#lifetime value

[corporateintel]

What Does Winning Look Like?

If you’ve ever been in a planning meeting with me, you are familiar with this question: What does winning look like? This is how I like to frame decisions around initiatives we are considering. If we can define success in advance, we will know if we achieve it. If we have no idea what winning looks like before we commit resources to a project, how do we know if it was worth it once we deliver the…

[edelgarfield]

i love shadowgast, i think their journey together learning how to be better people & healing is beautiful.

but nothing annoys me more than when Caleb gets all the credit for Essek's redemption arc, or when Essek's relationship with Caleb is automatically placed on a pedestal above his friendship with the rest of the Mighty Nein.

because it is straight up untrue. it wasn't even Caleb that did most of the legwork reaching out to Essek, it was Jester. Yes, their magic lessons, and Caleb's understanding went a long way towards showing Essek that he could change, but Jester was the one who consistently and repeatedly reached out to him. I am of the firm belief that without Jester, the Mighty Nein would never have gotten past Essek's initial standoffishness.

And furthermore, Caleb was Essek's friend first. I don't think it's ever been confirmed, but IMO most of Essek's initial attraction to Caleb was 1) academic 2) performative, and any genuine physical or romantic attraction didn't start developing until post-reveal. I'm not even convinced Essek was romantically interested in Caleb, or at least able to identify it as such, by the END of the campaign. Essek values Caleb primarily as a friend and any romance on top of that is a bonus.

Essek's relationship with Caleb is not inherently more important than his friendship with the rest of the Mighty Nein just because they're dating. He loves all of them, and expresses that multiple times at the end of CR2. It was their friendship that changed him, not his interest in Caleb. Caleb values the Mighty Nein's friendship more than whatever budding romance he had with Essek. Essek's entire life doesn't, nor should it revolve around Caleb! Caleb is an important part, yes, but he values and needs the love he receives from the rest of the Mighty Nein just as much.

As someone who's aro/ace-spectrum and has little to no interest in romance, every time I see Essek's relationship to the Mighty Nein reduced to his relationship with Caleb, it feels like a slap in the face. It validates my deepest fear that I'm just an accessory in my friends' lives, and that no matter how much I love them or what I do for them, I'm inevitably going to be discarded when someone they want to date comes along.

People will watch 500+ hours of a show that emphasizes over and over the importance of friendship and platonic love then turn around and reduce it to romance alone.

[fate-defiant]

Day 2 - If My Heart Was A House

It makes me smile because you said it best I would clearly feel blessed If the sun rose up from the west Flower balm perfume All my clothes smell like you 'Cause your favorite shade is navy blue

[thebluestbluewords]

Any random descendants headcanons you want to share?

I know I've been holding on to this ask for ages, but fear not!! I have FINISHED MOVING MOSTLY (I just have a couple boxes of craft supplies left to unpack, and tbh I mostly keep those in storage bins for organization anyway so it's fineeee) AND I HAVE SOME ENERGY ONCE AGAIN. 

Because I've been hearing a lot lately about my irl coworker's kid and her battle with school (she's been suspended twice in the last two weeks! And one of those weeks was spring break!) here's some VK school headcanons. 

As all of us book fans know, Carlos and Evie love school. They're TRAGIC, HOPELESS NERDS. 

Building on this, I think that Evie loves school so much that she's chronically overscheduling herself.  She's the girl who takes a full course load plus a bonus class just for fun, plus four or five extracurriculars.....plus of course she's doing the most for her required Auradon Prep volunteer hours, and on top of that she's running her fashion empire. She's the girl who has an absolutely ruthless schedule for herself, and she's never without her planner. During AP finals week, she's the one who schedules herself a five-minute cry break in the library, and then when her alarm goes off, she stops crying and gets back to work. She's spent so long being castle-schooled that she is not giving up a single moment now that she can experience school to the fullest. 

As a Very Important Headcanon Note, I do believe that Auradon Prep has a volunteer hours requirement for all students. They've got to have....something like 35 hours of volunteer work each year, which is about an hour a week if we're following a standard US school schedule. 

