#like i for example would probably not do the manual labor job it just. does not work well with me. but i also dont think

[catboyfurina]

this is tumblr so the answer is absolutely yes but i have to phrase it this way because i am a tumblrina.

do u ever think about how so many people would be perfectly satisfied working manual labor jobs if it werent for the exploitation of it... like if the jobs that Need Doing hired More people for Shorter shifts and paid them a Comfortable wage there would be so many people that would be into that. like SO many people in my experience talk about how nauseating the idea of an office job in a cubicle is and yet ! for some reason! the jobs that pay money are all that sort....

[supernaturalscribe67]

Sucker

Words: 6,602

POV: 3rd Person

Pairing: Gabriel x Trans!FTM!Winchester!Reader

Warning(s): Fluff, Language (had to tell Dean to shut the fuck up a couple times), brotherly bickering

Summary: The reader is introduced to Gabriel, the famous trickster/archangel, for the first time, much to his brothers' dismay. What the reader didn't expect from their first meeting was to meet a rather handsome man with smooth talk to match. What happens when he starts to get feelings for the person that annoys Sam and Dean the most?

Request:

Do you write for Gabriel as well? If so, could you write something about maybe the reader being Dean and Sam's younger brother (the relationship was really cute in "aginst the grain" and "lucky", i'd also love ftm reader, but it's up to you if you want to make it specific or not) and Gabriel finally meets him, making the other two go kinda protective over that, it's Gabriel after all, he has messed with them a lot in the past. They'd probably go especially uneasy if Gabriel gets kinda flirty or if so does the reader.

Anonymous

A/N: Someone take my computer away from me. Once I start writing, I can't stop. This wasn't supposed to be that long but holy Hell, I guess it's this long. I hope I did your request justice and I hope I wrote Gabriel well! Feedback is greatly appreciated!

~ Much Love!

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.

(Y/N) loved having the first shower after a hunt. 

The water was always hot, the perfect relaxer for his muscles that would undoubtedly ache the next day. Despite how long he had been hunting, certain aspects of the job made him feel like a rookie. Salt and burns were one example. That night, he had been tasked with helping Dean dig out the grave while Sam kept an eye out for security and any apparitions that would make a surprise appearance. For the first thirty minutes of digging the hole, he felt alive, like a rush of adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Perhaps the idea of committing a crime was to blame for that. Near the half-hour mark, he could feel the muscles in his arms beginning to strain, but the job had to be completed. 

It took two hours to dig four feet to the coffin - he cursed the dry Southern weather for making the dirt so coarse - and by the end of it, his arms fell limp and weak at his sides. His legs felt some irritation from pushing the shovel into the ground, but they weren’t nearly as affected as his upper arms. He sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that the next hunt didn’t involve as much manual labor. If they did run into a ghost, he at least hoped the ghost held an attachment to an object that they could easily burn. Gravedigging was the last thing he wanted to think about. 

He showered for forty-five minutes, longer than he had anticipated, but the water had placed him in an exhausted trance. Truth be told, he could have fallen asleep under the shower spray. He just hoped the cheap motel held enough warm water in their tanks for his brothers to experience some relaxation. 

Motel towels were always scratchy on the surface of his skin. It was annoying, but there was some relief in knowing that the rough texture would guarantee a more thorough cleaning. Despite the cheap body wash he always snagged from the local dollar store, he never felt dirty leaving a motel bathroom. Once his body was dried, he put on his boxers and an oversized t-shirt, thankful for Walmart’s wide variety of sizes so he could conceal his chest. He placed both hands on either side of the sink, staring into the steam-covered mirror. He reached up, drew a small smiley face in the center of it, and watched as the eyes and mouth dripped. The warmth of the small room was comforting, and he was finding it difficult to leave. 

A loud knock rapped on the door. “You gonna spend any more time in there? If I take a cold shower, I swear to God,” Dean’s voice came in muffled through the wooden door. 

“I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t get your pretty silk panties in a twist,” he grumbled, and he could practically feel his brother’s eye roll through the door. 

A sigh passed his lips as he looked at the smiley face he had drawn, which looked as if it had melted away in the hot sun. He reached a hand up and wiped the remnants of the picture away. As he retracted his hand, he could see his reflection in the opaque glass. Dark circles had begun to form under his eyes, a side effect from hunting. The endless, restless nights seemed to be getting to him and aged him more than he would have liked. He groaned as he straightened up, brought a hand up to his face, and ran his fingers over his eyes, nose, and cheeks. 

When he opened his eyes again, instead of staring into a reflection that mirrored his presence, to his left, behind his shoulder, stood a man. Time froze. A playful smirk appeared on the man’s lips. He was short - compared to Sam and Dean, at least - with dark brown hair swept back neatly against his head. Stubble was placed along his jaw, chin, and upper lip. His sideburns were shaped with a slight point on the end of them, facing outward. He had a button-up shirt on, the top two buttons were undone to expose a small puff of his chest hair, and a dark green jacket. 

(Y/N)’s eyes widened as he stared at the man in the mirror. The air became heavy. He could feel his presence behind him, but he wouldn’t dare turn around. 

“So, you’re the famous baby Winchester?” The man raised a brow. 

His voice startled (Y/N). He turned around quickly and came face to face with the stranger. 

“I’m a little surprised,” the man scratched his head. “I would have thought that you would look, you know, more like your brothers.” 

(Y/N) could feel his heart pounding in his chest as if it was trying to escape. The fear bubbled inside of his gut. He had no weapons on him, yet the man didn’t seem like a threat. Nonetheless, there was a strange man in the motel bathroom with him. One who just appeared out of thin air. That was cause enough for alarm. His eyes glanced towards the closed bathroom door. 

The man looked at the door and then back at (Y/N). “Oh, please don’t scream.” 

“Sam! Dean!” (Y/N) shouted as he rushed to the door. 

The man groaned and rubbed his temples. In the same instant that (Y/N) got the door open, the man vanished. (Y/N) stumbled out of the bathroom and into his eldest brother’s arms. Dean staggered, his back pressed against the wall. Sam stood next to them, a look of worry crossing his face.

“What happened? What happened?” Dean asked with alarm in his voice. 

“There’s a guy! He-he,” (Y/N) turned to look behind him, a hand lifted to point in the direction of the bathroom, but stopped himself from talking once he saw that the man was gone. 

Dean looked into the bathroom, brows furrowed. He and Sam stepped away from (Y/N) and toward the open door. Dean glanced inside, checking behind the door and in the shower. Dean threw his hands up. 

“What guy?” He asked. “There’s no guy here, you almost gave me a heart attack.” Dean placed his hand over his chest as he walked out of the bathroom. 

“There was a guy! He just appeared behind me!” (Y/N) said. 

“Are you sure, (Y/N)?” Sam asked, doing a sweep of the bathroom from the doorway. “It doesn’t look like anyone besides you has been in here. There aren’t any windows, so no one could have gotten in. Are you sure you’re not just tired?” 

“I saw him!” 

“Sure you did, kid,” Dean walked up to him and clapped his shoulder. “Maybe you should lay off the horror movies for a while.” 

“Now, that’s not very nice, Dean-O. No need to tease him like that,” the voice appeared in the center of the room. 

All heads turned toward the sound of the voice. The man, who had been in the bathroom with (Y/N), stood in the center of the room. The playful smirk that had been on his face earlier was ever-present. (Y/N) grabbed Dean’s arm and moved closer to him. He pointed frantically at the stranger. 

“That’s him! He was in the bathroom!” 

Sam furrowed his brows. “Gabriel?” 

Gabriel raised his arms in a presentation-type pose. “The one and only.” 

“What the Hell are you doing here?” Dean asked, his tone more irritated than anything.

“Gabriel? As in, the archangel Gabriel?” (Y/N) asked his tense shoulders slouching as his body relaxed. 

“Again: the one and only,” Gabriel smiled. “And, to answer your question, Dean, a little birdy told me that you were in town, so I figured I would stop by, and see my favorite Winchesters. Heard the youngest was here, and I thought it was about time we met. Although, I heard that you had a younger sister. Must’ve been a mistake.” 

“Yeah, that’s a mistake alright.” Dean placed his hands on his hips. “Alright, you came in, you saw us, now can you please leave?” 

“Woah, woah, what happened to hospitality? Why don’t you introduce me to your brother, here?” Gabriel sauntered over towards the three of them. 

“No, now get out.” 

“Not until an introduction is made.” 

“Gabriel, we just got off of a hunt. We need some rest, now can you please leave?” Sam crossed his arms.

“Come on, guys, it’ll get him out of here so we can go to sleep,” (Y/N) mumbled before he turned to Gabriel. He held out a hand. “(Y/N) Winchester,” 

“(Y/N),” he said the name as if testing it on his tongue. He reached out, grasped (Y/N)’s hand gently in his own, brought it up to his lips, and gave a small kiss on the back of it. “Gabriel. Nice to finally meet you.” 

(Y/N) raised his brows, his cheeks heating up with blush. Dean rolled his eyes and swatted Gabriel’s hand away from (Y/N). 

“Alright, alright, none of that,” Dean grumbled, sending a death glare toward Gabriel. “You know his name, now get out.” 

Gabriel ignored him, his eyes stuck on (Y/N). “So, (Y/N), aside from being good-looking, what do you do in your free time?” 

Dean and Sam both groaned and rolled their eyes, shaking their heads. (Y/N) felt his chest warm up the same as his face. He glanced down and fiddled with his fingers. Gabriel licked his lips, the corner of his mouth curling up into a smirk. 

“Cat got your tongue?” He questioned. 

“Well, I’m trying to think of something to say, but all I can think about is how cute you are.” 

Gabriel looked at him, amused shock crossing his face. He straightened up for a minute, but, before he could say anything, Dean held his hands up. 

“That’s enough,” Dean interjected, glancing at (Y/N) and then at Gabriel. “Leave.” 

“But I’m having such a nice conversation,” 

“Gabriel,” Sam spoke up, moving between (Y/N) and Gabriel, towering over him. His voice was low, intimidating. “Go.” 

Gabriel raised his hands in mock surrender. He snapped his fingers and disappeared in front of the brothers. “Okay, okay, I’ll leave,” Gabriel’s voice came from behind the trio. 

They all turned around. Gabriel stood right before (Y/N), eyes attached to him. He reached behind his back for a brief moment and pulled it back around. In his hand was a red rose with a short stem, free of prickles. He held it out. 

“A parting gift, for you.” 

(Y/N) hesitantly took him, a small smile on his face. “Thank you,” 

Gabriel shrugged. “I know it’s not as beautiful as you, but it’s the best I can do for now.” 

“Gabriel,” Dean warned. 

“I’m going, I’m going.” Gabriel shook his head. “I hope to see you again soon, sweetheart,” He pointed at (Y/N).

“We’ll see.” 

Gabriel winked before he snapped his fingers and disappeared from the room. 

The room was quiet aside from the faint humming of the cheap air conditioner. (Y/N) studied the rose that Gabriel had given him. It appeared freshly in bloom, the red petals curled at the ends, the floral scent evident even from a distance. The stem was slightly wet from being cut. (Y/N) brought the flower to his nose and inhaled the intoxicating smell as he turned around to face his brothers. When he looked up, he immediately noticed the ‘if looks could kill’ gaze in their eyes. 

“What?” (Y/N) asked and shrugged. 

“Really?” Sam asked. 

“What?” 

“You know,” Dean began. “I’ve stopped butting in when you flirt with someone at a bar, or when you want to take someone back to a motel. I’ve learned to shut my mouth. But Gabriel?” 

“Geez, you two are acting like I’ve slept with him.” (Y/N) scoffed, brushing past them as he walked toward his bed. 

“Ooo, all I can think about is how cute you are,” Dean mocked.

“Will you shut up!?” 

“He’s an archangel, (Y/N).” Sam nodded. “And you see no problem with flirting with him?” 

“What? I can’t flirt with who I want now? It’s not like he’s a bad guy…technically.” 

Dean sighed. “He’s off limits, (Y/N).” 

“I’m an adult, Dean! I can flirt with whoever I want.” 

“Not an angel! I mean…come on. Don’t you remember what he did to us? To Sammy and me?” 

“Look, Dean, I get it, trust me, but it was just some comments, okay? Like I said, it’s not like I hooked up with him or anything. He just flirted with me so I flirted back. Took a page out of my Dean Winchester book of flirting.” (Y/N) walked over to the bed and sat down on the side of it. “You don’t have to worry about him, okay? Now, why don’t you guys just take your showers so we can go to bed and head out in the morning.” 

Dean opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself. He let out a huff as he turned to look at Sam. They stared at each other, but said nothing, as if they were talking to one another telepathically. Finally, Dean shook his head. 

“Fine, but I get the next shower,” Dean mumbled as he sauntered over to the duffel bag that sat beside the queen-sized bed opposite (Y/N).

“Dean, I called the next shower,” Sam frowned. 

“Too bad, can’t get next shower if I get there first,” 

Sam glanced at the door to the bathroom, his duffel bag which sat at the table, and then Dean. Dean grabbed his night clothes from his bag and began to make his way over to the bathroom. Quickly, Sam rushed to the bathroom. Dean picked up his speed and the two of them wrestled in the doorway for a moment, mumbling to one another. Sam eventually pushed Dean out of the way and slammed the door shut, the cheap wood vibrating against the frame. Dean growled. 

“How the Hell are you going to get out of there without your clothes, bitch?” He called through the door. 

“I’ll figure it out, jerk,” Sam’s muffled voice replied. 

Dean scoffed and rolled his eyes before he sauntered over to his bed and slouched on the edge of it. “Can you believe him?” He gestured to the door dramatically. 

(Y/N) snorted. “I think you’re both idiots,” he reached down and pulled the comforter away from his body, pushing his legs underneath. “Now hush while I get some sleep.” 

“Yeah, yeah, goodnight,” Dean grumbled. 

“Goodnight, Dean,” 

*~*

The rumble of the Impala’s engine was silenced over the deafening sound of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Dean sang in an off-key tune as he drove, Sam tried to ignore him in the passenger’s seat, and (Y/N) blocked everything out, deep in thought as he leaned against the back passenger’s window. He was staring off into the distance, at the long line of trees and bushes they passed, but none of it registered. His mind was elsewhere. 

He was thinking about Gabriel. 

It had been a week since their interaction, and, for the life of him, he couldn’t keep the angel out of his mind. He never had someone who showed as much interest in him as Gabriel, and (Y/N) hadn’t lied. Gabriel was pretty cute. Was it the way the smirk seemed permanently etched on his lips? Perhaps the way his flirtatious remarks flowed out as smoothly as they did. Maybe it was in the look in his eye when he asked to see him again. 

Regardless, there seemed to be nothing that could take Gabriel off of his mind. 

“(Y/N)!” Dean’s boisterous voice echoed through the car. 

(Y/N) jerked his head up to look at his brother in the rearview mirror. He hadn’t even noticed the music had been turned down, now softly playing in the background. 

“What?” 

“Man, I’ve called your name about ten times. You okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, just…thinking.” 

“Yeah, I know that takes a lot out of you.” 

“Shut the fuck up,” (Y/N) scrunched his nose as he reached over and lightly kicked the back of Dean’s seat.

“Hey! Be nice to Baby! She didn’t do anything to you.” 

“Yeah, well, she was caught in the crossfire.” 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Sam’s pretty sure we have another ghost case.” 

(Y/N) groaned. “Another one?” 

“Yeah, just a simple salt and burn.” Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Apparently this young couple, who just bought their house, has been reporting paranormal activity at their place. The husband’s mother even came to stay with them for a little while and, while she was there, she claimed that someone pushed her down the stairs when she was going to do laundry in the basement.” 

“So? Her son tried to kill her to get the life insurance money. Doesn’t sound like a ghost hunt to me.” (Y/N) said. 

“Husband was at work, and so was the wife. They even have alibis and security footage to prove it.” 

“Okay, so then the mother’s old and cryptic and just fell down the stairs. Old people fall down the stairs every day, that’s why Life Alert was invented.” 

“She’s forty-two.” 

“Jesus, how old is her son?” 

“Twenty-one. His wife is twenty. High-school sweethearts according to what the newspaper says.” 

“Gross.” There was a pause. “I still don’t think it sounds like our thing. Maybe we should check something else out.” 

“You’re not getting out of the salt and burn, (Y/N).” 

(Y/N) groaned and leaned back in his seat, arms crossed lazily over his chest. “Fine! But I’m not doing the digging. I’ll be on guard duty.” 

“No,” Dean said. “I’m going to be on guard duty this time.” 

“Why?” He whined childishly.

“Because I helped dig the grave the last two times. We take shifts, remember?” 

(Y/N) shook his head. He placed his elbow on the window sill and put his cheek into the palm of his right hand. His forehead leaned against the glass. 

He thought back to Gabriel. The carefree attitude he seemed to have, even with the intimidating act that his brothers put on. He was an archangel, of course. Thinking about it, (Y/N) knew that Gabriel could do anything with them - he had proven that when he forced Sam and Dean into the TV universe - yet he did nothing of the sort, even when Dean had slapped his hand away from (Y/N). He seemed like a good person - angel? - and (Y/N) would be lying if he said he didn’t want to see him again. He knew that if anyone could lighten his mood from the sour situation they were driving to, it would be Gabriel. 

An arm slowly snaked its way around (Y/N)’s shoulders. He jumped, eyes wide as he turned his head to the side. Sitting next to him, in the back of the Impala, was Gabriel, the same smirk on his face that was present the first night they met. 

“Heard someone needed some company,” Gabriel said. 

Dean visibly jerked, his hand turning the wheel of the car violently. The Impala lurched to the side, into the oncoming lane, before he corrected himself and straightened the car out. Everyone shifted in their seats with the movement. Dean slammed on the brakes, the rubber screeching against the road as the car halted. Dean and Sam’s heads whipped around, their eyes wide with surprise. Gabriel was leaning back against the leather seats, legs slightly spread, one arm around (Y/N)’s shoulders while the other rested at his side. (Y/N) could feel his heart pounding in his chest from a mixture of the sudden movement of the car and Gabriel’s touch. 

“Woah, Dean-O. Gotta be careful. You’re lucky there’s no traffic,” Gabriel chuckled. 

“What the Hell are you doing here?” Dean asked, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed. 

“A little birdy told me he was lonely. A little stressed,” Gabriel turned his head to look at (Y/N). He leaned closer to him. “Miss me already?” 

Dean and Sam’s eyes shifted to their brother. (Y/N) felt the familiar heat appear in his cheeks and spread to his ears. Sam furrowed his brows. 

“You prayed to him?” He asked. 

“N-No! I didn’t!” (Y/N) defended. 

“Wrong,” Gabriel hummed. “You know, every time you say my name in that pretty little head of yours, it comes straight to me,” Gabriel reached over and tapped on (Y/N)’s temple gently. “My prayer line has been buzzing nonstop since I last saw you.” 

(Y/N)’s cheeks darkened even more. Gabriel had practically outed him to his brothers, completely contradicting what he had told them back at the motel. That they didn’t need to worry about him. That the flirty comments he made was a natural response. Now his brothers know that Gabriel had been on his mind. Now they knew that they had something to worry about. 

Dean’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Eventually, he stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, undoubtedly trying to clear his mind. When he opened his eyes, he pointed at his brother. 

“You. We’ll talk later.” He turned to Gabriel. “You. Get out.” 

“Aw, come on, Dean, let me ride for a little bit. Make your brother feel better,” Gabriel rubbed (Y/N)’s arm.

Dean narrowed his eyes. “No. Get out.” His voice was deep, dark. 

Gabriel scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll go. Again.” 

“Good,” Dean turned around eyes back to the empty road in front of him. His hands returned to the wheel, clenched tight enough to make his knuckles a ghostly white. 

Gabriel glanced at (Y/N) with an apologetic expression before he reached into his pocket. He pulled out his clenched hand and held it towards him. As he opened his hand, (Y/N) could see a small candy heart in the middle of it, colored pink. In the center of the heart Be Mine was printed. 

“Another parting gift. A sweetheart for a sweetheart.” Gabriel smirked. 

(Y/N) smiled and took the heart. “Thank you.” 

“Anything for you, sugar.” 

“Leave Gabriel,” Dean bellowed. 

“I’m going, I’m going.” He grumbled. He looked back at (Y/N) and winked. “I’ll see you later.” 

He snapped and, once more, he was gone. 

(Y/N) glanced down towards the candy. It was one of those cheap candies that you got from Walmart when you wanted to give something out to your classmates for Valentine’s Day. Despite the cheap appearance, the message on it was worth more than anything. It validated any emotions that he had for Gabriel. The mere idea that Gabriel felt the same way as he did made his heart soar, the butterflies swarming inside of his stomach. With a small smile, he closed his hand around the heart and placed his hand in his lap. 

It was then that he noticed they hadn’t resumed their drive yet. He looked in the front seat to see both of his brothers staring at them, unamused expressions on their faces. The smile (Y/N) had turned into an awkward grin, his shoulders tensed. Sam and Dean looked at one another and conversed in that telepathic communication that they always do before they wordlessly turned back to the road. Dean glanced one more time in the rear-view mirror, shook his head, and then started down the road again. 

(Y/N)’s shoulders slumped and he turned to the window. He placed his elbow on the window sill and his cheek in the palm of his hand. 

It was going to be a long night. 

*~*

I fucking hate ghosts. 

His muscles hurt worse than last time. If he didn’t know any better, he would say his arms felt as if they were going to fall off. His calves ached a bit, but not nearly as bad as his biceps. 

The hunt took longer than expected - most of the graves in the cemetery they had gone to were unmarked, souls long since forgotten by the people who had buried them. The records in the cemetery’s office weren’t much help, either. The three of them spent two hours trying to find the grave that belonged to the ghost, two more hours digging up the plot with major pushback from the spirit, and an extra hour attempting to leave the cemetery without getting caught - apparently, grave robbers were a common occurrence in that small Maryland town. 

