to him.

"I'm going to draw a map!" he said and all but ran into the Tang to find some parchment. He couldn't find anything new, so he picked up one of the maps his nakama had tried and failed to draw to his specifications and flipped it over. Tip of his tongue between his teeth, he pulled the stopper from the ink pot and dipped the claw he usually used to trace routes in, coating it with the cool liquid. Paw shaking, he touched it to the paper, wincing as ink dripped off before he was ready, leaving a black spotted trail up to the start of his lines.

What he made hardly classified as a map. The lines were too thick in some places and barely there in others, and he'd ripped the parchment in more than one place when he'd added too much pressure, but Bepo couldn't help gleaming widely at the sight of the amalgamation of lines he'd produced.

He needed practice, but finally, he'd found a way to draw his own maps.

#one piece #one piece fanfiction #heart pirates #tales from the heart #tsari writes fanfiction #bepo #trafalgar law

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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What do you think of dick hability to read the body language in new 52 People act as it doesn't exist and it really bugs me because thats one of the few things i really liked from new 52

I actually really like it, and it fits with some longtime headcanons of mine, but it hasn’t been touched on enough that I can understand it rubbing some people the wrong way, due to Cass.

But its like I said in that post earlier this week, about how I think its pointless to be ‘possessive’ of character traits…..I think Dick is an expert hacker himself, but I don’t think he’s on Babs’ level. Nobody is on Barbara’s level. But his own expertise isn’t diminished because he’s not on the level of the pretty much undisputed best hacker in the DC Universe. Neither is Barbara’s expertise lessened by virtue of Dick, as well as Tim, Bruce and most of the rest of the Batclan, all being damn good at it in their own right.

I see it as being the same thing here. I like the idea that Dick is intuitive and highly capable when it comes to reading body language, for a number of reasons, but I don’t think it suddenly makes him Cass, means he’s as good at it as Cass, or that Cass being on a whole other level with that, being like…lessened or threatened because Dick’s own capabilities in that regard are touched on every now and again.

I’ve actually said this many times before, but I think this insistence so many fans have about their faves being the only ones associated with certain traits, stories or characteristics actually does them a disservice, because when you stop viewing things as a competition and instead look at it as a chance for common ground, you unveil SO many possibilities.

For instance, I’ve always felt, long before the New 52, that it makes sense for Dick to have a strong, unconscious understanding of body language….as in, he’s at the upper levels of what humans are naturally capable of having in that regard, which of course still puts him at an entirely different level than Cass, whose mastery of it is deliberately BEYOND peak human levels because of her own backstory.

But if you think about it, Dick having skills in that direction makes sense for him AND opens up a lot of areas for Dick and Cass to bond more AND have occasional conflict.

Dick is one of the only other Batkids aside from Cass AND Damian, who knows what its like to be raised literally from the time he can walk, to be a proficient athlete with complete control of his body as like…a lifestyle. The kind of demands that makes of someone, the way that instills certain work ethics and instincts in someone practically from birth, to such a degree that it probably NEVER becomes something he can wrap his mind around, that for some people, these kinds of habits AREN’T second nature, practically built into him….that’s something that I don’t think even some of the other most highly capable athletes in the DC universe are fully capable of grasping…like Bruce, Tim, Jason, Dinah, etc. Obviously this doesn’t lessen any of their skills or proficiency as athletes, just as professional athletes who don’t start training in their chosen fields until later in childhood can be just as capable as ones who started in early childhood. But it makes I think, for a slightly different mindset.

I think this is part of why Dick understands Damian so much better or more easily than a lot of others do. Because Damian was raised this way too, just with different end goals than Dick. Dick can’t relate to being raised to kill, to stamp down on his urge to show affection, the specific training methods of the League with someone as young as Damian, no. But that unconscious, built in awareness of his own body in ways that even a lot of other athletes or fighters never develop just because they approach their bodies and training so differently…that I think Dick gets, and because of that he gets Damian and his own work ethic, and the way that telling him to not push himself so hard or take it easy at times….like is going to be totally wasted on Damian, FOR THE SAME REASONS those things have so often been wasted on Dick.

Telling someone to be careful not to strain or overwork their body is not going to carry a whole lot of weight with a twelve year old kid who has spent ten of those twelve years being instilled with a greater awareness of his own body and capabilities than anyone else will EVER grasp….let alone someone who only met them a year or two ago (notice how this applies to both Damian AND Dick).

Similarly, causing people to worry when they go throw themselves into an extremely rigorous workout routine in the name of ‘relaxing or de-stressing’ is always going to be a thing, when other people just fundamentally don’t get that for someone raised from birth to eat, sleep and breathe their own physicality….this IS relaxing.

So IMO Dick and Damian have at least that much in common, which has given Dick particular insight into Damian that others don’t have, and helped him get further in reaching Damian and developing a bond with him. And extend this to Cass and her own backstory, and I think they all three have this in common, and thus could share this understanding between all three of them….thus giving Cass more opportunities and ways to bond with Dick and Damian in particular.

Continue on for ten thousand more words (lol, I wish I was exaggerating. Oh, me) of Dick Meta, Cass Meta, and Dick and Cass Meta, below the cut:

Now, add in the fact that Dick wasn’t just raised from birth to be a world-class athlete, like Cass was…..but as I often stress, just as important….he was raised from birth to be a PERFORMER. This is where I think his instinctive awareness of body language would have come from. Because he was raised to do all of his athletics with apparent ease, to show none of the strain it takes, to make it look like art, like the performance that it so usually was. And he was also raised to not just perform for a crowd, but to command their attention, to draw eyes, to feed off their energy and use that to tailor his own performances, his every action, to achieve maximum impact.

Don’t forget Dick was a world-class acrobat as a CHILD. He was quite literally a child prodigy….and people LOVE meeting a child prodigy. Something like the encounter with the Drakes’ that’s part of Tim’s own backstory would have been an every day occurrence to Dick. Which means it was every bit as likely a part of his early training to be able to glean from the rich strangers that wanted a photo op with the young, exhausted child performer that probably just wanted to go to bed now….exactly what would go over best with those strangers, expedite this encounter, and enable Dick to move on to the next one or better yet, out of the tent ASAP.

I’ve talked about the classism Dick endures just by virtue of being a circus performer…its never been about how much money he and his parents did or didn’t have, its about the fact that most people look down on circus performers as like…an amusement to enjoy, not athletes to respect. You can’t deny that people summoning to mind an Olympic level gymnast would view that gymnast in an entirely different way than they would a Cirque de Soleil acrobat they called to mind, even if they had similar levels of athletic skill….because as a society, we regard something like the Olympics as a WORTHY pursuit for an athlete of that caliber….whereas one might sit in the audience of a circus and enjoy the performance, but that doesn’t mean most people walk out of that tent thinking of what they just saw in terms of the SKILL rather than their entertainment, because there’s this unconscious bias that like….if one wanted to actually be respected for their athletics, they’d aim for the Olympics, not to wear gaudy costumes and face paint and travel around in a caravan and never put up roots in any one place, etc.

Our view of the circus goes well back before Dick’s creation, even, but its very much there. You simply can’t argue that most people give circus performers the respect their skillsets deserve and would merit in other situations…..and you bet your ass, someone like Dick who was raised as one, would have been instilled from a very young age with an awareness of how to glean when someone was treating him with disdain…and respond without offending them, but still not necessarily letting them impact him with their disdain.

Because one of the things I don’t think I’ve ever talked much about is how for as much as we talk about Dick’s self esteem issues and insecurities in regards to Bruce…..the boy Bruce first took in as an orphan was NOT overly insecure. If anything, Dick was the complete opposite. He knew EXACTLY what he was capable of, and was not shy about insisting upon it. I would say by all accounts and reading between the lines, the Graysons did a tremendous job in instilling in Dick from a young age an amazing degree of self-confidence….WHICH probably accounts for a LOT of the later conflict between Dick and Bruce, because it was never just a matter of Dick not getting the vocal or visible respect or appreciation from Bruce that he wanted….it was that Bruce wasn’t giving him it in the forms he’d been raised with, and grown accustomed to.

Its that disconnect that I think Dick has always struggled with…where he KNOWS, on some level, that Bruce loves and respects him, and holds enormous appreciation for Dick’s own skills….but Dick only knows this because of….well, what he gleans from Bruce’s body language and his own awareness of Bruce and his nature. He has to read between the lines, and still be left guessing (since Bruce is himself pretty much a master of obscuring his own emotions and body language, in as much as anyone is, to the extent that only someone like Cass can willfully pierce that shroud).

But my point is, there’s every reason in the world to think that Dick’s parents were very good at preparing their world-class prodigy son for the pressures of the spotlight he grew up in, and heavily prioritized making sure he wasn’t going to be diminished by the disdain of whatever snobs he encountered during the meet and greet portion of that lifestyle. And to be good at that, to know how to manage people who make you want to put your fist in their face while giving away nothing but a nod and smile, and still manage to seize enough control over the encounter to walk away with your head held high rather than feeling like you were just thrown to the wolves….that takes a high mastery of body language and an instinctive grasp of how to read people and put them at ease, to seize control of a conversation from someone who is used to having control at all times in all places. You have to know how to PERFORM, at all times. And in this regard, Dick was every bit as much a prodigy as he was in his acrobatics.

IMO Dick Grayson on his A-game could make Brucie weep in envy. I think this training, this ability to read people with just a look and adapt himself accordingly, to make the most of the encounter while giving up the least along the way….I think its absolutely nothing that Bruce himself taught him, that Dick already came to Gotham with, and its what ACTUALLY enabled Dick to survive the lifestyle and spotlight that Bruce’s lifestyle and spotlight made Dick grow up in. Its what enables Dick to handle the pressures of leadership and get along so well with his various teammates, coordinate dissenting personalities well enough to create teams that are famous for how well they gel and work together in battle no matter what they’re like when interacting in civilian arenas. Bruce, for all his skills, is notoriously not a people person. He knows how to manage people. He struggles with understanding them. And this has always been where in comparison to Bruce, Dick soars.

He didn’t learn any of what he knows about being a people person from Bruce. But he sure as hell learned it SOMEWHERE.

And I think that somewhere is in the circus, with his parents and whatever other various babysitters he picked up things along the way from. A kid as friendly and outgoing as Dick would have been soaking things up from all the circus performers like a sponge, I bet. Little tips and tricks of the trade from not just the knife-throwers, as is occasionally referenced….but also the fortune teller and ringmaster and clowns and magicians and escape artists. A couple dozen varieties of different masters of their own crafts, with one thing in common of all of them….all their crafts rely on performing. On reading an audience, even audiences of one. And selling that audience exactly what they’re looking for from that performance.

Let’s not forget that for all Dick’s insecurities and self-esteem issues as an adult….those almost unilaterally exist in regards to his family and closest friends. For the same reasons as he struggles with these things with Bruce….because they’re not great at showing Dick the respect and appreciation he needs from THEM, SPECIFICALLY….in the forms he would recognize, the forms he was raised since birth to receive and recognize as such, when his parents and circus family gave him these things.

Outside matters pertaining to just his family and closest friends, however, Dick is not remotely insecure. There’s a huge chasm between the former and the latter, in terms of how Dick acts and conducts himself. And its probably a large part of why Dick is so adept at not giving away to his family that he’s more in need of their acknowledgment and support than they realize….because Dick spends so MUCH of his life genuinely not giving a shit what most people think about him or say about him….he’s that much more proficient at wearing that as a mask when interacting even with his family of detectives, who are pretty good at reading even him in a lot of other aspects.

Because I maintain that Dick absolutely endured a hell of a lot of classism and racism growing up, and still does….which is not okay no matter how well he endures it….but he for the most part clearly doesn’t let this constant barrage effect his general self-esteem, and that is fairly important to note. Just as is the fact that like….he calls himself Dick, by his own choice, because its more important to him that he hold on to what he can of his parents, every last physical reminder he has available to him….and thus I think its especially shitty to write his second family using his parents’ fond nickname for him as a joke or insult, and probably hurts Dick when they do it….but the rest of the time? The general public making him a punchline for it? Dick could give a fuck. Same with general opinions of his costumes and what he looked like as Robin or early Nightwing, etc, etc.

Dick Grayson is not an insecure person overall….and that I credit entirely to his first parents, the Graysons.

All of this feeds into that overall awareness of body language, reading people for emotional cues and ways to survive a lifetime in the spotlight without being consumed by it…and without alienating people in the process, because a performer needs an audience, and growing up in a circus taught Dick early on that he had to find a way to end these encounters with asshole patrons in a way that kept his head held high but DIDN’T cost the circus - his family - their patronage in the future.

(Another reason I maintain Dick’s oh so infamous temper has been vastly more inflated than fits either canon evidence of it OR his overall characterization…..a man who has been raised from birth in the spotlight and constantly exposed to people who look down on him….like, KNOWS how to control his temper. I’m sorry, he just does, lol. This is basic understanding of human awareness. If your entire life is in one spotlight or another, be it the circus then Wayne Manor and Page Six, as well as being one of the most focused on superheroes in the entire cape community….and you’re somehow overall regarded in all public perceptions as charming….you do NOT have an infamous temper. You just don’t. People love to shove public figures off their pedestals whenever possible….and in both his civilian and superhero personas, Dick Grayson is on very high pedestals. There is no way in hell his general reputation in any of his communities would be anything close to what it is if he actually has as short and nasty of a temper as people love to spin him as having, because of a dozen scenes taken mostly out of context, over the course of 80 years as a high profile character. I’ll stop harping on this one when it stops being the first thing to come to mind when people cite a ‘flaw’ of his.)

Going back to reasons for him to have such a mastery of body language in his own right….Dick was also raised from birth to do his routines as part of a TROUPE, a group of athletes, not just singular by himself. Thus, a TON of what he was raised practicing every day….would have included reading his family’s body language for cues on what to do next. Watching for signs that something might be wrong or off even just by a second and requiring that he adjust his own movements to compensate for that, when they’re all fifty feet in the air and with the crowd cheering so loudly they couldn’t possibly communicate with words….this could literally be a matter of life and death for a troupe of performers whose reputation hinged on them being death-defying in their stunts.