Lonnie organizes fun runs for charity as her volunteer hours. She's got a couple other international students on board too, and they work together on it. One of the school faculty supervises them and signs off on the hours. She organized one for the benefit of the isle, not that she's going to admit as much to the VKs. 

Evie refuses to participate in any Isle-based charity drives. She's on the junior kingdom advisory council, and that's enough time spent thinking about home the isle for her. Her school-sanctioned volunteer work is with an organization that helps bring fun STEM experiments into the public elementary schools. Of course she's going to design experiments that let the kids have a little bit of explosives. As a treat. The little girls deserve to know that they can look cute and cause chaos! 

Mal failed the required safety training, and isn't allowed to go into the elementary school with Evie. Apparently if you put curse words in every single one of your write-in answers, the school decides that you're not worthy of being a role model for the youth. 

She's getting her volunteer hours by working in the museum archives. It's mostly scanning boring, dusty old books into a digital archive. Totally dull stuff. She's only doing it because it keeps her away from the innocent public for her volunteer hours, and she's definitely not reading the books in the museum archive, which are mostly there because the kingdom did a very badly organized roundup of magical books when the magic ban first went into place, and nobody ever organized the piles of random spell books that have been collecting dust in the archive since. Totally not reading them. 

On an unrelated note, Mal's been sent to in-school suspension once every three weeks (the maximum amount that she can get away with before the consequences start stacking up) for accidental fire-related property destruction. On the plus side, she knows how to cast fireball now! 

Jay and Carlos are both doing their volunteer work through the on-campus junior sports teams. They're teaching adorable elementary students how to hit balls and not trip over their own feet. Jay is thriving. He loves kids and being adored. He's got a pack of under-ten kids who think he's the coolest thing ever. He gets to toss them around like boneless little sacks of meat, and they love him for it. He's doing great. Carlos is.....surviving. He's got two surly little pre-goth kids who are only in sports because their parents made them sign up, and they think he's the coolest student coach because he threatens them with physical violence when they don't participate. 

Middle school kids aren't required to do volunteer work, but Dizzy and Celia are HYPE to get student volunteer access to the AP chemistry labs once they're old enough to volunteer as lab cleaners. 

Squeaky and Squirmy are planning on running away to sea before they get to high school. They have not told anyone about this plan. 

Uma's pirates will eventually get a singular year of high school education each, during which they will cause at least thirteen new behavioral rules to be added to the AP handbook. 

Gil volunteers to crochet blankets for the Auradon City hospital, and accidentally finds his calling as a baby whisperer. Tiny babies love him. He's huge and warm and used to handling kids from all his half-siblings that keep popping up on the isle. What he lacks in critical thinking skills he makes up for in literally just picking up a kid and making them fall asleep. 

Uma creates a new volunteer position where she sits in the Isle Affairs office and bullies the adult coordinators relentlessly. She has one of them signing off on her volunteer paperwork, and another one of them paying her under the table for her consulting services. 

Harry is exempt from volunteer work, due to the unmitigated violence that lives in his soul. Also, he's like twenty, and refuses to do even a singular year of high school. He spends the time that Uma's choosing to waste in high school auditing college-level psychology classes so that he can learn better ways of psychologically tormenting their rivals. 

[crazysodomite]

i don't know how people have the courage to do anything when literally everyone in the world sincerely believes you as a person will always be worthless and it is impossible for you to make anything of yourself 😂 and there's no one in your life who truly and genuinely believes in you. 😂 always only a worthless lifetime leaving behind no impact and nothing of value😂

[lbhslefttiddie]

suddenly seized with the desire to write/draw a few short little scenes from the world after the events of You Can (Not) Redo (the uh. the yqy timeloop fanfiction. not the evangelion movie which i named it for) because it is, generally speaking, a happy ending, but also yqy is left deeply, deeply broken in ways that would be both fascinating and hilarious to explore

[irrevocablecondition]

hey Robyn I just needed to ask your advice about something see I bought myself an official harry potter tshirt and it says 'i sucked jkr off, transphobia 5evaaaa' and idk I was just really tempted at the time and thought that, you know, it wasn't really that political of a message and because it was half price it wouldn't profit rowling much also I thrifted poa! oh btw!!! I still love trans people! one of my best fandom friends is trans!