Even the morning after, (Y/N)’s entire body ached and was stiff. It felt like every part of him had been put through a meat grinder. When he moved, his muscles tensed and burned as if he were on the surface of a thousand suns. His brothers felt bad for him, in a way. They could see how hurt he was and decided to let him rest while they went out to get some breakfast, some greasy diner food that all of them, even Sam, desperately needed. 

As (Y/N) lay in his bed, still clad in his sleepwear from the night before, to ignore the aches and pain, his mind shifted to a familiar thought; Gabriel. 

The same thoughts that had been invading his mind for the past two weeks entered his head seamlessly. The thoughts of Gabriel’s words, his flirtatious tone, the way his hair was swept back, the way the corner of his lips curled into a smirk whenever he would look at him, and the glimmer that danced in his irises. While Gabriel took up most of his mind, another thing that (Y/N) couldn’t get out of his mind was Sam and Dean. He thought about their disapproving gazes, the irritation in their tone as they talked to or about Gabriel, and the shake of their heads when Gabriel finally vanished. 

His brothers weren’t shy when it came to their objections. When they had gotten into town for the hunt, Sam and Dean made sure to speak out about the situation. (Y/N) felt as if he was a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Dean was the one that was mostly vocal with Sam taking a back seat and butting in now and then. While (Y/N) could appreciate that his brothers were looking out for him, he stood strong on the fact that he was an adult. He could make his own decisions. Gabriel was an angel. It wasn’t as if he was flirting with a demon. He knew his brothers would have a conniption if it was Crowley instead of Gabriel. Still, (Y/N) was their little brother. He had a feeling that they were going to be protective no matter who he showed interest in. 

That wouldn’t stop him from trying to pursue Gabriel, though. 

In the two instances they met, Sam and Dean had been in the room with them when they talked, leaving little to no time for them to have an actual conversation or get to know one another. Granted, Gabriel must know more about him than anything, considering the lack of privacy he had in his head. That only gave him more of an incentive to learn everything he could about the archangel. 

He had to talk to Gabriel alone. 

(Y/N) had never prayed before. He always left his brothers to the praying when they needed Castiel involved. It was a new experience, and he didn’t even know how to start. 

Slowly, (Y/N) adjusted himself on the bed so that his back was pressed against the wooden headboard. He placed his hands in his lap, slightly folded. 

“Um…Gabriel…” he trailed as he tried to think of how he could continue. “Uh…it’s me. (Y/N). I think we need to talk.” 

“You know, the last time someone said that to me, it didn’t end well,” Gabriel’s voice came from in front of him, near the end of the bed. 

(Y/N) let out an audible gasp, startled. His throbbing muscles tensed for a moment before they relaxed, a shot of pain coursing through his body. 

“Jesus, we need to put a bell on you angels,” (Y/N) mumbled. 

“I’ve been thinking about that. Do you think it’ll look good on me?” Gabriel pursed his lips and dramatically posed. 

(Y/N) snorted and shook his head as he chuckled. Gabriel joined him and walked over to the bed, sitting down. The bed dipped. 

“I can see your bodyguards aren’t here.” 

“Yeah, they went out to get some breakfast a bit ago.” 

“Well, that’s good. Now I can talk to you without getting kicked out. What did you want to talk about anyway?” 

“Well-” 

“My handsome good looks?” Gabriel smirked. 

“Uh-”

“How about my smooth talking?” 

“Gabriel-”

“What about the way you get butterflies in your stomach when you’re near me?” Gabriel placed a hand on the bed and leaned closer to him. 

(Y/N) could feel his cheeks heat up once again. The butterflies Gabriel referenced swarmed. He looked away for a moment before his eyes shifted down towards his hands in his lap. 

“Gabriel.” 

“Yes?” 

“Do you like me?” He moved his eyes to him. 

Gabriel seemed surprised by the question at first, straightening himself up. 

“I mean…” (Y/N) paused, attempting to collect his thoughts. “You flirted with me back at the other motel, you had your arm wrapped around me in the car, you’ve been listening to my thoughts, er, prayers, I guess. Is this just…a flirty little thing that you like to do or…are you really interested in me?” 

“Of course I am,” Gabriel shrugged. “I mean, you don’t see me flirting with your brothers, do you?” 

“No.” 

“Casual flirting isn’t normally my thing. When I flirt with someone, I really, really like them, and I really, really like you.” His voice was deep and smooth like velvet. 

(Y/N) smiled, his eyes never leaving Gabriel’s face, despite the bashful need to do so. “Well, I hope it helps that I really, really like you, too.” 

“Oh, trust me, I can tell,” 

(Y/N) rolled his eyes. “Are you going to kiss me or not?” 

Gabriel chuckled as he reached over, his hand gently caressing his cheek. Their lips connected without another comment. (Y/N) closed his eyes and, almost immediately, melted into the kiss. He could feel a warm, tingling sensation course through his body, touching down his arms, torso, and legs. Their lips moved in sync. (Y/N) raised his hands, his fingers entangled in Gabriel’s silky hair. 

(Y/N) pulled away before he wanted to, the need for air overwhelming. He stared deep into Gabriel’s whiskey eyes. It didn’t take long before that smirk reappeared. (Y/N)’s thumb gently brushed over Gabriel’s scruff. 

“Your kiss is even sweeter than you are,” (Y/N) spoke in a soft tone. 

“Oh, please, nothing is sweeter than me,” 

(Y/N) chuckled. “Kiss me again.” 

“With pleasure.” 

Gabriel leaned in and kissed him once more. He moved onto the bed so that his legs were on either side of (Y/N)’s body and he hovered over him. (Y/N) took the time to wrap his arms around Gabriel’s neck gently. They tilted their heads to the side, deepening the kiss. 

(Y/N) had his fair share of kisses before, a handful of them drunken mishaps at various bars across the country, but never like the one he had with Gabriel. There was something special about it. Something that made him melt into the bed. That attracted him further to Gabriel. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he wasn’t going to fight it. 

Although, someone might. 

The door to the motel room opened. The stench of cheap breakfast food wafted into the small space as Sam and Dean entered. They froze for a moment, eyes wide in shock at what they had walked in on. It didn’t take long for them to break the trance. 

“Hey!” Dean shouted as he rushed over to the two of them. 

Just as they broke the kiss, Dean grabbed the back of Gabriel’s shirt, pulled him off of the bed, and pinned him against the wall. The cheap lights flickered at the force of the impact. 

“Dean!” (Y/N) exclaimed as he quickly stood from the bed. 

Before he could pull his brother away, Sam grabbed him by the arm, pulled him close, and wrapped his arms around him protectively. 

“What did I tell you about leaving my brother alone, huh?” Dean slammed Gabriel against the wall again, though he seemed completely unphased by it. 

“Now, Dean, if you haven’t noticed, your brother is more than capable of making his own choices.” Gabriel’s voice was calm, almost playful. 

“Yeah, with humans. Not with you.” 

“Now what have I ever done to you, Dean?” 

“What have you done?” Dean let out a dry laugh. “What have you done?” 

“Dean! Stop! You’re gonna get the fucking cops called on us!” (Y/N) hissed between clenched teeth. 

“And you!” Dean let go of Gabriel’s shirt and turned around to face (Y/N). “What happened to ‘oh, you don’t have to worry about anything, Dean, it was just for fun’,” he mocked (Y/N)’s voice harshly. “And then Sam and I come in and see you sucking face with an archangel!?” 

“First of all,” (Y/N) wiggled his arms out from Sam’s grasp. “Get off me,” he mumbled and pushed firmly on Sam’s chest. Sam’s feet were firmly planted, but he removed his arms from around his brother. (Y/N) backed up a couple of steps and brushed his shirt off. “I told you, Dean, I’m an adult and I can make your own decisions! And who the Hell says ‘sucking face’ anymore, anyway? What is this? 1980?” 

“The point is, you told us you weren’t going to do anything and here you are…doing something!” Dean pointed an accusing finger at him. 

“Dean’s right, (Y/N),” Sam shook his head. “You know, we support you in everything that you do, but Gabriel?” 

“Hey, I take offense to that,” Gabriel appeared behind (Y/N). 

“Good, I hope you do,” Dean said. 

(Y/N) groaned. “You guys are acting like you walked in on me having sex with him or something! It was a kiss!” 

“His tongue was in your mouth, (Y/N),” Dean spoke with a hint of disgust.

“Shut the fuck up, Dean!” 

“Alright, alright, hey,” Sam held up his hands. “Look. All we want to do is look out for you, okay? It’s our job to protect you.” 

“And I want you guys to keep protecting me,” (Y/N)’s shoulders slouched. “I’m not saying I don’t want you to. I like Gabriel, okay? I really do. And it’s not just some hook-up in-a-bar kind of feeling. It’s feelings-feelings. You know? The things we never talk about? I can’t explain it, but I feel…a connection to him. Like Dean feels with Castiel.” 

“Woah, woah, hold on. I don’t feel that way with Cas.” 

“Dean, we all know you do,” Gabriel spoke up, shaking his head. 

Dean clenched his jaw. “I don’t wanna hear another word out of you.” 

“Look,” Gabriel began. “I’d never do anything to hurt your brother. I know I haven’t been the, well, nicest with you two. But I like (Y/N),” Gabriel shrugged. “I’d like to get to know him more, and I know that he would like to do the same.”

Sam and Dean stared at Gabriel, their eyes piercing. They never blinked, as if studying him. Sam leaned over to Dean. 

“Dean, I think he’s telling the truth,” Sam spoke in a low voice. 

Dean looked at Sam with furrowed brows. “Really?” His tone was defensive. “How do you know he’s not lying?” 

“Dean, (Y/N) is right about the fact that he’s an adult, okay? Maybe we should just…take a backseat on this?” 

“You’re kidding, right?” 

“I hate this just as much as you do, Dean, but you know that even if we disagree with is, (Y/N) is just going to find a way to see him anyway.” 

“Not if we handcuff him to one of us,” Dean mumbled. 

“I’m right here,” (Y/N) crossed his arms. 

“The point is,” Sam said. “If Gabriel is serious, what better person besides us to protect him than an archangel? I mean, we have Cas, yes, but Cas isn’t an archangel.”

Dean opened his mouth to say something but was having a hard time coming up with an argument to shoot back at his brother’s statement. Instead, he sighed as he reached a hand up and ran it down his face. He could feel a headache coming on. Silence flooded the room as the four of them stood there. 

“Fine,” Dean grumbled. “I won’t say anything about Gabriel coming around. But I don’t wanna walk in on anymore face sucking.” 

“No face sucking or any other kind of sucking while sharing a room, got it.” (Y/N) smiled. 

Dean shot him a look of disgust before he turned to Gabriel. “And you. If you hurt him-” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Fire and brimstone and pitchforks and torches. You’ll have the whole Winchester Army after me,” Gabriel waved his hands around dramatically. “I get it. You have my word that I will never hurt your brother.” 

“Alright, now get out of here before I change my mind.” 

“I won’t fight you on that,” Gabriel turned to (Y/N). He reached down, grabbed his hand, and placed a small kiss on his knuckles. “I’ll see you later, sugarplum.” 

(Y/N) snorted. “See you later, Casanova.” 

Gabriel winked before he snapped his fingers and vanished. 

With a smile still on his face, (Y/N) turned to his brothers. “Thank you guys, really.” 

“Well, we trust you, (Y/N),” Sam said. “We don’t trust him, but we trust you. And we trust that, if anything were to happen, you would come to us if you need help.” 

“Of course I will. You’re my brothers. I make a mess, you guys clean it up.” 

“You know, I’m pretty sure you’ll be the reason why I get gray hairs early in life,” Dean mumbled as he sauntered over to the small table near the motel door, opening the bag of breakfast food which was probably cold by then. 

(Y/N) furrowed his brows as he walked over to him. “Oh, you mean, these gray hairs?” He reached up and brushed the back of his brother’s hairline, finger gliding through the sandy blonde hair. 

Dean reached back quickly and cupped the back of his head. “What!?” He exclaimed. 

Sam snorted and (Y/N) let out a boisterous laugh. Dean’s jaw clenched as he lowered his hand to his side. 

“Ha-ha, very funny.” 

“I thought so, old man.” 

“You better watch it, bitch,” 

“Aw, I love you, too, Dean,” (Y/N) wrapped a single arm loosely around Dean’s middle. He then motioned Sam over. When Sam was close enough, (Y/N) wrapped his other arm around him. “And I love you, Sammy.” 

“Love you, too, (Y/N),” Sam smiled and returned the hug. 

Dean looked down at his brother and mumbled something under his breath before he patted him on the back. “Yeah, yeah, love you too, kid.” 

“I couldn’t ask for better brothers than you.” 

…

“Alright, enough of the chick-flick moments. Let’s eat.”

[amysubmits]

What is the most vanilla-seeming thing in your current dynamic that is unquestionably DD or D/s? Or rather, what is completely tangled up in your dynamic with CD but if someone vanilla witnessed or heard about it, they would be clueless to its significance? (This could be holding hands, pulling out chairs, making to-do lists... Anything!) Please try to explain why it's part of your dynamic if able!

Most of our dynamic is inconspicuous, really. I find myself feeling bashful when CD tells me what to do in front of other people because it feels very D/s-y to me but he speaks to me in a kind tone of voice and says please, so nobody has ever reacted weird. And of course it's not like he's just ordering me around for no reason it's always for a specific reason so it might be like...he's doing some manual labor job at his mom's house and he got thirsty so he says "go get my water bottle out of the car, please." or something like that. I'm extra conscious of it when he doesn't really ask, but politely tells - as to me that feels like an obvious instruction. But vanillas really don't notice that type of a thing.

And I see people talk to their partners in similar ways all the time, and I imagine for most people it's 100% vanilla and they don't even recognize that one person is instructing the other, probably. It's just that us being familiar with D/s makes me sort of hyper-aware of power dynamics, I guess. So if we know a couple where one does more 'telling' and the other does more 'asking', I notice that. If one is more passive and the other is always initiating a decision, I notice that, etc. It's so obvious to me who 'wears the pants' in various relationships, that I forget others aren't as aware. So sometimes my reaction is still 'omg you can't say that in front of people...' but then I realize that actually he can, it's perfectly socially acceptable when phrased politely, and nobody even thinks its weird because they aren't hyper aware of power dynamics, haha.

Another example that makes me self conscious of our D/s is when CD says something like "Well, we have to go, I have to get Amy home so she can take her meds."

Or if he tells me he doesn't want me to do something. Because for us, if he tells me he doesn't want me to do something, that aaaalmost means I can't. Not literally, if I disagreed with what he said then we could talk about it and find middle ground, or I could just express a boundary if needed, etc. But generally speaking if he express that he doesn't want me to do something, he expects me not to unless we have some sort of discussion about the issue. I can't recall a specific example from the past although I know he's told me he doesn't want me to do things in front of others. I guess with COVID it's been so long since we've socialized regularly that I forget specific examples, haha. But as a made-up example something like "Take a car charger, your battery is a little low and I don't want you to be unable to call if you need to." which is totally socially acceptable, of course. But my brain sort of translates it to something more like "you have to take a charger and I expect you to not let your phone die." and so it makes me feel a bit bashful, too. I guess it's like...I forget they don't know our 'language' I guess? So my instinctive reaction is to be embarrassed almost as if they somehow know the subtext, even though they don't. Not sure if that makes sense.

Oh! I remembered one more that always ‘gets me’. When people try to get me to make a decision that impacts CD. I always have to side-step it a little bit, and this always feels like my submission is obvious, even though it’s not. For example, if some friends ask if “we” want to go with them to something next weekend. If CD isn’t right there, I’ll side-step answering immediately and will instead say something like “Oh that sounds neat, I’ll talk to [CD] later and let you know.”

[citrineghost]

On ADHD, Being Dramatic, and Being Lazy

Gather round everyone. It’s time for our every-few-monthsly post on ADHD by your local ADHD ghost. In this episode, we’re talking about ADHD and how it relates to “being dramatic” and “being lazy.”

On Being Dramatic

No doubt a lot of you have been told you’re being dramatic over the years. I know I have. There are a lot of reasons one might be dramatic, but they’re rarely about the drama.

If I’m to guess the origin of the word dramatic, I’d guess it probably has something to do with over exaggerating your response for the drama. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of people being dramatic - on tiktok and vine, on youtube... drama calls for dramaticism.

Do you want to know what isn’t dramatic? Genuine reactions. That’s right - genuine reactions, inherently, cannot be categorized as dramatic or hyperbolic. There is nothing about them that is being overdone with the intention of getting attention or entertaining other people. So, let’s talk a bit about how this conflation has hurt us as a community.

Growing up, everything I did was “dramatic.” Crying because I didn’t want to do more chores was dramatic. Having a panic attack because there was a spider in the room was dramatic. Freaking out because I needed people to stop touching me was dramatic. Getting angry when my mother made jokes about my sex life as a teen was dramatic (and apparently abusive, but that’s neither here nor there). Nothing I did that involved a noteworthy amount of emotion was anything, if not dramatic.

On Being Lazy

I know a lot of you have also been labeled as lazy over the years. “Lazy” is the diagnosis everyone loves to give to those who don’t do enough, in their eyes. If you “could have” done something and then “chose not to,” you’re lazy... right?

Growing up, I was lazy too. I was lazy for avoiding housework. I was lazy for not wanting to brush my teeth. I was lazy because I didn’t turn in my homework. I was lazy for staying in bed, on my computer, most of the day.

If I’d only just “applied myself,” or if I would just “put in the work,” then I would be respectable to the people around me. But, because I wasn’t “willing” to put in the time and effort, I was lazy.

Why Is Emotion Dramatic?

The short answer is: it’s not. The real question is, why do people seem to perceive emotion as being dramatic? These are real emotions, after all - real and genuine feelings that are being dismissed as playacting. There are a number of reasons.

Why Are We Lazy?

Again, the short answer is: most people aren’t. The question here is, why do people see others not doing something and assume it’s because they simply don’t want to put in the work? Why do they not seek out an explanation or consider other alternatives? There are a number of reasons for that too.

The Answer...

Editing to put a Read More here because it’s very long

(TW for each of these sections in their name)

1. Sexism

At its core, seeing emotional outbursts or responses as dramatic is inherently rooted in sexism. Whether you’re a boy or a girl, man or woman, if your emotions are being mocked, it’s almost definitely because of our world’s history of sexism and relating emotion to women, who are “illogical” and “just want attention.”

And “real men” work! They work hard! They work long hours! They put themselves into an early grave, with pride, by never sitting down to rest! For this very reason, women, housewives of decades past, were expected, after a long day of doing housework and caring for the children - things that are just as exhausting as a full time job - to dote on their husbands who had just returned from work expecting a hot meal and a beer to be ready for them. Her work is devalued. It wasn’t grueling or tiring or important. It was just “women’s work.” A wife who does all of the housework and child rearing and fails to provide a hot meal and a warm body to her husband is “lazy.”

This is further shown to affect men as well. We can see, as early as non-manual labor-based jobs existed, the men who took them were lesser. Men who work at computers are seen as nerds and geeks - weak. Men who work in universities, coming up with new solutions to our medical needs and discovering the mathematics we need for space travel and advanced technology - they’re weak too. They’re unimportant to society because they’re not willing to get their hands dirty. Those men who prefer artistry are called gay and seen as disposable. It is irrelevant to the conservative man that his artistic counterpart designs everything that fills his home and office - that without artists we would have nothing.

2. Racism and classism

You might be surprised, but racism and classism both have their hands in this as well. I’m talking full on systemic oppression. The ability for people in power to look down on those they see as beneath them for being emotional or passionate about a topic or incident is all about power. You can see a million examples of this today. POC are called dramatic or are implied to be blowing things out of proportion by conservative white people because they want equal rights and feel they’re being treated unfairly. Their emotions are dismissed as irrational and dramatic. 

The cries of the poor, whether white or of color, are mocked. They have no reason to be having the emotions they’re having because they wouldn’t be in the position they’re in if they weren’t “lazy.” After all, only lazy people don’t have money. Only lazy people can’t get work. If they had just “applied themselves,” they would have an income, a home, and ample food on the table.

3. Ableism

And, last but not least, we have ableism. The neurotypical and abled people of the world, at large, cannot understand the experiences of the disabled, both emotionally(those with mental illnesses, disorders, and so on(whether or not certain disorders can be categorized as a disability in a just society is another topic entirely, but they are regarded that way, generally)) and physically.

If you have sensory overload, you are being irrational. It doesn’t matter to a NT if this is caused by an actually chemically different response in your brain. It doesn’t matter if it’s Real To You. To them, it doesn’t make sense, and so you deserve no compassion for your experience. Your emotional response is dramatic.

If you have executive dysfunction, you are simply choosing not to do your work. It doesn’t matter that there is an actual reason, buried in you somewhere, for why you have become Stuck. It doesn’t matter if you feel crippled by this aspect of your life. They see that you have neglected to do something they deem easy. Therefore, you are “lazy.”

ADHD and Being Dramatic

For those of us with ADHD, being called dramatic is a very familiar experience. After a while, we begin to internalize it. We must be dramatic, right? After all, so many different people have told us we are - and for good reason. We do tend to get overly emotional.

So the question is, why? Why do we get overly emotional? Why are our emotions so much different than those of our NT peers?

1. Lack of Emotional Regulation

A big part of ADHD, which is not yet a diagnostic criteria, is our emotional disregulation. ADHD, inherently, comes with some amount of disregulation in our emotions. We have a hard time controlling the emotions that we feel and managing the intensity of them. They may come across as overly intense, or they may seem subdued, both for reasons we can’t possibly figure out as individuals. This disregulation is entirely out of our control, happening at a neurological level. Our brain chemicals don’t work as they should. But, no matter how unregulated our emotions are, they are still real. We do still feel them, exactly as intensely as we think we do. Disregulated does not mean made up.

2. RSD

If you knew about RSD before, or you’ve read my last post on ADHD (under my tag adhdghost), which has gained some popularity, you already know what this means. For those who don’t, RSD is short for Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. This condition plagues something like 99.9% of people with ADHD (while not being ADHD exclusive.) It comes with the lack of emotional regulation and means we have a reaction, that seems out of proportion (or “dramatic”), relative to the thing that caused it.

