#talk less listen more

[themandalalady]

23-270 Listen #4

Today’s Mandala Message: Be Fully Present This week I’m working through Principle #48 from Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles” entitled “Be Hear Now”. I set my intention today to ponder being fully present when listening. From an article posted on VeryWellMind.com about being present, they state: “Active listening requires being fully present in the conversation. … Being present involves…

[whetstonefires]

You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.

Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.

The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.

She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.

I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.

But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.

The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.

(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)

And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.

And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.

Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.

But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.

That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.

She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.

This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.

Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.

Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.

Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.

😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.

[motivationaladdaa]

How to talk less and listen more with the 7 best strategies

How to talk less and listen more with the 7 best strategies

How to talk less and listen more with the 7 best strategies and best  motivational story edit with canva How to stay calm and what are the advantages and disadvantages of staying calm, so now we will know how to stay calm and how to talk less and listen more. There are many ways to stay calm and less talkative. With this particular post, you don’t need to go anywhere to find out the solution of…

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo standing up for his brothers in the things that really matter to them.

Like- Leo is the one who immediately pushes Mikey and Donnie into finding Raph the second it’s clear that their oldest brother is missing because he knows Raph can’t handle being separated like that.

Leo is the one who stands up for Mikey when Mikey wants to go on a solo mission, actively vouching for him and being the one to convince Raph into letting Mikey go, because being independent and proving himself just as capable of standing on his own two feet as everyone else means so much to Mikey.

And Leo defends Donnie’s honor in particular when his brothers’ intelligence is insulted because Leo is well aware of how important Donnie’s smarts are to him - and how important having those smarts valued and acknowledged is as well.

All this goes right into just how well Leo knows his brothers. For as much as he’ll tease or fight with them, he knows them, and he loves them.

[lunarcrown]

Renthubs commission for @dioslab from @plumelagoon from their fic "eros and psyche" ~~ please read it and get all misty eyed like I did at a tale of curses, arranged marriage, lunar kings and demon princes! And also check out the official matching art piece that @briseise did for their collab a bit back right here!!!! it's beautiful as all things honey does of couuurse!!!

[starcurtain]

One thing I wish I'd see more of among Ratio fans is some thought about how he views himself as a teacher.

Like yes, of course he refuses to compromise on the quality and rigor of the education he imparts, and he would find it unforgivably unethical to lower his standards in order to pass more students who had not genuinely learned the material. This is core to his character.

However, as someone who is a teacher IRL, I know the absolutely miserable feeling setting that kind of standard can cause. There's the obvious disheartening sense of disappointment ("Are students these days really not capable of doing the work correctly? Is our future in danger, if this is the highest level of understanding our current generation of students can achieve?"), but even worse than that is the self-doubt.

"Is this somehow my fault? Am I not teaching this material in the right ways for the students to learn? Is there something I could have done differently to get through to these students? Would a better teacher have a higher passing rate?"

We know that Ratio does (or at least did) struggle with feeling inferior to the Genius Society, so I think it is also likely, as much as he absolutely will not budge on his academic standards, that he has doubts about his teaching ability as well.

This is the man who wants to educate the entire world to cure the disease of ignorance, and yet only 3% of his actual students are able to get there. How can someone who gets so few of his direct students to a state of enlightenment hope to enlighten the whole universe? If so few students are successfully learning the material of a given class, doesn't that mean the teacher is doing something wrong?Would a better teacher--would a genius, maybe--not be able to impart their knowledge more efficiently and educate even the most challenging of students?

As someone constantly struggling with that balance between keeping academic standards high while also meeting the needs of today's students, I think the passing rates of his courses must affect Dr. Ratio much more deeply than I've seen fans discuss. I think he would question himself harshly over his class success rates, and I think he must be constantly trying to push himself to become the best teacher he possibly can be.

tl;dr: I hope one day the HSR fandom will stop sleeping on the fact that Ratio is an actual practicing professor who probably has astronomical levels of teacher angst. 😂

[quadrantadvisor]

Alright new Jason Todd headcanons in a dpxdc setting:

Danny is a "liminal" ghost, rather than a "half" ghost. He's alive and dead at the same time. (He's like Jesus Christ (in the church denomination I grew up in), fully ghost and fully human.) Danny, in human form, can go through a ghost shield, because he IS a living human.