anyway that trans friend isn't replying to my message after I told her about the super cute shirt and I was wondering if you could tell me why you think that might me?? I don't get it it's really not that deep also I wanted you to tell me I'm ok and coddle me as well

(this isn't a dig at the person that asked about cursed child this is a dig at everyone else, in case cursed child person happens to see this🫶🫶🫶)

NTA, honest mistake !!! thank you for telling me 🥹🥹🥹 i'm so glad i was told this information 🥹🥹🥹 this has,,, this has made my day *wipes tear* it's just so compassionate 🥹🥹🥹 i'm really glad that, after profiting jkr, the first person people think to go to for back pats and reassurance is a trans man 🥹🥹🥹 i'm so glad i can provide that guidance 😖✊🏻yk that's all i really want as a trans person ! fuck rights honestly, pls tell me how cool the studio trip was 🥹🥹🥹 only wish i had spoken about jkr before so people knew where i stood ! that would make things so much easier but alas,,, i'm actually really chill and would never post about it every other week. i'm demure like that.

love to see this ethical separation of art from artist !!!

#slay #werkit #i-supported-a-bigot-and-all-i-got-was-this-lousy-tshirt

[teethpaste]

:)

[exteenpopstar]

i think a lot of people who find "actually that's just society" more encouraging/comforting and "actually that's just innate biology" as dooming you to eternal failure are operating on more pragmatic terms than they realize, and get confused when anyone feels the opposite way about those 2 interpretations.

[girl-debord]

"the working class knows exactly how it's being fucked over, it just doesn't have the resources to fight back" yes that's why the republican party has no membership in poor rural areas. that's why working class neighborhoods are never saturated with reactionary churches. "imagined relations to a real set of conditions" is only for the bourgeoisie

[taraxippos]

I've got big opinions on dream sequences in writing. Which is mostly that they really shouldn't be there like 90% of the time because they grind the narrative to a halt, but I think they CAN have value. It's just that they tend to be executed in a way that's kind of pointless.

It's mostly that a lot of writers have the sequences be literal 1:1 depictions of the character's anxieties or feelings, or otherwise the absolute most on the nose symbolism possible. And it's not like dreams are NEVER like that, but why bother stopping the narrative to include a full sequence that essentially just repeats information the reader already knows?

If it's established that Character A is scared that Character B will get murdered by Jeff the Killer, and then A has an entire dream sequence of B getting Jeff the Killed and A wakes up sweating like 'Noooooooooo I do not want that to happen noooooo' it's jsut like. Yeah I knew that already?

[saxandviolins77]

opinion bingo for onslaught/blast off and onslaught/scrapper

oooh, brother...

Not sure my opinions on them will be interesting, but whatever. Let's start with ON/OFF first.

I went through many phases with this pair. At first I was intrigued (I love gay men), then I read TAAO, and I thought everything about it was shit, including Blast Off and Onslaught. THEN I started shipping it ironically, because Blast Off is a fucking knob. It's hilarious to imagine him trying to score a guy who couldn't care less for him (in my own interpretation of how they would be, that is.)

Now? Uuuh, I'm on the fence. On one hand, I actually like exploring Blast Off's loneliness and longing for companionship, paired with Onslaught's somewhat aloof attitude. And like, I love me some complicated relationships! But, uh, I hate that most content for them is lovey-dovey, kissy-kissy, shippy stuff... Like, no, I don't think Blast Off could or should handle all that. I need his arrogant ass to suffer; is that too much to ask?

I'm very wary of saying I SHIP Onslaught and Scrapper together, because I literally only enjoy the version of them that exists in my mind. I haven't seen one interpretation of their relationship that I ENJOY as a PAIR.