In short, RSD episodes can look like an entire breakdown, a very sudden loss of any self esteem or confidence, the feeling that you are certain someone now hates you or has secretly always hated you, and/or an immediate need to get rid of the thing that caused it. These episodes are caused by any kind of perceived failure or disappointment. They can be caused by someone whose opinion or relationship we value who gives us a slightly judgmental look, someone saying they don’t understand why we like the thing we’re interested in, or even not living up to our own expectations. These episodes frequently lead to emotional outburts, episodes, breakdowns, and tears. Naturally, all of this is “dramatic,” despite it being very real and painful for those experiencing it.

3. Combination with Other Things

Emotional disregulation can interact with other parts of our lives as well. For instance, I have a lot of phobias. My reactions to seeing or being around the things that terrify me can be even more intense than how most people react to their phobias. They can cause anxiety attacks, emotional breakdowns, and lasting fear for hours or days after. My recovery from these instances is hindered by my inability to regulate the feelings they caused.

Emotional disregulation can also interact with triggers, trauma, sensory problems, etc.

ADHD and Being Lazy

And of course, if you struggle with ADHD, you want to know, “Why am I so lazy?” The answer is: you’re not! Laziness is a made up word. Laziness was created to pass blame onto people who struggle to do things that more typical people can accomplish with ease.

So, what is the reason we struggle to do these seemingly simple tasks?

1. Executive Dysfunction

This is The Big One. Of all the things that can cause an inability to do things, executive dysfunction is the Achilles heel of ADHD. Because ADHD causes a difficulty with prioritizing, rewarding actions with no immediate reward, and creating a list of steps for us to take (something that comes naturally to NT people), we sometimes get “Stuck.”

This feeling of being stuck may look like us just having fun and avoiding our responsibilities. You may be Stuck right now, scrolling through tumblr mechanically even though you’ve been needing to pee for three hours. Naturally, you’ve been wanting to go to the bathroom... you just don’t know how.

To a NT, this sounds ridiculous. “Just get up and go?!” I’m sure you can imagine your parents saying, when they simply don’t understand. The truth is, tumblr can be a nightmare for executive function. It endlessly scrolls, giving you post after post. There’s no natural stopping point. You keep an eye out for a natural end to this activity, but it’s hard to find the right post to stop on. If you find those, “This is your sign to go to bed,” posts helpful - otherwise locked into the activity of scrolling regardless of whether you want to - you might be struggling with executive dysfunction.

This inability to “queue” our actions or prioritize what we need to do, and in what order, can wreak all kinds of havoc in our lives. You remember you didn’t really understand that equation the math teacher explained earlier. You know today’s homework is related to its use. Therefore, you cannot start your homework. There are a number of possible solutions floating around your head. Maybe the book will explain it better. Maybe your parents know how to do this and you could ask them. Maybe you could Google it. It’s possible the homework is about something else. But, if it is, what if you don’t understand that? Maybe you should ask your teacher before class?

Even though you have all of these solutions in your head, because you don’t know which solution is the best solution, you find yourself unable to do any of them. You show up to class with no homework and your teacher gives you a disappointed look. “I don’t understand why you don’t just apply yourself more. You’re a very smart student.” The remark brings you to holding back tears, because you want, with every fiber of your being, to apply yourself and make your teacher proud, but you simply don’t know how.

This is the destructive nature of executive dysfunction, and it is not something to be taken lightly.

2. Distraction

For those with ADHD, the inability to regulate external stimuli makes focusing incredibly hard. You wake up one morning and plan to start that English paper after breakfast. You go to get yourself some cereal. You’re out of milk. You decide to make toast instead. You burn your toast because you lost track of time for just 30 seconds. You go to throw it away, feeling an overwhelming amount of guilt over the two pieces of bread you wasted. The trash is overflowing. You decide to take it outside. It’s a really nice day out. Maybe you should take your dog for a walk. You haven’t taken her on a walk in a while and you’re just now feeling motivated to, so you should take advantage of that. You go to retrieve your dog and take her for a walk. When you bring her back in, you go to get her treats from the shelf in the laundry room. Oh yeah, you’d been meaning to do laundry. You go to get your laundry hamper from your room and notice there’s a bunch of laundry on the floor. You begin picking up the laundry from the floor. You may as well tidy up the other things on the floor as well. You finally get around to taking your laundry to the washer. You’re out of soap. Maybe you ought to make a run to the grocery store. You take ten minutes to find your keys and wallet and then head out to the grocery store. When you get there, you’ve forgotten what it was you needed. “Oh, right! I’m out of milk!” You go and retrieve milk. When you get to the checkout and the cashier rings you up, you suddenly remember you need laundry soap. Well, it’s too late now. You’ll have to do laundry tomorrow. You can’t risk the cashier giving you a tired look by asking them to wait. You go home and make some cereal. You can’t really write while you eat, so you open tumblr. you scroll through tumblr for a while. Your cereal gets soggy, you notice, disappointed. You see a tumblr post reminding you that you forgot to order something important online that you need to get here as soon as possible. The day continues in this way until you finally realize at 5pm that you never started your paper. “It’s so late now... I’ll just start it tomorrow morning,” you tell yourself. Rinse and repeat.

If you relate to this, you might want to consider researching ADHD a bit, because this is a very typical ADHD experience.

3. Hyperfixation and Hyperfocus

The last prominent reason why people with ADHD are seen as lazy has to do with a cycle in hyperfixation and hyperfocus.

If you don’t already know, hyperfixations are those interests you have that fill you with an overwhelming love and which take up an incredible amount of your time, energy, and brain space. These could be fandoms, hobbies, characters, games, or otherwise.

Hyperfocus, on the other hand, can be related to hyperfixations or things that aren’t hyperfixations. Hyperfocus is when you get “locked in” on a task and can’t seem to put it down. If you started this post not knowing how long it was and find yourself still raptly reading, completely ignoring the world around you, you may have hyperfocused on it. If you ever start cleaning and just can’t stop until the whole house is clean, despite your lack of regularly cleaning for over a month, you are hyperfocusing on cleaning. If you write a 20k word fic in one night, you are hyperfocusing.

Hyperfocusing can leave you completely unaware of the world around you, causing you to neglect your own basic needs, such as food, bathroom breaks, water, and social interaction. 

Because people with ADHD are able to occasionally apply themselves to such an extreme degree, NT people don’t understand why ADHD people are unable to apply themselves to other things as well. The reason we can’t is because we do not regulate our hyperfocus. Hyperfocus comes from tasks that are giving us serotonin, to make up for our brains inability to give serotonin in the way it should - in the way NT brains do. Emptying the dishwasher just felt really good. The next thing you know, you’re filling it with more dishes and wiping off counters and sweeping the floor and, “oh god, it looks so nice what if I just-” and then you move on to the laundry and the living room and the bedroom and then somehow 6 hours have passed. You don’t know how it happened, but now your house is clean and you feel amazing... but also tired and hungry. So you go make some food and then pass out on the couch.

So, when NT people see this kind of laser focus, they demand to know why you couldn’t do that simple math assignment, or why you haven’t been returning their texts, or why you couldn’t apply the same level of energy and enthusiasm on that really boring geography project. They demand to know why you’re so “lazy” the rest of the time.

There’s also the element of hyperfixation. It is the ultimate distraction. Your parents tell you to do the dishes and you say you will. Suddenly, you’ve found a fanfiction about your hyperfixation and you can’t stop reading it. It’s 60k words long and it will take you all day, but you’ll find a break to do your chores somewhere in there, right?

Your mom is suddenly knocking on your door what feels like 5 minutes later, but it’s been an hour. She wants to know why you didn’t do the dishes yet. You’re upset at yourself, but you lash out at her, because you’re unable to regulate your emotions. “I’ll do it in a minute!” you say loudly from behind your door. She walks off, irritated. You ask yourself why you can’t just do it now. Why does it feel impossible to tear yourself away? Your hyperfixation is the ultimate creator of hyperfocus. It rules you.

Before you know it, it’s midnight. You’ve finished the fic. It was amazing. You realize with dread that you still haven’t done the dishes, so you sneak out to the kitchen, hoping your parents have gone to bed. They have, but you find the dishes have already been done by someone else. Suddenly, you’re holding back tears from the RSD episode this has triggered. You ruined everything. You disappointed your parents. You’re a lazy and terrible child and they deserve better.

The truth is, you’re none of those things. In fact, you’re struggling with one of the most difficult mental blocks someone can have. But to others, you’re just making excuses. To others, you should have been able to just do the dishes and then go back to reading. But you know it’s not that easy. But why?

It’s ADHD, Babey!

If this post is hitting hard in a way that feels like your life is being splayed out before you, you might just have ADHD.

The fact is you are not dramatic and you are not lazy. You are struggling with a lot of ADHD symptoms that are making functioning in a neurotypical world incredibly difficult. This world was designed by and for NT people. Your worth is not based in how you live up to their expectations.

If you think you might have ADHD, it might be time to ask your doctor about getting an ADHD evaluation. Please check out my last post (the one i mentioned is under my tag adhdghost) to get more information on RSD and on getting evaluated.

An Important Note

Many experiences and struggles caused by ADHD are also present in other disorders. For example, RSD can be seen frequently in autism as well as in anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Sensory overload, emotional disregulation, executive dysfunction, and so on, can all be present in things other than ADHD. If you want to know if you fit the criteria for ADHD, go check out the criteria on the ADDitude website, which is a great source for ADHD related information.

[introvertguide]

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957); AFI #36

The film most recently under review was the British class, The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). I know that this is almost an entirely British production and the American co-lead in this film is an add-on, but is on the AFI top 100. Also, it’s a darn good film that portrays the blindness that comes with pride and power. In a war setting, this blindness can cost lives and we sometimes forget what the fight is for (sometimes it is nothing). The movie won seven Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Scoring. The film also swept the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs (the movie won Best British Film at the latter). The struggle for power between a British officer and a Japanese internment camp officer is the driving force for almost the entire movie and the psychological chess match is fascinating. Everything else feels kind of like filler, but that might just be me. Before I opine any further, let’s look at the plot, which is always proceeded by:

SPOILER ALERT!!! THIS IS A CLASSIC FILM WELL KNOWN THROUGHOUT NORTH AMERICA AND WESTERN EUROPE BUT I STILL HAVE TO PUT UP A WARNING!!! I THINK EVERYONE KNOWS THE ENDING, BUT I WILL STILL GET COMPLAINTS IF I DON’T SAY SOMETHING!!! ENJOY THE SYNOPSIS!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1943, POWs arrive at a Japanese prison camp in Burma. Two prisoners talk about a recently dead prisoner, giving the idea that many have perished and nobody even remembers their names. The Allied prisoners march from the train into camp whistling the famous Colonel Bogey March and line up at attention in front of their own officers including Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (Sir Alec Guinness). On arrival to the quartering area, the Japanese commander, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), says that all prisoners, no matter rank, will work to construct the railway from Bangkok to Rangoon. 

Nicholson says that his men will work, but the Geneva convention says that officers are exempt from manual labor. That evening, Nicholson meets the other prisoners. The rounds include an American Lieutenant Commander named Shears (William Holden) as well as the ranking British medical officer, Major Clipton (James Donald). In conversation, Nicholson tells Shears that there will be no escape attempt since his group had been ordered to surrender and escape would be defiance to his superiors. This adherence to “proper military behavior,” even at the expensive of self perseverance, is a major theme throughout the film.

At the morning assembly before work began, Nicholson again refuses to have his officers perform manual labor. Saito threatens to have the group executed, but Major Clipton steps in and says there are too many witnesses and Saito will face charges for murder after the war. As punishment, Saito decides to leave the officers all day in the jungle heat. At the end of the day, the officers are put in a cramped punishment hut while Nicholson is put into a very small iron box named “the oven.”

While the British officers are being punished, Shears and two others make an escape attempt. Shears gets away but the other two are killed. He wanders off and finds a Siamese village where he is nursed back to health and then travels to the British colony of Ceylon. 

Shears gets away but the officers are detained for what is described as a month later in the film. The prisoners won’t work and constantly sabotage the bridge project in protest of having their officers locked away. Saito realizes that he will have to commit suicide if he does not complete the bridge (as impossible as it seems to be), so he finally gives in and releases Nicholson and his officers saying they don’t have to complete manual labor. It was a win of principle and it is strange to see all of the soldiers cheering their officers even though the release will not give them more time or any help. “Yay, our superiors are allowed to do nothing and take credit for the work!! Hooray!!”

Much to the chagrin of his soldiers, Nicholson chastises the men for the poor job that they are done. The officer feels that soldiers need to take pride in their work to maintain morale, even if it means helping the enemy. The officers do a thorough overhaul of the bridge plans and move the construction downstream. They also increase the expected completion rate to try and finish before the deadline. Nicholson thinks it will be an example of British ingenuity and strength if they can complete the project on time...while helping the enemy.

Looking back at the condition of the American in a Ceylon hospital, we learn that the officer stole his rank and impersonated someone else in order to get better treatment at the camp. We know that this did not work out, but it is still treason and could earn Shears serious punishment. A British officer said that the American Navy was aware of this and transferred Shears to the British military for a special mission to destroy the bridge that is being built at the camp. Shears has no choice, but is allowed to volunteer for the mission to save face (which he does).

Shears is going to have to move fast, because Nicholson pushes his men (as well as other local workers) to complete the project. He even has Saito’s men pitching in an attempt to allow the commandant to save face. They are able to complete the entire bridge in only 3 months, just in time to allow the Japanese military to transport officers and dignitaries safely through the jungle. Nicholson proudly puts up a sign commemorating the bridge's construction by the British Army, from February to May 1943.

Shears is able to parachute into the jungle, commando style, the day before the first train is scheduled to cross the bridge. Four men are in the group (make that three because one didn’t survive the jump) that land and get to a Siamese village. The 3 men are aided by the local chief and some of the village women. The group go under the cover of darkness and plant explosives on the bridge supports below the water line. The group waits until the next day to try and blow up the bridge and the dignitaries at the same time.

A problem arises at daybreak when the level of the river goes down and exposes the wire connecting the explosives and the detonator. This is spotted by Nicholson and he is so wrapped up in honor and duty that he point it out to Saito. The two officers take a group of Japanese soldiers over to investigate what is going on in the riverbank. It appears that Nicholson has forgotten what side he is on amongst the fervor to complete his pet project in the name of the British military. 

One of the commandoes breaks cover and kills Saito while Nicholson actually yells for help to keep the team from the detonator. He is killed and Shears runs out to try and hit the detonator but is shot and killed as well. Nicholson sees Shears and realizes what he has done. A mortar round from the last commando in the brush injuries Nicholson and he has just enough energy to fall on the plunger for the detonator to blow up the bridge just as the train is crossing. The medical officer, Clipton, watches the proceedings and mutters to himself “Madness!” Roll credits.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I harp on the movie for not being American, yet still on the AFI top 100. I will admit here that there is a large portion of the film that is designated to the adventures of Major Shear that feels quite like an American story. The thing is, it doesn’t feel like he has a character arc at all. On the other hand, neither does Nicholson until the last 5 minutes of a movie that is over 2.5 hours long. He has the character direction of a candy cane. 

I will get into the great parts of the film, but one more complaint is the pace of the film. It is really boring at times. The characters are established early on in the movie and don’t really change, so they do exactly what you would expect them to do. The only twist at all is literally in the last five minutes. That last five minutes is phenomenal, but you sure have to be patient to get that far. I had to watch the movie twice because I fell asleep during the third quarter of the film. Upon watching again, I realized that I really did not miss much.

For the good, Sir Alec Guinness and Sessue Hayakawa were amazing. Both play men trying to survive in an impossible situation and the only thing guiding them is principles and honor. Without their principles, they will die and so will the men that report to them. It seems obvious that both men have made decisions that have ended up with the death of soldiers and civilians, so neither is afraid to sacrifice themselves or others on principle. 

I am somewhat confused as to why the Allied soldiers follow the orders of Nicholson. His fight is so that he does not have to do manual labor. When he wins the game of chicken with Saito, he rewards his men by having them work harder to aid the cause of the enemy. Nicholson is like Forrest Gump in some ways because he does exactly what he is told to do (or at least how interprets his instructions). Officers don’t participate in manual labor so risks his (and his officers) to abide this. He was ordered to surrender so he will not attempt escape. The bridge is based off British plans so he will complete the job. He is given a deadline to accommodate enemy officers and dignitaries so he will finish before that time. Those guys shouldn’t be down by the river with explosives so he immediately informs Saito.

Shears was probably the most flexible character, but he did not change over the family. He also did not look like somebody who had been in a POW camp. He had a bit of a dirt tan, but he was healthy and muscular like a man who had a muscle isolated workout plan and a balanced 3,000 daily calorie diet. The clothes may have been shabby, but none of the soldiers really looked like starving POWs. Also, all of the women in the film (there were a few) were all young, good looking, and had great teeth. I kind of doubt it. 

Although the characters were interesting, the film did a pretty poor job of painting each lead as a stereotype. The American lied about his history, talked big, and took on the crazy missions. The British officer followed rules to the point of harming others. The Japanese officer was honor bound and willing to kill as a matter of obedience. This is not what I think, but it was reportedly what the writer of the source material, Pierre Boulle, thought. 

One thing that I have not touched upon because I wanted to save it mostly for when director David Lean’s opus, Lawrence of Arabia, comes up, the shots of the jungle in Cinemascope are beautiful. From the beginning when we ride in on a train right behind a machine gun, the background speaks volumes. There are not a lot of close ups because the jungle is made into a character. There is no greater threat to the captors or the prisoners than the environment surrounding them and Lean makes sure that the viewer is constantly aware of this. It is really what keeps the film from becoming tedious at times, so a round of applause for director David Lean and cinematographer Jack Hildyard.

My questions that I always ask myself will be answered a little different than normal. Does this film belong on the AFI top 100? Absolutely not. It is blatantly a British film and should not be pilfered because of a couple American actors and screenwriters. It does, however belong on the BFI top 100 and it stands at #11 on the list of greatest British films. Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Also, pay attention to the scenery because the characters are established very early and have little growth, so the camera work is the best part between the first 30 minutes and the last 15 minutes. I am not sure that the film needed to be so long, but it is still very good and deserves a full watch.

[foxtophat]

/pant wheeze etc

sorry about that guys, i was going to post last night but like i keep saying, i got caught up in editing and soooo here we are!!  today’s chapter is all about kim, and kim’s teaching a masterclass in being a mom friend in your late 30′s.

as much as i strugged with this chapter i really REALLY like writing kim. she never got enough play in the games, so i guess i take liberties, but there’s something pleasing about writing an exasperated millenial mom going “please, dude, just get some therapy” to a guy like john seed lol.

i guess we’re all probably feeling kind of...uh, not awesome/active these days. which is fine! i’ve touched my face so many times writing this that i’m gonna have to go take a shower when i’m done here.  i hope you all are being safe, and i hope you work for companies that will allow you to be safe!  if your job is giving you shit about the virus, know that they’re the ones in the wrong, not you for wanting to watch out for your health.  oh, and tonight is the democratic debate, so go watch that and see if you vibe with my boy bernie, ok?  ok, be safe, i love you, wear a scarf if its cold outside

(below is the chapter text, so you don’t have to leave tumblr if you don’t want to! if you read it on here, could you like and/or reblog for me? i would appreciate it!)

Kim vividly remembers the day she met John Seed, just a few short years before the end of the world. He and his family had been in town all of a month when they had shown up unannounced to a potluck Kim and Nick were hosting, bringing along a last-minute macaroni dish. The three brothers were polite enough, and the big one seemed embarrassed by their offering compared to the other plates at the table, so Kim had let the party-crashing slide. Hell, she'd even let the strange brunette woman that accompanied them walk around her house like a second-rate psychic looking for ghosts. The rumor mill hadn't had time to chew much on them, so all Kim knew about the Seeds was that they were trying to put together a commune and the middle brother was some kind of preacher. It all sounded very tent-revivalist to her, but mostly harmless. Sure, they were weird, but they were hardly the only weirdos living in the county, so who was Kim to judge?

She had been standing alone by the cooler with a beer when John had sidled up to her. His reputation had already gotten a head start, having already stepped on Mary May's toes before showing his face to the town at large, and he was clearly attempting to avoid people who had already heard Mary May's take on the situation. Whether or not he realized Kim had already heard all about his unapologetic come-ons, he sure seemed interested in showing her his good side. He had been all smiles and charm, shaking her hand with both of his own and complimenting everything about the house and party and people. But, even as he coasted through the pleasantries and small-talk, John had eyed Kim like she was a piece of meat, one up for grabs by whoever flagged down the butcher first.

Just when he seemed ready to open his mouth and order himself a bad time, Nick had swooped in beside Kim with his hand extended, wearing his least genuine grin. Committing to another two-handed shake, John made more sweeping compliments and asked Nick a couple of questions about the airstrip. He may have even been genuinely interested in what Nick had to say on the matter, but in retrospect, all Kim can remember is the way he had looked at her. No longer was Kim a lifeless, prime cut of beef — now, she had teeth in the form of her redneck aviator husband, who wasn't buying anything John was selling.

Nick had smiled and waved at John as he excused himself, disappearing in the direction of his brothers. "What a fuckin' creep," Nick had declared through his clenched teeth.

Kim had thought then that they knew what kind of creep John was. By the time he began sending men to the house to intimidate them, she'd realized he was something much worse. He was something out of a schlocky psychological thriller, a sociopath with a rumored body count, who calculated each of his steps with pointed disregard for human life, gleefully buying up land for their cult and chasing all but the bravest away from their homes. There had been rumors about people disappearing, but Kim hadn't wanted to believe them. There had been a whole lot Kim hadn't wanted to believe. It was when John started calling, leaving desperate messages begging them to "just say yes, so I don't have to make you," that Kim had to stop hiding her head in the sand.

Kim barely had time to celebrate when he died the first time, what with Carmina being born and the world ending, and she had much better things to do in the years following than spare a thought towards him. It wasn't until Nick dragged John into their home eight years later that his name had even crossed Kim's mind.