Jason, however, is a reanimated corpse. He isn't a ghost, wouldn't have a ghost core, etc, he has a normal human system that runs ON ectoplasm. Jason CANNOT go through a ghost shield, because he is always an ectoplasmic entity. Danny can go through the Fenton Ghost Catcher and be split into a ghost and a human; if Jason went through the ghost catcher, he would straight up die.

(For my purposes I'm gonna say that Jason became an ectoplasmic entity upon his resurrection, but wasn't very stable. Dunking in the Lazarus pit stabilized his system but also poisoned his ectoplasm.)

I do think that Jason could learn certain ghost abilities if he learned to harness his ectoplasm, especially if they detoxed him off the Lazarus waters. He's probably already enhancing his stealth and strength in ways he hasn't really noticed. I think he's held back by the amount of physical matter he's lugging around, so maybe he couldn't fly, but I'm imagining temporary invisibility, or intagibility of like, a limb at a time. Maybe he can't walk through walls, but in a fight he can dodge by instinctively making the targeted part of his body intangible.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's the 6 month anniversary of this blog! Check out these cool bugs I found.

(EDIT: Check out this amazing fanart by thecornermushroom!)

Part 2 - Part 3

[bumblingbabooshka]

Patreon Request: Spock [Patreon | Ko-fi]

[larabar]

"so, that was fun"

[themandalalady]

23-269 Listen #3

Today’s Mandala Message: It’s About Connecting This week I’m working through Principle #48 from Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles” entitled “Be Hear Now”. I set my intention today to ponder making stronger connections with others. One way I (we) can do that is, when conversing with others, ask open-ended questions, ones that allow the other person who’s answering to go into more detail and…

[suddencolds]

insatiable appetite [1/?]

sooo... this is one of the thirstiest things i have written—and also one of the only times i've written a character with the kink, ever T.T warnings in advance for mess, character getting sneezed on, implied contagion, possible ooc-ness, & me writing this entirely with my d instead of my head

ivan and till are from al//ien sta//ge (a very fun watch which will only take 30 mins out of your life; i really recommend it!!). that said, this fic takes place in a modern au setting, so feel free to read it without any prior context :)

special thanks to @6pmsoup for sending me a very cute alnst doodle of these two which altered my brain chemistry permanently

—

Summary: Till shows up to a dinner outing with a brewing cold. Ivan suffers. (est. relationship, kink!Ivan, ~2k words)

—

For all Till tries to hide it, Ivan can tell immediately.

There’s this: Ivan has been paying attention to Till for most of his life. A full decade before they’d gotten together officially, and some more—this is how long Ivan has had to observe his tells. Always from the sidelines, always with a detached air of indifference that, in reality, was anything but.

All the signs are there the night before. Till, turning up the thermostat a couple degrees higher than he usually keeps it. Spending a little too long in the shower and using up almost all of the hot water. Clearing his throat one too many times in the morning before Ivan leaves for work, his smile distracted, the rasp of his voice nearly indistinguishable—but only nearly.

Now, Till is here for dinner—it’s a dinner they’ve had plans for a couple weeks now, at one of the nicer restaurants downtown, in celebration of Till’s recent promotion. Ivan had booked the reservation a couple weeks in advance.

When Till arrives, stepping out of a taxi cab, he’s wearing a scarf, even though the weather is too warm for it. Ivan steps up to meet him. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Till says. “Traffic here was the worst I’ve ever seen it, swear to god.”

“Was it cold outside today?” Ivan asks, a little pointedly, tilting his head towards his scarf.

Till looks at him, his expression unreadable. Then he nods. “Colder than usual, for this time of year.”

“Strange,” Ivan says, just to be difficult. “But the weather forecast says it’s the same temperature today as yesterday.” 

“It’s probably just windier today,” Till says, readjusting his scarf around his neck. His face is a little flushed.

“Your voice sounds a little off, though.”

Till clears his throat with a scowl. “You must be imagining it,” he says. “It always sounds like this.”

No admission, then. That’s fine. Ivan will get the truth out of him at some point. He lets Till guide him into the restaurant.

It’s a nice restaurant—worth the hassle of the reservation, Ivan thinks. Each table is set with flowers arranged tastefully in long glass vases, empty wine glasses turned on their heads. The server—who leads them to their table in a small, private booth—is wearing a suit.

It’s a shame, really. Ivan has a feeling that he won’t be able to pay attention to any of that tonight.

They sit. Ivan looks down at the menu, picks out something at random in a matter of seconds. Truthfully, he can hardly think of anything less worth his attention right now. He turns his attention to Till instead—Till, who’s seated directly across from him, the scarf still around his neck, obscuring the lower half of his face. 