G1 Onslaught/Scrapper to me is like getting into a relationship with that one coworker you're somewhat friendly with but aren't really close to. The dynamic that exists in my head keeps the coworker aspect, but adds in that they aren't too chummy. They can keep a polite conversation, but they are keeping note of every stupid/corny/uninformed thing the other says so that they can complain to their team later. Every once in a while, they trade blows through passive-aggressive emails. Their similarities are only surface-level; they will never get along.

In my AU, well, everyone knows this already. I like my Scrapper being a player, but I also find it fun if he could succeed in seducing the one guy he wants nothing to do with (suffering from success). Even after he tells him he'd rather be boiled alive than have sex with Ons, the guy still pursues Scrapper to the ends of Cybertron to ask if he's really sure. Onslaught gets obsessed (as much as he can get obsessed) with the guy who literally lied to his face and imprisoned him and his team. He has the same mentality as those tradcath guys; he can't go for someone who'd be his ideal. No, he has to go for someone he considers a deviant so he can conquer and change them (that's a key part, actually.)

[fullhavelstonearmor]

I came across something here on tumblr. It was a list of stuff like “You don’t HAVE to make your evil protagonists justifiable” and “Your evil characters don’t HAVE to face consequences.” Now, this list was clearly yet another case of “tumblr user thinks they’ve thunk a new thought.” But here’s the thing. They’re right. You don’t HAVE to. Everyone knows it. Everyone who’s made a bad guy knows it. There’s nothing morally wrong with you as a person if you write a story about some homicidal rapist getting away with shooting up a school. But now tell me this. When was the last time you read about this kind of character in the role of protagonist, and ENJOYED it? You can’t really name a lot. Because in most cases where the protagonist is an unjustifiable evil person, the story is dogshit. It’s REALLY fucking hard to write a story about that kind of guy, and nigh impossible for the story to be GOOD. Especially if they face zero consequences.

Now, before opening my tirade on certain bad examples of evil protagonists, lemme speak on good examples. First of all, slashers. Like, horror movie slashers. These are good because they’re meant to be stupid and cheesy. They do ridiculous kills because it’s fun, or occasionally disturbing, to watch. And you may argue that they aren’t protags, but be honest with yourself. When I say Friday The 13th, who comes into your mind? Not Tommy Jarvis, Jason Voorhees. The hockey mask guy with a machete. The story of the series follows him, so he is the protagonist. And he does ridiculous shit like go to space. It’s dumb, it’s cheesy, and even though he avoids consequences by being immortal, you don’t really care, because it’s a shitty slasher film and it knows it. Next positive example.

Jack, from The House That Jack Built. Now, I hear you. “Oh ultimate super intelligence Havel, he DOES face consequence! He dies and goes to mega hell!” Okay, fine, I give you that, but for most of the movie, we watch him get away with despicable acts. When you reflect on this fucked up movie, do you think of the Dante’s Inferno references, or do you think of that taxidermy kid’s terrifying smile? The smile? Yeah, me too, bud. The reason he works as this kind of fucked up bastard of a protagonist is because we still see it from the outside. Despite being the protagonist from a technical standpoint, to us, he is an antagonist. We hate him. We watch the movie and hope he gets gunned down by police or something. We hopelessly pray to movie gods that his victims survive. This is only helped by Vergil, who provides insight and criticisms to Jack’s fucked up ideology. I mean, we watch him glorify Hitler for crying out loud.

Alright, final good example is ironically, good for almost the exact opposite reason as Jack. “Johnny Cutthroat Cash” from Manhunt. See, while we see that Jack likes killing, and is straight up addicted to it, we can only INFER that about Johnny. We only know two things about Johnny. He was on death row, and he’s good at killing people. We don’t know if he was a serial killer or a mercenary or anything. You could claim he’s sadistic, but he may also be doing his job of creating a spectacle. We see only one bit of guaranteed emotion from Johnny, and it’s from when his family is kidnapped. Johnny works so well, not because he’s a well written character, but it’s the fact he lacks a character. He’s a bald Caucasian man. He matches a million people. You are Johnny. You decide in your own mind if he’s a fucked up killer or he maybe killed some official for banging his girlfriend. You don’t know and you get to pick. I think the lack of origin aside from his family hating him after whatever he did is what helps. When you can make your own character, it doesn’t get boring.