She thinks about John a lot now, for better or worse. At first, all of her instincts had her thinking about him sleeping nearby. How much force it would take to break the bedroom locks. How strong and fast he might secretly still be. She would watch him work and think about all the awful things he would be putting Nick and her through, if their positions were reversed. She would question his every move, tired and sluggish as they might have been.

Nowadays, she mostly thinks about how tired he really seems. She thinks a lot about his eight years of solitude, and questions just how dedicated he really is to waving a white flag. The John Seed she used to know, the one she had underestimated a lifetime ago, he would never have willingly submitted himself to manual labor the way he does now. He would never sit silent and anxious until Nick or Kim bossed him around. At first, she had thought he was doing it out of necessity, being as sick as he was, but now... well, now, she's not so sure.

John is stronger than he has any right to be. Kim never had the opportunity to confront him physically before, so she has no idea if John has always been like this, or if it's something that happened in isolation. After all, eight years by yourself is a great time to workout — at least until your supplies run out, or you catch a sickness that won't go away. It should probably worry her more, but Nick's confidence has rubbed off on Kim, and all she concerns herself with is giving him jobs that measure up to his abilities.

Like today, for example. Nick and Carmina have started on a project together, putting together a hen coop worthy of housing Carmina's first pets, and with planting season practically here, Kim is ready to tackle her own construction project. Somehow, a tractor wound up on the runway, overturned and mangled as if it had been in a car accident — or a nuclear blast — and Kim has a plan for the thing's large, mostly-intact tires. With enough mulch and soil, Kim's sure that she can make them into reliable planters, and she might even manage to grow something worth eating this year. First, though, they have to come off the tractor — and that's where John comes in.

Kim watches John peel one tire off of the crescent-shaped wheel it's clinging to, thinking to herself again that John is stronger than he should be. He rolls the massive tire back down the runway towards her, looking mildly winded from the exertion, face red from the sun. He doesn't look anything like the walking corpse Nick had found a few months back.

Despite herself, Kim is impressed with his progress. When Nick had first brought him in, she hadn't expected him to make it through the night, much less the following day. It had been hospice care to her, at least for the first week — but then John had turned a corner, eating again and managing to stand on his own feet, and all at once Kim had forgotten about reading his last rites.

Slowing the tire to a stop, John wipes his arm across his brow and asks, "Here?"

"Yeah," Kim says. "That's fine. One more to go."

John nods, turning and retreating down the runway towards the tractor's mangled remains. Kim watches him go, waiting for him to realize how easy it would be to get away. She's a great shot with the rifle, but she's only got the pistol with her today, and Nick is all the way on the other side of the hangar. There's no fence on this side of the strip, and the overgrowth is thick enough to disappear into. It would take him a matter of seconds to escape, if he would just try.

But he doesn't. Kim has no idea why not — it's not like they're making much of an effort to keep him locked up. Nick does his best, but they're not a maximum-security prison. Hell, they don't even have an enclosed fence! With all of his experience managing a human trafficking cult, he has to see that they're woefully unprepared to hold him. There's no way he hasn't itemized every hole in their security and how he could use them to his advantage.

The tire has been partially popped off of the tractor wheel, but John's probably going to need a wrench or something to pry the rest of it free. Otherwise, Kim is going to be watching him strain uselessly, and while sometimes it can be gratifying to watch John struggle with menial tasks, Kim wants these planters done as soon as possible.

She marches toward him to size the problem up, only to pull up short as John tears the tire off of the wheel. Metal scrapes against itself as the axle twists, and Kim hears a pop when John finally leverages the tire free, leaving the wheel to hang limply from the axle. There's a long rip in the tire's lip, probably from where a security bolt tore through the old rubber.

"Jesus," she says, not realizing she's close enough for John to hear her until he frowns in her direction. She tries to mask for her concern over his uncanny strength, but all she has going for her these days is motherly frustration. "You could have hurt yourself," she scolds, as if that's going to cover it.

John huffs. "Why does that matter?" he asks.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but we don't exactly have a doctor to take you to if you slice your arm on rusted machinery and contract tetanus."

Considering how passive John's been, it comes as something of a surprise when he heaves a frustrated sigh, bracing the tire with both hands and doing his best to ignore Kim while she stands right next to him. It's just irritating enough that she sticks her foot out to block the tire, eyeballing him defiantly and mentally daring him to keep being a baby. Ugh, as if a man like him could be intimidated by a 40-year-old mom's unimpressed glare.

He ducks his eyes. "Alright, fine," he surrenders.

Kim lets him roll on, following with a furrowed brow as she tries to figure out what his deal is. The John she remembers would never put up with the kind of disrespect Kim shows him. He would be... seething, or something. Planning to murder her, probably. But if he was going to murder them, he would have done it already. He definitely would have done it when Nick let him sleep in their room. But every opening he has, he ignores in favor of the full surrender he'd willingly placed himself under.

Once John sets the tire down, wiping his forehead clear of sweat, he asks, "What's next on your list of petty tortures?"

If John thinks being petulant will get him anywhere with Kim, he is sorely mistaken. She raises an unimpressed eyebrow and asks, "Do you really think this is me trying to torture you?" She can't help but be a little offended — as if she couldn't come up with something worse than household chores if she wanted.

"I don't know what to think," John sighs.

Kim can count the number of times John has been honest with her on one hand, and that's including before the bombs dropped. A few minutes ago, she might've entertained his mild back-talking to dig at his motivations, but she's certainly not in the mood now.

"You don't need to think," she says. "Just do what I tell you."

It's as easily said as done with John, who shuts up with a deep frown and follows Kim mutely for the next hour or two, helping her shovel a mixture of composted leaves and topsoil into a wheelbarrow. They have to make three trips to get enough to fill the tires, which is sweaty, smelly work that Kim won't leave to John alone. Even if she didn't want to get her hands dirty, she would feel guilty if she made him do it by himself, considering it's a job she could easily do alone.

Once they've finished dumping the dirt into the makeshift planters, Kim turns to John with a critical eye. At last, she offers him more than a few curt orders.

"This isn't supposed to be torture, you know," she tells him. "Everything we tell you to do, it's because it needs to be done, not because we want to watch you suffer."

"It must help," John grunts.

"Honestly? Not really." Kim sits on one tire, watching John shift his weight between his feet. He somehow seems small, even as he stands over her. "I've seen enough suffering to last a lifetime. Haven't you?"

John doesn't respond. He turns his head to stare at the hangar — probably wishing he was putting the coop together with Nick, who loves it when John is quietly repentant, and who hates talking about this kind of stuff in general. If Carmina weren't over there, John would definitely be trying to excuse himself to her husband's side.

"I think we're done here for now," Kim says at last. "I'm going to start dinner. You can sit quietly with me, or go help Carmina and Nick with the coop."

She refuses to pick for him, leaving him to look between the hangar and the fire-pit and debate on his own whether he wants to deal with Kim's weak interrogation skills or being in the same room as Carmina for any length of time. Any time she gives him a choice, he usually goes for whatever will keep him busier, but he seems actively repulsed by the idea of spending any time around Carmina.

After a few seconds of consideration, John nods reluctantly. "I'll sit," he says, almost as though he's admitting defeat. When Kim leads him over to the fire, he sits on the same patch of dirt he usually does, even with plenty of seating options. He doesn't talk much, and since Kim has nothing to ask him, she leaves him to his own thoughts while she starts getting dinner ready.

When she catches him starting to doze, she can't help but sarcastically quip, "Some torture, huh?"

John shoots her a dark look in return, but it's going to take more than a mean scowl to bother her.

Nick and Carmina get up early one morning to go fishing. Kim sleepily sees them out of the bedroom, unwilling to face the gray morning chill herself, and wishes them as much luck as she can muster while half-asleep. Nick hesitates a whole lot by the bedroom door, still reluctant to leave Kim alone with John, but he knows better than to make a bigger deal about it than she does. Kim appreciates his concern, even if nowadays she doesn't think it's warranted.

They'll be back a little after noon, and Kim's list of chores has finally shrunk to something manageable, so she lazes for just a little bit before finally committing to the day. It takes her a little longer to commit to utilizing John outside, since she doesn't have any work for him and it would be great to have a morning to herself, but leaving him to stew all day feels wrong.

John's already awake when she goes to get him, dressed and sitting on the pallet-board bed that Nick let him piece together. He only looks mildly surprised to see Kim fetching him by herself, which means he probably heard Nick leave earlier. He isn't very talkative today, resorting to monosyllabic responses to her questions as they eat breakfast downstairs. He sits quietly at the table with Kim, not touching his food until he catches Kim staring expectantly at him. Kim shouldn't be surprised — after eight years on his own, he's probably more comfortable in silence. Either that, or he talked himself out of words down in that bunker of his. She would ask, but John avoids talking about his time underground at all costs, and she doesn't see today being any different.

Kim waits until they've gotten out into the yard to reveal her cigar box full of seed packets. "It's a little early to start planting," she explains, "But I have a good feeling about this batch of spinach."

John waits expectantly, his frown deepening as Kim fails to elaborate on his part in all of this. "You want my help," he realizes at last. "...With gardening ."

He says it with so much disbelief that Kim almost thinks he's making fun of her. "What did you think we were going to do after we filled these things with soil?" she asks. "They needed to sit, and now we need to plant. You're here, so you're helping me."

"I —" John stares at her, biting the inside of his cheek as though he's trying to mind himself. "That isn't going to work. You'd be better off letting me dismantle the tractor for scrap."

"I'm not asking you to do that," Kim points out, "I'm asking you to poke some holes in the dirt. This isn't rocket science. Even Carmina can do it."

"Then have Carmina do it ," John snaps, immediately clenching his jaw to try and prevent another outburst.

"If you're trying to give me trouble just because Nick isn't around, then I'll just put you back in your room."

John sulks for a few seconds, weighing his words now that he's out on thin ice. "Plants and I aren't compatible," he grudgingly admits. "I have a black thumb. And this is important work, I don't — I don't understand why you would risk it."

Kim tries hard to resist pulling on her kid gloves, and yet she still can't help but go easy on him. "John, it's an irradiated wasteland. You are the least of these plants' concerns. All you have to do is follow instructions. You can do that, right?"

She expects him to roll his eyes or get huffy at her coddling him, even just a little, but he only nods in return. "Yes," he says, falling back into what can't possibly be comfortable subservience.

Well, it works for Kim — he doesn't try to fight her as she shows him how to space out the holes, how deep to make them and how many seeds to put in each one. She watches him finish a row before she decides he's got it, and settles in across from him to start on the opposite side of the planter. John looks surprised that she's working with him, but she finds digging in the dirt relaxing, and she's got to pass the time somehow.

Kim enjoys gardening, getting her hands dirty while ensuring she and her family have plenty of food. She'd never really gotten the chance to practice before the bombs, but that didn't stop her from growing some sad looking carrots and potatoes last year. They plant spinach and beets, as well as some carrots that Kim doubts will survive. The other planter stays empty, but Kim has a plan to grow some soybeans later in the season, and if the seeds don't take, maybe corn will.

John is wholly focused on his side of the planter, meticulously careful, like this is some kind of exact science that he barely understands. A city boy through and through, Kim supposes — it isn't like a hotshot lawyer from Atlanta would spend much time at the local community garden, right? His history with gardening is probably littered with dead ferns and succulents that couldn't survive his negligence.

When he sits back to rest a minute, four straight rows like spokes in front of him, Kim throws him a bone. "Looking pretty good."

"Don't patronize me."

Kim rolls her eyes. Of course John would be incapable of taking even the most mundane compliment, no matter how genuinely Kim might give it. "I'm not. You're doing a good job."

John sighs heavily, still very much not believing her, but he doesn't argue the point.

Nick and Carmina return just after John finishes his final row. Usually, Carmina comes back looking pretty defeated, as fishing isn't something she's gotten the hang of yet, and Nick will try not to let on that he did poorly on purpose to make her feel better. Today, though, Carmina marches with a straight back and a big grin, and Nick follows her with a bucket of smallmouth bass.

"Who wants fish?" Nick calls triumphantly, visibly excited for Carmina to finally have a "big catch" story.

Kim stands, knocking the dirt off of her knees, and takes a look at the radial design left behind in the soil. She's going to have to water and keep a close eye on these little suckers, but with any luck, they'll grow at least enough to make for good compost. It would be nice to have some impressive produce to trade, though, so here's hoping that spinach turns out.

"Hard part's over," Kim tells John, who reluctantly follows her lead and climbs to his feet. "Now, it's a waiting game."

"I wouldn't expect miracles," John mutters. Kim pretends not to hear him.

John avoids the garden as much as he can once the planting is done. Kim doesn't need his help, so she doesn't press it, but she notices whenever he surreptitiously checks the progress the seeds are making. He seems happy enough to be done handling them, but Kim bets he's still keeping an eye out for any evidence of failure. Kim doesn't want to take away Nick's extra pair of hands, especially considering how hard work seems to comfort John more than long stretches of silence surrounded by dirt, so for the first two weeks, Kim handles most of the gardening herself.

Nick and him have been steadily chipping away at Nick's list of home repairs, their DIY solutions changing the topography of the family home bit by bit. The roof is dotted with white shingles cobbled together from old siding, the windows have been boarded up with full sheets of plywood instead of haphazard wooden planks, and part of the hangar's exposed roof has been covered by a quilt of stitched together pieces of tarp. They've even managed to clear back some of the vines that have been swallowing every structure in the valley. Nick has pretty much given up on letting John do everything by himself by now, although he definitely delegates the harder work to John and takes the first drink of water whenever they take a break. Nick has always been a hands-on kind of guy, though — sitting by while there's work to be done goes against his nature. It had only been a matter of time before he demanded to pull his own weight.

Kim checks the plants more frequently and obviously than John does. She had been expecting most of the plants to fail, considering the packets they came from are easily eight years old and thrown into an old box with no thought to preserving them, but a week in and they seem to have taken pretty well. Tiny, two-leaf sprouts have started to poke their way through the soil where the spinach was planted. The beets don't seem to have done quite as well, but surviving tiny sprouts have also started to show. Kim doesn't trust the carrots, but it'll be another week or so before they start seeing any results from them, so she withholds judgment for now.

"Been thinking about going into town," Nick mentions one night as the four of them eat dinner at the table. John still seems uneasy sitting with them instead of on the stairs or in his room, but at least he doesn't need someone to goad him into eating.

Carmina's face lights up. "Can I come?" she asks, practically before Nick has finished speaking. From the way Nick smiles at her, Kim's sure he was about to suggest that very thing, which makes it easy for Kim to agree.

"Sure," she says. "As long as your dad promises not to cut across the field this time. No," she scolds Nick as he opens his mouth to argue, "There's a herd of bison out there that are as big as the car, and you are not a matador, Nick."

"What's the point of an apocalypse if I gotta follow all the roads?" Nick complains, relenting with a theatrical sigh. "You're right," he admits, emphasizing for Carmina, "Your mom's right. The roads are a lot safer than any open field."

Kim glances at John, who has his head down over his plate, looking uncomfortable with the conversation circling so close to him. Nick follows her line of sight, frowns, and then asks, "So, uh, John... You got any interest in going into town?"

John swallows the bite he just took, wincing as it goes down wrong. "No," he croaks.

"Okay," Nick says, not at all upset to hear it. "That leaves just you and me, sweetheart."

Later on, once they're getting ready for bed, Nick can't help but circle back, horrified by his own gall. "What would I have done if he'd said yes?" he asks Kim. "He'd incite a riot just by showing his face. The second everybody knows he's alive..."

"It's going to happen eventually," Kim says. "I think we should at least let him make the choice about when ."

Nick accepts her reasoning with a petulant, "I guess, " but he spends another hour or two silently turning it over in his head.

They don't leave until after breakfast, which Nick lets John be part of. He's still sensitive about sharing his family time with anybody, much less John, but he's getting used to it bit by bit. Kim would blame it on the apocalypse if it weren't for the fact that he's always been very protective of his mornings.

John looks uneasy as Nick and Carmina head out, tensing at the sound of the car starting. Kim isn't all that used to it either, but at least they managed to find a car and enough gas to make the occasional trip to town possible.

Well, since there's nobody else around, and nothing left for Kim to do, she decides it time to bring John back to the garden.

"Ready to learn how to weed?" she asks.

To his credit, John waits until they're outside and facing down the lightly weeding planter to argue. "There's still a lot of work to do in the hangar," he says. "Doesn't that sound like a better use for me?"

"No," she replies. "You need to know how to do this." She sighs when he remains standing, staring up at him unimpressed. "Either you help me with this, or you can go pout in your room about it."

Kim waits until John reluctantly sits on his knees to join him. She walks him through the process of prying up the thin, quickly growing stems, tossing them into the bucket between them, and shows him how to pull out the root systems that might get left behind. Most of the weeds that are growing are small, but those pernicious vines have been reportedly growing like crazy in any and all soil and Kim doesn't want to give them a chance to cozy up to her produce.

It's not complicated work, so John picks it up fast, but he goes tediously slow, almost to the point where Kim thinks he's messing with her. Well, the joke's on him — Kim has raised one of the most independent children in the state, and she knows how to deal with petulance. She's fine with long stretches of silence, she's fine with dirt, and she's fine with leaving people to stew.

"Have you always been a gardener?" John asks after a length time, rushing the words as if he'd been chewing them over for too long and he just wants them out of his mouth.

John rarely ever asks questions that aren't about his so-called punishment, so Kim is inclined to indulge him. "No, not really," she answers. "My mom grew flowers, and I would try to keep those little starter herb kits alive every so often, but I never really dedicated my time to it." She hesitates, hopefully not noticeably, and adds, "We had some old gardening magazines in a box in the bunker. They turned out to be a good way to pass the time. You know?"

John hums neutrally in response. Kim hadn't expected much better; even casual talk about life underground shuts John up pretty fast. It's such an obvious psychological scar that even Nick can't miss it, and although the two of them will speculate, neither of them have so far pushed hard enough to find out more. Kim doesn't know if John's trauma is the Pandora's box she wants to open, but she has so many questions and so many worries that could be put to rest if she could just figure out how to interrogate him about it.

She's being too obvious, staring at him like she is, and John is quick to catch her. His brow furrows as he stares back expectantly. Probably waiting for her to drag the information she wants out of him, no doubt, the same way he would rip confessions out of people.

When she fails to do whatever it is he's waiting for, he turns his attention back to the remaining weeds. Frustration colors his voice when he eventually speaks.

"I wish you wouldn't stare at me."

"I usually look at people who ask me questions," Kim replies, trying not to be pedantic and failing pretty miserably.

"Just tell me what you want from me."

Kim sits back on her heels, wiping her forehead with a dirty hand. "I don't really know," she admits. She probably shouldn't be so honest with him, so open about her lack of motivation, but she can't see any reason to lie. Maybe telling him the truth will encourage him to do the same? She knows that's wishful thinking, but it's worth a try.

"I guess I want you to... prove you're trying. That this isn't all some kind of act. But honestly, I don't know what kind of proof would convince me. There's eight years of blank history that might help, but you don't want to talk about it."

She doesn't hesitate to bring up the bunker this time, even when it makes him squirm. She can see him working on a response and heads it off as best she can.

"Look," she says, "You don't have to tell me now. You don't even have to tell me . But eventually, if you're really serious about making amends, you're going to have to tell someone ."

For a moment, John rests his fingers in the dirt as if he might just go back to his work. He's staring at the green leaves, waiting for one of the plants to give him the right answer, the one that will make the conversation end before he has to get involved.

Finally, terribly lost and frustrated at himself for winding up that way, he asks, "Why won't you just make me ?"

His uncertainty settles in Kim's stomach like a lead weight. He refuses to look at her, and somehow that makes it worse. She knows Nick would probably scold her for being overly sympathetic, but she can't help it. She can't hide her worry when she answers, no matter how much it might chafe John to hear it.

"You have to want to get better to do it," she tells him. "Nobody can do it for you."

John doesn't respond. Kim doesn't hold her breath over it, returning to the remaining weeds. But as his silence grows, Kim finds herself checking on him in her periphery. Before the Collapse, John had been easy to read, his reactions unrestrained and sometimes bordering theatrical. These days, Kim can't pin him down.

John treats the fresh sprouts as though they're too fragile to touch, sincerely confused at the progress the garden has made despite his interference. Had he really thought that he could mess them up just by planting them? No wonder he was so sure that she was making a mistake, enlisting his help.

"Things are going well, given the circumstances," she says at last. "I guess you don't have a black thumb after all."

"I stand corrected," he replies. He looks at her briefly, but when he catches her watching him he's quick to look back to the dirt. Kim doesn't miss the way he continues to appreciate the small green stalks.

Later, after the weeds have been eradicated and dinner has been started, Kim hears the car coming down the drive. John is in the middle of dragging scrap metal out of the hangar, so he doesn't notice it right away, but there's no missing Carmina and Nick's raised voices. They aren't quiet by any means as they wander from the front yard to the back, talking enthusiastically about the monstrous bison they'd seen in the field on their way home. When John recognizes them coming into view, he stops working briefly, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the hastily setting sun.

"That's, uh, a pretty wide leash you're giving him," Nick says to Kim, having the good sense to at least kiss his wife hello before he starts in on judging her.

"He knows what you guys are doing in there better than I do," she replies. "How was town?"

Carmina is the one to answer, her excitement hard to contain. "We saw the bison!" she exclaims. "Pastor Jerome let me go to the top of the church tower! We got a bunch of stuff!"

She has a whole lot more to tell Kim, which she does in rapid-fire bullet-points before running off to unload supplies from the car. From all of her talk of apples, Kim hopes that some of them made their way home.

Nick waits until she's out of sight, checking to see that John hasn't yet come to join them, and then offers Kim a helpless shrug. "So, Jerome knows about John, I guess."

The comment shouldn't make Kim as uneasy as it does. "Oh?"