Till sniffles, reaching down to turn the page, and oh. The sniffle is terribly liquid—has he been sniffling like that all afternoon? Perhaps it’s a good thing that they work at different offices—Till at a law firm, Ivan as a senior manager at a consulting company—because Ivan certainly doesn’t think he’d be able to get any work done with Till sniffling like that. 

It’s not two minutes later that Till is reaching up to wipe his nose against the back of one knuckle. All in all, it’s discreet. Just a quick brush of the fingers against his nose, which is still hidden under the scarf. Though, the look of sheer ticklishness that passes over his features for a brief moment there is...

“What are you thinking of ordering?” Ivan asks.

“I can’t decide,” Till answers. He turns the page again. “It’s between the ribeye steak and the… snf! The pork belly. Is this the kind of place that skimps on the portion sizes?”

“Not from their Yelp reviews,” Ivan says. “You know, if you really can’t decide, I can flip a coin.”

“I’ll pick,” Till says. “Why? Hungry already?”

He looks up, now. His eyes are a little watery. There’s a faint flush over the bridge of his nose. Ivan thinks that if he reached out and touched him, he’d probably be running warm. The thought is almost unbearable.

“Your taxi did take forever to arrive,” Ivan says, by way of explanation. 

“Did you really wait that long?”

He looks uncertain, for a moment. Ivan says, “Not at all. But you know, I’m always impatient when it comes to you.”

Till rolls his eyes, but it’s fond. “There was a meeting that ran late. I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Is that also a part of your new position?” “I guess so, yeah.”

“I can see why they were eager to promote you, then,” Ivan says. “How productive can late afternoon meetings be, anyways?”

Till snorts. “Not that important. It definitely could have been an email instead. I was about ready to doze off.”

He sniffles again. “Okay. I think I know what I want.” The way he says know betrays the slightest hint of congestion. 

“At long last,” Ivan says, just to be a little bit of an ass. “I’ll call over the waiter.”

He flags their waiter down, waits for Till to order first.

“A spiced apple cider,” Till adds on, at the end, with the slightest of coughs. “Hot, if you can.”

That’s new, too. Till seldom orders hot drinks at restaurants, though he’ll drink tea without complaint if it’s offered. Perhaps his throat hurts, then, from the cold that has clearly started to settle in his system. Subtle, still, but Ivan is familiar with colds like this. He knows it will probably only be a few hours before this deceptively “small” cold turns into…

Ivan orders, too, and thanks the waiter, who leaves with a curt nod. When he looks back over to Till, there’s a… strange something to Till’s expression, a slight distractedness. Irritation.

Ivan swallows hard. He should look away. 

He should, but then, Till’s breath hitches. He pulls the scarf higher over his face preemptively, as if he anticipates having something to have to cover for. The sharp intake of breath that follows is breathy, though Ivan can hear Till’s voice in it. He should really look away.

Instead, he takes the scene in, painstakingly, little by little, as Till’s shoulders jerk forwards. As Till presses a hand to the scarf, presses the fabric closer to his face, to muffle a sneeze into his fingertips:

“hhH-Ih!! hiHH-’IESCHH-eew-!”

God. It sounds utterly miserable, the harsh release of it scraping against his throat, the spray tearing into his scarf. It’s the kind of cold sneeze that is undeniably telling: this is going to be one hell of a cold. It’s not very quiet, either, even muffled into the fabric.

For more reasons than one, Ivan is glad they’re in a private corner of the restaurant, not somewhere more public.

“Bless you,” he offers, once he can trust himself to speak. It’s a good thing that Till is too distracted to look up at him right now. Ivan isn’t sure he can keep what he’s feeling off of his face.

Truthfully, he isn’t sure he’s going to be able to endure a whole night of this.

The problem here is that Till—Till, of all people; Till, who Ivan has been pathetically in love with for almost as long as he can remember—has no idea about Ivan’s… relatively niche interests. That is to say, he has no idea what effect it has on Ivan when he does that.

“Thanks,” Till says, a little stuffily. He sniffles again, lowering his hand. 

Ivan can’t help it. He knows he shouldn’t pursue this line of questioning, but he can feel his self-control dwindling by the second. “Don’t you think it would be better to take off your scarf, now that we’re inside?”

Till freezes. “Y-You know what,” he says evasively. “It’s pretty cold in here.”