Yes, in most continuities its stressed that his parents didn’t let Dick perform the most dangerous routines with them yet, due to his age…..but that doesn’t mean they weren’t preparing him for them as early as humanly possible, given that its never too early to start working on various skills that are integral to these kinds of things.

And with one of the most fundamental and essential skills needed to be part of a group of performers who excel at dangerous routines being communication, this is all the more reason to think they were probably teaching Dick from a very young age to pick up on body language and watch for even the slightest hints of different indicators of stress, fatigue, anxiety, fear, etc.

Because compensating for something going wrong with a partner’s part of a routine can be essential in matters of teamwork. (Again, just gotta give a shout out to the Flying Graysons here, because its not stated enough that everything Dick knows about being a solo vigilante, he learned from Bruce, but everything he knows about teamwork is either instinctive or built in, OR learned from his parents, part of a team). And most of the time, when we’re talking about shifting position just enough while fifty feet above a crowd in order to make a catch of a partner that launched with not quite enough momentum or is overshooting their mark….compensating or cheating one’s own routine just enough to be there for your partner is the kind of thing that needs to happen in a SPLIT-SECOND…..like, with you making the adjustment the micro-second you realize its necessary….which means you have to be picking up the slightest hint of it the second it shows up in their body language, like a….what’s the word…oh yeah. A pro.

And given that these acrobats were all performers as much as athletes, with it being a given that their performances needed to appear as light and carefree at possible at all times, for the sake of the crowd….they couldn’t afford to give away obvious tells of anxiety, stress or exhaustion, had to keep a performer’s mask of total poise and control at all times throughout their routines….which makes it all the more likely Dick’s own ability to read body language and instinctive or hidden cues is exceptional….as he had to be trained from early on to be able to see behind those masks and read his parents and family for tells even while they were doing their professional best to keep those very tells hidden so that nobody would pick up on them…unless they were a master of reading such things.

So all in all, I believe that among however many languages Dick Grayson was taught from a very early age as part of a globe-trotting circus….one of those was body language itself, even if it was never actually couched in those terms, as though it were an actual language being taught the way it was regarded as such for Cass….as for Dick and his family, it was probably just regarded as tools of the trade, a necessary component of the performer and acrobat toolbox Dick was raised familiarizing himself with from as early as he began walking and talking.

Which brings us back to Cassandra…..as stated, I think Dick is exceptional at reading body language, with as much mastery of that as is possible at peak human potential…..but, that doesn’t make him the equal of Cass, whose own skills in that regard are beyond even that, due to the precise and comic book nature of her own origin. And how her father did something similar but for totally different reasons and no regard whatsoever for Cassandra’s well-being.

So I don’t think there’s any reason that Dick being the next best at reading and reacting to body language takes anything away from Cass being the undisputed master of that, and interpreter of the Batfamily’s hidden emotional cues.

In fact, allowing Dick to be acknowledged as adept at reading body language benefits her character….as she’s so often solely used as the interpreter of the emotionally stunted Batfamily’s attempted repression of their emotional cues. Basically just being treated as a plot device rather than a character in her own right.

As much as I project onto Dick and thus talk about fandom’s neglect of various facets of his character, it can’t be denied that the same is true of Cass….times ten.

Fanfics spend WAY more time using Cass to establish or well, tattle on various Batfamily members’ emotions than they spend on giving Cass emotions of her own in regards to whatever situation is going on in a given scene.

And since Dick is so often used as the family mediator or peacemaker anyway, this doesn’t actually change anything about his own role in things….it merely supplies a concrete reason for why he so often is defaulted into that position, and so good at it, despite his family’s overall emotional constipation. He has to be amazing not just at teamwork, but reading hidden emotions as well, in order to manage his family and their various arguments even just as well as he does already.

(Just a quick clarification…earlier when I noted that Dick’s own insecurities largely stem from the Batfamily and not always knowing or trusting where he stands with them….its not that he has no ability to read them despite their own very well crafted performer masks. Its just that as good as he is, he’s still never going to be as good at this as Cassandra is, and there’s still going to be things he misses, or things he misinterprets. And additionally, the problem remains, that he shouldn’t HAVE to glean any hints of familial love, respect and appreciation from his family’s body language. When he’s constantly relying on subtext and body language to reassure himself that they really do love and appreciate him, its inevitable that sooner or later self-doubts and second guessing are going to start to creep in. So its not that Dick doesn’t ever see these things in his family’s body language. Its that over time, I believe this has progressed to the point where even when he sees these cues, he second guesses himself as to whether he’s actually seeing things that are there, or just seeing what he wants to see. And since none of them are exactly making a point to validate what he sees or thinks he sees with actual validation in indisputable forms, like verbal confirmation of this…eventually, Dick’s own skills reading body language become irrelevant here, since he himself is aware he’s an unreliable narrator when trying to narrate what his family’s body language is saying. He wants it to be saying all the things he uses to assuage whatever hurt he feels for not hearing them tell him these things…thus he’s too aware of his own bias when reading them for cues to actually trust any of the cues he reads, that could otherwise confirm this.)

Anyway. So acknowledging or even emphasizing Dick’s own exceptional abilities with body language would actually be to Cassandra’s benefit, I maintain. Because without expecting anything of Dick that isn’t already expected of him and his role in canon and fandom, it merely provides additional support for the idea he’s good at playing family mediator even with as emotionally repressed most of their family is. Thus freeing up Cass from constantly being looked to as the interpreter for all the things most of their family have trouble saying….and allowing for more focus to be paid to her own emotions. And letting her HAVE them, in the first place.

Because we have to talk about the elephant in the room here: racism in regards to Cass. The quiet, stoic, normally serene and beatific Asian martial arts master is a racist as hell trope, and its one that makes all too frequent an appearance when Cass is used at all in fics. AND canon.

Its not that Cass can’t be all those things at various times. Its that they can’t be ALL that she is. At ALL times. (And that, for the record, she’s not usually ANY of those things in canon that actually tries to develop her rather than use her as a one-note trope in its own right. Cassandra Cain…serene? LOLOL. Please, I don’t know who you’re talking about, but it ain’t the Cass I know and love).

First of all, give her a sense of humor, because she has one, and its amazing. You’ll note I make a point whenever I write her to emphasize her having a kind of dry, sardonic wit that is not at all opposed at being at her siblings’ expense, lol. I mean, its not like that’s the only take possible on her, or even just her sense of humor, I just mean…have one. Humor is one of the most telling representatives of a person’s characterization. By that I mean, a person’s sense of humor is one of the things we most initially associate with them in our mind, and a character having a distinct sense of humor is one of the easiest and best ways to develop them as having their own character voice, something that marks them as distinct in your awareness from other characters. Where if you close your eyes and picture them in a scene, what comes out when they talk, like, to make a joke….isn’t interchangeable with just any other character. It sounds or feels like them, specifically.

And just FYI, you might have an easier time writing Cass making jokes if you allow her to form full sentences. She can speak English, has been written speaking English quite well in the past, and the insistence on broken English when writing her that way in canon is shitty and racist in and of itself anyway, so those particular takes on her don’t need to be respected let alone emulated in fanfiction. Let Cass Speak English In Complete Sentences 2KForever. She’ll still be Cass, I promise you. But the changes made to her brain in canon that allowed her to finally learn spoken languages years after her brain had finished developing, like, that happened early enough after Cass’ debut that there’s really no excuse for writing fic where she’s been part of the family for years and still hasn’t picked up a strong grasp of English.

Y’know how I’m always saying the entire Batfamily are ALL Mary Sues, they are a family of Mary Sues, that is pretty much their high concept as a group, that they’re a composite of the most otherwise competent people in the world and completely emotionally incompetent at the same time? Like, it applies here, because as I also harp on a lot about, I think all of the Batfamily are actual literal geniuses, and I do mean all. Cassandra included. She’s a master of her own many areas of expertise and thus IMO more than capable of picking up languages fairly quickly once the canon barrier to her doing that earlier in life is removed. It just looks and sounds weird and suspect, to insist on writing her as never moving past broken English, IMO.

And also, like, she doesn’t need to ever be as talkative as Steph, nor do I think would it fit her to be written that way either, but there’s a very wide range of options between that and hardly ever talking at all. I do think she defaults to being one of the more quiet ones in a room, as in one of the last to speak….but give her reasons to be that way, instead of just more imitation of our media’s racist insistence on treating Asian characters as the quiet, all-knowing keepers of sage wisdom who only share their truths once you’ve made the trek up to their mountain top.

So again just in terms of my own personal take, I tend to write Cass as being one of the last to speak up when around people she’s not as familiar with, because its her version of keeping her back to the wall of a room so no one can sneak up behind and surprise her. She’s only quiet at first in my stuff because focusing on using conversations to glean as much information as she can about the people in them before jumping in is just like, a form of intel-gathering for her and her past left her with a tendency to be as overly cautious in her own way as the rest of her family, and this is what her way looks like.

(Dick puts on his performer’s mask, Jason blusters and leads with bravado, Damian adopts a position of superiority and will only climb down once you sufficiently peak his interest, Tim recites facts and trivia and likes to bore people he dislikes into submission so you give up and go away, Duke is the family member who really makes friends so easily that any time he makes enemies, his friends have already plotted to destroy you before Duke even gets around to trying to do that himself, Babs has already hacked your bank account and credit rating by the time you open your mouth and thus feels no social anxiety whatsoever as worst comes to worst, she can always just tank your credit score to make herself feel better, and upon meeting you for the first time, Steph either adopts you or punches you in the throat, depending on which way her gut is leaning. As for Bruce, well. He’s terrified of pretty much all social settings, but he’d have to actually admit to that for the first time in recorded human history before anyone could actually cite what ‘his way’ of dealing with social interactions he’s wary of might be. I mean, its basically just ‘Brucie’, but you get what I mean.)

So I mean, its not inherently bad to write Cass as being quieter than the rest of her siblings, and you don’t need her quoting Shakespeare back and forth with Jason in order to prove you’re not writing her speaking broken English. Its just. Do some digging in her head before settling in and writing what you’ve found there. Actually TRY getting in her head in the first place. Spruce it up a bit, redecorate your surroundings, make it feel lived in and homey. Give it CHARACTER. Whenever you write a character choice, in my personal opinion, you should, if asked, be able to back up that character choice by having a reason you feel the character would choose that.

For me, I write Cass being the quietest of her siblings in social settings simply because she’s doing recon first, and of her various skillsets, spoken language is the one she’s mastered most recently and thus she has the least familiarity with….and thus is the last thing she turns to in any given situation, because she’d rather go down the list and run through every other skill she has to see if it could apply here, before resigning herself to having to converse with the person in front of her because she doesn’t think Bruce would accept “I didn’t know how else to change the subject” as a justification for stabbing someone in a non-vital and easily healed location that had the fringe benefit of rapid bloodloss leading to them passing out fairly quickly.

And of course, none of this applies with Batfamily, because she is comfortable with her family for the most part, and thus when I write her being the most quiet in those group scenes, its because she prefers listening their just purely because she finds her siblings’ antics entertaining. And also because I view her as being as batshit competitive as the rest of them, so IMO she’s always plotting the perfect conversational one-hit KO to have at the ready before she wades in. Because in the Batfamily, even ordinary conversations are something you can and should win. Otherwise, what’s even the point? LOL.

Also in terms of my own stuff, I tend to write Cass and Tim as having very similar forms of wit, and my personal take on them is that they both have just slightly different degrees of that same dry, sardonic kind of commentary, as their primary display of humor. This doesn’t necessarily always match their canon characterizations and how they display humor there - but its due to the fact that they’re two of the characters canon most rarely allows to show a sense of humor in recent years, and it tends to be all over the place more often than not. This is a major departure from how they both were portrayed in the 90s, where Tim’s humor was much more consistently in line with what I’m describing…and thus, so was Cassandra’s, when she debuted and developed her own primary characterization.

So basically, I consider Tim to be a major influence on Cass’ humor….or more accurately, in the shape her own sense of humor more commonly takes. Because it was with and around Tim that Cass first started to pick up a lot of social cues and explore her own sense of self for pretty much the first time in her life.

Stephanie’s humor, by contrast is a lot more loud and gregarious and in your face….which when you put the three of them in scene together as a trio, like they once spent a lot of time as, positions her as an extremely different version of the ‘straight man’ to their comedic duo. Because Steph doesn’t need anyone to back up or appreciate her own humor, she’s already landing the punchlines way before anyone else has even had time to think of any, and she doesn’t care what the reception is, the lovable loudmouth goof that she is. Which allows for Cass and Tim to sigh behind her and exchange sidelong glances and kinda….narrate her theatrics in that ‘faces the camera like they’re on The Office’ sort of way, which I mean, I personally find hilarious when they do it, and she’s not remotely bothered by, because like, she’s fucking hilarious and anyone who doesn’t get that is simply wrong and needs to be pitied, if you ask her.

Anyway, that’s just why my own depictions of Cass and Tim share a lot of their humor in common and some of their other characteristics….they’re the ones Cass either consciously or unconsciously picked up from Tim, as he was one of the first people for her to genuinely feel comfortable around and thus someone she trusted to both have knowledge of and mastery over the various social cues she was now finding she needed to learn because of her new environments.

(Of course, this is one of the times where Cass was dead wrong about something, IMO, as she might have overestimated Tim’s mastery of certain specific social cues and her body-language reads have her aware people aren’t responding her own attempts at mimicking them in the way she’s fairly confident they should be, and she’s not sure what she’s doing wrong there. Oh well. She’s still better off than if she’d picked Bruce to emulate there. When she asked him, he’d stiffened and radiated such intense discomfort, even Steph froze in mid-ramble as she sensed it on even the complete opposite side of the Cave.)

ANYWAY. Wrapping up THAT particular tangent and cycling back around to Dick and Cass having skill with reading body language in common….I think this could also be a huge opportunity to write Dick having a dynamic with Cass that’s unique to just the two of them and distinct from the dynamics they have with the rest of their family. Not to give them a super special bond but just because I mean, all the sibling dynamics between the various individual Batkids should ideally have their own flavor, because nobody interacts with two different siblings in the same way. Each sibling is their own unique individual, and thus should have their own unique dynamic when interacting with them.