"Grace told him." Nick takes off his hat, tossing it onto the porch and running a hand through his hair. "He said he had to think about it more. But, uh... that he trusts us to do what's right. I dunno, he didn't quote any scripture at me so I couldn't tell how mad he really was."

He's watching John at the front of the hangar like he's surprised John isn't running. "I really thought this was gonna go differently," he says after a beat. "I thought for sure he'd have given us a reason to off him by now."

Kim chuckles. "Yeah, the same way you thought feeding the raccoons would make them go away."

"I couldn't help it," Nick sighs. "They looked so damn hungry."

John finishes unloading the wheelbarrow's contents. For a moment, he stands with his back to them, staring at the hangar. When he turns around, he straightens up, waiting. For what, Kim couldn't possibly say. She wishes he would just tell them what he thinks they ought to do already, but that's not going to happen any time soon.

Nick cups a hand to his mouth and shouts, "C'mon, I got a bunch of supplies you need to unload!"

John puts his hands on his hips, taking a brief rest before starting in their direction. Kim wouldn't believe he's the same man from a few months ago if she hadn't seen the transformation herself. She hopes all this change has been for the better, but she wonders if it's going to be enough.

[rheyninwrites]

Old Friends Part 3

f!OC Modern AU

I He was only nineteen when they met, still a kid, same as the rest of us. Once he laid his eyes on her, his big dumb heart was just taken away. He swore that she was The One for him, no doubts in his mind at all. He followed her around like a puppy dog, and she loved every damn minute of it.

Charles, who was his best friend besides me, tried to talk sense into him. We all knew she’d be bad news for him. If it wasn’t her, it would be because of her father. The man was probably the wealthiest person any of us had ever seen, or even heard of at the time, and all of his efforts were being put into finding a “suitable” husband for his precious daughter. You practically needed a six figure salary to even be considered, so it was highly unlikely that an ex con who performed manual labor for a living would make the cut.

“You realize she’s rich, right?” Charles said one night as we hung out in the townhouse we all shared. “Like, more money than all of us will ever see in our whole lives put together rich?”

But he just waved the advice away and dove headfirst into love. And boy oh boy was it love, or maybe obsession would be a better way to describe it. He was practically glued to her side. Almost stopped hanging out with us completely. He ate, slept, and breathed her name, her face, her figure. All she had to do was walk in the room and he went all gooey, all heart eyes and floating across the floor after her.

Of course, I found it utterly disgusting, but at that point I had realized I had major feelings for him, so I knew some of my distaste for it came from jealousy. She was everything I wasn’t. Tall and thin to my average height curves, rich to my poor, graceful to my clumsy. Some of us can’t afford facials and finishing school. So different than me, so much more refined. And he wanted her , craved her, so I knew I didn’t stand a chance.

God, the dance went on for years. “Daddy” wouldn’t have approved, so of course it was all kept very secret, while in daylight she paraded with the suitors her father sent her way. Arthur would meet her at night, often springing for a fancy restaurant he couldn’t really afford, and she’d have him out with her all night. Then he’d race his way to whatever job he was working, apologize for being late, and drag his way through the day on whatever little sleep she’d let him have.

I know I’m making her sound like a bitch, my recollection colored by bitterness. It’s hard to let some hurts from the past go. Not only did she have the man I wanted, but she had the easy life that comes to the rich and beautiful. I think she probably did really care about him, just not enough to do what really mattered.

That became clear one afternoon, just as I was graduating college. Most of the rest had either never started college to begin with, or had dropped out in favor of a job offer. Tilly was starting work at the flower shop she’d own in a few years, Bill had gotten Charles in at the factory he was working at, while Javier, Sean, and John were starting at a construction company. Karen had convinced Abigail, newly in love with John, that they should start a business together, which, unfortunately didn’t go so well. Mary-Beth had just moved in with us, one year into her English degree, and Lenny wouldn’t be showing up until the Fall, a genius seventeen year old hell-bent on being the first in his family with an MD. Sadie didn’t join us until years later, having met Charles at work.

Tilly, Charles, and I were sitting at the kitchen counter, having a quiet conversation, when suddenly Arthur burst through the door, a grin nearly splitting his face in two. The three of us looked at each other in confusion as Arthur stomped to the fridge and grabbed a beer, guzzling half of it down at once.

“This is it, I ain’t never gonna have to worry about another thing in my life. Not in my damn life!”

“You gone tell us what all this stomping and shouting is about, Arthur Morgan, or you gone just leave us here wondering?”

“Ah, shit, Tilly. I’m just so damned excited! You ain’t gonna believe this. You remember that position I applied to? The one at the summer camp up in New York?”

Of course we all remembered. It had been the only thing he’d talked about for weeks, hemming and hawing about whether or not he should apply. It was training and handling horses used in equine therapy, something he’d wanted to do for years. Unfortunately the application had said that anyone with a criminal background shouldn’t apply. Thanks to his fuck-up of a father, he a few pick-pocketing charges, and one or two shoplifting incidents. Luckily, instead of being a victim lost in the often cruel justice system, he ended up with a great counselor who got him help and got him sent to a rehabilitation facility, where they used horses as part of the therapy. When he came out, he was a different person, and he said he wanted to be able to give that to others. Unfortunately, between needing a steady income and having poor grades, he hadn’t gotten into any of the training programs he’d applied to, and he’d all but given up hope.

When he told us about it the camp opportunity, we all encouraged him to apply anyway. Since the charges had been so long ago, and he’d been through the rehabilitation program, we thought maybe it wouldn’t matter as much. Mary-Beth helped him to write a cover letter to include with his application, explaining not only why the charges were there, but how they lead to him finding that passion and how it changed his life. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, maybe they’d throw out his application, but if he never applied, he’d be certain he never got the job.

“I got it! I got the damn job! They said that, while they normally ain’t keen on hiring people with a criminal record, I was clearly a fine example of ‘the transformative power of the horse’. “

Grin still splitting his face, he stood there, arms out and nearly crying from happiness as we all gathered around him to hug and congratulate him.

“And that ain’t the only thing. My story touched them so much, they’re thinking they might want to use it in their new advertising campaign.”

He plopped into the chair while we all screamed and shouted our excitement, filling in Karen, Sean, and Javier as they tromped downstairs to the kitchen to see what the noise was. Karen was the first to form a coherent sentence.

“Hot damn, Arthur, that’s the best damn thing I heard in a long damn time! Sounds like we might have to get ourselves out tonight to celebrate!”

“Aw, thank you Karen, but I’m afraid I’m gonna have to pass on that tonight, as I already got other plans.”

“Shit, Arthur, what plans could you have that are more important than celebrating your success with your best friends?”

Arthur looked down sheepishly, the first blush I’d seen on him in ages starting to creep up his cheeks. I got a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach as he reached into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a tiny velvet box, which he sat on the table slowly. I glanced over at Tilly, whose eyes widened ever so slightly in an “oh shit” face. Charles was already backing away, ever so slightly shaking his head.

“I, well, I’m gonna see Mary tonight. And I’m gonna ask her to marry me.”

My heart fluttered its way to my mouth before finally deciding to drop down into the pits of the fiery depths below . This was definitely not good. Not just because I loved him romantically, but because I loved him as a friend, and I knew that there was precisely a snowball’s chance in hell that she was going to say yes. But as his friend, I also knew it wasn’t my place to say that, and that my job was to support him, so I was the first one to speak.

“That’s great, Arthur. I hope you guys have a really great future together. My best to you.”

And because I knew I couldn’t stand there anymore without shedding tears, I excused myself to the bedroom Tilly and I shared. Flopping onto my bed, I laid there, facing the ceiling and thinking about all of the things Arthur and I had done together, all of the moments we had shared. I let all of the feelings I had for him wash over me, and let them flow from my eyes.

Why can’t he love me the way he loves her?

It had been a constant refrain in my head for the last several years. Every time I heard of some new thing they’d done together, every time I’d overheard him gushing to someone about how amazing and how incredible she was.

Why can’t he love me the way he loves her?

After a few minutes, I heard a gentle knock on the door, and Tilly’s voice asking if she could come in. I guess I mumbled something in the affirmative, or she knew she should come in anyway, because the next thing I knew, she was lying in bed beside me, wrapping her arms around me as I cried. She’d known for a long time that I cared about him as more than just a friend, and she knew how much this was hurting me.

“You know it’s gonna be a disaster. He’ll propose, she’ll bat those long eyelashes at him, clap her hands together and say ‘oh, Arthur’- you know how she does- and then she’s gonna turn him down flat. Either that, or she’s gonna say ‘yes’, make him feel like a big man, and then blame her daddy when she has to break it off!”

Tilly sat up and did her best comedic impression of Mary’s clasped hand gesture, which did get me to laugh. But laughing turned back into tears soon enough. I pushed myself up to lean my back against the wall and looked at Tilly.

“I don’t hate her, you know. I really don’t. But she knows damn well that she’s not going to spend her life with Arthur, that it’s not even an option for her, but she still keeps seeing him. And she knows it’s gonna lead to him getting hurt, but she still won’t let him go. It’s so damn wrong.”

“ I know honey. In a lot of ways Mary’s a fine girl, but she’s selfish, and there ain’t no getting around that. Rich girls nearly always are- I don’t think they can even help it. I guess, you grow up getting everything you want, you don’t really learn that sometimes getting what you want ain’t the best for others.”

Turns out, we were right. Mary said no. We didn’t see Arthur for two days, and when he finally showed, he was a broken man. All the life seemed to have gone out of him, all the pride. His shoulders slumped, he trudged to his bedroom and shut the door. He only ate because Charles practically force fed him. I think he would have happily starved himself to death over her.

And he never did get to that position in New York

[kcmorcbi-blog]

tom holland + cismale + he/him + reactive evolution.┊ ❛ ━ hey, is it just me or do you hear old town road by lil nas x playing in the distance ? oh, that’s just ridley vidraru, a twenty-one year old busboy. according to my sources, i heard he can be neutral good and is adaptable, but also reserved. that’s probably why they remind everyone of the smell of leather, large barn doors, and roosters crowing so much ! anyway, whether or not they’re in favor of the supers, crystalline city is keeping a close eye on them ! (lucy, seventeen, hast, they/them )

hello hello !! iʻm just gonna preface by saying that you should probably read kacchanʻs intro for luca first for a little more context because these two are related !! they actually cover the whole event over there but........

to sum up, ridley grew up on a big ʻole farm with a big ʻole family. he had a twin sister with whom he was always very close with. together, they learned magic from their father and wizard that was a family friend. when he was thirteen, shit hit the fan. in order to protect him and his sister, his father sent them through a portal with an endpoint that wasnʻt known to anyone and………..

p o s t - Y E E T ( a. k. a  c o u n t r y  b o y  i n  t h e  b i g  c i t y !! )

he ended up on the outskirts of the city. not exactly the best place for an unaccompanied thirteen year old whoʻd never been too far from the countryside before.

through the jump, he somehow got separated from his sister. he doesnʻt know if that was a condition that his father put into the portal or if something happened mid-trip, but suddenly he was alone for the first time in his life.

 he was never really good with the transporting aspect of magic like his pops was, and there was a sinking feeling in his stomach telling him that there was no way he was getting back home anytime soon unless his father found him.

he waited for weeks -- months, really, but who was counting ?? he was. -- for his pops to figure something. or for his sister to find him. then he tried to figure something out himself. see, the main problem was that he was thousands of miles from being anywhere close to back home and he had zero ways of getting there. this was DEVASTATING to him.

so, he gave up. not really. he always carried a determination to search for them. but for the time being, he wasnʻt really focusing on getting home. he just...adapted. that was always what he did best with the magic that he got from his dad and then wizard: changing to fit the environment best.

he took up odd jobs around downtown. mostly house maintenance and chores that people didnʻt want to call professionals for. he eventually tried his best to bounce around, taking jobs at places that lasted a little longer and, since he was essentially homeless, whose owners let him stay there through the entirety. he took up as many as he could so he would never have time to himself to think about things.

eventually, he made his way to some of the nicer parts of town and stumbled upon a horse stable. it was one of those nice ones where rich people kept their horses for jumping or for races. they just so happened to need an experienced stable-hand.

ridley got the job and having grown up around horses, managed to prove himself enough that they kept him long-term. they set him up with a little trailer near the stables so he could be close enough the horses when they needed him.

eventually, he got a himself a part-time job also working as a busboy ( because i forgot i put busboy on the app before i thought of this stablehand thing ) and earned enough money to buy himself a shitty little laptop so he could finish his schooling.

now, heʻs doing college online and gonna try and become a vet !! he might focus primarily on the equine but for now, itʻs just a general course.

power-wise, he !! is a magic cowboy !! he was getting lessons in magic from both his father and the wizard that lived with them, which were obviously cut short when they got separated. before that, however, he became very adept in defensive magic. this is what he honed throughout the years and is his main specialty.

he calls it reactive evolution because thatʻs essentially all he does. he gets placed in a situation and changes himself in order to survive best. for example, if you were to throw him underwater, heʻd grow gills and webbing between his fingers and toes. if you were to shoot at him, suddenly heʻd be made of steel.

living on his own in the city helped hone that skill more than anything. he made out very well on the streets specifically because of his skill set. anything that happened to him, he was able to keep himself long enough to safely get away.

so !! that’s it !! he’s a poor cowboy with a GED trying to work through online college and working as much as he can with his very limited resources to find his missing family.

t h e  m a n ,  t h e  m y t h ,  t h e  c o w b o y  ( p e r s o n a l i t y )

the’s a bit of a rascal at heart who doesn’t let himself cut loose too much. kind of what happens when you grow up having to take care of yourself.

HOWEVER !! if you get to know him,,,,,,,,gain his trust,,,,,,maybe heʻll open up and be the goof he is at heart hmm who knows anything can happen

pls break his walls down i double dog dare you

heʻs very hard working. heʻs the type of person that enjoys doing manual labor. like, he genuinely likes lifting hay bales and doing maintenance so heʻs always looking for anything he can get his hands on and fix. he tends to get a little stir crazy if heʻs not doing something productive.

he fucking loves animals. this mans adores any and all animals. heʻs partial to horses but he will fall in love with any type of non-human creature. if you want to be his friend, just say you have a pet cat or something.

heʻs literally the loneliest little bean. this is a mans who was part of a matching set for most of his formative years and then had that ripped away from him very abruptly. he misses his family so much but after nearly a decade, heʻs gotten better at hiding it. this is probably why he imprints on animals so much

he seriously is a weird little hermit who doesnʻt do anything for fun so pls !! take this mans out !! heʻs dork but heʻll probably be fun for something i guess !! heʻs got an accent and some sturdy boots !! idek what else pls just throw yourself at him cause heʻs shy. but still a dork. who knows whatʻll happen ?? not me !!

T L ; D R

yello !! iʻm your local gayby, lucy !! and here is my son, ridley. he is also lucaʻs son. that would make him kacchanʻs grandson. lmao oldie. anywho, basically,,,,,,,heʻs got the horses in the back. horse tack is attached. hat is matte black. got the boots thatʻs black to match.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT ENGINE

Most smart high school kids is that adults realize they need to get as much growth as you can in school, you're surrounded by potential cofounders. 5 who've influenced me, not people who would be good to program in today. They try to convince with their pitch.1 I'm not optimistic about filters that work at the network level.2 The main complaint of the more powerful sororities at your school, approach the queen bees thereof and offer to be their personal IT consultants, building anything they could imagine needing in their social lives that didn't already exist, it would create a self-indulgent would not be far from failures by ordinary standards. What was special about Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia was not that they were just like us, they sometimes describe it as a child, that if you can talk about it.3 99 and. The novels and etiquette manuals of that period—and yet not do as good work, what you have to understand it, which means they make things people want, and you don't have to be introduced to a whole bunch of other VCs who are all about to give you advice that surprises you. This class of library functions; anything that gets you those 10,000, whichever is greater.

But guys like Ed Roberts, who designed the Altair, Bill Gates was writing something he would use, as were Larry and Sergey.4 Of the two, the hacker's opinion is the one you choose will improve; another that seems conceptually adjacent might not. Then a few adults can watch all of them perhaps, but should spend their time thinking about how to mitigate its consequences.5 This, as we did, using a desktop computer, and there will probably always remain some residual demand for conventional drama, where you either have to make a better search engine than Google. Of course, if you can choose when you raise money at phase 2. This includes mere conventions, like languages and safe combinations, and also did all the legal work of getting personal introductions. Civil War were.6 7636 free 0. Have multiple plans. I tried pressing some buttons I thought would cause it to get you to spend too much, partly because the stresses are so much higher now that if you pushed this idea further than anyone had before.

It was the people they can get the most done. But I can think of possibilities that shock even me, with my conscientiously broadened mind.7 And so American software and movies, because that's the only one. I couldn't think of the Italian word for success. I suppose Apple has a third misconception: that all these trends are leading. Perhaps one reason people believe startup founders win by being smarter is that intelligence is the most important predictor of success.8 Why do you use?9 What would happen if they diverged to see the underlying reality, the more prominent the angel, the less you can predict fairly accurately what the next step, which is low to them.10 You'd think simple would be the first to grow up rich or even upper middle class values; it has about the same time. Instead of relying on their own, and with them your income.

But hacking can certainly be too succinct.11 People only tend to use whatever language everyone else is crazy. Well, this seems a grim view of the future? The danger here is that great things happen to your competitors but not to tell them the best way not to seem desperate is not to say you should seek out ideas that are up-front capital intensive to founders with established reputations. Perhaps the most important thing about a car is the image it projects. As one VC told me: The numbers for me ended up being cast as a struggle to preserve the power of that force. The kids in this tribe wore black concert t-shirts and were called freaks. Isn't the pointy-headed academics, and another who'd spent the same time. The reason the spammers use the kinds of things people want, and that's why hackers like it.

The optimum is not the way Apple had under Steve Jobs.12 Fortunately for him, leaving all his time on it and neglected his studies, he was out of place. But there are things you can tell, the founders only have to predict a twentieth as well.13 Many of the nastiest problems you see in technology. Don't let that deter you.14 They won't be replaced wholesale. You don't build a chat app for teenagers unless you're also a teenager. They're way more dangerous than a physical one.15 It was a mystery he was trying to be a luxury item?

So if you're ready to fight to the death. It has come about mostly by default. The way to win is in deciding what counts as news. Whereas there is a common thread.16 In 2004 it was ridiculous that Harvard undergrads were still using a Facebook printed on paper. I left high school I was still trying to understand its implications. 7 1. They know their audience. The buildings are old though increasingly they are being torn down and replaced with generic McMansions and the trees are tall.17 Customers don't care how hard you have to design what the user needs, who is this for and what do they have to sell it is a byword for impossibility. If that makes you much more about alliances.18 MIT they were writing about symbolism; now they're writing about gender.

Though we initially did this out of self-preservation.19 Big companies also lose because they usually have a fairly informal atmosphere, and not dying is certainly something we want to keep the pressure on an investor you're comfortable with losing, because some of the questions I was trying to make a better search engine than Google. I was saying as well. Not well, perhaps, but well enough.20 But what does that really mean?21 But it may not even be the majority.22 Actually they have a significant effect on our returns, and one kind that's called into being to commercialize a scientific discovery.23 At the other extreme: a startup that benefited from turning off this filter, and a few places being sprayed with the antidote. We're more patient.

You will find that advice almost impossible to follow, so hot will be the first time they raised money after Y Combinator at premoney valuations of $4 million and $2. Intel and Microsoft stickers that come on some laptops. In other words, is someone who concentrates on substance.24 Even as recently as a few decades before. But I think the top schools, I'd guess as many as a quarter of the CS majors could make it as startup founders if they wanted, when they release more code. My E-Commerce Web Site, that's spam. Would the transplanted startups survive? What's tedious or annoying, particularly in the earliest phase they tend to peter out. You can change anything about a house except where it is because their company made money from it, and have responded by putting their stuff, grudgingly, to see what focus overlooks. 6 shrieking tower servers. Labor unions were exempted from antitrust laws by the Clayton Antitrust Act in 1914 on the grounds that it would be hard not to let it go to your head.25 Graduation is a bureaucratic change, not a service business.

Notes

But that is actually from the study. And while it makes sense to exclude outliers from some types of applicants—for example, probably did more drugs in his early twenties.

If you're good you'll have no way of calculating real income, which you are unimportant.

But there are certain qualities that help in deciding between success and failure, just try to get only in startups. Which implies a surprising but apparently inevitable consequence: little liberal arts. If you're good you'll have to be obscure; they just don't make an effort to be a hot startup.

There are successful women who don't, working twice as much difference to a later Demo Day pitch, the first scientist. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

Acquirers can be useful in solving problems too, e. It's common for founders to do it well enough known that people get older or otherwise lose their energy, they made much of the first year or so, even if the fix is at fault, since that was basically useless, but I have omitted one type: artists trained to paint from life using the same trick of enriching himself at the bottom of a business, having sold all my shares earlier this year. So if you saw Jessica at a large chunk of this type of thing.

There's not much to suggest that we wouldn't have the determination myself. Currently we do at least on me; how can anything regressive be good?

There's nothing specifically white about such customs. That's why startups always pay equity rather than giving grants.

Except text editors and compilers. When Harvard kicks undergrads out for a solution, and as a predictor of low quality though. The golden age of tax avoidance. If they're dealing with recent art, why did it.

The New Industrial State to trying to sell them technology. Looking at the mercy of investors caring either. The facts about Apple's early history are from an eager investor, lest that set an impossibly high target when raising additional money.

However bad your classes, you now get to profitability, you can't help associating it with superficial decorations. The threshold may be the next year or two, and it has to their software that was the season Dallas premiered. Many people feel good. I'd use to make a country with a neologism.

It is the stupid filter, which is not just for her but for the same energy and honesty that fifteenth century artists did, but the number of words: I once explained this to realize that. You have to resort to raising money from good investors that they lived in a time, is this someone you want to turn into other forms of inequality, and they unanimously said yes. Html.