Ivan tilts his head in question. “And just how do you plan on eating like that?”

“I’ll take it off when our food comes.”

“I can ask the waiter to turn the temperature up, if it’s a problem,” Ivan says. 

“It’s not a problem.”

Ivan rises from his seat. Till watches him, perplexed, as he heads to the opposite side of the table, where Till is seated.

When he gets there, he stops. Stands, unmoving, so he can study Till from above. 

“What are you—”

Ivan reaches out, settles his palm across Till’s forehead. As expected, it’s warm. Not quite feverish, which is a good sign, but warm enough to be notable. 

“Just how long were you intending to hide this?”

Till stares back at him, wide-eyed. “Hide what?”

Shouldn’t it be obvious? “The fact that you have a cold.”

“I didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” Till says, slowly.

“Hmm.” Ivan drops his hand to his side. He is a little concerned, now. “We could’ve called a rain check.”

This time Till really does roll his eyes. “For the reservation we planned weeks ahead?” he sniffles again. “That just sounds completely and utterly unnecessary. Are you the type of person to call things off just over a little cold?” 

Ivan leans over, tugs down the edge of Till’s scarf. Till bats his hand away just a moment too late, cups his other hand over his face to shield his face from view. For a moment, he looks faintly mortified.

Then his expression settles into something more disgruntled. “What are you doing?” he hisses.

So uncooperative. “Let me see,” Ivan says. Slowly, gently, he pries Till’s hands away from his face, and then—because the restaurant is dimly lit—tilts Till’s face up slightly so that it catches more of the overhead light. 

Till’s nose is redder than usual. He’s probably been rubbing it all afternoon, if the redness that percolates into his cheeks is any indication. There’s  a damp, liquid sheen on the underside of his nose.

“What’s there to see?” Till says, a little crossly.

“Your face, since you’ve been so intent on hiding it under that scarf,” Ivan says, leaning in to get a better look.

Till scowls at him, but there’s no heat to it. “You see my face every day.”

“On the contrary, I don’t see it nearly enough,” Ivan says. “And you hardly ever get sick. Is it so wrong for me to be concerned?”

Without looking, he reaches behind him with one hand to grab a couple cocktail napkins. The other hand he keeps held up to Till’s cheek. 

But then, Till’s breath hitches. “Wait,” he says. Panic flashes through his face. “Ivan, move, I—”

Oh. Well, seeing as there’s no way he’ll be able to get the napkins over in time, it looks like he’ll have to improvise. If Till wants to cover, Ivan can help with that. He moves his hand to cup it loosely over Till’s mouth. Not a second too late, it seems. Till jerks forward unceremoniously, his nose twitching, his eyes squeezing shut.

“hHheh-! HHh’EIITShHh’yYiew!” he gasps sharply. Two? “Hh-! hHiiH’DSSCSSHh-IIew!”  

The jolt of the sneezes is practically electrifying—all of that force, brought to an abrupt halt behind Ivan’s waiting palm. He feels the expulsion of air against his skin, the warmth of Till’s breath, feels the slight dampness behind his hand as the spray mists over his fingertips.

Ivan swallows, hard. Thank god it’s so dark here, otherwise Till might notice what this is doing to him. 

“Bless you,” he says, withdrawing his hand at last to wipe it on one of the cloth napkins. It comes out slightly raspier than he intends it to, though perhaps it’s a miracle that he’s still able to talk at all. “Some cold, hmm?” Belatedly, he hands Till the stack of napkins.

Till practically snatches them from him, turns aside to blow his nose wetly into the top few. The way he sniffles afterwards suggests that his nose is still very much running. 

“Do you have no self preservation? It’s as if you want to catch this,” Till says, drawing back with another sniffle.

Oh, Ivan thinks, fighting back a shiver. That would be far from the worst thing.

[iguessitsjustme]

I love Monster Next Door but they are not going to make me feel sorry for Jane. I mean it's obvious that those girls aren't actually her friends but they also aren't wrong. But she hasn't done any self reflection and she has been nothing but cruel to Diew. I'm glad he stood up for himself and he unintentionally really hit her where it hurt.