Now. Onto the two bad examples. Our first protagonist is ironically called “The Antagonist.” From Hatred. Hatred is… well… dogshit. The story is ass and so is the gameplay. If you’ve never heard of him, you’ve definitely seen his face. He’s the poster child of shitty edgelords. The whole plot of the game is that he hates people and just goes on a shooting spree before nuking his city. Its gameplay is similar to the original Postal. But while Postal 1 is a delve into a madman’s psyche, in which he expresses remorse and is implied to have killed himself for it, (for a defense of later Postsl installments, see horror slasher section) The Antagonist just… doesn’t do that. He shoots people and then nukes the city. It’s fucking stupid. I’m not crying over the lack of a happy ending, I’m complaining that it’s BORING. I mean, we don’t even get an idea on why he hates people. The game is so edgy it’s laughable.

Speaking of so edgy it’s laughable, I could really put any original Garth Ennis character here, but I’m going with the classic. The one and only British Punisher. The worst “protagonist” I’ve ever even fucking heard of. Billy motherfucking Butcher, from The Boys comic run specifically. If you’ve ever watched the show, you’ll notice that Billy is a complex individual. All of that depth is gone in the comics. He’s just a genocidal freak, and Garth Ennis makes all the superheroes pedophiles and junkies to justify the Punisher ideology he’s such a fan of. Thing is, the Punished is a good character. Because he’s different. The Punisher is in the wrong, and he knows it. He knows blowing the brains off some bank robber is not the most moral choice. Butcher on the other hand, will kill a super hero in front of his children, and AFTERWARDS discover the super hero had a stash of “cheese pizza” so he’s ACTUALLY the good guy now. He’s only seen as a bad thing at the end when he goes full on “I hate ALL superpowers, time to kill my friends who I have superpowers” which is… I mean, it’s consequence I guess? But it’s a dumb fucking ending to dumb fucking comic series. The Becca thing still happened, but he only mentions it occasionally to justify his bullshit when he DOES do something Garth recognizes as questionable. Don’t read The Boys comic. It’s not even so bad it’s good. Just read Watchmen.

Anyway! This is a topic I’m strangely invested in. Can’t believe I wrote a whole rant over a single tumblr post about “bad guys are cool.” I think it’s because I agree. Bad guys are cool. But consequences to their actions is a major part of it all, and so is a base level of justification. Do you guys have favorite examples of this, good or bad? Lemme know. I’m open to debate too, if for some reason you loved Hatred or hated Friday The 13th.

TL;DR: You know how making a pure evil character in Fallout is just a boring playthrough? Fiction writing can be like that if you’re not REAL careful.

[astrolaurical]

Ik this might sound like an almost obvious question but what dose namjoon hope for in a relationship like what dose he look forward to (what aspect of a relationship dose he look forward to)?

Moon in 1st house: leaps headfirst into love and often makes hasty decisions.

Scorpio Pluto 12th House: man is INTENSE in love. He wants to know everything about you and can come on strong. So strong that it can actually push his lovers away.

Venus conjunct Jupiter: like we didn’t already know…. The man enjoys sex often

Venus trine saturn: loves courting the old fashioned way.

Libra mercury 10th house: a partner that continually stimulates Namjoon emotionally, physically, and spiritually is a REQUIREMENT. He is adamant about his growth and demands that his partner do the same.

Mercury Square Mars: absolute honesty. If something is unclear, he is gonna annoyingly dig until he gets to the bottom of it and understands.

Saturn in 3rd house: he is very gullible and easily deceived. He has been burned too many times in the past. It is very important that him and his partner both say exactly what they mean.

Moon square Saturn: he is a natural cynic so having someone who can regulate his emotions and help him find the positive in things is good for him

[catboybiologist]

*checks watch*

oh would you look at the time

it’s time to inflate Sierra’s ego again

gods you’re an awesome person

Thank you, I'm such an attention whore and it's great to finally be recognized for that 💅

[wisemins]

on a wonka note: willy wonka is autistic. literally no arguments to be made. i don't need to prove it. he is the proof.