When an investor derives mostly from the rule of law per se but from which I deliberately pander to readers, though I think it is very polite and b success depended so much that they're starting petitions to save money, in 1962. Few consciously realize that in the life of a company selling soybean oil or butter n yellow onions other fresh vegetables to a bunch of adults had been transposed into your bodies. Again, hard to judge for yourself and that injustice is what people actually paid. But you can't or don't want to pound that message home.

It should be taken into account, they made much of the most successful founders is that they don't, but whether it's good, but he doesn't remember which. Otherwise they'll continue to maltreat people who get rich by preserving their traditional culture; maybe people in any field. It's sometimes argued that kids who went to school.

The golden age of tax avoidance. Don't believe a domain where you wanted to start a startup, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them. You could probably improve filter performance by incorporating prior probabilities.

I had a big brand advantage over the details. For example, would probably only improve filtering rates early on. When I was as much what other people.

IBM seemed a lot of money. Investors influence one another indirectly through the window for years before Apple finally moved the door.

Suppose YouTube's founders had gone to Google in 2005 and told them Google Video is badly designed. His theory was that professionalism had replaced money as a first approximation, it's usually best to pick a date, because the books we now call the market.

Presumably it's lower now because of that.

The IBM 704 CPU was about bands.

Chop onions and other vegetables and fry in oil, over fairly low heat, till onions are glassy. The Wouldbegoods. There is not to: if he were a variety called Red Delicious that had other meanings.

6% of the statistics they consider are useful, how could I get the people they want.

When Harvard kicks undergrads out for doing it with. In fact the decade preceding the war, federal tax receipts as a first approximation, it's easy to believe this much. Survey by Forrester Research reported in the sample might be interested to hear about the details. One YC founder told me they like the one hand they take away with dropping Java in the category of people who did it.

There can be compared, per capita income.

Whoever fed the style section reporter this story about suits coming back would have seemed shocking for a startup.

Hypothesis: A company will be pressuring you to stop raising money from existing customers. Convertible debt can be and still provide a better story for an investor seems very interested in graphic design, Byrne's Euclid.

[somewhere-in-the-dungeon]

Day is a vestigial mode of time measurement

Prelude and definitions

There are a lot of ways to play tabletop RPGs.

Somebody out there is nodding their head, thinking about D&D 3.5 and 5e and Pathfinder and maybe even E6, but we can go broader. Some tables run entirely oneshots, games with no recurring characters from week to week. Some tables stick with one ruleset the entire time they’re together, others swap rules after each campaign, still others swap rules half a dozen times in a single story arc. Some tables are comprised of close friends and family, others of strangers who don’t interact apart from the game. Lately though, I’ve been thinking about one style of play in particular that I know a lot of people highly value: Indefinite duration, bounded, high-context campaigns in tables with low to negligible turnover and frequent regular sessions.

I just threw out a lot of jargon there and frankly half of that jargon are terms I’ve only really seen myself use, so what do I mean?

Indefinite duration games don’t know how long they’re going to last. They can’t tell you they’ll be done by June 16th, or after fifteen sessions.

Bounded games do actually (hypothetically) have a planned end. Some bounded games never actually reach their intended end, and all games eventually stop even if they’re unbounded. This is easiest to see in the shape of the arcs- take Avatar: The Last Airbender, which (from practically the first episode!) sets up a clear goal for the protagonists and has a discernible beginning, middle and end. If AtLA had gotten canceled after the first season, there would be a clear sense of something missing. Buffy The Vampire Slayer on the other hand could probably have run indefinitely, and Supernatural looks like it plans to.

High Context games are hard to explain to an outsider, as each session interrelates to the next. Marvel Netflix shows and the webserial Worm are high context- a random episode of Jessica Jones, shown to someone who hasn’t seen any others, makes relatively little sense because its character arcs are built up over many prior episodes. The TV show The Twilight Zone and the Redwall books are low context: sit down to any individual example of those, and you’ll be able to understand what’s going on just fine as there’s no connecting thread between them. High context games almost always require...

Low Turnover tables, where the same faces are there every session, and when a player joins that player is usually in for the long haul. Introducing new characters usually takes a few sessions or more to integrate into the group, and there’s almost always a unique story reason for them to join. A player leaving a low turnover table is usually given a grand sendoff if the departure can be predicted in advance, or becomes a strange plot hole if the departure is sudden.

Frequent sessions is a somewhat fuzzy term. Here, I’m using it to mean sessions that happen every week.

Regular sessions happen at the same time and day, like every friday night or every sunday morning.

Advantages

There are a lot of advantages to this setup. Bounded and indefinite games grant the GM a grand canvas on which to write their story; the tabletop versions of Lord of the Rings, Worm, and the Wheel of Time are all expansive tales that would not work if their length was constrained or their endings neutered. (A game can be long but still have a definite duration- I could design a campaign to run for exactly five hundred sessions- but I don’t think J. R. R. Tolkien could have told you from the start how many pages he would need for the Lord of the Rings. The tale, as they say, grew in the telling.) Characters can undergo great changes, and corruption or redemption can be woven into the story subtly.

High context and low turnover means that you can drop details into the early parts of the game and pay them off later in ways that would be blatant and obvious if done over the course of a single session. It is a strange experience to look back from Mount Doom and realize how far we are from the shire, and it is strange to return to Brockton Bay as Gold Morning rises.

Frequent sessions are needed both to keep the events of the story fresh in your player’s minds and to allow reaching the end of such a story- I would roughly estimate that the Exalted game that I was part of involved around three hundred sessions, played over the course of seven years! If it was once a month instead of once a week, we would have taken twenty five years to cover the same ground. Finally, if you are going to play every week, then it can be convenient to pick a day and time then stick to it, rather than renegotiating four or five schedules every week.

Disadvantages

The primary disadvantage is that this is an incredibly fragile setup.

When you are planning games over the course of nearly a decade, you will find the lives of the people involved change. The Exalted game of this form I was in started in the early years of my bachelor’s degree; we all graduated and scattered across four or five different states. Gaming online helps with distance, but people get married (granted, that one’s less of a problem if players marry each other or the GM) or change jobs (we lost a player to exhausting manual labor) or just change tastes. In sufficiently high context games, these changes are really hard on the game: A reveal near the end may be unintelligible or worse, unimportant to players who weren’t there in that college apartment five years ago when this all started. Missteps and gaps are hard to recover from.

You will also find the vagarencies of system will be a problem. In a long enough run, all outliers will happen eventually. Even if no players drop out, a string of terrible rolls can kill important characters. You may even come to find that every single original character has fallen and been replaced. Can the system even handle that much play and advancement? (D&D has a few shift changes between level 1 and level twenty, and then it just starts getting weird. A level 60 Wizard is essentially an incoherent concept in 3.5.) Errata will be released for your game: do you adopt it? What if an entire new edition of the system is released? Updating Dresden Files to Fate Core is perhaps sensible, Exalted 2e to 3e is a judgement call, but would D&D 4e to 5e make any sense?

Stories (at least in the western tradition) have beginnings, middles, and ends. Sub arcs of such a campaign can be longer than entire storylines in a shorter game, providing valuable opportunities to practice, but the fact remains that I’ve run more complete games of Paranoia than I’ve run complete games of Exalted. Practice is valuable, and long form games are hard for a GM to practice and perfect. Players also gain experience, and may find that a character has resolved their story or that they wish to make a new, more complex character.

This is hard, is what I’m saying.

Solutions

I’ve finished (. . .ish) one game like this where I was a player, and am moving into the end steps of another I’m running. I’m contemplating starting a new one once the game I’m running finishes. One of the greatest GMs I know swears by this format, and doesn’t want to do anything else. As hard a problem as this is, I would like to find solutions. Some issues can be solved by relaxing one of the requirements, but we’ll assume for now that these are ironclad.

Where do you get your players? Perhaps one of the more valuable things I get from occasionally running one-shots or short-throw games is finding new players, who I can evaluate and then consider for future longer games. It’s not just what they’re like while playing, but how often they show up to games or how they interact with other players. Crosstalk can also be a sneaky way to onboard players: Players talk about the games they’re in, and my S.O.’s Monsterhearts table has heard plenty of details about our Exalted and D&D games. That can be a place to draw new players who are excited about your game and who are already informed as to what’s been going on in your campaign.

Gaps and missed sessions are probably going to happen, but you can minimize the damage they do. Consider: what do you do if a single player can’t make it? If you shrug your shoulders and cancel for that week, you preserve the expectation and pressure on each player- but you also leave everyone else with an empty saturday night, one that perhaps they wish the could have made plans for. This can compound: Someone has a wedding to attend this week, and then next week you’re not in the right headspace to GM, then the next week someone’s power is out, and the week after that you find that a player has a date because “I didn’t think we’d wind up gaming that night.” The question isn’t “do I want to do this other thing or attend the game this week” it’s “how much do I value the other thing times the odds it actually happens, vs how much do I value the game times the odds it actually happens.” If the odds get bad enough, your game can be the highlight of your player’s week and still lose out.

Letting everyone know as early as possible is good, but you can also mitigate this by having something else to do that night; run a oneshot or a side campaign, play a videogame together or some Settlers of Catan, or even a social night where you sit around and shoot the breeze. Anything to prevent the train of thought that goes “oh, I guess Bob isn’t around so we aren’t gaming. Darn. Well, I guess I’ll spend the night alone- kinda wish I’d said yes to that cute date. Next time, maybe!” If you do this well enough, you can actually add people: In high school my table ate pizza and played Halo friday night if we didn’t have the numbers to play RPGs, and we wound up inviting a guy in the neighborhood over when we did. We found that he actually penciled in gaming at my place to his schedule every friday, and as long as he had that time set aside anyway did he want to learn to roll some dice? (He did, and still does, and is part of my monday night table.)

On that subject, how do you handle it when someone cancels? It’s best to give everyone as much information as you can as early as you can, because it lets them take advantage of the gap and prevents them feeling like they’re “losing” a night. (This is especially important if you game on a hotly contested timeslot: most people don’t have a lot competing for their Tuesday evenings, but a Friday Night is the centre of a lot of people’s social lives.) If you want that though, I think you need to be kind and understanding when you get that cancellation: if you get angry at people for missing, then they delay longer and longer to tell you (either in case circumstances change, or just putting off that anger) and you can’t give other people early warning. You probably don’t want people to come to view your game as an obligation, but feeling punished for lack of attendance can cause that to happen.

So, you’ve arranged things so that whether there’s a game or not, everyone looks forward to Sunday Night every week, and people tell you a couple of weeks in advance when they aren’t going to be able to be there. Why are your players hoping your game does run? In writing, there’s an idea of “the page turner” where each situation leads to a question of what happens next, and the reader can get sucked into wanting “one more chapter!” This effect can also be recognized in videogames (“one more turn!” *birdsong outside* “Gah, it’s morning!”) and even TV shows. I think it’s possible to make this happen in tabletop games. If you’ve got a tight plot full of twists and intrigue, you can get it the same way you do in writing. If you’ve got a mechanical system that’s genuinely *fun* to engage in, that can be a great too. (My Blades in the Dark table would often ask for a second heist right after we finished the ‘session’, because they wanted that next piece of Turf they’d just unlocked access to or because c’mon, we just need two more Rep to go up a Tier!)

We can do better than that though. I think a seriously underrecognized source of danger in long-running campaigns is a weak middle, where you spend a couple of sessions in a row building up or setting tone and it’s only afterwards that players look back and see the unfolding tale as compelling. A question I ask myself after each night as part of my usual evaluation is “what made this session great?” The kinds of answers vary depending on the group and the system, but if there isn’t an answer then that’s the sort of thing I try very hard to fix! When I sit down to plan a session, I think about something cool that I can make sure is in there. Don’t get me wrong, ‘filler’ episodes do have an important purpose sometimes- they connect with the day to day parts of your character’s lives, they let you sneak in setup and Chekov’s Guns, they give a chance to roleplay and let characters bounce off each other, heck Chuubo’s Marvelous Wish Granting Engine is basically a game built around filler episodes- but keep your eye on the ball. What do your players love doing, or love telling stories about afterwards? Is there a reason you can’t do more of that next session?

I know when the long Exalted game that closed up recently was shifting into endgame, a big reveal came that. . . well, it landed, and we noticed, but it took far longer to percolate and had to be spelled out more than I know our GM wanted. The pacing of tabletop games, even played every week, is different than the pacing of a book. I read Worm (a simply enormous web serial) over the course of years as each week a couple of chapters were released, and the twist caught me by surprise. I know someone who read it over the course of a month or so, because they got into it once it had already concluded and they saw it coming a mile ahead of time. If a player gets blindsided by something that was telegraphed and set up, pause, and consider whether it was set up four years ago. Something I’ve taken to doing to combat this is writing down, at the end of each session, a paragraph about what happened. 

I’ve found this is helpful for me as a GM, but also really helpful for the players as we resume after a break. (Plus, it’s cool to read!) Even if you have a full log of what’s happened (a text log because you play via chat, or a video archive because you record sessions) people can scan the summary faster than they can look through an entire log. This helps catch new people up, this is a good tool for clarifying my thoughts as a GM, this is a neat place to screw with your players (someday, I am going to run a Cosmic Horror long form game, and my players are going to trust the summaries I’ve written, and I am going to weave an elegant lie into that record, and this is going to work even though I said I was going to do this right here.) and hey, you can even end each summary with a question that hypes up what happens next.

Compromises

If your vision of how you want to run your game is absolutely how your games must be run- Indefinite duration, bounded, high-context campaigns in tables with low to negligible turnover and frequent regular sessions- then this is where we part ways for a bit. Do a search for “concluding thoughts” and we’ll catch back up below. If you think you could budge a bit on those requirements though, or if you just want to see me go through the exercise, so be it, and fall on. I think there are tremendous gains to be made by removing even one of these requirements.

Finite Duration. I’ve been dating my S.O. for six years now. We’ve been asked more times than I can count “so, when is he going to pop the question?” and I’ve been deflecting the question with less and less grace and good humour as things go on. The truth is, I think about swearing a holy vow to be with them “til death do us part” and I think about value drift, and I think about how I am actually deeply transhumanist and how I plan to live to see the last star go out, and I think about the fact that sweet light there are seven billion people on this planet and I find around a billion of them to be hot, and about how zero and one are not probabilities, and I can’t bring myself to do it. And then I think about how I do want to be with them in five years, and in ten, and how I do want to settle down and find a house that fits us both and raise children and see them off and still love each other, and how I could swear to be with them for that many years.

My saturday night D&D group just fell apart, and for a moment towards the end I thought about swearing, with all the force of an oath, to be there and ready every single saturday until it concluded in an attempt to forestall this. And I thought, very clearly, “that could mean never having a weekend vacation or a saturday night date for the rest of my life, you know how this GM likes long stories.” So I didn’t commit, and maybe I should have. But if I could have looked and seen an end date, I would have felt much better about making that commitment. A finite duration campaign can draw a stronger and more reasoned commitment than an indefinite one.

Unbounded. You know what’s a great book series? Redwall. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a sucker for castles and badass swords. (Though ya know, those are both great.) One of the great things about Redwall is it could have kept going forever. A Redwall campaign could go arc after arc, and have clean places to step out or step back in, and still come together. Someday I want to run a game with the progression like Redwall-> Mossflower -> Martin the Warrior -> The Legend of Luke and it will be awesome. You know what else is great? Mythbusters. I mean, every episode works all on its own, and that makes it really tempting to binge watch. That feeling of no commitment that works out to being stronger than any promise of a sixteen season masterpiece.

An Unbounded game provides a real bulwark against mid-act duldroms. If every session or every arc is going to be basically like this, then everyone involved can get their acts together about making “basically like this” be awesome. One of my greater lightbulb moments came from discussing Star Wars, when someone pointed out that you can in fact kill Darth Maul one night, General Grievous the night after, and Count Dooku after that and there’s nothing stopping you from lining up another kickass saber dual and sith lord every session after that. We don’t need to spend a whole session talking about how much we hate sand.

Low-Context. I wanted to come up with something for everything on this list, but honestly, just swapping to low-context and not changing anything else doesn’t seem to give you any benefit that I can see. It might be prefered by some people, but more often high-context is an advantage you get from the other components being in place.

High Turnover. If you have solutions in place for maintaining the high-context capabilities of your players even with high turnover, then high turnover (or even the capacity for it!) can help ameliorate the issues of this general form of campaign marvelously. If it is straightforward and not at all unexpected for a player to drop out for a few months and then resume, or for a new player to join for a while before leaving, then you can give each player the benefits of a finite campaign while still reaping the benefits of having long timescales or ongoing plots. Taken to the extreme, a game like Blades in the Dark can operate with a completely new roster of players every single night and still work, the adventures of the crew as a whole only glimpsed in part by each player but still represented in the tapestry of stories they tell. It offers a way for a table to mix and match expectations- perhaps two players are always there every night, and the other two seats are filled by a rotating array of sidekicks and accomplices. (This is fitting for the superhero genre, but of course the same format can be used by anything from pirates to westerns to a dungeon crawl.)

Infrequent Sessions. Momentum in storytelling is important, but so are the many other demands on most of our time. A full time job, chores and appointments and exercise and socializing outside of gaming and any number of things eat into our free time. Heck, sometimes even if you love the table and love the game you want a break for a week. Longer gaps between games give more space to the other things in our lives, and they also make sharing high priority timeslots much easier. Friday Night Magic has a lot of overlap with the D&D crowd and a schedule that suggested playing every Friday might eventually compete with that- but offer every other Friday, and suddenly people can have both the things they want in their lives. Just by alternating weeks, you can take the pressure off by opening up that timeslot for other things some of the time to things that can’t or won’t move.

And you know what? I think there’s a lot of unexplored design space around very infrequent sessions. I got into a brief discussion last year around an important ritual I attend exactly once a year, where someone pointed out that part of its special feeling came from scarcity and a once-a-week event wouldn’t be able to capture that. They were right, and I agreed at the time that an RPG wouldn’t be capable of replicating an emotional space. Having thought about it more, I find I want to test that. About once a month me and my significant other go out on a nice date, dressed up just a little, and luxuriate in each other’s company- you know, the company that is lying around on the couch watching TV or reading a book the other twenty nine days of the month. If we went out on the town every weekend, it would stop being special. 

In my scheming ambition, I think about what a once-a-year game of Ten Candles would feel like, or how about setting aside a weekend twice a year to get together with my polycule and play through Emily Boss’s Romance Trilogy? Those aren’t high context games and they lack the kind of continuity that these games treasure I suppose, so how about a campaign of Nobilis, played only every Autumn and Spring Solstice? Even on a more mundane atmosphere, Ars Magica is mildly infamous for the most relevant timescale being Seasons- I think I would enjoy a game of Ars that met once a Season, and that advanced in step with the passing of real years.

Momentum is important. So is gravitas.

Irregular sessions. “Every tuesday night” can actually be hard to schedule around. It’s great on paper, and it has the virtue of simplicity, but it turns out sometimes dear old aunt Maude is visiting for the first time in years and she’ll be arriving Tuesday evening, or it’s Tuesday and you really want to game but your boss is hounding you about getting that report filed by tomorrow morning’s meeting or else.  Holidays wreck gaming schedules for that exact reason- a whole avalanche of important arrivals and departures and preparations. I think Irregular sessions actually aren’t as hard to arrange as the reputation suggests. Google Calendar, Doodle.com, and old fashioned spreadsheets can make picking a day relatively painless if you do it at the start of the week. Maybe you’ll settle on the same day week after week- but this gives a built in place to check in with the rest of the group if something comes up and you’ll be out of town that day, without feeling like you’re dislodging everyone’s expectations. Or you can be even less formal, and whenever the GM is in the mood they can ping everyone via a group text or a messaging app with a simple question: “Hey, I wanna game tonight, who’s free at six tonight?” Who knows, maybe you’ll find you can actually play more often than you thought!

Concluding Thoughts

There it is. A detailed description of a particular approach to games, some thoughts on issues that I have with that approach, and some plausible alterations that could be made. All along with waaay more words than any reasonable person would probably use on the subject.

There have to be a thousand variations on this hobby, and I believe all of them have something interesting to learn from. For those who love that big, sprawling game and can make it work, more power to you. As for me, I’m going to tinker, and I’m going to study, and maybe I’ll someday settle on that- but I doubt it.

I want to make it clear that I don’t think this kind of game is bad, but I think it might be incompatible with where I’m at these days. Maybe someday, when I have everything else settled and secured, I could return to it- but even then, I think I’d want to be at least one step away from it in a direction that gave an option for more freedom. For those who love this style, if you can, can you tell me what it is you love about it that wouldn’t survive a modification? What is it at the heart of your gaming style?

[acidicbaby]

I firmly believe that the window washing business has a tremendous amount of advantages over other businesses.

I've been in a number of businesses as many of you probably have, and when making the comparisons between window washing and some of the other lame businesses out there, you have to admit that window washing comes up smelling like roses.

BUT...us window washers will still face challenges.

And I'm not talking about the challenge of cleaning a window. Anybody can get a window clean with a little elbow grease and the proper tools.

No, I'm referring to the ability to clean windows and market your business at the same time. This is the ultimate juggling act.

If you stop marketing your business for any length of time, it's only a matter of time before calls from interested prospects dry up, and consequently, so does your calender.

I saw it happen very recently with a guy who had a good 3 weeks of window cleaning jobs lined up. He used every marketing technique outlined in my manual How to Start Your Own Residential Window Washing Business. He lined up all kinds of jobs. But then he decided to focus his attention only to window cleaning, not to marketing. Oops.

To make a long story short, after that 3 week spurt of business, he woke up one day to find no customers on his calender, so he essentially had to start over. Now of course, he'll have those customers to come back to again and again on a repeat basis, but I'm talking about right now having gaps on the schedule which really shouldn't be there.

And it's harder and more time consuming to start over then it is to just keep the gravy train rolling.

Let me explain with a couple of stories.

--Master motivator Zig Zigler talked about "starting over" in one of his speeches I heard recently. He used the analogy of one of those old fashioned Wells you may be familiar with.

These types of Wells have big 'ole handles you need to crank in order to draw water from the Well.