[ganondoodle]

some more ideas for the totk rewritten project (botw2);

underground general ideas i thought about what to theme the underground after, and since its vaguely like underwater in canon i thought id push it much much further, you cant actually dive and while id love that i do want to stay within a certain possible range of it still being a sequel to botw and somewhat based on totk- so im putting the low gravity effect away from the sky and instead in the underground, the ENTIRE underground, that way it is distinctly different in the way you have to play since you gotta work around the low gravity effect, the entire plant life and enemies will also be based on deep sea creatures- anglerfish like ones that half burrow and lure you with their light, those fish (or are they worms?) that hide underground as soon as you step too close, maybe they hide initially but only to make you go closer and try and snatch at you

much more glowy things too, basically everythings got some sort of light on it, there are different creatures flying around that all feature some sort of glow, so there is stuff to see but you cant immediately know what it is, theres a unique kind of plant that when you bother it spews out a dark cloud of spores (kinda like in tp) that dims any light you had; there are some landmarks you can activate or repair with the help of zelda but there is no way to illuminate the entire map and the lil light ferns expire slowly too

i also want it to be way more wet, not full with water but maybe a thin layer of water at most places and some drops from stalactites that fall constantly

there are shadowy ghosts there as well but they CAN aggro (still working on it), either by taking a weapon from their grave or some other things; also considered them or some other enemy that stalks you for some time and the only clue you get is maybe double sound of your steps or something at the very edge of your screen but you can never catch it when looking around (i dont want to make it a horror game but do want the underground to stay as creepy as when you first get down there), something elusive and shadow based that is rarely encountered but stays creepy for longer than the miasma hands sicne it cant get stuck on anything and the only way to be safe is while in the air

maybe some miasma reanimated corpses of ancient shiekah killed when the ancient hyrulean king turned on them (only foudn in the underground in this way; there are others but unposessed in alot of the broken shrines and old laboratories so seeing one suddendly move and crawl after you is probably pretty scary, kinda like the vroken guardians sometimes being still functional)

the dongos are the main friendly animal you can discover there and tame (still working out more details) they can climb around, always emit a little bit of light and the shadow enemy wont latch onto you as long as you are near a dongo, maybe even most enemies will leave you alone if you are riding one, as they are slower than horses, with the exception of gigamas (or a similar enemy ill redesign for that) as they are the natural predator of dongos; when you get to close to one it will react to it and if a fight is initiated it burrows away (you can call it and it comes back to you if you are out of range of that enemy)

tameable animals since i played skyward sword recently i just realized again how much fun it is to fly on a bird, sicne im already dividing the three map layers a bit more i thought it would be cool to make these layers more distinct, in some part by the tameable animals- the sky has birds (based on dinosaurs), the surface has horses, the underground dongos- neither of them can follow you to one they dont belong and the way to call them switches as you switch layers

im not sure yet if those birds should be ridable or are only able to give you a small boost upwards when you call them

magic bar so instead of actual batteries i planned to, as i said before, to put that into links shiekah arm prosthetic, and instead of giving you literal battery symbols on the screen it would be a bar right below your health and next to the symbol of the current selected arm ability

krog seeds a bit more to the krogs- as i said before they are no longer the way to make your pockets bigger- among an armor set i also thought about making the most expensive reward OR the end reward for finding all of them be the eponator zero- maybe it went missing during the cataclysm and maronus (engl. hestu) finds it at some point, so you get your bike back but its locked behind something bigger so you are unlikely to exploit it early on

(EDIT) (forgot to mention the dragons- im putting them each in one layer of the map- eldra in the underground bc gan is there and youknow, demise coming from the ground and fire being associated with the ground etc, farodra on the surface GREEN etc, and naydra in the sky, bc wisdom and owls and gods and all that weeeeee)

(on a sidenote im also thinking about ditching the building mechanic to some extent since i dont think it fits very well as a whole and it makes it too easy to completely skip stuff- i want the main way to move things or to get around be the hookshot/grappling hook part of links arm; still working on all that though .. so far it does seem likely like it will be much more limited)

[the-casbah-way]

i’m assuming jamie was written out for real-world logistical reasons but i don’t think he could or should have come back anyway. when the attack dog goes rabid and gnaws through his own fucking leash there's nothing much anyone can do but stand there and watch. you can train a dog to bite for you but once they've got enough of a taste for blood they're going to stop giving a shit about who they've got between their teeth so long as there's something to tear into. maybe malcolm never had jamie on a leash in the first place. maybe jamie didn't bite because malcolm asked him to. maybe he just liked the taste of blood. malcolm hired a loyal dog and got what he paid for because at the end of the day jamie stayed so loyal that it became the death of him. loyal to the party. not malcolm

[coconut530]