So I like to headcanon Dick and Cass in private being the family gossips. They love dishing on the rest of the family with just each other….and being the two most skilled at seeing behind their family’s masks (and thus what their family most wants to keep hidden, to varying degrees), they have more dirt on everyone else than most intelligence agencies have on their nations’ enemies. Of course, they’re both staunchly moral, so they would never ever use their powers here for evil, or to hurt or embarrass their family.

They would, however, occasionally indulge in snickers and giggles about it behind closed doors. Look, shut up, they’re BONDING, they have childhood trauma, its fine.

And if Cassandra’s superior skills with body language means she inevitably has more gossip to share with Dick than vice versa, that’s okay, she’s still more than happy to share. He’s the one who introduced her to the joys of gossip, after all, so if anyone’s entitled to it, its him.

I also headcanon that because they’re both the best at reading body language, there are occasions when in group environments or just at the dinner table with the whole family, they both happen to pick up on certain cues or be aware that a sibling is lying through their teeth about something or being full of shit, and then catch each other’s eye and give the faintest of eye rolls or ‘can you believe they’re falling for this.’ Which sometimes other siblings catch, because Cass and Dick have forgotten to be subtle about it. Or did they not forget anything, and are just being trolls and instigating shit for the giggles? Who can say. Probably just them, which they find quite fun.

In fact, its slightly possible that the rest of the family, ever since Cass joined them, have developed a slightly inflated estimation of Dick’s own skills with reading body language, and now credit him with more of a mastery of it than even he actually possesses.

See, I have this one headcanon that every now and then, just to mess with their family, Dick and Cass make a point to hold a silent conversation in front of them. You know that thing people who know each other really well do with just their eyes, like managing to convey certain impressions to each other just by being expressive enough in ways and about things they’re pretty sure the other person will get and be on the same wavelength about?

Yeah, that, but Cass and Dick do it without exaggerated facial expressions. And for like. Ten whole minutes. Meanwhile, Tim’s like: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not buying any of this” and then determinedly ignoring them. Jason’s annoyed because he can’t actually ever seem to ignore them, and then this builds into something like: “You guys better not be talking about me behind my back. Or I mean, right in front of my face. Whatever. And you definitely better not be talking about Tim right in front of his face and not including me!” Steph just keeps continuing on with whatever she’s doing, entirely unbothered, because she knows if they’re actually communicating anything important (or even slightly of interest to her), she’s sure she can get Cass to tell her later. And she’s not wrong, of course. Duke just shakes his head and feels better about being slightly jealous due to how funny it is watching it get under everyone else’s skin, but in the name of not feeling left out, he joins in on shit-talking Dick and Cass in order to have Vengeance. “B, didn’t you ever teach them its rude to exclude people from your conversation? You know, some people would say its never to late to ground your children.”

Damian, by stark contrast to the rest, completely abandons whatever else he’s doing to watch them both as intently as he can for as long as they persist. As he’s probably third in line behind the two of them when it comes to instinctive grasp of body language, due to the whole ‘being raised to read/scan others for as much information as possible just from their movements. Y’know. In case you have to kill them.’ In his case, his full grasp of it was hindered by seemingly being taught to dismiss certain specific emotions as irrelevant or a weakness, and though Dick and the rest of the family have by now done a pretty good job at getting him slowly but surely past all of that, its like retraining himself, trying to consciously now pick up on cues that he spent a decade discarding and moving past the second he saw them.

But he’s determined to become as adept at reading body language now as even Grayson is, at least, even if his implicit acceptness that he’ll never have the same mastery their sister does is fully internalized and something he’ll never admit to, even on pain of death. Both Dick and Cass have at various times offered to help him with it, but he refuses as a point of pride….he wants to do it himself. So every time they have one of these ‘conversations’ in front of the family, he drops everything else he does and scrutinizes them for the whole thing like he’s a codebreaker sure that in time, he’ll crack the code and all its secrets will be revealed. (Mostly, its more like he dreams of the day he’s become good enough at it that he and Dick can hold silent conversations like this and he can rub it in Drake’s face. Hah! It will be glorious, Internal Damian insists).

Even Bruce himself isn’t entirely sure whether or not Dick and Cass are fully communicating the whole time they converse like this, or just faking it for funsies. It frustrates him to no end that he’s yet to figure out a way to just…ask them, without giving away that he doesn’t actually already know the answer, and that’s BUGGING THE CRAP OUT OF HIM, C’MON!!

(Of course, both Dick and Cass have fully picked up on his frustration and thus realized he’s as clueless as the rest of the family, and its this precise thing that they spend most of these ‘conversations’ silently giggling about to each other).

And in terms of fleshing Cass out…..part of what frustrates me so much about the excuse people give for focusing on certain negative fanon takes on Dick, that its done to make him more interesting, because no one’s perfect….

Its never been that this claim, in and of itself, is untrue. The problem I’ve always had with it is they add in ‘flaws’ in the name of making Dick more realistic, while at the same time ignoring plenty of material that’s already present in Dick’s character…but which focusing on, would require people spend more time and insight on him than they want to. Just making Dick angry and ‘remind people he has a temper’ is quick and easy, in comparison.

However, the other part of why this claim bugs me so much is because it IS valid and applies to fanon’s two dimensional takes of two other characters….who are never written with any kind of flaws which is part of why they come across as fairly superficial in a lot of works. And that’s Duke and Cass. When they show up at all, their usage is VERY superficial, and like….I don’t think I’ve ever read something with either of them, where they were written having a conflict with another member of the family, other than just sometimes Cass not liking Jason because of his stance on killing. (And usually this is in Jason-centric fics, so its not really in the name of fleshing out Cass so much as making Jason more misunderstood and Cass the bad guy for not respecting that okay he kills people, but only because he’s very sad, she should be able to see that, ugh have a heart).

So, I also headcanon there is a slightly negative dynamic between Dick and Cass specifically, albeit one Dick himself is not aware of.

(And also complicated by the fact that as much as I gripe about Dick being perceived as having negative dynamics with the rest of his siblings that are all his fault, Cass is the ONE sibling this is ACTUALLY true of, even if it was only really in one story, Redemption Road. I go into that in more depth in another meta, but long story short it was after she was brainwashed by Deathstroke and killed because he made her, and Dick was written as wary and untrusting of her return, not because he didn’t like her - they’d already spent a lot of time in years before this bonding - but rather because he didn’t trust that they could be totally sure the brainwashing was gone yet, and thought Bruce was being too relaxed about that. I maintain this is a callback to his own issues with that time he was brainwashed by Brother Blood and people were a lot less great at understanding in the aftermath that a lot of his choices hadn’t been his to actually make, and that there was bitterness here on his part for Cass getting the understanding and support from Bruce that we never saw Dick get when it was him in a similar position. Kinda a Prodigal Son type vibe. But point being, this was a brief period and it didn’t last, but it is there so there’s interesting potential to have Dick and Cass not DISLIKE each other by any means, but just at times be slightly uncomfortable around each other and trying their best to hide it...from the one other person in the family most capable of/likely to pick up on it).

So what I think it is on Cass’ part, the discomfort/slight ‘not quite sure how I feel about this’ aspect of things.... Like, its just a headcanon, and one where in my head she’s put a lot of effort into making sure he never ever picks up on this particular thing from her. Because she’s not proud of it. At all.

Even if pride is really the problem.

See, I’ve long believed that out of the entire Batclan, Dick is the only person who can ever beat Cass in a fight. Even compared to Bruce.

And to be clear, its not like Dick can always beat Cass. Or even often. At most, its still maybe like, two fights out of ten. And its not deliberate, like something he can do or capitalize on consciously.

But for someone like Cass, who otherwise is pretty much undefeated unless she’s going up against her own mother, Lady Shiva….even two fights out of ten is a lot.

And it bugs her, more than she cares to admit.

Because she is as competitive in her own ways as the rest of her family. She does have her own ego about certain things, like everyone else does. And David Cain, monster that he was, raised her to be the best there is, at one thing and one thing only: fighting. As much as she hates him, as much as she hates her childhood and what was done to her, how much she missed out on and the things she still feels left out for not understanding or grasping the way she thinks she should…..alongside all that has always been at least an awareness that at least there is one thing that came out of it: she is the best. Absent her mother, who one day she will fully and consistently surpass, everyone including Lady Shiva believes…as much as Cass hates her father and everything he did to her and why, she’s still at times taken a certain sort of pride in her skills in fighting. At least in that one slight respect, even if its not something she would have chosen, had she ever been given a choice….at least it had worked, had done what it’d been intended to.

Except for when it comes to Dick. Who will probably always be able to beat her, maybe two times out of ten. No matter how much more she grows in her skills. There’s that one or two times every now and then, where it will always be a toss-up, as likely to go to him as to her.

And its not something that Dick’s even aware of giving him a specific edge when it comes to fighting her, and its not something he could capitalize on even if he were aware of it.

See, as much as fighting is second nature to Cass, as instinctive as breathing…it goes hand in hand with her ability to read body language. That’s her edge, the one variable that no one else can compete with or match her on, the thing that will always put her in a class of her own…..the one result of specific training that was crafted specifically to create this one result.

You can’t separate Cassandra’s fighting prowess from her ability to read body language. They are one and the same, even if she can use the latter for other things too, and even if her fighting prowess isn’t JUST due to her ability to read body language. Which its not, by any means. BUT, regardless, she can’t train herself out of a reliance on body language while fighting….especially not to fight one person in specific, her own brother, and even there pretty much just out of pride.

Because the slight advantage Dick has over everyone else when facing her, is that like her, he’s one of the only fighters out there who was trained from birth to have an almost inhuman mastery of his own body, to be at the peak of human capability in specific regards. Even though his training wasn’t at all in the arena of fighting, at least not before he was taken in by Bruce. For Dick as well as Cass, there are certain things that are so fundamental to him, so ingrained into his movements because they were taught to him at the same time as he was taught to walk, the one being every bit as natural as the other.

And acrobatics was only one of these things. Performing was the other.

Y’see, the one variable Cass can’t totally account for every single time she spars with Dick….is that Dick’s body lies.

Like I said earlier on….its not just reading body language that Dick was likely raised to do, albeit in different, less rigorous ways than Cass. He was also taught from an equally early age how to DISPLAY body language. Or rather, a specific kind of body language.

My headcanon is that because as early as he began learning acrobatics, Dick was taught acrobatics with an eye towards performing, specifically. Since that was what his family did. And the one thing performers like the Flying Graysons always, always have to do…is perform with a smile.

So it was probably drilled into Dick from an early age, even if it wasn’t couched in these terms or even consciously thought of in this specific way…..but while taught the fundamental components of a flip, breaking it down into each individual micro-movement expected of his body in order to achieve the optimal flip for performing in front of a crowd…..one of those micro-movements, for Dick…was a smile.

Its as fundamental to his acrobatics as every other command his conscious AND subconscious mind sends to the various muscle groups he uses in his routines and now in his fighting even. I think its a large part of why quips and banter and grins are so intrinsic to his fighting as well. He doesn’t KNOW how to be anything else. Bruce probably tried to train it out of him before realizing or accepting that focusing on just making Dick not smile while backflipping over an opponent was detrimental, if not merely just unnecessary. Its just second nature to Dick, as much as reading body language is to Cass.

His own training from the time he could walk, put just as much emphasis on ensuring that no matter how he felt during a performance, no matter how exhausted he was or how stressed, whether he was having a bad day or was just cranky or mad at his parents or mad about something someone in the crowd said or just didn’t feel like practicing his routines today….he did it all with a smile, an easy, effortless grin, as though he was lighter than air and nothing he did was taking a toll on his body, it was all equally effortless.

Combine that with the fact that for Dick, because of what his training was FOR….because it was all done in the name of being with his family, being like his family, it was so he could do what nobody else could do, so he could fly….unlike Cass, Dick’s early training instilled in him an intrinsic pairing of movement and joy. To him, movement IS joy. Its essential to his core, to who he is.

Where other people see him throwing in unnecessary flips to his fighting to show off, Dick’s always just grinned and shrugged his shoulders at this, unable to explain what’s not even a matter of conscious thought….to him, saying he added an unnecessary flip is like saying to someone else they took an unnecessary breath. He can understand what they’re saying….just like you can take note of taking an extra breath that you don’t really need…but he can’t link that to the ‘show off’ part of things anymore than you could understand someone accusing you of showing off for taking shorter, quicker breaths than you need to.

Because Dick doesn’t throw in unnecessary acrobatics while fighting because he wants to show off, IMO. Who is he showing off for? The people he’s fighting? Why on earth would they be more impressed by him doing an extra fancy flip than they would just by virtue of knowing his reputation as a fighter and seeing it proven true as he kicked their ass? No, I think he does it because he’s not even thinking about it, and he certainly can’t think of a reason not to. Its just what he does. Flipping out of the way of an incoming punch in such a way as to make that flip as aesthetically appealing as it is functional, is every bit as instinctive to Dick as every other part of the flip.

Because that’s WHY he was trained to do all this. That’s what its for. Not fighting and superheroics. Those are what he adapted it to do. First and foremost, it was done, taught to him, perfected by him…..so he could fly. And show everybody just how much he loved doing that, when you get right down to it. Because he loves being able to do that. For Dick, the heights he can reach are his higher power, and every single movement he makes is like an individual prayer given in thanks of the gift given to him, that enables him to do that in ways nobody else can match.

But in terms of fighting, and in terms of body language that Cass reads on an equally unconscious level….this has the unexpected and accidental side effect where every so often…Dick’s body lies. At least, I imagine that’s how Cass would describe it, if she ever put it into words for someone. Because he links his joy, his happiness and pleasure at being able to do the acrobatics he does with the movements themselves, because its so ingrained in him to do it all with a smile, to sell for the crowd that its all done with the greatest of ease, and because its inevitable that on some basic level, there are some flips or techniques that the mere act of doing brings to mind - even just his subconscious - memories he associates with that movement, that are largely, more often than not, pleasurable memories….Dick’s body language every so often doesn’t quite read the way everyone else’s does. The way Cass expects it to, knows how to interpret.