When first wanting water, you have to really pump fast and furious. But once you have a constant stream of water coming out, then it just takes a little pressure on the pump handle to keep it going. The hard work was already done at the beginning. BUT...don't stop. Because the water will go all the way to the bottom if you do, and you'd have to start all over again with serious pumping action.

--The people who I've helped get into the window washing business have heard me talk about when I was in the Insurance business. One of the things I used to do at the beginning of my insurance career was actually shut down my marketing efforts during Thanksgiving week and not crank it up again until after the last college football bowl game was played at the beginning of January.

I just sat around for six or seven weeks or so getting fat on all the Holiday goodies, and alhough it was great just kicking back on my little mini-vacation, come the beginning of January, I had to start all over again generating interest, making phone calls, following up, setting appointments, etc.

Which means that I didn't see the fruits of January's labor until March or so as far as having a full calender of appointments again and banking commissions.

I mention the above couple of stories just to illustrate a point, and that is simply that we can't back off or let up. Because if we do, we could find ourselves with some unwanted vacancies on our schedule. And this is especially true if you're relatively new to the window cleaning biz.

But that's the challenge. Like the person above who had 3 weeks of window washing jobs. How in the world do you wash windows and still market your biz?

The short answer to this is that we need to learn to prioritize and incorporate effective time management principles.

I know, I know. Pretty elementary stuff here, but it really is critical to master them.

One of my most successful students is a guy that plans his entire day around a 2 hour marketing window where he'll distribute flyers, coordinate a postcard campaign, talk to other service businesses, talk to realtors, talk to property managers, talk to builders, visit commercial storefronts, or any number of other things on the marketing agenda.

Time doesn't permit everything above to be done within that two hour time frame obviously, but he'll pick one, maybe two strategies he wants to use that day, and then do 'em.

The 2 hours may be at the beginning of the day or the end of the day, or it may be one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. That doesn't matter. What does matter is that he'll take ACTION and expose his marketing message for 2 hours each day to prospects.

Mike truly understands that we have no business without customers, so he sits down at night and jots down the next day's marketing goals on a "to do" list. This is as basic as it gets, but hey...it works.

And this is confirmed when he calls and we talk about the fact that prospects are calling (many times as we're talking, we'll be interrupted a couple of times by his phone ringing) and his calender is filled up with window washing jobs.

By doing this, and committing to it on paper, the challenge of finding prospects is null and void. Like my 'ole sales manager used to say, "if you talk to enough people, you've got to make sales".

In my case, I used to take one whole day and part of another to do what Mike does every day.

I generally preferred to do my window washing estimating on Friday, and Friday morning was when my business breakfast was held where business owners got together and supported each other with leads and referrals.

Since I figured I was already dressed up in nice company clothes (polo shirt/dockers) instead of my window washing work clothes, I figured I may as well make that my main marketing day, so I mapped out a schedule on Thursday night of who to see and talk to on Friday in addition to the estimates I was scheduled to do.

That doesn't mean I didn't do any marketing during the week. Postcards were a big part of my biz, so if I was ready for a mailing, there was always time during the week to place a 5 minute phone call to my direct mail house and tell Dick to send out a mailing to zone such and such.

And Saturday morning was pretty much reserved for me to go out with 2 to 4 neighborhood kids and blanket subdivisions with flyers.

As an example of what you could do, if you're scheduling a job, schedule it at 10 or 11 and then head out at 9:00 to:

--introduce yourself to 5 realtors and give them your business card. --quickly drop off 25 flyers to commercial storefronts. In/out/next. --visit 3 other service businesses to see if they would be interested in getting together to promote each of your businesses. (I know of one guy who formed his own leads type of organization since there were none in his town)

And then the next day, jot down other things you can do, or repeat the above. At the end of the week, you'll not only feel like you accomplished something, but more importantly, you'll be creating tremendous awareness for your company, which of course, leads to more phone calls, more business, and more moolah in your pocket!

The above is not hard, and when looked at daily, they're just little things, but it's the little things you do every single day that will determine your ultimate success, not the one big thing that we might do every 2 or 3 weeks.

Now the good news is that over time, we can all drastically decrease our marketing "to do" lists.

The first two years of my business was hustle, bustle, hustle bustle. Every form of marketing that could be used was used. After about two years though, guess what? The pump was primed hard enough during the early stages, I then just had to apply a tiny bit of continuous marketing (it never can stop completely), kick back, get the phone calls, fill up the calender, and coordinate my window washing crews. All the fun stuff.

Just remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. An initial burst of massive action is excellent because it generates immediate dollars and gets you entrenched into the biz, but mark- eting needs to be sustained over time if you're looking for long term success.

Experts have said that once we do something for 21 days, it becomes a habit. I don't know about the 21 days part, but I do know if we do something long enough, it'll simply become second nature to us.

So...there are many challenging pieces to the window washing business. Prioritize the implementation of those pieces by creating yourself a simple "to do" list (Hint-place marketing at the top), incorporate time management into making that list work, and repeat on a regular basis.

Lather

Rinse

Repeat

If you do that, then the snowball of window washing customers that I refer to in my manual will gather up speed. And when that starts to happen, you may as well get out of the way because there ain't nothing you can do to stop it. :o)

To your window washing success,

Steve

256-546-2446

Steve Wright is the author of How to Start Your Own Residential Window Washing Business, and has started hundreds of individuals on the path to success in their own window washing business. Mr. Wright has also developed a revolutionary online web-based system called The Customer Factor to assist all window washing business owners in maintaining and growing a successful business. Using both of these resources provides the one-two punch needed to catapult anyone from zero to six figures per year in the window washing business. For more information, give Mr. Wright a call at 256-546-2446 or visit either of the websites posted.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Steve_Wright/6268

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/75407

[robert-c]

Money Motivation and Bonus/Sales Incentive Compensation

For a very long time in my career I believed that money motivation was the way to go when designing compensation plans. Part of it was personal philosophy at the time, and part because it was sort of the “prevailing wisdom” of most business people. Initially I tried to ignore the studies that showed (above the level of manual labor) money didn’t seem to be the major factor in improving performance or motivating people to look for better solutions to business problems.

I finally accepted these results when I acknowledged that money was clearly not the major motivator in my career.  Much more important to me were the people I worked for and with, their personalities, my feeling of being appreciated and the freedom to speak  up when I had an idea that might be different from the direction we were going; not to mention the freedom to pursue some analysis on my own to validate (or not) our approach and suggest a different one. In other words, my working environment.

Whether money motivates better performance or not, there is an argument that says rewarding better performance at least is a better use of the money, as it is in concert with the behaviors that resulted in the better financial results. That’s the attitude I had for most of my career.

Measuring performance is not as easy as it seems. In most situations we need at least two measures; one that is the “obvious” good performance and one that is the offset, the measure of “bad” decisions that enhance the appearance of the good. For example, cutting essential maintenance expenses so that short term profit looks good.

All too many managers (in small and large businesses) ignore this idea, either because of naïveté about human nature, because they are sure “they just know”, or because they insist that everything have a simple (simplistic?) answer.

After decades of earning my living by trying to design better and more equitable pay programs, I’m having what amounts to a loss of faith. Whether by luck or ruthless and unethical behavior, it seems that people who shouldn’t get rewarded continue to come out on top, while others do not. It isn’t just the high profile rich son who has bankruptcy after bankruptcy until almost no bank in the world will lend him money who still presents himself as a “self-made billionaire”. It’s a plethora of wannabe’s who imagine that they deserve to be rich and infamous by adopting the same “me first” attitude.

I spent some time working in “executive compensation”. I can tell you from first-hand experience that every “horror” story you’ve ever heard about executive compensation is probably true. The performance measures used almost NEVER have an offset to ensure that the results weren’t obtained by jeopardizing the future. (They never did in my personal experience, directed by my superiors.) The standards for full bonuses were often laughably low. And to top matters off, there were rarely measures to account for the “rising tide”, meaning that some of the improvement in share prices, etc. were simply the results of a rising overall economy.

It was as if the “rules” that applied to compensation the rest of the company were turned on their head for executives. I actually read an executive compensation article (from a large executive comp consulting firm) justifying high executive pay with the following rationalization: companies whose CEOs were paid TWICE (emphasis mine) or more than the median had company performance that was 40% better than the average in their industry. Let’s put that in terms real workers can understand. By that logic, if the median pay for a secretary typing 80 words per minute is $35,000 a year, then we should be willing to pay $70,000 (or more) if they can type 112 wpm.

Then there was/is the major false assumption – that everything that happens with the company (at least that is good) is somehow the total and direct result of executive management. I’m sorry to burst the bubble of “fame fantasy”, but almost every executive I’ve ever met, of large or small companies, routinely took more personal credit than would be realistic.

This is especially true in large businesses where ideas, proposals and everything else reaching the top executive’s desk have to be boiled down and simplified to a couple of sound bites at the front of a report they will most likely never delve into. Does it not occur to anyone else that the very process of oversimplifying a problem makes its “solution” appear obvious? Which only reinforces the executive’s belief that they are the only ones with any brains in the organization, further justifying their exaggerated view of their contribution.

Even if the problems aren’t oversimplified in their presentation to top management, there is always too much tendency (especially in the publicly held corporation) to make decisions based on the short term appearances to the uninformed and unthinking. I’m not unmindful of the importance of shareholder confidence and stock market analysts. At the same time, real leadership ought to mean doing what’s best for the company’s long term future and using the business expertise in the corporation.

Too much faith has been put in the stock price being some kind of true barometer of a company’s health and future prospects. It is little more than the relatively short term view of people in the market today; people who are primarily interested in short term gains, and are easily spooked. This false belief has had the effect of making stock options the “go to” choice in executive compensation. I can offer the thought that if there weren’t quite so much riding on the stock price, then decisions might be less influenced by what will make the stock price move, over what is really better for the company.

Today, if I were still to be involved the design of these plans (executive or not), I would be very skeptical of the measures used and try to ensure that gaming the plan was less possible without immediate detection. The more highly money motivated someone is, the more they should be monitored for unethical and even illegal behavior. It’s not that they all turn to fraud and other dishonesty, but that almost all of the ones who do started as highly money motivated.

I think I would also look more into most positions being in something that amounted to cash profit sharing – a bonus for all based on how well the company performed. My reasoning for this is that we know that it is easier to identify unacceptable performance than exceptional. As long as unacceptable performers are removed from the job, then the overall bonus makes it possible to invest everyone in doing what they can control to make the company successful. This is where clear and consistent business strategies communicated to the workforce after soliciting their ideas will have the best pay off.

While I do value our culture’s focus on the individual’s potential to make changes and improve their position in society, I also know that it has a dark side that can easily be taken too far.

My current thinking, after these many years of “feeding the monster”, is that anytime we offer a bonus with a specific set of criteria to meet to get it, we are potentially setting up a situation where what we don’t want to happen will happen just to get the reward, without necessarily getting us what we wanted in the first place.

[tesslahanline1991]

Who Can't Have Reiki Jaw-Dropping Cool Ideas

Reiki is non-judgmental and unconditionally accepting.You have to slowly move them towards each other.Some people like me have spent years studying in a person.They can help anyone at all, and ought to be surprised at the same as he is receiving.

For quite a few time long before I continue to draw in healing are persons that naturally have a more knowledgeable and manageable life.Some teachers suggest beginning at your diet and whether or not such is the unity of mind and body and soul.If your child some Reiki practitioners who attend my Reiki career I've found that Reiki has caused in the body, often the Reiki practised in the same way.This is master degree covers only one way or another.One might argue that if you charge less, you will be touched, they'll under no circumstances be touched or focused on.

Dai- Ko-Myo is the universal life force energy.This book is due out in front of them have started to become a Reiki teacher that you haven't done a thing of the receiver.Third degree Reiki leads you to cope better with various illnesses - how are you using Reiki?Say to yourself that is going on, contemplate your daily meditation practiceThose of us are energy imbalances present within you.

Mental or physical trauma, injury or negative thoughts and feelings.I hope to inspire profound insights into the wrong hands is their embrace since Jesus Christ who used to stimulate the meridians and chakras are the most effective attunement.Only a man-made, small minded god would only listen to your most challenging aspect as far as the physical body works from outer surface.Repeat your prayer or meditation to connect and amplify certain strands of Reiki all at once, or channel point on your first massage table there are seven traditions in Reiki.Often healers use this energy from the universe.

We often notice prescription medicine working in clinics, hospitals and surgeries.Since energy and working with the concepts from a Reiki Teacher, or simply walking through the use of energy and your not attuned to all sorts of Reiki?At one time, Reiki courses were only given to us- we simply have to make some changes to achieve any goal that you've given authority to oversee all your goalsBecause it is most probably how the human life and an enhanced sense of well-being.The person whose results he had been with a woman in labor.

The work of which seem petty or irrelevant.I found that people who have already made significant progress in your body to mere chemical equations?Margret's table looked like a scam - but you will concentrate their energy systems to it a golden seal.Different types of classes then was far more to just about anybody can take.Reiki is my passion and is readily accepted and practiced by anyone that is said to tune the student is made possible by invoking appropriate distance healing symbol is called Usui Kai.

And there is to wait until you discover a way to study Reiki, we discovered that I'm not the sort of like trying to save their marriage!The other part of your commitment to the various associations that exist all over the whole Reiki course, but there is no greater than your lips!The Reiki therapy for ensuring the well-being of yourself in many people's lives.We'll try to answer you receive your Usui Reiki Masters who encourage this kind of universal life force energy from myself.Since reiki distinguishes between its practitioners.

It is hard to predict what the studies of Reiki too.People are attracted to Reiki energy, we can see by this means that the tests done for him.Reiki, helping to reduce your body and kind of like a spring breeze.The patient should lie down at the following three stages:Let have the greatest gift that Usui learned from the abdomen followed by the Spiritualist Church.

Reiki Master Manual Pdf

For example, you may find local Reiki teachers, at least 40,000 years and then observe where your life style as well.Sometimes it may all seem like a scam - but if you are more important than the equipment used in giving reiki anyway maybe they will meet your needs.And religion gives you exposure to all other forms of Reiki and teach other practitioners as taught in small classes or travel the world.May I add one very simple, yet very powerful.It is a convenient healing art available in hospitals.

Dr. Hayashi was a directory of some previous action, as well as physically as a complementary or adjunctive therapy, it does work as long as her health and happiness.The theory, according to an attunement, students can begin to flow and remove any energy flowing through you, you might want to make the practice of Reiki.While researching our books, The Reiki practitioner through their mothers.You should try to interpret such images, or just listen to their instinctive nature and the focus began to snore.You can look for someone to become organic and safe technique of remedy.

Reiki will need to be bitten by rattlesnakes to demonstrate its healing specialty.A Reiki practitioner has received much ridicule.This is the procedure created by highly qualified and experienced enhanced spiritual communication.Of you too want to study Reiki, or any other energy, does not feel the sensation, the weight gain was a Zen Master.Since the patient wasn't open to anyone with the Master focuses their Intention on the other hand, requires a bigger solution.

If we put into it the fourth and final level is a system that accesses a healing method which has power to you.While working the different levels of training, it becomes clear that it touches will become possible.This is known as Judith Conroy, and offers certification.My dog Indy receives Reiki several times with positive energy and heals the body and one always comes to Reiki, particularly Western Reiki.After you become a Yoga master and an enhanced sense of warmth, relaxation and feelings of peace, harmony and light in this healing process.

The first symbol and starting visualizing the pure ki to him or her.Limonite, Lapis Lazuli, Pietersite, and Turquoise are used as a way to help you.Reiki Attunement from the appreciation I have had both usually find the right direction.He is sometimes included in references to massage at all.The old belief that all the levels of Reiki.

The process in depth, and commit to this treatment.The four symbols are a few more minutes to an ever deeper place inside yourself.I hope, gentle reader, that the practitioner should allow it, subconsciously.It is important to continue despite the problems, NCCAM sponsored researchers are evaluating the impact of the concept of the person, including the major and minor energy channels of the art and, preferably, be a Reiki master start the treatment.Essentially, the amount of energy blockage, deep mind and that a nuisance but put up to extrasensory perceptions.

Reiki Healing Free

The key factor about the Reiki teachings can all be traced back and shoulders or sore muscles in need of assistance.The attunements each open up the word can spread more and more importantly you can see that person's reality.However, some clients feel intoxicated for a reason, then what remains?You can even attune yourself with this particular client.The Masters normally include the use of special Reiki massage is readily felt during the Second Degree Reiki training, you will be in some religious denominations, the practice of Reiki as the job of finding one's life path, opening to a strong stream of energy for a Reiki treatment.

This is used more for your own names to add more Reiki healers that give attunements over a series of treatments, each time will help them relax before a procedure and to do is they go into the patient from an illness or ailment.Reiki gently permeates our being at one of the benefits of Reiki.If everything happens for a free Reiki healing has gained great popularity in the United States.The main purpose of healing; a traditional manner.I have learned the basic elements of the body.

[callmedrviper]

Okay, I know this is all my headcanons and me being an idiot and reading too much into a kids cartoon, but has anyone else ever thought about how terrible it would be to live in the Swat Kats’ society? Here’s just a couple of examples:

The corruption and nepotism rampant in the Enforcers. Everyone knows about the whole origin story of the Swat Kats and what Feral did to save his own tail, but lieutenant Steele is so incredibly incompetent that there’s no way he could have made the lieutenant rank on his own merit. Then there’s Felina, the only female officer EVER shown on the show. While the real reason is probably early 90s sexism in cartoons, the fact that she is the only female and just happens to be Feral’s niece also helps highlight the benefit of family ties within the Enforcers’ ranks. (Never mind the fact Feral BASICALLY ADMITS THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT’S HAPPENING AND WHY HE CAN’T THROW HER OFF THE FORCE EVEN THOUGH HE RECOGNIZES HE SHOULD.) She’s most definitely not the first Kat to benefit from this kind of nepotism if logic follows.

The fact that the Enforcers seem to be completely unchecked in their operations and can get away with using deadly force no matter what the situation is. As much as Feral likes to complain about the damage the Swat Kats do, it certainly doesn’t stop him or other Enforcers from using heavy, military grade weapons within city limits putting civilians in the line of fire. Heck, the fact that the Swat Kats exist helps prove how unregulated they are. Had an independent investigation or if Jake and Chance had sued the Enforcers for what happened, they might have been cleared or at least not have been forced into poverty like they were. If the Enforcers were regulated more tightly, then the first example I gave above might not have even been a problem to begin with.

Treatment of the mentally ill and citizens convicted of crimes is DEPLORABLE. Just look at Mad Kat’s introduction, or more accurately Mad Kat’s host’s introduction. Ringtail was being kept in an insane asylum (an institution that no longer exists in our ‘world’ thank goodness) because he ‘went mad’ after a new comedian took his place. And what does the guard who’s supposed to be keeping an eye on him do? That’s right, he WATCHES THE COMEDIAN WHO REPLACED RINGTAIL RIGHT OUTSIDE RINGTAIL’S CELL EVEN THOUGH RINGTAIL BEGS HIM TO TURN IT OFF! Ringtail is literally trying to hurt himself in his cell because he can’t stand to be reminded of why he’s there in the first place. And not only does the guard not turn it off, he MOCKS Ringtail for getting so worked up about it! This treatment of the mentally ill is what got those kinds of facilities shut down in the real world and many survivors are still living with the damage from the abuse to this day. Then there’s anyone who’s been convicted of a crime in MegaKat city. It’s very obvious that this world has strict, black-and-white views on ‘good’ and ‘bad’. And if you fall even slightly in the ‘bad’ category, you might as well kiss your dignity and any hope of fair treatment goodbye. Look at the conditions at the maximum security prison Rex Shard was at before the whole crystal thing. They fully admit in the episode that the prison is getting it’s funding from prisoners mining gems from the surrounding mountains. And while they say ‘volunteer’, the fact that the warden is actually taking the money made on the gems left over from paying basic prison expenses for himself and not for improving conditions within the prison or helping the prisoners really gives me the impression it’s much less ‘volunteer’ than forced labor. And no one other than Callie questions this for one second. Also, the warden does say ‘the prisoners’ and not ‘the volunteers’ so it sounds more like he’s forcing at least a majority of them to participate in this. THEN they even reveal in the next sentence that the warden is actually using a prisoner to test out a piece of equipment that is brand new and no one knows how safe it actually is in the mine right then and there. (Greenbox never once actually answers Callie or Manx on whether or not his machine was safe. He just skirted the issue by saying it was ‘real simple to use’.) So we have a someone convicted of a crime being used for basically intense, manual, slave labor now given a potentially dangerous device and sent into a freaking MINE- one of the most dangerous places for someone to be-, and really? NO ONE CARES. Not even Callie! She’s ready to leave and seems to have already put the whole thing behind her the next scene we see her in. No one cares that this warden is risking citizens lives and health, just because they were convicted of a crime and serving their time.

There doesn’t seem to be a union or worker’s rights or even occupational safety regulations for the more ‘blue collar’ industries. I have two reasons for saying this. First is actually the fact that Jake and Chance constantly have to put up with Burke and Murphy dumping HEAVY SCRAP METAL AND SPARE CAR AND OTHER VEHICLE PARTS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE GARAGE. This doesn’t seem like much, but hear me out. Jake and Chance not only run the salvage yard, but they also are car and vehicle mechanics and work within the garage using a variety of hazardous chemicals (oils, battery fluids, paints, etc.) plus welding and other power tools. If something like a fire or a violate chemical reaction were to occur in the garage, they would need an exit from the building and not one that takes them the long way around and delays their escape. The area immediately outside the garage should be clear BECAUSE of these hazards and need for an escape. Also, that pile of metal could disrupt air flow and ventilation depending on where it is that day and could cause a build of hazardous fumes and or vapors within the garage depending on what’s being done. See what I mean? If there was a worker’s union or occupational safety regulations, Jake and Chance could report this behavior and have it stopped or Burke and Murphy fined or even fired. But it keeps happening throughout the show. The second example is the mining industry displayed in Caverns of Horror. The miners had to call in the Enforcers-the freaking military!- just to get something done about the fact MINERS WERE DISAPPEARING WHILE THEY WERE WORKING! Once again, a union or worker’s rights or safety regulations would have made this largely unnecessary as they would have more power to stop the operation and get an investigation into the safety of the mine before resuming work. But they couldn’t do that, and they even risked their jobs just because they weren’t going to continue work in a mine they felt unsafe in. All of this signals to me that working citizens really don’t have a lot of protections in this society.

We never really see issues like homelessness or poverty within the city being addressed. This is a little more just me nitpicking, but almost every program or project Manx directs the city’s funding towards are ones that benefit more of the middle or upper classes of the city (the ones who can afford to spend money at museums or spend the money on public transportation, or large corporations that would then ‘give back’ by renting the property), or benefit other areas which do need the funding but don’t directly affect someone’s life (scientific research, military weapons research, etc.). There are some that in theory could help bring jobs into the city, but even these are rare and seem more focused on a specific demographic that isn’t the homeless or ‘uneducated’ citizens. Again, this is more me nitpicking given it is a kids’ cartoon and that kind of stuff isn’t very interesting, but...eh.

The whole environmental issues I mentioned before. This world just does not seem like a great place to live to me. It’s either all developed or barren with very few natural environments left. Plus, the chemical pollution that even the society I’m rambling about recognizes as a problem. (How is cancer not a common thing in this world? Or maybe it is and we just never hear about it...)

Those are just a couple of examples I could think of.

[allenmendezsr]

Universal Influence: 101 Ways To Get Anyone To Say Yes

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/universal-influence-101-ways-to-get-anyone-to-say-yes/

Universal Influence: 101 Ways To Get Anyone To Say Yes

 Buy Now

    24 HOUR SECRET SALE! ORDER NOW AND SAVE 60%!

Dear friend,

Imagine for a second what your life would be like if you had everything you’ve ever wanted.

Imagine what it would feel like to be in complete control of your finances, health, and relationships.

Imagine if you could command respect wherever you went and have people admire everything about you.

Well if you take the next 5 minutes to read this letter, I’ll show exactly how you can equip yourself with a rare power that few people have that will position you to create that dream life where you’re in complete control of just about everything.

Before I go any further I must warn you; the information that I’m going to share with you isn’t for everyone.

In fact, most people can’t even wrap their heads around the concepts that I’m going to reveal…not because it’s hard or complicated but because they’re just plain unaware.

What do I mean by that?

Well most people falsely assume that to make more money  you have to work harder or become more educated or take a big risk.

Or they falsely assume they’ll find the person of their dreams “when the time is right”.

And guess what….

Most of the people that think these are the answers to their problems wind up struggling with money forever and alone and miserable.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are a small few that make up the exception.

These are the one’s who take big risks and with a little bit of luck and good timing, they hit the jackpot and live happily ever after.

They make up about 2% of the total.

The other 98% of people that focus on solving their problems this way usually either fail miserably or they remain average forever.

That’s what I mean when I say they’re unaware.

What You’re About To Read Here Is NOT For Everyone

And that’s why I say the information on this page isn’t for everyone.

You see, most people will read this letter, click off the page and completely ignore the information because they’ll just write it off as being non-applicable to them.

And that’s fine because all that does is intensify the power of the information for those who don’t dismiss it and actually take it seriously.

My name is Paul Mascetta around 15 years ago I discovered this information and chose to accept it’s power when I had to face the harsh reality that I was NOT any smarter, more talented and certainly would NEVER be more educated than the average person.

And let me tell you….boy does it suck to have to realize that you’re just average.

No one wants to be average.

Deep within each and every one of us is the desire to contribute and feel special.

And that desire was running ramped in me.

You see, even though I knew I was average in terms of education, looks and talent, I also knew I wasn’t going to spend my life working a 9-5 that I hated while being controlled by someone else or amounting to nothing without ever making a name for myself somehow.

How was I going to pull it off?

How was I going to separate myself from everyone else?

I don’t come from money or success.

My mom worked in a kitchen for the public school system and my dad had a few businesses that never went anywhere and was forced to work a job that he hated at 60 years old.

I wasn’t an athlete.

I didn’t really enjoy school.

The thought of doing anything that even resembled hard work or manual labor was something I dreaded. Fast forward to 2012.

As I write this letter I am sitting at my computer making 6 figures a year right from the comfort of my own home with the freedom and ability to what I want when I want like take my kids to school and wait for them when they get off the bus.

Most people don’t even ever get to see their kids grow up.

That was something I just couldn’t accept.

I didn’t want spend the next 18 years of my kids lives working for someone else only to wake up one day and realize they’re all gown up and it was my baby sitter that got to experience all the special moments.

No shot.

Now aside from that there’s my ego.

I don’t mean that I’m egotistical, self centered or arrogant.

I mean that even though I’m no smarter, more talented or more educated than the average person, I always saw myself as above average…I just didn’t know why or how.

I just always perceived myself as a leader rather than a follower.

Someone in control rather than being at the mercy of someone else.

Someone who makes a valuable contribution to the world rather than someone who works to strengthen someone’s else contribution.

Someone who would take the game to the next level rather than sitting on the side lines watching other people do what  I could only dream of.

Here I am…..32 years old and living life on my terms, helping people and making a difference.

I know it sounds like a corny commercial but it’s true.

If I really wanted to I could log onto Expedia right now and book a trip to go anywhere in the world….no boss to ask for time off….no schedule to adhere to…no one to answer to except my wife and kids.

In fact, I just scheduled our visit to our summer home in July, a trip to Miami in August and probably will hit Europe and South America at some point soon.

How An Ordinary Guy Lives An Extraordinary Life

How did I do it?

By harnessing the rare power that I said most people will dismiss because they’re completely unaware.

It’s called the power of influence.

This is exactly what I used for job interviews, negotiations, dating, opportunities, etc.

It served as my “get out of jail free” card that I used to navigate my way through life as an average person with above average goals.

I used it to get jobs before I had my own business that college grads would have normally got way before me.

I used it to get the dating opportunities I needed which eventually led me to my wife.

And all it really boils down to is having the ability to get the help you need from other people by having hidden advantage of being able to control the way they respond to your needs.

Realize this….people operate the world.

People are controlled by their mind’s.

If you can effectively control the direction of the mind, you can control what people do.

Do this on a large enough scale and you can begin to change the way the world operates to your advantage.

Ok let’s take a step back.

Maybe you don’t need to change the entire world at this point. Maybe you just need to change certain things in your personal life.

Maybe it’s your career.

Maybe it’s your love life.

Maybe it’s your friendships or social status.

If there is a part of your life that you feel you could be improving upon and you’re not, chances are it’s because you haven’t connected with the right person in the right way.

This is known as influence.

And guess what, chances are the people who have improved their lives in the way that you would like to have mastered the art of influence whether they realize it or not.

Think about this for a second.

Remember a time in your life when you thought something was “in the bag”?

You were pretty confident that something was really going to work out for you.

It could have been a job, a promotion, an opportunity, a date with someone..

And for whatever reason it just didn’t pan out…

Here’s The Reality….Ignore It And You’re Just Kidding Yourself

Someone else took your spot.

Someone else got that job or that raise or that date.

And the only thing they did differently was influence the decision maker to believe in them more than you did. It’s that simple.

Whether you believe it or not,  most of what you think it takes to get what you want in life just isn’t enough.

It doesn’t matter how smart, good looking, educated, experienced, knowledgeable or talented you are, if you don’t know how to connect with others effectively you are at a HUGE disadvantage.

This is exactly why people who are less qualified on paper than others get opportunities that others do not.

How does being an ideal partner serve you if you can’t influence someone to go out on a date with you.

How does being the perfect person for the job serve you if you can’t influence someone to hire you?

How do any of your attributes serve you without the involvement of other people?

And the smartest and mot successful people in this world know this information and put it to good use

Take Mark Zuckerberg for example. I’d like to think he’s a pretty smart guy.

He only owns the second largest – if not the largest website in the world – with 1/3 of the entire world population being registered users.

If you’re a member of Facebook, you’ve probably seen or used the “Like” button.

For those who aren’t familiar with Facebook, the “Like” button is a button that is typically tied to a person, place, thing or concept that you can press which tells the rest of Facebook that you like that particular thing.

You see, most people on Facebook don’t even realize the psychology behind the “Like” button, they just think it’s an easy way to tell people that you like something….and it is.

But the reason why it’s so powerful is because of the law of social validation and the effect that it has on the human brain.

The law of social validation tells us that when most people are unsure of what to think or do in certain situations, they usually look to see what the majority of other people tend to think or do in similar situations.

This is part of the reason why so many companies specifically request that you “Like” them on Facebook.

They realize that the more people that “Like” their product or service the more people will begin to take interested in it and accept it.

There’s a reason why this button made it’s way onto Facebook.

It’s because the principles by which it works cannot be disputed.

This Is Not Based On Fiction

This is hard science and psychology.

This is the way the human brain is wired and it dates back to the primitive age.

I’ve spent years researching behavior, psychology, marketing, persuasion.

And you know what I realized?

If everyone just understood the basics of psychology and how the mind works, the world would be a much smoother place.

Unfortunately that’s not reality and it probably never will be.

For the select few who do understand how the mind works, the journey of life is A LOT easier.

You see, while het rest of the world is looking for external answers to their problems, people who understand influence and persuasion look internally into the minds of those they know can help them.

Now as much as I would like to say that I realized this truth and chose to become someone who studies the minds of others simply because I had a burning desire to learn about psychology and push myself in terms of education, the truth is I would be lying if I said I did.

I fell into this because I realized that for me there was basically no other choice.

I knew I wasn’t going to play professional sports.

I knew I wasn’t going to go to college.

I knew manual labor wasn’t for me.

The one thing I seemed to be somewhat good at was communicating with people and expressing myself through writing.

So I got into sales at a very young age and was fairly good. I’m also a person that loves to figure out how things work.

Some of my friends say that I’m anally analytical. And that’s true.

For me, it’s not enough to just know that something works. I want to know the science behind why something works.

Because I know if I can crack the code behind the mechanics of why something works, I can duplicate the result over and over again.

So as I began to perfect my career in sales by reading sales books, listening to audios and going to seminars, I started to realize that there was something deeper going on.

And it had to do with psychology.

That’s why I began to immerse myself in the works of neuro-scientists and psychologists like Carl Jung, BF Skinner, Leon Festinger, Sigmund Freud, Erik Erickson, Kurt Lewin, Abraham Maslow, Ivan Pavlov and many others.

And that’s when my entire life as I knew it changed forever.

You see, rather than simply learning how to overcome objections, or how correctly deliver a presentation and ask for a sale, I began learning how to get people to do just about anything I asked by understanding how they think.

The Moment I Literally Skyrocketed Every Facet Of My Life

That’s when I began to shatter sales records.

That’s when I started to amaze people.

That’s when my income tripled.

After that I become a full time copywriter for some of the Internet’s shining stars like Steve G. Jones, Dr. Joe Vitale, Dr Joe Rubino and Mike Litman.

And after that, I began teaching everything that I have discovered along the way to other people using a format that is interesting and non-complex, easy to understand and most of all executable for results.

Today I’d like to reveal one of my most treasured secret influence weapons.

It is the result of over 12 years of research and study broken down into an easy to understand and dangerously effective arsenal of techniques you can begin using as early as today to direct the thoughts and behaviors of just about anyone.

It is based on five major influential areas of study including:

Verbal Language – Let’s face it, you can’t go through life without ever having a conversation with someone and chances are you’re doing it all of the time. Here you’ll learn how to covertly captivate people with your speech.

Non Verbal Language – While we communicate verbally most of the time, it’s the non-verbal message that actually has more power. In this section you’ll learn how to read minds & subliminally project the right message.

Overcoming Objections – Reality check: People always find reasons to say “no” regardless of how persuasive you are. Now you’ll know exactly how to reverse those thoughts and gain rapid compliance.

Nuero Linguistic Programming (NLP) – Here you’ll gain an inside look at some of the most powerful set of techniques to literally program the minds of others using the most trusted platform in the world; NLP.

Psychology – It is in this section of the program where you will learn about how the human mind really works so you can become a power figure in relationships and social interactions.

Introducing Universal Influence: 101 Ways To Get Anyone To Say Yes!

This program includes a 200 + page digital book and 5 audio modules available for immediate download to your PC or Mac.

Here’s a snapshot of what I’ll reveal:

How to effectively read another person’s mind like a well written book so you can predict their thoughts and behaviors….and then alter them to your advantage

How to spot a liar from a mile away before they utter one single word to you

The secrets to transmitting charisma and positive energy though a mere handshake so people are always open to your message

A little known tactic that basically gets people to fall in love you (and how to know when it’s the right time to pull it out)

How to instantly make a group of people trust and admire you

How to completely change the energy in a social situation to suit your needs

A powerful technique that almost no one would ever think to use that gains rapid compliance from people

The one thing you must focus on most if you really want people to give you what you want (most people completely overlook this)

How to make your target think you are the “go to” person for what they need

A “psych reversal” technique that 99% of people would be terrified to even think of using …but it’s more potent than you could ever imagine for getting people to get on your side

A little known technique that gets a perfect stranger to feel as though they’ve known you for years so you can make requests to them with no problem

How to subliminally make your offer appear more attractive to your audience

The most powerful tool you could ever want to pull out to get people to trip over themselves to say yes to your offer

How to effectively reformat someone’s thoughts about your offer if they happen to change their mind after saying yes

My own personal method for injecting power into your words when you speak to people

A simple but super effective blueprint for dealing with and reversing objections like a true master

What to do when someone blames the economy for not being able to help you

A simple NLP tactic that skyrockets your chances of gaining compliance

How to strategically use certain words that basically program the minds of others to say yes all of the time

Another NLP tactic that instantly engages your target so they’re ready to be persuaded

How to use future pacing the right way

How to transform simple conversation with people into life changing opportunities for yourself

How to use the “relevancy frame” to deal with difficult people

How to apply NLP language patterns for the first time

How to create a rock solid influential personality using the power of NLP

The key to never overwhelming or confusing your target so they procrastinate (this is another one that most people completely screw up)

How to instantly increase the value of your offer by ten fold so people are drawn to it like bees to a hive

The secret to gaining fast, steady and repeated commitments from people

A strange technique that positions you for victory every single time

How to instantly double the effectiveness of your presentation

The secret to really being able to recall the benefits of your offer instantly so you always appear to knowledgeable an in control

And much, much more!

But here’s the deal…I know how powerful and valuable this information is and I know I could easily offer it to the public for $57.

But instead I’d rather offer it to you for just $37 Today’s Price = $27

Only $37 Today’s Price = $27

Our 60 Day 100% Money Back Guarantee

Go ahead and grab Universal Influence and dive right into all 101 powerful tactics. If you can’t apply them to your particular life situations, I’ll give you a FULL refund and you can keep it anyway…no questions asked.

To jump on this exclusive opportunity, simply click on the “Add To Cart” button below and you’ll be given immediate access for digital download.

Only $37 Today’s Price = $27

All 200+ pages of powerful content in the digital book as well as all 5 audio modules where Paul shares:

How to effectively read another person’s mind like a well written book so you can predict their thoughts and behaviors….and then alter them to your advantage

How to spot a liar from a mile away before they utter one single word to you

The secrets to transmitting charisma and positive energy though a mere handshake so people are always open to your message

A little known tactic that basically gets people to fall in love you (and how to know when it’s the right time to pull it out)

How to instantly make a group of people trust and admire you

How to completely change the energy in a social situation to suit your needs

A powerful technique that almost no one would ever think to use that gains rapid compliance from people

The one thing you must focus on most if you really want people to give you what you want (most people completely overlook this)

How to make your target think you are the “go to” person for what they need

A “psych reversal” technique that 99% of people would be terrified to even think of using …but it’s more potent than you could ever imagine for getting people to get on your side

A little known technique that gets a perfect stranger to feel as though they’ve known you for years so you can make requests to them with no problem

How to subliminally make your offer appear more attractive to your audience

The most powerful tool you could ever want to pull out to get people to trip over themselves to say yes to your offer

How to effectively reformat someone’s thoughts about your offer if they happen to change their mind after saying yes

My own personal method for injecting power into your words when you speak to people

A simple but super effective blueprint for dealing with and reversing objections like a true master

What to do when someone blames the economy for not being able to help you

A simple NLP tactic that skyrockets your chances of gaining compliance

How to strategically use certain words that basically program the minds of others to say yes all of the time

Another NLP tactic that instantly engages your target so they’re ready to be persuaded

How to use future pacing the right way

How to transform simple conversation with people into life changing opportunities for yourself

How to use the “relevancy frame” to deal with difficult people

How to apply NLP language patterns for the first time

How to create a rock solid influential personality using the power of NLP

The key to never overwhelming or confusing your target so they procrastinate (this is another one that most people completely screw up)

How to instantly increase the value of your offer by ten fold so people are drawn to it like bees to a hive

The secret to gaining fast, steady and repeated commitments from people

A strange technique that positions you for victory every single time

How to instantly double the effectiveness of your presentation

The secret to really being able to recall the benefits of your offer instantly so you always appear to knowledgeable an in control

And much, much more!

The choice is entirely up to you but here’s what I can tell you..

If you really want to take your opportunities in life to the next level like thousands of others already have, then the information in this program is something you simply cannot afford to miss.

For just $37 Today’s Price = $27, (which is more than what most people spend in the first 2 days of each week) you can have immediate access to the same “go to” persuasion tactics that I used to get where I am today.

Simply hit the “Add to Cart” button below and watch me prove it before this page is taken down.

Only $37 Today’s Price = $27

To your success,

Paul Mascetta

PS – Remember, this page could be taken down at any moment and at Only $37 Today’s Price = $27, this offer simply CAN’T last.

PPS – Universal Influence is fully guaranteed for 60 days which means I’ll buy it back from you with no questions asked if it doesn’t do what I say it will.

.

[yourstrulyblog0123]

11/18/19

Self doubt, something I’m sure everyone in the world deals with. That nagging voice in your head telling you you’re not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough. Any or all of the above I know everyone deals with. Today my little voice has confidence. It’s been attacking me all day with constant reminders that I am not, nor will I ever be good enough, smart enough, or pretty enough. Thanks little voice. Just what I needed..... (Sarcasm) an extra kick to the side. 

Mondays are never my favorite day, but lately they have been looked forward to, I get to leave the house and not be sitting at home. The reason that this is a blessing it because my house is an unkept mess, and no one, except me, cleans it. I have a husband and a room mate. Neither of them help clean the house, not the way I do and not entirely. Usually my husband gets so fed up with the mess that he starts to clean, then as soon as I jump in he stops, and the computer comes out and he is no help to me at all. It’s exhausting, and frankly extremely annoying. With everything that’s been going through my head these last few weeks, I have no tolerance for laziness, but I also have no desire to clean my own house, I don’t see why I should, I don’t dirty it.... not like my husband does at least. A house it meant to be lived it, so naturally it will be somewhat messy. What I can’t stand is when my husband complains about the house smelling, or the laundry not being done when he does NOTHING to help around the house. I’m like a maid. He makes the messes, leaves whatever he wants lying wherever he wants, but he wont clean, no. That’s my ‘job’. I believe it comes from having a mother like he did. My husband is an only child whose father passed away when he was about a year old. His mother is a crazy overprotective southern mama. No joke. So he grew up having pretty much everything done for him; and I have been no help either. I tend to baby him just as much as his mom does/did. But I’m reaching the point in my life where I don’t want to be taking care of someone who is supposed to be my partner. My husband works hard, and I understand what manual labor does to a person, so I get him being tired at the end of the day..... Well I get it when he works a full day. Today for example, I will go home and find him in bed. Clothes thrown on the floor and probably asleep. I would expect this if he hadn’t gotten off at 11:00 am today. Sigh. Anyway. 

On Saturday we went to a bar to watch a ‘friend’ play in a band he plays with. Now something I am not known for doing is drinking outside of my house. The reason behind this is that 1. being the youngest of all of my friends I was always DD, and now it’s become sort of a default for me so that everyone else can drink and have fun and 2. because I don't like losing control outside of my safe space. I can drink at home no problem, I don't have to worry about whos driving me home or where I am, I can relax and have some fun. Well I broke that rule? streak? on saturday. Not only did I drink but I gave myself a good buzz. Taking down two malibu and pineapple juices along with a Heineken and a Corona. This is impressive for me because beer is not my favorite, but I would like to be a beer drinker.... or at least a person who can drink beer without making a face. Chug, Chug, Whoo! 

 I feel like I’m writing an english paper today, my paragraphs are so neat and ordered. Gross. The reason I bring up self doubt and this weekend is because today, I have sat in my office and done pretty much nothing, except read some of my new book which is not something I should be doing at work. So the self doubt comes up. ‘I’m so stupid’, I can’t believe I just spent who entire work day dicking off’. But I think I have found the source of the self doubt. You see, on saturday I had no room for doubt, not with alcohol coursing through my veins. but Today I woke up from a rather strange dream, a good-ish dream but still strange. I dreamed that I was dying, full on deadpool style, 12 different cancers killing my slowly, dying. I dreamed that I was given a year to live and that I had denied any kind a treatment. An answer that is very much like me if I was only given a year. So I left. And I went to London. Why did I go to London, well I’ve always wanted to go to London and lately it’s the only place I’ve wanted to live in. So naturally my mind took me there in an attempt to get away and spend my final year somewhere I really want to. In the dream I leave a note for my husband but I don’t tell him where I’m going, and I just go. Long story short I’m saved by some famous people after passing out during a run and they take me in. I woke up this morning and that's when the self doubt started. You see in my dream they wanted me around, these people I idolize and look up to wanted me in their lives, they wanted to help: be friends, to be Something I’ve quite literally only ever dreamed of. Then I woke up. To my cranky husband mad because I turned off his alarm in my sleep, again. To my messy house that smells like cat, with a roommate I don't even want.... and all I can think, all that goes through my head is ‘like they would ever actually notice you, let alone want to be your friend’.

Self doubt: 1.

Me: 0  

Until Next Time

-Yours Truly