And this is nothing deliberate on his part. Nothing he could capitalize on, even if Cass did ever tell him what it reads like from her perspective. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t train himself to use this to his advantage in fights against Cass, any more than Bruce for all his mastery of his body, can effectively train himself to not broadcast certain body language tells when sparring with Cass. Because Bruce’s training, as extensive and intense as it was, and as he commits himself to it, still only started later in life. When his movements and how they pair with each other and his emotional states, they were already set in stone. Because those things go deeper than conscious control….even if Bruce made an effort to hide his next punch from Cass, she’d see the indicators of him preparing to deceive and adapt just as instinctively.

But Dick, because his training began as early and was so 24/7 in its own way as Cassandra’s, when they were both just learning their basic fundamentals and their body was building connections between their muscle movements and emotions they felt when using each precise combination of each specific muscles to achieve each specific end result….with Dick, the times his body language misleads Cass is as unconscious as breathing to him, as instinctive as every other of these movements, and the urge to smile while doing it. He’s not aware of doing it, couldn’t consciously command himself to do it more without giving that away in micro-expressions in his face….but its there, nonetheless. Because its not like it was done or trained into him in order to lie to Cass or someone like her….that’s just an unanticipated side-effect. It was done for one reason only: to make even the most rigorous of efforts look as effortless as skipping.

And it being that instinctive is WHY Cass occasionally falls for it, every now and again. Even when she tries to prepare for it sometimes. Because its like a lie spoken in her own first language. Every so often, she misreads how exhausted or worn out he is while in the middle of a spar, because Dick’s body language while flipping around so often reads as easy, light-hearted, happy. None of the things associated with being on the verge of his legs giving out, even if they are. And every now and again, a punch catches her off guard, because its not telegraphed in any of the normal ways, his body language is too focused on what’s coming after the punch, the preparation to make a leap or a vault that its particularly excited for, that always paired with anticipation, from as early as he could attempt it. Every once in awhile she fails to capitalize on a moment of weakness he has or an injury he’s nursing…because she’s missed the signs for it, its so buried deep beneath the performance mask he was trained to wear specifically while continuing through a routine even while feeling an ache or pain in that particular muscle group.

Even if no one else entirely knows why, Dick can beat Cass every once in awhile, even more often than Bruce can. Because the LESS Dick focuses his conscious thoughts, the MORE instinctive he makes his movements, basically when he MOST relies on just muscle memory and lets his body take over on autopilot, trusting it to get him safely through a fight while his conscious mind and troubles might be otherwise distracting him…..that’s when Cass has the hardest time reading him reliably. Because when he gets like that, everything else vanishes. Its like no other emotions exist for him. Even while being otherwise miserable or unhappy or grieving or tired….when he just lets go and trusts his body to do what its been trained to do so often and extensively its just pure instinct at this point….all of her brother’s movements at that point just sing. The brutality of a fight gets lost in the beauty of his acrobatics, even on the very same level and in the very language she most relies on…because they were meant to be ‘spoken’ even that bone-deep, they were meant to look like and indicate pure joy of movement in even the most primal of languages.

On a certain level, Cassandra has always been the least surprised of any of their family, why people like Deathstroke and the Court of Owls and countless other villains have always been so intent, so focused on making Dick specifically turn to their side, become one of them…become a killer. She understands the draw they feel towards him perfectly, probably even better than they do. Because the language these villains speak most naturally is violence. And her eldest brother takes violence and makes it art.

And even villains are drawn to art that speaks to them in a language they can understand.

So, even though she doesn’t want it to, even though it shouldn’t bother her, even though it ultimately doesn’t even matter that much….it bothers Cass, a little bit. That Dick has just enough of an x-factor in sparrings specific to just the two of them, that no matter how much Cass tries to adjust for it, she can still be thrown or fooled as easily as anyone else can fall for a lie spoken in a shared language. Its actually probably for the best that her own unique form of Kryptonite belongs to none other than her very own big brother, protective to a fault. Someone who would never hurt her.

Except…

Even with all that, she can’t help herself. Every once in awhile, she looks at Dick and can’t help but be wary. She doesn’t like having a potential blindspot she knows full well is there and can’t do a damn thing about. She doesn’t like that it bugs her so much either, but it does. She doesn’t like that the fighting and body-language reading that are the end results of her father’s abuse have become in different ways just enough of points of pride that she finds her pride pricked at the reminder she’s still fallible. Still human. Can still be fooled, even if unintentionally, even if not that often.

Because given the price she paid - that she never asked to pay, never was asked if she WANTED to pay it - to be so foolproof, at least where everyone else is concerned, she at least wished the damn training had worked as intended, instead of one specific monkey wrench her father hadn’t accounted for. All because who was prepared for an acrobatic vigilante who’s happy and gleeful on a primal level even when fighting for his life, because his body can’t help but be glad it can fly?

So she fights that feeling down any time it arises, becomes all the more determined for it not to create a wedge between her and the big brother she honestly adores and she knows honestly adores her too.

But sometimes when he smiles at her, Cass hates the way she is. What it makes her. Because all of them by now are used to people like the Court constantly trying to repurpose Dick, turn him against everything he holds dear. And each time everyone else is reminded of that, they turn to cast glances at Cass, without even thinking about it. They’re all just as aware of Dick’s own fighting prowess, after all. And how deadly he could be if he ever put his mind to it and set aside his morality.

She knows full well that if that ever happened, if any villain ever did manage to get their hooks in deep, she’s the one it would ultimately fall to. The Break Glass in Case of Emergency, Plan Z, final failsafe. She was who they would sic on the big brother that’s always drawn the darkness like moths to his flickering flame.

And she alone nurses the knowledge that if it ever came to that….she’s not quite as certain as the rest of their family, that she could infallibly win.

It bothers her more than she can say, more than she will ever dare say….that one of her greatest fears wears her doting eldest brother’s face.

Because if the Court of Owls ever did make a Talon of him for real, there’s no one who could sink a fatal blade past her guard more easily than he. She might never see it coming, too busy looking at him and seeing nothing but poetry instead.

Dick held her once while she came down from a lungful of Fear Toxin. Even as she shook the last of it from her system and looked at him with fresh, clear eyes again, she couldn’t help but flinch. He asked her what she’d seen while under its influence. She didn’t answer, and hated how sad he looked while covering up. No doubt thinking that it was because even now she didn’t trust him, her own family, wouldn’t let herself be completely vulnerable with them.

Still, she’s certain he would have looked far sadder if she’d told him the truth.

So each and every time her big brother’s body tells her a lie, she tells him one right back.

After all, the flip side of being the two best truthseers in the family, is there’s nobody better at being lie-tellers at the same time.

Who else is ever going to know?

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camgirlsurvivalguide · 4 years

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Is Any Advice Good Advice? Where and who to look for direction in online SW

First of all, long time no see. If you haven’t already heard, there are a few major changes that have happened in my own life personally which have affected this blog. Number one, I have retired from live stream webcamming. After six and a half years I made the decision to step back from streaming, for both personal and pragmatic reasons - and I have been really thriving ever since! I’ve moved from my original site (MFC) to OnlyFans, which has changed my daily routine for the better and improved my income while reducing the amount of hours I need to work. The tl’dr is that I’m loving it over there, and have PLENTY to say about how I’m finding success - over on the newly formed Camgirl Survival Guide OnlyFans page.

onlyfans.com/camgirlsurvivalguide

After years of offering insight and advice for free here on tumblr, I’m now opting to ask for support from those who are interested in what I have to say - so for $10 a month, you can access my new pieces that focus (for now) around OnlyFans, but will also continue to speak about live stream camming in the future occasionally as well, in the event that I feel I have something useful to say.

Why pay for advice when you could access stuff here for free, or simply learn things yourself? Excellent question: and it’s one I don’t necessarily have an easy answer for, to be honest. I personally went back and forth for a long while about putting any advice behind a paywall, because for one I truly believe in supporting other SWers and for the other ... I mean, who am I to tell you how to run your business? Time and time again on this blog I’ve insisted that my advice is formulated around my hustle, and that what works for me may not work for you - so putting a price tag on something that may not necessarily benefit an up and coming content creator or camgirl felt ... off.

Then again, people sell stuff that might not help ALL people all the time. Gym routines, study guides, tutorials of any sort ... loads of other professionals sell advice. Self help is a booming industry, and writing self help requires zero qualifications.

So how is this different when it comes to SW? To me, it boils down to the audience looking to consume it. Joining the industry is not always someone’s first choice - and if it IS a first choice, a lot of the time, newbies are not totally aware of the extent to which stigma and discrimination can truly harm them down the line. People are often in tough positions before choosing to join SW, whether they’re suffering from some sort of a disability, in danger of or experiencing poverty, or attempting to support themselves through school - and while SW can seem like a saving grace (which it is, for some), I worry that without proper disclaimers, entering the industry can do more harm than good. I wouldn’t want to lead someone into thinking listening to my *~*~10 Simple Tips to SW*~*~ would help them transform their lives instantly without any repercussion.

That, and people are gullible and susceptible to influence. Lots of younger girls will look at a pretty, thin, white and financially successful camgirl and think “I wanna be her!” without really considering things. I mean, it’s just selling nudes, right? How hard can it be? How bad could things really get?

But I remember the headlines of SWers raped, murdered, beaten. I hear stories from friends about abuse, violence, death threats from strangers online; of having their nudes or p*rn sent to their families, their bosses, plastered all over websites that they’ll never be able to remove. I think of friends who are turned away from housing opportunities despite handsome income because the renters just “don’t think it’s a right fit” after finding out their involvement in the industry. I think of the camgirl moms I know who struggle to get visitation rights for their own children because of their line of work. I think of the woman who attempted suicide after her school ran her out of her nursing program after it was discovered she did porn. I think of being run out of my own program after being outed. I think of the last year of my own life.

I would love to believe that the majority of people offering advice are doing it out of a place of genuine desire to be helpful. I think there’s a big part of most of us that, upon finding success, wants to figure out how to raise others up with us. The Psychologists Fallacy is the belief that because I can do it, so too can anyone else - but this isn’t really the case, and when the drawbacks are as immense as they can be with SW, being naive as an advice giver can do more harm than good.

So who gets to give advice, then? The demand is there, so there will be supply. With how easy it is to make money off of referrals on OnlyFans (and with pressure being put on live streaming websites to implement similar features), it’s even easier for established creators to profit off of people who want to do what they do. I think the people who think twice about giving advice, or think long and hard before they publish advice let alone charge to access it, are probably the safest bet - but the people who are less experienced will probably do it first. If you’re looking for advice, I suggest seeking out credentials like time spent in the industry, variety of SW experiences, which skills that you think they could teach you in ways you couldn’t learn quickly or easily on your own, and/or whether or not they’re able to TEACH their experiences to others (because teaching and knowing are two completely different skillsets). Follower count or income matter less these days than meets the eye when we consider viral success stories - yet at the same time, I understand looking at the lure of luck and wanting to find a formula for your own instant rise to fame and fortune. Sadly, I’m here to tell you that I don’t think there is one, regardless of who might be selling their version of a How To.

I want to say to anyone seeking advice a simple, age old “do your research” -- but I also recognize that time is of the essence when many of us want to take the plunge. We need to make a paycheque right now and whatever comes our way first will likely be the only bit of direction or advice, if we get any at all, that we consume before diving in. I recognize that those who take their time, are able to discern which creators would likely give the best advice, pay for that advice and then have the time to study that advice and put it to use (paying for equipment, shooting and stockpiling content, so on and so forth) are likely considerably more privileged than the rest, which stands to further widen the gap between marginalized survival SWers at the bottom and those at the top.

I guess, in reality, this message has tilted from one for advice consumers to one for advice producers. Think before you offer help. Remember that what helps you is not guaranteed to help others. Remember the immense amount of responsibility you have when you offer tangible, procedural steps to entering an industry that can forever irreversibly damage someone’s life. Remember that wanting to help is good, but that sometimes helping is worse than choosing not to.

As far as this blog goes, I imagine I’ll still update from time to time, but I will be focusing my efforts over on OnlyFans moving forward - until the CGS book is ready, that is. Stay tuned~

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mediaeval-muse · 4 years

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The idea that college faculty and their allies have somehow failed to “make the case” for the value of their work is one of the hoariest clichés of higher ed commentary—our equivalent to the legendary “since the dawn of time”-style opening for undergraduate papers. A Google search for “the case for the humanities” turns up multiple books and articles. The tradition is so well established that new contributors can even engage in ironic meta-commentary on its conventions, as when a recent column argued that the best case for the humanities is precisely that there is no case. It is clear enough why academics would be drawn to a solution that draws on their particular skillsets of persuasion and argumentation, but the demand that we “make the case” is naïve and impotent.

For a generation or more, institutions of higher education have been actively dismantled—in many ways, transformed beyond recognition—by powerful constituencies who are actively hostile to academic values. These constituencies include conservative politicians who view widespread access to liberal arts education as a recipe for social upheaval, and business leaders who want to shunt the expense of training workers for highly technical jobs onto the university system (and ultimately the students themselves). They do not need to be told of the benefits of a liberal arts education. They have often benefited from such an education themselves and are happy to provide it for their own children—including at elite Ivy League schools that do not even have the kind of vocational programs that they recommend so fervently for everyone else. They are well aware of the potential of liberal arts degrees to produce engaged and informed citizens who can navigate an ever-changing job market with confidence and creativity. That is precisely why they want to keep a true liberal arts education as a preserve of the elite, consigning everyone else to narrowly vocational paths that teach them how best to serve those above them in the social hierarchy.

The problem is not persuasion, but power—and propaganda.

...

The alliance of conservative politicians and business interests has been so successful at shaping the cultural common sense around higher education that the areas where we liberal arts faculty members are best equipped to “make the case” are completely missing from the agenda. How can we “make the case” to a society that does not have ears to hear it?

Admittedly, even within the impoverished terms of debate imposed by interests hostile to higher education, liberal arts degrees fare surprisingly well. Even the business press has noticed. Forbes reported last fall that the much-lauded STEM fields do not provide the promised economic advantage over traditional liberal arts fields. As reporter Derek Newton puts it, “getting a STEM education may help you get a good job early but if you want a good career, you’re better off in liberal arts lane. In other words, even if you’re only measuring money, a liberal arts education is probably worth a ton more than most people may think.”

...

The reason for this is clear: the narrowly technical skills that students learn in such fields quickly shift from cutting-edge to out-of-date, while the broader and more flexible skills conveyed by liberal arts fields prove more durably valuable. Yet the cultural common sense is that students who major in liberal arts fields will die on the street—or less dramatically, wind up as underemployed baristas, a fate that is actually more likely to befall the ever-expanding number of business majors that universities pump out each year. This misconception is widespread even among those most sympathetic to the liberal arts, including many faculty members in those fields themselves.

...

Where does this disconnect come from? Frankly, it results from a systematic campaign of lies by the same allied interests. On a political level, liberal arts graduates are less likely to fall for the kinds of simplistic propaganda spewed by Fox News, Breitbart, and right-wing talk radio, which conservative politicians have increasingly relied on to rally their electoral base. On the economic level, the agenda may initially seem less clear. Why would business leaders encourage as many students as possible to go (at least initially) into precisely the highest-paying fields?

Here I think we might benefit from recalling one of the first lessons of Econ 101: all things being equal, what happens when the supply of something increases? Obviously, the price goes down. In other words, by churning out as many STEM majors as possible, institutions of higher education are effectively commodifying those skills—and charging those future professionals for the privilege of depressing wages in their field. And after congratulating them for graduating with a job offer in hand, colleges and universities turn immediately to the task of training up the next cohort with cutting-edge skills so that their predecessors can be easily replaced with cheaper, younger workers.

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t believe it is the mission of higher education to perpetuate this destructive dynamic. Nor do I think it makes much sense on a purely institutional level, because STEM programs are expensive to run. Labs, state-of-the-art computers, and other high-end equipment all cost a lot of money—and even in fields without those capital requirements, such as math or economics, the cost of retaining faculty is higher due to their greater range of employment opportunities.

By contrast, liberal arts programs are intrinsically cheap to run, often requiring little more than a chalkboard and some Penguin Classics. Adjunctification has made them even less costly. An honest accounting would show that, in most institutions, liberal arts courses are cross-subsidizing STEM fields—but yet again, the cultural common sense, often including among faculty members themselves, runs the opposite way. Indeed, when it comes time to make cuts, liberal arts programs are always first to the chopping block.

...

Why kill inexpensive programs that often serve as profit-centers while doubling down on the huge capital investments associated with STEM? The answer is that the health of individual institutions is a subordinate concern, at best, for the business interests who set the agenda for U.S. higher education—as evidenced by the fact that so many institutions are perpetually on the verge of failing even as aggregate demand for higher education has never been higher. In addition to the benefits of STEM fields over liberal arts programs already mentioned, the hegemony of STEM creates a situation where colleges and universities are more dependent on major donations, which corporations and wealthy individuals are obviously in the best position to provide. Those institutions which borrow to build new facilities then often need to hike tuition to service the debt—further incentivizing students to pursue supposedly more economically viable majors.

...

The only answer is to have leadership that already shares academic values, which necessarily presupposes restoring faculty control over our institutions. Part of that will mean reasserting—or in some cases establishing—traditions of faculty self-governance. And that can’t happen as long as we allow cost-cutting administrators to divide us into a privileged minority of tenured and tenure-track faculty and a disposable majority of contingent faculty and graduate students. Strong, fully inclusive unions that fight for decent working conditions for the whole faculty are the only viable way to form an independent power base that gives faculty members real leverage over the administration. Given how entrenched the destructive “best practices” are at most existing institutions, though, more radical measures—such as founding new, faculty-run cooperatives—may be more effective. Whatever specific strategies we choose, however, we need to keep firmly in mind that the answer is not persuasion, but power.

#higher education #academia #humanities

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kaycmoney · 4 years

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I Need Money Now – 25 Safe Ways To Get Cash Fast

Do you need money today? Times like these — when you’ve suddenly been hit with an emergency or an unexpected expense — can be stressful and overwhelming. But there are options.

Just remember: the cure for stress is action. The quicker you commit to taking concrete steps to solve the challenges you’re facing, the better you and your wallet will feel.

The good news is that with a little bit of creativity and hustle, you can get yourself out of the situation you’re in and prevent this kind of financial crunch from ever happening again.

Read through this list of viable, safe ways to get money fast. They’ll work today, but they can also serve as a solid foundation for building a better financial future.

Ideas To Make Extra Money In Less Than A Week

When it comes to needing money urgently, there are three strategies to pursue. You can borrow money, make money, or save money in a way that frees up cash flow today.

These strategies are not mutually exclusive. Depending on your situation, it may make sense to pursue all three today.

Keep in mind, however, that it’s best to avoid borrowing money if at all possible. Often, people in emergency financial situations take out expensive loans with bad terms. These loans may help them meet their immediate needs, but will only cause more problems down the road.

That said, the ideas below are broken down into three different categories:

Ideas to make extra money in less than a week.

How to save big money in a cash crunch.

The best (and worst) ways to borrow short-term money.

Without further ado, let’s find you some cash fast.

Leverage The Gig Economy

For most gig economy jobs, it may take a day or two to get approved and start making money. Once you do get approved though, having the option to earn money on-demand is quite nice.

Here are 10 popular gig economy jobs that allow you to make money on demand. If you have any interest at all, apply now; by taking action, you’ll avoid the “I need money today” desperation in the future. You can also check out our list of the highest-paying gig economy jobs for more options.

#1 — Postmates

Postmates is one of the fastest ways to get started making money in the gig economy. As a Postmates courier, you’ll deliver groceries, food from restaurants, and other miscellaneous items.

With Postmates, you can work literally whenever you want (as little or as much as you want), and you can cash out instantly after earning money. That means you can work for a few hours one afternoon and have that cash in your bank account the same day.

One of the unique things about Postmates is that it’s one of the few freelance delivery services that allows you to deliver by foot. This is really only a viable option in very dense urban areas, such as New York City and San Francisco. But if you live near such a location, it can be a decent way to make some quick money without a vehicle.

Learn more about Postmates.

#2 — Airbnb

You can earn money fast renting out your place on Airbnb. Stay with friends or your folks while your place is booked. (Your mom thinks you don’t visit enough anyway…)

Payments for Airbnb sellers are released 24 hours after your guests check in.

Think your place isn’t nice enough? Think again. You can offer everything from full homes to basement couches. You might not earn top dollar for the latter, but rates for shared rooms still tend to be around $30 per night, even in remote areas.

Learn more about Airbnb.

#3 — Instacart

Instacart is an online grocery shopping and delivery company. There are two types of work available on the platform.

In-store shopper: A part-time job as an employee of Instacart. You’ll work inside grocery stores, hand picking and packing customers’ online grocery orders and handing them off for delivery.

Because this is a part-time position, you’ll earn a consistent wage, but it will be on the lower end of the spectrum. Since you’re working in-store, you don’t need a vehicle.

Full-service shopper: An independent contractor (i.e., a freelancer). As a full-service shopper, Instacart will send customer orders to your smartphone. You’ll then go to the assigned store, pick and pack the items on their shopping list, and deliver the order directly to their door.

You’ll earn per-order commissions based on the time it takes you to complete the delivery (as well as the driving distance from the store), plus customer tips. That means you have the potential to make more money than in-store shoppers. However, since the work is dependent upon demand, it can be less consistent.

In general, full-service shoppers make around $10 to $20 per hour. Unfortunately, unlike with Postmates, you’ll be paid weekly and there’s currently no option for instant withdrawal.

Learn more about Instacart.

#4 — TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit is a gig economy platform that helps connect people looking for help with odd jobs and those looking for short-term, on-demand work.

Taskers — as TaskRabbit freelancers are called — perform every kind of work under the sun. You’ll find typical day labor tasks like running errands, picking up and delivering items, and doing yard work. But you’ll also find less common things, like assembling IKEA furniture and even just standing in line.

Here’s an example: whenever Nike releases new limited-edition sneakers, resellers will pay Taskers to show up at stores hours early and hold a spot in line.

No matter what your experience or skillset is, chances are you can find a way to make money on the site.

Learn more about TaskRabbit.

#5 — DoorDash

Like Postmates, DoorDash is a food delivery service that allows freelancers to work (almost) on-demand, picking up and delivering customers’ orders from local establishments. I say “almost” because DoorDash does have a scheduling system; you have to sign up for shifts (which you can choose), and failing to consistently go online during your shifts can get you kicked off the platform.

However, one perk about DoorDash is that if you live in an area where it has a consistent stream of orders, the payout tends to be a bit better than Postmates. Also, each time you’re offered a delivery (via a notice on your smartphone), you’ll see a minimum guaranteed payout amount, and you can choose to accept or decline the job.

As with Postmates, “Dashers” can get paid daily, although there is a $1.99 instant cash-out fee.

Learn more about DoorDash.

#6 — Rover

Love dogs and need a quick way to make money? Rover might be the perfect option. Think of Rover like Uber for dogs; you’ll visit customers’ homes at designated times and take their dog for a walk.

Average pay is about $15 per hour, although you’ll do slightly better if you live in an urban area, or a place where there’s enough demand that you can take two or three dogs out for a stroll at the same time.

Learn more about Rover.

#7 — Tutoring

Good tutors are always in demand. EF Education First is an online education company that connects qualified freelance tutors with kids all over the world who are striving to learn English.

As an EF tutor, you’ll have clients assigned to you and all the necessary teaching materials will be provided. Base pay starts as high as $20 per hour, and you can earn bonuses by reaching teaching milestones (like 100 classes taught).

To become an EF tutor, you do need a bachelor’s degree (in any field) but no teaching experience is required as EF considers all aspects of your resume and professional background.

Learn more about EF Education First.

#8 — Turo

Turo is like Airbnb for car owners. When you sign up, you can list your car and rent it on a daily basis for cash. This can be surprisingly lucrative, and is one of the few options on the list that often works out better for people who live in rural areas (where there’s a lower supply of available rental cars).

Also, the type of car you own can really boost your earnings. Obviously, people are willing to pay a premium to rent a convertible. But other types of vehicles can also bring in above-average rates. One prime example is minivans, which are highly-sought by families on vacation but are often sold out at commercial car rental locations.

Learn more about Turo.

#9 — Uber

Uber is one of the most popular gig economy jobs. As an Uber driver, you’ll make money by picking up passengers and driving them to their desired destination. The rates vary by location and demand; for example, prices are usually higher when it’s raining. You’ll usually earn better rates in cities, but you can also do well in rural areas where rides tend to be longer.

Uber also has a service called Uber Eats, which allows you to pick up food orders from local restaurants and bring them directly to customers at their home or workplace. If you’re in an area with strong demand, you can often make slightly better per-hour rates with Uber Eats as compared to traditional Uber. And if you don’t have a car, Uber Eats allows you to deliver via bicycle or scooter.

One of the best perks about Uber is that once you’re approved, the company will send you a special debit card issued by GoBank. Having this card allows you to cash out your earnings and get paid instantly — that means you can drive for a few hours and immediately access your funds, with no waiting or clearance periods.

Another perk is that you can work whenever you want, with no restrictions or limitations. There are no schedules on minimum/maximum hours — it can be either a full-time or part-time job on the weekends, depending upon your needs.

Learn more about Uber.

#10 — Fiverr

Fiverr is a marketplace where you can sell services — which are called “gigs” — for as little as $5 (and for as much as you want). Some popular gigs on Fiverr are services such as proofreading, website design, data entry, and miscellaneous virtual assistant jobs.

But it’s a great forum for creatives of all types, as you can monetize almost any skill or talent. Keep in mind, however, that it takes three weeks from the time the client accepts your work for your earnings to clear and become available for transfer to your bank account or PayPal.

Learn more about Fiverr.

Sell Something On Craigslist, Facebook, EBay Or Other Marketplaces

Aside from the options above, your best bet for fast cash is to sell an asset you own.

To do that, you’ll want to:

Sell something that has a lot of demand

List your item on a marketplace with many active buyers

Some of the best marketplaces to list on are:

Craigslist

eBay

Facebook Marketplace

OfferUp

Here are some of the best options for selling specific types of items.

Books:Have extra books lying around? Head to a used book store to cash them in. Make sure to call ahead to ask if they’re buying books right now. For those that live in a state with a Half-Priced Books (120+ locations across the U.S.), they’ll give you cash on the spot.

Clothes:Plato’s Closet gives you cash on the spot for used clothes. The one catch here is that the store is aimed at teens and young adults, and only buys new and lightly-worn threads from in-style name brands.

If you’re a bit older and have designer items that might not be a fit for Plato’s, check out The Real Real. You might hate to part with something like a designer handbag or shoes, but just one such item can fetch a pretty penny if it’s still in great condition.

DVDs and other random stuff: Many people are surprised to hear this, but Amazon allows private sellers to list items like used DVDs, books, games, LEGOs and tech on its site. You can even opt-in to the company’s Fulfillment by Amazon program (FBA), which means you’ll send the items to an Amazon warehouse and they’ll take care of shipping them to the customer.

Electronics:If you have old electronics lying around (especially cell phones), a good marketplace to sell them on is Gazelle. What’s nice is that you’ll know the price ahead of time; as soon as you enter your device’s details, you’ll see a flat-rate offer.

Everything else: Try a pawn shop, which will usually buy almost anything of value. Of course, you’re not going to get maximum value for selling items at a pawn shop, but you will indeed get cash on the spot. Items that sell well are:

Precious metals and jewelry

Popular tech (phones, tablets, cameras, and e-readers)

Collectibles

Do your research beforehand to understand the value of what you’re wanting to sell. This allows you to negotiate better. Also, if you have the time, visit more than one pawn shop for a quote — and don’t fall for the “this offer is only good right now” speech; pawn shops need to buy items to make money… if they made you an offer once, they’ll more than likely make the same offer later.

Don’t forget about yard sales, the OG method for selling things quickly. If you don’t get any good offers from the options listed above, garage sales or yard sales are still an effective way to generate cash quickly. Plan your sale for a Friday and Saturday to maximize revenue. You’ll be surprised how many people still attend these sales.

Related reading: The Best Craigslist Alternatives for Buying and Selling

Do A Bonus Round Of Survey Companies

There are dozens of legit websites that pay you to share your opinion. You can’t make a lot of money this way, but you can definitely earn some extra cash relatively quickly — especially if you use a strategy called “the bonus round.”

With the bonus round, you sign up for sites that offer a new-member bonus and complete just the minimum amount of work necessary to cash out. For example, Swagbucks offers you a $10 sign-up bonus with a minimum withdrawal of $25.

Here are two survey sites with bonus offers that pay cash, along with the minimum amount to withdraw.

Swagbucks

$10 sign-up bonus

$25 minimum withdrawal through PayPal

MyPoints

$5 sign-up bonus (after completing five surveys)

$25 minimum withdrawal through PayPal

#Make money online #，make money，#make money today

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cosplayinamerica · 5 years

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I debuted Ragyo at ACen of this year and was so excited to be able to do so. I've been cosplaying a lot of super heroes, video game characters, and other American cultural staples for a while now, but I actually got my start cosplaying at cons through anime 10 years ago now ... at ACen actually! So it was really important to me to choose the right character to get back into the anime cosplay scene. Ragyo was my first idea, and she was definitely the right choice!

I wanted something that was a challenge to showcase and further elevate my skillset, but I also didn't want to break my string of badass babes... and Ragyo is such a strong female character in a show of strong female characters. I absolutely adore Kill la Kill-- it has earned its place as an anime and cosplay staple. Not only is it action-packed and quirky, but it's filled with such visual excitement. (I need to cosplay more from it!) I don't have a history of cosplaying villains either, so it was really fun to break that habit and go for such a gorgeous, diva of a bad lady. She's so confident, and it's great to be able to draw on that as you're walking around the con floor. "Yeah, maybe I'm cranky and tired and had a rough morning ... but damn, I'm badass right now."...Like that! :P

I handmade everything in the costume! Something I love to do. I definitely spent the most time on the wig: I ordered a long base wig, and 4 different colored weft extensions from Arda wigs, white eva foam, and two 6ft battery powered LED lights from Amazon. The eva foam served as the base of the "wings" of the wig. It was sewn into the lace, then the long hair was cut and added back into the wig with clear caulk... I glued the LED strings to the insides of the wig, then covered parts of them with colored theatrical gel lighting strips to get the rainbow effect, then glued in the different colored hair wefts between the lights so it would still show color when not lit up... battery packs are fed out the bottom of the wig and hid underneath my silver choker, which is made of fabric so it can stretch to accommodate the batteries!

Dress is my own pattern... and the feather shawl is made of 3 white boas, rooster feathers, and about 50 white turkey feathers! ... I'm going to revisit both of these again before I wear her for Anime Midwest in July to fix up the things you can only notice through wearing a costume for a few hours at a time!

Cosplay has been one of the most fulfilling, influential aspects in my life. It helps me itch my creative bug, lets me make friends and find like-minded weirdos, and it has helped my confidence and self-body-love so, so very much. I feel like I could do plenty of things that could help me be creative, but to do it in such a way that envelopes me so literally in my art is wonderful. And it helps me push my boundaries in a safe, comfortable form: with my fandoms and my character loves. It's also really helped me be more responsible with budgeting and adult money things! Ha!

I can't stress just how much it's helped me come to love myself and my body, though. And as I'm starting to become a little more active in the cosplay community at large, it's helped me connect with people who want to start loving themselves and their bodies more, too, and I love talking to those people. Helping them even a tiny bit by taking one more step towards body positivity and improved confidence is so incredible. That's my favorite part of cosplay, and that's the most important part of it for me, too.

Spread the love! Spread the positivity! Anyone can do it, and taking those steps towards self-love is made just the tiniest bit easier through cosplay. And when you finally get there... it is so, incredibly rewarding.

--- https://www.instagram.com/missjoeychell/

#kill la kill #ragyo #cosplay

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aliceslantern · 5 years

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Beyond this Existence: New Life, short 12--Vulnerable

Recovery is a tedious, nonlinear process. Demyx, Ienzo, and the others living in Radiant Garden's castle have to learn to come to terms with their pasts and their memories, learn to grow, and begin to understand what, exactly, it means to be human. While there is unexpected joy in this, there is also unexpected sorrow. A series of oneshots set after Beyond this Existence.

Current short: “Vulnerable.” A hidden diary sparks an unexpected conversation between Demyx and Ansem.

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

Excerpt from a diary

I still think about them, sometimes. How can you not?

Like, I’ll be out and about, working or just doing me, and I’ll see something out of nowhere that reminds me of them. The colors in the marketplace, the smell of the flowers in the garden. Their faces are less and less clear every day, it seems. More than anything I remember the armor.

It’s almost harder to lose people who didn’t care about you.

I’ve talked about it over and over again, the way it supposedly makes me feel. But truthfully? Working with the sick and dying… reminds me of the sick and dying. I still feel it, in my bones, like half completed fragments of song.

Ienzo doesn’t know about this diary. It shouldn’t be easy, to keep a secret; it’s not like he can read it, anyway. (Thinking too hard about which language to write in just gives me a headache. There it is again. Suddenly letters; suddenly runes. Thank god-or-whatever for pencils.)

I’m not okay. These things come and go in waves, like the world’s shittiest coda tacked on to an otherwise good composition. Maybe it’s because I’m just so tired, but I can feel the weight of the past, heavy, icky, sticky.

Times like these I don’t want to exist.

I’m not going to pull an Ansem and disappear into the rain. I figure if I die again, this time it’ll really take. And I don’t want to die. I want the world to stop spinning, the memories to stop aching.

I’m not me, without the memories; I’m him. He haunts me, too, the absolute asshole. I can see him in my dreams, hear the brash laughter.

I’m sorry this makes no sense. But it’s not like anyone’s going to read this.

There’s Ienzo. Time to smile. It’s fine.

---

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you. Did you forget?”

Demyx scrambled to hide the notebook with another text. “Sorry. Busy day.”

Ienzo kissed him. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Oh, just my case notes,” he said breezily.

“So things are going well?”

“Fine. Yeah. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Ienzo stared at him blankly, and Demyx wondered if he could see it on his face. “...Shall we go, then? I’m quite hungry.”

“Sure.”

They set off, into the outside world, the cooling autumn day. Ienzo chatted about the next phase in his project, which included an oral history surrounding the Fall. “It is… harrowing work, but I feel it is starting to make a difference. Hiding the past, and all the pain therein, is so much more stressful than the truth.”

Did he know? He had to know. “Yeah. I bet.” How could Ienzo put up with all the pain, so easily?

“It is… something to focus on,” he said, looking down. “Aside from that, I haven’t the slightest idea what I want to do.”

“What about the gummiphone? Weren’t you expanding its programs?”

“We’re at something of an impasse,” he admitted. “There’s the question of how they threaten world order.”

Demyx hummed. “People are already starting to figure it out.”

“Well, so many are still displaced. And it takes a certain skillset to hide such things, which is difficult for the traumatized.”

Demyx considered the irony of this. “Yeah, I know.”

“But I’ve been thinking.” He looked up at him. “What is the worst that could happen? The worlds already have suffered so much, independently. Couldn’t we be stronger, together?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“It truly is a tetchy situation.” He sighed. “And ultimately it is not my decision to make. I’m not sure whose it is.”

Demyx listened to him speculate. The world felt quiet, staticy, a bit numb. He knew he should stop Ienzo, should tell him right now about the wave that threatened to drag him under. Work through it. Rewire himself. He took a deep breath--but the words didn’t come. “So what do you want for lunch?”

“Hm, something out of the ordinary. I’m feeling adventurous.”

Demyx drifted alongside him, listening, listening…

---

There were missed calls from Ven, and a slew of texts. That was one thing about the gummiphone--people could tell when you were purposefully blowing them off.

The worst thing was that Ven wasn’t even mad, just concerned.

You okay? Haven’t heard from you in a while…

Couple of things I remembered. Do you remember that girl’s name, the one Lea and Isa knew? I can see her face so clearly but her name… I know it’s a shot in the dark--this is important.

I’m sure you’re busy… get back to me when you have a sec?

Demyx took a shaky breath. Knowing Ven… just made this worse. He erased any shadow of a doubt that this was all some impressive delusion of his.

Ven would understand better than anyone how this felt. Demyx’s thumb hovered over the call icon. He couldn’t bring himself to press it.

---

It was a nightmare he hadn’t had in a long while. Sora, a Keyblade, blood on the green and blue tiles. It was almost boring.

Oh, we do too have hearts. Don’t be mad.

God. Shut up.

Silence, traitor.

Who was he kidding? Who had really been the traitor? He’d carried that vessel himself, so willingly, the second Vexen dangled the slightest scrap of validation.

The vessel he’d brought to Ienzo. Ienzo, asleep in the bed near him.

As quietly as he could, he got out of bed, got dressed, and started walking. Things were starting to feel a bit scratchy. Demyx held himself tightly, his hand over his ribs. For the savior of the worlds, Sora really had been ruthless.

He returned to the library, to find his diary hidden under the healing theory text he’d covered it with, but when he got to the desk where he’d left it, it was gone. There was nothing. His heart was beating unevenly, but he took a cold comfort in the fact that nobody could read it.

“...Looking for something?”

Ansem’s voice made his hair stand on end. Demyx tried to smooth his face, to come up with a good excuse, and found none. “Just a book I left behind,” he said. “It’s Aerith’s.” His Nobody self had been a hell of a lot better at bullshitting. “I couldn’t sleep, thinking about the case, and--”

“That so?” Ansem brandished the notebook. “Then what’s this?”

“My case notes?”

“In a language Aerith can’t even read?”

He felt like he was slipping. He heard himself breathing hard. “It’s easier for me to write in.”

Ansem gave him the notebook. “If you truly seek to keep something private, I would suggest a cipher,” he said.

Demyx’s head was spinning. “You… you read it.”

“I’m a predictable academic. It took me far too long to realize that these writings were current. Nice touch, getting the old paper.”

He felt like he might faint. “This wasn’t for anyone,” he spat, but his mustered venom was weak. “This was… mine , it’s private .” The indignation was almost stronger than the shame. “How… how dare you, you--”

Ansem smiled sadly. “I… apologize,” he began. “Once I realized that it was yours, I stopped reading immediately. You write much differently than how you speak, which threw me off the scent, so to speak.”

“How much did you see?” Demyx couldn’t breathe.

“Enough to worry. Enough to see myself reflected in you.”

He didn’t know what to say. “Did you tell him?”

“No. Demyx, these suicidal thoughts are not to be taken ligh--”

“I’m not suicidal.”

Ansem sighed. “Truly, you did not think it normal to desire a cessation of existence? What was it you said to me? You’re here for a reason, Demyx.”

“I know.” Something was hot in his throat. “I know that, I--”

Ansem waited, but the words didn’t come. “I know how it feels, for memories to cleave the being. To despise who one once was. I, too, hid behind darkness to further my own agenda. Moreover, I also know how it feels to lose those close to me. And for my past self to be at odds with my present.”

His breath caught. “So many of them died.”

“...I know. You couldn’t help but harden your heart, even as a Nobody. Why let anybody in, lest it cause more pain? I suppose, now that the memories are clearer and you’ve had time to process them, you’re struggling with the vulnerability you’ve found as a human. Is any of that right?”

He said nothing.

“Not to mention, your increasing self-deprecation, despite it being mired in jokes, can clearly be seen as a reflection of your own insecurities, creating a cycle you yourself cannot get out of.”

He could feel his eyes watering. “Did you just wait here to roast me, or--?”

Ansem sighed. “I do this because I care about you, and I can see you need help out of the dark place you’re in.”

“Why do you care about me?”

“Ienzo loves you. That aside, we have a peculiar connection. You brought me out of the darkness. You have a kindness and a tenderness to you that mustn’t go to waste.”

He tried to hold it back. Ansem’s rust-colored eyes were unraveling the anger inside of him. “I already ask too much of him,” Demyx said. “Ienzo. I can’t… he’s got enough on his plate without also dealing with… all this.” He gestured to himself. “It’s easier to pretend to be okay. He’s still so shaken. His anxiety… it hurts to see.”

“That is something I am also familiar with.” Ansem sighed, and shook his head. “But you cannot in all seriousness get through this alone.”

“I have before.”

“Then is not now.” Ansem’s voice was firm. “You need connections.”

“I know.”

“And you need to trust in them.”

“Do you?”

Ansem seemed thrown by this. “I am… trying.”

“See? It’s not easy when you have to put your money where your mouth is.”

To his surprise, Ansem smiled. “...Quite.” A pause. “We cannot expect to understand the hurt in our memories, or the hurt we’ve inflicted upon others. But closing ourselves off to the world--in any capacity--well. That’s not much better, is it?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Let the people who care about you in. Even if the inside isn’t as pretty as you would like.”

“I will if you will.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”

Ansem took it. “It’s a wager.”

#beyond this existence: new life #demyx #ansem the wise #ienzo #beyond this existence

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crystalelemental · 5 years

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Powercreep in Heroes is a big topic lately, and with good reason. Gen 4 BST came early, and the fallout of this has been...less than stellar, including dancers that are actual combat threats instead of just support, flying and cav units being pushed further and further up, and infantry now essentially mirroring early Gen armor units with their disgusting 173BST totals. Honestly, it is a lot, and for people who spent to make early game favorites work, they're probably falling off the meta pretty hard.

Here's the thing, though. It's really not all bad. Armor units dominated the metagame, and a huge part of that was simply the BST they carried. 180 is obscene when the next best thing is around 158, maybe 163 if you're really lucky. It's a massive improvement over every other unit in the game. Now, I do think that a defensive unit should have higher stats than an offensive one. A defensive unit naturally requires more stats to be good to function; you can't exactly wall out without great defenses, but offense has to be able to potentially muscle past so you need the offensive presence to threaten back, and if you're too slow then the damage output is eternally stacked against you. Offensive units really only need attack and speed.

To a degree, I kinda like the current meta better than when I started. Maybe that's because I have units that can compete, but I feel like it's very rare now that I run into a situation where I absolutely cannot break past a defensive wall, and hyper-offensive teams just need debuffs and speed control, which is what I tend to emphasize anyway. Things feel like they've shifted from "Everyone runs armor all the time, and all you do is turtle up and never take damage while DC/Bold or Wary Fighter and Aether do the work for you." It's still a good strategy, but it's breakable now, and other strategies are just as effective. Legendary Alm is all over Arena every time it's Earth season, but as scary as he is and as carefully as you have to play around him, he's beatable with all the dance support that exists. Units like Sothis are terrifying and some of my least favorite to face, but she's super weak to Chill Speed, which is now a sacred seal. And with the significant increases to flying and cavalry units' BST, I expect they're going to start making a serious comeback as well. Which is good! Variety is important in games, and I feel like Arena has gotten more and more interesting as time goes on. Sure, L!Azura dominates every form of play because they forgot one extra movement space for flying and infantry units is obscene, and that giving a potential +7 to all stats was the stupidest thing they could do, but hey, something has to dominate the game. The biggest complaint against powercreep, and the argument with the most legitimacy, is simply that early game units are falling completely out of favor. We all know a solid 60-70% of all Gen 1 5* units should've demoted. Their stats aren't well aligned, they have absolutely terrible skillsets, and some of them are completely irredeemable even with their refines (Luke). This poses a problem. Those units can still be good, but only if you get them fully merged, and even then they're not as effective as newer units who could do the same thing. A +10 Lucina still wouldn't perform as well as a +0 Brave Alm, for instance. And that's a problem. That's a big, stinky problem, and the solution is...half-assed, to say the least.

The attempt was Dragonflowers. When introduced, they were given to all units, but infantry units only could get up to +10 dragonflower uses. Which is okay. It's a flat boost to all stats, which isn't terrible, but isn't the same as keeping pace with the heavily min-maxed meta we know today. Really, all it did was let BST keep pace, without accounting for combat performance, allocation of those stats, and the fact that weapon effects went from a sentence or two to a paragraph to a novella. Flat boosts just don't quite cut it, and weapon refines are helpful, but not to those who got early refines that just aren't good (ie, Takumi). Worse, Dragonflowers were introduced with Gen 3 BST, which made the quantity of dragonflowers units could have sensible. Infantry units got the highest buff, so old infantry units get the most dragonflower uses. But, other movement types also got the BST increase, so they were outdated immediately (Thea has 5 more points than Clair, and yet they receive the same number of dragonflowers), and now with Gen 4 they're even further behind.

Essentially, the problem isn't that powercreep exists, it's that older units are not being given the tools to compete. I think what the game needs is a major update whose sole focus is on early game units being given across the board buffs. 5 extra points, allocated intelligently, to all Gen 1 units could even be sufficient. Some of the early refines getting a boost would help the 5* locked units continue to be worth existing in that pool. And perhaps most importantly, Dragonflowers need to be a lot easier to obtain. If those are going to be your balancing mechanic, you can't demand players excel at Aether Raids for 6 months just to make one (1) unit keep up. Dragonflowers aren't orbs, they're not something we pay real money to obtain, so there is absolutely no reason to treat them as such a rare commodity (same with Grails, frankly). Also, if you really want to go in a good direction with this, let players decide where Dragonflowers go. Sure, you can have 5 uses of dragonflowers, each stat increasing up to 4 points. Players get to customize their unit how they'd like. Instead of a flat +2 across the board for, say, Karla, maybe you allocate her 10 by putting 4 in speed, 4 in defense, and 2 in HP so she can be a better duelist. Maybe you like Desperation builds and go 4 speed, 4 attack, and 2 defense. Maybe you did that weird wall Karla build with Pavise and Shield Pulse, so you allocate 4 defense, 4 Res, and 2 HP. That...honestly feels like a much better use of these resources than a flat boost that doesn't really help combat potential, gives players more control over how to build their units, and offers greater variety because two players using the same unit are unlikely to build the exact same way.

There are plenty of ways to fix the actual issues inherent within the constant powercreep. The problem is, IS likely won't do them. Overhauling early refines means focusing on units they already consider complete, and because the profits are in the new units advancing the whale meta, they're unlikely to care if older units the rest of the playerbase use can compete. Hell, it's almost better if they don't. And overhauling dragonflowers would be a massive cluster at this point, having to create a way for players to essentially "redo" all the allocations u to this point. Not to mention, their bizarre miser status when it comes to every form of basic resource in this game, even ones that have exactly no attachment to their profits. You'd have to completely shift their focus to be more generous, which honestly is going to be like pulling teeth.

But at the end of the day, I don't worry about it too much. Because the only PvP that exists are Arena and Aether Raids, neither of which are particularly scary. Arena's frustrating until you have finished merge projects, but once your core is done, it's really not so bad. Aether Raids sucks until you hit Tier 21, but then it's really not too difficult to maintain in that tier, especially if you have a Mythic that prevents some Lift loss. A single perfect win with the doubler active is enough to cover an entire week in some cases. And in-game content? The recent Abyssals like Julia and Roy haven't been any harder than older Abyssals like Grima and Tiki. Hell, Tiki's was harder in my mind. So yes, powercreep sucks, and its constant advancement as time goes on can definitely feel like your well-trained and cared for Delcatty has to keep going against an Action Replayed Mega Salamence that can hold Choice Band. But the good news is that AI doesn't change, and once you get use to that, yeah it looks scary, but for some reason they hacked Mega Salamence to know Bulk Up and locked themselves into only using that move, so really, it's not that bad.

Except for the +10 L!Azura/+10 L!Alm combos. That's like walking into NU with a Mega Rayquaza.

#fire emblem heroes

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thecoroutfitters · 5 years

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Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Many aspects of the Modern Minuteman toolbox apply to preparedness in general, however personal and small-scale or widespread and earth shaking our pet disasters may be. As with overall preparedness, our exact situation and our expectations of disaster scenarios affects what we prioritize for our finite time and attention.

Last time, I concentrated on an “early/now” frame for prioritizing a handful of commonly recommended skills. This time, I’m actually taking the “at all” perspective, be it amped-up community watches, riot control, or some NWO-EROL situation we’re gearing up to oppose.

As always, opposing opinions are welcome. The more perspectives available, the better everyone is able to make their own decisions.

Gauge Community Climate

Absolutely and emphatically, yes.

Heaven help me, I recently found myself agreeing with Nancy Pelosi. A group of students approached her in her office to express their displeasure in her lack of support for an AOC environmental bill. Her reply was essentially that stupid to waste time on something with absolutely zero chance of passing.

That was a fair enough point on its own, and speaks directly to taking the pulse of a population.

Even more so was a nugget that made fewer news sites in the following days: The belief that trying to push too-extreme an agenda – however much she personally might agree with it – was worse than doing nothing at all. It would only further ruffle feathers, making things harder to achieve the next time around.

I’m no more fan of politicians than the next, but the ability to accurately predict and read the masses is something that we do need to be aware of if we have any interest whatsoever in being a citizen soldier.

What the community will stand and what they won’t is the bedrock of insurgency and resistance movements.

What they will and won’t stand in good times, versus crux moments and tragedy, historically makes or breaks those movements, as well as the hold over a community by a commanding force – whether that’s a large, visible government with policing agents and military, or the behind-the-scenes types large and small.

It applies to anticipating and either preventing or responding to something like a riot or demonstration, as well as guerrilla actions against occupations and undermining strongholds of loyalists for either/any faction.

Large scale, long-term or single-event short-term, we have to be able to gauge the mood of the mob and the climate of our communities, and our reactions have to come from a complete tool set – not just picking today’s hammer.

If we can’t, our chances of success are downright nil.

Denial & Disruption

Most emphatically, yes.

Riot control on sidewalks or countering the jackboot takeover, we want to be able to deny our enemy intel and assets, and disrupt their way of doing business (and ability to relax).

That can take all sorts of forms – and has, throughout history.

Interdiction and harassment take so many forms, it really rates its own set of articles even to nutshell the tactics and techniques employed by insurgency and resistance in guerrilla operations, community and large-force counters to guerilla operations, and even law enforcement and IT deterrents large and small, and internal policing by law enforcement and militaries and even lowly little small-business operations, as well as force-on-force operations from pre-tech eras to modern times.

On the larger scales, it involves all sorts of supply and travel disruptions, misinformation/counter-intel, harassing fire, false flags, etc.

Many of those can also be applied on the smallest of scales – even interpersonal conflict and self-defense situations – employing different techniques to the same theories, or adapting techniques to fit conditions.

Again, though, we really want to mind the effects on and reactions of our internal and closest-ties allies (family, coworkers, partners), the near neighbors, and the community at large, as well as our opposition and the reactions of their varying rings of influence.

Wilderness & Military Camp Setup

Yes, absolutely – anywhere.

Site development and placement of elements – modern or long past – have a lot of aspects that apply to preparedness in general, even “just” getting through a hurricane and “just” setting up our homes for everyday functional efficiency and security.

The same aspects keep them relevant to a modern minuteman intending to defend storefronts or residential communities from riots as well as the prepper who anticipates infantry-like service defending freedom.

Positioning for ready communication, rapid responses, protection of key elements, LOS, external observation points, latrines/sanitation, deployment outside the wire and-or green zones, individual safety and incoming-fire cover, fire safety, supply distribution, and awareness of known effective ranges by position and armament all factor in.

They apply equally to both the able-bodied foot soldier and to the physically limited watchman or rear-echelon non-combatant, whatever the situation, however big or small the location.

*Think that one through, and consider our daily nothing-wrong lifestyles – It really does resonate everywhere, from where our smoke detectors and fire extinguishers are, to aggravations or eases when we grocery shop, bathe dogs, do laundry, file and maintain paperwork, coordinate with family and coworkers, get to and from our chores and recreations, etc. We don’t have to be totally paranoid or OCD to start seeing typical trends in non-prepper, non-minuteman sources for safety/protection and efficiency.

Camo & Concealment

Meh.

Really, it’s situationally dependent.

For most of the scenarios we can list off, from protecting our corner of Baltimore or Koreatown to taking our turn as the insurgents – or countering them, or splinter cells of a larger force – unless you’re a sniper operating from the woods, mostly, “meh” leaning “well, nah”.

Flip side: Oh hell yeah, because camo and concealment isn’t always green and tan splotches of paint or fabric.

Camo and concealment is a suit or slacks and a briefcase in a courthouse, yoga pants and a light bag at the park, a “normal” passenger vehicle instead of an off-road rock-climbing mudder or Humvee on the average street, high-vis vests with dirty pants on a road crew with their bucket or tool box/bag, and scuffed up boots on a farm hand.

That camo and concealment extends to mixing up travel patterns to avoid breaking foliage and creating “deer trails”, being able to slip out of a location without observation, and presenting the appearance of following habitual movements and activities while deviating from the norm.

It’s also developing the control to watch our mouths and non-verbals rather than fight every battle that comes our way and picking every hill as our hill to die on. (Return to Nancy Pelosi above to make that an even uglier pill to swallow.)

And, yeah, in a few situations, it’s being able to become a rock on the hill or another tuft of brush, but unless we’re evading birds or sniper hunters, mostly breaking up our outlines isn’t too hard and doesn’t always require paint or cammies.

Hand-to-Hand Combat

Yes and no.

Don’t get me wrong. Self-defense capabilities are great to have, period. It’s not like this world has ever been totally safe, or like it’s getting any crazier.

However you want to apply it, keep in mind how often we see 2-5 cops or foreign militias trying to wrestle a bad guy into cuffs or move them after arrest, and weigh how much training and daily practice they get, versus our ability to invest time and money into training.

Our expectations of the bad guy we’ll be encountering, and how we’re deploying also factor in pretty hugely.

If we’re countering a significant force, whether it’s widespread jackboots and organized invaders or forces that have the benefit of protective gear, our chances of success are much lower.

Similarly, our chances against servicemen from one of the nations that focus significant continuing training time on some pretty gnarly martial arts, knife work, and batons … not so hot.

There are exploits for hand-to-hand combat even against somebody wearing body armor groin to neck, face shields and helmets, and knee pads. We just have to be realistic about whether we’re going to personally stand a chance with our available investment capabilities, or if we want to focus instead on something else.

Learn some basics that fit your physical condition for everyday encounters, but don’t break the bank on this one.

Instead, for minuteman purposes develop awareness, de-escalation, and evasion skills as well as Gray Man presentation.

Also work reflex drills, ankle-knee lateral and start-stop strength (or chair skills), and balance exercises – especially for people who are limited in some way by age, injury, or genetic luck of the draw.

Urban or rural, footing can be iffy. The better able we are to compensate for shifting terrain, curbs, bumps, and slips, and the better able we are to change direction on a dime, the better chance we stand of staying in the fight, whatever the scenario we imagine.

Modern Minuteman Skillsets

Most likely, the term “Modern Minuteman” brings a certain image to our heads. And, most likely, any 2-20 of us would describe very different images – particularly as the most likely and most common potential for a modern minuteman to deploy.

Because we have very different situations and needs, with very different scenarios in mind and very different capabilities due to our physical shape and local environment, the skills we are most likely to need are going to vary.

Some, though, are pretty universal. We can sometimes assign a value across the board, regardless of situation or scenario.

With any luck, somebody disagrees with these, or the matrix I apply at large, and presents points for discussion.

If not and until then, go find somebody who thinks “bah, PC community-pulse nonsense” or “moron, every soldier should fight with sticks”. Weigh the argument presented for those situations, and decide what does actually make sense for you. It’s only having multiple perspectives that really lets us prioritize, whether we’re picking out groceries or putting together our minuteman to-do list.

Be sure to check out The Prepper Journal Store and follow The Prepper Journal on Facebook!

The post Modern Minuteman – Yes-No-Maybe Skillsets Vol. 2 appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

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bethkerring · 4 years

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Tips for New Writers: Day Jobs

From the time I was about five, I knew I wanted to be a writer.

Of course, in hindsight, I was already a writer: I was writing, and I firmly believe that all you need to do to be a writer is to, well, write. But that wasn’t my dream. I wanted to be published, and I wanted to write full-time, maybe with some commission artwork done on the side.

And I believed that if I couldn’t support myself with my writing, then I had failed as a writer.

I’m not entirely sure where I got this idea. Maybe it has something to do with people trying to drill into my head that “writing doesn’t pay the bills” or “writing isn’t a real career.” I don’t like being told that I can’t do something, and it only makes me all the more determined to prove that I can.

And to any young writers reading this, I am not saying you can never support yourself with your writing. I am not saying you can never be a full-time writer. If you want to, go for it! It’s not an easy journey, but if you’re willing to deal with the challenges, it can be a very rewarding path.

But I have two pieces of advice:

1) Find something you enjoy that can bring money in when you’re building your career and/or writing is slow. 2) Know that you are no less of a real writer if you have a day job.

This is not a comment on your writing ability or a prediction about your financial success as a writer. I have no idea! I don’t know you! You could write the next best-seller that becomes a Hollywood hit and rakes in millions!

What I am saying is that forcing yourself to be a full-time writer—or refusing to consider ways to supplement your income—when you’re not actually earning enough to live on, is not worth making yourself (and any dependents) suffer.

Writing is a tough and unstable field. That is unlikely to change. It takes time to build your platform and career, it takes work to market yourself and your book, and it depends entirely on whether what you happened to write about happens to be what enough people want to read (which might have nothing to do with your skill).

On top of that, even if you write a very successful book, sales are never guaranteed. The market can change quickly, meaning you will likely have periods of higher income and periods of lower income. If you’re comfortable with these highs and lows (and you’re good at saving money for the low periods), this might not be a big problem, but if you prefer more stability, it can be a great comfort to have a backup: a skillset that you can use to find a job, part-time or full-time, to bring in cash until things pick up again.

I’ve heard several personal anecdotes—and I imagine there are many more—about people who relied completely on writing for their income and how desperate they felt during those low periods. Some forced themselves to write about topics they hated, just because they were popular and would bring in some quick cash. While there’s nothing wrong with doing this if you have to (or even want to), if that’s something you want to avoid, then having a second job option can save you a lot of stress.

(For a great example of the desperate things a writer can do when pressed for cash, look no further than Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Finally, I recommend having a backup job so that you can keep the healthiest possible relationship with your writing. Writing is a labor of love—or at least it usually starts out that way—but it can easily turn into hate if the writer expects the writing to always pay the bills and the writing responds, “Hey, it’s not my fault the market’s bad right now!”

If you focus so much on writing to pay the bills, you might lose sight of what you love about it, or try so hard to write for the market and trends that you forget to write about what you love. And if you stop loving what you do and you’re potentially living in poverty, then you’re suffering on both accounts, and that’s not going to help anyone.

Now, I want to be very clear that I am not saying being a full-time writer is an impossible goal, or that you shouldn’t even attempt it. As I said above, by all means, go for it! Look into not only how to write the best books possible, but how to market them well, how to build your platform, how to navigate the publishing industry, and how to be an entrepreneur (because that’s what you have to be, to sell your books). Do your research and try your best, and if it’s what you really want, don’t give up.

But have something in mind that you can fall back on during tough times, or even keep going as you write to have some steady income. Personally, though writing full-time still sounds nice, I’m currently working full-time as a web developer, writing during evenings, weekends, and breaks, and I’m happy with it. I get bored doing one thing for too long, and the job pays well, so I’m glad to be able to support myself and do something I enjoy while still finding time for my writing.

Even if I start raking in enough cash from writing to pay all my bills, I’ll still be happy I can fall back on my developer skills, and never feel like I have to put so much pressure on my writing that it stops being what I love most.

#writing #writers #writing career #day jobs

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my-arya-underfoot · 5 years

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Starklings post-war speculation (book based)

You’ve talked before about Westeros after the Long Night and war and also a bit about the Starks roles (Bran being King in the North rather than Arya or Sansa). How do you think the Starks will fit into whatever happens ‘after’?

Finally answering your question anon, sorry for the long wait :/

Going off the theory of the post-Long Night Westeros undergoing social reform and breaking up into separate kingdoms again (maybe held together by a central council or alliance of some sort) - how do the Starklings fit into it all?

Not to get too emotional, but our bb’s are going to change the world. GRRM has put Bran, Arya, Sansa and Jon on specific development arcs, each honing particular skills, and I think those skills will be instrumental in the roles they’ll take on in rebuilding Westeros.

Arya

Based on the books so far, I’d bet a lot of money on Arya ultimately taking on a leadership role championing the smallfolk. (Linking back to Westeros’ probable social upheaval).

Her arc is saturated with witnessing the abuse of commoners and the warping of justice; from Mycah to Harrenhal to the Brotherhood to opposing the Faceless Men’s philosophy.

They'd let the queen kill Lady, that was horrible enough, but then the Hound found Mycah....And no one had raised a voice or drawn a blade or anything, not Harwin who always talked so bold, or Alyn who was going to be a knight, or Jory who was captain of the guard. Not even her father.

Arya watched them die and did nothing. What good did it do you to be brave? There were no brave people on that march, only scared and hungry ones. Most were women and children.

She took a deep breath, then lifted the broomstick in both hands and brought it down across her knee. It broke with a loud crack, and she threw the pieces aside. I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth.

Arya drew back from him. "He killed the slave?" That did not sound right.

GRRM seems to be setting her up a a representative of the smallfolk, pushing for a more just, egalitarian society and reforming oppressive laws. If a united council/leadership of sorts exists, then it’s entirely viable that Arya will be the one voicing the needs of the common people.

Imo, the role brings together all of Arya’s many strengths: a) being able to connect with and befriend anyone b) caring fiercely about justice and trying to take it into her own hands c) protecting the underdogs d) being a go-between/liaison between the highborn world she was born in and the commoners she became part of, e) travelling over a lot of Westeros and beyond.

(Maybe she’ll even take over the Brotherhood without Banners from her mother?? A group that was about helping the helpless but got warped by vengeance along the way – exactly what Arya is grappling with right now).

Also, worth mentioning Arya has lived outside of Westeros in Braavos, which has a different type of governing structure, giving her a broader perspective on ruling and society than most characters.

While she may be based in the North, given how much time Arya spent in the Riverlands – where the worst abuses of smallfolk and injustice took place – she may end up becoming a key figure there.

(…+ Gendry)

Moving more from speculation to wishful thinking – though not so wishful nowadays – it’s entirely conceivable Gendry would be involved in Arya’s endgame.

Gendry is one of the most prominent smallfolk characters, is vocal about his disdain of highborns and attracted to the early Brotherhood without Banners. Him being someone who helps Arya with her work and reforms would fit.

"Gendry, do you swear before the eyes of gods and men to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to protect all women and children.” - Arya, ASoS

(Plus, with a side of forge sex and gowns of golden leaves).

Book-wise, I don’t think Arya will become Lady of Storms End: Ruler of one kingdom and lady of a castle seems very limiting for Arya, she’s had no connections to the Stormlands thus far and it would be weird for her resolution to suddenly become subservient to Gendry’s inheritance. I still think it’s more likely that Edric Storm will get Storms End.

(The show is a different matter and D&D have devalued Arya so much it’s anyone’s guess where she’ll end up).

So that’s my call for Arya.

Sansa

With Sansa, as a recurring foil to Arya it would make sense if her role in Westeros as the flipside of her sisters’ – while Arya is reforming the underbelly of Westeros, Sansa has been built to work amongst high lords.

Over the series, we’ve seen her hone her skills in court, among nobles and in politics; and apprentice to Littlefinger’s in the art of manipulation:

Sansa felt that she ought to say something. What was it that Septa Mordane used to tell her? A lady's armor is courtesy, that was it. She donned her armor and said, "I'm sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord." - ACoK

Tyrion led Sansa around the yard, to perform the necessary courtesies.She is good at this, he thought, as he watched her tell Lord Gyles that his cough was sounding better, compliment Elinor Tyrell on her gown, and question Jalabhar Xho about wedding customs in the Summer Isles. - Tyrion, ASoS

Sansa was asleep on her feet by then, wanting only to crawl off to her bed, but Petyr caught her by the wrist. "You see the wonders that can be worked with lies and Arbor gold?" - Sansa, AFFC

". . . Lord Nestor's claim to the Gates will suddenly be called into question. I promise you, that is not lost on him. It was clever of you to see it. Though no more than I'd expect of mine own daughter.""Thank you." She felt absurdly proud for puzzling it out...” - Sansa, AFFC

GRRM has indicated that Sansa is ideally suited for post-Long-Night politics, particularly in whatever network or council that’s put in place between kingdoms: Managing relationships between nations, negotiating treaties and agreements, smoothing over conflicts, brokering peace between parties; winning leaders over; image-management; the nitty-gritting politicking.

It would be satisfying if Sansa – who the world originally saw as nothing more than a pretty, airheaded wife-to-be – ends up doing the hard, complex, political brainwork.

In connection to all that, I honestly love the idea of Sansa as a Northern ambassador: She loves Winterfell but knows how to play the game in the South – so let her represent her kingdom and Northern interests to the rest of Westeros.

(Sansa seems to be heading towards becoming a politician akin to Tyrion or Littlefinger; while Bran, Dany and Jon have trained more for leadership and that is an important distinction and separate skillset).

(Again, this is book not show based, as the show is hammering us over the head with Sansa becoming ruler in the North/Lady of Winterfell, which…ok. I’ve talked before how unfortunately the writers have trampled over the other Starks siblings’ connections to their home to justify Sansa’s position).

Bran

All hail, King in the North, Lord of Winterfell, Bran the Rebuilder.

There are a lot of reasons why it makes sense for Bran to be the Stark rebuilding Winterfell and doing the day-to-day governing of its people:

He’s the one who’s spent the most time in the North; he’s the one we’ve actually seen being taught to rule as Lord of Winterfell; he’s the heir and first in-line; he’s connected to the deep, mystical heart of the North of the weirwood networks and greenseers, he has the Starkiest-of-Stark names of the former Stark Kings and legends.

Unlike Arya and Sansa, he hasn’t been to other parts of Westeros (apart from further North) and built as many relationships and learned about politics or dynamics in other places. He’s fully rooted in the North, Winterfell and its people.

There’s a much more detailed examination of why exactly Bran should be King in the North and Lord of Winterfell here, which says it much better than I can, but I don’t see how you can read these quotes, and think it will be anyone but Bran:

Bran could see all of Winterfell in a glance. He liked the way it looked spread out beneath him… It made him feel like he was lord of the castle, in a way even Robb would never know.” – AGoT

"Your notion about the bastard may have merit, Bran," Maester Luwin said after. "One day you will be a good lord for Winterfell, I think." – ACoK

“The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either.” – AcoK

“You are only a boy, I know, but you are our prince as well, our lord's son and our king's true heir. We have sworn you our faith by earth and water, bronze and iron, ice and fire….we are your servants to command.” - ASoS

(I’m not expecting robot!Bran to get king/lordship in the show – D&D massacring his character and turning him into an emotionless, Google search bar is still imo one of the worst things they’ve done imo).

As for all the theories for Sansa (and more rarely Arya) becoming Queen in the North, I actually think that role is too limiting for both of them – they’ve travelled over Westeros and seem suited to having much wider role than just Northerners. That’s not to say the two of them– and Jon if he lives – couldn’t have a place in their home, be based at Winterfell and travel further afield; it doesn’t mean they couldn’t advice Bran or work for the good of the North; it doesn’t mean they would be Princesses of Winterfell. It’s just there’s a hell lot more foreshadowing for King Bran.

(…+ Meera)

So, if we’re going to have any Queen in the North, it’s gotta be Meera. The gods only know how much the Reeds deserve it and Bran is literally hearteyes already.

Jon (...+ Dany)

Much as it physically pains me to admit it, chances are Jon and Dany will die saving the world: As many have said, they’ve got ‘messiah’ written all over them. As GRRM has always said – in the end the throne doesn’t matter, the ultimate fight is about the living. So, for Jon and Dany, it makes sense their ultimate fate wouldn’t be getting the throne but ensuring there’s a Westeros left to rebuild at all.

The only thing that makes me doubt them kicking it, is the sheer amount of time GRRM has spent giving the pair leadership training (see above point with Bran) as Lord Commander and Queen of Meereen respectively. GRRM’s issue with wanting to justify having a ‘good ruler’ in the end and not just ‘they ruled wisely’ gives me a smidge of hope the two of them might make it.

So, playing a fun game of if they survive; they’d logically be the ones getting the different kingdoms to cooperate, managing a central council/alliance, leading change, and acting as symbols of peace and the future. With the upheaval and massive change Westeros would be facing, they’re both leaders who would be equipped to forge a new way.

Both of them have experience in upending old systems, ushering in new eras and struggling to make different groups cooperate – Jon with the Nights Watch making peace with the Free Folk, the Nights Watch and the North; and Dany in Meeren with the slaves and former slave-owners.

Of course, it didn’t go perfectly, but they were learning and sure as hell have more experience than anyone else in taking on the role of rebuilding Westeros and forcing newly-independent kingdoms to cooperate.

Again, it may be Daenerys’ “I want to break the wheel” is a clumsy way of the writers trying to set that up.

Bonus: Tyrion and Davos

I’d put Tyrion’s chances of survival above Jon and Dany’s, but way below Bran, Arya and Sansa’s. In the books it does seem likely he’ll be the third head of the dragon and will be joining Jon and Dany on their mission to martyrdom.

That said, if he does survive, like Sansa he’d be ideal to play a role on a centralized council.

Out of the main characters he’s the one who spent the most time doing actual politicking in Kings Landing; he’s recognised for his brain; the main character who’s been up-close with the inner workings of government and was excellent acting as Hand. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility he’d be able to flex all those muscles in forcing post-Westeros leaders to work with each other and manage the logistics of rebuilding the kingdom.

Preferably Davos will get to retire, raise his remaining kids and live a quiet life. But in adding to the social upheaval and how he’s played the role of bringing in a different perspective to Stannis’ court and moved from commoner to lord, I’d put him in the running of being one of the main voices and architects of post-war Westeros.

#asoiaf theory #asoiaf speculation #asoiaf ending

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